work life balance and integration

i’m currently learning the price of an unbalanced work/life existence. i love technology and technology work. but, this summer i was unable to kick a sinus infection because i didn’t allowed myself the space to just be sick and recover.

there are more than a few things that lead up to this including many things that were out of my control. but, the result of this was instead of a week off to sleep a ton and get over a basic headcold, i ended up having sinus surgery and taking an enforced 3 weeks off in september.

it was Alyssa Royce’s post naked in the board room this morning that made me resurrect this post  which i’d started it back when i was recovering from the surgery and had a bit of free time.  i was (and still am) unsure about the implications of publishing that i worked myself silly over the summer and worried about the message it gave my clients.  it’s now november; nothing awful happened, no one was terribly upset that i was out for 3 weeks, and i have a better sense that everyone gets sick.  no one expects me to be superhuman and i should just get over trying.

so, taking this to heart  even though i was in portland to participate in open sql camp last weekend, i decided to take the day off on sunday to wander and enjoy powells, powells tech, countermedia, and reading frenzy the city.  i still had a pang of “what am i missing? there is so much more i could be learning!”, but i’d talked to the people i wanted to and seen a few really interesting presentations and  i really wanted to walk around and be somewhere quieter than souk with 130 exuberant geeks abuzz about databases.  walking from bookstore to bookstore, kicking leaves and leafing through books is a great way to spend an afternoon

my point though is  – more balance, more short blog posts about things that interest me, more sticking my neck out, more authenticity.

oooh, and check out the uproariously funny noSQL glossary lightning talk by Brian Aker.