Rain. Came in to work early-ish to find that the power switch on my computer appears to have gone south. So can't turn on the PC, can't get email, etc.

Hopefully they'll be quick in moving the drives to another machine (and I won't lose the data I haven't saved to the version control systems).

Hopefully I can get to work soon...

Yeah, the new place...

While watching the cats for signs of adjustment, I've ignored my own.

It seems to be taking more adjustment for me than usual after a move, even the one I did after 12 years in Fairfax, but I was pretty firmly entrenched in this latest place, the first actual house I've rented - I had assumed more "ownership" than in previous duplexes/apartments/share rentals.

Plus, we've uprooted ourselves from a number of things, and there have been a lot of little changes in the last year. Reduced- to non-drinking. Healthier eating. No smoking indoors. No TV/internet/email access at home. Driving to work again. Working a later schedule.

In the middle of the night, not knowing where to put your feet when you walk around.

And last night, the young cat would not stop roaming the house yowling, and the older cat would almost settle down on the bed when some particularly plaintive call from the young one would set him off and they'd fight in the hallway. And the heater making noises. I probably didn't get to sleep till 1:30; woke at my old accustomed 5:30 or so but managed to go back to sleep till 7.

New video store, walking distance, is good. $5, 5 movies, 5 days. Nice music section, from which I rented four including "What's Up Matador" (not in IMDB, but the CD is in CDNOW). Pretty amusing collection of videos from that indie label, including Pavement "Cut Your Hair" and Liz Phair "Jealousy." Also liked Yo La Tengo, Railroad Jerk, and Helium vids, and the silly in-between segments, saved by various members of the bands and the Matador organization describing how to form a band, record a demo, make an album, shoot a video, etc. Also re-watched "Gimme Shelter." Have a lot of disjointed thoughts about it, which I won't bother sharing at the moment...

There's a point you reach in a job where you realize that you know it.

I realized this first in a tech support job, when for the first time a caller told me the program was doing something, and I knew the program was NOT doing what he described, that either he had modified it, or he was doing something horribly wrong.

Prior to this, I had to work either from memorized data about the product or from testing what the caller was saying -- I had to believe the user was innocent until proven guilty. I'd get at least one or two calls a day that just came out of left field, that completely shook my confidence in my knowledge of the material. Of course Users Lie, that's a given in technical support, but I still had to treat them as though they were telling the truth until I could prove otherwise.

It's not like the job was all downhill from that point - things change, and new items of interest can surface on a daily basis - but I realized that I had gained an intuitive understanding of the underlying features of the product I was supporting. I could make certain leaps of logic with complete assurance.

This job, I've been here ten months. I'm not at that point yet, but I can feel it getting closer. At least I usually understand the programmers' jokes now.

And finally, FINALLY, I'm busy. I have enough information about at least some areas in the new product that I can write documentation that may be 100% accurate (but even if it's 60% wrong, hey, it's 40% complete!). In these times of failing dot-coms, it's important to look busy -- better yet to BE busy.

Nothing but moving for a week straight, and now we're in, albeit only semi-organized.

I've lived in Bolinas, and in Fairfax, both well-known as the Places Hippies Go to Die. Now I live in Sebastopol: the Town that Time Forgot (Well, not really). If Northern California as a whole is considered ditzy by the rest of the US/world at large, these towns are the capitals.

W/Holistic. Tie-Dye. Hemp. Organic. Herbal. These are all bywords in these kinds of places, where old men with bald pates and ponytails sit in the sun laughing together about past acid trips. Where timid-looking needle-thin women peer anxiously at fake cheeses made from rice at the Whole Foods store.

I didn't say I didn't LIKE it! I was a hippie once; though maybe five years too young to experience the full force of hippiedom, I've sat cross-legged in a circle and chanted with others. I've eaten grain-heavy breakfasts with nary egg nor meat nor milk nor refined sugar. I've gone to more than two Grateful Dead shows in a week. And I took all the same drugs they took, back in the day. If I'm not "100% Natural" today, it doesn't mean I lack the credentials.

And the thing is, if history repeats itself, this is the crest of the North American wave - this is where the United States civilization has reached its peak, in a way. Where the populace has become so civilized, they're ripe for decline and the influx of barbarians. Sitting in the sunny square on a Monday afternoon, watching the well-meaning souls go in and out of the grocery, listening to the completely un-self-conscious squawks of someone learning to play the saxophone in public, knowing that at any moment I'm probably within earshot of somebody self-named "Rainbow" or "Sunshine," I can't help but feel sad that this might be it. This could be the best we did. Not that it isn't great and good, but that always, ALWAYS, it could've gone (as the Merry Pranksters's bus once said) 'furthur.'