I've Been Coding

Maybe it's no surprise to you that I've been writing a lot of code lately. Looking at the home page of my blog right now, I have a lot of articles that are more about Linux than about food. But even though I'm the one that's been writing the code, it actually came as a bit of a surprise to me when I finally realized it.

It happened today. I'm teaching a 6-day class this week, and since we're the only ones in the building this Sunday, the training center was so kind as to buy us pizza for lunch. When all was said and done, we had most of a cheese and most of a sausage pizza left over. I stashed the extras in the fridge and moved on with the class.

The last time I did this class at this training center, I was instructed to put any leftovers in the fridge for the staff. I was given no such direction this time. I offered leftovers to the students, and when they all declined, I took it all back to the hotel with me for dinner. I did pretty much the same thing a couple of weeks ago in Phoenix when the training center bought too much pasta from Pizza Hut.

As I was packing up this afternoon, getting the pizza ready to take with me, I realized something. I've been told before that there are two types of people: those who live to eat and those who eat to live. I've been of the first time since long before it occured to me to even enroll in cooking school. But before I discovered Food Network, I was the type that ate to live. You see, when you're writing code, there tends to be a lot of stuff that gets in the way. Basically, anything that causes you to not write code is something that gets in the way. When you're taking a break to eat, you're not writing code.

This is something that my boss doesn't seem to understand about me. I come from a geek culture. Before I ever learned how to cook, I was a geek who often ate only because if I didn't, I would eventually be unable to write code. Today I realized that I had suddenly fallen back into my old pattern.

I love teaching Linux, so I don't know if my job qualifies yet as something that gets in the way of coding. But when I get back to the hotel, I have two options: I can go out and eat at a nice restaurant with my meal allowance, or I can order pizza or room service (last night, effectively the same thing) and code while waiting for it, and then code while eating it.

Fortunately this evening, sanity prevailed. I walked across the hotel parking lot to the Bob Evans restaurant and ordered a turkey dinner. To go, of course. There's coding to be done. It took forever and a half for my food to get ready, and I grew increasingly impatient as I waited for it. I still haven't finished it. There's blogging to be done, which is like coding, except that the output is easier for most people to read.

So right now I'm in programmer mode. Yesterday I had my laptop out on the flight over, and was knee-deep in Perl modules as the in-flight movie remained largely forgotten. I don't know how long I'll be in programmer mode. Hopefully I can convince myself to cook a dish or two when I get back in town next week.

One question remains unanswered. Why did I grab the spare pizza if I knew I was going to go to Bob Evans anyway? Between last night and today, I now have enough pizza to last me for dinner an entire week. See, that's called planning. Maybe not smart planning, but definitely efficient planning. Yet more proof that I'm in programmer mode, right?