So Thursday night, I had one of the worst nightmares I’ve ever had. Worse, unlike good dreams that are interrupted, I was never able to escape this one. I’d fall back asleep and the nightmare would return, and it’d be even worse. All day today, it stuck with me and I couldn’t get rid of memories of it. (I also have extremely vivid dreams — full color, all five senses, etc.) I’m writing it here in an effort to get it out of my head.
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Recounting a Nightmare
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Back At It…Sort Of
So yesterday I started a new job — it’s not a full-time gig in my career path, but it does help pay the bills while I hunt for a new gig. I’m spinning wrench in a bike shop again, this time at Bokoo Bikes, not far from my new domicile. In a five hour shift, I got my head wrapped around their workflow, did some HR paperwork, did one large-scale tune-up, and jockeyed some smaller walk-in tasks. I enjoyed it, and it set the tone for the rest of the day.
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Five Places I Never Want to Live
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Five Apple Products I Want But Cannot Afford*
1. A new Mac Mini to replace my 6-year old, dying one.
2. A iPad Mini Retina (64GB, WiFi, black) to replace my dying 1st-gen iPad.
3. A Macbook Air (13″, 256GB flash drive).
4. A new Airport Extreme Base Station to replace my 10-year old(!), dying one.
5. 2GB iPod Shuffle**, for those super-long days on the bike.
* Amazon wishlist is here, not that I expect anything to come of it.
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** Yes, I’m so broke I can’t afford a $50 MP3 player. Unemployment is a bitch. -
Rails
Joined RUM (Ruby Users of Minnesota) today, and made a visit to their monthly get-together this evening.
For those that know me, you’ll know I have a love/hate relationship with Ruby on Rails. I love what it stands for, I love the concept of it. The biggest problem has been getting from n00b status to somewhat competent in the framework. After a few talks, I started to get comfortable with the idea that I can get my skills sharp in a few months’ time.
The reasoning behind this is that I have an idea. Oh, man, it’s a good one, too. I’d been brainstorming it under a working title (“Garage Rocket”), and I think I need to go ahead with it. I’m going to scrape up some Rails 4 books, and some books on design patterns in the coming days, and start noodling with what the database will look like. I’ve also got to identify which database I’m going to use (Mongo?), and do some reading on AWS.
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Please Adopt Max
The magnificent beast you see in the picture above is Max, the youngest of our cats, who is in need of a new home.
Max is a great cat and we love him very much, but several factors have contributed to us needing to find him a new home.
The good: He gets along fine with other cats, but probably would do best as one of a pair. He’s okay with dogs and seems fairly ambivalent about them. He likes kids a great deal, and we’ve never worried about him interacting with our toddler-aged kid. He’s very affectionate, and loves lap time.
The bad: Max has some health issues — he’s very overweight, and has some food anxiety issues, meaning he’ll bolt down whatever food is available. Currently he’s 23+ pounds. He also has some issues with bladder crystals and will need fresh water available constantly and urinary health cat food for his meals. You’ll need to play with him (laser pointers are a favorite) on a regular basis. Max does not do well in highly stressful situations and will let you know it by peeing, so if you have a party house or anything like that, it’s best if you not respond to this ad.
Wherever Max ends up, he needs to be an indoor-only cat. He hasn’t been outside before, and at his age (about 5), he wouldn’t be able to adapt and would quickly fall prey to predators or a vehicle.
He has all his claws, and is very well-trained when it comes to using a scratching post.
Fundamentally he’s a great cat — he’s just some typical cat neuroses and some minor health issues.
He doesn’t like being lonely, so if you travel a lot, that’s probably not a good match.
We love him, but we also want what’s best for him. He needs space to lounge and show off his amazing girth, where the environment is stable and his new owners can give him the time and care that he needs.
He needs a human who will give him a good forever home.
If you think that Max would make a good addition to your home, please contact me.
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Five Ways I Will Celebrate Having a New Job
1. Wearing pants.
2. Drinking a beer while wearing pants.
3. Taking my wife out to dinner, where I will drink a beer while wearing pants. But not the same beer or pants mentioned in #1 or #2, above.
4. Remembering to breathe and to stop having stress.
5. Kicking serious ass at the new job.
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The Joy of Project Management
The other day, I was interviewing for a Project Manager role, and I was asked what I liked about project management. It wasn’t a question I’d ever given much thought to, honestly, but I was in a highly creative environment that valued open communication, so I gave it about two seconds of thought, and dropped an analogy.
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Reading, 2014
As you may know, from following me on here, I read a lot, and normally I keep track of things pretty closely — titles, word counts, completion dates, etc. Last year, I was off-track and didn’t follow my progress too closely. I wound up reconstructing much of 2013 from memory. This year, I’ve started using Goodreads again (me), and have been keeping a close view on what I’ve been reading.
I know that in 2012 and 2013, I read a ton of science fiction, to the exclusion of almost everything else. With an on-the-fly list that I can easily check (Goodreads), I’m keeping more of a balance this year, and I’m on-pace to hit my goal of 50 books.Obstacles
So making the goal of 50 books this year has three major obstacles. First, I’ll have the usual family/job responsibilities, like you’d expect. Second, I have the custom bicycle business. Lastly, I have the thing where I’m writing again on a regular basis — content creation versus content consumption.
The good news is, I’m dead on schedule for completing the goal. The year is roughly 15% over, and I’m 16% of the way to goal. Can’t argue with that.
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Wild Times
I’ve been pretty remiss in updating this blog lately, and I’m sure that all two of my readers are highly disappointed by the lack of tripe multiple times per week. So, yeah, sorry about that. Things have been more than a little bit crazy around here. The kids are well, and healthy. The job hunt continues, with a few promising interviews having gone down in the past week. Bicycling–building and riding–has stalled with the shitty weather. I’ve been doing some writing, some of which I hope to get self-published on Amazon in the coming months. The big news is:
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