Massive Hail
A thunder storm just swept through town and brought down the biggest hail that I have ever seen.
| Here's a hail rock I reached out and grabbed while holding the camera. Admittedly, not golf-ball size, but big enough for a sunny day in March.
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| Here's another picture of my back garden during the hail.
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The sunny day we had this morning has been replaced by a winter wonderland in about twenty minutes. It was very impressive.
Now it's snowing like crazy.
Lucky time to be off contract, I suppose. I won't have to drive home in it.
The Sanctimony of a Vegetarian
Okay. I ate meat today.
I've been on a slippery slope for weeks now. It started a few weeks ago when I ate a bit a fish. "Who cares about fish?", I thought. "I didn't even care if they found Nemo."
So, anyway, despite the sanctimonious previous post, I'm slipping from the Vegetarian regime.
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Last Day of the Deutsche Bank Contract
Today I finished with Sutherland Consulting and Deutsche Bank. Five months in a contract with an option to extend a lot longer. I decided to leave because the work was not challenging and not at the technical level I should be at now.
It wasn't easy to leave. I had to weigh my fear of the open market against my faith that there is more challenging work out there. As much as I like to talk about avoiding the comfort zone, I seem to land in it easy enough and it is always difficult to leave it.
The DB contract was not a bad gig, as things go. I got to work in a new investment bank and see how it contrasted with Barclays and BNP Paribas. I got to work with an old Barclays Capital colleague again. I got to do some nice things with .Net 2.0. But, ultimately, I couldn't escape the reality that the job was not right for me.
How long till the next contract? Who knows? I got enough projects going on to keep me busy for the near future. I've got some WPF stuff I'm studying. I have Overpass service providers who need some work to do. I need more time for running. When I'm finished with all of this, I'll put my CV back out there and start talking to agents again.
About Eric Wroolie
Eric Wroolie is a software developer specialising in project Outsourcing and Offshoring.
As a software developer since 1998, he has built applications for Barclays Capital, BBC, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Omega Logic.
In 2004, he founded Overpass, a company that provides offshoring services to UK and US organisations.
He is a San Diego native who has spent the last 10 years living in England and working in London.
Eric speaks Chinese Mandarin and served in the US Army as a Mandarin and Vietnamese linguist.
In addition to being able to speak Mandarin, Eric can juggle three balls for almost twenty seconds, and make fart noises using his hands only (this is more difficult than it sounds-- try it).
Eric has an MCSD in Visual Basic 6 and previous languages, but now works with .Net. He holds ScrumMaster Certification with Scrum Alliance.
Eric on Twitter
- Read a classic Spolsky blog post about specification writing. Fantastic. http://bit.ly/Db276 11 hrs ago
- Slept in until 6:30. Went back to bed after ten minutes when I got up at 4. I'm being hit by mid-week fatigue. 2 days ago
- @jiffer I thought the Power of Less was alright, but not fantastic. If you've never read GTD (and who hasn't read that!), it's fine. Okay. in reply to jiffer 4 days ago
- @AlexBowman I was with you until you got to "sushi role" in reply to AlexBowman 4 days ago
- 3 mile run this morning. Also did a couple of hours work for a client. Baseball season is only a month away! 4 days ago
- More updates...
Recent Comments
- Edward Sheldon on Importance of back-ups
- Priyancka on New Years Resolutions
- Eric Wroolie on France and Germany say “No IE”—Corporate apps will suffer
- Priyancka on France and Germany say “No IE”—Corporate apps will suffer
- Bj Highfield on In love with our own lingo
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