Day: March 12, 2005

Student: How do I learn responsibility?
Master: Teach responsibility.

It’s gorgeous outside (68° C with a light breeze and lots of sunshine) and I’ve trapped myself indoors with no consideration of playing outside, taking the kids outside or the dog to the dog park, and the mountains are simply these hills on the horizon. Days like this should be celebrated in outdoor activity and I’ve squandered mine.

I’m using the free antivirus Avast! on this computer and recently suddenly started receiving a lot of strange error messages. It comes up in red and reads:

The page cannot be displayed
There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed.

Please try the following:

    * Click the Refresh button, or try again later.
    * Open the Web site home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
    * Check your firewall settings. The Web Shield process (ashWebSv.exe) must be allowed to access the Internet.
    * If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page, please contact the Web site administrator by using the e-mail address or phone number listed on the Web site home page.

HTTP 502 – Gateway timeout
avast! Web Proxy

The proxy server did not receive a correct response from the upstream server specified by URI or the response was not understood by proxy.

Winsock: (997) Overlapped I/O operation is in progress.
GET {this is the url at the time}
Winsock: (997) Overlapped I/O operation is in progress.

I have yet to find any useful information toward resolving this issue. Seems like it goes away if I go to "On-Access Protection Control" and disable Web Shield. I didn’t even know I was using a “web proxy” on this machine. Could explain some of the sluggishness.

There is a definite zone. If you’ve ever done anything that you truly enjoy and requires intense concentration then you’ve been there. Might be mountain biking when you are rushing down the single track just a little faster than you know you should and everything is blurred in your peripheral vision and it seems like you can anticipate every rut, obsticle and jump on the trail as if you had esp. You know the ride is going to be perfect and the adrenaline rush helps make you more invincible than you already know you are. But if you slip out of The Zone you’re a smear on the trail. Just a taco’d wheel, bent fork, smashed helmet, and a bloodied road rash carrying your bike out of the woods.

Computer programming can be the same. If I can get into The Zone then I can pound out elegant computer code that reads like Pulitzer Prize winning poetry. Like anything else, finding the zone takes effort. Maintaining the zone takes concentration. I love being in The Zone. It’s frustrating when I can’t find it. Sometimes you can find it, but something pulls you out of it for just a moment, then it’s lost.

In sticking with my plan to “pound code” I awoke at 2am. Cathy lay on the left side of the bed, Molly the puppy was curled up on the foot of the bed, Amy was in the middle asleep but squirming, and I was on the right side of the bed doing a balancing act to keep from falling off. The room had a chill last night but our bed spread would keep us all warm, well, except for me because I could only cover part of my right leg as the rest of the covers had disappeared into some blackhole in the middle of the bed. Or perhaps they shrink in the night because I learned in the morning that Cathy neither had covers. I pondered over and over moving to the computer to be able to get work done. 4 hours of programming in the middle of the night is equivalent to 12 hours of coding during the day!

When it came down to making the decision I could not risk having Amy roll off the bed and I didn’t think she would stay asleep for the transfer to her own bed so I stayed in bed until the morning came and Molly had the desire to go outside (and outside she went!).