5 Feb 2002 cjwatson   » (Master)

Debian

QA continues, and I feel like I've done nothing else for the past few weeks. Apart from a recent (rather discouraging) mass filing of serious bugs, the count does seem to be coming down - but damn, it's a long tunnel and I can't really see the light at the end yet. Fortunately, my general feeling is that several more people are going through the list on a routine basis than before.

I've taken work on my own packages down to a fairly low priority, which is why my one remaining nasty bug is still unfixed. Sometimes it's scary how long it can take to review a patch properly.

Work

Ups and downs. Two people I like and respect have decided to jump ship recently. I won't go into the details here, but suffice to say they made me half-contemplate following them. On the other hand, my pet project (wish I could link to it ...) is on the company strategy, and I do enjoy my work much more than I used to - which in the current climate is not something to be sniffed at.

I still turn green with envy at the people being paid to hack on free software. :-)

Life

"Ticking over" is about all I can say. I don't feel as if anything particularly exciting has happened for ages, and I can't feel motivated to do anything much about that either. (That said, a local club that a lot of us go to is reopening tomorrow, which always helps.) Maybe the fact that I have no time is something to do with that. Sometimes I wish I was committed to fewer free software things: it's rewarding, but it really does chew up an enormous amount of time, and I doubt it's doing my social life much good.

Oh yes - the importance of vacations. Many companies insist that you take the time off that's allotted to you. Should we strongly encourage people in volunteer projects to take breaks? By the very nature of volunteering, people tend to forget to stop occasionally, and it contributes to good people burning out. For my part, I think I'll bring my involvement down to a minimum for a month or two after woody is released, just to unwind and relax.

I was reminded of an old flame recently. That relationship has been definitely over for a long time, for various reasons, but I still seem to love her. Bah. I should really learn to be better at letting go - it would make the inside of my head a much more comfortable place to be.

Mumble. Before that, though, I should stop rambling in diary entries and get some sleep. 4am approaches ...

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