zacharyc

Last year was an exciting year. There were many changes, challenges, opportunities, growth, and great friends. I had some intense feelings as well, and I moved to a smaller space. Forgive the randomness of this post; there will be a bunch of random collections of thoughts about the past year. I’m only in the infancy of this post, but it reminds me of the failed Best Man speech I gave at my middle brother’s wedding, where I tried to tie too many random thoughts together. Forgive me; this is more for me than for you. ...

This is going to be a short one, as I don’t have too much to say. I’m hopefully writing a small book about cheerleading. I’m a man of mini obsessions. One of my many is going to the book store and looking at possible books to read. Whether I read them or not, I’m always hunting for new books to add to my personal library. I believe that a personal library is important and a lot can be learned from looking at the books one keeps. So I go to bookstores to find tomes that will enhance my library. ...

One of the best things about being back on the East Coast is that I’m much closer to my brothers and their kids. I get to be the uncle I want to be. Well, at least I get to try to be the uncle I want to be. During this break, I’ve spent a bunch of time with my family for the holidays. The number of times I’ve been surrounded by four kids under ten this week is a new record. While most of my friends consider me a high-energy person, spending this time around the young one saps my energy like no other. I’m coming into the New Year Holiday tired. I don’t regret any minute I spend with the kids, but they are intense. I don’t even feel like I use too much energy with them, yet when they leave, I’m done. I want nothing more than to sit on the couch and nap. It’s an enormous effort to get up and do other personal goals. ...

As a software engineer, you tend not to trust code you don’t write yourself. Or even if you have written it yourself, there is a tendency to think we could write it better this time. Eventually, you run up against a project that is too complex to write from scratch. You will look for libraries and tools to help you solve the problem. Once a library has been located, the questions only grow. Is the library safe? What dependencies does this particular library have? How do I know I can trust it? ...

As a dog daddy, I have a lot of fears. I’m afraid of how I support her life. I’m worried that I won’t get her out enough. No matter how much I get her out, I’m always afraid it isn’t enough. When we go out, I’m worried that I give her too much freedom or not enough freedom. I’m embarrassed when she does something terrible and proud when she does something good. ...