Spring is a bad time for scratching itches
April 18th, 2005 by HenPerhaps the best bit about the Payload release is that it happened at all.
Over the last few years, I’ve definitely noticed that each Spring sees a sudden blooming of apathy for all things open-community on my part. I don’t know if anyone else feels the same, but it’s the one time of the year when the time I dedicate to involvement in things open vanishes. This year is especially bad due to the baby boy, a busy time at work and a stomach virus as Spring arrived.
Partly I think it’s because each Spring sees me getting more interested in mundane things like the house, cleaning, building (usually the home network) and rediscovering the basement where most of my computer equipment sits. Summer is too hot, Winter too cold and Autumn sees me too tired after Summer to want to do any of that stuff as I spend most of Summer having to do house stuff when I don’t want to.
There must be something more though. I’ve been dropping off the home-coding each Spring, regardless of whether I have a house, money to fund building or a baby to fill my time. Probably the only reason that work is addictive at the moment is because we’re in effect doing an aggressive spring-clean. Maybe it’s just because the sun is out and it’s beautiful outside, which would imply that it’s better to run a development company in London or Seattle than California and Kentucky.
Also suggests that spring-cleaning projects are a great idea to do each spring to catch the enthusiasm of the team, but this might just be my own malaise.
The Apache lists do seem quiet though. Do other people hit this issue? Anyone know a correct term for it? For the moment I’ll call it SAD-recovery-syndrome 
Winter is over, so time to shed the old, bring in the new and prepare for a new year. Somebody really screwed up when January 1st was not (generally) the first day of Spring.