JF.org Blog

7/15/2026 - Changing things up

2026-07-15T00:00:00Z

The last couple years at Transcor, I became what they referred to as a Project Engineer. Basically, I was still slinging code, but also doing all the project management stuff with the exception of client relations -- the client care team still took care of that.

I thought I wouldn't like that, but I was wrong. I'm sure it was at least partially because I was able to make decisions that affected my work directly instead of waiting for marching orders, but it all worked out pretty smoothly. And now that I'm thinking I'm kind of done with coding for money, the project management aspects are what I'm looking to do with my career going forward.

There are actually a lot of remote jobs out there that are available for that, but I'm not always a great fit for them. Mostly a matter of not having a PMP certificate, so hopefully I can lean on my newfound experience there instead.

There are also people doing interesting things that I let myself waste a few brain cycles on from time to time. A friend of mine is really into a genre called LitRPG, which is a nice blend of fantasy, sci-fi, and computer nerdery. One of their favorite series is called Primal Hunter, by a guy using the pen name Zogarth. His Patreon brings in something like $80,000 per month. Yeah, yeah, that's before taxes, but at a conservative estimate he's netting close to half a million a year, just from that source. Factor in book, ebook and audiobook sales, and dude is definitely doing all right for himself.

Every time I hear or see that stat there's a brief moment where I think, damn I am in the wrong line of work. Then I remember my one attempt many years ago at writing science fiction, and about how often I can put finger to keyboard here. And it may be true that I'm in the wrong line of work, but I don't think LitRPG Author is the right one.

Back to the job boards, I guess.

6/1/2026 - 999 to go

2026-06-01T00:00:00Z

"Welp."

5/11/2026 - Making plans

2026-05-11T00:00:00Z

I checked out a few of my programming toys the other day, to see how I feel about them.

The COVID-19 widget strikes me as unnecessary: It does the same thing as the Eternal September widget, it just starts adding on March 1, 2020 instead of September 1, 1993. So it's really just a lesser copy. I think I'll get rid of it.

Another calendar idea I've had in my head is converting to Japanese regnal eras. For example as I'm writing this it's Reiwa 8, the era having started on May 1, 2019. Which means that 2019 was Heisei 31 for four months, then Reiwa 1 for the remaining eight. A relatively simple system, but I'll need to set up and maintain a lookup to tell which years associate to which eras. Which granted won't be a lot of work.

I might knock it out some weekend when I'm bored. Or maybe not. Who knows.

4/27/2026 - I hate my brain

2026-04-27T00:00:00Z

For the last week or so, I've been having an errand to run pop into my head at random times. No worries, I'd say to myself, I'll take care of it on Saturday between breakfast and going to the store. Probably at least half a dozen times over the course of the week.

I woke up Saturday morning and knew I was going to run an errand. Also, I had no idea what the fuck that errand was supposed to be. I still went through my weekend-morning things, and went and got breakfast. Still had no clue what it was I wanted to do. Maybe it was up Sudley Road somewhere? But other than restaurants the only thing on Sudley is a Lowe's, and I didn't need anything from there.

So I went to the store a little earlier than usual and came home. Sat on the couch for a bit, still trying to remember. Went to a Pokemon Go event at 2:00, trying to cause myself to come up with something while I wandered around looking for shinies.

Came home again, sat around a bit more, went to dinner. At this point I'd given up on trying to remember; I knew it would come up on its own and be too late for me to do anything about.

After dinner I fired up Youtube, and watched a video that had come out on Friday. It was from one of the channels I watch regularly, and they were doing their usual bit and cleaning up someone's overgrown yard for free. They used a flat-bladed shovel to remove some weeds that had come up through the seams in the concrete, and I thought that they were just going to come right back.

They should use Roundup, I thought for a second. But then I remembered hearing about how Roundup is also dangerous to humans and that you probably shouldn't use it any more. Which led me to thinking that I should take the bottle I have in the garage to the hazardous-materials dropoff at the dump.

Whoops, that was last week. This week is... the shredding event over by the police station. That I wanted to take the last couple years' worth of credit card statements to. That ran from like 11 to 4. Shit.

I knew I'd remember eventually. I was even right about it being too late to do anything about. Silver lining, I guess.

3/16/2026 - It's that time again

2026-03-16T00:00:00Z

We started daylight saving time in the US (and Canada) last week. So everybody was understandably grumpy about the sun coming up an hour later.

When I tried to maintain permanent daylight time a few years ago, I felt that it was kind of a wash -- evenings were better but mornings sucked. Everything else was benefits of me being an hour ahead of everybody else around.

Since then I've learned that during the Oil Crisis in the 70s we tried moving to permanent daylight time, and everybody hated it. I get it, those mornings really sucked, and I worked from home. Having to drive to work in the dark probably would have tipped the scales for me.

On the other hand, I absolutely don't want to do permanent standard time. The sun coming up at 4 in the morning would be an absolute waste, and I'd be annoyed at having to buy blackout curtains just to be able to get a good night's sleep.

Which means that the current situation, modulo some nibbling at the edges, is probably the best option. We hate changing the clocks, but we'd hate not changing them more. So I guess we're stuck with out semi-annual jet lag session for the long haul.

2/23/2026 - It's got zippy-zaps

2026-02-23T00:00:00Z

I can't remember if it came up in the home inspection, or if I discovered it shortly after moving in, but the outlets in the master bathroom have been bad since I moved in. No big deal, really; I need the clippers every few months to cut my hair and that's it for my bathroom electricity needs. And there's an outlet in the bedroom right next to the doorway so I just did that for several years.

After a decade or so, I got sick of that. I went to Home Depot and bought myself a new GFCI outlet. And... it didn't work. I double-checked the instructions, made sure there was a load on the outlet, and still: nothing.

Maybe I got line and load reversed? I made sure I was using the conductors from each piece of romex and not crossing them, and swapped line and load. Nope.

Well, at that point I was out of ideas. More importantly, I was also out of fucks. So I just left it as it was for a few more years.

And then I got sick of staring at it again, and I was long-overdue to get the "annual" electrical checkup that I was paying for. Guy comes in, I explain the problem, and he pops the faceplate off the breaker box.

It's kinda bad, y'all. At some point the bathroom outlet breaker failed in rather spectacular fashion, and did some damage to the bus bar it was on. A breaker on the other side apparently needed to be moved, which explains the blanking plate across from the bad breaker. The real solution to this is to replace the breaker box, which as of recent local code changes requires a total of about $14,000 worth of electrical fuckery. On top of the windows and trim that I'm paying for for the next *mumble*.

So, that's getting put off for a bit. The electrical system in the house is fine as far as I can tell; the place has failed to burn down in the 16 years I've been here, which means I'm not too worried about it. Once we're back on daylight time I'm going to go buy myself a new 20-amp breaker and see if that's my only problem; there's a non-zero chance I'll need to move that breaker like the previous owners moved the one that had been across from it. But at least that way I'll have a functional bathroom outlet instead of running the clippers in from the bedroom. And it's something I can afford, which is always a plus.

Fuckin' A, man. By the time I fix all the shit that should have been caught the first time I'll have gone a long way toward buying this place a second time. And that's before we get to all the stuff I've been wanting to do but keeps getting put off for the stuff I have to do.

1/12/2026 - Year in review: 2025

2026-01-12T00:00:00Z

Last year was definitely a thing that happened.

Blogging. For the first time since 2006 I had at least one post in every calendar month. At 40 posts it was the chattiest I'd been on here since 2008. I don't really feel like my writing has gotten any better, but at least I'm getting my thoughts down again. When I have them, anyway.

Health. After getting diagnosed with Type II diabetes in the spring of 2024, I had my first full year of maintaining my blood-sugar levels. That went really well; in October the doctor took me off the Metformin (it can screw up your ability to absorb vitamin B12, which was happening) and I'm just using Trulicity now to browbeat my body into not destroying itself. So far, so good.

On the downside I did something to my arm over the summer -- I have no idea what, I just woke up one morning and it was being pissy -- that hasn't gone away. I kinda feel like the only answer is going to involve an MRI, and possibly some kind of surgery. Which, y'know, I'd kinda rather just not.

Financially. Hoo boy, the universe really decided I go just fuck all the way off on this one. In September I replaced the upstairs windows only to learn my house was built by monkeys, in November the car decided I hadn't spent enough money yet and then just before Christmas the thermostat on the water heater went. And since water heaters only tend to last 10-15 years and mine was 11, it was new water heater time!

And I just learned that I'm going to need to replace the circuit-breaker panel at some point. I'm holding off on that one for now because I've already thrown way too much money around, but it'll have to be done eventually. I think I need to make that one its own post, though.

Work. I'm still with the company down in Jacksonville, and since they bought out Lock Media back in 2016 I've (a) been with them for almost ten years now -- March 1st will be my anniversary with them -- and (b) I've effectively had the same job since 2005, so a couple weeks after my Floridaversarry my employment here in Virginia will be old enough to drink.

I'm in kind of a weird place there. The legacy system is on its way out; by the end of the year there should only be one carrier left on it, and they're not even in the US. Most everything else is in Java and good lord am I bad at Java. The project structure seems convoluted and confusing to me, and every time I try to work on something I end up going in circles for days. Feels bad, man.

They had me architect out a couple small projects and I enjoyed that. But for some reason going from "let's have Jason arch out this project" to "Jason starts arching out the project" takes weeks, and both times they tried to get that to happen I got legacy work in that took priority. And now I haven't gotten a new project in months.

Which would be worse if one of our DBAs hadn't gone on medical leave in the fall. I've been filling in there, and other than the fact that I hate it things are going well. So we'll see where things end up in a couple months when the actual DBA is back and the legacy system is back in maintenance mode.

Adulting. I'm still bad at it. Cooking a big batch of stuff on Monday and eating it the rest of the week still works, but I'm running into a problem of not knowing many recipes. My sister decided to take pity on me and bought a cookbook specifically made for people like me. I'm trying a Thai lentil soup tomorrow (today as of this post going live); wish me luck.

Everything else. I've got a couple more things milling around in my head, I'm not sure I want to put them out there or not. Kind of personal in a different way; I'm still deciding. And then there's all the Everything going on out there, the fewer thoughts about what I want to happen that I put in writing on the internet the better.

So yeah, that was a look back at 2025. Coulda been worse, also coulda been a lot better.

12/12/2025 - Doing things the old-fashioned way

2025-12-12T00:00:00Z

Over the summer I canceled my Amazon Prime subscription. I wasn't buying things terribly often, I wasn't using the streaming, and I wanted to give less of my money to Amazon (and therefore Jeff Bezos) in general. Which meant doing actual Christmas shopping this year, instead of Christmas type-stuff-into-a-box-and-hope-for-the-best.

And it... kinda worked. I don't know if it's just that so much of sales has moved online, or if it's because the bottom is going to fall out of the economy in the new year, or if I just picked opportune times to shop; but nothing was particularly busy when I went. I even found a serendipitous present at the mall that I otherwise wouldn't have while browsing around. In Akron on Black Friday I found a little marketplace with small individual sales booths, like Alexandria's Torpedo Factory.

All-in-all it went better than previous years: I'm only buying gift cards for one person, who I only ever see for a few minutes a year. Everyone else gets all presents with no cards for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long.

So yeah, not only is doing Christmas shopping in person (still) doable, it's probably preferable for a few reasons. It just requires that one get off one's ass before the middle of December.

11/27/2025 - Thanksgiving 2025

2025-11-27T00:00:00Z

I'm writing this ahead of time, which probably counts as tempting fate.

But with the car being recently dealt with I'm thinking (hoping) that this trip goes smoothly aside from the fact that the high temperature will drop 20 degrees on my arrival (forecast of 52 on Wednesday dropping to 32 on Thursday) and then go right back up as soon as I leave on Sunday.

So maybe the car ain't the only thing that didn't want me going to Akron. Anyway, happy Thanksgiving if that's a thing you do. Otherwise... enjoy your Thursday, I guess.

11/21/2025 - Guaranteeing a mild winter

2025-11-21T00:00:00Z

Last year I learned that electric snow shovels exist -- basically small handheld snowblowers. A week or two ago I bought myself one in anticipation of not destroying my back shoveling the driveway this winter.

Let's see if we get any snow at all now that I've done that.