Paw Prints: Writings of the maddog

Today, August 7th, is the sixtieth anniversary of my birth.

To mark this occasion I am going to inaugurate a project of my retirement called “maddog's mansion and marina of math, music, micro-computing, micro-brewing, micro-winery, micro-distillery and bait shop”, a nice place by the beach where I hope to house and inspire young people who wish to be involved with producing Free Software.

Part of this “inspiration” of the students will be to ask various people that I have known over the years to come to “maddog's mansion” and give a talk on the topic of “Three things I have done right with my life, and the three things I have done wrong.” Since I can not in good conscience ask people to bare their souls in front of strangers without having done that myself, I intend on giving an example of what I would ask of my old friends in this blog.

I also thought about writing only one blog entry (“Quick and painless”), but upon further reflection, to do the deed correctly would make a very long blog entry, and most people would get tired of reading it, so I decided to do one per day, with an “extra thing” at the end, starting tomorrow.

I have loosely determined that the seven topics below will guide the blogs, but they are only guides, and as the blogs unfold they may take on a life of their own.

1. Do something good early in your life

    

2. Get married, raise a family

    

3. Keep life simple, but elegant

    

4. Save money for retirement

    

5. Do not lose your temper

    

6. Learn to play a musical instrument

    

7. Have lots of friends around the world

    

Some people may not like these blogs, saying that they really have nothing to do with Linux or Free Software. They will be wrong, of course, but the people who do not like the blog entries will not have to read them. The “maddog mansion” blog entries will be well marked and easily avoided. For those people that do not like the reflective entries of “maddog mansion” I will also be blogging about LinuxCON, where I will be spending my time from tomorrow (Sunday) to next Thursday.

Today a friend of mine from Brazil (see number seven above) will be visiting Lowell, Massachusetts where a large portion of the industrial revolution of the United States started. There will be many relationships to Free Software, and I intend on taking my still and video cameras to try and capture some of these, which may also be turned into blog entries.

For all of those friends who will send email or “scraps” in Orkut or well-wishing birthday messages on Facebook, I thank you. It is nice to have the anniversary of your birth remembered, even if it has happened sixty times before.

Carpe Diem!

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