Huge bonus for teaching me “alter kaker,” though.

Jackson, MS (Mississippi), right? Had me scrambling for info on the TBI in Jackson, MI

The need for respect is real.

Besides getting everywhere, my understanding is that sand is also coarse and rough and irritating.

Go for it! I'm a software guy, and had been in my comfort zone for decades. Doing something where mistakes _mean_ something, armed with no skills, has been...refreshing. It'd been a long time since I truly sucked at something, and it's a good part of life to reclaim. Plus sawdust smells _right_.

Never mind, I immediately regretted that.

"The Spy Who Came in from the Cold," now THAT's a le Carré movie.

Another fan here of ruby without rails. Run it in jruby and you can get some decent speed (I mean, relatively speaking). I think a lot of people who say they like python really like simple scripts that mostly call out to NumPy.