Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns

I don't know how many people from "back home" actually read this, but it doesn't look like we will be coming back to Minnesota for the holidays. We haven't seen Missy's parents in a couple of years and this was the first real opportunity we've had in quite a while. So we will be traveling to Reno, NV from the 24th until the 29th. There isn't much chance we will go anywhere right after that since I think we'll be traveled out by the time we get back, but who knows, stranger things have happened.

*Sigh*

I think this is one of the longest gaps between posts on my blog/news site since I started in '97. Not that I ever posted regularly, but it was usually closer to once a month.

The unusual thing is that this time it wasn't because I had nothing to say or no major events going on, but exactly the reverse. There were some pretty major events, but every time I thought to write about them they completely demotivated me. At this point, I'm hoping this rather meaningless post will help me to get past that block and feel free to start from a relatively clean slate. We'll see how that goes...

Family Tree

A couple months ago, Missy and I were discussing genealogy tracking with Narni and she recommended taking a look at Geni.com. I spent one night loading up as much information as I could find or remember about my family tree, and 140+ people later I was exhausted but satisfied that I had a reasonable representation started. I'm hoping to get some help from my relatives to expand this out further:

View more of Nathan's tree  |  Get your own family tree at Geni.com

Niagara falls

A few weeks ago, Missy had to travel to Buffalo for work. Luckily, I
was able to join her this time and work from the hotel. We had a
chance to visit Niagara Falls and meet up with dan and Stacy for a great Brazilian steak house dinner. It was
fun to put a voice to the text I've been reading on IRC for years.

Sun, Smog and Shallow

Currently Reading

It's long overdue, but I'm finally reading Good Omens.

Enlightenment in Google SoC

After a couple years of half-hearted attempts to get into Summer of Code, we finally put together a good proposal and Enlightenment has accepted this year! A huge thanks goes to Ravenlock for his hard work getting all of the ideas organized and putting together the final proposal. If you're a student planning to participate, please take a look at our ideas page and stop in our IRC channel #edevelop on irc.freenode.net if you have any questions.

Website down

As some people have noticed, my website has been down for the last two weeks. Unfortunately, I don't know when it will be back up. The system it is hosted on is in the process of being moved to a new service provider in California. I may move content after I get access to the data. Until then, keep an eye on this spot for anything new.

Missy's 30th Birthday in Chicago?

We know it is a little early (barely March and her birthday is in July) but if people vote 'yes' we thought advance notice would be helpful to actually make it possible. We thought it would be fun if people could come here to celebrate in Chicago but wasn't sure if people would actually be able to do that - so to find out we decided to create this poll. It is open for two weeks, if you can answer by then it would be appreciated but if not - don't think it's a strict date. We are really just trying to get an idea of who is interested and who already knows that they definitely can't do it.