The creative juices are overflowing. I'm starting one new project after another. Of course I don't have time to do them all. That darn job things keeps getting in the way. I don't really mind putting a few projects on the shelf for now. They'll be their when I need them. What pleases me most about all this is that I am pursuing some things that have in the back of my mind for a long time. Things that don't fit the self-imposed definition of myself, but really are a deep part of me.
I've spent the last two mornings learning how to be diabetic. I'm feeling much better about things now. I'm getting much better at drawing and testing my blood. Today's class was about food, and it turns out that I'm not in such bad shape. Oh, there are many of my favorite foods that are now verboten, but there are also foods that I can continue to eat. Actually I can eat anything I want, but the compensation required is not worth it. All things being equal, I don't want my liver to explode.
Had to put some of my many projects on the shelf. There just aren't enough hours in the day. This isn't a bad thing though, because the projects left are going well. The indoor karting section now accounts for one third of all my traffic. Wahoo!
I previous boss of mine once pointed out to me how I hated coming out of my comfort zone. He was referring to how I liked being an invisible assembly line programmer. Requirements come in, code goes out. I was surprised by what he said, but could muster no argument. Since then I've been accutely aware of these boundaries. I actually went after my current job as an attempt to push those boundaries. Over the past few years the job has dragged me kicking and screaming out of my comfort zone. Lately this cuased much stress. However something interesting has happened. One of my projects requires tasks way outside my comfort range, and so far it's going OK. I still have a ways to go, but with the support of my family, and even people at work, I'm meeting challenges that I wouldn't have tackled just a short while back.
Had a rather stressful morning at work. Before lunch I checked my blood sugar and it was 177. This was before I ate. I knew that stress raised blood sugar, or at least kept it from going down, but I had no idea the effect was so severe.
I had jury duty today and yesterday. Never made it to the jury box, which is unfortunate because it was an interesting case. After hearing the charges and some of the lawyer's questions, it raised doubts about whether the charges were true or not. I met some interesting people. Like the woman in her 70's who wants to move to Iowa when she retires. I was so busy trying to talk her out of moving to Iowa that I didn't ask her what job she was doing or at what age she planned to retire. Then there was the man who, on the second day of jury selection, wore a dress. He wore a man's suit the first day. He was in the jury box and actually asked the judge if he was dressed ok. She responded that business casual was fine. I don't think he's lived in San Francisco very long.
I've been working with a bunch of new open source software. Most of it is pretty good, but there is always something not quite right about it. What I've started to do is modify the stuff to work the way I want it to work. It's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. Starting with good code and customizing it. So much of my programming career has been trying to fix bad code, guided by little or no requirements. Also, for the first time I'm able to develop clear requirements for myself. Previously I would build it and see how it worked, then try to fix it. My time at my current job is paying off.