It’s been ten years since I graduated from high school. It doesn’t seem like that long ago, when I think of the time that has passed. (It becomes a bit more plausible when I consider the random aches and pains I experience in the mornings, these days.)

Pretty much everyone warned me that the ten-year reunion was full of annoying one-upsmanship (or, as Brian and I crudely called it, dick waving). The only reason I had to hope that this wouldn’t be the case for me was that my class was supposedly one of the most polite classes that had graduated; my fear was that this description was a clever fabrication formed so that our graduation would have a narrative.

After attending, I can safely say that my class rocks. The only dick-waving that occurred (pardon the vulgarity) was of the my dick is ten feet long and owns two yachts variety—the stuff that was so obviously false that it was funny. Also impressive, to me, was how good everyone looked; the last decade has been kind, it seems.

The only way I could imagine a better reunion would be to have more classmates show up. There was a good crowd, and it was incredibly fun to see the people who attended—but the more I think about it, the more glaring the absences become.

But, overall, holy crumbs, fun; would attend again ++. Even the after-reunion at the Peacock was entertaining—and bars tend to be smokey and loud, which are two of my least-favorite things.

I’ve been hitting my head against Rails, on and off, for the last couple years. I’ve read two books on the framework (not to mention a book or two on Ruby), and started a few Rails apps… which never got beyond some copied-and-pasted code that only half-worked.

Tonight, a frickin’ eternity after I started this process, I looked at my current code and wondered: why is that a string instead of a symbol?

My next thought was holy crap, this kinda makes sense. Afterward I was able to figure out the logic behind the code I copied and pasted, and was even able to fix some of the things that had been failing. After that, I took a victory lap.

Hitting your head against something and getting nowhere—even if you weren’t putting all that much effort into it—starts to be depressing after enough time passes. I had begun wondering if Rails would ever make any sense to me, and am glad (and relieved!) that I’ve finally made the slightest bit of progress.