Nov 04 2009
Cycling and Studying
I’ve been incredibly busy writing code over the past two months in order to hit our big Code Complete deadline last week. Now that we’ve hit it, I’ve got a more reasonable schedule, so I figured I should post up a quick update.
I’m loving my bicycle. I have gotten in the habit of riding to/from work several days (if not all days) a week. The weather is getting cooler, but most days are >55, so it makes a brisk ride strenous enough to keep me warm. I don’t know that I’ve seen a huge health benefit yet, but I’ve only been diligent about riding it the past week or so. I really need to keep it up to keep in shape for our big Half Dome hike next summer.
One reason I have been biking more is that I started taking a class at Stanford, through their Center for Professional Development. I have embarked on a “graduate certificate” program that will grant me a certificate in databases after taking 4 classes. One way to describe this certificate is like “1/5 of a Master’s”. The four classes count towards a Master’s degree, so after I complete them this time next year, I can re-evaluate going down that path depending on everything else going on in my life. I really enjoy doing academia and industry computer science simultaneously – it’s a nice balance of “pure science” in academia, and “engineering” in industry. Anyway, the bike is helpful around campus because Stanford is so huge, it would take forever to walk around. I am mainly taking the class online, but I go to campus to study and work on programming projects due to the increased intra-network connectivity. It’s challenging, but I am really enjoying it.
Oh yeah, I was Travis Bickle from The Taxi Driver (with Rober Deniro) for Halloween, so my hair is currently cut into a mohawk. 