I travel a bit for work. Upon returning, I always love coming through the door and seeing my family.
Jorja drew this portrait of me. She says travelling gives me “a few sores” here and there, and also make me “look a bit sick”.
I think I look like Ernie on crystal meth.
I am taking antibiotics at the moment, and for whatever reason it got me thinking of my visits to hospital as a kid and as a teenager.
Most of the surgical procedures I underwent were waist up – no involvement of legs, etc. After waking from each procedure my trousers were always gone without explanation. What’s up with that? Simple mockery, or a policy to ensure fragile patients don’t walk by themselves around the ward?
Still gives me the occasional nightmare. Not dreams about murderous clowns, but not dreams about rainbow-coloured dolphins either. Somewhere in between.
The seasons have turned once again, and it’s that time of year that I’m wearing socks and a jumper around the house. I love this time of year – the sky is so blue. And, after a wet summer, the lawnmower gets a well-earned rest.
The coming weeks are set to be very busy for us. Nicole and Jorja both have birthdays in early June; the latter is growing so, so quickly. Hard to believe she’ll be at school next year!
My Aikido calendar is pretty dense, too: sandan grading, further instructor certification, and a winter retreat.
It’s been almost a month. A very busy month. Work for Nicole and myself has been flat-out, but we did manage a week away at the Gold Coast. It was a nice opportunity to reconnect, just lazing around the pool and eating out. While away, I was lucky enough to train with Michael Williams down at Byron Bay – always a pleasure. And on the topic of Aikido, last week I was lucky enough to attend a seminar by Melbourne’s David Brown. Fantastic experience!
Nicole is set to visit Shiogama in July. It will be a magic opportunity to reconnect with friends and to see how everyone’s going a year after the awful tsunami.
There’s the tiniest hint of a chill in the air: a reminder that only April remains before the mower gets a 6 month break.
Ideas keep coming, and I keep writing them down. And I’m still working on the novel.
Such was March!
by the letter:
Jorja’s learning to write. We gave her a pen with invisible ink, thinking it would be cool to see the result under UV. Awesome.
I have been experimenting for the last 6 months. When illiustrating for my IMS journal, sometimes I use a brush pen.
When I perform Aikido’s ikkyo technique in my mind, this is what it looks like.
I’ve noticed that the algorithms, the innovations, and the novels don’t emerge on sunny days. Rather, they’re born on days painted with the colours of bruises. On days when the angles are wrong. When shadows cool parts of the mind.
My old high school celebrated its 100 year anniversary today. I remember being there for the 75th. To honour the occasion in 1987 we were allowed to inscribe messages on clay bricks. These were fired and placed around the quadrangle for future students to read. I don’t think mine got past the censor.
Churchie fostered in me a love for writing on paper, not bricks. I have slowly resumed work on the novel I have been carrying around in my head for too many years. The allure of vanity publishing using Lulu is just too great… Speaking of writing, it’s soon time to start a new IMS notebook. I’m having difficulty chosing between the Rhodia and the Habana. Nice problem to have, all things considered.
A plate of hot dhal and brown rice. A tall glass of V8 juice. Thunder from a nearby storm. Nice writing paper. And a head full of algebra.
Some days are just awesome…
The other night, Jorja, who’s only just figured out pedals, was riding her tiny pink bike through the house. The bike has training wheels. After a few laps, she tumbled off and began crying. She knows to get back on her own two feet whenever she falls down. I picked her up to console her a little and she told me: I just want to get back on my bike. A proud moment, to be sure.
They grow up so quickly. Too quickly, even. It just seems like yesterday she almost fit into the palm of my hand.
Over the years I have implemented various linear algebra algorithms in a number of different languages. Recently, I had cause to write a loop that normalises a vector. A reasonable way to do this is to compute the inverse of the vector’s 2-norm, then scalar multiply every element with this value. (This avoids a lot of expensive divisions.) An even trickier way is to compute the inverse norm in one hit, then scalar multiply. I found references to the original source code for accomplishing this. It’s pure genius.
This is what happens when I’m outnumbered by my wife and daughter:
The above pic is funny on so many levels, but I would need quite some time to explain why. I feel kinda like Robert Smith. But without the lipstick, wild hair, musical talent, and accumulated wealth. Thank heavens for acetone.
Xmas and NY celebrations are over. I bent my “no alcohol” rule and indulged a bit over the festive season. It’s amazing how even small amounts of booze now make me feel both fuzzy and awful, even days later. So I’m glad the season is over in this respect. For me, it’s back to mineral water and green tea!
We spent the first day of the new year at the Gold Coast, overnighting at Palm Beach. This gave us an opportunity to catch up with family who were also holidaying. While away, Nicole and I decided that we’ll fly down to Melbourne later in January. It’ll be a good opportunity to catch up with my sister, Jo.
Last night it was good to be back on the Aikido mat. We started off the year by giving the dojo a quick clean. A good class with lots of new faces ensued.
Over the years I’ve noticed a pattern. Prior to large bouts of creativity, I seem to order in a lot of paper. Good paper. It only dawned on me that I subconsciously stockpiled a lot of Rhodia pads over the past few weeks.
Hopefully this means that I’m going to do some cool work soon. Maybe the novel will get finished. Or maybe I’ll complete those algorithms that have been on my back for so long. Or just maybe those websites I’ve been tinkering with will get released for public consumption.
I think 2012 is going to be awesome…
Nuix is offering a special $100 forensic/eDiscovery product called “Proof Finder” where all money raised will go to the charity “Room to Read”. Check it out now before all licences are gone!
Excession by Iain Banks