Being is in Mechanical Harmonic is Not Fun

I think I can say that this is the last remnants of my malady. I can say this by the increase of sinus induced headaches and the symptoms of hay-fever. Also my throat no hurts… and so forth. Yesterday was OK too… except in the morning where I felt not too hot. Oh, and it was Mother’s birthday. Oops… I forgot everything about it. Anyways after a bit of coaxing I went with them to Awenda Provincial Park. Which was enjoyable as it was mostly me loafing around on a beach doing mostly nothing except writing. Then we went kayaking on nearby Kettle Lake. The sensation of gliding silently across the still water, gazing at the strange forest of dried pine mingled with water lilies, and grasses… serene. No unusual wildlife was seen but that is alright too.

When it comes to writing, I began to jot down notes about the different characters, factions, and plot of my story. I decided upon the title to be: Echoes in the Ether. I changed the beginning a bit, and made the background history interwoven in the conversations and thoughts of the characters. While I did notice a fair bit of influence from Battlestar Galactica (especially with the robotic Daedus faction), and the Homeworld games, I still think my idea as a whole is fairly unique. I am also glad that in the process of creating my universe I managed to get rid of the whole “Pregenitor” race idea, and still kept the Maker in the story. I hope that I can get the right mix of high tech science fiction and mystical religion as a backdrop for the story. I don’t want to turn into a fantasy story by adding too much crazy magic and mysticism. Overall I have most of the backdrop finished, I just have to finish notes on the last two factions. Then I have to jot down the back story, some technological details, and bit of landscape details. After that its just main character descriptions and plot.

On the programming front, I didn’t get much done except removing CHARVA and CLI elements out of the justCheckers code. The old style stream messages are still there. Maybe I can make a user interface from that. As for school preparations, a big fat zero. Oh well…

Standing on the Edge Looking Out

The cool wind tugged at his body as he stood at the edge of the cliff. Beyond the worn sand hills stretched in contorted shapes, casting strange shadows in the rising sun. He leaned gently on the smooth bubble canopy of his desert mlaren, and smiled.

Well today I am feeling a bit better the last few days. My sinuses still pound repulsively inside my face. But I hope that this the last part of this disease. With the hay-fever season in full swing its hard to tell which of the symptoms are the illness or my irritable body reacting to the ragweed pollen super-clouds drifting around. Sometimes I wish we could get one quick frost. Now. Then the rest of the autumn can be as warm as it wishes. But that would be too easy. Right?

Yesterday, I got up feeling much better. No pain, only one nostril stuffed up and in rather happy mood. I was up by 5:00 AM so I took the time to try to fix my wireless card. I am not sure I can fix it. In Linux doesn’t show up at all, under Windows it gets detected as PCMCIA MTD-0002 after I take it out. It quite disappointing. Not too mention my USB flash drive is not being detected in Linux. I will have to fix this up first. I searched the Internet to my hearts’ content and found nothing about the wireless card. I think its firmware is absent… but I can’t load it until it can be seen by the system. Endless, vicious circle… a challenge for Rudy when I get the chance to talk to him.

Anyhow, I worked on the justCheckers project in the morning. I went through all the documentation, and updated most of it. All that remains is to expand upon on the style guide which pretty much complete, and write up a code of behaviour for developers and community users. I am confident with that done, and CHARVA being removed from the dependencies I will be able to release version 0.1.1. Then I will have to do a fair bit of work on updating the code, fixing a bit of the website (yuck), and getting the GUI finally fixed up.

As usual my work didn’t last for very long as I found out that my parents had planned to go on a trip. A kayaking trip. I mean I have been sick for these past two weeks, and they want me to kayak?!? Where will I get the energy? My feeble protests were naturally ignored. So we went kayaking on the Masquash river in the Muskoka region. So after a bit of grumbling (especially from my father’s side), some hectic packing, whining (mine and a bit of mother’s) and a long drive we were there. While I usually don’t admit defeat, I must say I enjoyed it. Mind you I had a fair bit of rests during the kayaking trip. I love silent lakes, and northern Ontario forests. I could go into a long description, but that would spoil everything. Go there and see it for yourself!

So when we got back home, I naturally dropped into bed from exhaustion (I couldn’t sleep in the car, and I had to tow Mom in her kayak back to the car earlier on). That is why I am writing this now, the morning after. Oh well better put this up on the web… and see if I can get anything done before today’s planned trip. Argh!