gnfisher's comments

It is unclear if he was symptomatic in the first positive test. I have read at least some of the tests are capable of giving false positives. Could this have been the case here?

There are no free wins here. My advice follows some of the others: during work hours try to schedule time and have articles/books/videos queued up for downtime after kids are asleep when your SO isnt needing your presence/company and you are truly up for it.

Trying to get up early and hack your life will just lead to burn out and family problems both. Dont do it to yourself, your SO or your kids.

Be present with your family out of work. Squeeze in 30min each morning when you get to your desk to hack on something you read on the train in or at home. Accept your situation and also realize that 30 min daily spent purposefully is enough to make real progress in one direction at a time.

It is exhausting with two small kids and an SO and a job. Please dont kill yourself trying to be super human. Accept limitations and live a better life within them!

1. Imperium/Conspirata/Dictator [Cicero Trilogy] - Robert Harris (excellent)

2. The Fear Index - Robert Harris (good)

3. 1776 - David McCullough (good)

4. Sharpe's Eagle - Bernard Cornwell (good)

5. Star Wars: Thrawn - Timothy Zahn (okay, fun if you read original Thrawn books)

6. Star Wars: Alliances - Timothy Zahn (okay, not as fun as above)

7. Heir to the Empire - Timothy Zahn (fun!)

8. Star Wars: X-Wing series books by Aaron Allston (fun!)

9. Art and Fear - Bayles & Orland (not that impressed)

So I rediscovered Star Wars stuff I enjoyed a lot as a kid and re-read them as well as some newer SW stuff which was all right but not the same as encountering it at 13 years old.

Discovered Robert Harris this year, he's great. Going to keep reading more of his stuff.

I was re-reading some of the Hornblower books by C S Forester (amazing stuff) and branched out to Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe. It was good fun. Going to read more of that large series.

Bit of a tangent but if this period interests you, Robert Harris has a trilogy of excellent and entertaining novels starting with Imperium that trace the rise and fall of Cicero's life, a peer of Crassus and Caesar. Highly recommended!

What kind of health plan is that, if you don't mind my asking (Context: I've been living abroad 10 years, had a family while down here, we are thinking of moving back but the cost of healthcare and its quality is a big issue for us).

How is the CPU in these? I have an X220 with the i5 Broadwell (I think, model 2450m) and the CPU is mostly fine. The Core 2 Duo in the T60 seems to be a quite a step down, though...

Living abroad I've gone the remote road since 2009. I went through a lot of this same stuff but never associated it with my being remote/working from home, though now looking back I can see it most likely did. My health and mood increased once I started to force myself out to socialize more and once we had our children - the household is always busy and full of noise and life now, versus before when my wife went off to work and I sat alone in a quiet apartment all day long. Since the birth of our second I've been doing my first sprint in any nearby coffee shop each morning and that has improved my mood and productivity even further. I've been toying with the idea of a co-working space and this article has convinced me to give it a go.

We are social creatures, to varying degrees, and if we limit out interaction with others too severely, I think it makes it too easy to look exclusively and excessively inward. I'm all about self-analysis and looking inward but there comes a point when you go too far and it's no longer about reflection but a feedback loop of anxiety/fear/self-doubt... at least that has been the case in my experience! Also, regular exercise (running, lifting) has always helped me out of these emotional funks.