Re: trying again
  By: Nancy Backus to Damon A. Getsman on Mon Apr 06 2015 23:17:52

 NB> Trying again to re-send this one... the second half of the response to
 NB> the original message...   Once again, I'm running about a week
 NB> behind...!

  Yeah I don't think I ever saw this one originally...  If I did I must've been
horribly sleep deprived or something.  Didn't ring any bells.

 NB> New babies take a lot of energy and time, so I'm not surprised it's
 NB> taking him time to get things together for you... Sounds to me like an
 NB> exercise in patience and letting worries go...  ;)

  Yeah it turned out that he'd been way slammed with all of that, much like I
suspected.  Though it has made me a bit leary of relying solely on this one
mode of income.  I've got that handled, though, so it's all good.  It was,
indeed, good practice in making sure that I'm still doing what I need to in
order to make ends meet either which way.  An exercise in letting go of the
things that I cannot change, and a bit of courage in knowing the difference, if
I may insert a bit of serenity prayer wisdom.  ;)

 DAG>> know, especially when the airport has TSA and um.  Yeah you got a
 DAG>> pgp key?  *laugh* 
 NB> Nah... never bothered getting one..  :)  Never really had a need for
 NB> it... :)  Usually have had some other reasonably secure way of talking
 NB> outside an echo or email...  :)

  Eh, I was mostly joking with that point, anyway.  ;)  Some stories don't need
any retelling.  Indeed it may be, at times, that in one's best interests it may
be a good idea not to do so.  ;)  That being said, I do advocate encryption for
even the most mundane things, as it provides, hopefully, a little bit more
headache and pain in the ass for the powers that be with their long microphones
and wiretaps.  If it's implemented properly, anyway, which is tough in today's
age of completely pwned hardware.
 
 DAG>> I'm working on it.  A med flux that I had recently destroyed my
 DAG>> ability to concentrate on left brained things very well for a few
 DAG>> days, but I think I'm over that now.  
 NB> Ach... that doesn't sound good... hope it stays stable..  :)

  Yeah my meds have been stable since that last little [tiny] burp.  Wasn't
nearly as bad as last time, and didn't throw me for a huge loop.  I'm able to
concentrate a little better now.  I was worried about how it was going until I
actually pushed out some contract work today.  Now I've got the proof that I'm
able to concentrate on things well again.  ;)  Looking forward to actually
getting my nose to the grindstone on things a little bit more later tonight, as
well.  First I have to help my son with a speech, though, and I do believe he
requires my assistance on a few other things, as well...  If not tonight, I'll
probably be getting up to 'burn the early morning oil' around 3 or so tomorrow
morning, when I concentrate best.  I need to push out at least a few more hours
on this real quick and start a flow.

 DAG>> hours, at least, on a daily basis, coding from now on.  I
 DAG>> definitely need to make sure that those pathways are ready to get
 DAG>> up to speed on something new. 
 NB> Sounds wise..  :)

  I'd been slacking for a bit there; felt some burnout so I took a couple of
days off.  Today has been productive, though, and I think I've got a schedule
that'll allow me to devote enough non-burnout time to it so that I'll keep the
ball rolling at this point.  ;)

 DAG>> I even created a virtual server with the software that they're
 DAG>> using in order to just try learning what I can about fiddling with
 DAG>> it while I'm sitting here and waiting to start.  :) 
 NB> That's sounds like a good use of time... :)  Gives you something
 NB> reasonably constructive to do that might be useful on the job as
 NB> well....  :)

  It actually didn't help me too much, though I'm sure it kept me from letting
my wheels spin too much and getting too angsty about the holding pattern that
everything was in.  Today I got to get my feet wet to a point where yeah, I
know I can get back in the groove again, despite my time away from IT, and I'm
certain that I can handle this work.  It was self-doubt, I think, that was
giving me the most problems, after the amount of time that I'd spent away from
IT on anything other than minor sysadmin stuff and coding in strictly one
language on my own project.

 NB>>> not have anything about whether or not kids could use the
 NB>>> sidewalk...
 DAG>> Yeah I'm sure they've got one.  My old city did, and that was less
 DAG>> than 70,000 people.  So I'm sure this place will have a better one.
 DAG>> If I could just locate it now...
 NB> Look in the phone book for City Hall, and start there.... or call your
 NB> local branch of the library and ask there where to start... ;)  One or
 NB> the other should be able to at least point you in the right direction,
 NB> if not actually have the answers about bikes, kids and sidewalks... ;)

  I still have yet to do this.  I've been asking around, though, and it seems
that perhaps it's not illegal in this portion of the city to be letting my son
(and even myself) bike on the sidewalks.  This is very good news.  Traffic
around here gets pretty hectic when workday traffic is about.

 NB> Signed and sitting in your lap, even without details seems pretty
 NB> substantial to me...  :)

  Oh, it was.  I've just gotten in the habit of not counting my chickens before
they're hatched to the point where I refused to let myself count on it.  So I
was still fulminating a bit about the lack of being able to work in my chosen
field and everything.  Now, though, I'm immersed in discussion with the other
developers, and we're steadily chipping away at some problems, even while
they're being prioritized and moved around a bit.  It's not nearly so bad now
that I've gotten to the admin panel and been able to examine the layout of the
project a lot more.  :)  I even got some billable hours in.  ;)

 DAG>> start that nice minimum wage job doing work that I can handle.  It
 DAG>> won't give me economic security of that nature, but it'll help me
 DAG>> pay the bills, and that's a huge start. 
 NB> And it'll take up some of that nervous energy that is getting you so
 NB> revved up... ;)

  It does help quite a bit for that.  Now that I've got what should be a good
balance between the different things going on I'm pretty confident that I'll be
able to keep my nervous energy to a minimum.  I do need to work on making sure
that I'm getting out for a bike ride or something between my running days,
though.  I'm so used to being able to work on my upper body and other areas on
my running 'off' days so that I can burn out some of that energy.  Just got a
tire repaired on my bike, so it's definitely time to start putting some new
miles on it.  ;)

 NB> We all do have our days of fogginess...  :)  Last week (and to some
 NB> extent this one as well) have been rather short-circuiting for me... a
 NB> couple of days too full with unexpected problems, and a couple more
 NB> where the brain didn't quite want to function well enough to answer
 NB> messages... and voila... days behind...  ;0   I'm almost catching up
 NB> now... only a day behind now... ;)

  What worries me at times is that it seems to go in stretches.  Definitely
when I'm battling issues with my meds.  That doesn't seem to be the case now,
though, as proven by a day of successful work, so all is good on my front.
  I hear you on the short-circuited times.  That's why my correspondence has
been up and down a bit lately, too.  At least it's not due to massive technical
hardware failure or anything of the like this time.  ;)
  I even managed to get a huge bite out of my standard email taken care of.  As
you can tell (and probably share in common with me), I write pretty verbose
messages in my correspondence.  So when I'm feeling too drained by life, work,
or whatever, my inbox piles up a bit.  I had quite the backlog in there... 
Managed to get through all of it except for one last message that needs to be
written now, though, and I even managed to get a few messages out on one of
those dating sites.  ;)
  Best wishes and hope you're doing well and out of the fog!

  -D
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