So I haven’t updated lately, and that’s mostly been by design. It’s not that I’m not in the mood — it’s more that I have so much going on that I have to let things give somewhere along the way. The blog updates are one of the many things that’s had to slide a bit as part of this. Anyway, I wanted to assure you that I’m a.) not dead, and b.) still engaged with this thing, despite months of solitude.
So What Up, Yo?
Well, for starters, I’m working two jobs again. First, I’m the senior PM at an agency in Minnetonka, and I’m loving life there. I’ve got another PM on my team and I’m tasked with building out a real PM system — hours tracking, forecasting, etc. — so that we can take the agency to the next level. This is in addition to my usual PM workload, too.
And if that weren’t enough, I’m back to spinning wrench at a local bike shop chain. It’s two nights a week and all-day on Saturdays. It’s keeping me busy, it’s helping improve the family’s financial situation, and in a few more weeks, I’m going to be headed down the warpath of saving up toward a new cyclocross bike. I’ve got my eyes on a Specialized Crux, but whether that’s the Expert or the Elite, is still to-be-determined.
Tinkering
Unfortunately, not much has been going on here. I’ve been focused primarily on getting my web development skills honed and ready to rock. With it likely that I’m going to be in a director-level role at the main job in the next year or so, I don’t see how that’s going to change a whole lot, unfortunately.
I do have some idea for projects to tackle, and I’m in the middle of a bit of web geekery that I’m keeping hush-hush. It’s been intended to teach me some web tech that I haven’t played with before, including SVG and Laravel.
I also registered danbailey.dev a few months ago, and while I’ve got a basic framework set up, I obviously need to get some work done on it. I’ve got a new theme underway, using Bootstrap, and hope to have that polished and moved to live over the holiday weekend here. We’ll see, though. I’ve got quite the list of to-dos, and a microsite is down my list of priorities.
What Else?
I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like, but the brainstorming is going well. I’ve also had a bit of a brainstorm after listening to a podcast — and I kind of want to take a crack at a non-fiction book, which I’m tentatively titling Absolutely F*cked. In the interest of not tipping my hand too much, I’m going to take a pass on sharing the subtitle.
The bike has been largely ignored this year, mostly because of the weather. I got the fatbike out for a few casual rides so far this spring, but man, it feels like it’s been rainy/chilly here for all of the last two months or so. And the few times it’s been nice, I’ve been stuck in the bike shop, fixing other peoples’ bikes.
All in all, though, I’m pretty happy. It’s been a good spring so far. I’ve had a few small-scale epiphanies about life, friendship, and family, and while I’m not in therapy anymore, I’m still working on myself. And sometimes, that’s all you can do.