Thunderous applause!
To my mind, the hardest thing is to develop the (wincing, but no better word handy) intuition of when your program is not working, or is just "having a bad day" ;-)
I appreciate your intellectual honesty in admitting that, akin to stock guru Jim Cramer's writing in "Confessions of A Street Addict."
Back to the subject of DC...
I also enjoyed reading RWP's discussion of the rotational bands (CO2 IIRC) and how they complicate the modeling of the atmospheric physics necessary to predict global warming.
Brought back memories, it did. :-)
Cheers!