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Uneventful Programming Vacation

So Renata had to go in for surgery last week.  Being the good boyfriend that I am, I took the week off to stay home to take care of her.

She recovered really fast, and so we had a nice relaxing week together.  She’s been pretty tired and sleeping has been a hassle for her, so she gets in one to two hour naps every now and then.

This gave me a lot of nice free time to spend on some things I’ve left on the back-burner lately.  I’ve been putting off learning Drupal for awhile now, as I’ve been so busy.  And to be honest, it’s hard to go code some more after coding all day at work.

Learning more about Drupal has given me a new perspective on my own career that I hadn’t really thought of.  I know a lot of people telecommute for work.  But the Drupal community has a lot of job posting that are in geographically disparate places.  So this really puts an emphasis on telecommuting.  What’s nice though, is that these jobs will pay much higher than jobs that I can find here, simply for the fact that the cost of living is a lot different.

I saw a job posting that pays between $60k - $90k for a entry level PHP/Drupal developer in New York.  A $90k job in New York is supposedly equivalent to a job that pays only $40k or so here in Ottawa.  Yet, telecommuting will give the perks of a really high salary minus the high cost of living that comes with living in a place like New York.

Anyways, aside from this insight, I’m finding Drupal to be a really well designed framework.  Drupal is an open-source content management system, that allows you to create powerful web pages really quickly.  Unlike a lot of other CMS’s, it does take a little bit of time to get things to work the way you want them too, but investment seems to be well worth it.   As an example, with Drupal, you could quickly create something similar to a basic version of Facebook.  There are a lot of new social networking niche sites popping up that use Drupal.

I’ve also returned to do a few more problems on ProjectEuler.  For you developers out there, definitely check out ProjectEuler.net.  ProjectEuler is a site that contains 150 or so computer-science problems.  The problems are straightforward, but require a bit of math, critical thinking, and programming to solve.

What’s nice is that as you solve problems on the site, it unlocks forums that discuss solutions to problems that you solve.  A lot of people on the site are brilliant and provide ways of solving things that I could never come up with.

After graduating from University I have found that I’m using less of the solid Computer Science skills (more of the math and algorithmic related skills) and using more of “software engineering” skills.  Not that one is less than another, but those math and problem solving skills do come in handy, and they keep skill sets sharp.  Anyways, all the really interesting skills are in the computer science domain anyhow.

So, for a vacation I found myself at home relaxing, spending time with Renata, and coding up things out of my own interest.  It wasn’t a vacation that I wouldn’t take often, but it was quite nice.

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2007 in Review

Yes, another year, another late recap of the previous.

I’ve finally had the will and time to write something on my slowing blog space.  Why?  Well, life in Suburbia has sucked the creative life out of me:

• Yes, 2007 is the year that I moved in with my girlfriend Renata.  It is the first time that I’ve moved in with a significant other (other than Tin of course :-)), and it is also the first time that I have lived in the suburbs on an indefinite basis.  Yes, it is a scary thought, and this switch has changed my life for better or worse.  Gone are the late nights getting drunk in the city and doing more spontaneous things.  In place of that, life is more structured, more focused, and filled with mundane repetitive tasks.

  You see, I’ve always been lazy, and that lazy lifestyle just clashes with suburbia.  Lawns need to get mowed, the drive needs to get shoveled, and seasonal holiday decorations ebb and flow in our home.  It’s been tough to adjust to its repetitive nature.  But with it comes nice things like more focus to do things that I generally procrastinate on, a better and more healthy lifestyle.

• A healthy lifestyle is one that involves eating better.  Through this, I’ve discovered the joys of cooking and all the wondrous possibilities that it entails.  I’ve sorta become a foodie in some ways, a pretentious snob when it comes to finding the tastiest and best meals.  I’ve also become a grill master of sorts, as I hone my skills on the BBQ almost daily in the summertime.
• I finally graduated this year, after a long stretch of over 4 years plus an internship.  Emerging from all that academia I find myself in a career that I oddly have a ton of passion for.  The sort of passion that I hadn’t seen in myself when I started this journey, but as of late it has really grown in me.  I love learning and writing about software.  I read books on it in my spare time and am totally addicted to tech blog sites that keep me updated, like programming.reddit.com, slashdot.org, and dugg sites.  Trips to the bookstore have been costly ventures, as I come back with more books on programming than I could possibly read and digest in any time soon.

  It’s not hard to understand why computing is so great when you think about it.  As Fred Brooks wrote in the “Mythical Man-Month”, the joys of this craft is the joy we get when we create something tangible from pure mental abstractions, turning what’s in our mind into something useful.  It’s the marriage of logic and creativity, and it creates something tangible and useful.  It’s not easy stuff though, as I don’t see myself mastering this craft anytime soon, so I think I’m stuck with it for life.

• I’ve been fairly active this past year too.  Well, actually, all of that is concentrated in 6 months during summer and half of fall.  The rest of the time I’ve been living like a sloth… but perhaps I’ll return to this once spring comes by.  During the warm months, I was able to go out and hike the West Coast Trail for a second time, spending another 7 grueling days living on freeze-dried meals and finding that sparse and elusive moment of connecting with nature.  I also did a small trip out to the Adirondack Mountains in New York, which made me realize how spoiled I am with the Rockies, and how I probably won’t be able to find anything like it out East.

  Ultimate Frisbee dominated my life for 6 months.  Playing almost 3 days a week constantly for half a year will do that.  I love it, and totally suck at it at the same time.  It’s a very deep and enjoyable game, and is a team sport that I have finally found love for.  If you haven’t tried it, do so!  What are you waiting for?

Here’s hoping that 2008 is just as awesome as 2007.  Who knows, maybe I’ll post on here a little more often too!

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