So, for the one of you still reading this that doesn’t already know — and I suspect that my readership has fallen to zero at this point — I’m going to be having a baby. Char and I will become parents on or around May 23 next year (if Ali has her way, it’ll be May 22, but I don’t know that we’ll be that obedient).

I’m … ambivalent about this. Anyone that knows me even a little knows well my feeling on the subject of my having offspring. I’ve never made a secret of it. But I can’t really cling to those feelings at this point, otherwise I’ll do far worse as a parent than my child-to-be deserves (speaking of which, since the Internet is forever, there’s a good chance they’re reading this. Hi, offspring!)

So, I’m reanimating this blog. I expect it’ll have a different tone than before, and don’t be shocked if there are posts that are either private or don’t allow feedback — this is likely to become a bit more of a public diary than a sounding board, but you’re all welcome to participate. Who knows, perhaps it’ll make things easier to adjust to.

As some of you may recall, once upon a time I started a blog called “schoolblog” based on my progression through the educational system. It was a tiny little side project, and really, it stayed that way all along. Now, or more specifically, yesterday, that process came to its conclusion at the U of A convocation ceremonies.

So, I’m done.

And, as has been increasingly obvious, so is this blog, at least as it currently exists. I don’t seem to have the impulse to write, and if the comment rate is any indication, what little I do write is not spurring conversations either. Given these two strikes, I cannot see myself having anything to say for a while.

I’m not getting rid of the domain, so it might come back at some future date, but in the meantime…

Good night.

Here’s a bullet-point update on my situation these days:

• I’m biking to work pretty much daily now; it’s about (I’m told) 6km each way, so it’s a bit of exercise I wouldn’t otherwise be getting, and it’s pretty decent exercise. It’s excellent that our workplace has a shower.
• I’m taking class in the morning and working late, which means that anyone that wants to make plans with me has to take into account that I won’t be home until 7:30 or so each weekday. Having said that, I’d love to do evening things with people, so please call any time.
• Work is up & down; I want to work on new things, but old things keep cropping up.
• Char is away this week, and I miss her.
• XBMC is the greatest thing since sliced bread. No AppleTV for me, my new (old) Xbox does everything I would want the aTV to do.
• I’ve read a few books recently, notably “Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which I bought for Char. It’s excellent, and I highly recommend it.
• On Sunday, with the blessings of Lyal and the qualified non-refusal of a shoulder surgeon, I’m going to fly again.

Just email me and ask, I’ll hook you up with the password. It’ll vary for each post that I protect, so don’t expect the one from this post to carry over. If the post is one which I wish to share with you, I’ll send it to you. If not, please do not be offended. Seriously. I don’t know how to make sure you’re not, so I’ll just tell you not to be

For faster loading, if anyone feels that this loads too slow, pick a wallpaper that’s tiled (from the row of squares on the top of the page, below the title) — as of this writing, there’s just one, a grey stripes sort of dealie.

Those load faster, and it should persist between visits. If it doesn’t, well, uhm…

This is an experiment, and I can go back to the other one later.

Update

Thanks to my lovely beta tester it’s clear that this theme does not work in Internet Explorer, that sack of crap browser still used in a few primitive corners of the net. Well, a few primitive corners that comprise 90% of all browser use.

So, no go. Back to the BlueMoonlight theme for now.

Oh, the content already moved, but the blogs themselves are best reached at a slightly different address:

Where, before, there was “http://www.offlineblog.com/morruz” and “http://www.offlineblog.com/mildillson”, now there are “http://morruz.offlineblog.com/” and “http://mildillson.offlineblog.com”. The sidebar links are updated, and feel free to head over there at your convenience, although somebody doesn’t update often enough, and another somebody isn’t traveling at the moment. Still, it bore mentioning.

In addition, I’m trying to convince Beau to upload something of his own to the web. This something will NOT be work-safe, which should surprise nobody who knows Beau, and might well be offensive to some, if I’m lucky.

The move is complete, I’m now on a faster, more congenial host.

Hopefully, this goes smoothly. I’ll be ensuring that Morruz and MildIllSon are moved cleanly, as well.

I don’t know how well all of the infrastructure survived, so comments would be a good thing to make sure it’s all there.

Yeek, that’s a workout. It might be the circuitous sentence structures, it might be the content. But either way, it’s hard going.

So, of course, I grabbed some Lagavulin 16-year scotch to sip as I educated.

Life is pretty good.

Oh, and in other news, my local hockey team beat their local hockey team. And what a game, it was. Wow.

In yet other news, did anyone notice the geographically-relevant link list down and to the right? I’ve added “Sites near me” to the sidebar. It’s possible that there’s even a useful community of bloggers in Edmonton. Although, odds are slim.

Mind you, I’ve got nothing on one of my site’s tenants when it comes to letting cobwebs collect. It’s too bad, too, because he’s a good writer. Char and I spent a late night there the other day, and had a blast. As expected, of course. I’m concerned that they may not feel the same, though, because I have an uncanny knack for finding (not causing, I hope!) flaws in any electronic device that I go near . Their coffee maker spat up, and the next day their gamecube wasn’t playing nice with their VCR. I swear it’s not my fault, but the correlation between my presence and these issues is a bit disturbing.

Anyway, I’m just ticking along, here. I tinkered with the blog layout again. I decided to try something I ordinarily find to be a bit hard on the eyes — the black background + white lettering scheme — and get REALLY geeky. Isn’t that a slick death star?

Other than work, I do little. I’m still poking at the programming environment of OS X, looking for a way to make my iTunes reconciler work. I imagine that once I get through the “how the hell do the GUI programming tools work?” steps, I should be cackling.

If you’re not sure what I mean, I’m referring to the travels of my father and sister, whom I have entreated to provide a web-based journal of their experiences. (Matt, can you vet. that last sentence for structural correctness? I got fancy, and it seems subtly wrong, somehow).

Anyway, the site is hosted beside this one, and is named Morruz. Clicky on any of the obvious links in this post to get there. In the instance that links are not clear (the style of my page doesn’t do a good job of highlighting them, a shortcoming that I plan to rectify One Of These Days) then… well, hunt.

What do you all think of the new look? I’m playing around with the details of colour and image, but the layout and clean style of this new theme really appeals to me.

Wow, that’s depressing. You guys don’t even keep up with the spammers

I’ve noticed a huge spike in spam coming in to the site of late — 2,900 in the last three months, which is bloody ridiculous. Which is why I’d like to ask anyone that posts here with some regularity to please use the register link below, or “this one”:http://www.offlineblog.com/wp-register.php.

If you register, and log in (see below for login link, in the “Meta” section) then your info will always be filled in when you post comments, and there is exactly 0 chance of you getting caught in my increasingly more draconian spam filtering.

I regret the need to even bring this to your attention, but I’m running out of options. The volume is so high that there is no way I can check to see if a normal person got caught in it, which just… sucks.

As seen over on :simon:’s site, I just finished helping him haul his whole life over to Vancouver for school. While there, we visited the grandparents, who are well, and at their urging got to go skydiving out by the ocean. It’s pretty sweet, seeing water on three sides of you while you fly. Not something you get here in the flatlands of Alberta, I guarantee.

Other than that, well, sorry about the spam bombing of the last few days. For some reason, my blog spam filter got overwhelmed, and just… quit. It’s gone now, but if you commented in the last few days on something, it may well have vanished in the purge. I thing I killed only spam, but I can’t be sure.

I wish I had more interesting things to report, but I don’t.