It definitely has shades of the anti-vax idiots that said they’d rather have their child dead of a preventable disease than to have autism. As a parent of a child who has autism, the parent of a neurotypical child, and a person who is autistic, I’m happy that all three of us are alive and well and disease free thanks to vaccines. Even if vaccines caused autism (which they absolutely don’t), I’d rather my child be autistic and alive than not autistic and dead.

My contributions definitely had an impact, but it was more local than global. Like I said in my post, I don’t like talking about my day job online, but over the years thousands of people have used the applications that I’ve written. I’ve had many people compliment me saying that the applications helped them out. (As a side note, I wish my Imposter Syndrome would remember those praises when it tries to tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing.)

I guess it’s just hard to see a lot of the things that you’ve worked so hard on over years being taken down one after another.

I do enjoy building LEGO. Not just the boxed sets, but I’ll get minifigures and then design and build biomes for them. After writing about my wife’s crochet, I realized that this is one reason why I enjoy this so much. I design a habitat for a LEGO minifigure using BrickLink Studio (a CAD program for LEGO)., I refine the build - both to improve it and to lower the cost of the build. Then, I order the parts and build it. (And then, I’ll often need to add additional parts to fix issues with the build that weren’t apparent until it was built.)

I’ll need to do some more of that building. Frankly, if I’m going to have a midlife crisis, it’s going to be a “build LEGO” midlife crisis and not a “buy a sports car” one.

Oh, there’s definitely upsides to that. There are posts I made to Usenet in my college years that I’m glad have been swallowed up by time and consigned to oblivion. I would hate it if all of those embarrassing moments were to suddenly resurface and become a permanent part of my present and future life.

But the idea that EVERYTHING that I’ve done will vanish freaks me out. Yeah, this is definitely a midlife crisis coming on.

Yeah, I think a big part of this might be a kind of mid life crisis. I’m not the “buy an expensive sports car” kind of guy, but I’m definitely the “worry that all you’ve done in your life was for nothing” sort of guy.

My wife crochets and I’ve got to admit to being jealous that she has a physical object when she’s done. I love programming. I love being able to take a big and complex problem, break it down, and construct an application that solves the issue. Still, at the end of the day, our works are 1’s and 0’s whose existence will be a lot shorter than my wife’s crocheted house elf.

I’ve been using DirectNIC for quite some time.

I like putting pressure on the arch of my feet. (Or where my arch would be as I have extremely flat feet.)

I actually bought a small wooden foot massager for this. As I’m working, I can just put my feet on this and roll them back and forth. I get the sensory input that I’m craving without needing to stop working to find something to press my feet against.

I do this too. I actually keep a pair of metal cuticle nippers nearby for just this purpose. Using those means that I get a cleaner cut and am less likely to bleed afterwards.

I also have some chain finger toys. It’s a small ring sized circle of bike chain with rubber on each section. You can put it on a fingertip and roll it around. It puts pressure on the cuticle area and gives a sensation which fills the need for stimulation in that area without ripping off skin.

When COVID hit and I started working from home, I decided to try growing a beard. After all, I didn’t need to look 100% presentable during that awkward phase when it looks like you just forgot to shave a few days in a row.

Now, it’s become a permanent part of my face and I love stroking it or pulling at the hairs (not enough to pull them out, just enough to play with them).