March 23rd, 2005 1:53 pm

I really should be working right now, but my brain is somewhat fried, so I'm going to catch all my loyal web readers out there with what has been happening in my life.

WORK

At the beginning of February I got an email from somebody who was looking for a programmer for one of their clients.  Their client happened to be the Ministry Of Forests.  They had a problem.  They wanted to create this database and they had all this money to spend, but the money was only available until the end of their fiscal year.  So, there wasn't any bidding process, or quoting process, or anything like I would have expected for a government project.  They said, here's what we want, can you go do it?  Um, yeah.  First quarter earnings for LCS are going to be nice.  Now if only I can get everything done by the March 31 deadline.

I'm about 90% convinced that I'm going to hire someone.  Since LCS began in 1999, I can think of at least three times where I have been too swamped for words.  Being a self employed programmer is a feast or famine type situation, so I'm a little nervous that as soon as I hire someone, the work will dry up.  But it's getting to the point now that I spend too much time doing support or minor changes for existing programs and can't spend as much time as I'd like on new projects.  And if I focus on new projects (like I'm doing now) I feel that my support service is lacking.  It's a fine line between keeping existing clients happy and finding new ones.  So, I'm going to hire someone.  And if the work dries up, I'll deal with it when it happens.

And in all of LCS's history, I haven't really devoted much effort to actually going out and finding work.  It's always seemed to find me.  So if things do ease off maybe I'll see what I can do in the marketing department.

CORBIN

Have I mentioned that Corbin is smart?  I think he's got a larger vocabulary than most two year olds (he's 18 months old).  We were in a store the other day and he walked up to a sales lady who was holding a pen, looked at the pen and said 'pen'.  It freaked out the sales lady.  He's recently figured out how to make a word plural by adding an 's'.  Apple vs Apples was the case in point.  That kind of freaked us out because at the time he was looking at a tissue box that had a picture of three apples and he said 'one.. two.. three.. apples' as he pointed to each one.

With regards to my last 'brain', he's saying 'Fog' now for 'Frog'.  Much less embarrassing.

He’s also sleeping better lately.  Woo hoo!

BONNIE

Bonnie is doing well.  She's trying to do a geriatric certification course that's making her a little fried.  Working full time, doing a course, and being a mother is a lot of work.

WRITING

I've been doing zilch in the writing department lately - mostly due to my work load.  In the summer I'm planning to write a short story for submission in a new magazine that's coming out.  They're looking for science fiction cliché stories.  So if anyone has any ideas, let me know.  Of course, it’s going to be dark.  Most of my stories end up being dark.  Just read 78 if you want an example, it’s one of my better ones.  My brother read that one and he said ‘But it doesn’t have a happy ending’, which I replied ‘It was a happy ending for the Darkken Droids”.

KARATE

I haven’t been taking karate this year.  I found that if I didn’t go twice a week I was only just barely maintaining my skills.  And I was finding it really difficult with the sleep deprivation I was going through.  With Corbin sleeping now and probably more so as time goes on, I’ll probably sign up for it again in the fall.

LIFE

Life is good.  Busy, but good.  I think a vacation is in order soon.  Not necessarily going anywhere, but just taking some time off to do nothing.