Location: Minneapolis, MN
Soundtrack: "The Current" (Minnesota Public Radio 89.3).
One thing I love about Minnesota is the way that in a single summer week you can experience the various different weather patterns associated with an entire year in Los Angeles or even Arcata: Hot and sunny (although you rarely get as dry in MN as in Calif), overcast, fog, rain and high 50's. Last two days have been some of the latter – slate gray sky, rain on and off, 56 degrees.
So, that's weather. I was driving south on 35W across the Minnesota River yesterday, under that slate sky, and absorbing the incredibly lush greenery of the Minnesota valley, and was struck by an odd memory of a similar vista, years ago, coming down out of Tehuantepec into Villahermosa, Tabasco. Different climate, but so similar in some ways – at least this time of year.
Speaking of vistas, I'm hating Microsoft's Windows Vista enough that I've decided to try Linux on my brand new Vaio laptop. This means hosing the factory-original OS install (as I've been learning!), and this undertaking has already had, and will continue to have, its major frustrations, but I'm committed at this point, and will be transferring my main functions – email, document editing, etc., to the Ubuntu Linux platform. I will retain Vista for some multimedia functions – if I can get it so I'm happy with it at all. What's with that weird new Vista bootloader, anyway? – what a piece of obfuscated crap! And I may try for a triple-boot system, with Windows Server 2003 for my development work (e.g. website, etc. ), as I hate to have to try to get Mono (an ASP.NET compatible Linux hosting/development environment) working under Linux right now. My website may have to just stagnate for a while.
Sorry for delay in new posts, here. After getting back from my long road trip, I went into a bit of dormancy, obsessing over all the preparations I need to do for my move to Korea, and sort of bemusedly gazing at the immense amount of STUFF I own that needs to get put into storage.
Oh I love the rain, the overcast skies. Happy Minnesota. And, remembering Korea, I know I'll get plenty of that there, too! And some delicious, Siberian, intensely cold winters as well, though those tend to be drier than Minnesota's.