After work today, Zan Lynx and I conspired to meet the other LUG members for the standard pre-BLUG dinner the Dark Horse. I left first since I needed to make an ATM stop on the way, and found the Dark Horse packed with people, and humungous lines for food (totally unlike the previous occassion we went there, when it was mostly empty). I hailed Zan Lynx on the cell and advised him of the situation, and my intent to eat elsewhere. We opted to meet at Taco Bell as a worthy alternative.

As we ate a good meal (which for me, consisted of pizza to follow up the nachos), the snow began its massive assault on the city.

At LUG, the talk was given by one of the developers of autoconf (and/or automake?), and he talked about the various tools useful for easing building of software packages and Makefiles. autoconf, automake, libtool, etc. A highly informative talk, which provided a good deal of history, as well as an instruction on to how to begin use of these mighty tools.

There was an unusually generous volume of door prizes, including several O'Reilly books, a gift certificate to SoftPro, and KRUD cds. The prizes were distributed in a "first draw, first choice" style. Amazingly, a guy sitting to the right of me in our row won a prize. He then drew my name, at which point I choose the "Ruby in a Nutshell" book. (I'm due for another language to add to my vocabulary, and Ruby looks just interesting enough to investigate.) I drew a ticket, which turned out to be Zan Lynx's number. So he got an O'Reilly book about implementing large scale LANs. (Three people, in sequence, sitting in the same row. What are the odds?)

After the LUG, Zan Lynx and I decided we were in the mood for our sub-group's traditional coffee house after BLUG, so we journied to Buchannan's in Zan Lynx's vehicle. Parking was great fun. Hah!

Zan Lynx ordered black coffee with a spot of whipped cream on top. This combination greatly amused the guy behind the counter. I don't know why, but this sounded strangely appealing to me, so I ordered one just like it, complete with the inadvisable dose of caffeine in the evening on a work night.

We sat in the coffeehouse discussing various programming ideas, projects, and computer history. Typical festing.org geek conversation. A good thing.

With the mean friction coefficient on the roads decreasing, Zan Lynx drove me back to Tobias and helped wipe off the snow. The journey home began.

I spotted two significant accidents on I-36 on the way home. One was a pickup truck planted into the median barrier at a 90 degree angle (presumably, it had gone into a spin before hitting). The other was equally bizarre. Two SUV's, one with the front smashed up (I didn't get a good look at the other). The smashed one was facing completly opposite the direction of traffic, but it was most certainly in the eastbound lane. Must've been another sliding tailspin victim.

I drove with caution, though Tobias's confidence in snow has grown immensely over time, as he nears his second birthday. Found some great music on the radio, and cranked it loud.

Now I have arrived home, and am sitting safely in front of Argo. My nerves are overcranked to the max, due in part, I'm sure, to the sudden injection of concentrated caffeine into the bloodstream, and in part to the way this music from the newly annointed Princess of Pop demands to be played at an excessive volume. Not ask nicely, or merely suggest, but demand.

<JarJarSpeak>
"How wude!"
</JarJarSpeak>

What can I do but comply?

I'm sure I'll get sleepy and go to bed. Eventually. (My brain clock seems to be about 48 hours ahead of schedule. Oh well.)