Damien Katz

My blog sucks

My blog sucks. I hardly ever post any new content, and most of the stuff I do post is just links. It didn't used to suck this bad. I start lots of posts that I never complete. I think I'm just sort of mentally blocked up because I have things that I can't blog about.

One of those things is a patent lawsuit I'm involved in (don't worry, I'm not a litigant). It's an ongoing case, so I definitely can't write about it right now. But even when it's over I may never be able to write anything about it, which is too bad because it's quite interesting.

The other thing is a big project that I'm about to begin. It's a really good project for me in a number of ways, but I can't tell you about it yet, I've been asked to be discrete. So I'm being discrete. But eventually I can write about it.

Anyway, things are going really well right now, I'm very happy with how well my whole experiment is going. When my wife and I decided to go on this crazy adventure, I assumed we would hit hard, troubling times. I felt like I was looking upon my dreams that existed on the other side of a deep chasm, and the only way to get there would be to plunge into the depths and hopefully find my way to the other side. So we took the plunge, but some reason we didn't fall. Instead it's like we found some invisible bridge to the other side. We are still aren't across the chasm, but we at least we feel a lot more secure about our direction and the eventual outcome.

Enough metaphor. Let's do simile.

Of course not all is good. One problem is I feel very isolated here in Charlotte. Remember that little boy who likes trucks? You know, that little kid who won't stop talking about trucks, everything is about trucks? Pickup trucks, dump trucks, military trucks, big rig trucks, toy trucks, cartoon trucks. Books about trucks, movies about trucks, shows about trucks. Truck posters, truck notebooks, truck pencil holders. Hey! Did you just see that truck? ENOUGH WITH THE TRUCKS!

Well, I'm that little boy, and for me it's making software. I obsess on it. So often I'm staring into space just thinking about code. Thinking about designs, thinking about idioms, thinking about clarity, thinking about reliability, thinking about it like it's a big machine with clanging and whirring parts and trying to reduce the friction so it runs a little faster, a little quieter, a little smoother.

So here I am obsessing about software as is my wont, and I feel like the people who really understand that part of me are a million miles away. Unlike the little boy with the trucks, I realize few people share my obsession to my degree. That changed when I started working at Iris, I felt for the first time like I was with people who really understood, who were like me, who shared this silly diversion. I made so many friends there. People with the same burning desires, same way of seeing things, same goofy obsession. People I made a real connection with.

And now I feel lonely, isolated. I feel like I need to return to people who understand. And when I see them, I'll say "Meep!", and they'll respond "Meep moop meep!" and then happy music plays and we'll run about laughing and dancing badly. Some day it will happen, I can't go it alone forever.

But for now I'm committed to development of CouchDb. I want to see it all working, I want to hearing the whirring and clanging and witness my creation alive. Once I get it there, then I'll see where I can go with it. Maybe I can turn it into a full time job somewhere really neat and continue building my whole Couch vision. I'm sorry I haven't been writing much about it, but it's because my thinking on it keeps changing and I feel like a flake saying one thing and then changing my mind about it later. So I'm keeping it to myself for a while. But I will say CouchDb is going to be cool, dammit.

Really I'd like to post more technical stuff in general, but the problem is I find it very hard to write about. I think the reason is, much of what I do resides in a place in my brain that doesn't really speak english, it only speaks code and dorkinese. So when I try to translate the really interesting stuff into english, I often feel like I'm butchering the subject matter, like it deserves better than my disorganized ramblings. I think it's because I'm missing -- what's that word? -- oh yeah, talent. I haven't enough writing talent to say what I want to say.

Anyway, talent aside, I hope to make my blog suck less. Maybe just by writing about how I have things I can't write about will help unblock me. I actually feel better already.

Posted September 24, 2005 6:19 PM