I can feel my life officially beginning to kick into full throttle. Things are happening.

After getting another large portion of the garbage pile that is my bedroom straightened out, I decided it was time to take the leap. I went to the grocery store, and obtained some leftover boxes which they needed to dispose of. Though none of them are really filled yet, the Castle Lair has boxes! This now gives the place the definite feeling that moving is imminent.

On a whim today, I followed a slashdot ad to a job search site. In the "skills" field, I typed the words "Perl, PHP, Linux", and ran a national search. It returned exactly one result. (I would have expected dozens, given that I selected a nationwide search for such common skills.)

A company in the city of Nashville, Tennesse apparently wants to hire somebody with skills that match mine almost perfectly. Could this be serendipity? Minutes earlier, someone I know who lives in that area had posted a public announcement stating that anyone who happened to be job searching could crash there later this month.

I decided this was a lead that was at least worth throwing a resume at. So I did so. Haven't heard anything yet, but we'll see...

This afternoon, I received some communiques from San Antonio. Things appear to be in motion down there. I'm going to be doing a phone interview on Monday. Hurray for he who is known as bouncing!

This means that it would be a very good idea for me to spend some time this weekend "brushing up" on my python skills. Finish reading the online tutorial. Maybe if I'm ambitious, I might go out and get some dead tree documentation to augment my knowledge as well. I think I'll make it a goal to have some sort of python-based web demo running on my "other site" by Monday morning.

Phfesting, anyone?

In the buildmeasite department, this afternoon, scottgalvin.com took Jaeger and myself to "lunch." (It's still considered "lunch" if the meal begins before 5, isn't it?) Buildmeasite stuff is officially kicking into gear too. Next week, we release some of the code that's been in development during the past couple months code into real production. Whew!

After the dinner, I had an insane idea. I wished it had really clicked while we were eating, so I could have brought it up right there, but I guess it took a few minutes for the input from the conversation to digest in my mind, and I realized what I think would be a Very Good Idea, and sent an email saying as much to my buildmeasite colleagues.

Situation: Jaeger has written a big pile of code in one corner. I have written another big pile of code in another corner. These piles of code need to be integraded to work with one another, but I suspect both of us are slightly squeamish about touching the other's spooky perl code. It's a scary thing.

At one point at the table, scottgalvin.com brought up extreme programming, asking us whether we knew anything about it. I told him that our department at my former employer had taken some forays into this approach, and found certain aspects of it to be beneficial.

Getting back home, the thought came back into my mind. In my view, one thing that could use a little improvement is to have more thorough and solid communication between the developers regarding technical specifics. It's hard to put my finger on it exactly, but it seems to me that there have been many vagueries regarding how all the different pieces are going to magically function together. But how to fix it?

A thought: Pair Programming! Naturally. I theorized that for this particular case, it would be a good idea. I'll have to wait and see what the others think.

Hmmm... what else?

Oh yes. Note to self: Read this book at some point in the future. (I happened upon it while I was browsing through Borders before scottgalvin.com and Jaeger arrived, and found the preface and part of the first chapter fascinating. Then again, that could just be because I am me.)

Now, I find that it is Friday evening. I think I'll forego any adventuring outside my apartment tonight (i.e. the club I would normally be tempted to hang out at), both in an effort to conserve resources a little, and because I have tons of things that need to get done around here, or at least that's what it feels like. (Whether any of it will actually get done is another matter.)

I might watch one of my netflix movies as well.

Oh, and migrating my web page. That's going to happen at some point too. The process may begin this weekend, but I doubt I'll actually be switching any DNS entries over for at least another week or two. Keep right on spidering those naughty directories, people. They'll only be available for a little while longer. ;)

Oh, and I should backup all my stuff to Dagobah too. Just in case. That's something I should be doing regularly anyway. But it's absolutely critical before a big relocate happens.

Alright. Enough of this typing. I've got stuff to do. And then I'm going to relax (maybe).

"The wheels are in motion." So said the great purveyor of wisdom known as Jerry, shortly before Baboo was shipped back to Pakistan. I hope that doesn't happen to me. Ponder that thought for a while. Peace.