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Monday, May 26th, 2003
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3:54 am - o/- In my heart, I know I'm a software engineer ... o/-
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Whee! I guess I'm a software engineer at heart, even though my job is often the antithesis of the creation process. My job involves a lot of deconstruction and looking for the negatives This is the sort of activity that you have to be a good software engineer to truly excel in, ironically enough. Writing reports for the clients documenting their issues and possible resolution isn't exactly my idea of creative activity.
I've always been a creative sort of person. So it feels really good to sink my teeth into the process of creating complex and elegant software to serve as tools for my job. When I was a software quality engineer, the part that I enjoyed the most was buiding the automation system infrastructure and writing automation tools. The actual testing of the software was rather mundane. I was more interested in test plans, and automating these test plans.
It's a very neat mental problem to create an intricate data-driven structure of callbacks, asynchronous functions, thread based upon a database engine. It'll be a big bonus knowing that my team mates will use this tool and appreciate the elegance of it all. Rigorous specifications is a must! Thank goodness for OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner. They substitute for a whiteboard quite nicely! If you do any sort of outlining or diagramming and have a Macintosh, check out these tools.
To all my dear nontechnical readers -- I apologize if all this flew over your head. I just wanted to express the joy of meeting an intricate challenge with an intricate creative solution! After doing deconstructive activities for my job for years, it is indescribable to be doing the opposite instead. Maybe one day, I'll retire and become a writer or painter instead. Or maybe I'll always be a software engineer of some sort.
current mood: creative
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| Saturday, May 24th, 2003
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12:52 pm - Summer Plans are Shaping Up!
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After much nail-bittng and running about in my head, my plans are finally solidifying and congealing into definites rather than possibilities! Spending the summer in Maine, spending a week in Montreal, and then another week in Las Vegas to attend a few conferences.
( My summer plans! )
current mood:  bouncy
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| Sunday, May 11th, 2003
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2:07 am - Acceptance of one's own deafness
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My mother is in town to visit my sister and I. It was rather nice spending time with her at the coffeeshop today, talking about friends, our shared past, and amusing anecdotes. I think I've gotten to the point where I can have interesting adult conversations with my mother, and that is very nice. The conversation we had led to a thread that I'd like to write about here.
It's about acceptance of deafness, and being disabled. And understanding deafness, or being disabled in some way.
( Read about my thoughts on deafness ... )
current mood:  thoughtful
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, May 3rd, 2003
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12:36 am - Various and Sundry Things (I'm back!)
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It's been a while since I've posted to my LiveJournal. Generally I try to write about things that might be of broad interest to readers, but I think I'm going to indulge and write of the happenings in my life.
The last two weeks has been really rough for me, as I'd been working on two gigs for work. One required me to work from 8 am to 5 pm, and the other from 10:30 pm to 6 am. It has been most detrimental to my sanity and my health -- but I have a real sense of accomplishment. I finally feel on top of the game again, thanks to the help of my co-worker and good friend. Despite the stresses that I go through, I do truly love my job. A lot of it is because of the very good karma that my entire team shares. They are all very intelligent, weird, and friendly people. The pay helps too.
I decided to take advantage of one of the benefits of my job, the ability to work from anywhere, and take a long-term working-vacation somewhere else. I almost never have non-working-vacations, although I had a recent one to the Cancun area in Mexico. It seemed pretty ironic to me that the job that demands so much from me sends me to Mexico because I was a top performer. I really enjoyed the vacation to mexico. Although it was one of these vacations that I seemed to need a vacation from afterwards, because I was so bussy.
Where is this working-vacation taking me? Glad you asked. I'm making tentative plans to spend at least a month in Midcoastal Maine starting in June. Even more tentatively, I'm thinking of spending the entire summer there. I'll need to see about finding housing, but the prices seem to be most reasonable there. You can find the pictures from my previous visit to Maine here. I have good friends there, and the scenery is beautiful. The change will probably be good for me.
In any case, let's get back to the regularly scheduled program ...
current mood:  cheerful
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, March 1st, 2003
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10:58 pm - The Dawn of the New Men
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| Thursday, February 13th, 2003
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11:34 pm - Ai! Architects, plans, and lots galore! (The 'Not So Big' Principle)
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I had just finished reading all of Sarah Susanka's 'Not So Big' books, all of which are highly reccomended for those who are dismayed at the American tendency towards the idea of bigger being better. The whole principle is that instead of spending dollars on raw square footage, we spend the dollars on crafting a truly exceptional home that happens to not be so big. With that in mind, I began investigating the whole process ...
( Click here to continue, my dear reader ... )
current mood: thoughtful
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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7:39 am - Musings on Cabbagetown and neighborhoods
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What follows is a ramble about Cabbagetown, how it constrasts to Midtown, and why I would want to live there. Midtown is where I presently live as of the time of this writing; Cabbagetown is a fascnating neighborhood that I am pondering moving to.
( Click here to read on, my dear reader ... )
current mood: chipper
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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3:02 am - Musings on building an accessible house ...
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While walking through a neighborhood looking for a good lot to buy, or a nice house to live in, I started to muse on accessible house designs. Or at least design a house that would be easy to make accessible for a disabled person. The funny thing is that accessible house design also makes the house more livable for able-bodied people. Part of the reason I had been musing on accessible house designs is that I am disabled, but able-bodied. But I know that I might not always be able-bodied due to age or other factors. Additionally, it would make the house far more saleable, especially to older folks, or other people with disabilities.
( Click here for my musings .. )
current mood: creative
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, February 9th, 2003
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3:24 am - That Word 'Love'
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That word evoking so many things,
Wondrous and terrifying,
That word being: 'Love'.
Love being an emotion that encompasses,
so many other emotions,
even overlapping with hatred.
All these different sorts of love,
some bringing joy,
some bringing tears.
Love is about finding joy,
even in the tears that emotion brings,
even as the heart fills and rips.
Is it any wonder that love turned away,
is so powerful that it embraces hatred,
resentment brought to heart?
Love scorned, love turned down, love denied,
all bring such a multitude of emotions,
hatred, unhappiness, misery.
Love at its best is an all encompassing thing,
to the point of possession,
emotions enfolding and embracing each other.
Love at its worst is also an all encompassing thing,
selfish and possessive,
jealous and bitter.
Love is something that comes easily,
but requires much devotion,
to keep the flames alive.
Love can be expressed in all the little things,
that are shared,
such as words, looks, and touches.
Without all these little things that are shared,
love becomes a hard thing,
a burdensome chore.
It is only with constant expression and sharing,
that love is a mutual thing,
a joy to share.
When there is great love,
it fills one with warmth and joy,
passion coming easily.
But love is more than just passion,
it is sharing with each other,
despite the flaws.
Without the sharing,
passion comes still,
but one is hurt and unhappy.
One can love and still be unhapy,
more so than when one did not love,
for the other means so much.
When the other means so much to the loved,
each word can hurt,
each uncaring shrug wounding.
Love is so many things,
love is the best and the most joyous,
love is also the worst, and the most miserable.
Love can be so many things,
whether love is joyous or miserable,
depends on the sharing that is so essential.
current mood: thoughtful
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(comment on this)
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12:46 am - Being Deaf and independent?
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| Friday, February 7th, 2003
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8:00 pm - Some Lessons about Friendship
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I'd recently learned some valuable lessons about friendship, and helping friends out. I'm a pretty generous person and loyal to my friends, usually quite willing to help out. But that can be taken a bit too far, and in the process, strain the friendship.
( To read on, click here ... )
current mood:  sad
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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12:20 am - Deaf Expo
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Last weekend, I went to a Deaf Expo in Atlanta, at the Georgia International Conference Center . It's just south of the airport.
It was a really fun event to go to; I immersed myself into the deaf world, and my native language, ASL. I saw some friends, and much to my surprise and delight, an old friend that I hadn't seen since my RIT days in 1996. All the deaf folks flocked around me and ooh'ed and ahhh'ed over my T-Mobile Sidekick. It's a really neat device that's a combination of cellphone and general electronics communications device. I don't use the cellphone part much, but it's really nice being able to send and receive SMS messages, email, and be able to chat via AIM.
Some of the highlights of the show for me were:
* https://www.ip-relay.com/
This is really neat -- finally! I am able to make calls to Relay services via the Internet rather than dialup or TTY. This is going to make my live so much easier.
* http://www.usavrs.com/
Relay over the internet -- but with video, and a sign language interpreter! Wow. This is really really nice, but unfortunately they don't offer 24 hour service. Which is understandable, as I bet the interpreters get tired.
* http://www.ultratec.com/ShopDTTY_CP.html
I ordered one of these from Harris Communications. A portable TTY that works with cellphones via the handsfree headset jacks on a lot of them. Unfortunately it's not compatible with my T-Mobiie Sidekick. Something to do with a lot of cellphones actually changing the pitch and tone of the BAUDOT beeps. But they say that the new Sidekick that's upcoming will be compatible. And have color! I'm hoping that T-Mobile will let me trade in for one of these.
*http://www.softtty.com/
A Macintosh-based TTY program that lets you emulate a TTY. This combined with the Compact/C TTY that I ordered will make travelling life so much easier for me! This program works by using the voice DSPs in the modem to create BAUDOT tones.
The Deaf Expo has been a rather enabling experience for me, giving me some more tools to work with life as a deaf person. And I saw an old friend to boot! That night, I reconnected with a lot of RIT friends that I hadn't talked with in years, thru this friend.
I also met many interesting people, including real estate agents, interpreters, and other folks. It was good event to go to.
current mood: excited
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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12:16 am - Hello World!
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Traditionally the first program written in any language is a simple one that outputs 'Hello World!'
And so my first LiveJournal post is ...
Hello World!
current mood: chipper
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rippah's journal