I'm finished with my four days in the NESN booth. I wasn't quite sure what to expect heading in, but in the end I had a lot of fun. I remembered all the things I liked about calling Fenway Park my office. I got to say hello to so many people I had missed. I also was reminded of some of the reasons I left.
I'm not really sure if I'll be back at all this season, but either way it's ok. I think that's one of the reasons I was able to relax and enjoy myself. I wasn't auditioning for anything. I was just helping out in a pinch. For me personally, there was nothing on the line. If I had been presented with the same opportunity even just a year ago I would have felt a lot of pressure to perform in hopes they'd ask again.
I do want to thank everyone at NESN for making me feel right at home and making everything as easy as possible. Don Orsillo could not have been more helpful. I have always gotten along well with Don and figured he would be easy to work with, but he was fantastic. I hope fans realize how lucky we are to have a network level announcer as the television voice of the Red Sox. I also think Don does not get nearly enough credit for seamlessly working with so many different people over the years. It is a real talent to be able to do that. In my case Don was able to take another play by play guy who wasn't doing play by play and work him into the broadcast. I'm not an analyst. I will never be an analyst. Don helped me and made it work. I can assure you that would not have been the case in every major league broadcast booth.
So am I back to broadcasting again? No, I'm still a developer. It didn't take long to remember that a baseball schedule takes over everything. You have no control over it and your life revolves around it. For those in the game it's completely normal. That's one thing I do not miss. What I have missed over the last four days is coding. Tomorrow I can get back to work. I'm looking forward to it.
This web development thing has been going alright. Sometimes I feel really stupid, sometimes I feel less stupid, but I'm learning new things all the time and I like it. The last thing I was thinking about was broadcasting, let alone the Red Sox on NESN. Turns out I'll be in the booth Friday night. I've enjoyed watching and listening to the games since I left Fenway in April, but it's been different. It certainly hasn't been a job. I'm happy to help out when I can and I'm really looking forward to it, but I almost said no.
First of all I've got this new job at Barbershop Labs and it's really important to me. Then there's the fact that I'm really a play by play guy, not an analyst. On top of all that I had pretty much turned the page on the broadcasting thing. Then they said, "You know you'll get to work with Don Orsillo." That's when I knew I couldn't refuse.
I'm watching the Sox and Orioles right now. I'm trying to finish up this quick blog post. Then it's right back to code. After I pick up my daughter from cheerleading practice of course.
--- Warning: the last bit may not make much sense to the less technically inclined. ---
As for my project, well last night was one of those nights I felt really stupid. I'm using devise for authentication. You install and it pretty much handles everything about registering a user out of the box. It just works. Who needs a test for that? Turns out me! I installed devise pretty early on. Did a bunch of other stuff. Couldn't get a nested form to work and was getting really frustrated. Then I started taking things apart and backing up. Turns out the one thing I took for granted - simply signing up a user through devise - no longer worked. But how? That's not supposed to happen. Well that's true, unless you (meaning me the junior developer) do something foolish to break it.
I set a boolean admin attribute on my user model. The only attribute I added to the default attributes generated by devise. Then for some unknown reason I set a presence_of validation on the admin attribute. Of course I don't need one because I set a default value of false. There is no admin field in the user registration form, so when you hit submit the validation fails in the model. It took me a long time to figure that out. Two mistakes - a needless validation and a test that should have been written in the first place.
I hoping writing about these mistakes proves to be therapeutic. I also hope it helps me never make them again.
As you may know, I started hanging out with Adam and Matt from Barbershop Labs last Monday. That lasted for about three days and then I needed some time off. Actually, I had a good reason to head to the beach, my sister Barbara got married. Which meant pack up the entire family, gas up the minivan and head on down to the Jersey Shore. I'm happy to report that we made it there and back in one piece and for the most part our sanity is still intact. At least it's no worse off than it was before Thursday morning.
I was informed before we left that no matter what I was not allowed to complain about anything. Which for me is no easy task. But believe it or not, all (or at least most) of the the things I figured would annoy me didn't. Why? Well as best I can figure it was because Barbara was so happy. Truth be told Barbara and I haven't always been that close over the years. We certainly haven't seen eye to eye on many things. I went away to school when she was 14 and I never really came back. A lot has changed since then and we were apart for most of it.
I am right-handed and Barbara is a lefty. An average phone conversation for me is about fifty seconds. For Barbara fifty minutes is probably below the average. That's just the tip of the iceberg. The list could go on and on. On the surface you might think we are as opposite as you could possibly be. On some levels I suppose it's true, but as I watched her and her new husband Justin start their new life together I realized that it's really not true.
It's easy to notice the differences. It's easy to focus on them, obsess over them and get upset over them. And I did that, for a long time - far too long.
I'll admit I was a bit jealous of Justin. As I was waiting to be introduced at the reception with my wife CJ, there were all four of Justin's grandparents in front of us and his parents behind us. Barbara had me, standing in for our parents. I stood there wearing one of my Dad's old shirts along with one of his seemingly thousands of ties. Proud, sad, happy and jealous. All at the same time if that's possible. The DJ asked for applause from the groom's side and then the bride's side - let's just say it was a little one-sided.
That's when I thought, I had it all wrong. While I was so busy noticing the differences I never took the time to see the similarities. Friday night I looked at Barbara and saw my Mom, my Dad, my Nana, even me. I looked at Barbara and I saw my kids - may God help me!
What I do remember growing up with Barbara was spending an awful lot of time watching her perform. Singing, dancing, you name it. One thing was always clear, she was happiest on stage and in the spotlight. In many ways that's where she was again on Friday - center stage and in the spotlight. I've never seen her happier.