Timesheets: Travel

In two years I've come to learn the United terminals in a handful of airports like the back of my hand. Curious as to how much time that took, I knocked a spreadsheet together and found myself bewildered. I've missed a few weeks here and there in my timesheet, but I'd say about 90% of the data is there.

Project Location	Recorded Weeks with Travel	Total Travel Hours	Hours/Week Recorded
Los Angeles, CA	40	462.00	11.55
Little Rock, AR	19	127.75	6.72
San Francisco, CA	33	128.75	3.90
Total	92	718.50	7.81

The overall average of 7.81 is, of course, awfully close to an extra full working day per week.

Introducing SG Hill's Tidbits of Development

Wow! It's already March!

In what seems like the blink of an eye, we've gone through:

• two project extensions in Los Angeles
• significant progress on another application for said project's client
• a theme park
• faux Christmas carols in Colorado's Breckenridge
• a personal project transition to GitHub
• 200,000 miles on United, and 50,000 on American
• significant fitness-related changes
• ...and more

All without a single [Adventures] blog post.

Yikes!

Problem

For quite a while now, I've been spending a large portion of time on purely technical tasks. In some ways, this makes it more difficult to blog — at least in part because those interested in the content of this blog (read: virtually everything but code) may not necessarily be interested in how I've helped improve my project's JavaScript with a healthy pragmatic refactoring, for example.

I've increased my technical immersion over the last few months. As we can see with this fun chart below, the result is fewer blog posts.

I'm learning more than ever these days in very specific, technical categories. This is in no small part because I have the unbelievable privilege of working with some of the best software developers and consultants on the planet at ThoughtWorks. My coworkers are often willing to help, but their example alone is enough to really help push me toward continual improvement. I'm frequently finding myself in situations where the code I've written two months ago is flat out embarrassing — which is most certainly a wonderful thing. These learnings don't quite seem to fit with the majority of the 77 posts that have preceded this one, however. A trap I've fallen into is a half-written post that never ends up published because it doesn't fit the flow this blog has carved out.

Solution

A great idea that was proposed by Sumeet Moghe at the end of TWU XVIII is advice I'm finally ready to announce I'm following: split into two blogs.

1. Adventures in [Agile] Development
2. Tidbits of Development

So, What's The Difference?

Good news! I've taken the liberty of creating a mindmap that was timeboxed to 5 minutes whilst traveling on an airplane.

Rationale

All of the above adds up to why I've started a second blog, or created a dev branch, if you will. My intent is to have a code-centric corner of the world where I can write about improvements I'm making and hopefully get feedback on where to go next and how to make things better. As a secondary benefit, I hope to simply have a log that documents the progress of a young developer, if for no other reason than I wish there was something similar I could read while in school.

Fun Fact Cronotrons may one day be the official unit of time estimation.

Weekending: The Plan

To work in IT consulting is to travel. Depending on both perspective and the structure of one's life, this can exist anywhere on the spectrum from deal-breaker to unbelievable benefit. Fortuitously enough, I'm loving the travel.

It's for this reason a plan came to me during the middle of a November night. I sprang up from my comfortable hotel bed and grabbed the nearest lightbulb — it illuminated immediately, letting me know the significance of said idea.

100-365 Bright Idea For Shot 100 by bcymet on Flickr

The idea was a simple one: embrace the layover. It met all of my criteria:

• Monday-Thursday in Los Angeles
• Friday in Chicago, the Miami of Canada
• Weekends in alternate locations

In early December the idea was implemented:

Time	Action
Thursday, 11:15pm PDT	Depart LAX
Friday, 6:00am CDT	Arrive ORD
Friday, 12:00am CDT	Arrive at Office
Friday, 8:00pm CDT	Depart ORD
Friday, evening	Arrive somewhere
Sunday, 8:00pm CDT	Depart somewhere
Sunday, evening	Arrive LAX

Needless to say, a very busy Friday was in the works...but where would it end?

Note I still haven't migrated to the compact fluorescent idea bulb, because it takes too long to illuminate.
Fun Fact The blue used in the table above is Lake Michigan Blue.

Recycled Air: Episode 2 [The Sprint]

Friend of the blog and half-marathon-runner Molly asked me several weeks ago if I have had the pleasure of running through an airport yet. I'm a veteran at sprinting through Chicago to Union Station to catch (or miss) a train. Airports are a different story though, with an average arrival time of 1.5 hours early...until Friday.

My plans were to take the redeye again on Thursday night. When I arrived with plenty of time to spare, an announcement was made.

"We're looking for volunteers to give up their seats and fly out to Chicago tomorrow morning."

Naturally I jumped at the opportunity and soon thereafter found myself on a shuttle to another night in a hotel. My reservation was now for business class Friday morning at 6:50.

Not long ago I happily marched through the Premier security line for the first time at O'Hare. With a separate screening lane and an exceptionally joyful TSA employee, I made it through in just six minutes; nearly 20 minutes shorter than my typical experience with regular security lines. This flying 4,000 miles a week thing certainly has it's advantages.

Sadly, the airport in Los Angeles is not nearly as accommodating with premier security lines. It's the same line here, but you can effectively cut at the time you show your boarding pass. Arriving at 6:10, I thought I would be OK.

6:38 rolled around and with it came an announcement.

"Attention passenger Hill. This is your final boarding call for United flight 944, non-stop service to Chicago."

Panic came over me instantly I was still in the security line, only now preparing to put my shoes on the conveyor. As luck would have it, I was also randomly selected for my first body scan.

6:41 marked the point where I retied my oxford shoes. Shortly thereafter I regretted a decision I'd made earlier this morning.


Running shoes are considerably easier, and quieter, to run through an airport in than the above style.

At exactly 6:45 I arrived completely out-of-breath to an empty terminal 74. One attendant was at the podium near the gate, looking ready to move on to something else. I waved my ticket and inquired about the possibility of boarding. He made a phone call and soon I was running again...this time through the gate.

Made it.

Fun Fact after 10 weeks and 30,000 miles in the air I have now sprinted through an airport.