norm's blog

I have a lot to be thankful for in my life. On this Thanksgiving day
fifteen years ago my wife and I were wed. It has been a long journey for
the two of us. We have endured many hardships and together we have
conquered them all.

Today is a day of reflection on all the things in our lives that we count
as a blessing. My entire life is one big blessing and I am glad to be
surrounded by so many people in my life who have kept me on the straight
and narrow. To my wife I give thanks for putting up with me and my many
shortcomings as a husband. To my daughter who is the light of my life. I

Well after reading and posting the article about learning Emacs in 10
years, I decided to give it another go around. I am happy to report that
I am now sending and receiving email via _Emacs_.

Sometimes the best way to fix something is to walk away from it for a
period of time and then try it again at a later date. That was the case
this time, because it literally took me all of 10 minutes to set it
up. Now customizing it to my particular liking, that may take another 10 years.

After having H1N1 from Monday to Thursday last week and then that
morphing into pneumonia and is still with me as I post this, I am finally back to
work. I spent all day yesterday playing catchup and still have a whole
lot more to do.

On another note I wanted to publicly thank Mary and George who
responded to my Craigslist and Freecycle add for Classical vinyl
donations. All the records are in excellent condition and Maddie,
Mommy, and I will enjoy them for years to come. George, thanks for
delivering them to my door that was extremely nice and neighborly.

This was posted on digg I think. Learn emacs - in ten years by Edward O'Conner

Ed makes some a few excellent points regarding learning as it pertains
to learning emacs and mastering just about anything. However the best
point that was made and struck a chord with me was ...

"I recommend trying Gnus. The several weeks you waste trying to figure out how to point Gnus at your mail server more than pays for itself by the amount you learn while driving yourself mad." ...

This is so important that I felt the need to post it here. PLEASE LISTEN
TO WHAT HE IS SAYING!!!!

Just install BloGTK.

I came across a thread on reddit the other day where someone made a suggestion to look into "Text Processing in Python" . All I can say is wow! I ran through the first chapter and am drooling. Going to be ordering the book from Amazon for sure.

So I went to the Salvation Army Goodwill Store to make a donation. I dropped off a bunch of stuff that did not sell at this years yard sale, some of which was left over from last years sale. I try to go there at least once a month just to see what books they have in and what records. For the past six months or so they have not had much in the way of selection for vinyl. I found Schubert's "The Trout"

A few months ago I decided to see what all the fuss was over Twitter. Since then I have come to love micro blogging. I am so busy now that I just don't have time to post to this blog. However I do have the time to hammer out 140 characters or less. In fact I can do it several times a day.

Wheew! I have been so busy I have hardly had any time to just sit and think. Between major projects at work, home, consulting, and checking into other opportunities, It has just been go go go, full throttle. None the less I am happy to be this busy as opposed to the alternative.