So there I was, all gung-ho to make some serious progress. I was going to do a bunch of reseach on Z-Wave; I was gonna write a nice little bit of software to replace OpenHAB; and I was gonna blog about it. It was gonna be great!

I was truly in the Zone.

And then my boss quit, and it all went to hell in a handbasket.

So What Happened?

For those who don’t know, I’m a telecommuter. I live in Texas and work for a company in another state. Most of the time, this is incredibly convenient; I don’t have to worry about driving to the office.

But when your boss quits, things can get squirrelly.

May saw an abrupt business trip to the corporate HQ to discuss the future of the team. That went pretty well, but it disrupted everything I was doing at the time. Going away for a week at the drop of a hat will do that to you. And, as any hacker knows, when the Zone is disrupted, it can be hard to get back into.

On top of that I have family coming to visit later this month, and that shifted my priorities a bit. There were a few things on the Home Improvement list that I really wanted done before they arrive. That’s what took most of June (and is still ongoing, though winding down now). At least I finally got my garage painted…

All told, though, I’ve not had a lot of time to spend on my preferred hobby.

What’s Next?

I finally got to sit down and write some more code last night, and I’m making progress on the first component in my future OpenHAB replacement. It’s got a long way to go – Z-Wave is an extensive protocol, and not well documented – but I’m working on it. I’m hoping to have the core solidified by the time my visitors arrive, so I can fill in the details after they leave.

That, hopefully, is when I’ll post more detail on that.

In the mean time, OpenHAB just released a new version, so I need to try that out. If it’s anything interesting I’ll post some notes here, but I’m not holding my breath. My biggest desire is for the updated Z-Wave database which might enable me to actually set the ramp rate correctly on my HomeSeer switches.

That’ll probably be all I have time to get to before my next post.

Caveat

Of course, our Evil Overlord is still in the process of looking for a new Enforcer to keep our team in line, and eventually he’ll find one. That will probably disrupt things further. I’m expecting to have to take another short-notice business trip to meet whoever is hired to manage us.

And that will slow things down again.

Let’s hope not, ‘cause I really want to have some interesting stuff to post about, and life is getting in the way…