I recently watched an episode of The Bob Newhart Show where he invites his mother over to dinner. The character’s relationship with his mother was comforting to me. He loved his mother, but had trouble communicating with her. As a psychologist, he knew how to deal with people, yet he still had trouble talking with his mother. I dunno, it’s nice to know that even if you have all your shit together, you can still have trouble talking to your parents. It’s a weird dynamic to navigate, sometimes.

When it comes to TV characters, my grandmother actually reminds me of Lucille from Arrested Development. Sans the heavy drinking, of course. I think it’s sufficient to leave it at that in this public forum. But it’ll be here to remind me and make me smile one day when I re-read this.

Ugh, I made such a stupid mistake with Rails.

When I was creating my program, I had it set to use the development environment. I made sure everything was working. Then, I flipped it to production kind of rushed and I didn’t check that everything was working. Turns out, one of the tables was messed up. Oops. So, everything was working well for a while, and then, poof, it was broked.

I guess there are two lessons: 1) Make sure everything is working correctly AFTER you change to a new environment. That includes deploying to a new server. 2) Learn about testing so that I can catch these problems earlier.

I have a lot of anxiety about how sitting is supposedly slowly killing me. Honestly, I don’t get enough exercise. Ever since I started working, I have had issues with shoulder pain. Now the shoulder pain isn’t that bad, but my stomach muscles are shit.

Anyway, I rearranged my desk and I’m going to try standing up.

So I don’t die.

I embarked on a project of writing something in my journal every month to make me examine my life more. (The unexamined life… and whatnot.)

I noticed that a lot of what I wrote was really negative. It wasn’t really helping me make my life better. I do think writing is important, but I need to remember to be more positive. I think one thing that would help would be to focus on the bigger picture. I’d like to think more about what kinds of things I value and how I can live those values. It’s easy to forget what’s important when you’re so focused on day-to-day existence.

Note: It would’ve been very easy to turn this blog post into something more negative. I hope I was successful in refraining.

I used to know the bees more intimately. I’d take frequent walks around the office building, and I would just notice things. I’d look at the flowers, the bees, etc. Now there’s construction going on, so I can’t make a full circuit. Even before then, I had stopped paying attention. Maybe it was around the time I injured my stomach. I dunno.

A few days ago, I went to a Thai restaurant to get some takeout. I had nowhere else to be, so I sat there, waiting for my food. The hostess asked if I wanted any water. I said yes. (I haven’t been drinking enough water lately, but I didn’t verbalize that.) I moved from the bench to a table, so that I’d have somewhere to put my glass. Now I had a view of the window. Since I had no book or iPad, all I could do was wait. I let myself just be there. I let myself look out the window and look at the room. I noticed the artwork on the wall, the security camera on the ceiling, the plant with the thank you note.

Meditation is nice when you can close your eyes and just breathe. But you can get the same joy by — instead of forcing yourself to be productive — noticing the world around you.

The Super Bowl lacked appeal this year, for me. The game itself was good and exciting, but I didn’t care for either team. The Giants beat the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. So, I didn’t want them to win. And the Patriots are the Patriots, so I didn’t want them to win either. In previous years, I could cheer for the NFC West representative, or the underdog. I could root for one team and not care so much if they won or not. Both teams were villains to me, so I didn’t have any incentive to watch.

Well, except for gambling. Gambling and fantasy football always sweeten otherwise unwatchable games. I managed to turn $10 into $200 in an office pool. Unfortunately I didn’t get to showcase any of my skill, since the game was based on pure luck. I almost placed a prop bet on no overtime, but I didn’t get around to it.

I had friends over for a Super Soul Sunday party. We only tuned into the game before halftime. The game was playing on a tiny screen while Soul Calibur V was on my big TV. After the game, both screens were devoted to Soul Calibur V — 1 XBox screen and 1 PS3 screen. Even the girls took turns at button mashing. (Stevie almost beat me until I pulled out my patented shin kick.) One screen eventually was devoted to Character Creation, where my friends made Avatar: The Last Airbender characters. Good guy Zuko. Katara with hair loopies. A tall Aang. It was pretty cool. Next up: Game of Thrones.

At the end of the night, I settled into bed with my girlfriend. Holding her in my arms at that very moment, at the end of that very day, made that day perfect. Maybe for some people, perfection is winning a Super Bowl ring or going 16-0 or winning 8 gold medals. Maybe it’s winning money. I have some cash now from gambling. But I don’t really don’t give a shit about the money right now. No, for me, at this point in my life, I know that perfection has nothing to do with money. Some things in life are more important than others, and I think I’ve gotten a little further in figuring out what’s what.

Then again, the moment wasn’t perfectly perfect. My eyes weren’t at their best condition after staring at TV screens for so long. Whatever. It was perfect enough. I think that’s the best I can strive for.