I think finishing the school year has been very theraputic for me. I feel a lot better than I have in a while, a lot more relaxed, calm, at ease. Things are slowing down and I like it.

That's not to say everything is rosy in my life - far from it, I'm still dealing with customers that refuse to pay significant invoices, those close to me know how that has affected my family. As I mentioned on Twitter last week, I'm going to have to take legal action to get things resolved, and that sucks.

Other than that distraction, I'm feeling more clarity than I have in a while. Specifically, I'm leaning towards making some positive changes to my lifestyle.

Firstly, I need to set a more strict schedule for work. I need better separation between my work time and the rest of my life. My kids need more of my time. They haven't had my time for a long, long time, mostly because my work time hasn't been managed well enough. Some of those problems are ultimately caused by professional issues like the one above, but not all.

Secondly, I need to get over some of my opinions about web development that are impeding my ability to grow and innovate. It's not realistic to avoid web development. The reality is, every software system needs web linkage to succeed, and I need to accept the bad with the good. That doesn't mean I have to become an expert at crafting cross-browser HTML/JS/CSS, but it does mean I need to be more open-minded. The future I hope to create out of my graduate research needs to embrace reality to succeed.

Lots of big thinking going on, it's helping.