I have a love hate relationship with cutting the grass. In NC, grass cutting season is pretty hot. It takes a bit of time with the size of our yard. It’s loud. You’re sweaty and not so comfortable at the end. It’s semi-necessary until we implement a different model for our yard. But it isn’t all bad. In Jupiter’s Legacy, the Utopian, a superhero, notes “I like washing the dishes. It occupies the hands; lets the mind wander.

The software development field often changes. If you don’t keep up with burgeoning conversations, then these changes appear more rapid than they actually are. At my last company, many felt that Docker containers and Kubernetes burst onto the scene out of nowhere. People who were watching, had seen conversations around some of those technologies for 5+ years before they became ubiquitous. I have found the best way to mitigate this type of surprise is through having an “information feed” where people you trust or find interesting are offering their thoughts and opinions.

Meet Jasper. Jasper lives at my house with 9 of his friends. However, Jasper has a problem - there are only 6 hens versus 4 drakes. It’s unfortunate, but that ratio doesn’t work. You want a ratio of 3:1 or more to keep everyone happy and healthy. There are several options to deal with this and we choose to list Jasper on craigslist. Now, you can’t list the duck for free.

One evening we arrived home with stars visible in the night sky. Orion was just peeking over the tree line. We’d recently attended an event at Morehead Planetarium where they mentioned this particular constellation, and I took the opportunity to point it out to the family. The youngest, 2 years old, couldn’t make sense of my description. He believed I’d seen a lion and was understandably scared. The middle child, 4 years old, dutifully fulfilled her role as an older sister and trying to explain it.

As I left my house this morning, a group of deer appeared in an open area of the yard. As my headlights illuminated the herd, they moved. For a brief instant, I saw them frolicking. Just as quickly, that perception changed. I saw them as they were, panicked, racing around to avoid a car that was no danger to them. Two deer stood at the rear, safely watching the scene.