Adam Wishneusky

A good day

Today contains many things that make me happier:

• I had the day off today to see my dad off to the train after his visit this weekend
• The apartment is actually pretty clean
• Things are organized for my birthday party this coming weekend
• I’ve cooked a few times very recently
• Daylight savings time! Cecily and I were eating dinner outside in the backyard from 6 to 7:30

And now, a song for the coming spring:

28th Birthday

I was planning on having a birthday party. I wanted it to be something like a pot-luck plus movie/games and drinking. When Rich couldn’t make it, the pot-luck was off and eventually I decided to scrap the party (it’s so hard to get people together on the same date, so much work, etc). Well it worked out much better anyway :)

A day or two before the 7th, I was thinking to myself that I wished I knew someone with a dog I could borrow. Magically, the evening of the 6th, I found out that my new friend who works next door at Building on Bond was dog-sitting for friends and had a shift at the restaurant all day on the 7th and I could borrow the pupster for the day!

I met her in the morning for coffee and to pickup Scout. Pooch and I walked to Prospect Park for some relaxing and some playing with other dogs. After a walking- and sun-induced nap, we met back up with her actual sitter at Building for a quick drink. Best birthday in years.

As you can see above, I also got a cake at work and Cecily gave me flowers!

And here is Scout taking forever to lie down. This is just the very end of the process, she took like 45-60 sec total :)

All the pictures on flickr

I’m healthy. and famous. and a hipster

I’m healthy

I just had the second part of my surgery and am mostly healed. Once I’m 100% again, I should be cured* of Crohn’s Disease! Yay! Just have to fully adjust to having an ileostomy bag :P. I also will have my credit card debt from the startup company days paid off next month. That means I can start saving money for things like… trips to Germany! Yay! ;)

*even though Crohn’s an affect any portion of the GI tract, my doctor says I’m “cured.” Since the disease only ever affected my large intestine, its very unlikely to show up again in the small intestine.

I’m famous

Over the last few days, I watched all 6 parts of Make Better Software, a training series that Fog Creek just released. While we were shooting, I was scared of the camera and actually got dizzy during an interview (which was not used, thank GOD), but watching it, I of course noted every place you see my pretty face :) If you have $1,995 you should buy a copy which comes with all sorts of paper materials.

• Part 1 - Recruiting
  • none :(
• Part 2 - Teams
  • 31:30
• Part 3 - Environment
  • 46:45
• Part 4 - Schedules
  • 19:15 - I actually talk
• Part 5 - Lifecycle
  • 15:19 - I talk (uncredited)
  • 33:39
  • 34:25
  • 42:16 - back of my head eating french fries
• Part 6 - Design
  • none :(

I’m tickled by my role in the series since I didn’t study computer science, but I get to pretend to be a developer, work with geniuses and even get my (crappy) code reviewed by a very well-known guy in the biz.

Here I’m getting a code review from Joel in Part 5 (Product Lifecycle)

This segment from Part 4 (Schedules) really validates me in my code-hacking. It says I’m a real Software Developer! ;)

I really like working on software and I’m happy (and lucky!) that I got the chance to cheat my way into it via my experience at Celery. Working at Fog Creek I get to do all sorts of stuff I wouldn’t be able to at other places. I chose “Odd Jobs” for my title on my business card because I fancy myself a general-pupose problem solver. I help out with tech support, sales, building and maintaining internal tools various people use, running reports and other stuff. My favorite work involves coding, so I smiled when my caption identified me as a Software Developer :)

I’m a hipster

I cut my hair today and must subconsciously want to be a hipster: