There are two hummingbirds at the feeder - well, trying to get to the feeder. There's some territorial fighting going on, as one (female?) is dive-bombing the other (male). They're holding themselves almost upright when they do this, like lightning bugs when they fall and climb, instead of the bodies being almost horizontal when flying. Tail-feathers are widely spread, too. All the male wants is a few sips of nectar! Which he finally got when the other one gave up.

Two more days of August left to spend! For the most part I've spent my summer well, if not wisely. I've poured sweat, taken the sun, inhaled fragrances, walked the neighborhood, observed, tended, fretted over, and collected from the gardens. Inti ran miles and miles chasing the orange ball and walked as many miles with me on our circuit. Duffy stood outside remembering, it seems. Molly had excellent kitty TV with hummingbirds and wren families. There's a lot to be said for truly inhabiting one's life. I have simply showed up and watched my life unfold before me. Still, the idea of September brings some feelings of panic - opportunities wasted, work yet to be done. Growing up, September and early October were my very favorite periods. As if the glitz had melted away in the autumn rains, the world was revealed to me in its stark simplicity. And it was wet! The path from home all the way to the beach was paved in my favorite element.

Been listening to three MP3's from the "mouth band" Throat Culture, from their Up With Angst album. Very much in the Bobs tradition: nice harmonies, odd lyrics, impressive arrangements. Toast is about, well, toast: making it, watching it, eating it. "I won't come up 'till my tan is showing." In Backslide, the lead singer has phrases that sound a lot like some Steely Dan cuts, but the rest of it is more like an 80's soul song. The bass scat lines at the end are just amazing, especially the vibrato and 'bent' notes. I can picture a jazz player, hunkered over an upright bass, wailing away at the strings! And finally, Damaged Goods, in the mold of mainstream soul-rap (N'Sync, perhaps) with ties to the 70's soul scene, is a melancholic song about breaking up. "You can keep the cats. And I will take the dog and the microwave." An album worth acquiring, I think.

During the day there's usually a lot of clatter from his keyboard. He types pretty fast, especially when he's rewriting code. So I can always tell, even though my back is turned, when the hummingbirds are feeding here, because the tapping stops. There isn't much time for me to turn, and even if I do, I might frighten the bird away, so I try to see using the reflection from the "No Place Like Home" Smithsonian poster over my monitor. I get plenty of detail, but not much color.

Man, what a draining day. Multi-tasking code, with variable associative memory references. My head hurts. I'll be adopting part of the eXtreme Programming credo: Refactor Mercilessly. This module must go!

Watched a crow beating a mole senseless in the back yard. Didn't know crows ate moles. Wonder how the crow caught it? Probably with a really tiny box propped up by a stick with a string attached, and mole bait under it (a picture of a nude molette, I'm sure). And the crow hiding behind a bush, tightly clutching the string in its claw, waiting for the mole to be lured in by its 'blind' male lust...

It's obviously getting towards fall. The bird feeders at druid labs are getting hit hard, and the hummingbirds are draining the feeders at a fast rate. They show up at the computer room window every 5 to 20 minutes, probably as they make the rounds of both our and the neighbors' feeders. Unfortunately, the sun doesn't hit the feeder, so the males' red throats don't flash as red as photographs show them.

"Try before you buy", carried just a bit too far... Rich's Toilet Shopping.

I swear Atlanta drivers have to be among the worst. Every time I'm there I watch some amazingly stupid things - cut offs at 70MPH, turns from 2 lanes over, swoops from the high speed lane to an exit. Really brain dead stuff. Thank the gods I mostly have to deal with getting to and from the airport. Listening to the traffic reports on the WNNX morning show is an experience. I swear there's at least one fatality a week on the Atlanta highways.

A good pick-up volleyball night. Well, at least for me. Daphne, the Alpharetta Recreation Department person, managed to maintain her chosen team through the night. And since they were a player short, and I was nearby, I got to play with them. Being with the same group of folks through the night helped us know who could do what. And later, when the teams fell apart as people left, I got to be a setter. Had a tall guy, a tree in gym trunks I think, who could pound down whatever I gave him. The other hitters were no slouches, either. Setters love that - give 'em a pretty set and watch the crater appear on the other side of the net. Sweet! Most importantly, I didna hurt meself! Too bad this is the last one until next spring. Have to see what else I can find for Wednesday nights.

Carlos Santana! Check the Arista music video at http://arista25.real.com/partner/arista25/. Santana doing Maria, Maria with Wyclef & Product. Yeah...

Yes, the GeoCities ad box in the upper right is annoying. But the service is free and the box gets smaller eventually. Someday, when there's a real web page around the blog, we'll carve space so the ads don't overlay the good stuff (hah!). Or we'll get rich and famous and pay for a better web service (hah!).

Just spent the day researching how much of our product we've changed since we acquired the technology. The answer? Most of it. Some of it needed to be brought kicking and screaming into the modern-day OS/390 (IBM mainframe) world, some of it was, um, "obscure", and some of it was just bad. Didn't seem like a lot when I was making the changes!