I used to be one of those developers that thought that in order to really call oneself a programmer, one must be able to program something from line 0. My training in University involved learning some low-level programming languages that taught us the importance of processing speed and memory allocation. In my mind it followed, then, that in order to make something good one must put all one’s discipline starting from low-level knowledge up to software engineering theory to code a product properly. This might have been good in said institutional days when every hour spent was willfully given in the name of education, but as I’m older and have more things to tend to surrounding my regular work hours, I’ve slowly emerged from this way of thinking.

It would be an exercise of modularity and reusability if I made something from scratch and then repurposed it for different projects.

Then for freelance projects I considered setting up a simple CMS like WordPress for clients with a nice template that they could edit their own pages.

I took this further and saved time in design by starting with one of those free-to-$50 predesigned templates.

In the past two weeks at work, I had been terrorized by the knowledge that we would have to quickly turnaround a multi-user custom-content website, and I racked my brain for a shortcut that would let us deliver the site in a month and a half as required. My first instincts included using Drupal, but the learning curve might be too steep to climb in such a short period of time. Next, WordPress MU which I am already familiar with. Sure it handles the multi-user bit, but how do I wrangle the idea of submitting posts to a blog into something actually usable for this particular project.

Then one night I found what could be the perfect solution: PhpMembers is a pre-built user management system that allows me to pile on as many custom-built pages as I want. It sounds like a happy medium as I don’t have to do the boring crap of doing user authentication and management and “oh boo hoo hoo I forgot my password” stuff, and instead I can focus on the cool parts.

In my head I was thinking of a way to express how the tedious stuff being eliminated allows more time for finesse of execution of the more important parts of the project. “Why reinvent the wheel when you can just find one and sex it up?” No, that doesn’t work, especially since I picture a stone torus with a prominent hole shape. For now, in my head I’m imagining that I’m just taking a pre-existing wheel and throwing glitter on it to pretty it up. I wonder if there’s a product or tool out there that can help me with my analogies.

I dug up an old recipe from grade eight for a german fruit flan, knowing that even though the procedure was simple (airy cake base, cream cheese filling), I could really have some fun with the fresh fruit topping.

I have three regrets about making this. One, I wish I searched for blueberries, as the color would have really taken the presentation to another level (I currently have peach, mango, strawberry and kiwi on it). Two, I should have remembered my grade eight science classes where we discussed that gelatin plus kiwi equals unset gelatin because of enzymes in the kiwi. Regret number three is a selfish one. I should have filled a ramekin with the batter and made myself a mini flan. Waiting until tomorrow’s dinner is going to be torture.

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Edit: April 6, 1:14pm

Overnight, the quinoa was able to soak up the rest of the tomato juice and the roasted garlic and onions made the sour taste of the tomatoes mellow out. I tossed in some chopped deli turkey breast into the mix and the saltiness provided a nice contrast in flavor. So this wasn’t a disaster after all.

I was very fortunate to grow up in the same city as most of my extended family, but even more fortunate that my grandparents made family the highest priority.  They are very generous and active in the community (they are members of several clubs and have received numerous, numerous awards for their contributions) but as a granddaughter I can just feel that if I was for want of anything in the world, they would try their hardest to give it to me.  Why else would they have stocked up on sugary cereals (even those fun little self-serve boxes) they wouldn’t eat themselves, but in anticipation for their grandchildren coming over.  Why else would they without fail always given me something to take home after a visit, whether it be a thoughtful gift acquired and saved until the next meeting, or my favorite food prepared lovingly in anticipation.  

As I write informally for this blog post, I have to stop myself because if I don’t think there is enough internets to capture all the wonderful things Lolo and Lola have done for me and what they mean to me. Let’s rein myself back into the present and in standard blog writing.

Today my husband went on an outdoor excursion with his father, so I made plans to visit my grandparents to collect the remainder of the crabapples on their tree and to visit.  It used to be that holidays and birthdays were the primary reasons for visiting, but I can always see how happy they are to see me and am making an effort to make my visits more regular.  Several things today made me smile, and here are the top five of them:

1. Lolo says the best things, and says them very matter-of-factly.  In fact one of the highlights of my last visit with my cousins was that one of us (Geoff) is now starting to make “Lolo jokes”.  Lola needed something to store the picked crabapples in, so emptied an occupied basket for our use.  It had a ribbon on it from its last use.  Upon seeing this, my Lolo remarked, “Well that’s really cute.  But it’s not going to hold anything.”
2. Matching clothes.  I always wondered why my two aunts dressed very similarly, almost to the point of looking like twins.  While I still don’t understand it, I have learned to accept that it is a “Lola thing” and has become very endearing.  (An example of matching:  a picture of my cousin and I wearing similar-to-the-point-of-matching dresses for my grandparents’ anniversary.)  While picking crabapples I was getting annoyed and uncomfortable with branches and twigs getting caught in my hair.  I asked Lola for a hat, and she returned with two matching ones, one for her, one for me.
3. Remembering birthdays.  I have a lot of cousins, and even though Lola is past her mid-seventies, she can remember the birthdays and even birthstones of each of my cousins.  She was showing me her jewellry (that she said she’d give to her grandchildren when she dies and made me sad) and showed me a family ring set with birthstones of her children and grandchildren’s gemstones.  I can barely remember birthdays and need to rely on Facebook for reminders, yet my grandmother shows that she cares by remembering the day each of her children and grandchildren were born.  
4. Food.  If anyone knows me, they know I am a sitophile almost to the point of obsession.  Food has been such an integral part of my upbringing, and Lolo and Lola’s house is so renowned for always having something cooking or cooked to offer anyone who enters.  Whenever you leave their home, your clothes smell like food.  I mentioned a while ago that sinigang was my favorite Filipino food, and now whenever I visit they make it for me.
5. Wisdom.  My grandparents have demonstrated through example what the importance of family means to them, as well as the importance of a good education and giving back to the community.  But during these visits I have also been hearing little gems of wisdom that I want to keep.  When asking Lolo about his preference between Obama and McCain, he mentioned that he admired McCain because of his military experience.  ”During my time in the Philippine Military Academy I learned about decision making.  When you make a decision, you follow through with it.  If you make a bad decision, you continue to move forward but remember to not make that decision again.  I have learned not to depend on others’ decision-making.”  Moving forward and growing despite mistakes is much better than being immobilized by indecision.
6. Yes, I said this would be a list of five, but do you really think I could stick to just five?  This is like a bonus item for all the extra things I want to share:
   • My grandfather eats Scotch Bonnet peppers.  He showed me a large bag of them he keeps in the freezer to add to his cooking.  He also puts chili peppers in his bottle of vinegar for extra heat.  No blended-grandpa food for mine.
   • My gradmother lost four pounds and has beautiful skin.
   • My grandfather participated in a poetry jam written in Tagalog.
   • My grandmother, despite her arthritis and knee surgery, performed an Indian traditional wedding dance.
   • My grandmother does custom beading for her party clothes.  
   • I’m pretty sure my grandparents go to parties more often than me.

This video might be a visual representation of that same idea.

At Critical Mass, there are people called Release Engineers whose main role (among many) is to manage the transport of digital components that comprise a website.  They are the digital ushers that make sure that code, images, configuration files, everything gets deployed onto the testing and live environments.  A web developer would typically submit their workings into a repository with a certain identifying tag, and the Release Engineers would gather the files to carry them along their merry way.

At Applied, there is no such role.  A developer is responsible for pushing their own code and assets to the review and production servers, and we do so by running neat little command line executions.  (Yes, I even bugged that Release Engineers that they could be replaced by very small scripts.)

Today, the boss* was gone.  He instructed me to watch for changes, and left me in the hands of the marketing director who also had strong involvement in the project.  It is a real estate website selling ranches and other community homes.  I finished the last changes and was instructed to put the changes up.  Now, I should’ve known that things have to go to review before production, but with my brain on autopilot and digesting information on how to create a Facebook app, I asked which server it should go on.  She asked me what the difference was, and as I gave URLs as the main differentiating point (not very clear), she told me to put the changes up on production.  I had test data in to demonstrate what the price column would look like, so all the properties (including a ranch the size of Monaco) was on sale for $4 million dollars.  Later that afternoon the salesperson for the property called, and luckily the marketing director fielded the call.  This brought me back to my days on Mercedes-Benz where we’d spend hours upon hours just making sure that the pricing and disclaimers were correct, just in case. The entire time, all I could hear in my head was the Release Engineer Manager’s warning, “Just wait until something goes wrong, then what will you do?”  Well, I just moved quickly and drew upon the support of my new team.  I have to thank the marketing director for her patience through this whole ordeal, and also my coworker and deskmate for his calm instructions on how to roll back the changes and restore the live site.

Now, I’m just hoping that my boss doesn’t read this blog, otherwise everything will be juuuuust as normal.  ;)

*I use the word boss only because I don’t want to use names.  He is my oversight and manager, I guess you’d say.  There really is no hierarchy.

After camping in luxury and enjoying Applied’s Stampede breakfast and its get-rid-of-leftovers repeat, I continued to enjoy and share the annual carnival favorites.  The result?  Well, let’s say that owning a Wii Fit means I can be reprimanded by a video game as well as my conscience.  So, the week plus three tomorrows after the Stampede, it’s time to get back on track.

In perspective, I haven’t strayed too far.  After all, in 2005 I was over 165 lbs which meant that for my height I was entering obese-land.  Since then I’ve dropped (and kept off!) two clothing sizes, not through drastic dieting but through some changes that weren’t difficult to do:

1. Keeping a diet log. This is effective it makes me accountable for what I put in my mouth, and guilt is a good deterrent for me.  Diet Blog also has a good article with added benefits.
2. Cut back on sweetened beverages. When I was a kid, we weren’t allowed to have pop with our meals, so it wasn’t a big deal for me.  Juice, however, sometimes contains as much sugar as pop and some “cocktails” don’t even contain vitamin C.  I weaned myself off using tea (green/black/white/herbal) and honey, then dropped the honey altogether.  It might not seem like a lot, but even going with the default medium coke from McDonalds can add up after a while.
3. Some foods aren’t worth it. I don’t calorie count religiously, but I do know when some foods just aren’t worth it.  I’m talking about foods with empty nutrition that I can avoid and not miss.  If I absolutely have to have something, I’ll just steal a bite of someone else’s or just do it once a year.
4. Quality over quantity. If you notice that it takes me 60% longer to eat a meal, you can see the effect that Mireille Guiliano’s book French Women Don’t Get Fat had on me.  It has more sensible tips for long term lifestyle changes than these four points (and I’m sure these four points are crude regurgitations of her originals).

So, I’m back to having to follow my own advice, but at least writing this blog entry was good in revisiting some of the basics, kind of like writing lines in detention.  Just picture me repeating gluttony’s countervirtue over and over: Temperance.