It is a private, 32 acre island in the middle of the bay. You haven't heard of this? You haven't seen the lighthouse? Well I travel to the island on my motorcycle on a long stone causeway* that is too narrow for cars. The causeway has an authentic gothic feel that leads you to believe you are on your way to Dracula's castle. Every few feet there are large cauldrons burning something that smells like vanilla. At the end are two stone gargoyles, except the stone is steel and they are robots programmed to detect mopeds and bat them off of the causeway and into the water.
I enter a brilliant but dark (in an edgy way) landscape of green grass and ferns and Awesome Trees. Nestled among the Awesome Trees is Whiteboard City, but we won't go there.
The road winds up a steep hill until I reach the pinnacle, where stands the large cathedral with a lighthouse on top. You haven't heard of this? Really? Maybe you haven't been to the bay in a while. Yes, there is a bay here, just like bay in Bucktown but larger. Yeah, its just south of the all-female Women's College of Software Engineering**.
The RFID chip in my motorcycle--actually its not an RFID but a complex challenge-response system designed by Chevelle but we'll get to her in a second--activates the large oak doors which have been augmented with titanium. I direct my motorcycle inside. I am riding a motorcycle through a church, with either sunlight or moonlight streaming in through bullet proof stained glass windows. This is a normal part of my routine.
I nod to Chevelle and Rose on the balcony. They are the guardians of the Citadel, as I call this place. Chevelle is a southern belle with a delicious accent, and Rose is a salsa goddess who dresses and acts exactly like the hot gyspy girl in the Sherlock Holmes sequal with Robert Downy Jr. Both girls are armed with katana blades. It is their charge to attack and violently kill any executive or lawyer affiliated with the MPAA, RIAA, BSA, or TSA.
There are 16 residents of the Citadel, not counting Chevelle and Rose, who are only web developers***. I have the penthouse suite for my programming. When I reach the main dais I like to park my motorcycle next to the altar (I call this area the parking altar--a lego mosaic of Donald Knuth hangs on the back wall) and take the service elevator up to the lighthouse level.
The lighthouse level is divided into three concentric circles. The outer circle has a beautiful 360 degree view of the cityscape across the bay. It is here that I pace or jog in order to think, or to clear my head when switching to a different area of a problem. Inside this circle is a circle of whiteboards, where I work out my designs and think critically. The inner circle, also known as the glo, is where I do my coding. Large widescreen monitors line the walls from floor to ceiling and I have a chair with a keyboard and mouse attached and the chair circles around the floor in a way similar to those ladders that circle a library. The monitors go to many computers and are all controlled by just that one keyboard and mouse. This is possible because of a program I wrote that is exactly like the popular program Synergy but without all of the bugs.
In the very center of the room are the elevator, a bed, a weight bench, a kitchenette and toilet but in its own little room thing so its not awkward when I have guests, marble statues of Wolverine, Jason Bourne and Dr. House, and also a small minifridge stocked with aderall, coccaine, a viscious amount of mountain dew, and, in case I get inspiration to work on 3-sat, a single shot of pure adrenaline. Oh and there is an R2D2 robot that looks like it serves drinks but actually doesn't--thats just to fuck with people because the drink-server R2D2 is so overdone these days. Imbibing alcohol while I am coding would probably induce cardiac arrest anyway. The lighthouse does have lights; they are up top in the loft. Also up there are the enormous speakers that play techno, rock, trance, hip hop, and classical scores that help me focus. Nothing like a little "Turn Me On" or "Rage of the Champtions" or "Lose Yourself" to get me amped to write turing-complete poetry. I like to hear the words
My body needs a hero
Come and save me
Something tells me you know how to save me
I've been feeling real low
Oh, I need you to come and rescue me
Come and save me
Something tells me you know how to save me
I've been feeling real low
Oh, I need you to come and rescue me
while I am writing code to save the Internet, or as those of us in the Citadel call it, Internet 1. Yeah, you didn't know where was more than one internet. That one I'm not surprised about.
The elevator is wide enough to accomodate my motorcycle, because after a few incidents we all agreed it is not polite to have motorcycle sex in the parking altar.
From time to time my girlfriend, Tanyajessilauravendawn, who was born in Ambiguous Eastern European Country but hails from Bucktown, Pennsylvania,visits me on the roof of the lighthouse on her personal rocket pack. Sometimes we have sex in front of the lighthouse lamps and the shadows cast by our copulation are splayed onto the skyscrapers like the lewd ghosts of giants that once coded before us. Sometimes we pair program. Naked.
When I reach the end of a sprint or a particular task, or I go seventy two hours without eating or sleeping and am about to die from multiple causes, I ride the elevator down to the basement where an attractive lady nurse with a british accent named Moneypenny helps me detox from the narcotics and caffeine and adrenaline in my system. Detoxing looks alot like that blue thing that Luke Skywalker floated inside of in The Empire Strikes Back.
Sometimes I tour the rest of the place, maybe say high to the girls, maybe tell them my latest 3-sat theory and watch them roll their eyes. Yes that is right: all of the other residents are girls. I am one of the rare males talented enough to be invited to join them. After an arduous training period in the Tao of the Turing I finally surpassed my master (mistress?) and became a True programmer, like those cliche movies where some white dude is invited to join a ninja clan.
Then its off into the sunset with me. I ride down to the causeway. One of the robot gargoyles gives me a fistpound as I roll by. Above on the hill, Chevelle and Rose, the sirens of the Citadel, keep watch.
Inspired by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_POEIhEXRI&feature=related which isn't actually a poem, even. (Note: Taylor Mali is on deck for being one of my new role models, as is Captain Picard).
*wikipedia is down (fuck SOPA!) so this, like many others, may be the wrong word. Oh wait! Google define: for the win!
**I have a theory that women might make better software developers, and its not impossible for men to make better programmers!
***someone please remind me if I am friends with any web developers; if so I will stop making fun of them. This is part of my new thing where I am nice to people.
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