A long time friend takes hacking in NYC by storm….

January 5, 2009 Savvy Spoonie 2 Comments

Devon, a friend from way back when, hit the pages of the NY Times with his membership in a hacking organization called NYC Resistor. When Dev was our roomie in NJ we had a lot of fun watching him create interesting things in the garage. For the holidays last year he designed a crochet specific helping hands system in exchange for me making him a hat shaped like a brain crab. It was a really fun time. I thought I would share the article with all of you;

Revenge of the Nerds

Picture by Michael Appleton for The New York Times

The kingdom of the geeks, thriving in an old factory in Downtown Brooklyn.

Blog, Law

To blog, or not to blog, that is the question…

January 4, 2009 Savvy Spoonie 10 Comments

My journey through the twists and turns of career-like employment has taken yet another unexpected path.

For the past several months I have been building a practice, reveling working from home, and lamenting how long it takes to get any real business up and running. I have been networking like a mad fiend, and talking to everyone who may have been able to advise me, direct me, teach me, or assist me in starting this practice. As a result of this hard (if unpaid) work, this month, January, marks the period when I will be able to actually count on regular work, and therefore regular income, from my practice.

So it should come to no surprise to any of you that now is when I get a legititmate employment inquiry.

Yes, that’s right, I have been given an opportunity to discuss an alternative to starting my own practice. I meet with the lovely woman and potential would be boss in a week, three days before I am supposed to accept the contract that will infuse my practice with opportunity. I will give more details about the would be job when I am finished meeting with her and know more about whether or not there is a solid offer to consider. However… there is a slight problem with the potential position. In order to safely accept it, I may have to delete my blog.

Which takes us to the crux of this post.

If I end up with a job resulting from this meeting it will be one that involves making criminals very unhappy. As a result, those criminals may wish to exact revenge upon me. Ergo… I should not have a blog, with pictures of my family, in existence when those criminals go a looking. (That would be verra verra bad.)

Due to the sheer amount of time and energy I have put into this blog (albeit not lately) I find this very distressing. The thought of no longer having this wonderful connection to the world saddens me. However, it would be silly to turn down a really good position and opportunity to learn from an amazing mentor just to keep a blog.

So I am thinking I will likely save the blog in a series of books, through one of the many book making options out there, and delete the creature of my creation from the blogosphere. Hopefully, I will then be able to create a new blog (without pictures and directions to my house), that I can use to discuss the non-confidential aspects of my new career (if there is one). I can’t stand the thought of deleting these pages without saving them to something, I have written so much about my life in the past two or so years. This blog is a baby book, journal, diary, and christmas letter in one!

I suppose another option would be to save it in book form, and then painstakingly go through every single page and delete all the photos and identifiable references to my family. Then I could take the blog in a new direction without appearing to be a brand new blog with no posts in history. (This post marks my 567th such writing since the blog began.)

What do you think? Is there a way to save the blog if I take a chance on criminal law?

Law, Motherhood, Uncategorized

When I grow up…

December 30, 2008 Savvy Spoonie Leave a comment

Hello again, sorry about the break, my life has been very full these past few weeks, and I simply found myself unable to blog.

But here I am again.

Well, I have been relaxing with family and playing while I wait for the practice to pick up. I am going to start accepting cases in Domestic Relations in mid-January, and may even make it known that I will handle small Trusts and Estates issues. I did a codicil this past quarter and found it truly enjoyable, I am one of the those freaky people who actually loved property law and flourished in T&E.

I expect to be fairly busy when I sign on with the Office of the Child’s Representative, so I have to take my lazy time now. It has been an ambivilant time for me, as I long to start a successful career and at the same time am loathe to leave my little meepers without me. Otter especially, as he is used to having Mama all to himself and isn’t keen on sharing me with anyone, much less a pile of other children, regardless of their need or circumstances.

I never thought I would be the domestic goddess type, but I have truly loved being home with my kids. I actually took the time to learn to cook, for real, and now I enjoy putting together dishes that take longer to cook than they do to eat. I love to bake, and there is a nice calm that comes from cleaning. (Unlike most work it has a definable end to it, even if it will need to be done all over again the following day). At the end of two years of working from home and focusing more on the home, I find myself reluctant to change the status quo.

Sadly simple economics forces the change, so I can only grumble and feel gratefull that I got the two years I did. I know many people who are working three jobs a piece to keep their lives together in this economy, it hardly seems fair to grumble about having to work one.

It’s funny to me how desire change with our age. When I was younger I wanted to be a star in my career, rule my little corner of the world like royalty. After having one child I wanted a career that let me see more of her, and didn’t demand all my time. After two children, I barely want a career at all. I would be content staying home, keeping the family together, and dabbling in public interest law and volunteering. It’s easy to forget how frequently we evolve.

Who knows, maybe once I begin working more, I will desire even more time in the law, instead of feeling as though it’s intruding into my time in motherhood.