About 98 Percent There

Let me set the stage a bit. Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of “emergency” is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning." - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957 This was written in 2017.  I was trying to gather together my thoughts on how to apply all my studying into a cohesive whole.  I was also trying to set a bit of a direction, making it clear to myself what I was about to do.  In no way did I follow this plan exactly, but it gave me bounds to start thinking about, areas I could start experimenting on, seeing which pieces really fit me and my life and which pieces wouldn't work. Chaos Engineering is the discipline of experimenting on a system in order to build confidence in the system’s capability to withstand turbulent conditions in production. - Principles of Chaos Engineeri...

I'm sitting in my AirBnb, with 24 hours left until I'm gently removed by a nice family and forced to be homeless again.  How did I get this way?  See the first item in the series here . Experiencing Moving from Place to Place Going on a grand tour. I'm in St. Paul, more commonly referred to the twin cities.  We've driven about 1800 miles from Meridian, Idaho, my former home, to St. Paul, Minnesota in 5 days.  In that time I've been in several wonderful AirBnbs, some dorm like and some just friendly, sharing a room.  Then there was one terrible AirBnb with more problems than I care to list.  That was my previous stay, in South Dakota.  The best part of that stay was we choose to leave and sleep in a rest area instead of staying.  With 4 hours sleep in the car under our belts, we drove another 5 hours to get to this place.  They were so generous, they let us in an hour early and we simply collapsed into bed. I've just enjoyed 2 days ...

I'm sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper, about to become homeless, embarking on a 20 day drive across the country, then a flight half way across the world, having just quit a job making a solid six figure salary.  How is that for a catchy story?  Well,  in some ways, that is the ending, not the beginning, so lets start at the beginning. Jobs Yeah, I hear ya buddy. In 2012, I was sitting in a building, across from a man who would gladly scream at me for the smallest of annoyances.  I worked on a team doing software testing and was hired for this team not for my skill but my temperament.  I could take the screaming guy whom couldn't be fired.  I was talking to my boss about how I didn't think I could do this job forever.  I was feeling tired of work.  While not true of everyone, I felt unsupported and unloved by my team.  My work didn't seem to matter--no one valued it, no one supported it and no one else understood it.  Yo...