Detailed Notes
In this special Thanksgiving episode of Building Better Developers, hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche celebrate gratitude and growth—the cornerstones of personal and professional success. With a blend of humor, heartfelt stories, and reflections, they share the joys of the holiday season, lessons learned throughout the year, and what they’re thankful for as developers and individuals.
*Read More*... https://develpreneur.com/gratitude-and-growth-a-thanksgiving-special-on-building-better-developers/
We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.
*Additional Resources*
* Thankful For Friends, Family, Even Co-Workers (https://develpreneur.com/gratitude-and-growth-a-thanksgiving-special-on-building-better-developers/) * A Week Full of Thanks and Thankfulness (https://develpreneur.com/a-week-full-of-thanks-and-thankfulness/) * Being Thankful For Effective Tools (https://develpreneur.com/being-thankful-for-effective-tools/) * Technology-based Reasons to be Thankful (https://develpreneur.com/technology-based-reasons-to-be-thankful/)
*Follow-us on:*
* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur
Transcript Text
[Music] we are back uh so this being the Thanksgiving episode I want to do something a little different it's I think I've always done um sort of like a you know three things you're thankful for kind of thing I think I want to do a little tweak on that and this time we'll do three things we're thankful for and three things we hope to be thankful for before the end of the year you know some things that's like hey if things fall into place this would be you know some things that we're sort of looking forward to before the end of the year so big or small um and then I think good or bad we'll go a little different we'll do good or bad uh past holidays as like you know maybe particularly Thanksgiving be great but like you know what's like a good thing about actually let's say I may we'll keep it sort of a little more focused it's like a good thing about the Thanksgiving holiday and a bad thing about the Thanksgiving Holiday from your your past because I think those might be interesting so sound good sounds good so the first one was three things we are thankful for this year and then the uh what was the other one three things we want to be hopeful for or yeah basically three things we're thankful for you know in this in this as we we're getting towards the end of the year and it could be you know in it could be bigger life things or something like that but just the things we're thankful for and then I think the the bonus will be three things that we are looking forward to at the end of the year being thankful that they you we had so maybe some some things that are we're hoping for in the next six weeks kind of thing Goa okay yep and B breaths stretch get limber three two hello and welcome back as you noted probably this is again a special episode with our little turkey gobbles starting this whole thing off because it is turkey day it is Thanksgiving if you don't know what that is look it up if you do know what it is just get ready for a lot of nap time because if you're like me napping is a very essential part of celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday along with you know football games and all the other stuff that's out there a good solid nap that's what we're looking for like Bears hibernating those kinds of good naps and I'm not talking the Chicago Bears I'm talking like those big furry guys that like take a long time to take a good nap this is building better developers this is develop andur I am Rob Brad one of the founders also a founder of RB Consulting where we go out and we help you leverage technology that you have or the technology world and find some technology that you need to make your life your business better whether that's through simplification automation integration we find ways to just like take that technology sprawl and all the related pain and anguish and turn it into a work of joy and allowing you to get your stuff done better good thing bad thing we're going to switch it up a little bit in this special episode and talk about it's a good thing and a bad thing about Thanksgiving in past or in general now the good thing for me is this is a day like there's a couple of thing holidays and stuff like that where I have historically in large portions of my life spent a lot of time in a kitchen now I'm a little Julia childish type person in that when I'm spending time in the kitchen there is usually a bottle of wine or a half a dozen of those a big pile like cheese of various sort crackers fruit veggies snacky stuff and I am a snack Meister in those kind of situations so I love sitting there cooking I've even baked occasionally but usually it's more the cooking side of it while like snacking having a drink talking to whoever else is there just good like enjoying life moments the a downside or a bad part of it is all of that food sticks around for days and I don't mean like in the refrigerator as leftovers I mean on me I usually gain lots of weight and then I'm like feeling bad the rest of the month and like all right I got to like work this stuff off because I have that obligatory nap and then because I have so much food and so much of the same kind of stuff for the next several days napping is a very large portion of my like you know Thanksgiving Thursday through the weekend and now I got to wake him up we're going to poke him so he can get out of his nap is Mike all let you introduce yourself hey everyone my name is Michael malash I'm one of the co-founders of develop prur also the founder of Envision QA where we help businesses pretty much launch their uh or fix their software stacks and make sure that the software they have really meets the demands of the business past holidays good and bad oh let me start with the good um for most of my life growing up I had a large extended family we had uh lots of relatives my mother was a child of five and our grand I'm part of the that grandchildren and there of that there's about six or seven of us and of that we now have great grandchildren going out even further for many years we always tried to get together when we were all up in Michigan we would go to one one family or another and we would always kind of be like a full family gathering almost like a yearly family like hey everyone come together kind of event and there were many years where there was lots of food lots of uh naps like you said lots of football you know Detroit Lions big football up there even when we lose but we always would take turns in the kitchen helping out setting up the place Master always be tons of food uh bad side to that is depending upon which house it was at there were pets and I'm going to tell a funny story about one time uh my uh one aunt had a beagle and this beagle was hellbent on getting whatever he could get anytime there was food in the kitchen if there were frozen biscuits on the counter he would wait till someone walks out of the room he would jump up grab a biscuit and disappear napkins gone my favorite memory is when someone opened up the refrigerator door and the dog bolted right in and got a whole pie so those were still good moments but unfortunately we didn't have pies we're missing food from our dinner table but that's just the the kind of good and bad that goes with these holiday seasons you know and then there's always you know the occasional argument about football game or whatever but those are both the good and the bad can also be good times with the holidays so that leads us into it being a special wanted to go through which something we've done in the past it's Thanksgiving holiday so let's talk about what we are thankful for so I'm going to start with I do three things that we're going to talk about each of us we're do three things that we are thankful for you know in this mostly like looking at the at the Year back like what are some things that we are thankful for here now for me I'll go with the I have loow hanging fruit in a sense here is that I have uh I got married this year it sometimes feels like it's been it's like weird that it was this year but yes earlier this year and so that definitely something to be thankful for is that you know you find somebody that you and it's not just the marrying that person it's like the family that comes with it and things like that that have been uh just made my life more full and very enjoyable on regular basis there's when you've you know DED or tripled the size of your family as we have then you just have a lot more people that you get to relate to and with and all the good times related to that another good thing is related to the family and things like that is I also became an empty nester this year is that I had like the final kids moved out oh crossing my fingers that they won't move back but you know got people out and uh you know that's just like people talk about it's like now you get to go do things you want to do and stuff like that but but it's more about the whole they are able to do that that you know you you worry about when you kick somebody out of the nest that they're just going to go boom and they just like you know face plant but when you kick them out of the this and they actually are able to like fly away even if they look like you Woodstock like bouncing all over the place that's okay at least they're you know they're flying and they're they're getting there and they'll get better so hugely thankful for that and then for in a just like almost soppy kind of thing guess this I'm thankful for you guys I am thankful for this I am thankful that we have made some adjustments this year we really did change up the the way the podcast works and some of these other things and it is you know we've tried a little bit we have a different Channel we've we've had YouTube for a long time but we never really did the podcast out there we that was a there were two very different things and and melding those things uh it has changed how we've done podcast it's changed my view of the podcast and like my preparation and things like that it's actually freed up some more time because the guy on the other side there does a lot of the does the editing and a lot of the footwork and kind of stuff that's involved with this and I'm thankful that you guys because we're we are still seeing you know some growth and things like that we're seeing people come back I would be more thankful if people send us more feedback but that'll come later but I just want to say like you this has been a good year so far really like how it's going so getting finding things to be thankful for is actually pretty easy Now setting that up let's see if Michael can do the same give us like three just Bam Bam Bam things that he's thankful for sure let me start off with and I've mentioned this before I'm very thankful for all the support I've had this year in going through the business relaunch at the end of last year I had really started to plan and get into that mode and get into the relaunch and it really took a it took a community to get across the line took the family being supportive it took classes and people I worked with to kind of get that relaunch off the ground and find the business members and business to you know kind of sustain it and keep things moving forward and with that you know I'm thankful for the customers and again all the people that supported me through that which leads me to my second one which is family and friends so with a lot of the kind of relaunch I had to really be focused and heads down so I didn't have a lot of time early in the year with family and friends but once I got the launch done I was able to spend more time with family and friends we actually had a uh friend friend things kind of like a Thanksgiving in June uh kind of just get all the friends together uh we had a lot more time where we had more cookouts uh got to see what a whole hog cooked in a pit looked like that was kind of interesting so that was kind of fun I had some more family and friend events kind of going on so I'm very thankful for that and I'm also thankful for you guys and this community you know if we didn't do building better developers we could easily find ourselves working on other projects and other things and trying to help and Mentor people but this really keeps us focused on the community helping you guys and it helps push us to be better and not just better developers but better people and it's through you guys that helps us improve through our content through these podcasts through our blogs and you know just really thankful for you guys and Rob you know we've worked together for years our friendship you know I'm thankful for that I am thankful right now that I was not on mute because I was thinking I was so now this is the the interesting one so that those are all you know obviously we could go on for days because we are very blessed to be where we're at and some of the things that we've done but now looking forward a little bit in our you know crystal balls as it were it's like what is it that we are you know we'll say are hoping for or expecting to be thankful for as we get to the end of the year because right now you know it's as we mentioned turkey day it's Thanksgiving we've got you know roughly five weeks six weeks left something like that to the end of the year so what is it that we are looking forward to in this you know in these next few weeks weeks that it'll be something we be able to look back and be like thankful for we got it whether it's a big thing or a little thing and so I've got these are these are questions that are a little bit self- serving to me because I'm just looking at stuff like I got actually a couple things to look forward to one is I mentioned the children I've got another child that hopefully will be graduating college in the next couple of weeks here so I'll be able to be very thankful that he has has made it through there like slogged his way through it and gotten out and gotten his degree and able to go out and do his own thing because it's like yeah he's sort of doing his own thing but now just the same reason we do this is I want you know my kids are saying I want them to go out and do work that they enjoy and so I'm very much looking forward to that and hoping to be thankful for that as we go through it another thing that is an oddity that I picked up a few I don't know if it's an oddity but it's something we picked up a few years ago is there's uh there these Advent calendar things that you can do now several years ago we started with one that was an advent calendar and it was wine it was comes from the Aldi grocery stores and they would have a little wine thing um and you can go and you like you know each day of the they have like a little bottle of wine you get to try it out there's also like there are cheese ones there's chocolate ones there's teas there's whiskies there's cigars there's little like knickknacks there's just there's all sorts of Advent calendars and so this year we've got a couple of them that we've got one that is just like a general activity kind of a calendar we've got a a new wine one that's a different wine set and then we've got a cheese one as well so we'll be working on figuring out if they're wine and cheese pairings or not but it's just a fun way to really like every day of the holiday of you know going basically between Thanksgiving and Christmas to just have something that's a little different and so that along with my traditional watching Christmas movies through thanks or through December is something that I'm I'm looking forward to when I get the end of the month of being able to say wow once again I was able I was blessed to be able to do this I had some time was able to chill have some good time in front of a fire you know under a blanket or whatever it is and just like chilling and relaxing for a little bit the third thing that I'm looking forward to to being thankful for is actually to be thankful for like wrapping up having a period of time that I can actually take some vacation of some sort not LLY travel and stuff like that although that may be part of of it but being able to get all of the work stuff together in a way that I am not scrambling to get things done on the know December 30th or 31st I'm not I don't have anything that's like a burning task that I want to get done this year like a couple years ago when I it was the develop book it was going to go out by that year and it was published at like 8:00 pm on New Year's Eve you know it's like one of those I was like as close as you could get to not making it but made it happen I have set myself up to not have to do this that this year so as long as no U you know surprises come anything like that I'm looking forward to New Year's Eve being to be thankful for the fact that I can just chill and enjoy New Year's Eve how about yourself so what I'm most immediately that I'm looking forward to is the day after Thanksgiving typically in our family my wife does not like anything Christmas going up till the day after Thanksgiving so the day after Thanksgiving the first thing I'm going to be doing is taking out all those Christmas decorations and decorating the house whereas my wife says um Christmas threw up in our house because I go a little overboard with the decorations sometimes I'm my mother's son so uh she used to decorate with uh like nutcrackers up in the front lawn my mom was better at doing it than I am yes sometimes when I it does look like Christmas just threw up in the house uh but that's personally because if I'm allowed to get away with it there is like no surface not touched by something Christmas I got Christmas houses decorations I like it it's fun um with that also come December 1st my wife has been nagging me for weeks now to watch die hard so that will be the annual kickoff of the Christmas shows that we'll be watching throughout the month uh we typically binge watch all the Hallmark Christmas shows up until the week of Christmas or probably about 10 days before Christmas and then we pretty much just binge all the Christmas holiday shows that's pretty much all we watch all the time uh I'm also thankful the fact that the elections are over and that's no longer really on the news and it's we're back to calmness so you know you kind of get that pause but also with the Christmas movies you know we uh get into drinking the egg nug maybe add some Brandy to it cooking the Christmas cookies together uh as we do the Christmas decorations we we have a lot of fun with that and then the last thing I'm also thankful for is like you said you know at the end of the year typically after Christmas if I get any games I'll sit down I get about a week where I'm allowed to have the big screen TV all to myself and I'm allowed to just binge watch binge games uh which is just kind of my annual tradition along with um you know college basketball well I'm allowed the final four and the final but um and finally you know just glad that it's the end of the year um I'm looking forward to just really getting through Christmas spending time with more family and friends maybe getting out to some Christmas parades go out some you know drive around look at some Christmas decorations we've got a couple small town centers around here that they really kind of go all out and deck out so it's kind of fun you just kind of go out watch maybe there's carolling sometimes so it's really the for us this last month of the year is a lot more family time a lot more Christmas a lot more relaxation and a little bit of work in there but you know we keep it as light as we can going into the end of the year and that's I think that's part of it is we've got to remember all of us need to remember that it is easy to like work our way right through holiday and the next thing you know the holiday's over and you're into the drudgery of January February March kind of stuff and so enjoy it while you have it so that uh you know even if you get to January 4th or 5th and you're like geez I need a vacation even though you took two weeks off at least you got those two weeks off and you were able to you know maybe get some stuff done you know maybe there's a game that you want to complete or uh you know a puzzle that you want to finally you know put together or what you know a room that you're going to clean in your house because it's been driving you out whatever it is it's like spend a little time and in a sense treat yourself do some things that are going to make you happy because it's too easy to get to go through life and not be doing the things that make us happy there's so many things that don't that we have to do anyways so you know take a little time and find one of those tasks or Hobbies hey if you want to enjoy writing us an email you can do that and shoot us an email at info developer.com I'm not going to ruin the rest of your turkey day telling about all the ways that you can contact us if you want to say hi say you know here's what you're thankful for that's awesome we're going to thank be thankful for you anyways we have spent I think enough of your time I want to again thank you so much appreciate your time if you taken a little bit out of your day or maybe you're doing this while you're cooking and doing all that prep work awesome now it's time to just like turn us off shut things out and actually embrace the day and embrace the the family and the friends and all those around you will still be here because we are coming back we're going to kick back into our our season of building better habits and then we'll you know have a couple more holiday episodes because we also want to like keep it a little lighter and a little easier that being said go out there and have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next time Happy Thanksgiving everybody and I totally forgot last episode we didn't even have bonus stuff is like holidays and we didn't have a the bonus was we let everybody just go away we're like okay we're done so for you guys I I will just throw a little extra bonus of since you're sitting here watching this again thank you so much yeah it's like it's very nice for us to be able to do this and not have to have like some sort of like black thing to black out our face or maybe like a bag over her face or something like that and we appreciate that you guys don't send us like you know hate mail or anything like that not to mention it's just fun to add a little bit more to this this is one of those things I'm thankful for that we have have this ability to do stuff a little bit different and throw like a little bit of a curveball into some of these discussions and sometimes it's to you know to show something or display something just doesn't translate to the podcast side thank you so much for for your time for uh those of you that have you know the subscribers and stuff like that and we're just going to keep on plugging along we're going to keep providing you guys content because we would like to have it we like doing it and we love being able to do this for you we like to take our blessings and pass those on to you guys I'll give you parting thoughts well I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and again we are so thankful for the community and everyone and we just enjoy doing this and we we have just so many years of experience that we just like to share and help you grow and you help us grow and I'll just throw out one little bonus since tomorrow is Black Friday and the following Monday is Cyber Monday if you need any Tech that's the time to shop yes it very much is because hey you know you Geeks need deals too we need to you know there's always that like bonus little thing to do something that you really want get what you really want maybe it is like you know upgrade your your uh impr improve your geek cred a little bit and all of that goodness and uh yeah guys go out there enjoy it don't elbow anybody too hard and we will see you next time around happy thanksg giving everybody there [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
we are back
uh so this being the Thanksgiving
episode I want to do something a little
different it's I think I've always done
um sort of like a you know three things
you're thankful for kind of thing I
think I want to do a little tweak on
that and this time we'll
do three things we're thankful for and
three things we hope to be thankful for
before the end of the year you know some
things that's like hey if things fall
into place this would be you know some
things that we're sort of looking
forward to before the end of the year so
big or small
um and
then I think good or bad we'll go a
little different we'll do good or bad uh
past holidays as like you know maybe
particularly Thanksgiving be great but
like you know what's like a good thing
about actually let's say I may we'll
keep it sort of a little more focused
it's
like a good thing about the Thanksgiving
holiday and a bad thing about the
Thanksgiving Holiday from your your past
because I think those might be
interesting so sound
good sounds good so the first one was
three things we are thankful for this
year and then the uh what was the other
one three things we want to be hopeful
for or yeah basically three things we're
thankful for you know in this in this as
we we're getting towards the end of the
year and it could be you know in it
could be bigger life things or something
like that but just the things we're
thankful for and then I think the the
bonus will be three things that we are
looking forward to at the end of the
year being thankful that they you we had
so maybe some some things that are we're
hoping for in the next six weeks kind of
thing Goa okay
yep and B breaths
stretch get limber three
two hello and welcome back as you noted
probably this is again a special episode
with our little turkey gobbles starting
this whole thing off because it is
turkey day it is Thanksgiving if you
don't know what that is look it up if
you do know what it is just get ready
for a lot of nap time because if you're
like me napping is a very essential part
of celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday
along with you know football games and
all the other stuff that's out there a
good solid nap that's what we're looking
for like Bears hibernating those kinds
of good naps and I'm not talking the
Chicago Bears I'm talking like those big
furry guys that like take a long time to
take a good nap
this is building better developers this
is develop andur I am Rob Brad one of
the founders also a founder of RB
Consulting where we go out and we help
you leverage technology that you have or
the technology world and find some
technology that you need to make your
life your business better whether that's
through simplification automation
integration we find ways to just like
take that technology sprawl and all the
related pain and anguish and turn it
into a work of joy and allowing you to
get your stuff done
better good thing bad thing we're going
to switch it up a little bit in this
special episode and talk about it's a
good thing and a bad thing about
Thanksgiving in past or in general now
the good thing for
me is this is a day like there's a
couple of thing holidays and stuff like
that where I have historically in large
portions of my life spent a lot of time
in a kitchen now I'm a little Julia
childish type person in that when I'm
spending time in the kitchen there is
usually a bottle of wine or a half a
dozen of those a big pile like cheese of
various sort crackers fruit veggies
snacky stuff and I am a snack Meister in
those kind of situations so I love
sitting there cooking I've even baked
occasionally but usually it's more the
cooking side of it while like snacking
having a drink talking to whoever else
is there just good like enjoying life
moments
the a downside or a bad part of it is
all of that food sticks around for days
and I don't mean like in the
refrigerator as leftovers I mean on me I
usually gain lots of weight and then I'm
like feeling bad the rest of the month
and like all right I got to like work
this stuff off because I have that
obligatory nap and then because I have
so much food and so much of the same
kind of stuff for the next several days
napping is a very large portion of my
like you know Thanksgiving Thursday
through the
weekend and now I got to wake him up
we're going to poke him so he can get
out of his nap is Mike all let you
introduce yourself hey everyone my name
is Michael malash I'm one of the
co-founders of develop prur also the
founder of Envision QA where we help
businesses pretty much launch their uh
or fix their software stacks and make
sure that the software they have really
meets the demands of the
business past holidays good and bad oh
let me start with the good um
for most of my life growing up I had a
large extended family we had uh lots of
relatives my mother was a child of five
and our grand I'm part of the that
grandchildren and there of that there's
about six or seven of us and of that we
now have great grandchildren going out
even
further for many years we always tried
to get together when we were all up in
Michigan we would go to one one family
or another and we would always kind of
be like a full family gathering almost
like a yearly family like hey everyone
come together kind of event and there
were many years where there was lots of
food lots of uh naps like you said lots
of football you know Detroit Lions big
football up there even when we lose but
we always would take turns in the
kitchen helping out setting up the place
Master always be tons of food uh bad
side to that is depending upon which
house it was at there were
pets and I'm going to tell a funny story
about one time uh my uh one aunt had a
beagle and this beagle was hellbent on
getting whatever he could get anytime
there was food in the kitchen if there
were frozen biscuits on the counter he
would wait till someone walks out of the
room he would jump up grab a biscuit and
disappear napkins gone
my favorite memory is when someone
opened up the refrigerator door and the
dog bolted right in and got a whole
pie
so those were still good moments but
unfortunately we didn't have pies we're
missing food from our dinner table but
that's just the the kind of good and bad
that goes with these holiday seasons you
know and then there's always you know
the occasional argument about football
game or whatever but those are both the
good and the bad can also be good times
with the
holidays so that leads us into it being
a special wanted to go through which
something we've done in the past it's
Thanksgiving holiday so let's talk about
what we are thankful for so I'm going to
start with I do three things that we're
going to talk about each of us we're do
three things that we are thankful for
you know in this mostly like looking at
the at the Year back like what are some
things that we are thankful for here now
for me
I'll go with the I have loow hanging
fruit in a sense here is that I have uh
I got married this year it sometimes
feels like it's been it's like weird
that it was this year but yes earlier
this year and so that definitely
something to be thankful for is that you
know you find somebody that you and it's
not just the marrying that person it's
like the family that comes with it and
things like that that have been uh just
made my life more full and very
enjoyable on regular basis there's when
you've you know DED or tripled the size
of your family as we have then you just
have a lot more people that you get to
relate to and with and all the good
times related to that another good thing
is related to the family and things like
that is I also became an empty nester
this year is that I had like the final
kids moved out oh crossing my fingers
that they won't move back but you know
got people out and uh you know that's
just like people talk about it's like
now you get to go do things you want to
do and stuff like that but but it's more
about the whole they are able to do that
that you know you you worry about when
you kick somebody out of the nest that
they're just going to go boom and they
just like you know face plant but when
you kick them out of the this and they
actually are able to like fly away even
if they look like you Woodstock like
bouncing all over the place that's okay
at least they're you know they're flying
and they're they're getting there and
they'll get better so hugely thankful
for that and then for in a just like
almost soppy kind of thing guess this
I'm thankful for you guys I am thankful
for this I am thankful that we have made
some adjustments this year we really did
change up the the way the podcast works
and some of these other things and it is
you know we've tried a little bit we
have a different Channel we've we've had
YouTube for a long time but we never
really did the podcast out there we that
was a there were two very different
things and and melding those things uh
it has changed how we've done podcast
it's changed my view of the podcast and
like my preparation and things like that
it's actually freed up some more time
because the guy on the other side there
does a lot of the does the editing and a
lot of the footwork and kind of stuff
that's involved with this and I'm
thankful that you guys because we're we
are still seeing you know some growth
and things like that we're seeing people
come back I would be more thankful if
people send us more feedback but that'll
come later but I just want to say like
you this has been a good year so far
really like how it's going so getting
finding things to be thankful for is
actually pretty easy Now setting that up
let's see if Michael can do the same
give us like three just Bam Bam Bam
things that he's thankful for sure let
me start off with and I've mentioned
this before I'm very thankful for all
the support I've had this year in going
through the business
relaunch at the end of last year I had
really started to plan and get into that
mode and get into the relaunch and it
really took a it took a community to get
across the line took the family being
supportive it took classes and people I
worked with to kind of get that relaunch
off the ground and find the business
members and business to you know kind of
sustain it and keep things moving
forward and with that you know I'm
thankful for the customers and again all
the people that supported me through
that which leads me to my second one
which is family and friends so with a
lot of the kind of relaunch I had to
really be focused and heads down so I
didn't have a lot of time early in the
year with family and friends but once I
got the launch done I was able to spend
more time with family and friends we
actually had a uh friend friend things
kind of like a Thanksgiving in June uh
kind of just get all the friends
together uh we had a lot more time where
we had more cookouts uh got to see what
a whole hog cooked in a pit looked like
that was kind of interesting so that was
kind of fun I had some more family and
friend events kind of going on so I'm
very thankful for
that and I'm also thankful for you guys
and this community you know if we didn't
do building better
developers we could easily find
ourselves working on other projects and
other things and trying to help and
Mentor people but this really keeps us
focused on the community helping you
guys and it helps push us to be better
and not just better developers but
better people and it's through you guys
that helps us improve through our
content through these podcasts through
our blogs and you know just really
thankful for you guys and Rob you know
we've worked together for years our
friendship you know I'm thankful for
that I am thankful right now that I was
not on mute because I was thinking I was
so now this is the the interesting one
so that those are all you know obviously
we could go on for days because we are
very blessed to be where we're at and
some of the things that we've
done but now looking forward a little
bit in our you know crystal balls as it
were it's like what is it that we are
you know we'll say are hoping for or
expecting to be thankful for as we get
to the end of the year because right now
you know it's as we mentioned turkey day
it's Thanksgiving we've got you know
roughly five weeks six weeks left
something like that to the end of the
year
so what is it that we are looking
forward to in this you know in these
next few weeks weeks that it'll be
something we be able to look back and be
like thankful for we got it whether it's
a big thing or a little thing and so
I've
got these are these are questions that
are a little bit self- serving to me
because I'm just looking at stuff like I
got actually a couple things to look
forward to one is I mentioned the
children I've got another child that
hopefully will be graduating college in
the next couple of weeks here so I'll be
able to be very thankful that he has has
made it through there like slogged his
way through it and gotten out and gotten
his degree and able to go out and do his
own thing because it's like yeah he's
sort of doing his own thing but now just
the same reason we do this is I want you
know my kids are saying I want them to
go out and do work that they
enjoy and so I'm very much looking
forward to that and hoping to be
thankful for that as we go through it
another thing that is an oddity that I
picked up a few I don't know if it's an
oddity but it's something we picked up a
few years ago is there's uh there these
Advent calendar things that you can do
now several years ago we started with
one that was an advent calendar and it
was wine it was comes from the Aldi
grocery stores and they would have a
little wine thing um and you can go and
you like you know each day of the they
have like a little bottle of wine you
get to try it out there's also like
there are cheese ones there's chocolate
ones there's teas there's whiskies
there's cigars there's little like
knickknacks there's just there's all
sorts of Advent calendars and so this
year we've got a couple of them that
we've got one that is just like a
general activity kind of a calendar
we've got a a new wine one that's a
different wine set and then we've got a
cheese one as well so we'll be working
on figuring out if they're wine and
cheese pairings or not but it's just a
fun way to really like every day of the
holiday of you know going basically
between Thanksgiving and Christmas to
just have something that's a little
different and so that along with my
traditional watching Christmas movies
through thanks or through December is
something that I'm I'm looking forward
to when I get the end of the month of
being able to say wow once again I was
able I was blessed to be able to do this
I had some time was able to chill have
some good time in front of a fire you
know under a blanket or whatever it is
and just like chilling and relaxing for
a little bit the third thing that I'm
looking forward to to being thankful
for is actually to be thankful for like
wrapping up having a period of time that
I can actually take some vacation of
some sort not LLY travel and stuff like
that although that may be part of of it
but being able to get all of the work
stuff together in a way that I am not
scrambling to get things done on the
know December 30th or
31st I'm not I don't have anything
that's like a burning task that I want
to get done this year like a couple
years ago when I it was the develop book
it was going to go out by that year and
it was published at like 8:00 pm on New
Year's Eve you know it's like one of
those I was like as close as you could
get to not making it but made it happen
I have set myself up to not have to do
this that this year so as long as no U
you know surprises come anything like
that I'm looking forward to New Year's
Eve being to be thankful for the fact
that I can just chill and enjoy New
Year's Eve how about
yourself so what I'm most immediately
that I'm looking forward to is the day
after Thanksgiving typically in our
family my wife does not like anything
Christmas going up till the day after
Thanksgiving so the day after
Thanksgiving the first thing I'm going
to be doing is taking out all those
Christmas decorations and decorating the
house whereas my wife says um Christmas
threw up in our house because I go a
little overboard with the decorations
sometimes I'm my mother's son so uh she
used to decorate with uh like
nutcrackers up in the front lawn my mom
was better at doing it than I am yes
sometimes when I it does look like
Christmas just threw up in the house uh
but that's personally because if I'm
allowed to get away with it there is
like no surface not touched by something
Christmas I got Christmas houses
decorations I like it it's fun um with
that also come December 1st my wife has
been nagging me for weeks now to watch
die hard so that will be the annual
kickoff of the Christmas shows that
we'll be watching throughout the month
uh we typically
binge watch all the Hallmark Christmas
shows up until the week of Christmas or
probably about 10 days before Christmas
and then we pretty much just binge all
the Christmas holiday shows that's
pretty much all we watch all the time uh
I'm also thankful the fact that the
elections are over and that's no longer
really on the news and it's we're back
to calmness so you know you kind of get
that pause but also with the Christmas
movies you know we uh get into drinking
the egg nug maybe add some Brandy to it
cooking the Christmas cookies together
uh as we do the Christmas decorations we
we have a lot of fun with that and then
the last thing I'm also thankful for is
like you said you know at the end of the
year typically after Christmas if I get
any games I'll sit down I get about a
week where I'm allowed to have the big
screen TV all to myself and I'm allowed
to just binge watch binge games uh which
is just kind of my annual tradition
along with um you know college
basketball well I'm allowed the final
four and the final but um and finally
you know
just glad that it's the end of the year
um I'm looking forward to just really
getting through Christmas spending time
with more family and friends maybe
getting out to some Christmas parades go
out some you know drive around look at
some Christmas decorations we've got a
couple small town centers around here
that they really kind of go all out and
deck out so it's kind of fun you just
kind of go out watch maybe there's
carolling sometimes so it's really the
for us this last month of the year is a
lot more family time a lot more
Christmas a lot more
relaxation and a little bit of work in
there but you know we keep it
as light as we can going into the end of
the
year and that's I think that's part of
it is we've got to remember all of us
need to remember that it is easy to like
work our way right through holiday and
the next thing you know the holiday's
over and you're into the drudgery of
January February March kind of stuff and
so enjoy it while you have it so that uh
you know even if you get to January 4th
or 5th and you're like geez I need a
vacation even though you took two weeks
off at least you got those two weeks off
and you were able to you know maybe get
some stuff done you know maybe there's a
game that you want to complete or uh you
know a puzzle that you want to finally
you know put together or what you know a
room that you're going to clean in your
house because it's been driving you out
whatever it is it's like spend a little
time and in a sense treat yourself do
some things that are going to make you
happy because it's too easy to get to go
through life and not be doing the things
that make us happy there's so many
things that don't that we have to do
anyways so you know take a little time
and find one of those tasks or
Hobbies hey if you want to enjoy writing
us an email you can do that and shoot us
an email at info developer.com I'm not
going to ruin the rest of your turkey
day telling about all the ways that you
can contact us
if you want to say hi say you know
here's what you're thankful for that's
awesome we're going to thank be thankful
for you anyways we have spent I think
enough of your time I want to again
thank you so much appreciate your time
if you taken a little bit out of your
day or maybe you're doing this while
you're cooking and doing all that prep
work awesome now it's time to just like
turn us off shut things out and actually
embrace the day and embrace the the
family and the friends and all those
around you will still be here because we
are coming back we're going to kick back
into our our season of building better
habits and then we'll you know have a
couple more holiday episodes because we
also want to like keep it a little
lighter and a little easier that being
said go out there and have yourself a
great day a great week and we will talk
to you next time Happy Thanksgiving
everybody and I totally forgot last
episode we didn't even have bonus stuff
is like holidays and we didn't have a
the bonus was we let everybody just go
away we're like okay we're
done so for you guys I I will just throw
a little extra bonus of since you're
sitting here watching this again thank
you so much yeah it's like it's very
nice for us to be able to do this and
not have to have like some sort of like
black thing to black out our face or
maybe like a bag over her face or
something like that and we appreciate
that you guys don't send us like you
know hate mail or anything like that not
to mention it's just fun to add a little
bit more to this this is one of those
things I'm thankful for that we have
have this ability to do stuff a little
bit different and throw like a little
bit of a curveball into some of these
discussions and sometimes it's to you
know to show something or display
something just doesn't translate to the
podcast side thank you so much for for
your time for uh those of you that have
you know the subscribers and stuff like
that and we're just going to keep on
plugging along we're going to keep
providing you guys content because we
would like to have it we like doing it
and we love being able to do this for
you we like to take our blessings and
pass those on to you guys I'll give you
parting
thoughts well I want to wish everyone a
Happy Thanksgiving and again we are so
thankful for the community and everyone
and we just enjoy doing this and we we
have just so many years of experience
that we just like to share and help you
grow and you help us grow and I'll just
throw out one little bonus since
tomorrow is Black Friday and the
following Monday is Cyber Monday if you
need any Tech that's the time to
shop yes it very much is because hey you
know you Geeks need deals too we need to
you know there's always that like bonus
little thing to do something that you
really want get what you really want
maybe it is like you know upgrade your
your uh impr improve your geek cred a
little bit and all of that goodness and
uh yeah guys go out there enjoy it don't
elbow anybody too hard and we will see
you next time around happy thanksg
giving
everybody there
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