(no subject)

I spent much of the weekend working on a Macnut chapter all about Netinfo. Finished its first draft this morning. This represents a personal milestone, the first chapter covering a topic I knew very little about before I started. There's a lot of that still to go, but confidence is no longer an issue. (And with luck, the start of a new week will bring word about whether or not I still have a contract...)

Tonight I started digging in to the list of Arcus tasks Andy gave me on Friday. Finished one, burning up about half of the seven hours that Jim prepaid me for last week. (That was an unexpected and welcome surprise.)

I work under the awareness that the rate I charge them is maybe a third or less of what independent consultants of my ilk earn in this area. I'm not about to raise my rate for them because it's competitive with other consultants they can find in Maine, and it meshes with all the support they've been giving me and my online endeavors for months. Still, I really should think about finding some more lucrative consulting gigs. I haven't even looked. Heck, I'd have to build some sort of appropriate identity, first. Time to troll for advice...

---

I bumped into the Wheeleroid again outside the 1369 today. He wanted to know my name and get my URL again; I was out of business cards so I just told him my domain name (since that plus a lot of cranial snazz is all that my card really contains). I have doubts about ever making intentional contact with him because he seemed reluctant to accept my email address as my primary contact method, which waves ohhh de big red flags for me.

Five years ago I would have been willing to follow this guy to the ends of the earth, just because Wow, this guy wants me to help him! I'm special! and so on. This is, in fact, exactly what I did five years ago, with the original Mr. Wheeler. I probably shouldn't complain too much; while I did regret much of that job, it was the one that got me back into programming, and got me fired up about education. How very curious.

But back then, I was a year out of college, mulching in a retail job and ready to bolt anywhere, so long as it was interesting. Nowadays, I am ever-burbling in a very interesting soup. Off-the-street tech schemes would have a lot of competition for my attention now. Well, we'll see.

---

Hmm. We can pick up keys to the new place in literally just a couple more days. Probably I should pack, or something.

In the chiiiiiiill of the night

Saw Spider-Man finally, a matinee with cthulhia. I feel that I should go to Bangor sometime soon to watch it with my brother Peter, since the concept of Spider-Man is one of our very few shared reference points. I knew I'd like the movie enough to survive seeing it twice, due to everything I've heard about it, and lo, I was right.

Then again, I vowed many years ago that I wouldn't see movies with Peter anymore because he behaves terribly at them, or so I thought at the time. He just gets really into the violence, cheering every time anyone dies for any reason, and saying, "Yeah... dead!" I'm not sure I want to be there with him enjoying it for all the wrong reasons. mumble Well, we'll see.

To this day, though, Peter will, every time I visit him, find some opportunity to go "da-na-na-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAA!" at me, imitating the opening trumpet blare of the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon's theme music. We saw every episode of that show many times, when I was very small. When Peter wants to reinforce our fraternal link, he need only make that sound to me. (Sometimes he will back it up by pretending to shoot webs and making the appropriate thwippy noises.) That's why I think seeing the movie with him might be nice.