The move is drawing to it’s inevitable conclusion, with both moments of triumph (I unpacked the kitchen and my office) and defeat(I haven’t unpacked much else, and I don’t have a washer).  But all said, a fine move.  My roommate is Otis, who pays his rent in kisses and nuzzles; my house is situated in a nice quiet part of Riverside*.&nbsp Such as it is, I am lord over my domain; and it is good.  Haven’t had too much of a chance to hang out, the burden of a move and associated costs plus a new project at work has kept me homebound and dull.  Though, I expect payday to bring an atypical amount of mischief with it.  I hope to wipe out the last of the moving/purchasing that the new digs have required (did I mention I needed a washer?) this weekend.  The folks have offered to send a little cash my way, which has been nice of them.  Moving seems to get more expensive everytime I do it.

I’ve rediscoved the joys of pipe smoking again, something that I’ve been off-again on-again with for some years (though it has remained something of “trademark", if you will).  I do forget how relaxing and enjoyable of a pursuit it is.  I had quit the last time because of headaches caused by clenching the pipe to hard with my teeth; but there really is nothing more satisfying then to sit at the computer writing, reading, or whatever while puffing merrily away at a pipe.  It has all the qualities of a Chris Brodt hobby/infatuation:

• It is something an old man would do
• It requires study, practice, patience and effort; wheras, it’s modern replacement requires a fraction of or none at all (look up double-edged safety razors for another example)
• I could fill at least 15 minutes expositing the finer points and vaguries of it over it’s ‘modern’ competitors

Which I guess seems strange for someone who is in the business of technology and such.  Well, if contradictions are a measure of character then I come through in spades.  But now to more pressing topics: a trip back to the motherland.  I’m thinking the 31st through the 4th or 5th.  I was thinking maybe a little sooner, but one of my team leads will be on vaction for the next two weeks so I figured the timing wouldn’t be that great.  I expect each and every one of you (and you know who you are) to drop any plans you have for that time and spend it with me.  I promise you won’t regret it

*Otis is a dog, in case you were wondering

So ends Bachelor Week 2009.  Cherie has been out of town for a week now, attending to Josh and Erin’s wedding.  I’ve kept myself occupied with puppies and crab fishing.  The weather has been fairly decent, up until yesterday when the rain started coming down around noon and didn’t ever really stop. 
However, it feels like most of my time is being taken up by work these days.  I’m working on a project that requires a separate database, so I’ve been looking into using PostgreSQL.  I’m really enjoying working with it so far; the syntax and style has some similarities with Oracle and I like the MVCC locking model that it uses (I’m not a big fan of the hard row-locks/table-locks that the various MySQL engines use). 

UPDATE: I began writing this post shortly before shit hit the fan.  Published for historical purposes

Another busy couple of months.  Since it’s not cold anymore, I decided to change the blog theme to something less ‘icy/cold’.  Not crazy about it yet, but it might grow on me.  Had a good time with my parents, who came down for my birthday and spent a long weekend here.  Actually ended up getting a lot of stuff done with the house

• Moved the shower head that was mounted where a bathtub faucet would go (still haven’t been able to figure that one out yet…)
• Ran some new RG-6 coax through the house.  I was suffering some pretty bad internet performance with the old RG-59 that the house was wired with.  Now I can get all the lulz
• Put a light in the fan in the upstairs-front-porch.

My parents also bought us some porch furniture and a little outside garden shed for…the garden stuff.  It will at least be good as an interim solution ’till the actual shed is constructed.  My dad and I debated buying a shed vs. building one and we both agreed that it will probably be easier to build one from scratch then figure out how to move pre-built parts from the front to the back yard.  One downside of the house is that the property ‘funnels’ from the street to the back, instead of being straight parallel lines.  So walking on the side of the house from the front to the back your path becomes narrower.  This fact will pose yet more interesting engineering problems when I throw together a privacy fence this year

The next big home improvement project I want to tackle is the yard.  It’s pretty much an overgrown mess.  There’s about a 4 sq ft patch of grass in the back yard (and fairly sparse at that) and the rest is either loose soil or covered in weeds.  Further complicating things is the invasive tree species Cinnamomum camphora, which has a nasty habit of sprouting up all over the damned yard and killing everything.  Since the camphor tree is about the size of the house, it’s something I’ll have to live with in the front yard.  However, I might go medieval on one in the back yard when i put up a new fence.

In other exciting news, we ended up getting a puppy, which we have named Greta.  Though I lovingly refer to her as “The Great Satan” in no small part due to her love of chewing everything (including me and our other dog Otis).  WARNING: Adorable puppy pictures after the break

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As I’ve noted before Florida’s claim to “The Sunshine State” is spurious at best.  The past couple of weeks has been a roller coaster of mid-70’s to low 20’s that has been anything less then comfortable.  Also quite windy, which I thought I had left behind in the Heartland.  You can tell, however, who is a native Floridian when you have a cold snap like that.  My boss referred to my scarf and coat as “You and your Northerner bullshit.", which I think to all native Oklahomans is probably the funniest thing that has been said. Ever.

The climate appears to righted itself to a comfortable 60’s, and the ‘Arthritis Warning’ has disappeared from the local news for now.  I finally got around to buying a bike pump the other day, and even figured out how to to pump the tire correctly (Bear with me folks, Presta valves can be kinda tricky).  Thus, today was perfect weather for a little bike ride up to the library, to read the NY Times and pick up some tax forms.

Speaking of taxes, anybody notice how everyone in the Democratic party can’t do their flippin’ taxes?  Now, I’m sensitive to this issue, since there was a year that my taxes were a little…late (*ahem*).   And true, the tax system is quite wonky in this country.  I’ve never really understood why there are so many credits, deductions, and general divvying of wealth into separate categories besides the simple fact that it provides loopholes.  Of the Annoying Things Everyone Has To Deal With, it seems like we should have pulled together enough political will in this country to make a simple and fair tax system. And no, I don’t mean THE FairTax plan that was touted in the last election.  While in principle it seems to have some advantages the whole issue of taxing people based on consumption undermines the entire point that the US economy (used to?) spins on.  And also, I understand the European VAT tax (which is essentially what the FairTax folks propose) has a list of exceptions on things such as groceries so that it alleviates some of the burden on the poor.  If we can’t do an income tax system that doesn’t overly burden the bottom 50-75% of wage earners in this country I doubt we would get a fair head tax.  Further, the proposal seems to cost an exorbitant amount of money, with a overly complicated rebates system that would likely be abused similarly to our current systems loopholes.

The point being, I think we could at least take a little bit more care into trying to reform the system.  I’m a big fan of taxing the hell out of people who make bunches of money.  Now, some people will call this socialist, but I think it’s really more of a realist standpoint.  Because realistically, the number of people you’ve crushed and ruined to get to the top of your huge stack of money is proportionately greater then someone whose pile of money is much smaller.  Thus, you are responsible for a greater amount of destruction to the citizens of this country.  So, yes, you should pay for college educations, roads, schools, national defense etc.  Especially national defense, considering how much the wealthy appear to benefit from the Defense Department’s particular brand of services

Interestingly, at the park in front of the library, there was a group of young black men who were espousing some sort of black Judeo-Rastafarianism.  The details were a little hazy, but there were awesome poster boards showing some sort of African geneology of Jewish tribes, as well as some depictions of Barack Obama as satan.  Not sure what that’s about…I took pictures, but my usb cable for my camera appears to be MIA at the moment.  I’d also like to give a shout to Matt Steenson, who has begun his second tour in the desert.  Hopefully Obama can put aside his apparently satanic qualities for the moment and bring him home sooner rather then later

So I’m the proud owner (tenant?) of an old house in the Historic Springfield neighborhood.  The Springfield neighborhood is known for its nice historic homes, urban blight, and proximity to downtown (also known for urban blight).  While this might deter other buyers, I am both an armchair socialist and swayed by the opinions of my girlfriend.  Really, it was mostly the girlfriend.  In Jacksonville, there’s a saying that ‘Springfield is just around the corner…still’.  This is mostly owed to the lack of development in the area since 1950, and preference for other historical neighborhoods such as Riverside, San Marco, and Avondale.  To couch it in OKC terms, it’s like Heritage Hills houses, with the NE OKC neighborhood.  However, there is genuine interest in restoring the neighborhood and making it a decent place to live.  And honestly my experiences thus far reinforce that.

Jacksonville, is a weird city, much like OKC.  It has termendous amounts of sprawl, and deurbanization levels that probably compare with Pittsburgh and Detroit.  In doing a little research I found this to be a good aid in understanding the history of Jacksonville.  It appears like most cities, it fell victim to the infernal machine known as the Automobile, with the crushing weight of racism and segregation thrown on top.  For example, the city borders before consolidation of Jacksonville and Duval County, circa 1932:

With a population of roughly 130,000, Jacksonville was the largest city in Florida at the time.  The peak population of this area was over 200,000 in the 1950 census.  In stark contrast, the current population of this same area is less then 1930, with a 2000 census of 112,753.  After the consolidation of the county and city in 1968 here is a map of the current borders, population 778,879 in 2000.  Take note, the cities of Jax Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, and Baldwin are not incorporated into the city.  Probably makes sense, since it takes a good 30 minutes to get from my neighborhood to the beaches (Baldwin isn’t listed because it’s a terrible place that no one should ever visit).

What are the consequences of the county-city consolidation and the decline of the urban center?

• Homes are cheap, and at least 20 minutes away from Applebee’s (A significant Quality of Life Indicator)
• Jerks in the ‘burbs pay for my safety and infrastructure
• Jerks in the ‘burbs do anything they can to keep money out of the city center

When James Madison wrote about “Spheres of Interests”, I don’t think he meant city governance.  More on Springfield later.