Just another update...
So another month has gone by without an update from me. There have been a few events in that time, so let's get into it. I just got back from a five day vacation trip to Dallas to see my brother and his family, plus my dad and stepmom, who drove down from Indiana to visit with us all. It was a good visit, I was sad to leave at the end of it. I got to reconnect with my nephews and bond a little bit with my niece's kids too, plus see my brother's new house, visit with my sister in law, dad and stepmom, and generally relax a bit after six months with no time off. My brother hurt his back picking up a transmission in his garage a couple of weeks ago, so he was hobbling around while I was there. He had an MRI done and they found some cartilage from a ruptured disc was pressing on his sciatic nerve in his back, which caused some foot pain and swelling. The doctor told him the cartilage would dissolve over about six weeks or so. He got some prescription pain medication which helped a bit. He could walk but was still in a lot of pain, so he spent a lot of time laying on the floor with his foot elevated. Hopefully it will clear up soon. He's working from home while this is going on and his job has been supportive, so I think he'll be okay eventually. Dad and I had a chance to talk while I was in Dallas for a few minutes. There's been some hard feelings between us for a long time because of some of the things I went through when I was a kid and young adult. We didn't talk for a long time, but about six weeks ago when we were planning this trip my brother and I had a long phone call with him and sorted some of it out. My dad expressed a lot of regret over the way we were brought up and said that there was a lot he'd go back and change if he could. Hearing his apology helped a lot, and now I'm planning on checking in with him on a regular basis going forward. About a week and a half ago, I had a job interview with Equinix. It didn't go very well. I didn't know what to expect walking into it as this was the first "corporate" style interview I've had, plus it was the first time I've had a job interview in several years, so I wasn't really prepared for it like I could have been. They asked me a bunch of technical questions that I kind of stumbled through, some of which I couldn't answer very well. They said that I would hear back from them in about two weeks, but I'd be surprised if they want to schedule a second interview so I'm not getting my hopes up. Also, after thinking about it for a while I'm not so sure this Equinix job was what I really want. They work 12 hour shifts, on weekends, and some time on the night shift is required, and that's not really what I'm hoping to find in a new job. It wouldn't be an improvement over my current job, which has me working an early morning, weekend shift already. What I want is a Monday to Friday, 8 to 5 type of job that has me working in a data center environment where I'm comfortable, so I'm thinking that Equinix isn't right for me, after all. If nothing else the interview was good practice for the next one, so I'm not too upset over it any more. This past month I spent a lot of time working on that Cursor Udemy project, and now I'm at the point where I'm thinking I should move on to something else. Working with the Cursor AI has been interesting, but it's a time sink that I'm not anywhere near the finish line on, and I really don't think I want to invest much more time with it going forward. After that interview debacle I'm more interested in polishing my other skills, so today I dug out my old CCNA notebooks and brought them with me to work, hoping to have some time to go over them and refresh my memory on the networking side of things. I may still work with Cursor a little bit just to see if I can get any progress made toward finishing that project, but since I had to shit-can the first Cursor project, after starting it over twice, and having spent a month working on this Cursor project, I'm not feeling too confident about it now. It still isn't clear what the finished product is going to be, and I'm afraid that I'll just wind up investing a lot more time in something that isn't going to work out in the end. I'm not a web developer any more, and since this project is so heavy on using React and JavaScript (two things I'm not that familiar with) and light on Python, the progress has been slow and painful. It just isn't what I'm looking for now. I wanted to work on a Python project using Cursor, but this isn't that and I'm thinking I should just move on. I feel like my networking skills are atrophying, especially when it comes to Cisco IOS, and I want to rekindle some of that before I lose it for good. Well, that's good enough for now I think. I could write some more but it's getting tedious, and I think this post is long enough. In my next post I might write about this new Mayo Clinic diet I've been on since January, or my experience working with the Arnold Schwarzenegger "Pump" fitness app. Both have been interesting and difficult in their own ways. Or who knows, I might write about something else entirely. Anyway, back to the grind...