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As Saturday approaches, I am thinking more and more about my family. I cannot even believe how much I’m thinking about Fabian. He really changed me. I love him so much. I want to give him whathever he needs. I want to teach him a lot of stuff. From what I hear, he’s developing very very fast in Poland. He is a bright boy. I hope so. I will make him even better.
I feel somewhat lonely. My wife and I don’t always get along, but we enjoy each other’s company. We love each other, I think. I think both of us can do more for our relationship, but it’s not that bad. We’re doing OK, I think.
I picked a wrong book to read. I picked OOAD. I am actually reviewing the book, so I have to read it in detail. It’s not a great book from cover to cover. It has some excellent section, but not great as a whole.
Which word did I learn today? Constituents. It means an element of something. It means it belongs to something. It’s good that I get to learn something everyday.
I also posted a great article on how to go on an information diet. It’s really helpful and I started doing that already. It helps me become more and more productive.

I thought about something for Toastmasters. It’s actually something that I read about in the latest Toastmasters magazine. Basically, the Grammarian does something audible when somebody says a filler word. It makes them aware of what they did and also could potentially save some time at the end. I should try to try it out at the next opportunity I get.
I am proud of one goal that I set for myself. It has made me a better person. I have improved a lot already. And I keep improving. This is almost a life changer. What is it? Doing something I fear everyday. I don’t get to do it everyday, but at every opportunity I get to challenge my comfort zone, I do it. It feels great. And uncomfortable. But I do it and it making me better.
Fabian and my wife are coming from Poland on Saturday. I can only count the remaining days towards their return… I miss them a lot. I miss my boy Fabian. I bought an interesting book for him on Sunday at Borders in Wayne. BTW, they have a very nice kids section. It’s a book that consists of the best Disney’s stories. I will try to read Pinocchio for Fabian. I hope he will enjoy it and will improve because of it.

I like it here at Markit. It’s not great, and maybe not as cool as at Ask, but some of the things here are best I’ve had. For instance, my managers have been very good so far. Very frank, very open ended, with no ego. That’s how the way it should be and that’s how I want to be in the future.
I worked on creating an birthday party invitation for Fabian. I worked with Microsoft Publisher’s template. Not the easiest thing to do and maybe not the best template, but I like it. I made it original and I like that the most.
It’s only a week when my family is coming over. I am excited. I can’t wait to see them. It would be amazing to see them again. I miss them a lot.
I have found a good way to learn new words. I am opening up an email window that sits in the taskbar. I write the word as a subject and an explanation in the body. I get a chance to look at it throughout the day and review the word. It seems to work. I learned the word intrepid – fearless. The second word I learned is mollify – to calm – I still have to review this one. In any case, my goal is to learn at least one word every day.

I am almost finished with the Aloha program. If everything goes well, I should make some money on it. Ideally, I would charge around $500 a month for maintenance fee. I could probably lower it to $300 or so, but I don’t really want to do that. I think these guys are desperate – the restaurant industry – for something that will work. Plus, I’m putting myself for some work each month and I want to be rewarded for that.
My wife is coming back in a week and a half. I cannot wait. I cannot wait to finally see my son. It is something that I am anxious to do. He probably grew by a lot over the month. I know he did. He is a smarter boy as well. He walks with ease and is very active. I really cannot wait to see him.
With my wife being away for so long, I realized something. I realized that I want 3 kids. I thought I want 2, but that’s probably not enough. I realized that I love kids so much. I miss them as well. When I see people with kids, I just miss being with them. And with us moving to Poland around 2015, we should have an easier time raising them.

Henry R. called me on Friday or Saturday that and asked whether I could come to the office and work on the adjusting program. I agreed to come in on Sunday. I did go there yesterday. I think I figured it out now. I can modify one file and see the results change. I have been thinking about how to write the actual program since then.
Actually, it’s pretty much the only thing I did at work today. I just wanted to get something going. I could not stop to think about this and how I am going to implement it. I actually made some good progress. I was able to connect to the DBF file from Java and make some changes. I think I should be able to finish the project in the next couple of days. I will try to have a demo on a Saturday.
I still have a lot of other things that I need to work on. I have to finish up Toys R. Us shopping list. I might even want to stop by Buybuy Baby. I have to call the restaurant as well.
My wife told me that they’re actually switching their party for Fabian plans. They’re not going to have it at a restaurant. They’ll just do it outside. I think this is the best solution. It’s actually enough to do it outside. They don’t need to go to a special place and have a party. We will have a party here in US and that’s sufficient, I think.

I have worked for the whole day with Samir. He is a senior guy that is struggling with some simple Html/Javascript and JSP. How is that possible? Not sure. He knows other stuff and I have a feeling that his server side skills are pretty good, but the way he approaches his task is not good. He does not too much interest. He just does not get that he’s sitting close to the manager. That’s not too good.
I am a Toastmaster tomorrow. The theme is back to school. I will talk about how we are all constantly learning and how we really are back to school with a new Toastmasters year.
I still feel that I am not maintaining great eye contact. I am just not doing it. C’mon, Stas. Be bold. Be a man, look others into their eyes. That’s how I show confidence! Otherwise, I think I feel week. I feel like a bitch.
I have to say that I am making progress in that regard, though. I noticed that if I don’t move my head too much, my eye contact is direct and pretty good. I have to just keep my head straight and keep looking into others eyes.
I do have to look at other people when I do this. I have some work to do here. I can maintain eye contact on one person, but the key is to stop for several seconds and go to a different person.

I did not write an entry yesterday because I was busy updating the main website for Kacwin. I revamped the way I do zdjecia and also changed the look of overall entries to be more like on my own sites, learninglog.kubasek.com/. I think it looks better now. As a result, I will have less work to do as well. Over the last several months, I have changed the internal workings of the site completely.
I also added an entry to my main site, popolsku.kubasek.com. I said it! I said it that I am going back in 2015. I made it public. I also added a counter that will count the remaining days. This is cool.
I saw Fabian today. Though not a clear picture but he looks so active, so interested in different things. He is a smart boy. I love him so much. I can’t wait to see him and spend some good time with him. I miss him. I miss my wife as well. It’s kind of lonely at home now. But I’m not bored. I have so much stuff to do that I don’t even have time to finish.
The project to create a store is just off the ground. I have things that I need to do to finish it. I think I’m going to start working on it over the weekend. I should have the weekend relatively free. I should start. Actually, I started reading the book on the subject, so I guess I already started doing this.

I wrote an entry about me moving to Poland. I will publish it soon. Yes, 2015 is the magic day that I’m advertising. I think it will happen. I don’t see why not.
I have corrected my waking up in the morning. I’m still delaying it for 10-20 mins, but I think I have finally figured out a way and stay motivated to do so in the morning.
I am also doing something different with my email and reading rss in the morning. The first time I open email (and pretty much the only time) is around lunch time. I don’t open it up in the morning. It was a waste of time and puts me out of focus for some time.
I am also only reading blogs that will help me become better as a developer in the morning. I don’t read anything else. I have actually moved all of the leisure blogs into Google Reader. I don’t open Google Reader in the morning at all.
The above two things have improved my productivity and I think they put me more into focus. I will keep doing them and look for other ways that can help me become more productive.

It’s not great being alone. I feel a little lonely. I don’t feel like this is what I want. I love playing with my kid. I like my wife’s presense, even though we don’t always agree and sometimes yell at each other. But things are much better ever since we’ve had a kid. They just improved a lot.
I keep thinking about moving back to Poland. I just think this is going to become a reality in not too distant future. I will write a post about it and possibly add a counter to my website. I am going to make it public. 2015 is the year! 2015 is the magic year! Oh, yeah!
Like I said, I would like to have two more kids, if we decide to have two, before then. Fabian will be around 8 then. He would have started school by then, but I don’t think he’s going to be disadvantaged. He can learn this stuff. I think he’s a bright kid. We’ll see.
I just love kids. Yesterday, when I went to a party, I played around with kids. Kids like to play with me as well. It’s a lot of fun, actually. It’s something that is enjoyable for me as well. That’s why I’m eagerly waiting for my son to grow so he can talk and interact more. It will be even better then!

We are finally making some progress with our Jboss migration. We have it almost working in our QA environment. We actually fixed some bugs there today. Good progress, I believe.
I still don’t know a lot of words: my vocabulary is week. What I want to do is learn a few words every day. Even basic words. The problem is that I don’t know the basics. I need to change that. In order for me to feel confident, I need to have a great dictionary in my head. I started working in that direction. I read an RSS feed with a word a day everyday. I now setup a bookmark that I will open at the beginning of the day and also at the end that will contain a new word and a link to browse for new basic words. I just have to do it and be aggressive in this regard. I should also have a picture dictionary open at home.
I miss Fabian. I miss my wife. I know they have a good time in Poland and I do believe that it’s good for them. It’s not the best for me. I love playing with him. I think I have a good influence on him. He is walking very confidently now. He is starting to understand things. This is a key age for him and his growth.
But I should not complain. He loves chasing chickens. He has access for that in Poland, and in here? No way!