A quick summary of where life stands right now:
I’ve been working at DirecTV for ten months now, after previously managing to mostly avoid work for two years. Life has become a seven day routine of work-work-work-work-work-sleep-sleep, repeat. Not ideal, but I definitely can’t complain. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to keep it up for a couple of years, after which some new adventures may definitely be in order.
My second job is also going well, despite the fact that instead of 40-60 hours a week I now only have 10-20 hours a week to devote to JAMWiki development. Conservatively I’d estimate that after less than 15 months of existence JAMWiki is one of the three best Java-based wikis available, and probably among the ten best overall. There have been at least thirty or so people who have contributed code and translations, and probably double that number who have provided bug reports and feature requests. Total downloads are at 7,600, which is pretty cool. Translations include everything from French to Chinese to Croatian, with sixteen different languages available. A number of different companies are now using the software, including DirecTV, which is also gratifying. I’m not sure I really care whether or not this project ever turns into a way to support myself financially, but just as JB spent years tinkering with electric cars for the fun of it before becoming CTO of Tesla Motors, I suspect that there is a chance that the project could eventually lead to some interesting opportunities.
In other news there isn’t much to report. Aaron and I continue to have our weekly Funday, and the folks at work were kind enough to teach me how to play Texas Hold ‘Em the other night. The game seems to be 30% about calculating odds, 30% about reading people, and the rest luck. Oddly, for once in my life luck was with me, so I managed to walk away from my first game in the black, but I suspect that future games won’t be as lucrative. The planned trip with my dad to Iceland is a distant 290 days away (not that anyone is counting), and next month I’ll be taking my first vacation day since starting work at DirecTV for a trip to Las Vegas with Aaron. Although not exciting, life is still very good.