The Idea Oubliette

There has been a snow storm. It wasn't as bad as the forecast had made it out to be. The wind blew the snow around into big drifts, leaving some parts largely uncovered by new snow. At some point I have to clear the driveway of this snow. It's begun to melt, since the temperatures have risen above freezing. They're going to keep rising over the next couple of days. Wet snow does not clear easily. A snowblower can't manage it very well and it's quite heavy to shovel. However, the fact that it's in drifts may make shoveling easier. I can hope, anyway, because the snowblower won't work well on the snow as it is right now. 300 feet of driveway is a pain to clear. But I think the natural beauty we have is worth the inconvenience of a bit of snow part of the year. At least we have nowhere to go at the moment.

It's been over a week since I've posted here, and I apologize to my loyal readers who have probably all headed to the hills. Twitter has been keeping me distracted, while my bipolar disorder and newly-diagnosed ADHD have left me feeling less than effective. It's hard to push yourself to try to succeed when you feel you've been so far from stellar that bothering with anything is a waste of time. But things are picking up. I'm on new medication, I have great friends, an incredibly supportive wife and a window into new techniques to help keep my problems in check. There's definitely a gleam of hope where a short while ago there was none. I'd love to find employment, but my chosen field of expertise, software development, seems to be yielding little, if any, job prospects in the area. I can always cast out a wider net in my search, since so far I've only looked at Nova Scotia. However New Brunswick and PEI are both a stone's throw away. PEI is apparently...

Yep, I know what I wrote in If I Grow Up … I had a direction and I wanted to follow it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I want to write, I love to write, I’m going to write. But do I want to make a living off of it? Perhaps I just want to do it for fun. There’s a bit of a problem with this, in that I crave something to do. The most lucrative thing I can think of is developing software. I like doing it, and I tend to do it anyway, just like writing. There’s at least one project that’s really got me interested, and I’m sure I can cook up more ideas when I’ve finished it. Finishing What I Start! It’s always been a bit of an issue for me. I’m just going to have to try harder to stay on target and not lose steam before I’m done. I’ll have to nail down my requirements and feature list well before I start coding, and freeze those requirements for version 1.0. There’s always room for improvement later on, and if the first version isn’t solid, what kind of a message does that send to us...

UPDATED! It seems almost certain that Sophie will be getting laid off at the beginning of next month. As such, my trip to the UK is nixed, unless I get some sort of windfall of cash. Layoff plans In order to cover expenses, and possibly have some money left over for the trip, I’ll be looking at getting a part-time job. With my constant headaches and the possibility of depression, I’d have to get something pretty stress free, and not in a noisy environment. I’m not entirely confident in my ability to show up to work every day. Our income would be significantly reduced, so a lot of what I make from a part-time job would go to bills and such. Part-time is definitely about the limit I could handle. Implications There will be no trip, as it stands. The primary implication is that I might not be able to buy my plane ticket. I think that’ll be the single biggest expense of my trip. Food is probably next, and I *was* a university student on a budget, so I know how to keep from oversp...