Every once in a while work tends to heat up and becomes all encompassing. For instance yesterday I worked from 9:30am to 11:30pm. I didn't get home until midnight. I will probably have to do some more this week. I don't mind, especially since I get paid by the hour. For dinner last night I ate out of the vending machines and had popcorn, peanut butter crackers and BBQ chips. The standard programmers diet. Tonight I will probably work late as well. I think the last bought of super-programming was last year around the fourth of July. You might check my blog all the way back then.I think though it got so tedious I ended up counting how many If statements I will write in my life. I think it turned out to be 132,000 Ifs. That was pretty close to burnout. Actually now that I think about it my last marathon was for the interview with Earnst and Young. I remember doing coding marathons even at the age of 10 years old. I was writing some monster mystery game for the Apple IIe in the summer and would wake up and program and be programming until the end of the day, with bouts of TV thrown in there and a little dose of insanity. In college I had those times where I would procrastinate with a programming assignment and have to get it all done. In my C++ class we had an assignment to write a compiler for a language that the professor had written. I went on a coding bing at that time and worked for 36 hours straight without sleeping. I had a steady stream of Dr.Pepper, Cigarettes and the Beatles white album and Jimi Hendrix's experience. Ah, good times. I got a 100 on that assignment and that was when I knew that I could do anything on a computer, but alas I got an F in the class. I fell asleep on the final. My head hit the keyboard and that incident propelled me into Management Information Systems. In the long run it was for the best. I am still coding and work with CS people all of the time, sometimes teaching them. It was just another path to the same destination. This coding binge I am listening to my MP3's and taking my shoes off. Last night the lights got turned off around 7 so there I was coding in the dark. It gave it a feeling of ambiance. Our project needs to be finished by Monday, so we shall see what happens. I think I'll finish way before then though. It reminds me of a joke I just made up. "Why did the programmer cross the road?" "If he did then he did else he didn't."

Thought of the Day
Nigan: He does fit the profile perfectly. He's intelligent, but an under-achiever; alienated from his parents; has few friends. Classic case for recruitment by the Soviets.
-- Wargames