Breakfast: salt-free cottage cheese with granola, fruit and kefir all nicely mixed together.

Mid-morning: fruit

Lunch: Left overs from last night's dinner, or sandwich. I try to avoid lunches that are carb heavy or a on the greasy side. Today is salmon and beets with a bit of rice.

Mid-afternoon: fruit, nuts or a treat like cookies

Drinks: Just water

HP Officejet 4630. It doesn't get a lot of use, so I'm using an IFTTT recipe to print a test page on the first of each month. Trying to avoid having the ink dry out. I've printed maybe 20 pages over the past 10 months.

it's an obscene gesture, like the middle finger.

Haha, learn something new everyday.

What was it?

10 years in IT altogether with 7 of that as a Java web app dev and currently in my 3rd year of integration design / integration development. I've thought about this a number of times and I always come back to the same conclusion: I would have spent less time in a position where I wasn't advancing. I got settled it and while the work was enjoyable, it also wasn't overly challenging. I think I would have reviewed my growth more often, say every 18 months and looked for other opportunities if I felt I was getting complacent. I spent 3 years at IBM doing maintenance work of a CRUD app starting in 2008. Android was just coming out. I should have jumped into it with more gusto. I've been at my current gig for 14 months now and I'm learning a lot every day. I do little coding these days at work, but do a bit at home just because I still enjoy it.

Get up and walk around. Look out the window. Give your eyes a break from staring at your screen.

Corporate drone checking in.

Desk: standard issue cubicle. L-shaped desk. Soul-sucking light grey in color.3' of space to the left of the monitors. 5' of space to the right. Storage is not an issue. Walls colored in very similar soul-sucking light grey.

Chair: Whatever was used by the last guy that was here. It's pretty comfy. Has a breathable back and is on casters.

Monitor: 2 x ViewSonic VX2450 that I grabbed from someone's desk after our last round of layoffs. Before then, a couple of 17" Lenovos. My docked T440 acts as a third monitor.

Keyboard: Logitech MK700. Wireless. Picked out of the pile that was set up after the round of layoffs just prior to my arrival. Seeing a trend here?

Music: Occasionally. I have a bunch of 90's alt I brought in on a USB stick.

Hours: 7:30 - 4-ish.

No. By working extra hours you may gain more expertise but you certainly do not gain time. You can't make time, you can only spend it. How would you reflect working 70-90 hrs/week without holidays? By having senior level expertise, a list of accomplishments and being burnt out :)

Aside from giving people a call every so often, I use LinkedIn - messages, comment on their posts, etc. I also have a group of former colleagues whom I've worked with at multiple companies and we'll get together every few months. Depending on the size of your network, it may be nearly impossible to keep in touch with everyone on a frequent basis. In the past, I would invite a number of them to tech events around the city and that worked with some success.