Life goes on

Ok, so I've been tagged about why I haven't posted for about a week. Well, the truth is, I've been busy.

So since people seem to care, here's a rundown of what I've done:

1. I've been working, of course. And work is getting way better. I suddenly started to make progress, and for the first time in about 8 months, I actually believe I'm going to get the project I'm working on finished. Probably not on time, but not so late it'll make a huge difference.
   
2. We went to H&R Block and got our income taxes for 2006 almost done. Almost: there are a couple things we forgot to take to the office, and there is a little research our tax person there has to do. But the thing is, I get a refund this year! And it's going to get bigger as we wrap up the last couple items. We already got all the bad news out of the way, so that made me very happy! After all the money I paid the IRS in estimated payments through 2006, it's about time they give me something back. I still need to make some adjustments for 2007, though. I paid way too much, and there are a number of ways to reduce that (legally, of course!), like putting more into my SEP, etc.
3. I've been reading: some of my new books (especially FER vol. 7) and my Bible. I'm almost done Acts now on my great ESV Reading Project. I want to get through this Bible so I can do the same on my new NASB. Not to rush things, but I've already decided ESV isn't my translation of choice, so I want to try the next one. The thing is, I am determined to actually read each translation I try cover to cover, so I can make an intelligent decision on whether to use it.
4. I got some new books for work: Java Concurrency in Practice (Goetz et al.), and Practical OCaml (Smith).
5. I've been trying to really learn concurrent programming. I've been working mainly in Common Lisp (thankful---oh so thankful---for the Portable-Threads library ) and in Java 6. I would have done it all in Java 6, but my Linux laptop doesn't have very good battery life (HP ain't Apple!), and my iBook is old (it's a 2002 G3, I mean c'mon!) and strains under Java (especially since I prefer to work in NetBeans ). So I've been using Emacs + SLIME to work on the iBook.  That means, model it all in Lisp.
   
6. I've been discussing a possible start-up with my wife. I'm not thinking about something to sink a lot of time and money into: just a small moonlighting gig to generate some residual income. If I could make $30k after expenses, I would be happy with it. If we ever decide to go ahead, I'll be sure to post the news here. We're still trying to find the right idea to pursue; but a close friend and I have been thinking about this one for a while, and there might be some good stuff coming out of this soon.
   
7. I've posted a few thing on my other blog.

Now, today starts a new project (although I doubt I'll get any progress made today). I intend to fit out my cheap grill (Charbroil Santa Fe ) for slow-cooking. I'll line it with unglazed ceramic tile and maybe some high-temperature grout. That'll make it a decent heat sink.I cooked three pork shoulders and two chickens last weekend, and realized with a shock that I hate cooking on my offset smoker. So rather than getting rid of my cheaper grill, I'll try to get rid of my smoker, keeping my two grills. I'll leave my stainless steel one as is, but I'll modify my Santa Fe with extra mass, etc. to make it ideal for low-temperature cooking. I'll try and take pictures to post here.

So that's my life of late. Not terribly interesting to anyone but me, I'm afraid.