I'm not sure why March has been such an experience-rich month the last couple of years. This time last year I was buried in data quality analysis for a client while buried in Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy and flying to Seattle for a funeral. Packing 10 gallons of experiences into a 5 gallon head is a good recipe for disorientation as your brain struggles to process everything, and looking back it's hard to tell where Seattle's eternal rain ended and Vandermeer's paranoid fantasy began, but suffice it to say I was in an unusually contemplative mood at the funeral.
Work
March 2016 proved substantially more positive. I hit the home stretch for The Odin Project and made good progress on working with JavaScript in a more than rudimentary fashion. More exciting, I was offered and accepted my first position as a professional developer which felt gratifying after the work I've put into learning the trade. It's not a Rails shop, unfortunately, but it seems like a good opportunity to learn, pull down some battle scars, and see how that kind of shop is run.
People
In the fun and frivolity department, I spent a weekend camping with some dear friends in East Texas before flying up to Boulder to see the esteemed Mr. Gaius Jones for the first time since he departed the South. We spent the week talking about Star Trek, brainstorming our collaborative fantasy series, and hiking through the unexpected, unseasonal snow that dropped on the area just as I arrived. One of the true pleasures in life is having a friend for whom two year's absence is bridged as easily as an hour's.
Books
I also started working my way through James S. A. Corey's Expanse novels and have had to forcibly stop myself from tackling the last two. If you enjoy space opera in the slightest, I'd recommend giving Leviathan Wakes a shot.
On the other hand, if you're into portal fantasies, consider checking out V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic. I'd have liked a little more exploration of the setting, but it's a fun romp and we get a stack of colorful Londons and characters expertly kept distinct.
Summary
All in all, I'd say the first quarter of the year has met expectations and I'm looking forward to the next raft of challenges.