A programmer's job is full of stress. The worst part of this stress is that you can't stop thinking about your problems, and continue working on them 24/7. Literally.

I read a blog of a developer who quit and took a job as a waiter in a Mexican restaurant. Being a server is one of the most stressful professions in the world, but that stress stops at the end of the work day. Problems that programmers face never end at the end of the day, they continue into the night, the next day, week, and year. Unless you fix them, that is. Then you get to solve a whole different set of problems.

Working as a developer is like solving SAT problems for 24 hours a day with long procrastination breaks. No wonder it's a ghetto job.

I've recently had a series of recurring dreams about fishing. I come out to the beach, cast, and immediately the beach is filled with other fishermen. They all cast as well, the lines tangle, it's impossible to fish. This is exactly like locking MySQL queries that I've been battling as of late.

I am a proponent of the Danny Sorenson method of stress reduction. This basically means that I go out and buy pens.

The cool thing about my new job is that I work right near a fountain pen store and a cigar store (which also helps in stress reduction). My latest stress-reducing fountain pen purchase is kind of interesting.

It's a fountain pen with a "military clip". You see, U. S. Army Regulation AR670-1, paragraph 1-9a(1) had the following passage:

"Soldiers will ensure that articles carried in pockets do not protrude from the pocket or present a bulky appearance."

A clip on most pens would create a bulge on a uniform pocket. Pen manufacturers were forced to create special pens with a clip that would not cause this problem, like the one that I purchased.

While treating me and my team to dinner, my boss' boss, watching as I stuffed a bulky Treo 650 smartphone into the front pocket of my shirt, quipped -- "As soon as you put anything into your front pocket you automatically become a nerd". I guess U.S. Army regulations have a point...