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Rachael Kalicun

"If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it?" - Stephen King

My Writing

Seth Godin's The Practice - a Summary

What does a person do after abandoning the practical path? Where does motivation come from if not from money or power? I’ve asked these questions recently but could only come up with vague answers. Be creative but I wasn’t sure why...

Anti-Role Models

Who do you not want to be like? I refer to these people as anti-role models. I’ve answered this question many times over the past several years. Interactions with people whose behaviors and attitudes filled me with disgust made it obvious. Their negative traits made it easy to feel a strong desire never to be like them. With others...

Rocky Mountain Ruby - a 12-year Hiatus

This week, I attended the Rocky Mountain Ruby conference in Boulder. The last time I went was in 2012, and I have the faded t-shirt to prove it. A lot has changed since then...

How To Be Happier in a Tech Career

Most people I interact with work in tech, and the majority of these individuals are unhappy with their jobs. For someone with tech experience, it’s not hard to understand why. There’s pressure to deliver code despite endless headwinds...

My Lifelong Love Affair with Coffee

Today is International Coffee Day, making it the perfect time to express my gratitude to this longtime love. Coffee and I have a very long relationship. I got hooked as a toddler when my grandfather first let me sip his sweet, milky coffee one Sunday after church, and it was love at first taste...

Travel, Empathy, and Shared Humanity

While in Vietnam recently, a young woman asked me how many countries I’ve visited. It’s a question I’ve been asked in the past, but it hit differently this time. I felt a pang of guilt at the contrast of our lives just because we were born in two different, random places...