A Journey to Solace

About Me

Life takes serious twists and curves. Roughly 6 months ago, I chose to leave my position at a company working in the area of autonomy. While autonomous vehicles are all the rage of the tech industry lately, the reality is far from the media hype. Truly self driving vehicles are coming but not in time frame proclaimed by the media Autonomy, like most tech industries, is a cut throat business racing toward profitability via disruption all paid for by crazy deadlines and near unachievable goals.

I'd had enough of the lifestyle. R&D is a ruthless business. City life is full of daily stress and the chaos of traffic. I grew on a dryland wheat farm in eastern Colorado. My stress relief was fishing lakes in that region and into southwestern Nebraska Eventually I bough a nice little spot in NE with a well, septic and power already on site. Those were keys in my choices at the time and they have paid off overall. The purchase was roughly 5 years ago today.

Recent News

Choosing to leave a full time position is not for the faint of heart. Giving up a steady income for a simpler life hasn't paid off quite yet. I've been using an RV for housing when I'm on site. That's just not functional long term so I chose a modular house.

At 1200 square foot, it is tiny compared to most modern homes. The build has been crazy. The foundation company misread blueprints. Foundation was 4 foot over width and not square. The excavation company dug up sewage and water line stub ins without so much of a we're sorry. Trials and tribulations. It'll all work out in the end.

Future Plans

Once the house is functional, I'll be departing the chaos of a large metro area. Something of a modern homesteading situation. Larger and more functional garden. More trees -- I'm at 475 trees and bushes in the last 3 years but the deer keep winning the bulk of the battle. Most of those are bare root via the local natural resource district at a relatively cheap cost of less than a $1 per tree. I have dipped into developing an orchard with 18 fruit trees over the last couple of years. They may or may not pay off.

I did put up enough tomatoes last year to use for the year on the property. The main bed I used is destined to be an asparagus site. It worked for one year. I did not have a canner so just froze them instead.

House is well situated for solar. Electrician is setting up the in put feed so a backup generator is only going to require a couple of wires. The weather has been non-cooperative with drifts up to 6' deep. The plan will come together in time.

What else

Pretty much what's happening currently. I'm tinkering with the Steem API to build an app or two perhaps. Not much to report on that front. There is fiber based internet right next to the house so I won't have the challenges others have been through on that front. Might even have to setup an RPC node in the future after the move chaos settles down.

I'm still in the process of exploring the community and deciding who and what works for me personally. Looking forward to how life progresses and the new challenges I'm sure I'll face.