Sufficiently many diversions mean no direction

It's been an interesting fall. I've been doing so many different things that I've lost count. On the programming side, I've been tinkering with Whidbey (finally out!), SQL Server 2005 (Reporting services rock), WinFX (looks very nice, but I have barely scratched the surface) and a lot more. For work, there's also been a huge load of administrative – but interesting! – stuff and even some consulting gigs. On the hobby side, there have been plenty of time consumers such as POV-Ray, Civilization 4, disc golf, geocaching and photography. Studied some, bought a new Topfield PVR and a 32" LCD TV. And hey, we're also engaged now :-)
It chills me to see that in spite of all this, there's a monstrously long list of things I've neglected. From the top of my head: Bugzilla, ODP, Usenet, the railway hobby, this web site, more studying, more reading and staying up-to-date with what's really going on (I even read newspapers on a three-day backlog), … The list goes on.
In situations like this, I'm usually the first one to talk about setting priorities. However, I'm having a surprisingly hard time juggling all these balls this time. Following all these diversions has resulted in no net direction – it would be rather hard to define the way I've moved "forward" (to whatever direction!) after summer. Usually it's been easy to identify some key achievements for every few month period. Now it's certainly not.
The intention of this blog post is to say I'm alive. The list of my bloggable subjects is about 8 pages long (10 pt font), so I've certainly experienced things I consider worth saying. Now I just need to find out if writing really is high enough on my priority list.

December 11, 2005 · Jouni Heikniemi · Comments Closed
Posted in: General