Updated
Now
I finally updated this site towards the beginning of the year after 5 years of letting it languish untended.
Personal
I am living in Central Texas with good roommates in a quiet rural area.
I went carnivore in October 2018 as an intervention for chronic health issues. So far, for me, it's the best nutrition approach I've yet tried. It was a logical next step after restricted AIP wasn't as successful for me anymore. My staples are grass-fed beef products and pasture-raised eggs. COVID-19 related egg shortages have, thankfully, resolved.
Reading
Revisiting Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive series. This is one I violated my policy about waiting for series to be finished before starting. Since book 3 is out and book 4 is due out later this year, I decided to go back to it, but had forgotten everything from the first reading. I re-read The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance and have started book 2.5 [Edgedancer]. Excellent series. Very recommended for fantasy fans.
In non-fiction, I am reading I Am Error by Nathan Altice, which is an excellent dive into the history and technical details of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). There's something about computer technology from the 80s that I find deeply fascinating. It's straddling between the magic of completely analog electronics and the commoditized general computing hardware of more recent times. Seeing the incredible tricks used to make the extremely limited hardware capabilities of the NES do what it does is fascinating. Highly recommended.
Also reading The Tragedy of American Compassion, which argues that government-sponsored welfare programs have toxic incentives, neglect individual needs, and crowd out private charity that would be more effective in helping improve life for the poor. It develops its thesis through a historical overview of charity and giving in the US.
Recently completed
- The System of the World - 3rd volume of the Baroque Cycle. Highly recommended, along with his other works.
- Starsailing - Speculative overview of solar sail technologies for inter-system and interstellar travel. More geared towards convincing 1980s NASA to take on a solar sail project than the details of the technology than I would've liked.
Work
I am working remotely in the contact center of a major national boating retailer as an Operations Analyst. My work primarily involves reporting automation (mostly Python) and data wrangling, forecasting contact demand, workforce planning, managing the Contact Center Operations team, and IT administration. My major work goal for 2020 is to automate myself out of my position.
I recently completed a major contact center and Workforce Optimization platform migration at the beginning of April, which is a major improvement over our existing platforms. I am still working to iron out some issues, including some acute limitations with the WFM platform.