Harfstvergnügen

I've been trying to write this for a couple of months, I think, ever since I found Samuel Harfst online when looking for Sarah Brendel (who now lives in an apartment in Germany—in a castle).  So many good songs, and only really one stinker so far.  He's not a terrible writer.

My other proposed blog post title was "Pardon me, your dermis is showing," a riff on the old dc Talk song Colored People.  (I sliced my middle finger open trying to rescue a bottle of falling pasta sauce.  I do not recommend this.)

But it has been tough to get here, for many reasons, and I don't know that I have much time to really write now.  L is asleep behind me, and I'm listening to a summer thunderstorm.  It's hard to believe a month of summer and more is gone, that the days are getting shorter, and slow as it is, the march toward fall and winter is proceeding pretty quickly.

I applied for a job, didn't get it.  It was a couple harrowing weeks of working on programming that I hadn't done in a long time, and it came right in the middle of my first algorithms course through Coursera.  I'm through the middle of the second course right now.  While I'm more than willing to admit that I've made some pretty significant mistakes as a student, the algorithms courses revealed to me that there were in fact some deficiencies on the other side of the divide, too.  All in all it's been stretching and quite interesting, and I'm hoping to apply what I've learned.

I spent a week at a client site, and L could come along with.  It wasn't a vacation, really, but it was nice to get out of the house for a little while and visit with friends and family.  It was the most fun I've had at work in awhile, even though I suffered a mini-migraine one day and almost vomited all over the side of the road.

We're in the midst of looking at getting a patio put in on the house, working a trip or two out West, another in the Far East, and hopefully getting things cleaned up and put away.  (Of course, by the time that happens, I'll probably get a new job and have to move, so I don't know whether it's worth it.)  The SIL and L managed to make some good progress in cleaning a couple weeks ago, for which I was really thankful, and I might finally be able to get some sanding work done to the table—one of those projects I've been planning for untold months and months and never gotten to.

A visit to Pittsburgh came for the 4th of July; I almost forgot about that.

Karate has been somewhat restrained.  We've had significant personnel issues this year: health and school have really drained us, and I'm (I think) one of only two instructors who's escaped largely unscathed.  I ran testing in the absence of several instructors and didn't do a very good job.  Otherwise I've been to a seminar and a tournament—as a judge, not a participant—and of course a class a week usually.

At some point pictures may follow, but it has been a bit tough to get them out.  I could do it now, but it's bedtime, and I'm stealing a few moments here.