(no subject)

[noahgibbs]

I write rarely. So a lot has happened since last time.

Shopify let me go a bit ago. Wow, at the end of February. It's been some time ago now. The timing was all a little odd with when I actually left, when official things happened, when I got stuff like "send the computer back" done, etc. But March and April have come and gone. The intent is that May and June will have likewise departed by the time I get another job -- we have a lot going on right now, and Krissy will be *ridiculously* busy through June, so the beginning of July would be a great time for me to actually be employed again. I'll aim for that, though I don't have concrete plans about where yet.


We skipped buying that land. The neighbour kept making more and more ridiculous demands, cutting how much land he was selling and generally being awful about it. Turned out to be good timing, since it meant we had a nice chunk of cash sitting around when I stopped working. And in general we're well set up for it.

Still playing piano. Still hanging out with the kids a lot. Been getting back on top of stuff I've been neglecting -- more exercise, meditation, various skipped chores, etc. Still have things I've been putting off for literal years, but with luck I'll have that list cut way back. Really it's already noticeably reduced.

Krissy and I are getting a touch more freedom now that the little one is six. The older two can babysit fairly routinely for a few hours and it goes pretty well. We managed a weekend party this past weekend -- Krissy was at the party, hosting, for the weekend. I drove back and forth to be there in the evenings.

I'm still doing my various forms of programming, professionally and not. Things have been quiet for awhile with the open-source project I worked on for a year or so (Scarpe), as the other original founder/author is home with his newborn fellow. I've been doing some on my own, but less. It's *really* helpful to have more than one person around.

Relatedly, trying the "Never Search Alone" job-hunting method, intentionally slowly. I have a group with a couple of other job seekers, following the structure imperfectly. But I mostly want second opinions and an accountability group.

Krissy's off in the Shetlands this week with an old friend from school. I'm unemployed so it's a great time for her to be doing her stuff and me to be running support at home. I'm doing some of my projects too, as sort of break-not-break. I'm bad about that. But I'm trying not to get too obsessed with my own stuff. June is going to have a *lot* for her to do. She's running really cool Highland Pride events, but it means she'll be out doing that approximately every day that month.

How are things? If I'm doing this annually, I should be thinking in the long term. I'm slowly drifting toward retirement -- probably around seven years out if all goes well, and so far it's going just fine. I don't think I'll ever stop *working*. But no longer working highly-profitable jobs for annoying corporations would be nice. I just started tutoring a young local fellow in coding, and *that* kind of thing I'd love to do a lot more of. It'll just never pay the bills.

We went to get another adjustment to Calli's braces this morning. We've been going to Kempo (martial arts) for most of a year, and we're likely to continue. We've been going on scheduled walks in the morning all through the winter -- it's getting easier now that the weather is warmer. Overall, physical health is fine.

Will is still drawing vigorously. Calli is lately too, and they're improving. The little lady is drawing *surprisingly* well for her age. I didn't *intend* to be part of a whole house of artists, but maybe it just happens?

I feel like we're just starting to get our feet under us socially, though also it's still a ton of work. Not that surprising if you know us, I suppose. Will has some friends but mostly online. Cal knows a few local kids but has trouble actually seeing them, and is taking a lot of long nature walks. Unicorn is starting to get a little stir-crazy. I'm writing this part of the post from a local soft-play place where she's kind of bored, but is out and playing with other kids. Krissy is seeing a *lot* of folks outside our house this week, and just generally has been getting out more lately -- it's good and bad, as some things wind up being a lot more effort than payoff. And I have three regular computer-y sorts of gatherings monthly and occasional other stuff. It's about what I want. I've always been a bit of a homebody and I feel like it's intensified over the years. Give me a cave adjacent to my family, an internet connection and a piano and I'm quite cheerful. Though that sounds less kid-intensive than my actual days.

It helps that I have my programmer folks, especially the Ruby community. It was amusing but accurate when the regional TechScaler guy said, "you're famous!" to me, probably after Googling me. I'm a very specific kind of famous -- as I said to him then, the Ruby and Rails communities aren't huge. But yup, if you know that group you're likely to know about me. Which means if I do something cool, people often have a look and generally pick up on it. Which is a lot of what I actually want from my tech community. It's nice.

So yeah. Things aren't perfect, but a lot of things are good. Plans aren't followed flawlessly, but overall we're going the directions we planned for, at around the speed we want. We all have normaly sorts of problems but right now nothing awful.

So... life is good?

Comments

[tshuma]

Hooray for life being good. I love getting these snapshots into your lives.

I just had someone mention the "Never Search Alone" topic (while sitting in the dark, naked in a hot tub full of people I'd just met because that is also my life now, sometimes, mostly only in Boston). I will look into it, as that is two times in less than a week, and it carries more weight coming from you, whom I knew well once upon a time.

[noahgibbs]

Partly it's the new hotness -- the current favourite book on the topic. But it has some good things to say.

It's basically going to recommend getting a group together and writing a summary of yourself. Then you go talk to former coworkers, semi-strangers and others to ask whether your summary is accurate about you and/or the current market.

That's a lot of why it recommends a group. You'll need a second opinion as a hedge against bad advice. You'll also need an accountability group to keep pushing you toward something which is difficult and scary (the conversations w/ strangers and former coworkers.)

Is that good? It's *fantastic* advice for product managers, project managers, engineering managers and similar, which is who the book was originally for. It's a less obvious slam-dunk for some other roles. For more senior engineers, it seems like one of those great ideas that's hard to do but very valuable.

Worth a look, certainly.

[queen_elvis]

Based on your description, it sounds like maybe this is a less expensive version of the career coach that I am putting off hiring.

[tshuma]

I will definitely take a look at it. Thanks for the insight.

[queen_elvis]

Seems like being Ruby-famous might be a plus when job searching. In any case, good luck in your search. You're so highly credentialed that I can't imagine it's a question of finding SOMETHING so much as the right fit.

[noahgibbs]

Yup. Right now it's mostly a matter of "how much of a step down in salary am I willing to take?" There are only a few big Ruby companies. So when they're indisposed, all jobs above a certain salary level are unavailable. But that could change in the next month or two. For example GitHub seems to have started hiring again, if chaotically.