Okay, I have no real excuse for my inactivity. I've been busy at work, busy at school (yes, I finally am back and have worked out all the problems with residency, registration, and the bastard bureaucracy at the U of A)... my back problems turned out to be more serious than expected (apparently, my pelvis has been twisted like a Rubic's cube ;-)... my wife has been having a very hard time at work (class sizes are very small in TUSD, and my wife's principal is railroading her out of the school with baseless accusations because of district pressure, and because he lacks the backbone to be honest and tell her that he wont be able to re-hire after her contract comes due in July because of reduced funds)..... etc. and so forth.

These are all very good excuses... but so what? You always hear some sob-story from an Open-Source/Free-Software developer who's been inactive for a few months. It usually centers around many of the same topics I'm claiming here as excuses (work, school, family, health, blah, blah, blah).

But the simple fact of the matter is that when I've been coming home, rather than sitting at my computer (or even dragging my laptop to the living room!) I've been flopping in front of the idiot-box, whining about how life sucks, and then moaning how I don't have time to work on my projects anymore!

So screw it... no more vegging.

Let me get my dev-life back in order (need to set up my e-mail again, since I loathe Mozilla/Netscape Mail, but they seem to be the only clients which are working with my f*cked up server setup), and post what little code I've done online. Then expect another update in a few days.

2002 Feb 22 (Fri), 23:58 Brown Krusties

Okay, okay, so I'm still not responding to my main e-mail... Reason? I can't get my damned Vipul's Razor and Procmail to work with Postfix on my main desktop. Actually, my mail shows up, it just isnt filtered for spam (since I get some 100-200 messages a day, with 40-60% spam, I really need this to work!) So bear with me (anyone wanting to lend a hand, please e-mail me at my work address: hart(at)physics[dot]arizona(dot)edu ;-)

Oh, and yet another depressing thing happenned... My father is on oxygen (permanently). He's in his 80s, and has had three open-heart surgeries and something like four heart attacks, so some would argue it was a matter of time.... However, he's always been such a fighter. He's always been one of these people who looks and acts much younger than they really are. He's always been so... (corniness alert)... alive.... So it's hard to hear that he's like this.

Plus, I can't go to visit him. He's up in WYO, and I'm down in AZ. From what my mother says he's acting like he's just given up.

Anyway.... sorry to wax depressing.... It's just gotten me down.

As soon as I get procmail + razor going, I'll be back on my e-mail.... And as soon as I get off my a$$ I'll post my code I've done online ;-)

2002 Feb 23 (Sat), 15:00 Thanks

In light of my diary entry yesterday (both on my site and on my Advogato I've rec'd some very kind messages about my father and his situation. Thanks everyone.

I do want to say that my father could easily live another 10 years or so. My parents got a second opinion, and that doctor said he's seen people in my father's condition live much longer. However, the big problem is that my dad almost seems to have given up, which is the part that's the hardest for me because he's always been a fighter: someone who's never given up. It's always inspired me (in spite of the fact I've never had that sort of strength, and usually wind up wallowing in self-pity [just look through my diary archives if you doubt me ;-) And now that he's just consigned himself to his demise, it's really affected me.

I mean, I understand that for someone with his sort of spirit and vitality it is hard to suddenly be tethered to a machine everywhere he goes (when at home, he is hooked to a massive machine all the time, and when he goes out, he has to carry either a duffle-bag or a backpack with an oxygen tank in it- and can only be gone for 3-5 hours at a shot)... and I can understand why he may feel defeated... Still, it's hard.....

But I am feeling better today.... thanks to everyone who's written with their support.

Anyway, I'm still having procmail+razor problems. I think if I can't get it to work by tonight I'll just start using my geekcomix.com mail again and deal with spam like I always have. Which is rough, since I get sooo much spam. Noink2 has a module that will *hopefully* help prevent spam on my site (and on Tux4Kids, which I have massively neglected, and I'm sorry). As soon as I get my mail back up, I'll post the Noink2 code I have on Noink's site and place it in CVS so others can use it as well.

Oh, I also failed to mention that my wife is out of town this weekend. She's in Chicago visiting her brother who's the lead in a major production of "Guys and Dolls" (he's always been minor characters like "Harry the Horse" in other productions of this play, so it was great that he finally got the starring role ;-)