Thistles... everywhere

So I just got my Macbook Pro FedEx'd to New Zealand, where I am currently a Willing Worker On Organic Farms (WWOOF). This means I've been milking cows, weighing lambs, weeding organic carrots, grubbing out lots (and lots) of thistles, and generally helping out on organic farms in exchange for good food and a bed to sleep in.

I'm 10 months in, and this has been a really great experience for me. Over the past few years I spent all my time on the computer, and I kind of lost touch with reality. I lost the balance between computer time and outside-world time.

I was stuck in a hole, so I quit my job and headed to the other side of the world.

Doing some good honest work outside has done wonders for my spirit. I've met a beautiful girl who I will spend the rest of my life with, and some day we will own some land of our own to continue the lifestyle we've experienced here in New Zealand.

Being away from the computer for so long has left part of my mind a bit... hungry. I started getting some serious programming pangs a couple of months back, and I was forced to write a wallpaper changer in html/javascript that ran on a Windows 98 machine as an ActiveDesktop object. I felt dirty, but it satisfied some primal instinct inside me. I realized I have a fundamental need to code.

Around the same time I started thinking about my previous employer, and the problems I saw there with respect to the software development process. My brain went into overdrive and I couldn't stop thinking about source control, bug tracking, user testing, and everything in between.

So I started writing again, and managed to fill over 20 pages of A4 with notes and thoughts about software development. In the long term I want to improve my writing and maybe even come up with some interesting and thought-provoking ideas. I plan on using this blog to accomplish this.