Just a quick note since I've started getting query emails:I'm alive. Just really busy. The French toast recipe is nothing short of stupendous (I believe the quote was "All other French toast recipes are dead to me now") albeit I think it needs a little bit of cinnamon and maybe some pecans … all the chicks have flown or driven back off to their respective nests, and what remains is code.

I've held off posting this recipe because it's reverse-engineered from a non-public recipe either created or modified by someone I know. This is how I make the drink tech staffers know as 'apple pie.'

I won't even bother telling you about the chunk of code that provoked this entry, but I will tell you that it's only 14 lines long. I've known since last night that it was the source of the truly evil and cyclical timezone-related bug in the new check-in system for techops, but I didn't know how to fix it. Not without hard-coding in dates, anyway (a massive no-no since the dates for dragon*con change every year).A friend, who shall remain nameless, was a generally cheerful IM companion all through my attempts to sort out the mess.

All stories aside from this past week (a massive website upgrade, a pulled hamstring, and How I Got Out Of Jury Duty) here's what's on my mind: breakfast at the geekfarm a week from today.There will be a few stragglers staying on past Sunday. I feel this growing urge to stage a geek feeding. Jody was kind enough to point me to this recipe from epicurious.com. I am rapidly beginning to suspect that while this bread is neither French nor toast, it is nevertheless a moral imperative that I make it.

So, I thought, now that I've done these other chores, I should consider tidying up the coffee table. An excellent idea, in theory; while short of a full cleaning, it would at least put the little piles back in reasonable order and make it appear that we are far tidier than, in fact, we actually are.

Except I did not expect to incur the wrath of the dervish Tenzing, who leapt upon the table with alacrity, snapping eyes, and swishing tail. What happened next can only be described from his point of view, which I immediately wrote down and sent to some friends:

Ever written in a book? 
Was it yours?

Twice this month I've encountered books that show evidence of previous borrowers.  While this goes contrary to my childhood canon of Thou Shalt Not Deface Public Library Books With Your Childish Mumblings So Put That Pen Away, Kid, in both cases I've been amused and a little delighted to find tangible examples that these books have known the touch of other hands.