Photo: Jon Masters, at the Massachusetts State House.
So it’s been a random few weeks. Fosscamp and UDS have come and gone, the Europeans have left Cambridge, and I’ve been debating some more about what I really want to do with my life in the longer term.
In terms of productivity, and aside from regular work stuff, I’ve spent quite a bit of time playing with KVM lately. I’m tracking OpenSuSE’s Factory releases, as well as Ubuntu Hardy (which just blew up again, not surprising – it’s pre-alpha at this point – so about as likely to install as rawhide right after the last major release). I went down to Plymouth a few times, and talked to Martin Pitt about restricted-manager and my goals of getting a modified version into Fedora. Not for binary drivers so much as handling out-of-tree drivers (“kmods”) in a sensible fashion, for the willing, i.e. probably make it entirely optional in the beginning.
Finally got a test box setup and started making an effort to read more upstream mail on a daily basis – I’m trying to keep on top of LKML properly, because I want to establish more of a presence there. Once I have some time over Christmas, I plan to take on fixing a few miscellaneous drivers, in addition to the work I’m doing on e.g. the LSI Megaraid driver under the -RT kernel at the moment. I don’t contribute enough, when really I am more than able to and I should try harder to do so on upstream projects. Helps win greater respect in the longer run.
I’ve been doing a lot of random stuff lately. I guess it’s not so much the gut wrenching loneliness of being single (while simultaneously surrounded by some great friends nonetheless) as the realization that I have more interests than I have time to pursue. I’m playing the violin, but interested in the piano and guitar. I’m reading legal histories of the US and UK, but wanting to spend time on engineering math (fourier transforms and the like), and I’ve still got a book to finish, another to get started, and articles to write.
My birthday is coming up in a few weeks. I’ll be 26. If you really must send me something, I’ve started keeping a few books in my various wishlists. I’m planning on spending my birthday alone in quiet contemplation, much like I am currently planning on spending Christmas (if I’m honest about it, I just can’t bring myself to go to the UK…it’s nothing personal against family and friends) – I’m just not sure where the latter will be. What I really want to do is just take off for that week and head somewhere completely random, in the middle of nowhere, on my own.
Apologies for the depressing tone of this blog. I don’t mean to sound depressing, it’s just that this year has felt like the worst of my life. Last year was fantastic, but this year was ruined early on, and hasn’t fully recovered even now. And no amount of buying silly cars or drinking coffee to excess can really make up for that. I don’t feel bitter, I just see friends and family around me doing the happy couple thing and wonder to myself if it’ll ever get to be my turn. I don’t need to settle down tomorrow, I just want to meet someone who really understands the real me. The one who’s still awake at 5am, thinking about it.
Anyway. What do you want to be when you grow up? I have no idea 
Jon.