Friday, March 26 2021

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everyone! Happy Friday. What a wild morning today.

You all must know me pretty well by now. I'm not one to stick to a routine. I'm one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of people. I'm capricious, foolhardy, and always seeking a thrill.

Well I'm at it again. On most mornings, I read from 7:15 to 7:45, then shower and get ready for the morning from 7:45 to 8:15. Well today, for absolutely no reason, I decided to switch the two. I showered and got dressed first, then came downstairs to read before I started writing. I bet your head is spinning right now. How do I even live like this? Can you even imagine being this comfortable in such chaos? And you know what? I might even do that on Monday too. I'm a raging bull. I'm a kite dancing in a hurricane. There's no telling what I'll do next!

This morning, I'm working through the beginning of the Moses story. I just finished reading the chapter where Moses and Aaron approach pharaoh to float the idea of taking his entire work force into the wilderness for a few days to worship God. Pharaoh has some very fair rebuttle: Whose God? Why should I care? Why can't you just do this here?

Remember at this point, God already told Moses and Aaron that this wouldn't work, and that he'd ultimately have to force Pharaoh's hand. This begs the question: do you think they really tried to convince him? On one hand, I could see Moses just showing and dropping the bomb without sugar coating it. But on the other hand, the Bible says Aaron was more eloquent, and maybe Aaron would have instinctively turned on the charm. After reading this story again, I wish we knew more about how they prepared for this confrontation.

Sip. So happy Friday. It's nice to reach the end of the week, isn't it? I feel like we earned this one, and they can't take it from us now. At quitting time today, we're off the hook, and nobody can bother us until Monday, got it?

Yesterday was a great day. As promised, it was chock full of meetings and slack messages. It was one of those days where I had so much going on, I just decided to embrace it and be fully present. Through coffee and concentration, I willed myself into it, so to speak.

But some of the meetings were so interesting, I didn't need any extra effort. I have a handful of one on one's on Thursday with interns and other coworkers. They look just like regular calendar commitments, but I forget that the point of them is to just show up, chat, and connect with someone, and that's not very stressful at all. I also got to attend an interesting "eat & learn" put on by one of our interns. Ritik demonstrated how to make a basic web application with react. He even incorporated Zendesk's own Garden React Library.

I envied Ritik. It was inspiring watching how quickly he was able to whip up something that looked modern and professional. Once upon a time, I used to work on web pages and user interfaces. I used to color buttons, bump pixels, and attach JavaScript events to buttons. The tools I worked with were a lot less powerful than what Ritik showed us, but watching him building a prototype reminded me of how exciting that kind of work was. Nothing beats the instant gratification of watching a web page take shape on one side of your screen while changing a bit of JavaScript on the other side.

I finally did get that nap, but Marissa first needed a favor. She needed us to take a little car ride over to the Garver Mill by our house to snap some photos of her art. After bragging about my 5:00 PM nap all day, I confess that I reacted selfishly. I pitied myself for getting through all those meetings and conversations with people only to be robbed of my God given right to sleep. Luckily I kept my mouth shut. I strapped Miles into his car seat and stood patiently by the back door. Watching Rodney zip up his Spider-man suit and struggle to get his shoes on gave me time to think about my attitude.

My attitude sucked. Marissa has also been working late into the night all week. She wanted to finish these new paintings by Friday so she could enjoy the weekend. And by the time I threw on a hoodie, the car was already packed. The least I could do was show up and hold a camera for twenty minutes.

We made our way over to the mill. We parked behind the building to avoid attention. Taking pictures of art outside tends to attracts a lot of attention, and even though compliments and questions are nice, the interruptions just make it harder to take pictures. And with kids in the car, the sun going down, and other things to get to, we're almost always in a rush when we're taking pictures. Miles and Spider-man waited in the car while we snapped photos in front of the big brick wall. They turned out really nice.

I finally did get that nap. Marissa and the boys dropped me off at home so I could get a head start. I slept for a full hour, waking up five minutes before the Hawks game started and fifteen minutes before our food arrived. Poor Rodney spilled spicy salsa all over his Spider-man costume. Yesterday was the first day he got to wear it after he got it dirty in the sandbox, so you can imagine his disappointment having to once again drop it into the hamper. He hung out with us the rest of the night in his underwear, which is totally kosher when you're four years old.

Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great day, everyone.