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July 7, 2007
The Long Road To Jennifer
At two in the morning, I’m 16 hours and a thousand lines into a program. I kick it off and watch it run, sending waves of cryptic data washing across my screen. Outside the window, a boat is idling in the harbor. The twin diesel engines gurgle and babble as the waves rise and fall against the hull. The sound is so peaceful. I’m very close to sleep.
Nothing to do now but watch it run. The data goes by too fast to be meaningful. If the program crashes though, the messages help to track down the problem. But as long as it’s running, they’re meaningless.
The gurgling engine sooths me as I search for patterns in the data that streams across the screen.
Suddenly, it occurs to me….there can’t be a boat outside the window. There’s no harbor out there. Just an asphalt parking lot. The boat is a CSX diesel locomotive idling and hissing outside in the dark.
For the rest of the story, buy my book "Killing Strangers".
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 7, 2007 at 10:55 PM
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