We have a child in quarantine. Several scouts in our troop have come down with Type A flu. Type A flu is not necessarily H1N1 but likely to be. More details after I finish my programming. This has caused great soap opera quality drama. Cathy will likely post information before me at either Domestic Psychology or on Twitter here.
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
Do programmers dream of black and white sheep?
I dreamed in code last night. I’ll spend today writing my dreams down.
Advantages of working from home with tech savvy children
With a computer for each child, I have lots of test platforms!
Boy Scout Camp Ends Early
Two of the scouts in our troop fell ill. In swine-flu paranoia, our troop was quarantined and are being sent home early. Instead of taking the two sick children to the local hospital for confirmation of the nature of the illness, the camp isolated them in the health lodge and confirmed our scouts to their camp. I do not know if today’s activities were canceled. I suspect that Noah only gets 1 out of 3 days actually riding a horse, an activity he paid extra for participation. I feel Noah was cheated. Not over the horse but for potentially losing all of today’s activities, for being separated from the rest of the camp unable to dine in the mess hall or participate in the week’s ending ceremonies, for losing all of tomorrow’s activities, and for losing Saturday’s morning. I understand risk management. I understand the need to prevent a flu outbreak. I also understand the importance of living our lives in a non-reactionary, logical way. My initial feelings are this was handled wrongly. I’ll learn more tomorrow.
There is reason for the paranoia. The WHO has declared that the H1N1 virus is "unstoppable" and that every country needs to vaccinate its citizens against the swine flu. Interestingly enough, the WHO is no longer counting individual cases. Anyone need a mask
Update 17 July 2009: The quarantine has been lifted. The temperatures on the two sick children came down which is not typical of h1n1. Those boys went home last night and this morning no one else showed any symptoms. Good call CDB!
We’ve been raided!
The adults are severely outnumbered today!
And on an adult note, Cathy and I had the unique pleasure to hang out socially, with no children, for several hours last night with excellent company while indulging in great Mexican food, fantastic wine, a wonderful view of the lake, in a secluded part of Knoxville.
Gremlins!
Today is technically frustrating.
And the day began at 3:30, 4:30, 6:30 and 7:30
I quit programming and went to bed at about 1am. Read until 2am. Slept and was awoken at 3:30, 4:30, 6:30 and rose at 7:30. Now that’s some quality sleeping!
My yard: The sounds of nature
I love sitting on my porch and just listening. This was from a week ago but tonight is equally as awesome. I’m not sure the recording does this justice. The sound outside is incredible, almost deafening. I find it extremely pleasant. It is also all around. Imagine no matter which way you turn or look this sound is in front of you, behind you, above you, and to your sides. Close your eyes and enjoy or turn on the visualizer in iTunes, Winamp, or Windows Media Player.
[audio:http://realityme.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/yardnoises.mp3]Safeplace
An upset friend of one of the teenagers landed on our doorstep. It makes me happy to know that they feel comfortable enough to come here.
Learn or become irrelevant
I can’t seem to remember much of yesterday. I know it was stressful. I know I was looking at code until my eyes blurred. Then I broke for some continued professional development (CPD). What is CPD? CPD is the training and education you receive while at work. It could be night school, seminars, or online learning. As a programmer, my industry changes and moves so quickly that I must constantly educate myself else risk becoming irrelevant. Here’s some CPD I received while working at The Learning Company eons ago:
- First Things First Time Management Seminar by Covey Leadership Seminars
- Systems Testing & Quality Assurance Tech Seminar by Advanced Information Technologies
- Software Project Management by Educational Services Institute in association with The George Washington University
- Basic Supervision by Keye Productivity Center a Division of American Management Association
- E3s QA Day – An all day QA Conference and open forum with influential persons and trend setters from the gaming industry’s quality assurance field (sponsored by Advanced Quality)
- How to Develop and Administer a Budget by Fred Pryor Seminars
- Bondware training by Nashville-based EdgeNet
I met Sid Meier at E3’s QA Day. That was very cool!
I once helped a client improve a website that tracked their client’s continued professional development. The idea behind the site was to make sure that the user didn’t cheat the system by turning on the lesson then walking away to watch television. It was quite a challenge! It also inspired me to make sure that I was continually developing my own skills.
Continued professional development can be returning to your roots and reviewing the basics. For instance, when I teach someone to juggle, after getting them to juggle three balls, I often have them return to only practicing with one ball. This gives the the opportunity to relearn with a better understanding of the end goal and helps break bad habits formed while trying to learn the concept of the end goal. It’s amazing what habits and prejudices we form and accept as rule when in fact those premises are wrong. For instance, I’ve been working with ColdFusion since version 2 became version 3. Adobe has just released the ColdFusion 9 beta. There are plenty of habits from CF3 and CF4.5 revolving around best practices and crossbrowser compatibility that no longer apply to current versions of ColdFusion. For instance, I still twitch at the suggestion of using CFGrid even though I shouldn’t. I’ve been working with PHP for a very long time. My habit had been to declare public methods for classes with var until I took some time to re-read some documentation on classes and learned that var had been deprecated for public. Breaking habits is only one aspect of continued professional development. New technologies, better techniques, improved optimizations form all the time. We must set aside time to learn otherwise the experience we have gained over the years will be declared irrelevant due to the lack of inclusion of the latest buzzword.
The cat won’t be missed
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Today’s present: a blue bird and a mole.
Found in my garage
Oh! This is what a deer in the headlights feels like.
I have to choose 1 of roughly 5 things…any of which will be a substantial endeavor and a good accomplishment but individually will leave me wanting and burdened…like cutting the grass with fingernail clippers. In this is the root of ambivalence.
Away with no cellphone signal
The 13 year old boy left this morning for a week of adventure including fishing, orienteering, rock climbing, wilderness survival, and canoeing at Boy Scout Camp Daniel Boone. The 7 year old girl left a few minutes ago for 3 days of adventure at Girl Scout Camp Tanasi. They are both thrilled. I wish I could be with them to see their happiness, watch them work through their fears and learning, hear their giggles, and to get some camping in myself. I know they will both have a fantastic time!
Sarah comforting Amy during Amy’s first trip to Tanasi
Strikes a chord
Finite
Mobile post sent by djuggler using Utterli. Replies. mp3
