obstrepero.us

This seems to be a dry spell. I haven't got much of anything to say, so here is some disorganized junk.

This month has not been great; I don't really know why. I guess I don't like the weather at this time of year, for one thing. By now, the spring should be well on its way to summer, but here no change is coming. Some time around July, if you have paid close attention, you might notice that some days are 68° and clear, instead of 55 ° and rainy, but that's about it. Nobody has a swimming pool here because it never gets hot enough to use it. Nobody has a hot tub because it never gets cold enough. In terms of Connecticut, it is a perpetual drizzly March here. It's the seasonless world where you laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. This will bother me again in the fall, like it always does.

I am also contending with the anti-nesting instinct again, which is probably related to my apparent seasonal affective disorder. This means I filled up the trunk with more clothes and old furniture and books and took it to the Goodwill.¹ I go through the house with a trash bag thinking things like, why am I ever going to want my high school diploma again? I have these moods where I just don't want any of it. I bought some plastic bins at the Costco thinking it will be easier to move if the stuff is already packed. I replaced a table with one that will be easier to carry. Why, I don't know. I have no plan to move anywhere. I don't even know where I would go.

Today was the mysql conference in Santa Clara again, at which I reprised my role as Google Engineering Representative, handing out such coveted gewgaws as the blinky pin you see here. That means it is an acting job. In 2006 I was the new guy that tagged along with Steve, my mentor and tech lead. This year I brought Ian, our new guy, to whom I am now mentor and tech lead. The symmetry was not lost on me.

Normal work is an acting job these days too, because of this tech lead business, which is new in the last few weeks. It came about because Steve is becoming a manager soon, apparently for real this time (it has been "soon" for 2 years now). We had a difficult couple of weeks during which it was not clear who was going to inherit the job of tech lead, which I got through using my passive Gandhi technique. This means I offer no resistance, only sit back and wait until other people have messed up enough that somebody asks me to drive again. So having gotten over that, the question now is whether "tech lead" means anything when detached from Steve, who will after all still be around, just a manager. That remains to be seen.

This is what success at the Google looks like, so if I don't like it, it will be time to think up either an answer to where I am going next, or a better rationalization for staying here.

¹ But don't worry if you are one of the several people that gave me books for Christmas or my birthday, those are all still here.

16 Apr 2008 01:55 PT - persistent link - trackback - 1 comment