Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer

> I love being outside, but I also love programming and wouldn't chose any other career over it.

Couldn't agree more. The strange thing is just how hard it seems to be to reconcile these two preferences. Growing up in the UK countryside in the 1980s and watching the march of communication technologies, it seemed inconceivable that tech jobs would stay shackled to urban areas. Who knew?

One day, I'll find the remote gig I'm looking for...

This is purely a suburban problem and typical of the short sightedness of suburban development, which often corrupts the political process because a mandated retail lot is one less high-profit residential home they can't sell.

Here in the city, there are shops everywhere. Mix use residential is fairly common with retail on the ground floor and condos/apartments up top. This has created a glut of storefronts with varying results. Its nice to have all these shops, but the glut of small storefronts means much lowered rents than before so a lot of fly-by-night businesses take over, and in my opinion, hurt the neighborhood like pawn shops, yet another open 4am tattoo shop, yet another shitty independent cricket/boost reseller, yet another liquor convenience store, yet another e-cig store, yet another detailing/hand carwash, yet another gourmet-style restaurant that will fold in 12 months, etc. Desireable shops like Trader Joes or Nordstrom can't open in those tiny and no parking storefronts so its high margin retail junk.

This isn't as common anymore -- thank god, but when I was a kid, every other residential block in Chicago had a corner bar. A few nice, but most just depressing places full of serious drunks causing problems all through the night. So yeah, being too liberal with business licenses isn't so great.

So this kind of thing cuts both ways, but yes, in the suburbs its especially bad. But at least they have the roads and capacity to handle it and their shopping centers are massive, which is nice as you can park at a giant mall or strip mall and get everything you need done. I can't do that, I have no giant structures like this remotely near me. In the city, we need closer stores because of how bad traffic and parking are. If suburban driving was this bad then they'd have the political impetus to change zoning.

tldr; city planning is hard and political.

I grew up in the middle of the city, and recently moved out to 4 acres of country land. I guess we all crave a change of scenery eventually.

I'd be a lot happier as a programmer if I could do it only about 20 weeks a year. Hell, I'd probably gladly work 60+ hour weeks then. 40 hours week after week and I slowly grow to hate it. If only programming work were seasonal. 1/3 of my work weeks programming, 1/3 studying, practicing music, and doing non-programming creative work, 1/3 physical labor and building things with my hands. That'd be my perfect life, I think.

Not sure how to make that work while providing for my family, though, since working 1/3 a year at a professional job isn't usually an option and, even if it were, I'd be passing up a lot of money.

Oh well, can't have everything. Hurray for comparative advantage, I guess? Back to coding....

When I was younger, I was a rock-climbing bum, and used to travel Australia on a meagre budget to visit climbing areas.

Near Mt Arapiles in Victoria, there was (hopefully still is) a farm that had worked out that local climbers were the best source of cheap labour :-) They literally paid a day's wage with a bag of food.

I spent many happy days working on that farm (I already came from a rural background so was comfortable around animals etc) and the work always made me feel stronger, and more importantly, useful.

I also had the heart wrenching experience of animals dying in my hands, and was only consoled by the fact that the farmer was more distraught than I. It made me realise that the best of farmers know their animals, and care greatly for their animals above and beyond any possible monetary value. The fine line between "stock" and "pets" is a difficult one to walk.

It made me realise that the depictions of Wal and Cooch (especially Cooch, who would take a baby bottle to new-born lambs in the middle of a storm) from the wonderful comic strip "Footrot Flats" [1] were poignantly accurate, and that I really don't have what it takes to be a full time farmer.

I wish the author the best of luck, and a happy, harmonious life for the future.

Also, playing live music at the local pub with your son is awesome :-)

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footrot_Flats