Side projects. Sometimes hacked. And sometimes with a hammer.

It's been a wild year. Gains and losses. COVID-19 and the shelter in place. Lately, fires. Today was a very dark day, literally. For about half the daylight hours, there was so much ash in the air that it looked like it was close to sunset, but it was definitely not anywhere near as beautiful. Red sun following us everywhere. Bubonic plague found on fleas in Lake Tahoe. The list goes on and on. Everyone is tired. Exhausted. Burnt out. There is no respite, just a new normal that seems like an even steeper climb than before. Sleep gives way to another day with no refreshment. Yes, that's how things seem. But there have also been bright moments. Time spent with family, especially with the little one. Growing and nurturing plants, building things, trying new recipes, going to the store to shop for dinner, reading books, coloring with crayons... We grow closer together, weaving together a blanket of love and memories that we wrap ourselves in.

This year has been a good one so far, in terms of reading. Unlike previous years (at least since 2016, when I started trying to read more), I've read some fiction! Finished books: The Phoenix Project Dune The Three-Body Problem and several others Books in progress: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it A Philosophy of Software Design The Dark Forest 14 Habits of Highly Productive Developers Pending: Death's End Dune Messiah

This post was originally a 2019 retrospective, but I never finished it... oops! Since last year, I've done a number of interesting projects. One was a data engineering kind of project, where I created a data import using something similar to Apache Beam. I also worked on a number of issues related to performance and Spanner. I think the gist of those problems boiled down to database schema design. It's been awhile though! Somewhere in the middle of all that, I started working on the Advent of Code 2019, with the intent of learning Rust. I got about 2 exercises in and then the holidays hit, so... that's been sitting and waiting for me to get back. Books I've gotten my nose into:  Designing Data-Intensive Applications  (in progress),  Dune  (also in progress),  The Phoenix Project  (done), and a couple other nonfiction. Early this year, I took on a new position at a startup that's doing asteroid detection. The astrodynamics is pretty over my head, and I'm am

Today marks 3 years I've been at my current employer, which is a huge milestone for me. I've learned a ton in the last few years and have had the opportunity to work with (and learn from) the brightest people I've ever met. I'm definitely blessed. Yet today, I also came to the realization that I might be in the early stages of burnout. Maybe it's the combination of everything going on... have a hard time sleeping, working on a lot of new things (and kind of around the clock), trying to sharpen/fill in the gaps of my CS knowledge, part time new employee coaching... I remember how this brain fog feels, and I don't feel so upbeat about being an impostor like I did earlier this year. I'm not absorbing new things too fast or well (and I'm already slow to begin with). There are a few things I can do. Fix my sleeping situation. If I don't sleep, everything is bad. Stop working around the clock. I shouldn't be doing this, but... it's so hard

I blinked. Did my coworker really just tell me that? I thanked them for the compliment but mentally brushed it off. Maybe they were just being nice. But I heard those 3 words again. And again. "You've earned your place in this team." "You deserve every bit of credit." Like many other people, I continually struggle with impostor syndrome. I replay my failures from university (there were many!), even so far as dreaming about them and waking up in horror, thinking that I could not graduate because I skipped all my classes and exams. Gulp. Yes, I'm glad those days are behind. I still often wonder how things would be if I had forced myself to sit down and understand the material. I wonder how things would be if I had talked to people about what they were working on. If only I had asked questions until I completely understood concepts. On and on. When my coworkers and manager reassured me that I was a valued member of the team, I felt more confident to ask

2018 was crazy. I didn't get through any ML or OS classes as I hoped. But, there are many other positives. I started working on a very exciting project (with a very amazing team), where I am learning a lot in security. I'm also learning about distributed systems and trying to level up my Java skills, sort of. Did some reading. Finished 14 books and have started several. I've never really read academic papers, but in the last few months I've read a few of them. The most recent one was, "Towards a Timely Causality Analysis for Enterprise Security" (Liu, Zhang, et. al). This year I want to finish an intro to OS course. Again, I'm going to try "Operating Systems: From 0 to 1". Just one course. No more procrastinating. I also want to finish the following books: Influence without authority Extreme ownership How to win friends and influence people Crucial conversations: tools for talking when stakes are high The intelligent investor

A new year is just bigger number. (I don't do New Year resolutions, so whatever.) Been a little busy the last few months, with lots of life changes. It's given me time to get some reading done, which has been nice -- 8 books so far this year. I'm currently working on a few technical books: Security Engineering (Ross Anderson) -- I finally decided to start working through a list of security topics to start building a foundation of security knowledge. This is a book that I must have in my arsenal. The Tangled Web (Michal Zalewski) -- Another must-read for security knowledge. Having an interest in security means learning about the ubiquitous web and the possibilities (read: insecurities) that go along with it. Operating Systems: From 0 to 1 (Do Hoang Tu) -- My seemingly Sisyphean attempt to learn OS. I always have browser tabs open with OS-related courses and books, but I'm so slow getting through the material... And I'm still trying to get myself through the