Thoughts on Trains
Posted by Angelo Lakra Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:53:00 GMT
Every now and then I have to write something that gets my personal goals back on track. I’ve found that the train ride into work is a great time for me to reflect on things floating around my head before I begin the code grind at work. I’m mainly speaking of my projects that I develop in Ruby, but will probably have other aspirations written down as well.
There are a two specific projects that I wish to finish by the summers end. They are canyoucodebetter and a mud. I think the biggest thing that has been keeping me from working on them is time and fatigue. When I get home around 6:30 PM I’m ususally involved with my immediate family (my wife and daughter) until 9:30 PM. As you can imagine, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for my projects as I try to leave for work at 7:30 AM. Trying to squeeze 8 hours of sleep in there leaves me the small time of 9:30 PM to 11:30 PM. Unfortunately, by those times I’m so tired that I tend to stare blanky at my screen more than coding real value.
So the train ride is my way out. I don’t have to focus on anything but the laptop screen in front of me and making sure that I don’t crowd anyones personal space. I guess my only complaint about the train is the glare that the morning sun shines on my reflective screen.
Another thing about the train is that there seems to be public wifi spots at each stop. However, there is not enough time to connect to one and do anything useful before the train starts moving again. Bummer.
When I was Boston I fell in love with the public transit immediately. I would go down to the caverns where the trains would stop and pick up people. They reminded me of fast moving worms because of the way they would contort like an accordian in the tunnels underneath the city.
I would get on and hop off, go to the surface and I was in a new place. MIT? Sure. Harvard? No problem. It was great.
