Two weeks into my planned company shutdown / paternaty / sick leave I started to really feel checked out from work. The first week off was company shutdown for the week of Thanksgiving and between the holiday and some other activites it still felt busy. The second week when everyone else was back at work I was still checking in daily and getting a few texts and calls for support. After this though, work communication slowed down and I really got into the swing of being away from work.
A colleague of mine (Foo Hooi Lee) reguallary takes all of his vacation between Thankgiving and the New Year in order to travel back to Malasia for a few weeks each year. In years past I haven’t had the nessesary time banked to pull this off but thanks to Jane and Apple’s paternaty leave policy this year I had the hours. I talked to Behnam about my plan for this back in July and he agreeded provided the AS platform was stable and I had a good software release process established which Hesam or Dan could take over while I was out. The big 2019 demos were planned in mid Decemeber and early January so it would be hard to justify leaving if we still had a fragile software platform. So over the course of the fall I worked a lot with this in mind and in early Novemeber we agreeded things were in a good enough place for me to take the whole block of time.
Shortly before starting the break I laid out a wide set of projects and goals for the time.
- Write a native Mac application for DBC files with XCode and Swift
- Make an ultrasonic remote for the HomePod
- Fix my old eBike
- Make 2 movies: Normal day with Jane, and Jane video collage to date
- Get my motorcycle running
- Finish the corner table wood working project
- Surf 5 times
- Run 10 times
- Complete my creative writing goal for 2019
- Travel to Colorado
- Do a mock bike tour with Megan and Jane along the coast
- Do one undefined weekend length trip locally
Looking back it was a pretty long list for only 6 weeks considering the holidays and travel were thrown in there too. And as it turns out, Jane was sick with reoccuring ear infections and a respitory infection for almost the entire time. This meant that the 2 days a week I had planned on as free work times I was taking care of her while Megan was at work.
By the end of it I had made a dent on most of the items and substituted a few new ones as my interests changed.
- Write a native Mac application for DBC files with XCode and Swift
- I spent a while on this and even did an online Swift course since I had never used the language. I made a few demo iPhone apps along the way but never got the Mac app completed. After 4 or 5 days of focused work I decided to move on so as to not miss out on all the other projects. I think I’ll still chip away at this one since I think it would be useful at work and there is no other option for Mac in the AppStore.
- Make an ultrasonic remote for the HomePod
- Off the shelf parts aren’t readily available for driving piezo speakers with your own waveforms. Everything I found was at specific frequencies in order to repel birds and other wildlife, and since I didn’t have the time allocated to design a board to do this I abandoned this for now.
- Fix my old eBike
- Another project idea came to mind related to this and I spent the majority of my project working time on this new idea instead. Actually its still in progress as of today!
- Make 2 movies: Normal day with Jane, and Jane video collage to date
- I did record footage of 1 day from morning to night but didn’t make any progress on the editing.
- Get my motorcycle running
- It ran for a while but died again. I think the fuel system is gunked up and the valves need adjustment. Sparkplugs are ok but overall the bike needs a major tuneup. This will have to wait for a garage where I can disassemble the whole thing.
- Finish the corner table wood working project
- No progress. As I wrote in my 2019 goals followup, I’ve abandoned woodworking until I have a garage. Its just too slow dragging things out to the driveway.
- Surf 5 times
- Surfed twice, it rained a ton over the break which causes the coastal water to have a lot of nasty stuff in it, and it was pretty cold… Suprisingly I haven’t had a strong urge to go surfing lately even when I have the time.
- I went mountain biking once in lieu of a surf opportunity. It was muddy since it had been raining a ton but it made me realize I want to go mountain biking more in the coming year.
- Run 10 times
- I did this. Lots of trailrunning over the break. The Bay Area actually has a ton of really great trails nearby. My current favorite areas are Hidden Villa, Pearson-Arastradero Preserve, and Los Trancos Open Space.
- Complete my creative writing goal for 2019
- No progress
- Travel to Colorado
- We did this and it was horrible. Jane was very sick with a high fever the entire time went to the E.R. twice and eventually eneded up getting admitted to the hospital due to low blood oxygen saturation. We checked out of the hospital on Christmas Eve around noon and went straight to the airport with a portable oxygen concentrator for Jane. I was so relived to get home but it took another two days to get her completly off the oxygen due to the Christmas holiday.
- She had 3 injections of antibiotics, 3 courses of oral antibiotics, 1 large blood draw, a cateder, something like 10 or 12 doctor / urgent care / hostiptal visists over my break.
- Over the break I also was dealing with new tenants moving in and cleanup after the old ones, but at least the Arvada house is rented.
- Do a mock bike tour with Megan and Jane along the coast
- This was fun. We purchased a bike trailer for Jane and did an overnight trip from Pacific Grove to Carmel along the 17 mile drive. The goal was to have fun but also sort out some logistics for a longer bike trip with Jane in 2020. The big learnings we had are as follows:
- Go to a warm place, Jane gets cold in the winter winds along the coast
- Go during summer since we move slowly and need longer days
- Go to a flat country. The trailer is heavy!
- This was fun. We purchased a bike trailer for Jane and did an overnight trip from Pacific Grove to Carmel along the 17 mile drive. The goal was to have fun but also sort out some logistics for a longer bike trip with Jane in 2020. The big learnings we had are as follows:
- Do one undefined solo weekend length trip locally
- This trip was originally going to be solo and I was thinking about just going to San Francisco to stay in the Presidio Lodge for 2 nights and work on my writing project and go for a few runs. Ultimately becasue Jane was so sick in Decemeber I didn’t go. I had been really looking forward to this and near the end of my time off I was bummed. As a last minute idea I booked all of us a place down in Pismo Beach write near the water. I made the reservation New Years Eve and we left the next morning. Conviently Pinnacles National Park is almost exaclty half way to Pismo Beach so we stopped there on the way down to give Jane some awake time out of the car. We had a blast hiking the the Balconies Cave Trail and the cave section was actually really exciting and much more than I had anticipated. I read before that headlamps were needed and they wern’t kidding. The cave section was pretty long, full of water, and totally dark. At one point we reached a steep 20 foot downclimb and we considered turning back. I’m glad we didn’t because it ended up being a blast but definately exciting with Jane strapped to my chest. I think Jane sensed my elevated heart rate and she seemed a bit apprehensive about the whole thing too. The beach stay was great. Two nights just hanging out and playing in the sand. On the way back we stopped brefly in San Luis Obispo, which seems like a cool town. Maybe an option for some day after Apple.
The last two days of my break were spent chilling at home. I had to fly straight to AZ on Monday 1/6 for work and the week ended up being a rude introduction back to work with a ton of stressful issues right before the demos. The night before the execs came I was in the lab until 1:30 AM trying to get two major, showstopping issues fixed, not fun.
I’m really glad the time off worked out though. It was the longest break from work and or school since I was 14 I think. At least right now my perspective on work is a bit different. I had gotten sucked pretty deep into the tiny detail exergration mode this past year at work. Some of that is needed given my role at work but I hope to keep a broader view in mind this year, and I think stepping away from work for an extended period gave me this. Time will tell if I can hold on to it.
I’m also greatful for all the time I got to spend with Jane. In the moment I was frustrated that she was so sick in December, since it meant I didn’t spend much time working on projects, but it was fun spending time with her. Also, on one of the days she was sick at home with me instead of at day care, she crawled for the first time. Megan was a work and so I had bottles to feed her with. She was sitting in the living room and I put a bottle in front of her as a test, not thinking she would be able to get it. To my suprise, she crawled right over and got it!
I also had a few enjoyable five o’clock naps with Jane in the rocking chair and some relaxing time just lounging around with her in the house and during these times she has also started pulling her self to her feet and crusing around the house. I would have seen all these things eventaully even when woroking but it was nice to not get a text from Megan about the news first.
Other big milestones that happened over the break:
- First tooth
- Second tooth
- Jane is terrified of Santa
- First merry go round ride