I get really bored in my Monday meetings. Today I made some little cave man paintings on my release candidates sheet and took pictures with my iPhone.

I’m nervous. It’s only my first night out after all. I sit in the bat cave and stare at the 620″ screen in front of me. Just a Linux prompt for now. The cursor patiently blinking back at me. Calmly waiting for my command.

I fiddle with the control knob for one of the city’s street cameras.

“22 10, 22 10″ the police scanner blirps to life “10th and Broadway.”

The display to my left transcribes the words in cool green and behind me the tape deck spins to life recording every word. Bright white translation appears below the police code, “Routine traffic stop”. Some idle chit-chat back and forth between the dispatcher and the officer and the driver is sent on their way.

Things don’t normally heat up until about 1am. It’s only 11pm. I haven’t even put on the Bat Suit yet. I don’t want to put it on too soon. Sort of daring someone to do something so I can use it. It’s my first run. I guess I don’t even know if there will be a run. I haven’t decided if I should put it on before I hear something come over the scanner or not. Something serious enough for me to actually go out only happens about once a week according to Alfred.

He’s been monitoring the lines for the past three months. Recording data. Testing out the systems. Logging bugs for me to patch. I had to learn C++ in order to write all the programs to run this beast. Took me six months to get it all going. If it weren’t for Linux I’d still be hacking together the basic framework for the most rudimentary shell of my shiny new eye in the sky.

“Tea sir?” Alfred asks as the doors to the elevator close behind him and he enters the room. “I find it helps clear my head, what with all these humming monstrosities chirping away in this echoey old dungeon.”

“Thanks Alfred. No caffeine though…”

I sit back in my chair, and sip on the tea. Chamomile. Interesting choice. I would have chosen raspberry, but it’s hot and that’s all that matters. It was hell putting in the de-humidifiers for this beast. This cave is so dank, I was afraid it wouldn’t be good. Luckily I don’t have to worry about it over-heating since it’s constantly cold down here.

Hrm… I should come up with a name for this thing. It’s a monster. I’m Batman, so it should be… the Batmonster? Bat Mainframe? Batframe? Batachine? Bataputer? Batputer? Booter? Ba-

“4 11! 4 11!” A scared voice rings out over the scanner.

I know without looking, robbery in progress, shots fired, officer down. Probably going to be a high-speed chase. This is it!

Crap! I’m not in my suit!

I leap to my feet, chair goes flying off behind me into the darkness– and over the edge of the chasm 20 feet behind me, down into the depths of the cave splashing 150 feet below into a subterranian lake. CRAP. I KNEW I should have put in that railing…

I go bounding off towards the dressing room (batressing room?) tearing off my shirt as I go. I kick off my shoes and fight with my jeans as they get caught around my ankles.

Calm down.

I pull on the pants of the costume (Bat-ostume? Batsume? Hrmm… Bat Suit!) Erm… A bit tighter than I remembered. Am I going to look like a big gay idiot? Everyone’s going to laugh at me. I’m in skin tight pants. I might as well be naked. Is some big spandex guy trying to dress up like a bat really going to scare anyone?

Too late to think about that now, this is a serious situation. Plus I look awesome. I’m ripped like Arnold. I’m covered in spikes, and man look a that cape! The way it swishes when I move! Plus no one is going to see me long enough to notice anything other the fact that they just got punched in the face by a giant bat-dude.

Bah! Stupid gloves… Gotta remember, belt THEN gloves. This clasp is a pain. The fabric keeps getting pinched when I try and fasten it…

GO!

I run back to my car (Bat car? Bat wheels?) and jump in the open top, which slides sweetly shut over my head (watch the ears) and clicks closed with a satisfying sound (ka-CHINK!).

Press the big shiny red button, and everything jumps to life. The text of the police logs scrolling quickly fast and I can only barely keep up. My GPS blinks on and Alfred has already primed it with the details. The obligitory british woman’s voice serenely narrating my directions to me, estimating my arrival time at 20 minutes. It will all be over by then. I’ll drive really fast, like… 150mph… maybe more. I’ll get there in time…

I don’t. I get stuck on the free-way. Some sort of traffic jam. Semi-overturned. Some cop got a lucky shot off and ended the whole thing five minutes after I left the underground garage (bat-arage? Batcave?).

People are oggling the car (Bat ride? Batmobile!). I must admit it is amazing, but people aren’t really supposed to see it doing less than 90. I gotta find a better route or something…

I stick it out and cruise around downtown hoping lightning strikes twice. It doesn’t. I go home and go to bed. Being Batmans not going to be quite like what I expected…

———————————————————

This is based on the beginning of a dream I had last night. I dream I’m Batman, but all it ammounts to is that I can never seem to get to the place that the crimes are happening fast enough to do anything about them.

I have costume trouble, and it takes me forever to get out of the cave. Or I get stuck in traffic. Or it ends too quickly and I’m on the wrong side of town. The police are too good at what they do, and I’m not fast enough.

Hope you enjoyed…

Well it’s day 7 on the new job… So how is it???

It’s good. I’ll just do pros and cons since this is from my iPhone…

Cons:
Can’t access email
Can’t access facebook
Location (22 minute drive!)
EJB (since I don’t know it)

Pros:
Can’t access email
Can’t access facebook
Location (only a 22 min drive!)
EJB (get to learn great tech!)
Love my manager
Love my co-workers
Jeans & tennis shoes
Good chair
Best cube yet
Dual monitors
Version control
Great team of EXPERIENCED programmers
Java
Really nice office
Great pay & benefits

“Dangit! My hand itches! Hrm… it looks kind of dry… I wonder if there’s some vaseline or lotion or something I can put on it around here…” Was my thought this morning as I sat typing away at my keyboard.

I sort of ignored it until a while later when I went to use the restroom. As I was washing my hands, I looked down at the other side of the sink. You know, the side that doesn’t have the soap on it. There was a “body product” there that looked like it could possible hold some toothpast or soap or something. I’d always sort of ignored it, but now, with the cracks in my skin getting burned by the soap and water, it brought to mind my need of lotion.

I read the label, “Bath & Body Works PLEASURES” hrm… I don’t like where this is going, sounds like some sort of erotic intimate product sitting on my sink… I continued cautiously, “magnolia blossom body cream”.

OK… what the heck is “Body Cream”??? My first thought is that it was some special gentle girl soap that my wife used when she washed her hands. That’s what I had always assumed when I saw it sitting there. She has “Shower Gel” instead of “Body Soap” in the shower (I think…)

But now that I needed some lotion, I wondered what “Body Cream” was. What do you do with it? The name implies some sort of conditioner or something you would put on and then wash off… Is this what Julie shaves her legs with? Like shaving cream for not your face? I mean, a cream is something you wash off, right? Surely this isn’t some sort of lotion?

It’s location on the sink seemed to indicate you didn’t use it in the shower… I picked it up and flipped it around to look at the back. I began reading:

“BEAUTIFUL The romantic” I stopped reading there and almost put it back down, as I’m typing this, I am for the first time reading the rest of that paragraph, but at the time I skipped to the next one (The rest of that paragraph reads “scent of magnolia blossoms is blended with sweet honeysuckle, white sandalwood and soft amber.”)

I continued at the next paragraph:

“Daily Beauty Ritual: Smooth over skin, focusing on dry spots like elbows, heels and knees.”

Daily Beauty Ritual??? Are you worshipping your body and offering this cream as a sacrifice? what the HECK!? Ok, so I guess it must be some sort of lotion? Will it work on your hands, or is it only good for elbows, heels and knees? At this point I was just pretty much disgusted.

Do girls really like this crap? Like, seriously, why can’t the front of the bottle say in huge black letters:

LOTION

Preferrably, if it is targeted towards men, right above lotion, in half the font size of the word “LOTION” it would say “MENS” (that’s right, not even an apostrophy to show possessive, keep it simple).

Ok, so:

MENS

LOTION

Then, when you flip it around it says:

“Fixes dry, itchy skin.

Apply to problem area as needed.

Not Nasty.

Not Smelly.

Not Greasy.

Tested on animals and humans to ensure safety.”

I’d buy that and use it in a second. BODY CREAM??? Nope. I’d never even give it a second glance on the shelf. This crap has been sitting in my bathroom for at least a month and I’ve never even given it a second glance.

Oh, I did rub a little on, and now my hand smells funny. At least it’s not as itchy… So I guess it was probably lotion…

Here’s #2 in my code animal series:

Prototype Sketch of Leopard at keyboard

This one was extremely fun to make. The monkey was fun, but this one was a blast. I learned a lot about Leopards and Jaguars while doing it. It’s a lot more detailed than the monkey as a result, and if I do make this into some sort of Flash cartoon series, or a comic strip, this is the only time I’ll be drawing her this detailed (yeah, it’s a her).

To the keen eye, you can actually tell that this beast is a Jaguar, not a Leopard. Jaguars have a darker orange color, compared to Leopard’s lighter (almost white) coloring. Also, note the pink nose. Leopard’s noses are almost black.

Leopards are from Africa/Asia. Jaguars are from the Americas. But, when you look at their behaviors and coloring, it seems they are basically the same cat, just removed from each other by several centuries.

The reason I am calling this a Leopard instead of a Jaguar (even though Jaguar is an infinitely cooler name, and Leopard reminds people of crApple) is because of the awesome hunting behavior of the Leopard.

Let me digress for a moment. Each of these code animals I am drawing is a metaphor for programmer personalities.

The Code Monkey is a crazy fast, highly caffeinated, crack coder. They get the job done, but good lord is it ugly!

The Code Mole is a highly skilled, appropriately careful, somewhat reclusive, programmer. It refers to books, and other reference material, and stops to survey it’s design for flaws. However, when needed, the Code Mole can tuck it’s head down and dig like crazy to get the code done. How much time the Code Mole has given itself to plan it’s system will directly effect the quality of the result.

The Code Turtle is a Code Mole in the making. However, for whatever reason, the Turtle is tentative and cautious. It can get the job done, and it can even do a great job, but it’s really slow. The Turtle get’s spooked at the first sign of trouble and ducks back in it’s shell to reconsider everything before continuing.

The Code Hawk has a 10,000 foot view of the system. They might have grown up near the code, but now they are very hands off, keeping an eye on everything and constantly evaluating everything. When needed, the Code Hawk will swoop in for a quick kill before immediately resuming it’s lofty heights. (This is obviously a managerial role. Hard to even call it a “Code” Hawk, since even a non-programmer can sometimes assume this role)

This brings us to the Code Leopard, and finally, to the African Leopard’s hunting style. You see, the Leopard is the only large cat to live in trees. The Leopard does everything from the tree. Even hunt. That’s right, some little water buffalo comes walking along and all of the sudden–BAM! The Leopard pownces down on him from out of the tree! Maybe crush the spine, quick skull crushing snap of the jaws, twitch of the head to snap the neck, then the Leopard drags it back up into the tree (keeps away the scavengers). So, the Code Leopard has a bigger view of the code base, but they are still “in it”. This would be more of a debugger, tester, quick-fix type coder. Probably a super-visor, or a team lead/head coder. They know how the whole system works, and when they see a problem that needs knocked out, the jump on it, kill it, and get back up in that tree.

Let me know if you have any other Code Aminal(tm) ideas!

Semi-interesting trivia about the creation of this image: Last Sunday I was watching a PBS special on African cats, which is what generated the idea for the Leopard. I couldn’t remember what kind of cat it was afterwards, only the hollow-spot pattern. When I looked up “Jaguar” on Google, I saw the hollow-spots and assumed that was the right cat. Then, when looking at Jaguar pictures on this page noticed it lived in North America, meaning it could not be my cat…

So I Googled “African Cats” and discovered the cat I was after was, in fact, a Leopard. Thus the name change from “Code Jaguar” to “Code Leopard” (since I referenced the Jaguar picture only to color it in. The sketch and lines I drew from my memory of the PBS special, and looking at it now, I realize it most closely originally resembled the stuffed white tiger my wife used to snuggle with).

While I was Googling cats, I found this (on this page):

Simply spectacular!

First in a series…

When I’m done with the series, I’ll be printing off some fat head stickers to put on my wall at work. 2′x4′, 1″x2″ & 1/2″ x 1″ will probably be the sizes… Let me know if you’re interested in one. If I get enough interest, I might print enough to put some up for sale (not for profit, just enough to cover printing/shipping costs).

“I want to be a dog” the little sheep said to the shepherd.

This pictures goes along with a little story I’m working on…

Todays picture was inspired by “The Alchemist”. Do a clever enough google search and you may be able to find it as a free download from iTunes for the next week or so, brilliantly read by Jeremy Irons.

This was an exercise in using my Wacom tablet, which I’ve had for years, but never mastered. I tried some of my new knowledge of perspective out a little bit too (mostly with the wall. I could never figure out how to get the land/sea horizons to work well together and look right. If you look real close, and you’ve read the book, you can see the bench the boy and the king sat on, as well as a pyramid on the horizon.

I used Paint.NET. First I sketched the whole thing out in blue. Then I added some perspective lines. Then I kind of “traced” it in black. I wasn’t sure where to go from there… so I stopped… Plus I need to get back to work now…

Here’s the stages of creation side by side by side (Sketch, perspective lines, final):

Hrm… so this one is slightly embarassing since it is unfinished and kind of crappy. That’s just motivation to do better next time I guess.

I’ve hooked my wacom tablet up now and so I expect to be doing so drawing with it soon. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have some sweet line art posted. Or maybe I’ll redo the redmoon picture with the wacom tablet (the guy liked it a lot).

This is my first attempt (ever) at three point perspective. Not bad, but I’ve not really studied 3 point perspective so I’m probably not a good judge. It was a LOT of fun.

This took me about 30 minutes to draw. I used a little notebook as a ruler (I need to get a ruler!), pencil to sketch, an eraser (probably used this most), and a sharpie to ink it. I didn’t shade with the pencil at all, only the sharpie.

I actually used the third vanishing point as the lens flare off the top of the tower. The second vanishing point is the bottom right hand corner of the second building. The first is off to the left of the first building (there’s actually a dot you can see if you look close).