Another belated birthday post, and another reminder to myself that I really want to get into the habit of blogging often.
We moved into a house last year, after several years of renting. We like it. It is a little farther away from our jobs than we would like, but we got a good deal on it. We moved in a little too late to do springtime yard maintenance last year, so it's looking a little ragged, but this year we plan to clean up the pine island in front and make the backyard look nicer.
My job last year was more interesting than I would have liked. I was "promoted" to Team Lead after our former leader stepped down (and departed completely soon thereafter). What was supposed to be a short-term keep-everything-running position while we searched for a new software-development executive turned into six unpleasant months of trying to keep people around me happy and productive. I wasn't successful in that, but the position was eventually filled and I was able to settle back into an individual-contributor role.
Every other time I've been promoted to management at a job, I've quit soon thereafter, so maybe I'm maturing.
I'm applying for a Master of Science degree program at Georgia Tech, starting this fall. I've long wanted to return to school, and they offer an online program, so I can do it part-time while still keeping my job. I've enjoyed taking online courses in data science and machine learning, and I would like to try something more challenging and get something more significant than "certificates" for my ongoing studies.
I updated my ten-year-old Menubar Countdown application and put it on the Mac App Store late last year. It's nice to see that two or three people download it every day and it's gotten some good reviews.
I lost some loved ones this year. My paternal grandmother passed away a few weeks after her 99th birthday, and we lost our little dog Blitz to cancer.
Otherwise, my wife, stepson, and four other dogs are doing well, as are my parents and brothers and their families.
My wife is still bowling with her leagues and enjoying it a lot. I dropped out of my martial arts classes last spring when work got in the way too often, but I hope to resume that this year.
As I write this, the country has just started working-from-home and social-distancing due to the COVID-19 virus. I hope life will be back to normal, maybe a "new normal", when it's time to write my "54" post.