Howdy!
Well, the biggest news up front: I’ve been promoted at work, and my title is now Senior Client Application Development Lead. A lot of my work over the past few months has been leading up to this, from the projects I’ve been working outside of work to the things I’ve been learning, so I’m very excited to have achieved this milestone.
So really, that’s been my main focus of attention: I don’t really have a ton else to report!
M and I got a 3D printer a couple of weekends ago; it’s been really fun to see what we can create. This has been a really cool project for us, as we take turns printing fun and/or functional parts. It’s been a nice diversion to be able to quickly dive in and discover the answer questions like, “well, okay, what does G-code actually do?”
3D printers are delightful because they’re in some ways self-bootstrapping; some of the most interesting things we’ve worked on are parts for the printer itself, like an arm to position the filament better, a nameplate so the printer remembers what its name is, and an enclosure for the machine that we’ve slowly been building.
In addition to printing some silly things, like a tiny spork, I’ve also added an Apple Watch charging stand to my desk:
I feel like lately, one of the themes of what I’ve been learning has been “unlocking the hardware side,” so this seemed like an obvious next step. It’s just nice to have another hobby!
I guess I should also mention that I’ve been watching way more sports than I typically do. Philadelphia has been doing a good job at a bunch of your typical American sports, so I’ve been putting most of those games on in the background, in addition to actively watching soccer and F1. As part of my departure from Twitter, I created a sports-only Mastodon account, reviving The Croquet Zone on a new platform.
Music
Reading
It’s been a weird month for me. Typically, I’ll lie in bed at night and read fiction, staying up for a while working through a novel. I had the hardest time finding a new book to read, to the point at which I decided to give non-fiction a go.
I read most of Will Larson’s Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track, though I skipped the interviews. It’s pretty good! It certainly gave me a lot to think about. I definitely think reading things that feel like work before bed was a failed experiment.
Now I’m bouncing between a few non-fiction books; I’m also reading Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks. More to come when I finish it!
failbetter
This month, failbetter published:
- “General Consensus” by Matthew Pitt, and
- “to the heckler at my first poetry reading, 1994” by Daniel Nester
Stats
This month:
- I typed 780,000 keys and clicked 120,628 times.
- I listened to 1,369 songs.
