I'm not sure if I came up with this word, or if one of my friends did, but we have universally adopted it and I think we need to share it with others. I show no results for it on Google, which makes it very likely that one of us really did make it up, but I don't know who gets the credit or blame.

check-ninja


v. check-ninja'd, check-ninja·ing, check-ninja·s

The tickets are booked. I will disappear for a little while in late July, and I would be lying if I did not say that the nighttime pathways of my mind have taken me more than once down the thought of sand between my toes. It's peace and quiet I'm after, both for myself and for the friend who is kind enough to host me, but there is yet much work to do before I can board that plane without undone tasks.I am the sort that is good for crusades; when it comes to code I am more stolid than gifted, as Gareth and several other true coders, whom I count among my friends, can attest.

Taking a break from my unofficial hiatus due to code work…

Courtesy of Chris Petrilli, I present to you Ministry Script.

'Alejandro Paul designed Ministry Script to be "A time capsule that marks both the American ad art of the 1920s, and the current new-millennium acrobatics of digital type." The idea was to make as many possible variants of each letter as he could possibly handle.'

"Well, I think about friends in the back of my mind
Are they still just kids frozen in time
The mirror won't lie as the days fly by
Are they all no better off than I?"
—Sugarbomb, "What a Drag"

Rechecking my rig
by domesticat.
[me resting at the top of Licklog Mountain (peak #2 of the day)]

From wikipedia:

• Class 1: Hiking.
• Class 2: Simple scrambling, with possible occasional use of the hands.
• Class 3: Scrambling, a rope can be carried but is usually not required.
• Class 4: Simple climbing, with exposure. A rope is often used. Natural protection can be easily found. Falls may well be fatal.
• Class 5: Technical free climbing. Climbing involves rope, belaying, and other protection hardware for safety.

I asked myself on the way home: would I have done this if I had known what I know now?

Yes, yes, absolutely yes.

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.