I'm AlderaanDuran, because I found the username funny. I'm 32, I live in a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, but grew up in Saint Paul. In real life, many people call me Egg, because it's the sound in the start of my lastname. I'm a recent homeowner, recent refugee from the big city to the quiet burbs, and recently married as of October. I'm non-religious, but my life is moderately focused around buddhism, mainly zen practice. I work in IT, and my title is System Analyst III Team Lead, but in real speak I am an infrastructure/architecture guy for a medium sized company in the lending arm of the banking industry. I design, architect, build, and implement new applications, as well as support existing ones. Without getting too long winded, I work a lot with servers, networking, architecture activities, load balancing, XML configs, IIS, Biztalk, the servers themselves, and work hand in hand with devs to bring these applications and new releases through the code promotion process from dev, to qa and clienttest environments, and eventually to production. I am a manager of sorts, but I still like to get my hands dirty. I also have a side photography business, both selling prints and doing wedding photography, though I've been pretty idle on this the last few years as my day job takes up a lot of evening time and weekends, and the rest I want to spend with my wife and cats at home. Lately photography has been more of a personal hobby and artistic outlet than a business. I play a little piano and guitar, I juggle, read a lot of books, and play outdoor hockey in the winter. I love all kinds of music, but my favorite genre is probably hip-hop. Atmosphere is probably my favorite band these days, but I like all kinds of artists in the scene. I'm also super passionate about space, and humans place in the universe. I am the SpaceX unofficial mouthpiece around here. I'm also really into aviation, mainly WWII aircraft being something I can never read enough about. I also have my single-engine-land VFR private pilots license, and have logged about 80 hours, but am not current anymore. I originally wanted to join the Airforce and fly jets when I was younger, but turns out I'm too color blind to even hold a gun for the marines. That stupid test with the color dots and the numbers? Yeah, I get to the second page and I'm already guessing. I love coffee, malbec, good craft imperial stouts, and love to eat anything that comes from the ocean. Mussels, oysters, clams, scallops, lobster, crab, urchin; yum.
Already trying for one. So yes. Just curious, why do you ask?
For some reason I had this idea that you didn't want kids. I think you'd make for an interesting dad based on your internet footprint.
I'm nervous about becoming a father, and the idea scares me a bit, but I'm okay with it at this point in my life. My wife REALLY wants a kid and made it clear pretty early on that she wanted kids and if I didn't want one I should get the hell out then. I think it will be fun. Not looking forward to the loss of personal time and whatnot though. :)
If I may chime in - I'm a selfish fella, at least in regards to my personal time. I lost a LOT of it when my daughter was born but I've somehow found ways to get most of it back. I waste less time and I get by on about 2 hours less sleep than I used to. But the craziest thing is how much more efficient I am with time. I never realized the full opportunity cost of my time before. I watch about 1/8th of the movies I used to, I watch about 1/4 of the TV series I used too. You prioritize. I still make a ton of music, spend a ton of time on Hubski and I'm creative in ways I've not been since I was a kid. -playing is F-U-N. You'll dig it. You'll be amazed at where you find the time. There's no doubt that your life is going to change forever, but truly it is a good change, if you're ready for it. Based on what I've learned about you via our conversations here I'd wager you are. Good luck to you!
That's good to hear, and it honestly makes a lot of sense. Never really thought of it that way. It's funny, because I was just talking here on hubski about going to school FT and working FT for a couple years of my life, and how I had like zero free time. But the time I did have became so special and so much more "worth it". I made the comment that an evening off drinking a couple beers and watching a movie might has well have been a week long vacation. Thanks for bringing this up. It's reassuring. I like to think I'm a patient person, and go with the flow well. I'm not really afraid of the horror stories of sleepless nights and losing your head. I'm pretty good in that department. It's just the unknown of being a parent that makes me nervous too. I guess I won't know what it's really like til I'm there. But I'm sure I'll deal, which is why I'm on board. I'll probably be looking for more parenting advice in the future! Thanks,But the craziest thing is how much more efficient I am with time.
Based on what I've learned about you via our conversations here I'd wager you are.
You're a driven dude so you will naturally want to be good at it. -That's great. Keep that.I'll probably be looking for more parenting advice in the future!
-Ask away. There are a number of us recent fathers on Hubski that would be glad to help as well as a number of ma's. The "unknowns" pretty much all come naturally and the ones that don't, don't for everyone. It's not that it's super easy, it's more that it's not difficult in the ways you might assume.
Your username is pretty funny :D Do you think photography is a kind of release for you from the daily grind, or another daily routine? I'm also into photography, and after being obsessed for a while, the infrequent times when I pick up the camera and go on excursions are not as much second nature, as much as a special time of challenging myself to open my eyes, and meditate almost. My friend just turned down an offer from the Jiulliard School for piano to join the Air Force. I have so much respect for our armed forces, and planes are pretty damn cool ;) I used to hole up in local bookstores and find books on WWII tech and implementation in battles.. good stuff!
Now it's a release, but for the 5 years where I was shooting professionally, it was a grind at times. "Oh it's Saturday time for the weekend... nope, just another weekend with another all day wedding to shoot". Even though most events were a lot of fun. I met a lot of cool people shooting weddings, bands, models, runway shows, etc. It was definitely fun. Now days, that I'm busier with day job and home life, it's definitely a release for me. I take my camera when me and the wife go out, and sometimes I specifically want to go do things because I want to take pictures. Local county fairs and art shows, the state fair, go hiking and exploring in our beautiful parks, go to the various winter carnival events. Gives me a reason to go out and get some fresh air, spend some time with my wife, and take some pictures. Like you said, it does get me to open my eyes, after shooting for so long it's really helped me SEE things better even in normal situations. I'm not just looking around, but I'm looking at how the light looks on something, looking for reflections in odd places, looking at shadows down at my feet, and everything in between. I keep a point and shoot on me, a P7000, at most times. It's in my work backpack which goes almost everywhere with me. For more scheduled photo outings I bring my D80 normally, or a D300 and my tripod if I have a real specific shot I'm looking for, like a long exposure of some kind or something that needs multiple exposures.Do you think photography is a kind of release for you from the daily grind, or another daily routine?