Rachel pitched in and helped me get the car cleaned up.  Poor Ethan is throwing up a bit this morning, I think he caught Jane's bug the other evening.

Evidence attached.  On a similar note, I'm enjoying being home with them.

For those of you who really want to know what I look like at 4:30 in the morning after a 19 hour day, you're in luck.  In simulated infrared, here I am.

Amazing what you can do with a lot of bottles and time on your hands, a remote control car, and an empty parking garage. :)
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XKCD rules: Also, I love working from home! Normally I'd be in the car or on BART right now. Instead I'm coding in bed and talking to Stef.

As many of you know, I trudge into San Francisco every day to get to work. I like my job a lot, but truth be told the 4 hour roundtrip commute wears on me, so a few weeks ago I started looking for alternatives.

Yesterday I formally accepted an offer to be a senior software developer for the Postcarbon Institute in Sebastopol. I'll be working on their social networks and other capabilities, which are primarily built on top of the excellent Drupal framework.  Postcarbon seeks to educate people on the coming peak in oil supply, and prepare communities to live without dependence on fossil fuels. 

I will be working from home 4 days a week. This is going to make an incredible difference for us: I'll be at home 4 hours a day more than I am right now, I may get more sleep at night, we're going to save somewhere on the order of $500/month on my commute costs, it's a promotion, and a small raise for me!

So that I don't disturb Stef and the kids, and to separate work and home life a little bit, I'm going to rent a bit of cubicle space in a business park about 5 minutes from home.

One of the blessings of this situation is that we have very clearly seen God's hand in every step of the way; one unlikely thing after another has pointed us to this place, and we're very grateful for both the job, and for the peace that God has given us about this situation.

I'm wrapping up my time here at Ensenda, then I'll start fulltime at Postcarbon after next week. I was also blessed in that my current team and management understand my situation, and have been very gracious about this whole process. That said, I'm exhausted, and excited to get moving with the new job, so next week will be l-o-n-g.

I caught most of Idol Gives Back last night, but had to go into a conference call around 9 and missed the below at the close of the show. It's interesting to watch, I both like to see it, but am also weirded out by people who in general have no Christian profession singing praises to God as a performance. I guess even the rocks will cry out, huh?

I mentioned a while back that I installed Windows XP on my laptop using Boot Camp, but that I had exceeded the number of times that I could activate my copy of Windows.

The Internet activation told me that my license was no good any more,  the automated phone bot told me that my license was no good any more, the live phone person told me that my license was no good anymore.  Instead of caving, I told him exactly why that statement was ridiculous (valid XP license, using it on ONE machine, legally and all that).  And he shut up and handed me an activation code.

 Big step forward for me... I even got a little indignant (it's amazing how the prospect of paying another $150 for something you already have can do that). 

 Oh, and I continue to want Call of Duty 4 pretty badly. *drums fingers till Mac release in May/June* 

So I got over my cold from earlier this week enough to make it into work yesterday, and I felt pretty good.  I got up this morning feeling kinda cruddy but bravely decided to make it into the office.  I drove into Walnut Creek to catch BART (I'm trying out going to different stops to optimize my commute a bit), and was about to catch the train, and just felt terrible. I ended up coming straight home.  So I spent almost 2 hours round trip on the road, burned gas, ended up back where I started, but am much more comfortable here (didn't want to be caught with a flu 2 hours from home on public transit).

 It's kind of been a lost week in some regards, I worked in the office on Monday and Thursday,  from home Tuesday and today, and took Wednesday off completely to try to get better (didn't do a terrible lot of good).

Anyway, on another note, see the attached picture (caught on my way home last night). 

I was going to write all about our weekend, but decided just to hit a few highlights:

 

•  My Macbook Pro arrived!  I got it set up, moved most of my data over, and installed all my software.  I also got BootCamp installed, Windows running, and a couple of game demos to exercise my snazzy video card.  To sum up, I'm extraordinarily happy about this machine; it's amazing to me how much of a step forward it is from my old Powerbook -- it's fast, the screen is bright and clear and beautify, it's fast, and comes with Leopard (which I like a lot so far), and it's fast, and it's nice to have the iSight camera up top, and it's fast.  Did I mention it's fast?
• Windows validation stinks.  I have a legitimate Windows license, installed on one computer, etc.  However, Microsoft's validation scheme decided that I've reinstalled my computer with that license too many times and won't let me activate the system.  Sounds like I either have to talk my way through a phone support person, or drop another $100-150 on another license.  What the heck?
• Call of Duty 4 is very, very well done.  I sense another $50 disappearing from my wallet some time very soon.  Portal is also extremely fun, and I'm going to be picking that up soon as well. 
• I wish I didn't have to bounce back and forth between Windows and Mac just to play games.  One day...
• We lost our copy of "Cars" a few months back.  I picked it up on Friday since the kids were sick.  We watched it I think 5 times this weekend ;)
• I finally got our Christmas lights down.  Amazing that I put off for 2 months something that took 20 minutes and a visit to borrow the next door neighbor's ladder.
• I'm about to wrap 2 personal projects that have taken way too long and sapped my time for primary projects.  Unfortunately, one-more-thing syndrome means that they're not likely to die nearly fast enough to make me happy.