We went to Santa Fe this weekend for Elyn’s birthday, some needed
rest, and our annual green chile infusion. Despite a low-level
illness on my part this all went swimmingly. We had an awesome meal
at Pasqual’s.

While there we stayed, as usual, with Mark Galassi. In addition to
his stimulating conversation and extensive library (this time I read
Wodehouse), I find that simply being in his house inspires me to
program. I think it is because he has his Linux desktop sitting there
in the living room, and obviously uses it for Real Work; also he runs
more gnome applets than I knew existed. In this context it is
immediately obvious how useful a cool new UI hack can be.