If you were to take a look at my GitHub contributions graph, the last few weeks have been pretty sparse. Well I have not fallen out of love with coding, rather I moved from southern California to New England. Three weeks ago my family and I packed up our Jay Feather X213 travel trailer and began our 3,950+ mile journey across the country. It was a grand adventure and well worth the effort. We had some hairy moments (torrential rain on the Chicago Skyway, high winds in eastern Wyoming, small car swallowing potholes on the George Washington Bridge in New York City, and losing part of our tow hitch on the highway in the mountains of Utah). There was also some unforgettable moments too - the fall colors were EPIC in Utah, the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha was amazing, the night sky in Nevada was spectacular, the endless miles of quaint farmland in America's heartland was inspiring, and visiting the largest train yard in the world was super cool. I will say that trying to code on the road was pretty difficult. Many of the campgrounds had wifi, but it was unusable (you try to code with a spotty 0.5 mbps connection).

While driving 300-350 miles a day, I had quite a bit of time to ponder the next steps I want to take as a coder. This coming week, my son will start pre-school, and I will suddenly find myself with a lot more free time. With my full-time stay at home dad responsibilities somewhat alleviated, I am considering going back to school. I am either considering getting another Bachelors (this one would be in Computer Science) or maybe even going for my Masters (I really do not want to take the GRE though - I hate tests). Another option would be to get a certificate or two - probably in C++. The goal is that around this time next year I will be gearing up for full-time developer work. If I go the certificate route that could be a lot sooner.

In the meantime I am enjoying the slower pace of life, not having to tow a 49' foot 5,000+ pound rig across America. I get to fish every day, which has been my dream for many years and the wifi in our long-term campground is tolerable, so I am jumping back into coding on the regular again. It feels nice to build and create again. I missed it.