Back and Kickin’
It’d be lying to describe my job in the lab as a “grind,” but it’s always a little strange to return to the office after any sort of hiatus. We have a couple of projects on the board to be completed before the semester starts and users get back on lab systems in a meaningful way, like group permissions modifications to our internal project pipeline and a few software upgrades. Switching gears from vacation-blogging and rubbing shoulders with Texarkana’s social élite back to shell-scripting and email-answering took the better part of last week, but I think I’m back in the swing of things.
I made little mention of New Year’s resolutions, but there are a few that I’d like to address, after a fashion:
- read more of the books on my shelf. I have several titles from across genres and interests that might serve as inspiration, edification, or even simple amusement in times that I need to take a break from lab work. I might even write about a few of them…which brings me to the next goal.
- write more. Jeff is really good about this, even when our project workload starts to get heavy. It can be hard to convince myself that I have anything interesting to say on a particular day, but I know that every post isn’t going to be a zinger. This goal goes hand-in-hand with the one below.
- create more, curate less. I have a Tumblr blog where I post and reblog things I find interesting or funny. It’s faster than sitting down to write, but I feel like I’ve started to form a habit of curating content rather than creating it. Years from now, I’d much rather have my kids find a blog full of crap that I made than a blog full of crap that other people made. On second thought, maybe not.
In 2010, I started on a project to create a new video each week, which was unfortunately cut short by my car accident and subsequent recovery. I’d like to give that another go as well. Yes, I realize that means I’m already a week late, I’m working on it. If you ever see one that’s been filmed at my apartment, though, I encourage you to berate me and send lots of angry emails.
