{nule.org}

Well, I’ve agreed to buy a new house. The realtor (who’s a great guy, ask me if you need a realtor and I’ll give you his name) met with the sellers last night and after some hashing around of numbers they’ve agreed to sell to me. It’s a big step up from my current abode and I’m looking forward to moving.

It’ll probably be a while until we can move in, but I’ll try to snap some photos of the house in the next couple of weeks to post here. We’ve also set up a gift registry at Restoration Hardware so if you feel like being generous and giving us stuff go ahead. 🙂 Since we may not be there until mid-summer or even later I’ll post details later of a get together we’ll have for all our friends when it gets closer.

Update: Sounds like we’ll be moving in early May. Also we added a gift registry at Bed Bath & Beyond. You will buy us stuff.

Oh yes, my new computer is sexy. Sexy! It’s not every day you see a 15″ powerbook hanging out at the local coffee shop, or on your flight to Dresden. OK, maybe it is, but that’s because it’s a sexy freaking machine. It plays all my games and can do all my work and can fit in my bag. How wonderful is that? Go ahead, tell me it’s wonderful. I dare you.

Just look at it and drool here. In the meantime if you want any of my PC hardware or software let me know, or it’s going on eBay.

I’m currently taking my fourth and fifth classes of this school year. They are general Chemistry 2 and Chem 2 Lab. I’m sure you (and my work who is reimbursing me partly) are wondering why the hell a computer programmer like me would need a chemistry course. That’s a really good question that I don’t have a good answer to.

Part of the answer is that I want to take organic chemistry. The reason for this is another question that I don’t have an answer to. It’s something that I know nothing about, so it makes me very curious. It also is a subject that I am told is one of the hardest to master, and I like a good challenge. This also opens the door to physical chemistry which is another subject that I know absolutely nothing about.

A bigger reason why I want to take chemistry is that I don’t want to be doing what I currently am doing for a living for the rest of my life. Sure, it’s challenging and interesting (and pays well) but I think everybody should make at least one big career change in their life. Not that I want to run out and be a chemist, but I can see myself applying all that I’ve learned as a programmer to a field like biochemistry.

How, you may ask? Well, today what I do is I program large, distributed computing systems to move around huge volumes of information. That is very similar to modeling complex chemical processes. Every atom, ion and molecule in a chemical system along with it’s bond (or charge) information is like a message that moves around the system that is the model. Although I’m still learning the rules that describe the chemistry that would need to be programmed into the model, I’m sure that there is a use for my expertise in the field. Increasingly drug companies are modelling chemicals on computers before testing them in a lab, so right there is one opportunity for me. Hopefully I could find a spot at the Cleveland Clinic (where I currently work) that would let me harness the massive computing power of the 19,000 desktop computers about the clinic into a large distributed super-computer.

Anyway, enough about that. I’m sure class will keep me busier than I’ve been so far, but hopefully I’ll find the time to keep this up to date.

I’ve been programming way too much Java recently. Odd how that language has grown on me. My progression from Perl through Python and on to Java leads me almost inexorably on to C++ or Objective C. I do like the cross-platform-y ness of Java though, and the fact that I can make my binary run on Linux, OS X, Solaris and Windows (in order of most to least frequently used OS, for me). Anyway, I’m looking for some more Java stuff to do besides my HL7 Browser, so if you are looking for someone to code a Java project for you on the side let me know. Classes are starting again soon, but I should have more free time than last semester.

Anyway, I went to Las Vegas just before the holidays with Amanda. I don’t typically like to talk about extremely personal stuff on my blog because it’s so public, so that previous sentence may come as a surprise to some of you. We got back together over the summer and things have been going very well for us. We had a pretty good time in Vegas, and I’ll post some pictures on my gallery of that trip pretty soon.

Things have been going so well for us, in fact that I decided to buy her one of these. You can probably guess what that means. We haven’t set a date yet or anything, but it’ll be a while yet. I’ll be sure to keep you informed.