Uh-oh, it’s time for another obligatory “Haven’t posted in a while, better put something up” post. Here’s the run down.
Baby John has just passed 6 months (I can’t believe it) and he’s doing great. He’s at the age where he’s just starting to figure out how to trick his parents into doing his bidding. But he’s still super-cute, has a pretty consistent sleep schedule and hasn’t been sick a day in his life, so I can’t complain. His first two teeth have popped in, and he’s eating solid foods. Which means, of course, the Great Poop Change - any parents will know what I’m talking about.
Work has been nuts. Busy, busy, busy. In all my previous jobs, I’ve basically been an expert in one thing for one company. In my current role, I’m expected to be an expert in everything for everyone. Not that I’m not up to it, but compared to agency life, working at a startup was a walk in the park.
One project I’m particularly excited about is a blog-based site we just “soft-launched”, which has been impressively successful even without any promotion aside from “friends and family”. I’ll have a post about that as soon as it’s officially live.
Related to the craziness of work, I’ve embarked upon learning and living the “Getting Things Done” methodology. I’ve completed reading the book, and even though I’ve only just started “living” it, it’s already dropped my stress levels 90%. Even if you don’t have a crazy job - even if you don’t have a job, you must read this book. It’s not just about accomplishing tasks, it’s about relieving your mind of worrying about your tasks so that you can live 100% in-the-moment - whether you’re working or relaxing.
I’ve never said this before - and never thought I would, but here goes: This book has changed my life. I am definitely not the first tech geek to catch onto GTD - just Google it and find out how many others are turned onto it - so I’ll try to avoid proselytizing it too much here.
I’ve also, for the umpteenth time, tried to get up and running with Ruby on Rails. I believe 100% in the promise of RoR, and that it will make developing a breeze once I’ve mastered it, but the learning curve for the total newbie is so steep… especially for someone who initially came from an ASP/ColdFusion background, where you can start with a single page with some inline code, and work your way up from there. My brain is having a hard time latching onto the use of generators and memorizing all the “magic” conventions. I’ll get there, though. I have a pretty simple web app I want to do for work, that would make a good starter project. If that goes well, I have a much bigger RoR-based side project in the planning stages.
Anyone who’s blogged for a while knows that the blogging bug comes and goes in waves, so I’ll be back again in no time, but for now, time to Get Things Done…
Filed under Hill Holliday, Projects, This Site
I switched to a new phone a couple months back, upgrading to the Audiovox SMT5600 Windows Smartphone — the unofficial official preferred phone of Microsoft employees (for various reasons). 