Monday, September 26, 2011

Stuff has actually happened this month!

So, unlike the rather boring couple months since my two-wheeled trek to the Pacific ended abruptly, stuff has actually happened this month.

-Job? Kinda? I have something resembling a job now. I'm currently working for a start-up while waiting to find out if I have a job with an established company. I'm working on an app for Android devices. Probably shouldn't say much more than that. I'm not getting paid yet (it's a pre-funding start-up), which is unfortunate, but it also has the benefit that there's no office, so I can work from my couch. It's pretty interesting stuff. It's giving me a chance to learn more about mobile development, which is something I've been meaning to learn, and it's interesting to see the inner workings of a fledgling company, instead of just being buried in code and nothing else.

-Moving to NoVa: I've recently moved up to Northern Virginia, due to that whole job thing. I'm living with a couple other guys from APO, which is working out pretty well. My room is a bit tiny (8'10" x 9'2"), but at least it's letting me practice my creative furniture building.

-Creative furniture building: Due to the miniscule size of my room, I'm having to conserve and double-use space. In order to fit both a bed (which is kinda a necessity) and a couch (which is definitely a necessity) into my room, I built a loft bed so they take up the same area of floor space. However, I was bored back in August/early September before starting work, so I decided to make it without the use of anything other than wood. This meant no nails, screws, glue, or even lashings, and instead a lot of chiseled notches for various pieces of wood to slot through, with a few pegs to hold the diagonal braces on. Somehow, it actually worked, and I think it's even sturdier and more stable than the loft bed in my room at home, despite initial skepticism on the part of all involved (that is, me and my dad). As an added bonus, the design actually incorporates my required couch as one of its braces. I'll post pictures once I take them tomorrow, but currently it's sitting nicely in my room ready to be slept in. And, with the exception of moving the couch into place, I was able to assemble it entirely by myself (Zak, thanks for the help with the couch).

-Other fun stuff: One nice advantage of working as opposed to school is that I don't have homework for the weekends (although I've been putting in a few hours of work out of my own curiosity about the project and not because I have to). This means that I have the time to do fun stuff, such as this weekend when I went climbing on Saturday (at a gym, as opposed to outside, but it was still quite fun) and scuba diving on Sunday (I'm now advanced open-water certified by NAUI). Next weekend will probably be climbing again on Saturday, and then I don't know about Sunday. Something fun, hopefully. In addition, I've been able to run most evenings after work, which is always good.

Now, though, sleep.