Monday 4.18.2011

Simple is good.
Less is more.
More is not necessarily less, but it is not always good.

Mondays are hard. Not in the usual sense of hard, but it's the transition form Sunday that does not happen with great ease.

I will have to work this evening. I just got too little done today. But right now, I am in a relatively peaceful state. My lovely wife will be home soon, and she'll cook the pork chops, and we will eat. Then I will watch a bit of tube with her, and then I'll get back to work.

Life is good.
I am full, and happy.

I had a very bust day. Solving little problems and keeping track of a bunch of little detail. Not the hardest job in the world. But there is always a different challenge around the corner. I smell pork chops cooking upstairs.

I rearranged my office today and I now have room to breath. It's just more comfortable to be in here when there aren't files and stuff falling off of piles whenever I turn around. I'm closer to the window facing the front of the house now, too.

I'm listening to Maneesh De Moor on Pandora. Now it's playing "Pure Essence". God, I love the Internet. There is just so much cool stuff in here, and most of it is free if you want it to be.

I'm still struggling about whether or not to get an iPhone. The company that I'll be working for starting April 1 will get me a BlackBerry, which I'm grateful for, but I really really want an iPhone :( I guess I could get one anyway, with a minimal plan (since I'll only use it for personal calls, and being a hermit, I never really talk to people in my spare time anyway). Dn't tell my employer that. I really am fairly social when I am helping people design things with microcontrollers and stuff like that. But when I am not earning a living I like to keep my mouth shut except to eat and spit. But I still need an iPhone.

They really should not call it an iPhone because it does way more than just let you talk/listen to people far away. It can do millions of cool things to. I am writing an app for it which I hope will be out there before I die. It is going to be a cool app that only two dimensional geeks will like, so it won't make very much money. But the gees who like it will really like it.

I just Stumbled Upon and read "the-cab-ride-ill-never-forget"...

http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#url=http%2525253A//www.zenmoments.org/the-cab-ride-ill-never-forget/

It made me feel. So, I like it. Check it out.

Now I must retire. G'night.

Out in the cold again

Thursday I got bad news. The company I work for lost it's biggest source of income, and they are probably going to shut their doors. We are all unemployed. I might have a week or two, but probably not more than that.

So I immediately started looking around once more to see if there is anything out there for me. I like being an FAE - it gives me an opportunity to do a lot of different stuff. And each day tends to be pretty different from the one before it. So I hope I can get the same kind of job.

But then I noticed a software engineering opportunity that would involved developing Mac software using XCode and Cocoa, which it happens I have been playing around with (studying and practicing) in my spare time lately. And now that would be a dream come true - or so it seems. I'm definitely looking into that one.

But overall, I feel like I'm in career Limbo. I've been here before, and it is all too familiar. I don't want to stay here long, and can't afford to even if I wanted to.

I'm tired, finally. It was a big day. Well not really, but for a Sunday I guess it was. Updating my resume, applying for a couple of jobs on line. Clearing 6 inches of snow off the drive. Thinking about maybe having to move again. Yeah, I'm tired, and that is good. I need to sleep. Tomorrow will have stuff for me. Good stuff, I hope.

GPS

I had to have a real GPS for my car. After seeing the one in Kathy's new car, my old Palm Pilot with Tom Tom software just wasn't good enough anymore. But really, for a long time, I've been annoyed by the outdated streets, and the lack of ability to control the route to my destination. That was the biggest thing. And there were other things, such as the inability to stay at a particular zoom level. So now I am evaluating a Garmin and a Magellan. One of each. I will decide which one to keep by the end of the week, if I keep either.

late late

Thursday was a different day.

I went to the doctor for my sore arm. I have bicep tendonitis. Filled prescription for an anti-inflamatory steroid. Filled it at CVS. Now we are on file at all CVS drug store. It hurt a lot this afternoon. I slept a bit.

Lunch with Joe. He brought his SmartPen that he bought at Java One this year. It is absolutely magic! I simply must have one - but I can't afford it - not really. But it is so cool!

What I really need is a Wacom Cintique pen display (cheapest one is $1000). I may be able to get that in place of my tablet PC that was stolen from my house when the needy people broke into our house on 9/11. Luckily, the tablet PC and the MacBook were covered by insurance. Before I do, though - I will commit to a specific application that I will FINISH.

Took pain killers at 2 PM and again just before bed.

The LexMark I2C issue is going as I expected but hoped it would not. The AE group was not able to get their alternate sample code to work either. The escalated the issue to Japan. But it might be too late for that. Luckily, LexMark may have an issue with their schematic that buys us a little time. But most of the FAEs will be at DevCon next week, and I'll be in Ottawa. Will I bring my ESE laptop with me in case I have to work on it? Hey - I'm on vacation (sort of)!

I have the hiccups ("hick-coughs"). 

Wikipedia "LLVM" (Low Level Virtual Machine). Ah... Apple is trying to compete with Java. Well, not so much compete as copy some of the great ideas incorporated into Java. No wonder they dropped full-class support for Java in XCode 3.0.

I am going to start using XCode again - now that I have a MacBook again. ANd I might even write an app for the iPod Touch.

I'm tired ^^ must get sleep ^^ must be in good shape tomorrow to take a swipe at bit-banging the I2C interface. (proof of concept)

Signing off Friday 2:31 AM,

early early morning, Wednesday.

My right arm hurts so badly I can only type with it resting on the edge of the Mac. Ouch. I took a vicodin at about 4:40. I hope it kicks in soon.

5:10 and I think I'm starting to feel groggy.

I have to lie down.