Today was a good day, and by all accounts, it felt that way from the get go this morning- despite another cat gift found in the front room. After dressing, I discovered that French Roast in the coffee maker is actually a blend that I like (with French Vanilla).

At work, I felt like I mostly completed a rebuild of a photo upload manager for one of our clients, and in the process, developed a pretty nifty auto-tabling script that lets me specify the number of columns a table should have, and the script spits a clean table from database row results. For other programmers, this is probably a remedial-type problem, but for me, when I can come up with a compact and semi-elegant way to do something special, it feels good. I was able to come up with a similar script in an app I worked on when I first joined ARC- the APS Meals Calendar. It may not be the prettiest app, but its the most used on APS’s site. So for me, at least, as a hack programmer, there is that.

Sometime after I got home, though, my mood shifted. Feeling energetic the last few days about defining and getting some projects done, tonight it was like my mind flushed this evening, not unlike when your eyes suddenly dilate at work after staring at a screen for 7 straight hours. In this case, it was my brain that suddenly couldn’t grab onto anything or make out details. What looked to be an evening of planning ended up being an evening of unproductivity. Again. I have too many of those, and they frustrate me- I frustrate me- to no end. It’s the frustration of feeling you can never quite get enough traction in your life to get out and moving on the road. It’s like always being stuck in the ditch and never quite able to power out of it. Frustrations. First world problems. Yet, I often wish I could get off the launch pad some time.

Charlie LeDuff’s book on Detroit is pretty good. He calls it the most southern city in the North. It’s a picture of a city broken down like none other. LeDuff is a Pulitzer-winning journalist who shares a salient and salty tale with insight and hipness, which makes the book pretty engaging. He moves home to the city after a stint at the NYT to immerse himself in the city cycling down- and he takes verbal snapshots along the way. Detroit is the largest city in the country to recede in population, status, and wealth following it’s 20th century boom times. Now a haven for poverty, crime, crooked politicians, and barren buildings, LeDuff is asking “What’s next?” for this city, and other once-burgeoning boroughs hit hard like it, now or in the future.

It’s a good read. Now, if I could just figure out how to think better for myself.