While not the most productive day from a coding stand point, it was still an overall good day, in my opinion. Today was a day of meetings–it’s been a while for me since I’ve had one of those.
I got to sit in my dad’s TDD class where, to my delight, he performed the bowling kata for the class–in java, of course. If you recall, i just finished recording my bowling kata in clojure last week, so this was fun for me to re-see this, and it was valuable to me to hear the questions other asked–questions, I’ve essentially already had answered by either my mentors or in my own experience in doing this kata.
After that, I had the pleasure of meeting with one of the CCs employees to get to know him better and understand what he does for the company.
Then I met with my brother. Let me tell you a little about my big brother.
I’ve known him my whole life, but on the day that I met him, my big brother had already earned nearly ten years of life experience. (…yes, that’s right. He’s almost ten years older than me.) As far back as I can remember, he’s always effectively taken on the role of being a big brother:
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He gave me my first nickname: Beaner (short for gina-bena). He enhanced my nickname in his teenage years to a more suitable: Beaner-Butt, which fit in well with his nicknames for our dogs: Tuna-Butt & Skittle-Butt.
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He’s come to my aid when I’ve needed him most: One day my little brother declared that the Super Nintendo was furthermore his and that I wasn’t allowed to play with it. My big brother, (who the nintendo actually belonged to) stepped in as soon as he was aware of the problem and said to Bust-a-Butt that, “Fine, you can have the nintendo, but Gina get all the games.” He then proceeded to hand me a tub of games and said, “Here you go, Beaner.”
Especially now, as a parent, I’ve realized that I’ve actually always been rather impressed with his solution to this problem–especially considering that he was maybe 16-18 years old at the time.
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He’s looked out for me: When I was a mid to late teen, I actually went to live with my brother & his family for a few months. There was one night I wanted to go out with some older friends, most of which were male, and instead of saying no or that I shouldn’t go, he offered to come with me–he even bought the beer…
After going out, he informed me of his opinion of my ‘friends’ and that of me hanging out with them, and until right now, I don’t think anyone has ever known about the next morning when i threw up all over my bed from the 1.5 coors lights that I’d consumed the evening before… My brother helped me with this too. -
He’s given me honor: Did you know that my big brother is an ordained minister? Well, he is!
When I became engaged, I couldn’t think of a better person out there to marry me than my big brother, and after a little convincing of the future husband (and it didn’t take much), I asked him. He accepted the challenge and shortly after, became ordained.
Let me tell you that he blew that ceremony out of the park–or tower rather. It was funny, it was personal, and it was smart–very well suited for the wedding of two engineers indeed. He nailed it! So I guess I was right: there was no one better to marry me to my husband than my big brother.
This was further confirmed last July when my little brother, Bust-a-Butt–the one with the nintendo–also enlisted our big brother to marry him to his wife. There was no one better for that job either.
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He’s been my mentor: From my point of view, my brother has pretty much always excelled at whatever he’s put his mind to such that he could teach it.
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In this first case, he was the instructor at our school of martial arts. He is a blackbelt in both Tae Kwon Do & Jujitsu. Perhaps this was his first taste of teaching & mentoring. I was in his class on Tuesdays.
Every Tuesday he would drive me to Tae Kwon Do in his gray honda, in which he would always let me maneuver the stick shift–another skill he actually tried to teach me maybe 10 years later: drive a manual car. We would do class, and then on our way home, we would always stop at Dairy Queen where he would buy me a blizzard. I never thought about then how buying a kid a blizzard every week is a pretty steep expense for a teenager, but I can tell you now that I have a very fortified memory of those events.
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A little over a decade later, I was in college and had to take a software class–python. For whatever reason–probably that of being a young-twenty year old with ‘better’ things to do–I was not a huge fan of taking this class–or any class really. But my brother saw it as an opportunity–an opportunity to teach me & help me.
Once again, I racked up his expenses during our weekly lunch meeting to go over my problems & homework. He taught me and tried to get it across for me. Unfortunately, at the time, I just wasn’t ready to take life seriously.
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A little over another decade later, I’d changed my mind about wanting to learn software, but I’ve already told you this story. What I can add to it is that once I’d set the goal for what I wanted to achieve, there was no question in my mind who I was going to ask for help: my big brother.
This past April, while I was up north for CoViD, i finally had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with my dad and ask him some questions about software and learning. He told me I should talk to my brother–i knew this already, and was just inquiring about some details and realism.
In May, when I got home, I [very nervously] asked him to help me, and to my relief and excitement, he agreed!
Now when I asked him in May, I had no idea about what he was just beginning to kick off and build, and honestly, I’m glad I didn’t know. Had I waited 4-6 months to make my decision and ask him for help, the conversation would have been a lot different and maybe even weird, and honestly, I may not have had the courage to ask him in that situation. So I think the timing was perfect, as it also allowed me to show my commitment (i quit my job!), my work-ethics, and my self-drive ahead of time.
Today, my brother offered me a job at CC’s as an apprentice with him as my mentor [the offer letter actually had the words in it that he would be my mentor]. With no hesitation other than a little guilt derived from an unexpected level of due gratefulness, I accepted and am totally honored and psyched to finally be a part of the family business!
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So yeah. That’s my brother in a nutshell.
After that meeting, I spent some time working on my SRP presentation. Followed that up with choosing a new kata: Coin Changer! Worked on that a little bit, and then worked a little on my ttt GUI.
Like I said, all-in-all, it was a pretty good day.