Time for another "State of the Barney" post. They're usually a January staple, but oh well.
The past few weeks (since the end of June, really) have carried significant unwanted stress because of the takeover bid for Mentor Graphics by our largest competitor. The odds of the deal actually going through are pretty slim, I think, but the whole corporation is a little jumpy. I'm also definitely in the "redundant" class of employees, so I'd very likely be gone after a token severance package, if that.
Because of the potential purchase, work has been a series of short-term "make the team seem really valuable" kind of projects. The projects themselves aren't really that bad, they're just focused on the wrong results. Frustrating for me, though, as a developer that just wants to build some cool, interesting, and useful apps.
Life at home has shared the tumultuous nature of the office since Heather's return from England on 4th of July weekend. That's not really a topic for a blog post, however, beyond saying my lack of energy is not due to poor eating and sleeping habits.
Emery just turned three on Tuesday, and Lindsay will be five this winter. They both head off to preschool in a couple weeks, Emery for the first time. He's still got some Mommy issues that Lindsay never really had, so we'll see how it goes. He really wants to go though, so any problems will almost certainly be short-lived. The toll of the past month and a half has been
My physical activity has also taken a severe downturn. I haven't done anything active aside from walk up and down the few flights of stairs at my office a handful of times per day. I want to get on my bike again, but it's hard to find time. I haven't even been riding my motorcycle much of late. I'm still far from overweight, but I'm definitely carrying more fat now than I ever have before, and it's not attributable to me getting older.
On the up side, I finally got an iPhone and it's largely lived up to expectations. Typing isn't so hot (expected) and performance leaves something to be desired (also expected - it's a Mac), but having instant access to the 'net is very nice. I've made a couple minor tweaks to some of my personal web apps, but nothing major. Biggest gripe on that front is the handling of HTTP Basic Auth, specifically the incredibly short expiration time applied to cached credentials.
Pic of the Day is a few weeks short of it's fourth anniversary and still going strong. Subscribers are continuing to come in organically, despite no marketing beyond a small text link on my sidebar to get it into Google. That has been a very fun project to watch grow over the years - if only I could list it on my résumé. I think I'm going to do a public "launch" at some point, but we'll see. It's an incredibly fascinating project, though the nature of the managed assets carries an unsavory stigma to many. Most of the interesting stuff I've done over the past few years has been centered around this app, though, not stuff I get paid to work on.
Hopefully life will improve, at least in some ways, but for now the shining points are sparse. C'est la vie.