Mocha Friday

December 30, 2022 by Adam in Family

I'm finishing the last of my mocha, feeling pretty good after the last few weeks of seasonal madness.  Work is relatively quiet for the time being - hopefully things stay that way as I just started my on call rotation.  I'm getting a chance to write code again, though I wish it were something I did the majority of the time.  It's nice to be back in my little shed, occasionally going inside to check on a print of a D&D miniature or go for a run.  I do realize that school will start up again and everyone will return to work, but the lull is nice and I have a few more days off work next week too.

Christmas

December 28, 2022 by Adam in Family

It's been great having some time away from work, and Christmas generally went okay.  I've been busy, with not a lot of time to just do silly things, but it's mostly been things that are useful or good.  Christmas itself generally went okay, if pretty busy as I decided to make pumpkin pies and a Christmas dinner minus the meat.  I think it was well received.  I had a great time getting together with the older two kids (and the oldest's girlfriend) to play roleplaying games last weekend.  I even managed to see Jason today, who seems much improved from the last time I saw him.

Tomorrow I'm sadly back to work.  I'm hoping I can maintain the midset of just doing what I can and not stressing out about things.  Theoretically it should be pretty quiet but we'll see how it goes.

Vacation!

December 22, 2022 by Adam in Family

I've finally started my vacation from work, three days off, then the weekend, then three more days off.  Finally I have three more days after New Year's.  I very much look forward to it.

Yesterday was busy but fun, getting together with the family D&D group to hang out, loot treasure, and eat tasty food.  Somehow they avoided combat the entire day and managed some zany heists and a little trickery.

Data had his three year birthday this week.  Work has settled down a little after the madness of the last few weeks.  Christmas presents keep coming in, needing some wrapping, and I've got a little shopping to do today.  Still, the lights are up and I'm feeling somewhat prepared for the weekend.  It would be nice to have a little downtime today too - play some games and take it easy.  

Mocha Friday

December 16, 2022 by Adam in Family

I'm wrapping up my morning mocha, a welcome moment of solace in an otherwise frantic week.  Christmas is right around the corner - we're missing a tree, presents are unwrapped, and I've yet to get all the ornaments up.  Fortunately Emma is a cheerful helper with such things and I'm hopeful it'll get sorted out in time.  We did manage to put up the advent calendars and I appreciate the daily chocolate covered coffee beans and sweet note from Joanna or Emma.

Work has been nutty.  We're in the frustrating cycle of finding bugs, fixing bugs, making new bugs, and a steady stream of deployments and coordinating with clients.  A bright spot is our old comrade Chris coming back to help - hopefully it'll make things slightly easier.

We managed to completely forget to pick up Duncan from IOP on Wednesday.  Seraph took him, it wasn't on my calendar since it was a new set of sessions, and I was frantically running between tea with mom and cooking multiple meals.  He was frustrated and decided to walk home, picking him up a few blocks from the house after he'd been walking for nearly an hour.  Needless to say, I have much more sympathy for the one time mom forgot to pick us up from some after school program.

I'm really excited for the weekend, playing games out at the farm and having some downtime.  I'm going to take a good chunk of time off starting next week too, if only to keep my sanity.

Stopping By for Coffee

December 12, 2022 by Adam in Family

The travellers are no longer travelling, having settled into their farmhouse in the woods.  It sounds like there's been quite a bit of excitement - ripping out soggy rugs, replacing broken stoves and the like - but they're adventurous and seeming to take it all in stride.  Emma and I have a tentative plan to go visit next weekend where Emma can run a little Cairn roleplaying game with them.  She's been busy making art planning for the game.  I'm excited.

In any case, the two farm people stopped by for coffee and to pick up a coffee grinder and some whole bean coffee we had laying around.  It was awesome they could just pop by for a visit.

Ben asked me if I could 3D print a couple transparent hearts for him out of transparent PLA.  I'm down for any excuse to do wacky creative things and after figuring out how to get things to stick better to the plate, I started cranking out semi-transparent 3D models.  The hearts turned out great, especially after coating with transparent resin to smooth over the bumpy parts and give it a nice sheen.  I ended up printing a gelatinous cube, an air elemental and a couple spectres.  They're turning out really well.

As for the rest of the weekend, I've been trying to take it as easy as I can manage.  Joanna is slowly feeling better and has started to take Ben to school in the morning.  I played some more I Was a Teenage Exocolonist and managed to get one of the rare endings - having the entire colony wiped out.  Oopsie.  I also managed to organize many of the Christmas presents, though there's still more to do.  Maybe we can get a tree next weekend while we're out in the woods.

The Other Side of Madness

December 09, 2022 by Adam in Family

I hope that today marks the start of life calming down, at least a little.  It's been off-the-rails crazy for awhile but I have hope that my life might be starting to get better again.

Work has been an increasing mess since Jonathan left.  Three people without a project manager, manager, QA person, DevOps, or really anything else means that the three of us are mostly putting out fires and not writing new features.  We've merged with another team, full of nice people, and are starting to get the new manager and project manager up to speed.  Even better we're going to get some help by our ex-teammate Chris who's a super nice person.  That being said, there's still a lot going on and I haven't felt a lull in weeks.  Hopefully we can finally get this release out the door and focus more on writing code again.

Jo's hyberbaric treatments are over, so I'm not rushing through getting everyone's breakfast ready, driving Joanna to Springfield, getting Duncan's breakfast ready, and then driving Ben to school.  We're still trying to figure out the new morning routine, but I'm grateful to have more help.

I hurt my hip the other day, similar to what happened to my shoulder, so I was hobbling around and went half my normal distance on the treadmill yesterday.  Fortunately I'm feeling more normal today, which is great.  Loss of movement is the worst.

It's been great having the ex-Texans hanging out with us and I think they're settled into the farm with the gracious loan of dad's truck which was delivered by awesome Seraph.  Fortunately they don't need much care and feeding at this point and impressively developed and executed a moving plan.

Duncan's having a hard time with the start of the new term, but he made it to his classes yesterday and seemed mostly okay.  Ben seems cool with his new classes as well, despite the lack of science.  He got great grades last term, which is always nice to see as a parent.  Emma's life of leisure has started as she has a month off school, apparently spending her free time doing D&D research.

When I visited Jason he expressed an interest in playing D&D again so I'd like to get that organized one day.  Ben wanted to print a transparent heart for a project of his, so I broke out the transparent filament and tried to print a gelatinous cube.  Well, the print didn't stick to the plate and it blobbed up in an artistic way.  I guess it can be a water elemental or something.  I'll need to experiment more this weekend.  It's great to have a little time to myself to do silly things again.

Friends and Family

December 05, 2022 by Adam in Family

I visited my friend Jason today.  It was great to see him and the most reassuring thing was just how much he seemed to be himself.  He, Bridget and I chatted for over an hour, talking and laughing and telling stories about how fascinating and annoying it is to have part of your brain stop working.  The good news is that his movement and balance issues have mostly resolved.  He gets tired sometimes.  The main challenge seems to be vision processing issues - having to pick out details from a messy scene is really challenging.  Still, he improves every day and the neurologist seemed to feel he'd be able to return to work after a few months and likely even drive again.  It was so reassuring.

The wayward travellers also made it home just this moment.  A friend of theirs drove down to California in his truck to rescue them.  They were wiped out but very happy to be home.

Today felt like a win.

Wayward Travellers

December 04, 2022 by Adam in Family

The wayward travellers had their truck break down in Bakersfield, the recurring theme being that everything falls apart a day from home.  Fortunately a friend is going to drive the 12 hours to pick them and the trailer up and return it home.  Also fortunately Seraph and dad are shuffling things around so they have a vehicle again while out at the farm.

Other than that minor catastrophe, the weekend has been relatively uneventful.  I ended up work a little on a pull request to assuage my guilt of my workdays being so busy.  I'm heartbroken by Danica's news, especially after such a positive diagnosis a month ago.  Hopefully I can see Jason tomorrow and see how he's doing.  I'd love to stop by regularly to play board games and hang out, though my schedule continues to be packed.  I played a few video games and listened to a sci-fi podcast that's really good.  The front lawn was mowed.  Advent calendars were put up.  Dinners were cooked.  Life goes on.

Snowy Mocha Friday

December 02, 2022 by Adam in Family

It's been snowing off and on the last couple days, sticking just enough to make the roads dangerous and the landscape pretty.  The younger kids have been off of school and appointments have been fewer, so my usually frantic schedule has been easing off somewhat.  Work is still busy as we try to get a release ready, but I got to work on something fun for a few hours yesterday.  Hopefully we can do some final testing and kick our 2.5 release out the door.

I'm hoping to visit Jason on Monday and seeing how his recovery is coming along.  It would be cool to start up D&D again, but only if that's something he thinks he'd like to do.

I'm woefully unprepared for Christmas, which seems to be coming up fast.  Hopefully this weekend I can have some downtime.  The travellers are arriving Sunday night and taking the southern route, so hopefully it's relatively uneventful.

Mid-Week Update

December 01, 2022 by Adam in Family

Let's see . . . update time.  Joanna continues to heal - I've started driving them to 2 hour hyperbaric chamber sessions each morning at 7:30 am.  Emma's almost done with her term.  Ben's excited about chemistry and wants to take AP Chem as an elective senior year.  Duncan's wrapping up IOP and starts a new term next week.  The Texas people arrive this weekend, assuming the snow doesn't cause trouble.  I guess I need to stop calling them Texas people now that they're hitting the road with everything in a trailer today.

Work is frantic.  Hopefully I'll stop feeling personally responsible for everyone's problems, though I somehow doubt it.  I did manage to work on something fun for the first time in awhile, though I suspect I'll need to stop and work on bugs when we actually release the latest version.  The team merging process continues - we're informally calling ourselves the PAPI team from Pop Analyzer and Pop Insights, which comes with a variety of interesting meanings.  "Poppy" is the nickname the kids call me, so maybe it all belongs to me now.