The Dangling Pointer

Grief is a strange emotion. For most of my childhood, I was lucky — I didn’t experience much personal loss. Death was something that happened on television or in stories my parents told about distant relatives I barely knew, people I didn’t have memories of or context to care about. My ADHD probably played a role too — even when something did matter in the moment, it didn’t always stick long enough to feel real later. ...

One of the hardest-to-name feelings I live with is the sense that I’m always almost there — on the cusp of a thought, a breakthrough, a deeper understanding. I can feel the shape of an idea forming, but it slips just out of reach before I can hold onto it. It’s like trying to tune into a radio station (if you even know what a radio station is, lol) that’s just barely out of range — you catch the melody, but not the lyrics. I don't know if its the ADHD brain, but it's something I've struggled with all my life. ...

I've been meaning to write up what's been going on since I left Shopify last year. ADHD brain makes me want to come up with a long well-written post with a storyline and quippy section titles. Well, then ADHD brain aborts the process because I get decision paralysis and never write anything. I got laid off on May 4th, 2023. I was very upset by the whole situation, rage sold my SHOP equity, and then got rid of everything with the Shopify logo on it. Shopify was such a good fit for me and I was learning a lot. Losing that HURT. That catharsis helped me focus on how I wanted to spend my time being unemployed. I decided to start looking for a new job right away instead of taking a few weeks to decompress. I'm not entirely sure I'd do that again, but I wouldn't have found Figma if I had done that. ...

Finding a new job takes a lot of effort. I've been recently laid off from Shopify (along with 20% of my friends) and have been spending the past three weeks applying for jobs, connecting with friends, and searching for that next thing. It's exhausting work. This is my first layoff (and probably not my last) and the approaches I've used in the past to find a new job don't really apply right now. ...

I heavily rely upon Siri (and Google Home sometimes) to set reminders for myself. I have ADHD. I have hundreds of thoughts flying through my brain throughout the day, all at the same priority and speed. Once in a while, I catch onto something that I need to remember. ADHD brain says “oh hey, it’s important, there’s no way you’ll forget it!” - where my mindful brain says “lol, you’ve already forgotten it, jerkface!”. ...

Courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14781362334/I was having a semi-philosophical discussion with a friend about hobbies, which inspired this post. In my mind, I have a long list of things I want to learn. Technical things for work, technical things for personal projects, fun stuff, hobbies, etc. The ADHD brain in me makes it difficult to prioritize what I spend my time on. My friend mentioned that they've been spending so much more personal time lately on doing things unrelated to programming. That resonated with me as well! ...

Well, I took some time to figure things out, but it didn't take too long to make the final decision. I'm now working at Shopify (and we're Shopifolk, lol) as a senior development manager for the Point of Sale retail channel and apps. I'm still in my onboarding time here, but my role and responsibilities will become clearer over the next few weeks. Shopify has a seriously well-organized program to onboard all new employees. I am super impressed. You can read about some of the recently released cool things from the team I will be working on. ...

On April 3, 2013, I was sitting in the #devmke Freenode IRC channel talking to other developers in the Milwaukee (Wisconsin, USA) area. I saw a conversation about one of the people working from home and thought, what an incredible place this must be to work! For some reason, I had heard the name Automattic before – and after landing on the homepage, I realized why! It was because of WordPress and specifically signing up for WordPress.com to get an Akismet API key to prevent comment spam. When I saw a Mobile Wrangler job posting, I immediately applied. I got the offer in May and started near the end of July 2013. ...

I saw this quote on a friend's wall as I was leaving their house. I found the original and decided to share it here. I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. Og Mandino

I listen to a lot of electronic and trance music to keep a part of my mind occupied while I focus on my work. What I've noticed over the years is using a playlist or a service like Pandora doesn't quite do it for me. I could never put my finger on it until it clicked one day. Having the ability to skip a song makes the experience of listening more in the foreground where I have yet another choice to occupy my mind. Do I like this song? Should I go to the next one? ...