Personal Stuff

I am passing into my 31st year of human existence today and as is the general custom I like to take some stock on what has occurred in the past year and what I will work towards for the next year.

Personal:

My personal life this last year has obviously been dominated by my first year of Marriage. So far everything has been realy wonderful with a minimum of cuts and bruises. I am really glad I ended up waiting until I was 30 to get married, I feel like I am more prepared and more aware than I would have been in the past.

Along with the marriage has of course been the parenting role that has become an integral part of every part of my life. It seems oddly natural, but I suppose it does for most. The love of a child is truly indescribable. Both Acayda and Jaxon have been a wonder to watch as they grow and learn. My son Damon makes me so proud every time I hear from him or about him and I am really hoping we can get together over the next year.

This year I quit smoking, started eating healthier and working out. I don't know if there is a starter kit for over weight geeks but it would probably consist of the couple things I have started doing. I feel physically better then I have... well in the last 7 years or so at least.

My Dad and family on his side have been in the same area of California as me for the last year which has been really cool. I get to go visit them fairly often and have really enjoyed getting to know all my brothers and sisters more, they are all really cool people.

Educational:

Learning is kind of an all year event for me, but now with Melanie being in school full time I am really getting to see the process up close and pick up some of the tips and tools. As far as I know the current plan is for her to get her Bachelors, then I get mine, then we swap again. We will see how all of that goes but at least we have a plan.

Vocational:

This year has been marked by an almost constant stream of work. Starting with the work I was doing for Paul Kooiman this time last year up to the currrent set of websites I am finishing out. All told in the last 365 days I have put up over 200mb of content, code and creativity. Not all of it has been great, but all of it is at least good. Managing the web side work with my day job has been pretty easy... except.

The day job is a little crazy. I owe my employer a lot of respect for sticking with me through some tough times and I feel loyalty for the company in a pretty direct way. That being said working 2 graveyards a week and doubles on tuesdays for 7 months now has definitely been draining the loyalty pool. I have definitely been there to pick up the slack that the recession dropped on us, picking up support and tech duties while maintaining my development and webmaster responsibilities to make sure things don't fall apart.

The fact is... I need to make more money. I need my compensation to become a non issue for the life I live so I can really focus on providing the best code/services/skills that I can bring to the table. I don't think they are going to be able to meet that mark and so I have been keeping my eyes open for a good opportunity to shift to a more agreeable situation.