Stranded on the sandless shores.
Oct 13Its been a long time since i have last been here. Once every two years I drop by only to be amazed at the way things stay the same, and the way things change. From when i was four years old I have walked trough these doors, watched the people go by and looked at their faces. I never stopped wondering what their problems might be. What burden they carried. An illness ? A loved one in distress. Waiting for an answer, or praying that that answer will never come. Every time I stop and realise that ones health is not something to be taken for granted. That if it was not for this place my life would have turned out differntly. I do the things i do, live the way i live and am the one i am without ever having to stop an consider that it all might not have been this way. I take my health for granted, when i should be thankfull that i am alive. But then again : We should all stop and consider that once in a while. Imagine those less fortunate. Imagine those less healty. Imagine those to whom mortality is very mutch a thing on their mind. Over these last few years, as i grow older and wiser perhaps, the thing i have learned is never to take anything for granted. I have come to realise that EVERYTHING can balance on a sharp razors edge and can go just any way it wishes. Us mankind often thinks we are oh so in control of it all. We think we have things made and yett.. It can all change at the chime of a bell. Ritch, poor, succesfull, bumm, legal, illegal .. Healthy, sick, together or alone.. We sometimes must stop and think how it can all change. I see the people around me and think about their troubles. I find mysellf straightening my back, once again sliding into the roll of 'comforting example' that it can all turn out for the best. A warm smile to a troubled soul.. in who'se place I have luckily never stood before… but still. Life is a precious gift and so is our health. This year I look back at my life since I last was here and realise i should exercise more. My condition is hardly what it used to be and sports are way back on my priority list. I should do that more often, should relax more often. But so much to do .. So little time. Come to think of what i've been up to these last two years I realise that they have been the busyest of years in my life. The Ictopus project (many many stress !) Switching jobs and working at Harte Hanks (also quite an amount of stress) and in between buying a house, fixing it up, moving etc etc. When i look back at it all I believe I do deserve a break. Haven't had a decent holiday for two years… But we'll see how everything turns out. Perhaps a pledge that once in every day I put the books away, turn the screens of and have a cup of tea with a good book. That i give mysellf the chance to lean back, close my eyes and just listen to the silence around me. A promise to get up on a saturday and grab my bike and just cycle a bit more. Good intentions ? Perhaps … **** In other news the whole linux thing is slowly picking up pace. Before this I dreadded the Evil VI, but now i find mysellf writing this text in VI. Later on i can just copy and paste it into my blogg.. And I kind of like this simple effective interface. No need for extensive mark-up, Fancy GUI's and all that. Just a black screen with white letters. Me somehow like this. I'm starting to see the immense possibilities of an OS like Linux, and I am starting to see why people can get this fanatic over it. Reading trough these few chapters in the book it strikes me just how powerfull it is. I mean you can combine commands, let the output of one command be the input of the other and so on. I have only limited DOS knowledge so maybe thats it, but in Linux i have so far done things that are quite impossible in DOS. Combine it with the ability to run on run down computers and so.. And i'm starting to feel the magic. Imagine your peers buying the most expensive pc's , overclock them, cool them with water of even liquid nitrogen.. While you are still using that 486 laptop you can dragg around with you anywhere. Use VI or Bash to do your thing. Mail stuff from the command line. I mean , this is stuff i picked up in only two chapters. Ok you still need a good gui to 'get' most of the 'net' but as I allways say : Take a look at what you want to do and then check out what you need. I mean, if you can configure a fileserver, a mailserver, a firewall and so on just using a stupid terminal interface.. Combined with the power this OS gives you ? I would say : watch out MS ! I understand why Linux guru's love the darn thing. You can just dive into the config files and litteraly WRITE what you want it to do. Not happy with the program ? take tehe source and change it. The possibilities are indeed endless. I'm happy in my own little way that i found this first use for the shell. Amateuristic as it may be.. I'm happy to make the first step. After an escape and a Shift ZZ this little bugger will be stored on the drive. To experts this might sound lame. But for little oll me .. its kinda the first real steps into using linux for what i NEED. And as i posted yesterday.. Whenever I can USE something, i'm interested to learn in what ELSE it can do. No more pointless excercises. Time to let the mother work for the money.
