Bingford's Back, and Journal Me This

I really missed Bingford while he was away in California. On our April vacation, I sent him off with Cherie so that she and her mom could do some needed repairs to his nose and eyes…hehehe This past weekend, for our May vacation, he returned to meeeeeeee 🤩

He has become my little buddy 🤭 I’ve cherished him since he came into my life last August. He was a gift from Cherie and her mom. To say I love him is quite the understatement…LOL He goes with me on all my trips. And he is often the thing I direct some of my self-talk towards; to make it more conversational in nature. He never listens, though…LOL j/k Not having him home here in Florida for a month was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I don’t recall if I’ve ever mentioned this, but his size, shape, and overall feel reminds me of the Teddy Bear I had when I was a small child. I think I ended up giving that bear to my son? He may still have it, I’m not sure. Bingford has that extra special connection to me besides him being a gift from my best friend 🥰 So, yeah, it’s understandable that I missed him as much as I did.

My first day of work back from our vacation, he sat on my desk while I worked. I think he missed me having him in my life…HAHAHA j/k The rest of this week, he’s been back to his regular routine of sleeping all day and then being up to no good at night…HAHAHA Again, j/k

Last night, I read this blog post about the guy who created “Prince of Persia”, a highly popular video game back in the day. In the post, the author describes how Jordan Mechner’s journal process helped him design and build the game. The journal from those years is actually published now and I’m thinking about reading it…hehehe He has been journaling since he was 17 and he is still doing it to this day. You can read more about Jordan’s personal thoughts on journaling here in a blog post he published 6 years ago at the beginning of the pandemic.

These blog posts have inspired me to journal about the struggles of software engineering that I face. One of the benefits of the new AI tools is that I can work out some problem solving with a virtual assistant. But sometimes, I loose track of decisions and have to rely on the AI to keep things straight for me. But when I work through personal circumstances, I write; either here on the blog or in my private handwritten journal. Now I’m starting to think that I may try journaling through my software struggles. I find it so much easier for me to keep hold of my thoughts through the physical act of writing. But I don’t have the same experience when typing or chatting with an AI assistant.

Case in point, I’m working on NoteSprout, a note taking app I plan to someday use for all of my writing and note taking. Right now, it is barely a seed…LOL It hasn’t fully sprouted yet. I did finish the original proof-of-concept a few weeks ago. But all that really accomplished was to prove it was a viable idea for me to work on. Now that I’m actually dedicated to building it, it has been a slow process. Working with the AI to work through some details has been less than productive lately.

Part of my problem is the friction of dealing with its “ideas” of how the project should go. AI is a great sounding board. But it can become over confident and start getting pushy on things. To some extent, that would be okay for certain things. Yet, where it counts, I just don’t want to deal with that. That is where I think journaling will come in handy. It would help me stay on task and keep the overall ideas solid. Plus, when I get stuck on something, I can write out my thoughts and see things more clearly. That’s one of the many reasons I journal and blog in the first place, right?!

So, what I may try to do is start journaling through some of the engineering problems I’m facing simply to work out the high level details. And then take my personal decisions to the AI to work out the implementation details that it will go about actually coding the features. AI is my thinking partner and grunt work doer. But at the end of the day, I am the engineer, architect, and product/project manager of the work. I’m the creative mind behind all that I love about software engineering. It’s art to me. AI still can’t build anything without me…LOL And it certainly isn’t my journal guru…LOL

I was gifted time today. At around 3:30pm my time, my supervisor told me to cut out early and enjoy the holiday weekend. I’m grateful to have a job like this. Since I’m salaried, this is a true gift of time. I didn’t need to sacrifice anything to have the extra hour and a half this afternoon. It’s a Blessing I don’t take for granted ❤️

I actually used the time to write this blog entry…LOL I was going to write today anyway. But I thought this was as good a time as any to do the writing. Aside from this time to be able to do it now, I’m equally grateful for this new platform I built with the assistance of AI. It makes it so much easier to focus on the writing and not have the friction of getting this ready for publishing. I engineered my ideal website platform as the creative human that I am. And then I had the AI built it for me in record time…LOL It wasn’t so pushy about things because I had a clear vision based on my experience these past few years of blogging. I need to clear up my vision for NoteSprout as well…hehehe