Arlington is Alright

I'm back from Virginia. I had fun riding trains, crashing in hotels, visiting family, and going on job interviews. A lot of people hate job interviews, but I love them. It's an opportunity for me to talk shop with people from other shops. Talking shop is great fun for me.

They often make me take skills and aptitude tests. Those are the best, because I know they're coming at the test from an angle where they want to see if I'm qualified to join their syndicate. Will I wash out? Eventually I'll find myself too deep in over my head, I'm no genius, but every skills game—mea culpa, skills test— I've been through so far has been pretty simple compared to what I do for an actual living. Sure, I don't get everything right, and I make mistakes, and there's a bunch of stuff I don't know about, but I get to learn about all that in the review process and post mortem and that's so cool. I think what I do for living is fun.

Programming isn't my first choice. If I thought I could make a solid living painting or taking my odd photographs as I like to do, I'd probably do that. But programming is a real close contender, it's great fun, and I don't pine for another career in the arts. I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours coding for free just for kicks. Of course, I've also been very poor for most of my life, and I'm not doing that anymore. Dolla', dolla' bill, y'all.

It's good to be home.