quick update

[chris raettig <chris@raettig.org>]

contrary to the impression given by my personal website, i am not dead. 

far from it. the lack of postings can be attributed primarily to the fact that
i'm phenomenally busy right now. i dont recall a time when i've ever been this
constructively busy for such a prolonged period. it feels good. i thrive when
i have an absurd number of plates spinning. i just have to be very careful not
to burn out. my mental health is important. i need to take time out soon to
relax and spend some time in the park. its unlikely to happen before the
coming weekend. 

i'm working on building warm company. i am also still involved with showstudio
for perhaps more of my time than i would like. i'm doing smaller things for
grex and acava. when i'm not doing those things i'm writing either code or
prose for an assortment of side projects. i've never seen such heated or 
elloquent online discussion as i'm now witnessing (and moderating) on the
fridgelist. i've just overhaulled our mail and news systems which has given me
useful impetus to setup lists for geektour, which i'm buzzing about right now,
and acatt, which i'll write more about some other time. the move from
majordomo to mailman has worked surprisingly well. i switched because i prefer
where possible to use software from the gnu project. happily it is more
feature-rich in the places useful to me, and has a rather nice ground-up web
interface both for users and administrators. 

i need to write some further introductory texts for the geektour and acatt
lists. this i will do when time permits. meanwhile feel free to subscribe. i
have closed down the bwsn, unless any of its subscribers can convince me of
the merits in keeping it open. 

the move to mailman might go a little way towards explaining my lack of posts;
i have needed to get around to plugging mailman into the system i use for
managing my online journal. 


i'm meeting up with several people during the coming week. although these
meetups are all linked to work in some way, it at least drags me away from my
keyboards and puts me in a relaxed social setting for a while. besides which
it culminates in going to see attack of the clones on thursday. 


its five in the morning as i write this. i've just had an insane craving for
chocolate and raced out into the rain, to the all-night supermarket. this
weekend has been amazingly productive. i managed to get a lot of things
completed that have been hanging in the air for too long. in an obsession
fuelled domestic bender i managed to (finally) reconstruct my book-shelf, and
unpack my three remaining large boxes from the move. i've sorted through a lot
of paperwork and caught up on my email. 

this unexpected productivity in an area of low motivation has put me in an
upbeat mood. a state aided by several out of the blue emails from people
enquiring about when i'm free to meet up with them, and the fact that i now
have easy access to my book collection at last. my room is looking more like a
room. 


apart from work related things, i dont have much to report. the various and
assorted things i'm working on are really motivating me. i'm throwing my
passions into my work and it feels great. 

as a member of mensa i was amused that the 'test the nation' quiz being run by
the bbc estimated my iq at a 'very marginally above average' 104. in my
defense i had just awoken. and i have occasionally railed against the validity
of any linear system for testing intelligence. including those employed by
mensa. 


as part of my belated unpacking this weekend i discovered an unopened
a3 sketchpad and a set of mechanised pencils. i have all but fallen out of my
usual habit, these last two months since i moved flat. by convention i fill a
notebook per week with my scribblings and make heavy use of sketchpads.
this is something which surprises people who consider me to be the definition
of a digital person. but theres something fetishistic about good stationery.
those bi-annual trips to paperchase. hide-bound books of high-grade paper.
pencils with just the right grip. the indescribable feeling of starting work
on a new sketchpad. surfing through the memories locked in large stacks of
dead tree. 

i'm supposed to be at the studio in five hours. so i'm going to shut up and
attempt sleep. quite potentially more to come soon.