My Sentiments, Exactly and a Life Update

Oh, crap, I still have a blog...

Sorry to have neglected you, dear friends. I've been busy.

Colin Walters put up a blog post that perfectly describes my reasons for not hosting a web/mail server myself. Nutshell: Practicality overtakes Pride.

In other news...

Holden will be 5 months old on Christmas day. Pretty freakin' unbelievable. Before we know it he'll be running errands for us.

We're having a little holiday gathering at our place tonight, should be fun. I'll probably post some pictures later.

For no longer being a programmer at work, I sure am doing a hell of alot of programming these days. Currently working on a Webservice + socket client dealie to do credit card authorization and batch settlement for all of our stores and salespeople. Having a great time dealing with the technical dimwits at the credit card company. Here's a small sample of what the dialog has been like:

Me: I have a question about something in the Request Format spec.
Them: Read the spec.
Me: No, my question is regarding (one of the many ambiguous points contained in) the spec.
Them: Oh, ok. Read the spec.
Me: I hate you.
Them: Read the spec.

Now, after you've changed your shorts (since you obviously soiled them in laughter while reading that), please understand that while I was embelishing a bit, it really was about that ridiculous. They seem to be totally unwilling to work with me. I ask for examples, I get another copy of the spec emailed to me (oh, and this one is current, not the year-out-of-date one we gave you by mistake).

So, that part has sucked, but I'm actually learning quite a bit about the credit card stuff and have a whole new respect for the people who write this crap.

By for now.