time for a new look

Well, for the blog anyway.

Actually, it was sort of spurred, in a strange way, by James recent post of walking through his front door for the first time in 30 days. For some people, that would mean that they’d be undergoing some form of (de)construction, and had been entering their abode through a window, back door, or some other interesting means. But not this time – he’s clearly been a mad-driven travelling road hound.

I read the entry aloud to Karen, and her response was “wow..” One the big events that James attended was Burning Man, something that Karen has been itching to head towards for the past couple of years. Heh, it wasn’t going to happen this year though. Not with the summer visitors and a deadline for the final show of a 2 year long design class looming.

My first reaction to all the experiences that James wrote about was unalloyed envy. Which, I’m quite sure, is completely not what I should be feeling. If that had been me in that situation, I’d be ready to dive under the bed and go completely introvert for nearly a week. Just shove pizza under the door, thank you very much. There is still the information junkie/experiential hedonist in me that is saying “Yeah, but it sounds fun.. doesn’t it sound cool? Think of all those great conversations you could have been having…”.

I’ve been heavily focused on a single project for the past months – well, nearly the past year. It’s the kind of thing that really has required a deep dive to really work it. That in and of itself is pretty darned unusual for me – but I’ve been focused on this critter for quite a while, and while the results aren’t available to see, it has been a very productive time.

The down side is that while I’ve made it to a few conferences (WWDC and OSCON 2006) earlier this summer, I have been living mostly in my head. Karen and I have our wedding anniversary coming up fairly soon, which will include a vacation that I expect will quite fully unplug me and drop me down into the physical again – at least for a few weeks. That upcoming vacation has led to getting some nice clothes for dinners – and in which I was sort of shell shocked (I really dislike shopping for clothes) by finding myself in this completely non-shorts/jeans and t-shirt look for the better part of the afternoon and last Friday evening.

So what do I do when I come home? I read James entry; it catalyzes the “time for a change…” meme that has been lurking around me; I pick the simplist possible thing in the world to change – the look of my blog. Yep, I just grabbed another template out of the pile and slapped it into place. Kind of like changing clothes, only a hell of a lot easier.