Infinite Quack

I don't speak for my employer, but I'm going to speak about them I may have mentioned in passing, here and there, that I work for Amazon. In fact, I've worked there longer than most software developers; I'll pass 16 years by this June. Amazon likes to measure its employees' career development according to its Leadership Principles . Note that this link, like everything I reference in this post, is to publicly available information. I'm not spillin' any secrets here. I signed an NDA like everyone else. In my own progress assessments, I've been told I'm excellent at "Diving Deep". This, you could probably guess from my writing. I'm a details guy. I analyze the crap out of stuff. It's just how my brain works. Where are my "opportunities for growth", as they like to positively frame "the stuff you're not-so-good at yet"? The clearest of these is "Think Big". I jump so naturally to the details, the singl...

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory mentioned, which states that this has already happened.”  -- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Trigger warning: Discussion of death, the meaning of existence, and a brief mention of suicide are ahead.) Douglas Adams was a remarkable man who wrote some wholly remarkable books. His Hitchhiker series made a huge impression on me in my childhood, introducing me all at once to quirky British comedy and witty science fiction parody, painting a Universe that was colorful, whimsical, yet mysterious and absurd, in which -- when you came right down to it -- nothing ultimately made sense. Then he died, which is less remarkable, really. Everyone who’s ever been born has eventually done that . He was living, you see, and then... he stopped doing th...

Thought it time to revisit this . I wrote it several months before Covid-19 emerged. At least we did tackle #7: 7) Vote Trump out on his ass in 2020. He represents the poisonous idea that we can just lie about our problems instead of facing them honestly. He has fixed nothing, he has no skills apart from conning people, and he has no respect for our system of laws. These are basic principles, without which we cannot consistently reward practices that work and phase out those that don't. His very presence in the highest office signals that the powerful, corporations included, are free to keep cheating the rest of us without fear of consequences. Electing Biden might just send a better signal. But anyone who thinks the worst is over... is not paying attention. Trump made an epic fail out of his term in office, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief that that's over -- he can no longer do the same level of damage. (He can still do some, for as long as people keep listening to hi...

I feel halved. Maybe more so. I would frequently refer to Susan as my better half, so that suggests I've lost more than that. It's also my timeline that has been sliced in two. I went for a walk by myself today, and couldn't remember doing that for a while. I realized this is going to color all my experiences from now on -- doing things I've done before, but now I'm doing them as a widower. I had experiences before I met Susan, and some of those were nice, but the best ones happened during my time with her. Now that time is over. I'm 47, so my timeline hasn't been cut exactly in half either. I've most likely got less than half my life ahead of me. Just now, it's hard to imagine it being the better half, but I can hope it'll get better than this. It's like how 9/11 changed America, dividing everything into what happened before or after. It's different, though, because this event is not shared. As I walked around the neighborhood, I heard p...