What Im Doing
I’ve been slow to blog lately, partly because of the many goings-on in my life.
My work life has kept me very busy. I’ve had a major customer in a major Agile transition, so I’ve been very busy there. Recently I was given responsibility for a team that involves only three people, but who are in charge of administering and rolling out the new version control system, the new trouble system, the new CI system, and all of the deployments of the application to about a dozen servers. They’ve been too busy reacting to demands to really get a handle on things, though they’re all good people and well-intentioned. I’ve been trying to get them enough breathing room to do some automation. I brought on an extra member and did some automation and planning, and approved of their changes. I think that sometimes we put tail-end development processes in an oxygen-poor environment. I’ve managed some advances, but we’re still behind where I hoped to leave them at the end of month. Limited success, but it’s been a good ride. I have many more improvements planned and the tools I need to implement them, but ran out of month. Now I’m picking up a second client and will be alternating between the two with less intense contact with each. I’m going to have to have intensity of effect rather than intensity of contact.
Recently, my Thinkpad died, and I’ve just received my first ever Mac Book Pro after a few weeks of suffering through windows. I’m not really sure how to deal with a Mac, but I’ll be learning. With the mac and with windows, I really miss Linux, and particularly the Debian package manager. There is really nothing like APT that I’ve found for other platforms (YUM comes close, but isn’t quite as good). Still, I’m looking forward to having a four-to-five hour battery life. I’m happy to have a machine that has a Unix under it again, too. I’ll be enjoying it on the train rides each morning.
Church life is good, as always. I’m told I’m now the chair of the worship committee. Cool.
The worship band is still performing each Sunday before the service, and I’ve been enjoying my guitar collection and the loaner pedals I’ve been using. It’s a good time. I’ve noticed that a lot of the P90 guitars I’ve been craving from RondoMusic are now out of stock. I may have to save up some bigger change for a Godin LP90, an Epiphone Casino, or the like. I hear rumors that the Fender TC90 is gone now, too. That bums me out. I may have to pony up for the Godin.
Family is exciting, though I don’t get enough time with them. I’m back to the original four members, just Libby, the boys, and myself. We’ve played frisbee golf together last weekend, and we’re now going to spend three weeks in a row together now that the kids are out of school and can travel with me a bit. It’s going to be awesome.
