Saturday, June 19, 2010

Weekend of Puppies

This weekend John and I adopted a new puppy.  We've named him Miles Davis.  He is a lab/pit mix, and about as sweet as candy.  He's only 3.5 months old, and we're not sure what his life was like before he came to the Gwinnett County Animal Shelter. It's the first male dog I've ever had, and the first dog I've had a chance to crate train.  We're super excited :-)

I feel like my patience and experience at work has actually helped me with dog training.  Not to say that Programmers are like dogs!  However, there is a certain level of patience needed when working in QA, and a lot of repeating the same tests.  Having worked in a system that sometimes creates errors that are erratic, I've had to become patient with the repetitive tasks - somewhat like when training Miles.  He often gives me different results despite my actions not changing... but slowly, as we tweak his behavior (as a programmer tweaks a program), he becomes more predictable.

In other news I started seeing a therapist.  Without going into too much detail, I think it's going really well.  She suggested I read the book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.  It's been really helpful in understanding why peoples brains work the way they do.  I wish all parents and family members of people with mental problems could read it.  It could sincerely help in understanding and compassion for people with everything from children with ADD to spouses with severe depression.  It's really made me reconsider my view on medication and therapy exercises.

Aside from those two items, everything is fairly normal.  I'm visiting family for the weekend both to hang out with my dad for Father's Day, and to get him to change my brakes, because I'm not sure how much longer my squeaky ones will last...

Later gators!

1 comment:

  1. After reading some of the reviews and comments on this book, I am a bit wary; have you done any outside research on it other than having the therapist's recommendation?

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