Jonas Beckman

I had Lomi-lomi massage again today. It’s been a while and it’s still fantastic!

I had planned to relax afterwards – do my laundry and perhaps take a nap. But when I checked my phone I had more work (another intense remote debugging session), some unpleasant old business and some sad personal stuff to deal with. So I dealt.

Well, now it’s evening and I am very tired… but smiling again. I feel yesterday’s swimming and today’s massage with more than my body.

Time for something to eat – maybe sushi?

Met two deadlines today: one very early this morning, the other one after lunch. Everything went well. Now I’ll just try to wind down.

Soon. But not yet. One customer calls and has problems writing VB6 code to parse some Unicode. It’s doubtful if it really is my problem and I loathe VB6… but of course I try to help him through anyway.

My lawyer calls in the middle of this – I make a quick and perhaps important decision.

Then I struggle on until the customer call it quits and says he’ll call tomorrow. It is now half past nine. I start thinking about other things again.

Sometimes when you work at home the day doesn’t really start until someone calls. And if you keep the phone off that can take a while. Today there weren’t many calls even after I turned it on.

Sweden is a long dark tunnel this time of the year. But I don’t care – I’ve made it through worse winters than this one. Sometimes all this keeping the faith gets to me, though… what am I waiting for?

And then I breathe deeply and find it again. There is nothing to wait for. Everything is here. And sometimes I share it with someone and sometimes I don’t.

Enough work. I’m off for an evening run. It’s rainy but not too cold – it might be good running weather.

I love running on the edges of the city at night. Rainy bridges, highways, forest tracks and back streets… endorfin!

Yesterday my current employer celebrated five years as a company: we had an amazing sea food buffet down at the office. Excellent food & wine and a very relaxed atmosphere, too. Few of us have long certain gigs anymore, but most still work – in fact, we even hired a new consultant recently.

Then I slept well, despite strange dreams. And today it’s pool-time!

Maybe I should make a slower animation for days like this I had a slight cold and no real power in the water. But I enjoyed it anyway.

Now I’m off to a party: an old friend just moved to a fantastic apartment not too far from me.

Had a very long talk with an old friend yesterday after swim practice. The condensed version goes like this:

Me (trying to make sense): What if? Perhaps? Maybe? I don’t know!
She: You have reasons to worry, most of which are not under your control. You must choose what you want to do anyway.
Me: I know and I already have. But I am tired and scared today.
She: That’s human.

Today I feel better. And we were not talking about work, anyway. Right now my world if full of warm and comforting things like a C# crib sheet and lots of XML character encodings.

It may be impossible to design a program that can do the right thing to all data from all sources. However, most application process the same data from the same sources over and over again. With an understanding of the problem, a little custom configuration, and some testing after each new source is introduced, it should be possible to develop a solution to any real- world requirement.

I am about to find out if this is true…

Update: at least it wasn’t false. We found a working solution just before the weekend. I’m off to dinner now!

OK. A little more rested today. But I still feel bad – I need at least one more night of really good sleep.

A reintroduction to XML with an emphasis on character encoding

XML vs. HTTP – issues affecting safe transport. Technical. Sending arbitrary XML documents over networks is not that easy. Yesterday, I struggled with one of the bad alternatives described here.

The Saddameter: what are the odds for war?

I’ll think some positive thoughts for garret and sandra today.

I recently made an appointment with an habitual liar who says things are changing now but won’t go into detail. Reminded me of a song: Don’t ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies…

A long time ago I was given some stuff to take care of my feet. I still use it, just did. Thanks! Small things count.

Work is slow today but I don’t mind. And tonight it’s swim practice again – the coach promised me lots of kicking excercises this time. Which hurts but is good for my speed. Alright, let’s do it!

Kicking against underwater jet streams is hard. But I AM getting faster. Funtime! It’s strange how much better everything feels once I get back in the water.