Document: WM-093 P. Webb
Category: Life 2026-05-30
Sabbatical Retrospective
Abstract
What I imagine life would be like with F.U. money and no worries
Body
A few weeks ago I was presented with an opportunity for paid leave,
for a month. I’ve never taken off work for more than two weeks, ever
(aside from being unemployed). When employers boast "unlimited PTO,"
I assume they’re lying and will work you to the bone which will
require you to take time off because your doctor looks upon you in
horror at how you’ve destroyed yourself for a check and demands so.
No, I save vacation days for when I get irritable with my job (or
they kindly yet firmly suggest so) and I cap said break at two weeks.
No more, sometimes less.
Here is my checklist of tasks I thought I’d accomplish with this
month off work:
- read
- write
- get out of the house
- music creation/production
- Dap[1] testing
- learn 3D
- paint room
- organize garage, for good
I’ve done almost none of this LMAO! Would two months make a
difference? I doubt it. What I have done is:
- landscaping[2]
- play Fortnite[3]
- music production[4]
- Disc testing[5]
- finalize paint colors[6]
- take lots of pictures[7]
- enjoy life[8]
- gain perspective[9]
Additionally, this month included my son’s birthday, Mother’s Day, my
wife’s graduation, and a time was had.
## Landscaping
Lakeisha was annoyed with the way the front of our house looked with
sturdy weeds growing amongst sad-looking rocks that came with the
place. We decided to look at options at Home Depot. I severely
underestimated the number of bags we needed (we bought six, I think
we need at least six more). I learned that Mexican beach rocks look
REALLY good. The varied shades of blue are pretty.
## Play Fortnite
My launch day excitement for Arc Raiders waned after I completed the
grind towards the in-game expedition. That’s when you collect
materials for your character across five stages to prepare for the
next journey…that brings you right back to where you started, but
you get a neat icon next to your name in the lobby! Anyhoo, Fortnite
is less stakes with zany weapons and movement items, which provides a
more Looney Tunes flare for excitement (whereas Arc Raiders feels
like playing a semi-serious film).
## Music production
I’ve been sitting on an unreleased album for nearly 15 years because
of all manner of bullshit excuses; perfectionism, insecurity about
mixing/mastering skills, and the unwillingness to pay someone to do
it for me. I’ve missed the deadline I set for myself to release it
this month (in time for Subvert’s launch[11], which coincided with my
son’s birthday trip). Last week I found a tutorial for vocal effects
and learned that the particular Ableton built-in plugin used
(Spectral Resonator) requires the most expensive version of Ableton
(Suite)…and I own the Standard version. I’ll budget for the
upgrade soon. I have Suite now so the album should be out before
the summer is over.
In the meantime, there’s a method of mixing that requires the use of
pink noise where you solo the noise with one of the tracks in your
song and change the volume of said track until you can barely hear it
above the noise. Repeat with the rest of the tracks and when you mute
the noise track, your song should sound good. After I get my vocals
how I want them, I’ll apply the YouLean Loudness Meter and someone’s
Ableton mastering chain (it’s in a background tab somewhere) and I’ll
finally be done with it! And, finally free my mind from this
musical albatross.
## Disc testing
I took this time off to work on side side projects and one is a
fork of the Gel[12] database. I’m not keen on experiencing the pain
of building atop a dead database[13] again; I wanted to try my hand
at building a successor that works for my purposes and…it works?
Even though I’m working on a couple for-profit projects, I found
myself finding equal (if not more) enjoyment from working on Disc. A
full write-up will come once I officially launch this thing but
here’s a few screenshots.
As a designer/developer, it’s gratifying to build to spec something
I’ve always wanted AND to have the developer experience not assume I
write SQL like I speak English (fluently). IDK WTF I’m looking at
with SQL half the time.
If you understand TypeScript, you can figure out how to run Disc, no
ORM needed; automatic code generation from your schema should be a
given. C’mon, it’s 2026.
## Finalize paint colors
Lakeisha and I have talked about painting our room for a year…it has
yet to be done. Ridiculous. We decided we didn’t like what we painted
the ceiling so we went and got more swatches and found one we like!
In conclusion, we will paint in the fall. It’s about to be summer and
we don’t have AC. It’s possible I’ll paint the room myself,
we’ll see.
## Take lots of pictures
I’m an enthusiastic photographer. If I remember, I’ll leave the house
with my Moment telephoto lens[14] to get beautiful portrait shots
with sunny bokeh. Otherwise, I’ll use mood.camera[15] to capture what
I feel. I love this app; there’s nothing distracting you from taking
the damn picture until after you do (when you check what the filter
looks like). There’s no previewing ahead of the shot. Snapping pics
with mood.camera feels like disposable cameras of old. You can see
every pic I took this month, here[10].
## Enjoy life
Lakeisha was finishing up school and writing sewing pattern tutorials
for her job[16] while I had this time off, but we were able to go out
for lunch several times. That alone was nice because we don’t have to
deal with kids complaining about food choices, a welcome reprieve
from our usual experience. I didn’t get as much writing as I thought
I wanted to get done because of all my Disc testing. When I needed a
break from that, I played video games.
The way I’m wired, I’ll get a sudden burst of motivation and
inspiration to finish writing one of the books I’ve been working on
for…half my life? Good grief I’m slacking! Wabi-sabi.
## Gain perspective
This month has been a great experience and it made me realize a
few things.
1) "We have the same 24 hours" sounds nice on paper but that phrase
is flawed. 24 hours exists as a thing but this thing we all
have access to is differently shaped. Pulling ourselves up by our
boot straps requires sacrificing time from a less-constrained area
of our lives — no easy feat when you have dependents or depend on
others, aren’t neurotypical, &c.
2) I’ve been incredibly privileged to do this and now that I’ve
tasted what I’ve wanted out of life since I entered the workforce
more than half my life ago, I’m motivated to explore opportunities
that’ll get me there. As ambitious as I am, I sense I’m not doing
enough, I’ve gotta embrace the crazy. Delusion’s got me this far,
there’s more where that came from.
3) I have low to zero interest in "content creation." I created
Nickel[17] for the purpose of helping content creators better
monetize their communities and be an alternative to other
short-form video sites. Granted, the primary types of videos I’ve
uploaded have been gaming clips but I haven’t uploaded anything in
about a month and a half, possibly two (I also learned I need a
few more servers for transcoding…makes me want to build a
ridiculous home server and open it to the internet, that’s gotta
be more cost-effective than renting).
## FIN
TL;DR: Month-long sabbatical went great, the point of relaxation is
to relax, and my relaxation involves recreational coding LOL! If you
want something done, you’ve gotta do it yourself. 🕸️
