So a while back, Uli asked for a bit more information about what it is I do and how I fit into the whole REAL Software scheme of things. It appears as though I've been somewhat mysterious, so let me rectify things.
I was hired on at REAL Software in the Spring of 2002 as a Windows developer to assist in porting the IDE from the Mac to Windows. At that time, the IDE was written entirely in C++, but used a fair amount of the underlying framework code to abstract things. So a large part of my job was to shore up the loose ends and just generally get things to work. I wasn't the only person working on this port, William had also done a large amount of work on it. When the 5.0 IDE shipped, it was running on Windows and I started my foray into other areas of REALbasic such as networking and serial communications.
When I was hired, I moved from my home town of Sartell, MN down to the big city of Austin, TX. I lived in an apartment on South Lamar with a pretty view of my neighbor's apartment. But I can't complain, the rent was good, I had my own washer and drier and access to Barton's Creek.
I met Elissa while I was in the process of moving out of my Lamar apartment. I don't recall the exact timing of things, but I know I wasn't in that apartment for terribly long when Lis and I started dating. In fact, the first time I met Lis' mom was after I had moved all my stuff from the apartment. She stopped by while I was cleaning, so the entire apartment consisted of a mop, bucket and some rags.
This was also the apartment I was at when I first found Pixel. Mike (also from REAL Software) was the one who found her over by his apartment. There was a large ice storm happening, so I took her in with the intentions of putting her back on the curb after the storm had past. But she grew on me over the weekend, and so I ended up adopting her. My "free" kitten cost and arm and a leg because she had a bunch of medical problems, but she's been worth every penny and then some.
For the next few years, I was responsible for all sorts of different projects at work such as rewriting our entire networking and serial susbsystem, adding support to the new Linux framework and porting the IDE into REALbasic from C++. I also bounced around Austin a bit. My second apartment was one I shared with Jon, who was a tester at that time. That apartment was up in north Austin, so while rent was cheaper, getting to work took a lot more time. But it was close to good chinese delivery (which burnt down!) and our apartment was directly next to the hot tub. Man, I miss having quick and easy access to a hot tub... Another thing that sucked about that apartment was that I was farther away from Lis. She had no car, being a poor college kid, and so it was a lot of trucking back and forth. Yeesh.
So after a while, I found my third apartment back down in south Austin (the William Cannon area). This place rocked. It was out in the hill country, luxury apartment for cheap rent (they were running specials because it was on the outskirts of town), close to work, close to Lis.... but no hot tub. Around this time, the port of the new IDE was in full swing at work. So I spent the majority of my work time split between writing functionality for the IDE in REALbasic and fixing framework bugs in C++. Very exciting and hectic as it was a huge undertaking, and we pulled it off nicely.
However, there was also trouble brewing as I was understanding that my body just couldn't handle Texas. The heat in the summers was killing me, and so I spent the majority of my time indoors, hiding from the fire in the sky. Which is really quite hard when the girl you love enjoys being outdoors as much as she possibly can. What's more, my dad went thru his second bout with prostate cancer, and I was beginning to realize that my immortal parents may not be so immortal after all. But at the same time, I was happy with Lis and we had been dating for a long time... So after a ton of worrying, fretting and thinking, I decided it was time to move back to Minnesota.
Thankfully, I had an understanding and supportive girlfriend and boss. While Lis was certainly very unhappy about my moving, she also understood that it was something I had to do and she's stuck it out with me. And I'm eternally grateful to her for doing so. Geoff was also understanding that this was the way things had to be, and so he allowed me to work remote.
So in the Spring of 2005, I moved back to Minnesota. I moved back in with my parents and lived in the basement of their house in Sartell. I also started building my house here in St Augusta as I got back into the state. A mere 100 days after breaking ground, my house was done and I was ready to move in, and this is where I've been ever since.
So while I do still work for REAL Software, which is based out of Austin, TX, I work from my home office here in St. Augusta, MN. I'm still dating the same wonderful Elissa I was dating back when I lived on Lamar. I still have the same crazy cat who spent hours swatting at a screensaver showing a ball of twine. I just moved about 1400 miles further north and wear pajamas a lot more frequently.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. :-)
The worst thing about this is the FIRST thing that popped into my head when you said wearing pajamas a lot more often is the image of Dilbert sitting in front of his desk at home with his index finger dressed up as himself; tie and all.
He's siting there with his finger held up in front of the video camera for a video conference with his boss.
Way to go Dilbert !
Aaron, don't tell him about the squeaky chair...
I remember when we were hacking away at DirectConnect back in 2000/2001... those were the days man! the days!
@Bill -- If someone would send me a new chair that's really, really nice.... then perhaps it wouldn't squeak anymore. ;-)
@Jake -- mm... DC....
I can relate to some of your history:
1) I met my wife when I was a graduate student living in a crappy apartment and driving a crappy car. She's stuck with me anyway for 23 years.
2) I've had two cats with medical problems. Bernie was the cat I grew up with. He was supposed to die as a kitten, but lived to 13 years. He wheezed loudly all the time due to his breathing problems and I guess due to my asthma thought I was "Mom" and bonded to me. One of my current cats, Louie, contracted cyctitis when he was upset about our going on vacation for a week (even though the cat sitter came twice a day) and almost died. We're afraid to go on vacation now!
3) Sorry to hear about your father. I hope he pulls through. I just found out that my Dad's got a short time left. Although we were expecting it since he's been ill for years, it's still a shock to hear it. That's part of why I've been so depressed lately.
@Scott -- dad's prognosis is good, they caught it very early. He had his prostate removed after they found cancer the first time, and things seemed alright. However, they missed a very small part of the prostate (which is appearantly easy to do because it's so squishy), so they went in and removed the rest of it + some chemo treatments. That was about two years ago now, and his PSA levels have been excellent since then. So we think things are good. Thank you for your concern though.
I'm sorry to hear about your father as well. With a great son like you, I'm sure he's lived a good and proud life. But it's still very hard to hear that sort of information. Parents seem indestructible for so long...
Man, I thought it was going to be a more mysterious story, like "A loving couple from Minnesota found me at the side of the road next to a glowing, badly damaged pod-shaped apparatus in the middle of nowhere. My earliest, yet most curious memory of Pixel was when she was teaching me calculus when I was three. At four I was coding in assembly, by eight I could levitate trucks...", you know, something like that? Maybe I'm just tired...maybe I just need a vacation, or a beer...
Will, how'd you learn the real story?
Aaron, Thanks for the kind comments. Yeah, I think my Dad's pretty content with his life. We're still a very close family, and his children became doctors and a successful fashion designer. He and my mother have been married for 56 years and still love each other. And his jokes are so good that they've been worth telling hundreds of times each! ;-)
I could send you my old chair .... but it squeaks :)
@Norman -- LoL, I'm pretty sure my chair out-squeaks yours. Ask Bill. It sounds like a thousand kittens dying in unison.
LOL .... mines the "sounds like a squeaky bed" kind of squeak
And since my home office is right next to my bedroom it drives my wife nuts when I work late and get on and off the chair.
So, in order to keep the peace I bought a new chair :)
@Aaron: My dad was diagnosed earlier this year with prostate cancer. It took a while for it to hit me (as I was going threw crap at work), but when it did, it MORE than made up for it. A was feeling guilty about going on my vacation to western Canada while he was going to be in surgery getting his prostate removed. But he wouldn't hear of it and told me to go. He had his surgery mid-August and is still in the recovery process. Aside from the medical aspects, the other bad side-effect is he is way too comfortable talking about "that area" LOL... This from the guy who would NEVER talk about it before :P
Right now, he's finding it frustrating not really being able to do the "man work". He's used to fixing the car himself, doing the miscellaneous fix-its around the house, the yard work, the heavy lifting, etc. He's never been one to have someone do work for him, so it bothers him to have to ask people to do things for him. A bit of lost independance I guess.
But he's holding up well. The doctor expects him to be recovered enough my mid to late October to head back to work (he's printing press operator). I think it will be the first time in a long time that he'll have been looking forward to going to work LOL :)
As an aside, I have a spare chair... nice NON-SQUEAKY chair... the only problem with is is the gas lift part doesn't work right and you end up sinking to the lowest setting... but it sure cushions the blow when you just toss yourself onto the chair :P
@Scott P -- I hope your father recovers soon! My dad had no issues with the recovery stages and was back to full strength pretty quickly, so hopefully the same is true for your dad.
Something interesting I learned when dad was going thru this was that more men die with prostate cancer than of prostate cancer. Dad was told that if he was a bit older (in his 70s instead of 50s), they wouldn't have even treated it because it grows so slowly at that age. I thought that was a pretty interesting factoid.
As for my chair: one of these days, I'm going to take it apart and lube the whole thing down. It's comfortable, just squeaky.
Well... guess a squeaky chair is better than a squeaky bed :)
@Aaron - careful what you lube it with as if you lube some parts with WD 40 you will ruin them and then nothing will work right. It's a penetrating oil and may ruin things like the hydraulic lifter seals.
@Norm -- good to know. I was thinking of using lubing grease. Like what you'd use on heavy machinery parts.
Of course, there's always the option to upgrade to a "better" chair :) You get some really nice chairs for $100 CDN at Staples. I would say Office Depot too, but the one that was close to me was closed and demolished about 2 months ago :P
Sorry to hear about all the Prostate Problems for all the Dad's out there. Prostate Cancer is a bigger problem than Breast Cancer, even though Breast Cancer gets the most attention/funding.
One interesting note, the Australian National Information System for Prostate Cancer is a REALbasic application (written by Moi). It is at version 5.0 and has been around before Aaron started at REALsoftware ;-)
It manages one of the largest collections of Prostate tissue in the world.
Some dated info is found at http://linkage.garvan.unsw.edu.au/bioinformatics/cansto.html
PS. We also wrote a Breast Cancer database
Aaron, you must have a lot of experience with telecommuting now. Any tips & pitfalls you can mention?
Aaron,
thanks for the info, this was a great read. Hope that you, Lis, Dad, Pixel and REALbasic still have many happy years ahead of you. :-) I've had the fortune of living with my parents for 26 years. Great years, but even though you love them, there's just that moment where you realize that you have to move out or become that dreaded 37-year-old geek son living in the basement... But I live in a small country, I won't even need a plane to come visit them.
Parents rock.
Cheers,
-- Uli
[...] I’ll just call it as you’ll see it, I’m brazenly and ruthlessly ripping off Aaron Ballman’s most recent blog post, and going to explain my bizarre existence. Â Before I get started, just be warned that my life story isn’t quite as nice or interesting as Aaron’s, or yours, I’m sure. Â I also get in-depth about my personal matters, so if that’s going to bother you, don’t read this. [...]