This is the church for the children (el ninos) next to El Sanctuario de Chimayo, just north of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Scala, Java, Unix, MacOS tutorials (page 53)
Prolong not the past.
Invite not the future.
Alter not your innate wakefulness.
Fear not appearances.
There is nothing more than that.
(Sounds like something Yoda might say, but according to a Ram Dass book, it’s a stanza from the Tibetan school of Buddhism.)
Our dog, Zeus, who had mange when we first “rescued” him.
(“Who rescued who” is an excellent question ... see alvinalexander.com/zeus for more information.)
“You and me together, right?”
This is most of a story from a book called, “Turning the Mind Into an Ally.” When Zeus was sick and I’d stop petting him, he’d turn and look at me like this.
~ December 3, 2016
In the “lucid dream holodeck” this morning, I was hanging out with a group of peeps when a tornado suddenly appeared. Everyone started running for cover, and I grabbed a dog and started running for a basement when I looked back at it and thought, “This isn’t a tornado, it’s just an insane amount of energy.”
Holding the dog under my right arm, I stood my ground. When I did this, the energy stopped moving like a tornado, and — skipping over the whole “Transformers” thing — it eventually took on a female human form.
Further skipping past our introductions ... I eventually suggested that she talk to some other people in the dreamspace, but she said no, I had less “hate-y bits” than the other people. (Language differences often make for interesting translations.)
Brief conversation with a Starbucks barista in whatever town I was just in:
“A grande coffee, please.”
“Room for cream?”
“Yes, an inch please.”
“An inch?”
“I won’t be offended if it’s more than that. I won’t drink it all.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“I haven’t had caffeine in several months, so that should be more than enough.”
“Did you know that some people get sleepy when they have caffeine? I thought that was interesting.”
“Indeed.”
She leans in and whispers, “Don’t tell anyone, but honestly, I only like to drink coffee on the weekends, and then have deep conversations with friends.”
I lean in and quietly reply, “I like your style.”
~ December 18, 2018
This is a photo of a sidewalk that I took somewhere in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I love the colors and artistry of the city.
This is a photo of a sidewalk in front of an art museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Sorry, I don’t remember the name of the museum and I’m too lazy atm to look it up.)
I applied a Gaussian Blur effect to the cars on the right and the bright stuff at the end of the corridor (using Gimp), and it’s amazing how much that makes the rest of the image “pop” out. Nothing else has been altered.
Somehow I missed the part where the Coursier cs resolve command can be used to list “the transitive dependencies of one or more other dependencies.”
In one of my ongoing nightly dream series, I’m a young man who works at a restaurant at night. Two nights ago I was working there when a female co-worker told me she bought a Christmas gift for me, and wanted to see if we could do a gift exchange. I hadn’t gotten her anything yet, so I said something like, “I, I ... I can’t do it right now because <insert excuse here>
After work I went out to buy something for her. “Think, think,” I said to myself, probing my dream memory, “what would be a nice gift?” Then I remembered that a few weeks ago she told me about something she always wanted when she was younger, so I went out and found that item, and wrapped it up.
Last night we exchanged gifts during a break at work. She opened hers first, and when she saw it she began to cry. “Uh-oh,” I thought, “now you’ve gone and made her cry. This might not be good.” But then she said it was beautiful and thoughtful, and said her gift to me was nothing compared to it.
Tonight I think I’m going to call in sick to work, or maybe just stay up all night and binge-watch Stranger Things.
~ December 13, 2017
I ran across this historical tidbit from Martin Fowler a few days ago. It’s interesting to see that in 2004, lambdas weren’t too well known, and they’re associated here with dynamic languages. With a degree in aerospace engineering, I only knew of them from in interest in Lisp, and then Ruby around this time.
I was going through old photos recently and found this “Bleeding Heart” drawing that I made on a Buddha Board back in February, 2015. FWIW, Buddha Boards seem to make good Christmas gifts. I got this one as a Christmas gift in 2014.
(In December, 2020, it reminds me of the heart infection I had last Christmas.)
I fall into the category of “spiritual but not religious,” but I like this affirmation at the end of the little booklet, The Law of Success, by Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Heavenly Father, I will reason; I will will; I will act; but guide Thou my reason, will, and activity to do the right thing that I should do.”
(As a note, the “will will” part is not a mis-quote or mis-type.)
Son, she said
Have I got a little story for you
What you thought was your daddy
Was nothin’ but a ...
While you were sittin’ home alone at age thirteen
Your real daddy was dyin’
Sorry you didn’t see him
But I’m glad we talked
~ Alive, Pearl Jam
This is a Christmas gingerbread house/hotel they had at The Lodge at Santa Fe, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This was during the Christmas/holiday season in 2012-2013.
The local parks people have created the best outdoor ice skating arena I’ve ever seen here on Wasilla Lake, night lights and all.
~ a note from December 11, 2010
Started the drive back to Colorado at 5:50am EST Tuesday in Kentucky. Waited out the morning’s nasty snowstorm with some old-timers and truckers at a McD’s in Georgetown, Indiana.
Got tired of waiting, so when the snow let up a little I got back in the car. Maneuvered through snow-and-ice induced wrecks between Corydon and Evansville. Wanted to kiss the ground when it finally got dry after 11am. Drove through the sunset in Kansas, then followed the truckers, the Moon, and stars across the rest of Kansas and Colorado, arrived home at 12:20am MST Wednesday. Looking forward to seeing if the mountains are white whenever I wake up.
~ a note from December 11, 2013