I have had my fingers on the keyboard - “nose to the grindstone” for the last two weeks and am loving it! I finally have a bit of a handle on Visual Studio/.NET/C# (C Sharp) and the other development tools being used in the current project for UCLA. I am a consultant-programmer for a department of UCLA …since 1991.

Programming has always involved a constant re-educating and adding of new skills but every so often things take what feels like a quantum leap. The learning curve this round has seemed particularly steep. I took a look at the timesheets I submit with my invoices for the last several months - a lot of research, testing, reading, i.e. not much coding. There were days when I struggled to get a few lines of code to work and when it did it was more dumb luck than knowing what I was doing.

Currently there is another programmer and our “boss” at UCLA that make up the team working on the prototype for the new version of software. I have not been alone in the struggle to understand the new paradigm. We use a product called “Go to Meeting” (GTM) to work together. GTM allows us to connect via the internet and any one of us can be the “presenter” - showing our screen to the others. GTM handles the phone conferencing also. This “show and tell” as well as a bit of team coding enabled us to “divide and conquer” - each of us dealing with a piece of the puzzle and then sharing what we learned. It has been fun, interesting, frustrating and annoying all at the same time but now that it is coming together - all worthwhile!

I have not suddenly become a .NET expert, but I have written some code in the last two weeks…code that I understand, that I know why it works! And just as we are close to having the prototype ready for the “boss” to demo to his “boss”… a new couple of tools are close to being released. Tools that will solve some problems: XAML (”zamel”) and Silverlight. I am NOT afraid! XAML particularly is the programmers’ answer to HTML. Silverlight brings it all together in .NET. It is an exciting time to be a programmer even given the constant feeling that there is too much to learn.

But, today - on this Friday - I am grateful for the last two weeks - for the opportunity to learn and do something which is fun, challenging and oh, pays the mortgage! I am also very grateful for the team I work with - nice people - professional, interesting, caring - a great team! Still… T.G.I.F. - a good day today and then the weekend to play.

Just in case your eyes have glazed over because you don’t know and don’t care what .NET or XAML is…Bob shares your sentiments…

The summer of 2000 I took a 7 week cross country trip from Montana to Maine to Nova Scotia and back. 

This was by car.  It was the trip that got me thinking RV as I had my dog and cat and hated the hotel/motel thing - especially with them as small motels were definitely easier but the condition of beds, a/c and general amenities was lousy!  But that is a story told in a previous post “How I got into RVing”. 

On that Summer ‘00 car trip I worked a 1/2 time work schedule.  For 6 weeks of the trip I was in a different motel/hotel/b&b every night - travelling/sightseeing during the day.  On those driving days I usually worked 2-3 hours - some in the early morning and some in the afternoon/evening after I stopped.  For 1 week of the trip I worked full time as I had an ocean front cottage for a week - no driving - and I was able to set up an office space on the dining room table.

Although a lot of my work was done offline, I needed internet connection to pick up email and deliver work as well as to connect to UCLA’s communications server to provide support and monitoring - I was the only programmer for them at that time.  The point is, I absolutely needed to get through every day at some point and at that time, the option was dial-up.

(**you can barely see the phone cord snaking from the computer to points aft in the photo - there was a wall phone jack at the other end in the kitchen are.  You will note that the view from my cottage office was tough to take!  )

Fast forward to 2007… what a difference 7 years makes!  In fact things were not much “harder” in 2005 when I spent 7 months full time in the motorhome crossing the U.S. and back. 

Cellular aircards that work with laptop computers have made it possible to get internet connections in many places.  In 2005 there were only a couple of spots where I could not get internet via my aircard when I wanted it and in those cases Wi-fi was available. 

Pictured above are the air cards I use now.  They both have broadband capability (EVDO with Verizon) as long as broadband signal is available.  I have been getting broadband signal many places and in the last trip from MT to FL had broadband on every overnight stop except one - I had dialup speed that night but I could have hopped on the RV park’s Wi-fi if I needed something faster. 

Whooeee - for someone like me who is somewhat dependent on internet connection for work as well as keeping contact with friends and family all over, it is pretty amazing. 

Getting to FL…dial up was the only “wired” option and not fast enough for most of the work I need to do.  Satellite Internet was our only option for working from the house.  The service itself costs no more than I pay for DSL from the phone company in MT and the initial setup/dish was not prohibitively expensive as I get a bit back from the business expense. 

Sometimes when I take a break and look out the window at the dish and think about all the stuff going to and fro - and mostly without a glitch - amazing!! 

Above is the satellite modem to the left and the router to the right.  The router broadcasts a wi-fi signal that is useable all through the house, and outside as far as my motorhome which is about 80 feet away with a garage between…

I have been asked - “What is it that you do that allows you to move 2500 plus miles diagonally across the country at what appears to be the ‘drop of a hat’”?  First, not as “drop of the hat” as it may seem - some personal and private information was kept private until we were ready to share it.

Back to topic… I have been self employed as a computer programming consultant for just over 22 years.  I develop custom software, i.e. software for business “problems” that require something not doable by existing software packages.   I started 22 years ago with dBase II - then Paradox and then into SQLServer with Delphi front end.  The new and current platform is .NET with SQLServer using VisualStudio.  I also work with Dreamweaver-HTML/CSS/JAVA/Php/MySQL for web and blog work.

I’ve worked with a department of UCLA since 1991 through 5 or 6 or 7 iterations of software that manages data for UCLA Capital Programs department, a department that oversees construction and renovation on the Los Angeles campus.  I started working with UCLA when I lived in Los Angeles and continued when I moved to Montana in 1994 and also during the 7 months I lived and travelled in my motorhome in 2005.  Some of the time the UCLA work has been enough to be my only work, but much of the time I also do work for other clients - smaller projects and currently some web and blog work.  My love and expertise, though is database: design, flow of data, programming the front end for data entry, querying and reporting.

The work is transportable.  With the internet, Wi-Fi, cell phones, aircards, group meeting software - it has become easier to work from anywhere.  I’ve worked primarily from a home office since I started so I’ve developed a routine for working on my own.  Even more important, I truly love what I do and feel fortunate to have been able to do this type of work from my “home” - wherever it is!