Bookshelf:

Currently reading:

• Rachel Pollack, Unquenchable Fire

Next up:

1. Analog, September 2001 issue
2. Analog, October 2001 issue
3. Anita Diamant, The Red Tent
4. Kage Baker, Mendoza in Hollywood
5. Matthew Farrell, Thunder Rift
6. Maxine McArthur, Time Future
7. Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone
8. Barry Hughart, Eight Skilled Gentlemen
9. Julian May, Jack the Bodiless
10. A. K. Dewdney, The Planiverse

The Mortgage Broker

I had a very busy week at work. Anders - the tech lead on my project - gave me my first significant assignment since moving over to my new team. It involves tearing out a chunk of the app and moving it elsewhere to makes its data conform to a different (and, naturally, we hope better) model. This has turned out to be challenging both because it involves reconfiguring quite a few parts of the system to use the new model (and, of course, turning off everything that recognizes the old model), while also learning about how the code base is structured and how exactly I need to make the changes.

In other words, while most of my brain is trying to process and understand how our project's code base works, the rest if trying to keep track of what I've done, what I have yet to do, and how it's all going to interact. The latter piece is usually enough to occupy the mind of any programmer. But, this is how we learn and grow capable.

Thursday evening, after spending all afternoon heads-down in code ripping things apart and putting them back together again, I came home completely frazzled. Debbi joined me for dinner, but I felt like I wasn't a very good conversationalist. I just felt fried. Too much to think about, and unwinding proved not to be very easy.

Friday was much better and I made some good progress and started seeing some results. Results! Results are what makes programming worthwhile: Building something, and then seeing it work and getting to play with it afterwards. It's what makes the job cool.

I've been having a great time with it, even though (or perhaps because) it's challenging. Diving head-first into a tough problem and wading around in it until I forge order out of the chaos is the best kind of programming.

Wednesday night I went to gaming at Subrata's for the first time in a long time. We played a new game I'd brought (borrowing it from my "supplier" at work) called Attila, which simulates the flight of the Germanic tribes across western Europe during the invasion of the Huns in the 4th-7th centuries, a.d. It's one of those games where the scoring occurs at specific times during the game, which can be accelerated by clever play by the players. In that you want to be "invested" in the well-being of multiple tribes, it has some similarity to both Acquire and Tigris and Euphrates, but the consensus is that it's not as good as either of them. But we're going to probably play it a few more times to get a feel for it.

Speaking of games, Thursday the Red Sox fired their manager of nearly four years, Jimy Williams, and installed pitching coach Joe Kerrigan in his place. Williams was generally well-liked by the media and some of the fans, but he drove other fans and some players to distraction with his bizarre in-game maneuvering. He also had a frosty relationship with General Manager Dan Duquette. Some people are sorry he's gone, others feel it's about time.

My take on it is this:

For the most part, managers don't have a big impact on a team's success during a given season. Once the season has begun, you can replace a manager and it won't make a whole lot of difference in whether the team wins or loses. It is, however, a common public-relations move to replace a manager of a losing or slumping team (and the Sox have been slumping badly lately, largely due to mounting injuries).

The manager's real impact comes in deciding who to play and who not to play, especially in developing young players into high-impact, low-cost contributors to a club's success, and in not overworking the pitching staff, which can lead to ineffectiveness and injuries. In this regard, Williams has been lacking:

1. He's heavily worked ace pitcher Pedro Martinez and closer Derek Lowe these last few years. Martinez has gotten hurt each of the last two years, and has missed the last two months this year. Lowe has been only sporadically effective this year.
2. He's refused to call up to play slugging prospect Izzy Alcantara, apparently because of some blunders Alcantara made last year. But young players make blunders and managers are supposed to help them grow! Alcantara has been tearing the cover off the ball in the minors, but has not been summoned to help a Sox offense which could really use him.
3. Finally, and most damning, he's shown little inclination to want to develop young starters in the Sox' system. To some degree this also lays on the head of Duquette, who has been all-too-quick to let Jeff Suppan go for nothing, and let Tomo Ohka go for next-to-nothing (Ugueth Urbina). But when Ohka and Paxton Crawford were sent down simultaneously earlier this season, despite having mostly been effective to that point, it was clear that Williams was not the guy to have to manage a club which could and should develop young pitchers to anchor its rotation.

I'm not wild about Joe Kerrigan as the choice. I think he's more valuable as the pitching coach, as he's one of the best. Though I'm willing to give him a chance. I thank our lucky stars that Felipe Alou - the pitchers'-arm-shredder and never-saw-a-pitch-he-didn't-like-to-see-his-hitters-swing-at ex-manager of the Montreal Expos - was not the one. I'd rather have seen Duquette try to hire Davey Johnson, or install third base coach (and ex-Pirates manager) Gene Lamont instead. But we'll see how Kerrigan does, or if he's even retained for next season.

Meanwhile, we still have this season to cope with...

This morning (hold onto your hats, folks!) I went to meet with a mortgage broker!

I brought him my documents so I can get pre-approved for a mortgage, and he said he thinks I should hear back from him next week. Yay! Then I can call a real estate agent and start looking.

The broker, Rob McCarthy, was recommended to me by my former boss elsewhere in Apple, and he was friendly and helpful and answered the many questions I have. It was very educational! I'm pretty optimistic, now, that I should be able to find something I'll like and can afford in the areas I hope to look.

I'm getting more psyched about buying a place. I'm looking forward to living in a location closer to my friends and activities, and being in a place that I know I'll be in for a good long while, and can settle down and not worry about when the next rent increase is coming. I think that sense of security will be very valuable to me.

I'll keep you posted as things develop further...