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jcfialaI had plans for this past weekend. I'd plucked down some serious money to attend a Ruby Conference* this weekend, my first ever computer conference for real. I was going to get really into the language, hang out with interesting folks. I was going to take a break Saturday night and head off to my friend Sherrie's Halloween party, and I was then going to enjoy my D&D game on Sunday.
And then, in a conversation with Eric (my part-time slave master :) about a part-time project I've been working on revealed that deadlines were seriously looming. I needed to take the weekend and WORK instead. The project was doing alright, except that sometimes I really blow my estimations (the project is taking about twice as long as I expected) and with the whole Trixii/House thing, I'd been spending my time doing house renevation instead of programming. (Of course, I didn't realize there were legal/contracty things about deadlines, either...) I think without the house thing I would have been able to deal with the estimation problem, but the two of them together had really slowed down the project.
So, I dropped the conference. Luckily the attendance had been capped, and so even though I couldn't go, I was able to find someone local who was willing to buy my membership off of me, so I wasn't out any money. The conference was here in town, too, so there wasn't any hotel room to cancel either. I'd been working every evening, and worked Friday night as well, pounding out code and not letting myself stop until I hit a milestone that evening.
Saturday went well, but slowly. I got myself a little tangled up in javascript and PHP, running into errors that took longer than I expected to iron out. So, I had to cancel the party- which was a real shame. I don't see Sherrie very often, and I'd really been looking forward to seeing her. The only really nice thing was that I spent some of my conference money on the new 'Complete Mage' book for D&D. Mmm... magical power increasing!
However, the time did allow me to finish some things, and move along. Sunday I got work in, but allowed myself a break to play my game (which doesn't take too much time) and to watch 'The Amazing Race', which is still a ton of fun. Unlike most reality shows, it's real - people are overseas, in different countries, trying to get along; it's an actual competition - get from point a to point b as fast as possible; and it's still fresh and interesting, because these are generally interesting people trying to get along under stress. Woo!
So, it was worth skipping out on all the fun - I got a lot done. But there's still more to do, and Mile High Con approaches... so I've got to really get things worked out and ready so I don't have to cancel another weekend!
And then, in a conversation with Eric (my part-time slave master :) about a part-time project I've been working on revealed that deadlines were seriously looming. I needed to take the weekend and WORK instead. The project was doing alright, except that sometimes I really blow my estimations (the project is taking about twice as long as I expected) and with the whole Trixii/House thing, I'd been spending my time doing house renevation instead of programming. (Of course, I didn't realize there were legal/contracty things about deadlines, either...) I think without the house thing I would have been able to deal with the estimation problem, but the two of them together had really slowed down the project.
So, I dropped the conference. Luckily the attendance had been capped, and so even though I couldn't go, I was able to find someone local who was willing to buy my membership off of me, so I wasn't out any money. The conference was here in town, too, so there wasn't any hotel room to cancel either. I'd been working every evening, and worked Friday night as well, pounding out code and not letting myself stop until I hit a milestone that evening.
Saturday went well, but slowly. I got myself a little tangled up in javascript and PHP, running into errors that took longer than I expected to iron out. So, I had to cancel the party- which was a real shame. I don't see Sherrie very often, and I'd really been looking forward to seeing her. The only really nice thing was that I spent some of my conference money on the new 'Complete Mage' book for D&D. Mmm... magical power increasing!
However, the time did allow me to finish some things, and move along. Sunday I got work in, but allowed myself a break to play my game (which doesn't take too much time) and to watch 'The Amazing Race', which is still a ton of fun. Unlike most reality shows, it's real - people are overseas, in different countries, trying to get along; it's an actual competition - get from point a to point b as fast as possible; and it's still fresh and interesting, because these are generally interesting people trying to get along under stress. Woo!
So, it was worth skipping out on all the fun - I got a lot done. But there's still more to do, and Mile High Con approaches... so I've got to really get things worked out and ready so I don't have to cancel another weekend!
