Something about feast and famine?

Magnethead

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Oct 18, 2005
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Went from being generally unemployed over summer to now working 2 jobs consistently, have a 3rd 'project' that i've wayyyy behind on, and had a 4th project popped on my last week with a hard 2-week completion time.

I'm learning new things *every day* at the new job. Met with an industry technician to learn about our EKG machines today. Been doing maps and flowcharts for the last 2 weeks.

Working at the truck shop every Saturday for small money. This Saturday is a backup camera, that's 100% on me and alot of labor money on top of my day rate.

I'm supposed to be working on a friend's website, taking an excel sheet of SKU's/Product Names/Prices and putting them into a webstore. I'm about 8 hours in and have 16-20 hours left to do, but I literally have not had the time to actually do it. I keep telling myself 'an hour every night', but my eyes are so tired from charting during the day that more spreadsheets are the last thing i'm in the mood for.

Then last Tuesday i get a phone call from a previous customer saying "I need you to make me a product that takes in X data and puts it on multiple TV screens. And I need a demo by end of next week and a production unit a week after that". I spent last week and the weekend writing the software for it, spending this week getting the hardware together to ship him a demo product. I've had it running with a data source emulator for about 50 hours now, processing around 17,000 emulated transactions so far (one every 5 seconds). The demo product is ugly as sin, but I've ordered the toolings to make the production products look much better.

Maybe one day, I'll "slow down"

I've started going for a 20-30 minute walk on my lunch break when weather permits, and I make oatmeal for lunch each day (with steaming hot water). No more eating out or anything like that, has saved me big money already. It's nice not being stressed between 8 and 4:30.
 
Spent the last 4 days at the cardiologist.

Luckily, not as a patient. They just happen to be the most abusive on their equipment as our busiest facility. Replaced out 6 computers and have 3 to go. Also learned how to use the Echocardiogram, EKG, and stress test equipment (which all uses the network). Have a pile more of issues to sort out.

That backup camera at the truck shop today kicked my butt.

85 hour work period, plus 14 at the truck shop, and a good 50 hours into this project over the last 14 days.

Alas, I shipped the project off to the customer today and hopefully it works so I can ship him the other one, then make 2 more.
 
Got back on a project from September today. Added 6 hours to the tab. 10.75 hours into the project total.

Took the day off from my usual Saturday gig. I'll be working there for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday.

Customer for Mega-Project hasn't been able to test my product yet. He had 2 employees crash a company truck and one passed away on the scene, the other has serious injuries. I don't know how his insurance policy is written, but I hope for his sake that it's very clear and covers him as the business owner.

I bought a new computer on Friday...we actually ordered it 2 weeks ago from Apple, but was ready for in-store pickup yesterday. Super simple transition. Not sure what I'll do with my old Mac yet. It's nice being able to actually be productive. IT cost me a penny, but the end goal is that all these computer-based side jobs will pay it off in short order.
 
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