My two weeks of time off comes to an end this morning as I dig back into work. The break was great — we got lots of good family time, saw some good movies, visited with dear friends, played some good games, and had some excellent hikes. The pleasure and flexibility a block of employment-free time brings makes me envy the european vacation schedule; after some time off, four weeks of vacation a year seems downright civilized!

A few items of note:

• The application I’ve been building in Ruby as a learning project is coming along reasonably well. I’ve showed bits to various folks, and will be opening it up a bit wider for more people to fiddle with once I’ve got a few things cleaned up and a particularly vexing bug resolved. (Can any of you brilliant technical minds tell me why http://seanmctex.homeip.net:3000/book/search?searchTerm=dragon will load beautifully in any browser but Firefox, but Firefox takes a look at it and then pretends I didn’t ask for it? Yes, it’s fragmentary HTML — it’s part of an AJAX call. Thanks, geniuses!)
• San Marcos, the lovely city in which we live, recently discovered that the Rio Vista Dam is in danger of collapsing. The dam is one of the major recreational structures along the river, and contributes to the smooth waters that residents enjoy as the river winds its way through town. When the discovery was made that the dam had major structural issues, the immediate reaction was to restore it to its traditional state. Our friend Tom Goynes, however, championed the idea of replacing the single large dam with a series of artificial rapids down the length of the river. The city government has proven enthusiastic and has given the go-ahead for the project, so our beloved river will likely have a markedly different character by May 29, the deadline for the project’s completion. I’m pretty excited about this change, and look forward to seeing how this ambitious project turns out.
• The kids go back to school Wednesday. It’s going to be a challenge getting their circadian cycles adjusted from the “stay up for New Year’s Eve” schedule to the “wake up for school” schedule.