Over the last two weeks, I have started making myself make time to read books again. I use to read all the time and fell out of the habit. Part of it was doing social media online taking the time I previous used for reading books. But I used to do both.

So now I am making sure I take some time right before I go to sleep to read. I finally read the final book in two series that I followed for years then stopped before I got to the last book (both of which I bought a couple of years before the pandemic began). Now to figure out what to read next.

This has to be helping me with my stress level a bit. If only I could stop the stress dreams that I always wake up from now so never wake up rested.

My brain finally kicked in this morning. I want to RDP between PCs in different rooms without having to remember to log out of the PC in the room I am not in. I can ssh between PCs fine, but I sometimes need to start a GUI program on the remote PC.

It finally hit me, the logout is needed because the account is only accessible from one UI-based session at a time. Solution: create a second user on my systems that can be used when I need to connect with RDP.

It is not perfect, sometimes I need to have the primary user be the one running the GUI program. But if I only need to run the GUI while remote, using the second account meets my needs.

Why this took me over nine months to think of is annoying to me. I should have realized that a second account could be used months ago.

#linuxmint

I have to face the fact that I probably will not have another tech based job. It has been 13 months since I last had a job. I got very few hits last year, with less hits as the year went on. I tried for the last 3 months of the year to do a refresher on Python and could barely get through half of it. I just have no desire to do programming or testing anymore.

I need to find a new job soon before I run out of savings. I have no idea how to find a non-tech job anymore, what I could do, what to ask for for pay rate since all my experience is from tech jobs that paid a lot more than what non-tech pays.

I am trying to pull out of the depression this has re-ignited. I have a local con in two weeks that I am hoping will help, but may be last con for a long time at the rate things are going.

Not a good start to the new year.

Can someone tell me why I am so reluctant to use workspaces under Linux at home? 30 years ago, I was using CDE under AIX and loved that I had 4 workspaces in it, I could organize what I was working on and not have a screen with it all cluttered together. When I was forced to switch to Windows at work, I found a multiple workspace tool for it that I tried hard to get to work well enough to be used daily (it failed on multiple Windows systems, I kept losing access to all but the current workspace). I ended up getting a second Windows system, and using VNC to access both with one being the primary (I didn't have a PC KVM back then). In 2006, I was laid off and that was the end of my having access to CDE.

Today I run multiple different distros at home on multiple systems. And on all of them, I keep forgetting / ignoring that they have have at least two workspaces so I can spread out what I am running. But even on the single monitor systems, I keep only using one workspace. What the heck happened to me??

I did the second interview for that part time minimum wage job today. Not sure if I want to take it, I forgot to consider that it means unavoidable hour long drives in winter weather here. I try to avoid driving once there is snow and ice on the ground even when I have a dependable car for it. My new car, I am not sure if it will be drivable in those conditions (I may need new tires for winter driving). If something happens to this one, I am absolutely stuck until I get a full time professional job again.

Having to make a decision like this really sucks. Had my old car not died, I would just ride it out. Adding the car payment, I need income that can cover mortgage, condo fees, car payment, and utilities. That excludes my credit card payments which I also have.

My life is not in a good situation right now.

Depression time again. I just interviewed for a job that pays the same as what I made back in 1992 when I first graduated college. About a quarter of what I was making at my layoff in Feb 2024 and less than half of what I made in the low paying contract job.

Have I really fallen that low? The good recruiters for what I do are finding no jobs for SQA in this area unless you have a medical degree so you can test medical devices.

I need to pivot into something, but I wanted better than this.