On life changes.

Long time, no post. To catch up, the past couple years have brought some life changes. I'm a year and nine months or so into a career change to what I actually went to college for. I'm actually somewhat of a computer programmer now. (My official title is Programmer / Analyst.) I spend a lot of my time doing user support and ad-hoc SQL queries to create or update one-off reports. I have done some program feature enhancements and bug fixes but nothing too crazy yet. I still work for the same company that I've been at for the past 11 and a half years or so.

I traded in my grey 2007 Subaru Legacy for a blue 2012 Subaru Impreza because the Legacy was approaching 100,000 miles, had a newly diagnosed but somewhat common leaky head gasket and the new Impreza was touting approximately 7 MPG more than I was getting in the Legacy.

Most recently, I've moved about an hour west of where I spent most of my life to an area I could actually see myself staying for awhile.

All of these things have me feeling like I'm growing up... (I know, I know, I should be mostly grown up already at the age of 33) but I seem to find myself becoming more and more restless.

Now that I'm actually paid to be a programmer, I find myself growing less interested in computers and technology. Sure my interest had already faded some in the 10 years since I finished college while I was occupied with other less technology related employment, but it feels like it's continued at a more accelerated pace lately. I haven't built a computer in a long time. I don't know what the best video card is anymore and don't really want to play any games that would need a good video card. To an extent, I still know what's going on in the consumer technology market but can't help but grumble when people ask what I think about things like iPads and the "cloud". I use off the shelf PC laptops and don't bother upgrading the hardware. I recently purchased a new laptop but only because it wouldn't be much cheaper to put a new battery, decent hard drive and some more memory in the old one and even if I did it probably weighed close to 8 pounds and wasn't very portable, so I didn't even like dragging it out to the couch. All I ever do on a computer at home is listen to music and surf the internet anyway. I probably should have just picked up a tablet and put my music on the "cloud" somewhere... but I hate typing on touchscreens.

My Impreza still has the stock 16" wheels and hasn't had it's first detailing and I've had it since May. What's happening to me?

Also, now that I've moved out of the apartment I've been for the past 5+ years (to a place other than the area I spent the better part of the last 3 decades), I want to actually find a house and spend time doing projects around it. I want to have some space around me, a garden and maybe a garage.

I've recently put some books about gardening and sustainable living on my Amazon wish list and thought about what it would take to grow all the ingredients needed to brew beer. I've debated opening a brew pub. I've had moments where I had a fleeting thought about quitting my job and being a landscaper.

Recently I've actually even caught myself daydreaming about becoming a farmer while driving past various farms on my commute to work. I don't actually think I want to be a farmer... I think I just want to do something different than what I'm doing now. I've been sitting in various office chairs for almost 12 years now and it's getting boring and feels less rewarding than when I first worked my way into the office world.

I don't actually dislike what I'm doing now. The actual programming is fun. The problem solving and analysis is interesting and rewarding but I'm still just keeping the wheels turning. I rarely work on anything new or exciting and when I do get to work on new things they're almost always rushed. I spend a majority of my time solving problems that could have been avoided if a little more care was put into the planning and getting everyone in the same boat before setting sail... but I don't have a say in that part, so I just sit in my chair and figure out how to undo what I was asked to do... but the "undo" has to happen more quickly than the "do" and the "do" was expected in less time than it should have really taken to get done. So it's a never-ending cycle of chasing my tail.

The problem is, I don't know what I'd rather do.