So last week I flew out to Seattle for one of my regular visits.[1] Lots of good work-stuff was done, and as has been mentioned elsewhere at least one adventure was had on the ground.

Getting on the ground was probably the biggest adventure. See, we were flying right into the snowstorm that hit that weekend. The majority of the flight was uninteresting – I read a WH40K novel while the in-flight movie (Moneyball – not too bad) played in my new Skullcandy Hesh Headphones[2], but the landing into SEATAC, in the middle of a snowstorm – it was exciting. Exciting in the “re-evaluate your life and do you have anything you should have done before you died because, well, shit this might be it instrument landing roller-coaster with applause and cheers when we finally touched down” kind of landing.

It’s amazing what you think in that moment. And the fact that, life has been pretty good of late, and that maybe there is *ONE* thing you should have done, an it’ll be a lot of work, but hell, you can fix that and it’s not really that big a deal…

…except maybe it is, and oh my that’s going to take a lot of work, so you better get to it, my boy.

And then you’re on the ground and it’s all OK, and maybe, just maybe it wasn’t that big a deal.

Or was it?

[1] I’m REALLY sorry I/we didn’t have time to hang out with anyone this trip, but work and weather pretty much ate my life this trip.
[2] I’m a Skullcandy fanboy now. I bought a pair of Skullcandy Smokin’ Buds a few years back based purely on the logo design and my need for earbuds. I had no idea who they were, I just knew they were on sale and looked neat. It turned out that they sounded FANTASTIC. So I bought another set when I needed some iPhone earbuds that didn’t cost an arm and a leg, and when THOSE sounded fantastic, I was hooked.

I saw this on a friend’s journal, and figured it made for an interesting look back. And so :

- Pittsboro, NC (naturally)
- Williamsburg, VA
- New Orleans, LA
- Orlando, FL (two locations, one trip)
- Chicago, Il
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Bellevue, WA (three different trips)

Many thanks to the awesome people we got to meet and hang out with in all of those fine places. I’ll have a list of when and where Ursula (and I) will be in 2012 (that we know of so far) later today.

2011 was a fun ride, for the most part – good company, good travel, good gaming, good friends, and a good job all sort of blend together into what is qualified as, I think, a good year. 2012 started with good friends, so I’m hoping that sets the tone.

I’m pretty sure we have more of the same in store for 2012, so I’m cautiously optimistic about this one. Later this year will mark the 4the anniversary of Ursula and I starting to go out, followed by the fourth anniversary of her moving in. Four amazing years, all of which have their ups, downs, and wibbly-wobbly bits[1], but all have been on a generally “upward” trend. I couldn’t have done it without her – or you – my friends, readers, and listeners.

Here’s my wish for 2012 – that it is better than 2011, and that we all be able to find (more) happiness in it.

[1] I blame her for my new vocabulary.

As many of you might have seen (or heard), Google Reader recently got “updated” to a new UI and backend. It now talks to Google+ (good) but stripped out almost all the features that the hardcore reader users like myself actually USED – the friends feeds, public sharing options, the Next/Previous Buttons, and the really nice navigation sidebar that would show the read/unread feeds, folders & tags, & etc.

If you’ve been watching the social networks, you may have also seen how the users reacted : badly. And to top it off, both Google and several commentators have basically taken the stance that we should suck it up and deal.

Since the web UI has taken out everything I used and liked (and then dumbed it down to an interface that is barely equivalent to the old mobile view), I started looking at standalone apps that I could use instead.

What I was looking for :
- The ability to use Google Reader as a “sync point” – that is JUST to save read/unread marks and the feed list.
- In not using Google Reader as a sync point, some kind of Sync function
- iOS, Windows, Mac, and Linux support

Turns out there is no single RSS reader that does this. What I’ve done is try to find what works best for me on each platform. Here is what I’m using now. All of these sync to Google Reader, so when I switch platforms, my read/unread and subscriptions carry over. Additionally, all of these are FREE (or free with ads and a paid ad-free version).

- iOS : Perfect RSS (free with ads, paid without). May people recommended Reeder, but I like the UI for it better
- Linux : OwlRSS (free). It’s based on Eclipse, and supposedly runs on OSX, Linux, and Windows. On OSX it was dreadful, but on Linux it kicks ASS.
- Windows : OwlRSS again. I’m surprised that this app runs so well on Linux and Windows, and blows on my OSX Lion machine.
- OSX : NetNewsWire (free with ads) which has been the standard on OSX for several years.

There are also some apps that I tried and felt were dreadful in handling RSS :
- Thunderbird
- Mail.app
- Outlook

Seriously guys, RSS support feels bolted onto these apps, and each assumes you read your feeds in that app and ONLY that app. Plus the disk usage and caching used in all of them will KILL performance if you have more than about 10 feeds that update a LOT.

So that’s what I’m doing, and I’m interested in hearing what other people are doing.

I understand the new gMail Look & Feel is not a happy thing either, but I use desktop/phone clients for that these days.[1]

[1] I’d go back to running my own mail server, but gMail does have damn good spam handling…

So last night I hauled my ass to Raleigh to catch Spider Lilies at Shakedown Street as part of SIGNAL 2011.

And it was awesome.

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