Week
I have been small and quiet this week because I've been working for Arcus. All the tasks I had cut out for me when I arrived are now feature-complete. I don't feel like doing cleanup right now, so back home I go, once I finish this entry.
Monday was a Mem day BBQ at John & Alisa's. I like them, and the baby they made (and which I last saw) a few months ago has grown into a very expressive and playful little critter who makes interesting noises. I think it'll become a really intelligent person. One for the good guys.
I learned to play Bocci there, or something like it. We played in their front yard, while a woman I didn't know watched us and went on and on about dog poop, careful, dog poop, I saw it, over John's protests that he cleaned it all up first. I dedicate this post to Melissa. Or maybe Carla. Righto, I'm hereby done making associations between my friends and dog poop, forever. Onward.
At the BBQ, Jim hinted that I should ask for a raise in my consulting rates. (It was later confirmed that he reads one of my weblogs, though I didn't ask which.) Later in the week, after talking it over with Andy, I asked for, and received, a rather substantial one, two-thirds larger than my previous rate. Pretty good. I no longer feel like I'm working at-cost for Arcus.
Didn't get any book work done up here. Wasn't really expecting to. I did, however, make significant headway into my DocBook editor project. I found an XML library that will really and truly for what I want, and that inspired me to stop worrying about it and get on with the fun stuff, programming by own classes and interfaces. Since this is my first truly solo flight in the Cocoa world, I'm also learning a lot as I go, both Cocoa-specific and about C-style programming in general (I have very little practical experience with non-interpreted languages). Very addicting stuff.
Right now, the work is its own reward, but I can't imagine what it'll feel like to write my book on my very own home-grown text editor software. This thought just makes it harder to pull away from the project. Woo woo. Put in three hours today at the Toyota place while they were hammering on my car. (Verdict: the oo-oo-oo song my car's brakes sing is not, in fact, banshee-esque keening for my impending and spectacular demise as I roar over a cliff after the brakes fail. So that's good.)
Still no broadband at home until Thursday, but Noah writes that he's set up our firewall & WAP to work with dialup, so maybe as soon as tonight I'll be back in business. Very, very slow business, yes, but it's that tied-down, intermittent, manual, one-person-at-a-time access that really kills me.
Monday was a Mem day BBQ at John & Alisa's. I like them, and the baby they made (and which I last saw) a few months ago has grown into a very expressive and playful little critter who makes interesting noises. I think it'll become a really intelligent person. One for the good guys.
I learned to play Bocci there, or something like it. We played in their front yard, while a woman I didn't know watched us and went on and on about dog poop, careful, dog poop, I saw it, over John's protests that he cleaned it all up first. I dedicate this post to Melissa. Or maybe Carla. Righto, I'm hereby done making associations between my friends and dog poop, forever. Onward.
At the BBQ, Jim hinted that I should ask for a raise in my consulting rates. (It was later confirmed that he reads one of my weblogs, though I didn't ask which.) Later in the week, after talking it over with Andy, I asked for, and received, a rather substantial one, two-thirds larger than my previous rate. Pretty good. I no longer feel like I'm working at-cost for Arcus.
Didn't get any book work done up here. Wasn't really expecting to. I did, however, make significant headway into my DocBook editor project. I found an XML library that will really and truly for what I want, and that inspired me to stop worrying about it and get on with the fun stuff, programming by own classes and interfaces. Since this is my first truly solo flight in the Cocoa world, I'm also learning a lot as I go, both Cocoa-specific and about C-style programming in general (I have very little practical experience with non-interpreted languages). Very addicting stuff.
Right now, the work is its own reward, but I can't imagine what it'll feel like to write my book on my very own home-grown text editor software. This thought just makes it harder to pull away from the project. Woo woo. Put in three hours today at the Toyota place while they were hammering on my car. (Verdict: the oo-oo-oo song my car's brakes sing is not, in fact, banshee-esque keening for my impending and spectacular demise as I roar over a cliff after the brakes fail. So that's good.)
Still no broadband at home until Thursday, but Noah writes that he's set up our firewall & WAP to work with dialup, so maybe as soon as tonight I'll be back in business. Very, very slow business, yes, but it's that tied-down, intermittent, manual, one-person-at-a-time access that really kills me.