It's Fall Again

So fall's here and today I was finally feeling more like blogging again...

Kiddo is now a very active 3.25 year old and he's gaining more and more ability to interact with his world by himself. We're now into the 'me do it' stage of most things.

Work has been interesting - I'm on contract with a local Internet development company and it's my first time doing C# programming full time. After 4 1/2 months I can say that I'm not a fan of C# (too many brackets and ';' for my tastes). But the company I'm on contract with is interesting - they are making an honest effort to develop to standards and make a good product.

Problem for me is that this is a much 'large' scope of development than I have ever been involved with before - almost all of my experience has been with small projects, where I'm the single developer, QA and support all in one. I can keep the issues and variables in my head and I can usually identify, code and deliver a fix or change in a single day or perhaps two. On this project I'm developing over the course of weeks - with many more people involved in the process.

This identifies a problem that I didn't know that I had - I'm not a long term details person, it's not that I'm doing bad work (I think that after the better part of 10 years in the industry that shouldn't be an issue) but I am finding it difficult to keep track of everything that I need to constantly. I'll identify something that I need to remember, maybe even get it down on paper and then completely miss it. Or I'll remember it the first time but be in-consistent later on. I'm catching these myself thankfully but then I need to go back and fix them.

The issue now is that I need to identify weather of not this is ever going to be something for me. I would by far prefer to try it, realize that it isn't for me and then bow out rather than fail out after some grievous mistake.

Well, there you go - first blog of the fall, got to go, the front lawn needs mowing.

Photo Credit: 'fall road in orange' by intimaj

Birthday Blog

So this (in accordance with internationally recognized standard) the 'birthday blog'.

So I'm 40. This is generally assumed to be a 'turning point' in your life, a time to recollect and review.

I've actually had this post in draft for some time - with nothing in particular that made sense to write. The funny thing is that while I'm supposed to feel that this day is significant I'm really ambivalent about it - no particular regrets and no particular significant 'looking forward' I wonder if that's important in itself...?

Ok - I'm clueless, got nothing, I've been considering a new post for weeks but I'm not getting past the weather and other stuff around the house - and that's boring for both of us.

This picture sort of sums it up - staring off into the distance... and all you see is mist.

I'm out to camp with some Beavers and Cubs coming up so maybe that will give me some stories to tell.

Photo Credit: Alex Dodd

Net Neutrality

Amber Mac posted the following on her blog regarding Net Neutrality - the idea that what you download via your Internet connection should not be monitored or restricted based on the type of content that it is. This is typically done by ISP's to limit Bit Torrent content - on the presumption that much of that traffic is illegal content. Until now they haven't been far wrong, but the CBC in Canada has begun to distribute one of it's programs via bit-torrent - this is legitimate and legal but the ISP's are still interfering with it.

Amber's Post:

Change Congress

If you have a few minutes (around 40) listen to this - while I'm not in the United States I think that it offers some interesting observations. Also, I think that it's an extremely well done presentation.

Museum Day

It' isn't often that S. and I get a day off together that we don't have other things to accomplish. Today being Good Friday S. suggested that we visit the Museum with our son. We had a wonderful time. For us this was a return to places that we had grown up with (every student in Winnipeg goes to the museum a couple of times at least in Elementary school.)

For Kiddo this was dinosaurs, moose, owls, wolves, a tonne of native artifacts, a bat cave, Winnipeg in the 1920's and 'the big ship' the Nonsuch What a great day!

Photo Credit:Guacamole Goalie

Gary Gygax Passes

My brothers and I spent LOTS of time during our youth playing D&D and other fantasy games, Gary Gygax wrote the original Dungeons and Dragons game, and while I'm not a rabid player I would say that I owe him a debt for his work. Thanks Gary!

Mid (End of) February...

Been a while since I posted, not that I hadn't wanted to - as it happens I've thought about it several times over the last few weeks but never seemed to have finally arrived at this page. So what's going on in the snowy cold of Winnipeg? First, yes it is very cold - it was -34°c last night and it's currently sitting at -26°c the wind chill makes it -42°c! The nice thing is that at that temperature the driving actually isn't too bad - we don't get ice on the roads the same way that other places do - it's simply too cold for water to melt in the first place...

It's now a couple of weeks since I actually started this post and the deep freeze has let go a bit - it's going up to -9 today, much much nicer!

This past month has, much like last year, been really 'cave like' not only for myself but I've seen it in others - it's time winter was over!

The good news is that we finished painting the upstairs of the house (yeaaa) it's now a very nice green, we have to move the piano and then do a little more painting but it looks great!

Kiddo has recently had (sorry didn't blog about that) surgery and is now out of his casts from that! We're still wearing temporary 'back slab' casts but they can at least be removed to tub him (and that's a good thing!)

I'm going to try and get the seeds for the garden started today - we have a little plastic green house that we can put by the front window in the light.

Back to coding - but I thought you'd like an update...

Photo: Quiplash

New Year

Wow it's already the end of January and I haven't posted yet - bad blogger...

This is actually going to be my '2007 Year in Review' Post. I know that many families send out those letters at Christmas and some people find them really annoying to read (I usually don't by the way).

If you don't like those letters, you probably want to skip this post!



Accomplished (From things To Do and What Didn't Work, from last year)

Personal Organization

With the completion of the basement this has improved - we still have a house with a 2.5 year old kiddo but it is getting better. I'm keeping accurate and better notes; I use one large Blueline Twin Wire Bound notebook for my paid-work notes and continue to use (and enjoy) my Moleskine for all else (Scouts, Church, Personal) and I carry that everywhere that I go, these notes are transcribed to Minutes, Calendar, Agendas etc. as needed but I only need to go to one place to find everything that is actionable.

Finish Basement

Thankfully this is all but completed - some trim remains outstanding but we are now moved into this space and using it much to the enjoyment of the house - and it's spin off effect is that less 'stuff' gets stuck upstairs.

Yard / Outside

The sod is down, the path almost completed and we are now enjoying the space we planted many many bulbs that will come up in the spring! The Deck remains to be finished but that seems much more easy to accomplish now.

Garage Cleaning

Both cars are back in the garage now and much (though not all) of the crap has been thrown out or given away! No more scraping the windows!

Outstanding

Personal Development (Training/Certification)

Made no progress here - I guess I need to decide if this is really important.

Craft Room

Like many people we still have a 'deep dark secret' in a pile of collected junk that we need to sort through.

Tasks

This has improved but need to get better at focusing real time onto tasks be they work, personal projects, Scouts or just having time to enjoy cooking dinner.

Painting the Living Room

This is probably one of our 'next tasks' only issue is that the living area has a vaulted ceiling over the stairs that is going to be very very difficult to paint.

Ideas for 2008

I'm going to try and limit 'Aimless Surfing'...I frequently sit on the couch and surf the net - whatever I find interesting, problem is it isn't productive on any level. At the same time the TV is on and that just creates mental noise (as one blog I read this year said) if I'm going to make time to accomplish tasks then I need to have less unfocused time when I'm not productive.

I continue to try and change the 'tone' of the items I buy - wood, stone, stoneware, metal in place of plastic and that has been somewhat successful.

Kiddo is now old enough that S. and I are going to try and take him out canoeing this summer - we'll see how that works out.

Have a great 2008!

BTW my 2006 Year in Review is here if you want to read it

Evan

Photo Credit: Fabrizio Morroia from Flickr