Moving Parks

It’s been a while since I have sold off my PowerBook 15″ (almost a year!) and primarily been on a non-mac machine *gasp*. Don’t worry.. we still had a mac at home a new MacBook Pro that I got for Diane.

In anycase, I’ve been going through a delayed mac withdrawal of late and been trying to decide between two different scenario:

1. Buy MacMini for now and upgrade to MacPro later. Convert MacMini to a dedicated media server for the TV (which we still need to pick up). There are projects like center stage that make this option very compelling. On top of that, I will end up with three potential xgrid nodes (including Diane’s MacBook Pro). Of course, the final cost is more this way.
2. Wait for the new MacPro dual Quad model to come out and buy the AppleTV and MacPro together. AppleTV is turning out to be a very customizable (read Hackable) as being proven by number of people. It turns out AppleTV is a scaled down computer with a customized OS X driving it. Which means there is a possibility of turning it into an xgrid node as well. This will cost less but not as easily expandable like the MacMini Option.

I guess I have alot of additional thinking and waiting to do… darn it.. I hate waiting.

Since Sarah’s birth, the most common greeting I get are “how’s the baby?” and “how does it feel to be a Dad?”. Well, Answer to the first question changes daily, hourly even, so I won’t bother getting into that but let me try to cover the second question. And those who are already a father, please feel free to chime in with your “feelings”.

So here it goes….

I have always been semi-obsessed with identity. My identity to be more specific. I have always struggled when my idea of my own identity have changed drastically. When I went from Student to a full time professional, I went through a phase what I used to describe as a ‘Quarter Life Crisis’.

Having a daughter actually had more of an identity reshaping effect than I expected or even dreamed. In large, I think an identity change is probably the best way to describe the full impact. First week of being a Dad was overwhelming. Ranges of tiredness and frustration mixed with indescribable, completely unfamiliar sense of joy rattled my mind constantly. At one point, I couldn’t sit quietly and look at Sarah’s sleeping face because it always brought tears to my eyes.

Now, three months into my new identity, I can’t even remember what it was like not having a child and certain that I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t have this little life in my life.

My answer to the question, “how does it feel to be a Dad” is a simple one with all this in mind.. Being a Dad is my identity.

I don’t remember exactly when it happened or how it happened but I went from the geeky engineering student who just wanted to get out and start working to a seasoned professional (ok, people can argue that I haven’t really been truly “seasoned” but hey.. this is my blog) with a very very stable job. Looking back, my past 8 years of experiences and its inherent instability have somewhat made me addicted to a constant change.

Now, in my role within a large enterprise where I don’t have to constantly worry about the survival of my employer every week has made my professional life stable and very stale. Nothing ever changes anymore. I know who to talk to when I’m trying to get something done. I know how to put in minimal effort for maximum results within this environment. One might call this a very good job and that’s very accurate but I can’t shake the feeling of being bored… Maybe it will pass.. what do you think?

Crazy how reliant I have become to gmail. I feel disconnected from everything today!

What’s up Google? Can I please get my email back now?

If you are also feeling disconnected from the world due to this outage and have some time to kill, please feel free to mosy along to my flickr account and comment on the pictures I have there..
Mike and Diane’s Flickr