swgarst

I haven't worked in a decade, and my predictions about what I'd do were... bad.

I am not volunteering, or consulting for non-profits. It fulfilling or interesting, possibly because I wasn't invested in the cause(s).

I am not reading as much as I thought. It is lonely and boring to read for more than half a day, day after day.

I am not doubling down on family, as they are busy doing their own things.

I am not traveling constantly, because it is lonely traveling by myself (again, family is busy).

What am I doing?

I'm studying neuroscience at a local university (after working through chem/bio prerequisites). I had zero interest before, now it is all I care about. Surprise!

I spend a lot of time walking through town, aimlessly. No idea why.

I average 1.5 grocery stores every day, and cook needlessly elaborate meals for my family. Again, brand new interest.

Subsistence programmer. I only code stuff I need/want: - scripts to help track investments - scripts to manage list of movies/TV shows (get ratings, actors, synopsis). - scripts to manage my computers - database to track my research interests

Clothing - that’s what did me in (annd anctually inspired me to learn sewing!). All clothing is still assembled primarily by hand, whereas your spool of wire probably has never been touched by anyone but yourself. Both need an army of suppliers, and like Adam smith’s wool coat an army of transportation behind those suppliers. But your shirt was… made in a fundamentally different way than your spool of wire.

MLBell - small liberty bell that rings whenever a Phillies baseball player hits a home run. Built it for a friend, using raspberry Pi and an realtime MLB api.

http://www.samgarst.com/2019/05/17/basebell/