The Blues, and a Ford Machine
01.01.70
While living in Idaho, I decided that I needed a pickup truck. My passenger vehicle, a Volks Rabbit that used diesel fuel, was a plus in the coolness factor, but during the winter, the fuel would gel and I would have to walk to work. That wasn't terribly unpleasant, to me: I rather enjoyed getting up in the morning, putting on my Sorels, and walking over the shallow snow on the railroad tracks from my apartment to the lumber yard, where I had found a winter job. But we moved into a house, which had a woodstove, and I would need to gather firewood. Also, it expanded what I could do in my construction jobs. I wasn't very experienced, and I had been given a lot of really tough assignments. I shoveled fist-sized gravel for weeks. I used a jack hammer to remove fifteen patio slabs that had settled and cracked. Two other men and I were assigned a mountain of construction lumber, and told to remove all the nails. It was dangerous, but we took an idiotic pleasure
Source: Salon (blog)
Perspective on class helps with happiness
01.01.70
Last semester I took three senior-level CS courses. In one, I learned about the math behind why computers and algorithms can work. In another, I learned about the fundamental value of information and how machines can use this to spot patterns. And in the last, I learned about the math needed to recreate real-world physics in computer simulations.
Oh, and I also took freshman chemistry. Guess which one I got a B in?
When I was a freshman, that would’ve had me freaking out. All-night cram sessions in the library, weekly trips to the professors office hours, the works. But, honestly, after six semesters here, I knew I hadn’t put my all into the class, and I was fine with that. Don’t get me wrong, chemistry’s a fascinating subject, but the likelihood of me using any of it in my professional career was about as close to zero as it gets.
In other words, I just had a bit more perspective on what was important. I knew what was likely to make a difference in my life and what wasn’t, and prioritized things accordingly. And if something came up, be it a cool project in another class I wanted to spend more time on, or just a midnight run to Waffle House, I let my chemistry work take the hit.
Source: Technique