Matt Brubeck

As we start to think about school choice, I find it helpful to remind myself that (a) decisions we make now can still be changed later, and (b) real learning is not confined to or limited by the classroom.

Eleanor enjoys seeing the moon (a rare treat for a girl in cloudy Seattle, with an early bedtime to boot), so when I glimpsed a third-quarter moon through the skylight last night, I pointed it out to her, then pointed our telescope through the skylight for a better view. I had trouble explaining what craters were, so I grabbed a nearby tablet (since I started doing mobile development, they are lying around everywhere) and showed her some pictures from the lunar surface. She was disappointed the mountains weren't like the ones in Wallace and Gromit.

Next she wanted to see stars, so we went out on the back deck with a warm blanket. The moon and the city lights and the house blocked out a lot, but we did see a number of stars, plus Jupiter rising in the east. (Seeing Jupiter's Galilean moons through the scope was especially interesting to me because I'm in the middle of Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson, which is set partly during the life of Galileo Galilei and partly on the moons themselves.) We stayed up past Eleanor's bed time, and I tried to answer her questions about planets and moons and stars and scientists. We used Google Sky Map to identify some of the things we'd seen outside.

Being around a five-year-old makes me remember how intense feelings and experiences were at that age. It's a lot of pressure for a parent, because every offer you make, or wish that you fulfill or deny, can lead to either thrills of pleasure or depths of disappointment. I don't have the energy to keep up with even half of what Eleanor wants to do, so I just work at finding enough I can manage. Yesterday she got to spend several hours playing with her best friend from last year's preschool class, which was perfect, Those two girls could keep up with each other so much better than I could hope to. Socializing is also hard work for Eleanor, though, and today she didn't seem to mind having a boring day at home.

At work we're in the process of rewriting Firefox for Android to replace most of our JavaScript/XUL front-end code with new code using Android's Java frameworks. This is looking like a very good move technically, but on a personal level it sort of cast me adrift. I've been working on the XUL front-end code for almost two years, and suddenly everything I've done or was about to do is living in a codebase that's soon to be abandoned.

Most of the team has jumped straight into the new front-end code, but I've had trouble doing that, partly because I had some loose ends to wrap up in the old code so we can ship the next few updates, and also because I was tired out from our last big project and didn't have the energy to jump right into another one. So I spent a couple weeks doing simple janitorial work like bug-fixing and sheriffing. This gave me some extra mental energy for my free-time projects like the AI class, and learning enough LLVM to contribute some patches to the Rust programming language.

I'm glad that I've learned to recognize swings in my productivity cycle. Instead of denial and procrastination during the low-motivation periods, now I try to accept them and use them to regroup. I think my anti-burnout strategy worked this time, since I now have some ideas of new projects I'm excited to try in the new codebase. If I'm lucky, that means I'm back on the upward swing of a new cycle.

A few months ago we stayed at a small bed-and-breakfast while visiting family in Portland, Oregon. Two of our fellow guests were a couple with their own self-published comic book imprint. I had fun talking to them about their work, especially since I've been enjoying DMZ which is very similar to their latest title American Terrorist. (As a bonus, our kids are the same ages and managed to entertain each other nicely for part of our trip.) If you want to check out their work, you get the first issue for free as a PDF or from WOWIO or Comixology. The other issues are $1 each.

In other "self-published books by people I'm vaguely acquainted with" news, David D. Friedman (known to many of you as "patrissimo's dad") has published his second fantasy novel for the Kindle, and his medieval cookbook through Amazon's print-on-demand service. I've read and enjoyed both of his novels and several of his economics books; I haven't looked at the cookbook yet. (He also wrote a bit about the writing process and about self-publishing, if you want the behind-the-scenes view.)

I've done working from home; I've done coworking; I've done the Mozilla Summit and soon I'll have my first work week. But this week I'm trying something different.

We're visiting my wife's parents in Port Townsend, WA for several days. Instead of taking vacation time, I'm working from their house this week. Since I already work remotely, my team will barely notice the difference. Meanwhile it will be a nice long visit for Sarah and her family, and I get to spend time with them in the mornings/evenings/mealtimes/weekend.

This has got me thinking about other new possibilities for nomadic working. It also seems relevant to this article on vacations and happiness research which says, "The most effective way to inoculate a vacationer against the deadening power of adaptation, however, may be the most counterintuitive — to break it up, to interrupt it with real life."

I've just returned from a busy week-long trip visiting family on the East coast. Now I'm ready to start my second week of work for Mozilla.

I stayed home for all my first week, to minimize potential hassles or distractions. It sure is nice and productive working alone in a quiet office for long periods, and going downstairs for meals and snacks with my family. But tomorrow for a change of scene I will be at StartPad at 1st & Columbia downtown (near Pioneer Square). If you're in the area and want to share lunch or coffee, email/IM/call/text me.

In the future I'll post to Twitter (which auto-updates Buzz and Facebook) on the days I'm downtown. You can follow me on any of those sites (or subscribe to Planet Matt) if you want to know when I'll be around.

Eleanor (after bed time):

Why is the sky not dark?

Me:

Now that it's spring, the days are longer. The sun is just starting to set.

Eleanor (cheerfully):

Daddy, can't sleep when the sky's not dark!

Sigh...

I'm starting my new job at Mozilla as a contractor. The last time I was an independent contractor was eight years ago, in Canada. I've got some decent advice from web sites like FreelanceSwitch and Seattle's Poplar, but I'd like to know if anyone here has consulting experience and can answer some questions:

1. How do you track time and expenses, and send invoices? What do you consider billable vs. non-billable?
2. I know health insurance is important, but do you have dental insurance or any other personal insurance?
3. Do you have a separate bank account for your contracting business?
4. Fellow Washingtonians, what business licenses and taxes do you file, aside from federal income and self-employment tax?
5. Do you have a lawyer or accountant? If so, can you recommend one in the Seattle area?
6. Anything else I might not have thought of?

Later this month I am starting a new job with the Mobile Firefox team at the Mozilla Corporation. I'll be staying in Seattle, with occasional trips to the Mozilla offices in Mountain View. I'll work mostly at home but I plan to come downtown about once a week to work at the library, coffee shops, StartPad, or friends' offices. Let me know if you are in Seattle or the Bay Area and want to get together sometime. After I start working from home I should be eager for company.

Kiha is still doing good things and I'll be watching their progress eagerly. I learned a lot there and I like the direction Kiha is taking, but Mozilla's offer was too good to pass up: working on free software, open standards, new platforms, and with many hackers whose work I know and admire.

Trivia: I've now had more non-student jobs in eight years than my dad has in thirty-eight.

A conversation from a few months ago:

Me:

Hi, Eleanor! I see you put your clothes on by yourself.

Eleanor (in a dress):

Oh, it's only one clo.