• A wee bit cold

    I’m smart enough to know that things are relative, especially when we say it’s cold in Florida. It’s 43F this morning, deep-deep in the relativity range temperature wise.

    Pardon me while I steam up for a bit. I’m overhearing the latest “there’s been no significant warming in the last 15 years” rant from the local ignoramus. It’s too early to get angry. It’s too early to get angry….

    Someone, say, in Maine, Canada, or even Alaska, might look at 43F on the thermometer and boast about shorts and beaches. Then again, a scientist at McMurdo Station might look at 43F in his or her dreams.

    Just don’t talk to Jim Lovell about cold. “You want cold? Try SPACE! You try flying back to Earth from the Moon with the heat off. That’ll freeze your bits off before you can say GO P.”

    Alright, so we’ve established context means a lot, if not everything. That said, I’m loving the cold, and the wife thinks I’m a wee bit crazy. But I’m used to that.

    I’m not drive a convertible down the freeway with the top down and my shirt off crazy. I’m properly attired for a Floridian at the three layer legal limit. But I do have my window down (part way, anyway).

    I just think the cooler weather goes to waste if I don’t savor it while it’s here. If I’m gonna complain when it’s 90F with matching humidity, I can’t whine when the mercury retreats. That’s not how I roll.

    Call me crazy (everyone else does), but I love the novelty of cool dry air rushing through my windows, gently numbing my ear lobes and making raisins out of my eyeballs.

    I can’t get enough. Bring on the 30s! Bring on the 20s!

    The teens? Maybe not so much. I’m not that crazy. Like it or not, I am still a Floridian after all.

  • At night

    Here’s some rambling from this weekend I wasn’t going to post, but today I’m thinking, “what the heck.”

    It’s dark and it’s good.

    I’ve taken to Cochin as the default font on my text editor, not that you’d notice. It has nothing to do with the darkness, but there’s plenty of time to get to that. I go back and forth, serifs – no serifs. Sometimes the flourishes bug me, as if they’re a waste of pixels, and pixels are something precious. Usually it means it’s time for Helvetica. Yeah, plain old Helvetica. But not now.

    It may be dark, but I’m in the mood for a little flourish.

    Right now, dark describes something everyone else can see too. It’s not inside for a change. It’s very much outside. I like the dark. It’s quiet, but oddly loud, the background noise brought to the fore, jumping at its chance to be noticed.

    It’s a perfect November night in Florida. It’s somewhere in the sixties, but I only know because of a forecast overheard hours ago. I’m a Florida boy now, so naturally I’m a little chilled, but exhilarated too. It’s a change of pace. It’s a sign summer may finally take its bow, once again proud of all the sweat it’s produced. It’s a sign my favorite time of year is here, so short but savored all the more for the brief time it’s with us.

    And it’s dark. I love my family and I hate to be without them for very long, but late at night when most of the neighborhood is sleeping or wishing they were, it feels good to hide for a while. It’s easy to hide in the dark. Places seen in plain sight during the day become shrouded in the dark shadows of secrecy. Or could be if my life was that interesting. Our front porch is already hidden from the street by small trees and bushes. I feel tucked away from the world. It’s ironic though, sitting here with my laptop glowing. It probably makes me the neighborhood odd ball, the soft glow of my MacBook poking through the branches. I’m in plain sight in the dark, where I’d normally be hidden.

    What in the Hell is that boy doing at this time of night, sitting outside in the cold?

    Indeed.

    I suppose I’d care if I knew them better, but my friends are elsewhere. My friends only know my odd habits by what I admit to them… mostly.

    Still, the dark inspires a feeling of calm, of time standing still, of invulnerability. The neighborhood is exactly the same, but couldn’t seem more different. Everything is at peace and nothing seems impossible.

    Maybe it’s fitting for someone who’s mind feels trapped in darkness by day, feels liberated outside at night.

  • From Windows with love

    I come to you today from Windows 7.

    Before I go on, let’s get one thing clear. This is NOT a plug for Microsoft, Windows, or any of the Jolly Redmond Giant’s products. The statement above is just a statement of fact. If Freud could make it sound lewd, he might say, “sometimes a fact is just a fact.”

    I’ve defiled my otherwise lovely, de-fertilizing, aluminum uni-body MacBook with a copy of Windows, but this is not news. I’ve told you this before, and lots of people have done the same thing. Living in a Windows world with a good computer isn’t always easy, but Boot Camp makes it a little bit easier. Today was a Boot Camp kind of day.

    Since I was trapped in Windows when the will to write struck, Windows Live Writer almost opened itself, begging for it’s chance to shine.

    What’s my impression? Well, if software were judged by the number of places you can click in a single window, Windows Live Writer would clobber poor MarsEdit on my Mac. Holy two button mice Batman, there are options everywhere! It’s enough to give someone with attention deficit disorder a seizure.

    I bet you think I’m kidding.

    MarsEdit looks like a toy, while Live Writer looks like it could pilot the Space Shuttle back to Earth from orbit.

    In case you’re wondering, I don’t say this to talk up Live Writer’s virtues. It feels like I’ve been thrust into a world where designers never say no – a place where there’s no such thing as too many options.

    I’m looking forward to getting back to MarsEdit (and my bestest buddy, TextWrangler).