Having a real job is fun. As a student, you go home from school and find that your homework and studies pursue you into the farthest regions of your evenings and weekends. Not so in the real world! (Okay, so we know that's all wrong. But since I've currently managed to preserve my time off, we'll pretend that's the way it works.) So with all my newfound free time, I've started up a couple of auxiliary summer projects.

The first has been going on for five years or so. It's a novel (or set of novels) on a fantasy premise called Kimara. I've had a lot of fun world- and character-building. So I decided I finally need to sit down and see one of these things through. A lot of writing is merely about getting into the habit of putting something down on paper every day. The nice thing about a regular schedule is that it allows you to build habits. Hopefully, I'll be able to carry them over into the school year next fall.

My second project is mainly to keep my Java skills fresh. I've found that I hate all manner of address-book programs, both online and off. While Yahoo! is the best one I've seen, it still leaves a bit to be desired. So I'm writing what is basically a DayRunner program in Java. It'll keep track of your addresses, your calendar if you so desire, to-do lists, etc. And, it's lots of fun with JTables!