I’ve Run Away!

I guess a more appropriate title would be ‘This Blog has Moved’ or ‘Self-hosting for the Win,’ but I liked the dramatic effect of the title I’ve chosen.

So come along my dedicated reader! Run with me to http://www.robertpeaslee.com! You bring the interest, I’ll bring the content :)

Have Purpose

This isn’t a how-to or a generic “10 things you NEED to make your life better” post. It’s a post to remind everyone who reads this that you need to check yourself and what you are doing and make sure it is worthwhile.

What does it mean to do something ‘worthwhile?’ I’m going to take the easy way out and state that it depends on the person pondering the question. For some people it is trying to get laid regularly, for others it is building a corporate empire. Just make sure that whatever you are doing now works against the feeling that you’ve wasted your eighty years on Earth.

I think far too often we are pushed into our lives by some forces of our environment, and we end up realizing that we’ve been living our lives pursuing the dreams of someone else (whether that be an individual or a collective ’someone’). I really hope that if this is the case for anyone that reads this, you discover it early enough that you have a shot at changing things.

My biggest tip? Say hi to someone on the street. Find someone sitting alone at a restaurant or a coffee shop and sit down with them. Find out what the person you are sitting next to really wishes they were doing with their lives. Pay attention.

Programmers, techies, and geeks especially: don’t place all your value in how well you can hack, or how much you know about the latest hardware specs, or any of the other silly things we convince ourselves are actually important. They aren’t, and you are worth so much more than that for so many other reasons.

Business and career types: corporate may want you to have a degree, but never give in for a second to the thought that the letters behind your name reinforce an attribute of yourself. Don’t let others trick you, either. No one that actually knows their shit has to point to a degree as support for their position, idea, or status.

And everyone, for God’s sake, be a good roommate, spouse, parent, citizen, person, or whatever role you find yourself playing. You aren’t going to get a second chance at this. (Really. Special relativity says we can move at a rate that is slower relative to the world around us, but traveling backward in time isn’t likely.) You are involved with other people, make that a positive experience for everyone. Selfishness, dishonesty, and other ‘evil’ things are contagious and toxic. Do not be the source of toxicity in someone else’s life.

Absorb the experiences of others, share your own, be a good person. Make it your life’s purpose.

Computer Science Freshmen

As our legions of students head back to school, I got to thinking about how my educational experience has changed with each passing year, and the things I wish I had been told before starting. Not much of it may apply to non-CS majors, but software engineering students may find something of use. And if you aren’t a CS or SE major? Read this post anyway so you can be there for your CS buddies! With no more buffer, here is the list:

1. You are going to want to quit. I don’t care how proficient you are in programming, you are going to hit a snag or two in your first quarter or semester. Something won’t compile right, you are getting exceptions for weird reasons, an algorithm is returning odd values – it is going to happen. It gets frustrating. What I wish someone would have told me is that it is happening to everyone. Work through the problems (better yet, find a mentor to walk through them with you), and stick with it. The ability to write whatever you want for whatever reason is coming soon, and I have to say that if you really enjoy computing, being a programmer is one of the best professions you can have.
2. It gets easier! Programming courses are difficult for a lot of people, more so for those without a lot of a background in the field. You are going to have to learn everything from the syntax of the language to your development environment’s method of finding libraries. These problems fade very quickly – you’ll be amazed at your ability to retain the solutions to these annoying problems.
3. Don’t be cocky. One thing I hated my freshman year was the number of people coming in thinking they knew everything. It gets even more amusing when you meet incoming freshman who think this after you’ve matured a year or two. So listen: you may be the best computer person at your high school, and I’m sure your family thinks you are the next Bill Gates. However, there are millions of people that know more than you, and you are going to meet a lot of them in a very short amount of time. Go to school to learn, and listen to whoever will talk to you about whatever. You’ll be amazed with how much you have to offer, but more importantly, how much you have to learn.
4. Don’t fear the supposedly smart kids. In my CS classes, we always had a couple of those cocky kids I mentioned above. These people may be knowledgeable, but that does not mean you shouldn’t ask a queston out of fear of their reaction. If it is an honest question and someone in the class scoffs like “psh, EVERYONE knows that,” ignore it. It means they just learned something they didn’t have the courage to ask. I’m not kidding, take note of who those people are, and keep asking questions. After you finish your first year strike up a conversation with them. You’ll be surprised at how less intimidating they seem when you find out how little they’ve progressed.
5. Use your professors! They are amazing mentors, and will walk you through assignments providing whatever help they can. In class they’ll teach you languages, design patterns, data structures, and algorithms. In private, they’ll teach you how to code. Super student initiative bonus: use other CS professors teaching the same class for a different approach. Most professors really (really!) don’t care if you go to someone else for help. They just want to see you succeed.
6. Find something to do away from your computer. You are going to be spending a lot of time at your machine, increasing over time, writing and debugging code for classes. If your hobby is gaming, your eyes are going to hate you, your wrists are going to suffer, and you will start to get headaches. Step away from your computer, whether it be to do math homework or hang out with your friends. Just get away for an hour or two – it will help you in the long run.
7. Take up small coding projects on your own. The only way to get better at coding is to code, code, code. Taking up your own projects will solidify and expand upon what you’ve learned in class. The quickest way to becoming a competent programmer is to find something you want to work on it, and work on it. If it is in another language or involves a technology you’ve never worked with, so much the better. You’ll be surprised how much your knowledge carries over.
8. Energy drinks will keep you awake, but they will not help you code. Your body needs sleep, don’t fool yourself into thinking the code you write at 4:00am is going to be usable tomorrow. I’m completely serious about this. If you need sleep, sleep.

To my readers: that is all I can think of. Any other tips? Leave them in the comments!

On Being Happy

My latest co-op has been an interesting one.

I’m working for SAIC down at their Chantilly, VA location but live in Columbia, MD. This results in a 112 mile daily commute through agonizingly slow traffic along the DC beltway (up to 3 hours in one direction when there is a bad accident). Add the long commute to an intern’s hourly wage slowly being strangled by the cost of rent ($500 monthly), food (~$200 monthly), and increasing gas prices (~$300 monthly) compounded by living 2,500 miles from my nearest family member and one can find themselves feeling overwhelmed.

There are however factors that make it bearable, even rewarding, and I hope that sharing them will help someone in a similar position:

First, I know this is temporary. I have committed to this situation for six months, and the amount I am learning about the professional world is invaluable. (For example, guess who is going to avoid a long commute if at all possible in the future? That’s right, yours truly. It just isn’t worth it.)

Second, I’m making connections in a very job-hot sector. Washington DC has got to be the easiest location to get a job at any level if you just know a couple people. Everyone here is so interconnected that just throwing out an e-mail to a friend or old manager is bound to net you a reply of a job opening in their company or one of the other agencies they routinely interact with. Managers talk, and are always looking for talented people.

Third, the commute is completely handled by your mindset. At first I was frustrated, tense, and bored just sitting in my car every day. Then I purchased an FM transmitter for my MP3 player and things changed. Now, while I wouldn’t say I look forward to my commute, I don’t dread it either. Audio books, lectures in various subjects from respected professors, and stretching my brain to extend my comprehension of German now occupy my time. It is actually kind of relaxing, and the time passes pretty quickly now. (Just remember to pack a water bottle and snacks! :) )

Fourth, I am recouping my gas costs by working overtime. I come in and leave early most days, but Thursdays and Fridays have the worst traffic by far, so I stay for two or three hours after my normal leaving time and work through the traffic. This time is my most productive because the weekend is close and no one is around, and getting paid 1.5x my hourly wage for these couple of hours really help when paying at the pump.

Fifth and most importantly, a lifestyle change. Specifically, I now make better use of my free time and balance the amount of time allocated to different activities. Number one on this list is spending time with my girlfriend. Being gone for 12 hours out of a day results in missing out on a lot of shared time, so I make it a point to use my two to four hours of daily free time to do things with her. Lately, we’ve been eating dinner, walking the dog, and either jogging around a loop nearby or to the library to get more books to keep moving. Then we wrap things up with back rubs and watching an episode of whatever TV show we are in the mood of before going to bed. It is amazing! If you aren’t spending quality time with your family and loved ones, you are missing out on something huge. Number two but equally important has been an attitude adjustment from my old style of skeptical and negative to skeptical and positive. Just giving people the benefit of the doubt and being a nicer person has made me feel a lot better about myself and my situation. It seriously has made me a happier person in general. Number three is personal enrichment. While you always feel busy and overworked, I’m learning that when you look back on yourself you can’t believe how much free time you had and wasted. I’m stopping that cycle and using my free time now to read more, spend more time outside enjoying the sun, and enjoy the company of others – because honestly the thing that has made me the most happy with my life is by making myself happy. It works.