I mean, being a dad and all. And being a husband, having a house and a lawnmower, and a car with room for a stroller. All of this makes it all a bit different - and in a good way.

I used to be a real hacker. The sort of guy that could be swept into some (for people around me, bizarre) project that would grab my full attention and I'd find myself doing all-night coding sessions without even realizing until the sun came up. And then if I was stuck on some tricky problem I'd sometimes literally dream up the solution over night. I'd wake up in the morning with a solution. That's how I finally figured out how to do perspective-correct texturemapping. (Man, was that some insane 386 assembly innerloops...)

As I said, it's all a bit different now.

I've actually managed to grow up a little, and in the process my interests have widened. I'm still somewhat of a geek, but that's not my whole world anymore. Earlier, when I was to use my computer for some task and it didn't go completely smooth (it never does when you need it to, does it?), I'd be happy to have something of a project on my hands, configuring some options or just spending a few days writing an app or a plugin to get it working the way I wanted it to. Now, if I simply plug my digital camera to the computer to transfer the pictures and it doesn't work right away, I just get frustrated and annoyed because I can't be bothered to jump through all sorts of hoops. - Why can't that bloody thing just do what it's supposed to?

My time has now been filled with other priorities. I need to sleep at night in order to justify my paycheck at work, and work is more demanding that school ever was. And having a six weeks old baby also attracts a tad of my attention. And all that plus a house to keep and a garden to groom at summer and snow to plow at winter I can't really get too caught up in optimizing innerloops anymore. But I don't miss it. It's all good. I have a life now. A wonderful wife and a cute little kid and everything that comes with it that makes life larger than myself.

Though I can't completely put the geek in me at rest. In the back of my mind I'll always have that little background process running. For the past five weeks I've been out of office. The first week was spent at the hospital, and the next four at home on summer vacation slash newborn mania. The spare time I've had between diaper changes and barbecue grilling I've spent reading books. I've gotten throught a book explaining Quantum Physics, Joel Spolsky's new book The Best of Software Writing I,  three or four Dan Brown novels and a science book on how all of current science have gotten everything wrong and how the world really is. I may post something about those books some other time, or I may not - depending on how it turns out.