[/hibernation]
sips from 3rd coffee of the day
It's rather unusual for me to have three coffees in one day, but I'm in the office for the first time in a long time. I'm actually pretty surprised that all of my gear is still in my cube and hasn't been poached. Since X was born and I changed positions, I haven't needed to come in nearly as much. I do miss it a bit though, as it's nice to see the people you work with in person. I'm not sure how much longer I'll have my name on a cube - we've been hiring quite a bit, and space is at a premium. For someone who rarely comes in, I don't mind giving my space up.
Work is going quite well. I've been busy balancing management and consulting tasks, which is testing my time management skills! I quickly realized that e-mail management in this role is crucial, and am glad that I've curated a robust ruleset to keep my inbox at zero, and stay on top of daily correspondence. There are folks who hate using their mail client to manage their daily tasks, but I've found that because a significant amount of my job is spent managing correspondence, it's better than dealing with an external task management tool.
Life at home is awesome. I am the luckiest father and husband in the world, and I try not to take it for granted. We've established a weekly routine that works for the three of us, and despite the occasional change in plans, we're all surviving! There are days that are naturally more difficult than others, and sacrifices are made to satisfy X's needs, but overall, at the end of the day, we go to sleep happy. The rate at which X is learning is awesome, and I love watching him discover something new. His innate curiosity is contagious, giving my inner tinkerer a pilot again. Granted, I have a scrolling list of tasks around the house that I need to work on resulting in a shortage of free time, the desire to tinker is stronger than it once was. With regard to tasks around the house, the theme for this year is 'The Yard'.
When we moved in, it was the dead of winter, and the primary project was to rebuild the den only because we had no idea what condition the yard was in. Over time, we realized that the yard, both the front and the back, needed work to bring it up to our standards. Earlier this Spring, we agreed to trim a significant amount of shrubbery (most of it invasive and unappealing). I spent a day in April on a shrub rampage, and the end result was quite positive (even from our neighbors). I also fertilized the front lawn for the first time, and am on schedule to regularly feed and cut for the remainder of the season. I realize it's going to take a few seasons for it to strengthen, but I'm quite happy with the progress so far. We also have an initiative to just about level the back yard. Between an overgrowth of trees, and unknown shrubs, it would be easier to clear the land instead of gradually taking the yard back. I have a few posts drafted on armenandsheena.net on the projects we've completed so far, and what is currently in the works. I hope to complete and publish all of them this week. Keep an eye out if you're interested on what we've done so far.
On the geekier side of things, I'm focusing on completing projects that I started long ago. The last major achievement was the release of soorpstepanos.org. I migrated the site from a free host using a generic template without any content management to AWS running Drupal on nginx. The set of modules that we're using comes from the OpenChurch project, and despite it being live, it's still a work in progress. The individual who is managing the content is doing an awesome job and the response we've received from the community is positive. Working with AWS has been a pleasure! I'll try to provide updates here as I work on and release new versions of other projects that I'm working on.
EOT
It's rather unusual for me to have three coffees in one day, but I'm in the office for the first time in a long time. I'm actually pretty surprised that all of my gear is still in my cube and hasn't been poached. Since X was born and I changed positions, I haven't needed to come in nearly as much. I do miss it a bit though, as it's nice to see the people you work with in person. I'm not sure how much longer I'll have my name on a cube - we've been hiring quite a bit, and space is at a premium. For someone who rarely comes in, I don't mind giving my space up.
Work is going quite well. I've been busy balancing management and consulting tasks, which is testing my time management skills! I quickly realized that e-mail management in this role is crucial, and am glad that I've curated a robust ruleset to keep my inbox at zero, and stay on top of daily correspondence. There are folks who hate using their mail client to manage their daily tasks, but I've found that because a significant amount of my job is spent managing correspondence, it's better than dealing with an external task management tool.
Life at home is awesome. I am the luckiest father and husband in the world, and I try not to take it for granted. We've established a weekly routine that works for the three of us, and despite the occasional change in plans, we're all surviving! There are days that are naturally more difficult than others, and sacrifices are made to satisfy X's needs, but overall, at the end of the day, we go to sleep happy. The rate at which X is learning is awesome, and I love watching him discover something new. His innate curiosity is contagious, giving my inner tinkerer a pilot again. Granted, I have a scrolling list of tasks around the house that I need to work on resulting in a shortage of free time, the desire to tinker is stronger than it once was. With regard to tasks around the house, the theme for this year is 'The Yard'.
When we moved in, it was the dead of winter, and the primary project was to rebuild the den only because we had no idea what condition the yard was in. Over time, we realized that the yard, both the front and the back, needed work to bring it up to our standards. Earlier this Spring, we agreed to trim a significant amount of shrubbery (most of it invasive and unappealing). I spent a day in April on a shrub rampage, and the end result was quite positive (even from our neighbors). I also fertilized the front lawn for the first time, and am on schedule to regularly feed and cut for the remainder of the season. I realize it's going to take a few seasons for it to strengthen, but I'm quite happy with the progress so far. We also have an initiative to just about level the back yard. Between an overgrowth of trees, and unknown shrubs, it would be easier to clear the land instead of gradually taking the yard back. I have a few posts drafted on armenandsheena.net on the projects we've completed so far, and what is currently in the works. I hope to complete and publish all of them this week. Keep an eye out if you're interested on what we've done so far.
On the geekier side of things, I'm focusing on completing projects that I started long ago. The last major achievement was the release of soorpstepanos.org. I migrated the site from a free host using a generic template without any content management to AWS running Drupal on nginx. The set of modules that we're using comes from the OpenChurch project, and despite it being live, it's still a work in progress. The individual who is managing the content is doing an awesome job and the response we've received from the community is positive. Working with AWS has been a pleasure! I'll try to provide updates here as I work on and release new versions of other projects that I'm working on.
EOT