Skype chatter

So I was remote pairing with my partner at work today. We use Skype to talk and VNC to share the desktop. I have done this at another company previously and it worked pretty well there, but I notice that I behave differently when pairing remotely.

Normally, I am a little chatty and a little flirty (I am not outright flirting...just gentle teasing), but it seems that when I am remotely pairing I get more outgoing. I am funnier, more willing to say things that come to my mind, and more willing to just be myself.

I haven't figured out why this is, but I have noticed it before when I did remote pairing at another job. I know you are probably thinking that I am attracted to my partner which is why I am being more flirty (since he isn't there to visibly reject me). This is absolutely not the case. I am not in the least attracted to this person. I don't want to be mean, but he isn't terribly attractive.

So, tomorrow I get to do the whole remote pairing thing again. I think that this is going to be good for my ego anyway. I needed some time to build it back up after it was crushed for no particular reason.

Got my groove back

So, I wrote the other day about feeling down on myself...somehow, I am feeling much better now.

Yesterday, I was still feeling a little down on myself, but was feeling somewhat better. We worked through the crappy code that started off the whole thing and made a lot of progress toward making it not suck, but by the end of the day, we had not finished the card (which was originally only supposed to take 4 hours).

But, last night I worked at home on fixing up some other parts of the code that I had started this weekend, and managed to get the changes in, and in the process found and fixed a bug. So, I went into work feeling pretty good about myself since I had finished up a little piece that we had all wanted done, and had fixed a bug along the way.

We started off the day with a very long discussion about the stuff we were going to work on this week, as well as talks about the state of the code in general, as well as where different classes belonged, and where we had things right now. I was very engaged in the conversation and felt like I actually contributed more than usual.

After lunch, we got down to work with our new pairs. I am working for the first time with our Business Analyst playing developer (he has a lot of experience as a developer). I thought I would be kind of nervous working with him, and I thought I might feel intimidated, but I didn't. I was actually fairly at ease, and didn't worry about saying things that came to mind.

I think that tomorrow will go fairly well as well. I will be working with him over Skype tomorrow and Friday since he works from home 2 days out of the week. I am actually looking forward to this, and I think it will be good for my ego to feel at ease about saying ideas that come to mind instead of worrying that I am going to say something dumb.

Feeling Down

Hey everyone-

I am feeling kind of down today. As I have said before, I am back at my old office and we aren't pairing with the other company any more. We are back to having 4 developers (we had 3, but our Business Analyst is sitting in as a developer so we can get some stuff out the door - he used to be a developer).

I like being back, for the most part, although I do miss the guys from the other company. But, I am feeling down on myself now that I am back.

I am feeling like I suck at what I do. I know that it isn't true, but I am feeling that way right now. The other guys that I work with are REALLY good at what they do. They have an excellent grasp of what makes a design good, great understanding of patterns and what anti-patterns to avoid, and I am just trying to get a good grip on these things.

I am always feeling like I am this stupid junior programmer that has very little to add to conversations. When we are talking about issues I feel like the suggestions I have are going to be laughed at (although, I highly doubt that would really happen). I just feel so simplistic and naive.

To make things worse, we have been talking about different places in our code that are written poorly, designed poorly, etc, and today we found another place that is really bad, and it is something that I wrote. I found myself apologizing for the poor code profusely and feeling like an idiot.

I am not sure what I can do about things to make myself feel better. I feel stupid asking them to approve of how I'm doing, and feel needy when I ask for things like that. So, any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

-Honest (and slightly depressed) Fairy

Disney Vacation

So, I promised I would write about my trip to Disney World.

My husband and I decided that my son (5 years old) was old enough to go to Disney and enjoy some of the rides and also hopefully remember the trip when he gets older.

The day we were to leave, we got up and finished packing and loading the car and had a few hours to kill before we had to be to the airport. So, we decided to run some errands before we left and figured we'd stop somewhere and have lunch before we got to the airport. We ran to the post office to drop a package in the mail and I ran in with it.

When I come back out, I see my husband sitting across the street in the van looking rather grumpy. When I get over there, I notice that he has turned the van off, so I asked him, "What's wrong?"

He tells me the van won't start. I noticed as I was getting in that there was something on the ground, but it didn't look like oil. He believed that it was transmission fluid leaking from the van. I thought that the stuff on the ground seemed to have a reddish hue to it, so I believed him.

I called AAA to get the van towed somewhere so we could have it fixed while we were away on vacation and my husband decided to walk home to get the car (it was maybe a mile or so from home, in a small town).

So, I'm on the phone with AAA and they are ready to send a wrecker to come get me and they tell me that I haven't paid for my membership and I'll need to do that before they can send service. So, I get transferred over to talk to someone and pay for the membership. After being on the phone with them for about 15 minutes, I am finally all paid up and they are going to send the tow truck...however, they tell me it could be up to 45 minutes for me to wait! By then, we'd be pushing getting to the airport on time for our flight so I let them know this and they said they'd let the tow truck driver know.

So, I sit there and wait for help and finally the wrecker arrives (in only about 15-20 minutes). He, of course, asks what happened and I tell him. He checks out the spot on the ground and tells me that it is gas. I had never even considered that it might be gas since it appeared to be reddish and it was in the front of the van. Thankfully, he had seen another van like ours with a similar problem. Apparently, the gas line on the van is plastic, and there is a coupling on the line that is also plastic, and if it is not tightened properly the line can slip right off.

I was very thankful to the driver, but extremely upset with the dealership. You see, I had just taken my van in for a tune-up the previous week where they replaced the fuel filter. Apparently, they didn't tighten things up like they should have.

Anyway, we got to the airport on time and made it to Florida with no troubles. My son, on the way down commented that this was the best day of his life since this was the first time he had ever ridden on a plane.

Disney Proper
So, after all of the hassle of the previous day, we are ready to go to Disney and have some fun. We made it to the park without any trouble (we purchased a GPS unit for the car, well worth the money!).

We spent 3 days at Disney, and while I enjoyed the time there, I was less than awed by the whole thing. I have been hearing about how great Disney is for years, and have family members that absolutely love the place, so I had high expectations going in.

I felt like it was just a hyped up Cedar Point (without the great roller-coasters). There were some cool things and some neat effects on some of the rides, but a lot of them had rather old animatronics that were just lame. ("It's a Small World" was about the lamest ride in the world!)

However, I am glad that I went, and my son absolutely LOVED it, so overall it was a good vacation. I don't think I'll be going back any time soon, however. For the money that you pay to get in, and the fact that it is Disney, I just expected more.

General Updates

So, it has been a while since I have updated my blog. Been really busy I guess, and not much to say.

Child
About the shoes for my son, we ended up buying some inserts for arch support. These seem to be doing a very good job as he has only complained once or twice since buying them shortly after my last post. I liked this idea more than the shoes since he is growing so quickly. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on shoes that he will only get to wear for a few months.

My son also started kindergarten. He seems to be enjoying this quite a lot. He is going to a private kindergarten because I was afraid if I sent him to public school now he'd end up being a bit of a class clown (since he already knew a lot of the things they were going to be working on). Not trying to brag...just what my concerns were.

Work
Work is going really well. We finished up our partnership with the other company, and are now back at our main office. It took a little getting used to being back over there, but it is nice to be back. For the first few days, we couldn't get over how quiet it was (since there was always a fair amount of background noise with 30-40 people pairing in a big open space).

We released our product and are opening it up to some select users to give us feedback. I think it is pretty amazing the stuff that we managed to do in it, and the amount of ajaxy-ness of the application. We are now working on the next release, which is to be in November sometime...so they are keeping us really busy.

Well, it's getting late, and I am tired, so I am going to go for now...hopefully I'll start updating this a little more regularly. Remind me I wanted to put a post out about my trip to Disney with my son!

Kids Shoes

My son has flat feet and I have been searching online to find out what kind of shoes to buy for him. He complains when he is extra tired that his feet hurt or if he has walked a lot his feet hurt.

I found a couple of different places where people mentioned that Keen shoes are great for kids with flat feet. As much as I want to buy him some of these they are extremely expensive, especially when I am purchasing them for a child that will grow out of them in 4 months time.

These shoes cost around $50 for a pair. If anyone has any suggestions on what shoes are good for kids with flat feet that aren't extremely expensive, please let me know. Or if you know of a place where I can buy these more cheaply...I'd greatly appreciate it!

Dancing fiend

My niece got married this weekend and my son came to the wedding. He is 5 years old and this is the first wedding that he has been to since he is old enough to remember (he has been to some when he was very little).

He seemed to be fine during the ceremony (although I can't speak to much to that since I was standing up in the wedding). He was certainly excited about the reception. He couldn't wait to dance. He would even dance across the dance floor before the dance floor was even opened up.

After they started the dancing we couldn't keep him off the floor. I think he asked just about every girl at the reception to dance. He is actually pretty good at dancing even. It was very fun to watch him. His entire body moves when he dances, and sometimes he looked like a marianette puppet out there.

They had the dollar dance (for those of you who don't know what this is, during American weddings, we do a dance where you can pay to dance with either the bride or the groom...basically this is a way to give them money). When they announced that they were going to do the dollar dance, my son came running over to my husband and asked for money because "you have to pay to dance this one".

We gave him some money and I took him over and asked who he wanted to dance with. He didn't want to dance with either my niece or her new husband, he wanted to dance with the bridesmaid that was taking the money for the dance. I had to talk him into actually dancing with the bride or the groom. When it was the next persons turn, he was very upset because he was dancing with her. He ended up having a special dance with the bridesmaid that he had paid for too, because he just really wanted to dance with her.

He was so excited about dancing that when he went to the bathroom, he was going as fast as he could so he could get back out to dance.

Looks like I might have to get him into some dance lessons!

Interesting Times

We are continuing to work with a second company in order to try to get our product finished more quickly. Each week we seem to be adding another pair of programmers to the team, we are up to 4 pairs now, 2 of which have nobody from our company on them.

I am feeling really bad for the one developer from our company since he is being asked to continue work on our prototype (which is only being used to show to companies to get interest in the new product).

This week I started pairing with a guy new to our project. I thought he was doing ok and then at the end of the day he said he had to go to class. I asked him what class he was taking...I found out that he was going to learn Java. We are writing our application in Java! Even more amazing, we were given another new guy to partner with someone else, and he doesn't know Java either!

I was absolutely amazed that we were given partners that don't know the language that we are working in. Now, to the guys credit, he does know other languages, and to a certain extent it is pretty true that if you know how to program, the language is just syntax and you can pick it up. But, I have also learned that there are a lot of efficiencies that you gain from a deeper understanding of a language than just the syntax.

I have obviously been doing a lot of the driving (that is what it is called when you are the one typing) and it is getting kind of tiring. I gave him the keyboard for a while this afternoon to do some fixing of some compilation issues and he did that well enough, but not sure how well he'd do to write something new from scratch.

I will keep everyone posted on how it goes with this guy and the other one. I am curious to see what other people in my company think about working with them. At least it might reduce some arguments about the architecture of our system!

Not as young as I used to be...

So, this weekend one of the girls that I used to work with had a girls night. I was very excited about it since we hadn't hung out very much since I left my old job. We used to talk just about every day at work.

I went over to her place around 8 and didn't leave there until a little after 4 in the morning. Boy, is it catching up to me now. I ended up getting home around 4:30. Thankfully my husband let me sleep in until about 10:30. The day after I wasn't too tired, but yesterday and today I've been dragging.

I used to be able to do nights like this much easier, but I think I am just getting too old for this...of course, I have a bachelorette party in a couple of weeks so I will probably end up with another few days of being super tired.

Working away from the office

So, I've been working in a different office (only a few blocks away from my real office) for a week now. It is amazing how much different things can be when you are not working in the same building as you colleagues.

There is quite a feeling of disconnection. We go over daily for stand-up and talk about what we've been working on and what we will be working on that day, but it feels like we are visitors and don't necessarily belong there.

It seems like we don't know what is going on in the office, and I am not sure how much they know about how things are going for us either.

Thankfully, our manager has decided to set up weekly lunch dates between the groups so we get to get together and talk about what has been going on and just hang out for a while. Today I attended my first one (I was out of the office for the official first lunch together). It was a lot of fun. We didn't really talk work, but we just kind of hung out and ate pizza and talked. It was a great way to get to know the other people in the office.

I hope that when we are done working in the other office that we will continue this tradition (perhaps a little less frequently). It will just be a nice way to get to know everyone and just unwind.

Small World

So, I took the day off on Friday because my son's preK was doing a special Mother's Day presentation for us in the afternoon. I figured it was a good excuse to take the day off and do some other things that I had been wanting to do.

So, in the morning, I checked my email and since I was on the computer my instant messenger was up. One of the guys I used to work with a few jobs ago saw me online and said hi. He had heard that I had a new job (I don't know how everyone finds out that I moved jobs...but there have been a few people that have known I moved jobs even though I never talked to them about it).

Anyway, while we were talking he asked where I was working now, and he knew one of the guys that I work with. I should have realized that he might have, because my coworker used to work at the same company as the other guys wife.

Anyway, it was just strange how in this town after you have worked here for a while, you just run into the same people over and over again.

First Day (sort of)

So, for those of you following my blog, you all know that today was my first day working with another company. It was a blast! It was great getting the team back together again. I think that the guy that has been working over there was really happy to have us there.

It took a while to get going because we spent a long time going over the work that we were planning to do this week. But, I think it was a really good start. We went over the things that we were going to work on and it was nice to go over how to do some of it and any questions that we had on the work.

Since I have only been working at my company for a little over a month, I have been the newbie and have been the least knowledgable about things. But, today I was the expert. It was really nice to be back in the power seat again.

I started off working with another developer from the other company that worked on our product last week, so he knew what had happened then, and the card that we were working on was very similar to the one he worked on the previous week.

We started off strong, with him doing most of the typing since he knew how everything was working. Then, after lunch, he didn't feel well, so he went home and I ended up pairing with another developer that was not familiar with the system at all. I was really happy that I ended up pairing up with him since it gave me a chance to slow down and really get a good handle on what we are trying to do.

Also, since I know what we are trying to do and I know what we have built, I was the person who knew the stuff again. I felt so much more myself. It was really great, and I think that this will help me feel stronger in the long run (which is really important for me because I am more confident in what I am doing so I am not as worried about whether my ideas are any good or not).

So Excited!

If you've been reading my blog, then you know that the company I work for is going to be working with another company that does Extreme Programming. Tomorrow I get to start working over there. I am really excited. It will be fun to work with some new people and get to work on the product instead of our prototype.

It'll be great getting the team back together again. One of the guys on our team has been over there for a week already. I think he's been kind of lonely over there (of course, he's been pairing up with one of the guys from the other company). He stopped by earlier this week and had lunch with us.

Indian Food

So, today at work, I went out to lunch with the other engineers and we went to get Indian food. I normally go get Indian food with one of my Indian friends and they can tell me what each thing is. I was surprised that I was able to tell what a good number of the things were.

I was also sad that they didn't have any samosas, or any desserts on the buffet. :-( I miss going to Shalimar with the girls and hanging out and eating way too much! My good friend recently moved back to India and she is keeping a blog too, which is great because it is just liking talking to her!

On other fronts, looks like I'll be working with another extreme programming house (probably next week), on the project that my company is working on. We are getting more people involved, since there are only 3 of us, and the company wants to get a brand new (complete rewrite) version of the product out by September.

I am excited and a little nervous about the whole thing. I am excited, because it will be cool to work with some more people that are into XP as well. I am a little nervous about the whole thing since I will be pairing up with a person that knows nothing about what we are trying to build, and since I've only been there a little over a month, I don't feel like I know much more.

I am sure that I will probably feel much better about what I know once I start explaining it to someone else. And, the nice thing is I will have backup around (the other guys I work with).

Well, I'll go now and keep you updated on how the whole joint venture goes.

Wii - What fun!

So, we got our son a Wii for his birthday...ok...so we bought a Wii for ourselves for my son's birthday. We had been wanting to buy him a video game for a while now, but we couldn't find just the right one.

Last year we bought him a video game for kids, but it was terrible. I think it was originally designed as a handheld game and when it gets blown up to 50" it didn't work very well. It had a "drawing pad" that allowed your kids to practice drawing their letters, but even we couldn't draw the letters with the drawing pad. So, we returned it.

So, we decided to get a Wii, since we wanted one and there are some fun games to use with it. I am finding out that it is a good way to keep in better shape too. I have been enjoying playing the boxing game that came with the console. I am thinking of buying the Wii Fit game that is supposed to be coming out next month.

I am hoping that seeing as I can compete with myself with the Wii, I will be more likely to do it and get some exercise.

Busy, busy, busy

So, the last couple of weeks have been extremely busy. My son's birthday was on Tuesday, and his party was on Sunday. Of course, I also had a bridal shower (my neice) on Saturday an hour away, and my hubby took our son to a birthday party the same day.

So, thankfully, I got through the weekend alive (although my house is much worse for the wear). This weekend is much slower with only one birthday party to attend, and thankfully that is done now, so it is back to housework so I don't feel so crappy about coming home to a messy house.

My new job is going very well. I am loving doing the extreme programming thing, and am learning an amazing amount! It looks like very soon our company will be working with another company in the area that also does extreme programming, so I am really excited about that. It'll be cool to get to know some more people that like to work this way too!

Since my new job is much closer to this great Thai restaurant, I have been going there way too often for lunch, but boy is it great! I work a lot more at my new job than I did at my last job, but it feels good to get so much done. It is also pretty cool to learn so much new stuff.

Bad Timing

So, my hubby had to go to Florida for work this week. We didn't find out that he had to go until late last week, so it was very short notice. He is going to be gone until late Thursday.

Of course, it couldn't have come at a more awkward time. My neice is having having her bridal shower on Saturday and on Sunday we are having a birthday party for our son. I am one of the brides maids for my neice so I have to finish getting some things for the shower this week and I have a young son to try to drag around while I run these errands.

So, yesterday on my way home from work my van dings at me. I was going around a corner when it dinged at me so I didn't look down at it right away. I assumed it was dinging at me because I either needed windshield washer fluid or I needed gas. When I looked down I saw that my check engine light had come on.

Now, the van was running just as smootly as ever (which is saying a lot since it has over 100,000 miles on it), so I wasn't sure what was wrong. Since I don't know a lot about what the sensors are hooked up to, I was a little concerned.

Normally, I wouldn't have been so worried, but since I am playig single mom this week, I only have one vehicle and taking the van in to get it serviced is much more of a deal. I didn't want to have to rent a car and I certainly didn't want to drive the van to the airport to get my husbands car since I didn't know what was wrong with it.

I was hoping that I might be able to find a dealership that had loner cars (I know this isn't something that most dealerships do anymore, although they used to). I tried the dealership closest to me and, of course, they didn't offer that service. Plus they weren't sure if they'd be able to fix some things on my van since they are not a Dodge dealer.

So, I decided to call a repair shop that is pretty close to where I work and I'd just walk a few blocks into work. I called them up to see if I could drop it off and they said that they should be able to take a look at it.

The guy I talked to on the phone was very nice and he asked me if I had gotten gas lately. I thought this was an odd question, but I told him no. He proceeded to tell me that sometimes on newer vehicles there is a sensor that can notice that the pressure in your gas tank is less thatn it should be if your cap is not on tight. So, on a whim after I got off the phone with him I went out and checked my gas cap, even though the mechanic didn't think it was the problem since it had been several days since I had last filled up.

My gas cap was a little loose so I tightened it up and turned the van on. I waited a couple of minutes, but the light didn't go off, so I was sure that I was going to have to take the thing in to get it serviced.

This morning, I woke up and got my son ready for pre-k and dropped him off...it's only a few blocks to his school. The light stayed on. When I left from dropping him off...the light came on, but after a minute or so of driving it went off. It has been off since! Thank goodness that the mechanic was nice enough to have mentioned that.

I am not sure what I would have done if I had had to drop it off and they couldn't fix it before 5 (since I need to pick my son up before 5:30)!