New Places

Today was a good day to expand horizons. I went to visit the guys at FourAthens and went to a code retreat this morning after handling some stuff after work (good grief that day; a five hour project took 10 straight. Utter bull...).

It was good. I felt like I was in over my head the moment I walked in. Everyone else was well-established as a developer. I just wanted to learn, so I kept that in mind and decided that I would stay in and play anyway. We had to recreate the program logic for the Game of Life.

They had you do whatever you could do to recreate the logic for 45 minutes, then erase it all and start again with varying twists:

• don't use conditional statements
• have a partner test, then add to it
• don't talk to your partner, but work together
• work on the project, then switch with another group's code and extend it. you can't talk to the group that made the code you swapped with

So many things like this. It points out things I've always known: I can get the logic easy and I even know what I need, I just don't know how to ask the program for it. That said, the guys there were all really cool and gave me lots of ideas for how to get where I was going. 

I got further than Morgan did, but even he went up by what I consider leaps and bounds today.

After that (and I was sad to go), I went to Starbucks where Jami said, "You must have sensed I was having a bad day and came to make me feel better." I smiled and gave her my root beer. After that, I saw these cranberry bliss bars, and had to have some. I ordered about $20 worth of stuff. She charged me for coffee, tea, and one bar, but gave me six.

So good omnomnomnomnom......

I walked out smiling, and she was happy with her root beer. I think she needed that.

We all do.

After that, I went from being nice to being mean to the Plan International people on the street. I just wanted to be left alone. I took a kid on and sponsored that kid. I don't know why they don't remember me since I've talked to the exact same person multiple times. I just want to be remembered and left alone to enjoy my afternoon sometimes. If you need help, then I'll help you where I'm at, but asking me to do a million things with $30 for someone halfway across the world is getting on my nerves. Especially when I know that, to you, I'm just another one among the ranks you've asked and not someone even worth remembering.

Moving on, Friday at work was some nonsense, but I had a lot of fun playing Soul Caliber with the guys the night before and then after that, I didn't sleep well. I woke up every 45 minutes and each time after a nightmare. Some of them had my mom. One of them involved work. It's just not a good situation, but I'm ok. Walked into work early and had to wait for everyone to turn in everything last minute.

It's all good though.

I also have a job interview next week. I need to work on that for a bit, but I'm alright for now.

I've also been thinking about God and worship and the Church more. Not a building, but a people. A nation. I bought some music. The fact that it's all Christian music is interesting, but I honestly just wanted to support those artists. I think I bought liek $30 worth of music in minutes. It felt good to buy it, oddly enough.

I'm also enjoying the music I bought. It takes me back and makes me remember and it's just worth listening to.

I need to shake some things off, and shake other things up and I'm good to go.

I'm going to take a little road trip with my roomie tonight so he can be with his family. It's a long drive and I don't want him to go alone. It's going to be a fun weekend and I'm looking forward to every moment.

This day has been clear win.