I'm back from Vegas. There is, of course, much to report, but you'll just have to wait. No, we didn't get married. Oh, but that's an important point: The Pennsylvania wedding will be August 18, not 25.

Fred, it occurs to me that I probably haven't informally invited you yet. That's not deliberate; I'm just flakey. No official invites have been sent yet (which is good, since we just changed the date yesterday). So, August 18, 2pm, in Nazareth, PA, which is near Allentown. Anyone who's flying should attempt to arrive at ABE (Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton), which changed its name to LVI (Lehigh Valley International) but can't get the travel agents and the airlines to acknowledge the change. Is there anyone else I haven't mentioned this to? Let me know, so I can get an accurate head-count. (This list has the potential to expand exponentially. Gad, weddings are tough. I'm only doing this once. ...er, well, okay, twice: once in PA and once in TX. But then, that's it.)

I am so there already. I can't wait to leave for Vegas. I've just got a few keep-the-lights-on-while-I'm-gone items at work, and it's rather hard to focus on them. I'm ready to be on a plane (except for having all our ICP stuff and website ready and packing).

...So, have I offended everyone such that you're not reading anymore, or does my audience just not care a whole lot about reproductive freedom rights?

I'm still waiting for the fall-out, y'know? But, darnit, it's my blog (just like it's my body). So, basically, if you disagree with me on issues of reproductive freedom, I don't particularly want to hear about it, to be perfectly honest. In general, I enjoy debate, and I appreciate your feedback and your arguments. It's good for me to have my ideas called on the carpet now and again. But when it comes to this particular aspect of personal freedom, no one seems capable of actually debating it. It is an argument of religion and morality, and those issues do not function in the realm of debate. They are personal convictions, and no amount of posturing will convince either side to take the views of the other.

So really. Save it. My eternal soul is just fine.

Now, if you can give me an argument for why abortion should be illegal that never uses the words "murder" or "wrong" (and sure as heck not "morally"), then I'm curious.

<soapbox>

If you want to see Sharon yell and get all red in the face, tell her that you support legislated violation of her body. In other words, vocally subscribe to positions held by the Anti-Choice movement, the professional medical community at large, or insurance companies.

Why is this on my mind right now? I happened to click on a blog in Blogger's "recently updated" list because it had an interesting name ("Cheating Death Once Again") and read Lola's post of things she's learned while working at Planned Parenthood. Yes, go there. Read that.

Now, before the hate-mail starts pouring in, please allow me to explain that I am pro life. I mean, duh—who isn't? Only a sociopath. However, while I value human life (and all life. I'm a pagan, after all.), two other drives trump that one. First, I want to live in a world where there are no unwanted children, where no child has to grow up neglected, malnurished, addicted to drugs, or resented. A big part of that is education, a closer bond between parents and teens, an emphasis on loving families (not man-woman-lotsababies families. Just loving ones.), and ready access to contraception. The other part, though, is the right to treat my body as an extension of myself, as my body. (Y'know, we'd have fewer unwanted babies if we cut off your penises. Would that be alright with you? No? I can't see why not...) And the second drive that seats me in the Pro-Choice camp is a healthy fear of my government. Let us never forget that in the Constitution, the States granted rights to the Feds and asserted that anything left unsaid was then reserved for the States. And please, we don't really want the Federal Government permitted to legislate our morality, do we? Really? So Bill Clinton could teach your sons about fidelity?

No, I thought not.

</soapbox>

Giddy with my own power

Holy cow. Okay, so I'm trying to develop an enhancement to an application that needs too many bug fixes to allow me to develop on it. I finally wrote an email to my business partner (the customer, representing the users), the program manager (tracker of projects and resources (like, me)), and my manager, laying out the state of the app when I came on the scene (CYA, since it was broken when I got here) and asking for a prioritization decision: Build the enhancement or fix the bugs; pick one.

Then I hid under my desk.

But my business partner, who is clearly the most reasonable person on the planet, decided to go with my third proposal: Stop this nonsense and build the thing right in the first place.

Let me just state that again for clarity: Take the time to do it right.

I did a Snoopy-dance and then sat down to sass out how long that would take. I get to first define all the steps, and then, then, decide how long those steps should take. I'm in programmer heaven.

Hey, Tameka (and anybody else). You can add comments to a post by clicking on the little spiders at the bottom of the post in question. Go on, say sumthin'.

Gee, I must be naive. Here, I thought, to get married, a girl just needed to find herself one man. Sigh...

And now... back to the continuing adventures of Useless Girl

Ever have one of those days when you just can't focus? I'd been in high-stress overdrive all last week (hence, no posts), but I got the work done and eased the next deadline. I still have an unaccomplishable amount of work to do, and I think that's what's keeping me from focusing.

I'm having more adventures with PHP and MySQL. I'm creating a wedding registry app (for my own wedding, of course. Somehow, I've convinced myself that hand-calligraphying all the invitations is ridiculous, yet I feel compelled to write a multi-tier web app. Welcome to my insanity.), and I've created most of the database tables and populated some of them. It's fun, though I have to learn more PHP before I can make it actually do anything. At work, I haven't gotten to make an app from scratch, so this is both good practice and excellent resume fodder.

Invisible City is takin' it on the road next week: We're going to Vegas! The GAMA Trade Show is a gaming industry convention for Anybody Who's Anybody in game manufacturing. We're gonna hand out business cards, distribute the meme, and learn how to talk the lingo.

And who knows? We might go visit an Elvis chapel...

Alrighty, I acknowledge it's time to get a new poll up. Based on responses to my Valentine's Day poll, I have concluded that the majority of my readers are gettin' some. Ten out of 18 indicated that Valentine's Day means to them chocolate and smooches (woo hoo!). After that, the cynics outweighed the free-lovers, three to one. ("VD Day, right..." got two votes and "Fabricated by retailers" got four, while only two opted for "Let's hug everybody today!")

So, let's pick something less timely this time, so I can leave it up longer before it gets so obviously stale.

Everyone should have the chance to make a difference in a little kid's life—especially about reading. I love tutoring my little friend! I highly recommend this kind of volunteer work. I've found reading programs through the library and through a local elementary school. You might ask at church, too.

Go out. Read to small people. Feel warm and fuzzy. Justify your education!

Best kept secret: Goodwill has big shoes! I got the sassiest pair of strappy blue heels. They are totally Modacious. They are killing my feet and spine, but, dammit, they look good.

So I watched President Bush's address to congress on Tuesday (since it pre-empted Dark Angel). Along with being shocked that he would make my argument so eloquently for me—by associating his tax cut plan with Reagan's—I was struck by a sudden realization: This would be the result if Odo impersonated the First President Bush.

It made it hard to listen to much else. How 'bout those neon "Applause" and "Boo" signs on the front of the stage, eh?

Politics. Sheesh.