Raible Designs

Recovering

Yesterday I got inspired to get myself out of this funk and go to a local VW Show with the fam. I woke up, took a shower and almost passed out. Probably from standing up more than I'm used to - or the dizziness that constantly surrounds me. After resting awhile and popping a pain killer, we jumped in the car and headed out to Golden. The show was awesome and I saw lots of nice buses and bugs - and even joined the Colorado VW Bus Club. I felt dizzy most of the time, still no appetite - but nevertheless - I was active. It felt great. I spent the rest of the day on the couch with passing fevers.

This morning I woke up determined to go to work. After waking up, I headed into the living room with breakfast. Julie took my temperature and said it was around 101. So I popped some Tylenol and decided to rest for an hour before heading into the office. After resting and taking a cold shower - I got dressed and headed into the office (40 minutes North). I was sweating so bad - I guess from the fever breaking - that I had to take a towel with me for the trip. Anyway, to make a long story longer - I made it to the office and worked most of the day w/o any issues. I also managed to submit my two weeks notice to my current client. He wasn't surprised and said he'd been expecting it sooner or later.

So where am I off to? EJB Solutions - the inventors of Out-of-the-Box - for a 3-month contract. I grew to love Out-of-the-Box after my last Linux install and I'm very excited about working on a product I love. Here's the best part. I asked them what I might be working on for the first month. Here is their response:

...updating sample applications, especially those using Hibernate, XDoclet, and Struts to bring them up to date with the latest versions, recommended idioms, beef them up, etc.

Sounds like fun, eh? I'm pumped and can't wait to start in two weeks! Another intriguing factor for me was I can ride my bike into the office (when I do go in) and it's shorts and t-shirts all summer. Denver summers + riding bike to work + shorts and t-shirts allowed at work = a very happy Java Developer. The contract is scheduled to end when Raible #2 is born (Labor Day Weekend - September 3rd). After that, I'm taking a month off to be a good Dad and hopefully I'll be able to find another contract starting in October.

As far as my illness and contributing to open source, I've come to realize that my body is capable of amazing feats. Sleeping 2-3 hours a night, coding 20-some hours per day. But it's no life for me. However, it was a life I was planning on living all the way until Spring Live is finished in late June (right before JavaOne). I'd still like to finish the book by then, but it's going to take a serious shift in priorities. Which basically means, drop everything and work on the book.

I'll probably still try to get AppFuse 1.5 documented and released by the end of the month - but then I really need to virtually abandon all my open source contributions. It's just the only way I can see to pump out 150 pages of Spring stuff in 1 week off + a bunch of late nights. I still plan on blogging a lot b/c when I'm busy I tend to blog more. I think AppFuse could use the lack-of-development for awhile - it wouldn't hurt to stabilize the code-base over the summer.