September 23-27, 2001 — Humane behavior and questionable decisions

When I started writing the program to convert all my journals over to the new system, I figured it would take maybe an afternoon to write the program and a day or a day and a half to get all the old journals converted. The program ended up taking two days, and converting everything over took about two and a half. I think I'd do it all over again, though.

I mostly started work on Sunday. I had done some preliminary work on the script that would generate the journal entries a few days earlier, but I didn't write the first lines of code until Sunday. I (mostly) finished on Monday. It ended up taking around 850 lines of code and a lot of frustration as I finally took the time to learn Unix file permissions properly. On the plus side, I'll be able to reuse all of the code for the article submission system that I plan on writing for the ezine that I'm hoping to launch early in 2002, so at least I've that to make me feel a bit better.

The time wasted sending all the older journal entries through the script has proven a bit less easy to justify. I knew it would take a long time, but I figured I'd get better at it and the time that it took per journal entry would get smaller and smaller to the point that it wouldn't take all that long. Unfortunately, I never really got below an average of two-to-four minutes per entry. And with 300 entries to go through...

By the end of the four days I dedicated to getting this finished, cabin fever was getting worse and worse, and my arms were hurting more and more. But it felt damn good when that final journal was posted. Andrew and Johnston didn't share my excitement (even though this meant, at a bare minimum, that I would shut the fuck up about journal entries and journal submission systems for at least a couple of weeks), but I was still plenty happy about it all.

And just as I'd managed to get the entire journal section online and ready to go, it was time to see the Converge show. I could think of no better way to celebrate.

Before the show, I bought a hoodie and a copy of the double-gatefold vinyl edition of Jane Doe. In exchange for keeping these in Johnston's backpack during the show, I was forced to wear Johnston's backpack. During the show. (The bass player tried to sell Jeff on one of the Converge hunting caps, noticing Jeff's farm equipment hat. Jeff passed, but has a much higher opinion of the bass player than he did before.)

I started out more or less in the middle, a few rows from the front. Trying to keep position with a backpack on during a Converge show is a lost cause, though, and I quickly found myself well to the right, in front of the guitarist. It was still a decent spot, all things considered.

I didn't think they played enough songs from Jane Doe, but I'm biased because that's the first album of theirs that I've been able to really and completely get into. It was a phenomenal show nonetheless and I wish they'd've played longer. I left before Grade's set.

And now it's Thursday. I have four days to finish the transition of the Bran Van 3000 message board away from the old Grand Royal board, and I'm trying to figure out which credit card I'm supposed to use to pay for the hosting of branvan3000.com. I was supposed to get a call last week, but it never happened, so I might end up putting it on my own credit card initially. Which is a bit irritating, but it's better than having the site die altogether.

Tonight's the first of two Godspeed You Black Emperor! shows, which I'm all for. Johnston has class until 9:00 pm, and I don't know anyone else who's going, so I'm going alone. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I guess.

So yes. I'm officially caught up on journals. If there's anything I learned going through my old journal entries, it's that I promised to start writing on a regular basis far more often than I actually started writing on a regular basis. But it's so much easier to post them now that it just might happen this time.

I promise nothing, though.