timeliness

100 Days left in 2008.
13 Weeks.

Not a lot of time to get things done. A good deadline though.

So what do I want to do with my life? A few goals:
- Write a book
- Run a marathon
- 100 pushups in a row
- 20 pullups/chinups
- Read 100 books for 2008 (I've read 45)
- Replace windows

I can't do all of them in 100 days, but I am going to see how many I can accomplish.

not much of a ressurection

So on the 5th I posted I was restarting a writing habit. On the 16th I post my next post. Not too good on building a habit :)

spending my team reading and thinking and working. Any other freecycles got to Z and A.

Lots going on, trying to make some space to think and it really isn't working too well. So much more to do and see and learn and apply.

Ressurecting a writing habit.

I was pretty good for three months, and now I need to get the groove back. Most of my habits fall in and out of 3 month cycles. It is something I vaguely notice and comes in handy to reinforce to myself that I can pick something up again.

finding a new groove

A few days off does a world of good to getting one's mind in place.

Prioritizing comes much easier. As does thinking about the big pictures. Been down in the weeds a bit too long, and starting to realize that now. Looking at the bigger plan is easier with a little bit of perspective.

Looking to make all kinds of progress this week both on work and personal fronts. Actually having the drive to get some house work done. Need to get the house prepped for the party. T-minus 27 days at this point. Or something like that :)

Lots to do, which is always exciting :)

Wow

It has been many a day since I last posted! I'm no sure where all the time went, some went well some went poorly, some with sickness and some with health. A lot spent working but a bit on playing and balancing. Not enough on the last two but I'm working at it. Also got some reading done which has been wonderful. A variety of selections including a new Destroyer Novel, David Gunn's new novel, "Why French Women don't Get Fat", "Never Eat Alone" and "Man's Search For Meaning". All good reads with interesting headstreaching. Ok not so much with the novels but variety is goodness. There are a few other bits swimming around now in my head. Looking for the best ways to take advantage of them.

I had Friday off for A's Birthday which was goodness. Got some time to relax and enjoy and cater to A for Mom's Fest 2008. I think I need to spend a bit more time catering to my girls, I had a blast doing it and it was a truely relaxing time. We got some shopping and grilling in yesterday, even though we had a no-nap day for Z.

Thinking and mixing ideas from what I've been reading this week. Lots more to explore and read and I'm once again by the idea of extracting ideas from Print. Sometimes it goes away, but I love it when it all comes back!

Prioritizing my reading

I have at any given time, a good stack of books to work through. I enjoy reading, and my subject matter has grown wider over time. But the question quickly becomes what to read first? Thinking about it tonight, I decided it all depends on my goal. There is a lot of material I want to cover, and not a lot of time available. I can at least think about what goals I want to reach and pick up something that matches that particular goal.

That said I got a nice haul from halfprice this week. A few business, personal development, investing and at least one fun read. Finding fiction is getting hard for me. I should really try and find more to try. That said, I'm finding lots of nonfiction that I find interesting that I enjoy digging into. Too much to learn and to experiment with. Just got to keep moving forward with what I can.

falling

behind or in line, I'm not really sure. Bouncing off of a couple of different priorities. I spent a bit too much time working Project A, but I think it is paying off. I need to balance out a bit and try and hit some of my other technical areas. I want to go back to my Project Zero Project and try it out on the Mac, but I've been a bit distracted. Haven't touched Quoteurltext, even though I got a really nice suggestion from a user who found me on FB.

I really need to figure out how I can implement a community for that plugin. Perhaps I can build one on Ning? Or host one on my own site. I like the idea of trying a community site. Maybe I will build it locally. Use PHPBoard or something similar.

Reading some interesting material on networking. Thinking about how to apply it.

new toy

Got a new laptop from work today. In a change from my normal linux laptops I'm piloting a MacBook Pro. I am still learning the ins and outs of it. Trying to get used to the keyboard and the feel of it. So far, I'm liking it. I got used to the multitouch trackpad faster than I thought I would. While I still miss the thinkpad eraser mouse, I do like the multitouch for scrolling. The placement of the keyboard really helps me avoid the accidental smacking of the touchpad that I get on most other laptops.

Am I converted to the cult of mac yet? Dunno. Day 1 has gone well, but I need to see what I like and what annoys me. I still have to install have my apps and I need to figure out what I want to keep on the dock. I know that there are lots of good mac apps out there that are interesting, so I need to search for them and get them started. Also want to get started with Virtualization on the Mac. Probably going with VMWare since most of my other images are VMWare, but I may try parallels for a little while. Biggest roadblock -- replacing visio. I do too much chartwork in Visio, now I need to find a good alternative.

Been spending some cycles on Facebook. Connecting to more and more friends there. A few surprises have shown up. Old friends I hadn't expected to see there, but Facebook is starting to be like New York City, stay in one place long enough and everyone shows up.

Alas poor blog

...I knew him well.

So this blog has been suffering from a lack of attention. Trying to maintain focus on Project A and some side notes to it has definitely decreased the amount of attention I am spending here. I am thinking about focusing on some specific topics that may make more sense in a different blog. I think I may maintain this as a metablog, discussing all the plans I'm putting into place, but keep targetted blogs and projects to move forward on other fronts. I need to learn more which requires some experimentation and mentoring. I'm willing to go heavy in the experimenting, but I am starting to recognize the value of mentoring. Reading an interesting book "Never Eat Lunch Alone" which is giving me better insight into leadership, mentoring and networking. Lots to consider.

thinking anywhere?

Out there in here, is there thinking anywhere?

Over the top busy with lots going on. Not much time to make progress on the different fronts. Project A is keeping me extremely busy. Trying to keep things in focus, but really getting pulled in too many directions.

Gonna crash and get some new perspective in the morning.

win for the day: pstree

a command that separates out processes from threads:

pstree

init─┬─NetworkManager───2*[{NetworkManager}]
├─NetworkManagerD
├─acpid
├─agnLogd───sh───agnLogArchive.t───tail
├─agnclientd───{agnclientd}
├─atd
├─atieventsd
├─avahi-daemon───avahi-daemon
├─bonobo-activati───{bonobo-activati}
├─console-kit-dae───61*[{console-kit-dae}]
├─cron
├─cupsd
├─2*[dbus-daemon]
├─dbus-monitor
├─dd
├─dhcdbd───dhclient
├─eclipse───sametime75─┬─_sametime_mon33───sleep
│ ├─xwatchidle-bin
│ └─53*[{sametime75}]
├─eclipse───notes2w─┬─lnotes─┬─nsdexec
│ │ ├─sametime_idlemo
│ │ ├─taskldr───4*[{taskldr}]
│ │ └─13*[{lnotes}]
│ ├─sametime_idlemo
│ ├─watchscreensave─┬─dbus-monitor
│ │ ├─sametime_mongss
│ │ └─sleep
│ └─42*[{notes2w}]
├─evolution-data-───2*[{evolution-data-}]
├─evolution-excha───{evolution-excha}
├─fast-user-switc
├─firefox───10*[{firefox}]
├─gconfd-2
├─gdm───gdm─┬─Xorg───Xorg
│ └─x-session-manag─┬─bluetooth-apple
│ ├─evolution-alarm───{evolution-alarm}
│ ├─gnome-panel
│ ├─gnome-settings-─┬─pulseaudio─┬─gconf-helper
│ │ │ └─2*[{pulseau+
│ │ └─{gnome-settings-}
│ ├─metacity
│ ├─nautilus───{nautilus}
│ ├─nm-applet
│ ├─2*[python]
│ ├─seahorse-agent
│ ├─tracker-applet
│ ├─trackerd───2*[{trackerd}]
│ ├─update-notifier
│ └─{x-session-manag}
├─gedit
├─6*[getty]
├─gnome-keyring-d
├─gnome-power-man
├─gnome-screensav
├─gnome-terminal─┬─bash───pstree
│ ├─bash───ssh
│ ├─gnome-pty-helpe
│ └─{gnome-terminal}
├─gnome-volume-ma
├─gvfs-fuse-daemo───3*[{gvfs-fuse-daemo}]
├─gvfsd
├─gvfsd-burn
├─gvfsd-trash
├─hald───hald-runner─┬─hald-addon-acpi
│ ├─hald-addon-cpuf
│ ├─hald-addon-inpu
│ └─hald-addon-stor
├─hcid───2*[bluetoothd-serv]
├─klogd
├─mixer_applet2───{mixer_applet2}
├─multiload-apple
├─nmbd
├─smbd───smbd
├─soffice.bin───5*[{soffice.bin}]
├─sshd
├─syslogd
├─system-tools-ba
├─thinkpad-keys
├─trashapplet
├─udevd
├─vmnet-bridge
├─2*[vmnet-dhcpd]
├─vmnet-natd
├─2*[vmnet-netifup]
├─vmware-serverd
└─xinetd

consistency of posting

My consistency of posting has definitely dropped off since I left the challenge. I think I may need to re-challenge myself :)

Still getting some head space organized. Realized I need some time away to get my thoughts in order, but recognize that isn't happening anytime soon. So going to try and muddle thru with what I have.

fun run

Well not really a run, just a run of days. Project A was keeping me busy thru the 3rd. On the Fourth had an excellent celebration with the family. Z was very social talking with the family and hanging out with different folks. Her cousins love to show her love -- which is nice for the older ones but worrisome with some of the younger ones :)

Today spent the day helping a friend move. It was a good workout and some creative thinking to get furniture up the stairs. A fine time overall, I enjoyed it.
Relaxing now and fiddling with some side projects. Hope to do some Zero work and do some fiddling with some firefox plugins.

Changes Around

Quote of the Day - Muhammad Ali - "He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."

I find this an interesting quote as I hear of another of my circle of contacts taking a big leap to new worlds. So far I've had two coworkers leaving for other companies, one here, one in Seattle; I've got a friend who's moving to another state to a job that aligns better with their life goals. I have another friend who is giving up an INCREDIBLE job to lead up another organization in a bid to improve the world. Quite frankly, it's inspiring what's going on around me.

Which makes me wonder what am I doing?

shaking in up!

Lots of fun cool stuff going on. Trying to wrap my head around it, so looking at where to start. So much going on I'm starting to get a little stuck on what to do next or where to turn my attention. I just need to slip things back a bit. Relax my focus so that I can take in the big picture, then sharpen and focus on what I want to do next.

I have an idea for a last minute entry for the Firefox 3 content. I may join, I may skip it. we'll see. Got stopped working on my PZero paper by some distractions from that corner of the world. We'll see where life leads then.

This came from Joe and provides what seems to be good advice on blogging. I'll try to apply it as well as I can.

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A few flying ideas ...

but very few landing.

I want to use the Cake Framework to store my current reads and maintain the data local to my web site. I'd also like to cross post this information to my 43 Things, my Amazon account and a few other places. The local publish is easy. The remote publish shouldn't be too bad as each of those destinations support a REST interface.

Also have a few ideas for Firefox Plugins that should be simple to implement if I can just remember the details. Need to pick up the pace on my Zero Article. Still haven't finished the application, more database work to do. Found a good hint in the Project Zero discussion forums I'm going to try and take advantage of.

how many roads must a man walk down?

... and how many sites must a grown man have?

Ok, perhaps there is a such things as too much. I have the following sites:

• Jay.Palat.net
• Slackers
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Thinking Out There
• QuoteURLText
• Resume

I suspect I'm going to grow this list before the summer is out, and adding feed related info.

Blargh.

Insomnia is a bit of a pain. Having trouble sleeping two nights in a row is bad news all around.

On the plus side, got a new side project done. I rewrote my homepage. I developed a new look and wrote it up using CakePHP. It took a few tries, but I got it todo what I wanted. Some portions were fairly underdocumented, like using the webroot to serve files. Once I figured out how webroot worked, my last piece fell into place. I have reached a little beyond parity with the old site.

I have a few ideas that I may want to try next.

• Set my reading list as a database
• Modify a version of quoteurltext to save to a Cake Plugin.
• JavaScript updates -- rollover previews of menu items from the mainpage

Also have some cleanup to do, including fixing the stylesheets, and tightening up some of the html. Still, pretty happy with the effort and the time it took.

Purposing this blog

So I started reading the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell, a good start so far and I look forward to seeing where he goes with all the rules. I just finished the 3rd rule, the Rule of Process. The point of the rule is that leadership, like many things in life takes time and care. It is the daily preparations and work that lead to the overall win. Like the Dynamic Path Maxwell emphasizes the need for continuous improvement. Evaluating one's progress on a daily basis and striving to improve every day. Continuous practice and work can pay dividends.

So what does this have to do with purposing this blog? I am going to use this blog as my experiment log. I will record my plans, execute and evaluate here. Keeping it public to give myself some accountability. We'll see how it goes.

On to article two, or part two whichever to call it. Still more articles in the pipe so I need to get writing. Made some good progress last night and today. Finally got my head wrapped around the ZRM. The basics are easy, now just need to figure out do the stuff they left out of the examples. I think my article will show how to do LCRUD with ZRM in order to get to where I want to be. I can feel the edges of the groove now, so hopefully the writing will go faster.

Drained

Slept well, but just a few too many calls today. Need to recuperate.

If I ever need to go to a cube, I nomimate this one.

busy weekend

Let's see lots going on. Had a happy father's day today. Kicked of with the Pittsburgh Father's Day 5k -- Did a decent time I clocked 29 minutes 26 seconds. About a minute better than my Greenfield Glide time, keeping a much steadier pace. Average pace was about a 9 minute 30 second mile. I am much happier about how I kept the pace. I expect to do much worse with a poor night's sleep and some stomache issues. Neither turned out to be a terrible hinderance. I do need to get more practice in as I think my worst problem was a lack of confidence. Not having the mile markers on the course to get a feel for how fast I was going was a big minus.

Had a dinner with A's family in the evening which was nice. Ate well, but not too horribly. Spent time talking with folks and playing with Z. Z hasn't slept much today, and got up extra early, so she's to bed a bit early. A plan I plan to follow!

Saturday was busy with errands. Hit up Half Price Books and got a nice mix of stuff. Picked up a copy of Book 6 of the Bone color graphic novels, one of the New Destroyer Adventures, a business book : Never Eat Lunch Alone, and a Men's Health 2008 exercise guide. I've read thru the exercise guide. Some good advice and exercise plans I look forward to trying. An excellent article on montivation for exercise that I plan to keep in mind. Also an article on LeBron James focused on career/personal development. The young man has done alot, by taking his natural talent and applying a ton of focus. He is on the Dynamic Path. Some inspiring ideas to work forward with. My favorite bit: Instead of asking "what do I want to do with my life?" he asks "What am I doing with my life?" This skews the focus in a direction of proactive work.

Other items: picked up a new Xul Workbench for eclipse, and giving it a test run. Tried QuoteURLText with FF3.0rc1, looks good so updated it on the site to handle the new version. Looking forward to playing with that again.

Need to get my Zero work and my DataPower Projects up and running. Also catch up on follow up items from Project A. Busy week ahead, but some up sides I look forward to exploring.

A week off

And back at it.

Projects are swarming me like biplanes on King Kong.

Lots of good stuff to play with. Lots of opportunities to try things out. Not a lot of time to execute. Can you see a problem here? Or perhaps a trend. Not sure. Working out of the hole will be an interesting experience. Working on Paper number 3 slowly while I try and cobble together some other projects at work.

Realized how much I want to spend more time with my daughter. I may need to reconsider my work from work goal.

Found this while cleaning browser tabs. Oddly appropriate. I need to think about how I focus my attention. One of my homepages uses this quote as the header:

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. -Herbert Alexander Simon, economist, Nobel laureate (1916-2001) "

I think I need to really think about where I spend my attention. Attention is now more valuable than time, and I should treat it as such.

90 Posts

So this is a little later than I intended.

Of course I thought I was going to send that 2 days ago. And then I thought I would post this yesterday. So much for that intent.

Well this is post number 90. By a few different metrics I've made my goal to post for 3 months. It has been an interesting experience. I'm not sure what I want to do with this next. I found some value of thinking things out on a blog. As I haven't shared this site with many people, I can't tell how much I should value how well it does as a communications tool. Overall, I'm happy with the experiment. I didn't think I had 90 days of posts in me, I'm glad to see I was wrong!

We'll see where my writing habit will take me next. My article is online and has made the Top Story for the WebSphere Category. The writing has been fun, and I look forward to doing more.

back and forth...

So read a really great book the other day "The Dynamic Path" by Jim Citrin. It was a present from some friends of our as part of a Mother's Day package. VERY interesting book. It helps shed some light on career growth and development. Essentially Citrin captures a very interesting path: From Champion, to Leader to a Legacy. Citing examples in sports, business and public service Citrin identifies people who made the transitions from Champion individual contributers to leaders and from leaders of a circle of people to leaders who leave a legacy. I can see how these ideas apply in the technical field. Within IBM there are many technical champions, and then there are technical leaders (STSMs, DEs) but at the top of the career chain are those who have left a legacy in technology. These are the IBM Fellows. They have changed the course of the industry by leaving a legacy. I am sure other companies have similar traits and paths.

I think I have found my way thru to be recognized as an individual contributor, but now I need to think and grow as a leader. It is a segement of my role that I'm still learning in. I confess I still like doing the things that got me recognized as a Champion, but I think I need to keep growing myself. That means working harder as a leader and building those skills.

That said, there are other things in my life that I want to focus on. I've been really horrible at my social life for the past few years. I'm starting to connect to people again, on places like Facebook. I'm slowing trying to grow my social circle again. Still needs work.

I'd like to work on that a bit more. I need to get in shape. I saw some pictures of me and realized -- Wow, I'm still really out of shape! I've made some great improvements, but I still have a good ways to go. My healthy weight is about 20 lbs lighter than where I am now. I can fix this. It just took a bit more realization.

Most important to me right now is spending time with Zoe and Amy. She is growing up much faster than I'm ready for. 9 months have gone by SO FAST! Soon other milestones will be blown by. I don't want to miss any of them. The past few days I found a groove that I was happy with. I think I can continue on that track and make progress. Will I continue to hone my leadership skills and career plans... probably, there is some intersection with my goals there. But I think I need to make sure I keep the rest of my life going as well. And look for opportunities to build my skills in other spaces.

Greenfield Glide & other health.

Greenfield Glide went out this morning. Did an ok performance. Really happy with my first mile, ok with the second and disappointed with the third. Did my first mile in 8 minutes 4 seconds, second mile was clocked at 17:48 (9:30) and completed at around 30:30. So average time per mile is probably around 9:45. A little slower than I wanted but I pushed things a little too fast at the beginning. Lesson learned and something I can apply to the Father's Day 5k in 2 weeks. While I was a little disappointed with the 3rd mile, I do I can learn to push myself a bit farther to try and get that 8 minutes for longer. It would be nice to finish out the Great Race with an 8 minute mile. It is good to have goals to train for. The biggest setback was getting a stick after about a mile and a half from breathing hard. It made the last hill a little too tough, so I ended up slowing down to walk a bit. I'll need to start running my inital mile faster to try and get past that.

I'm also looking at building up my strength training again. June is a new month and I'm resolving myself to hit the workouts a bit harder this month. I've found a plan that looks interesting to me. I will follow the plan for the next 6 weeks, then find another plan and continue. If I can setup a new plan every 6 weeks I think I can make some good improvements.

Making a goal to eat better. I'm fairly horrible at eating on track, with more than a few regressions in the past few months. June is the 6th month of the year, and I've been slacking since Thanksgiving. I can do better and I will. Heavy on the fruits and veggies, more protein, and less processed carbs. Drink more water! These goals are not hard to meet, and I enjoy eating well, they just take a little more effort. Fruits I like are now coming in season so time to enjoy!

Broke from Vegas!

I had a nice set of habits that were apparently not perfect habits yet that disappeared when I was in Vegas and have yet to reassert themselves nicely. The ones I miss the most: Good eating habits, exercise habit and blogging. I'm SLOWLY getting back on the eating track.

I'm doing really baddly on the exercise track, but I think that one has been down for awhile. I think I'll go and do the Bodyweight 500 program again. I've also busted out my weights again, so I can start lifting on a regular basis. I'm running at least once a week, but I want to try and get more intervals in. Maybe I can mix it up with running and biking. I want to try biking to work one of these days. Doing a race tomorrow, the Greenfield Glide 5k. I ran it last year in 35:17.7 at an average pace of 11:23/M. I've inproved a good deal since then. I think I can do a 10 minute mile easy, so I'm shooting for a 9:30/M in this race. I really need to tone up the exercise and resume the good eating habits. I want to drop another 15 lbs this year. I think I can do it, but I need to start putting some effort back into it again.

As to the blogging, I suppose I could excuse myself and say I've been writing in other places, but to be honest I've just been forgetting. I need to start making my blogging habit a priority again. Posting earlier in the day instead of leaving it for last would help.
That said, I think I'm starting to find my writing groove again. I need to keep working it. I have a few articles I've got planned, I just need to execute now.

Done!

Article is over to the editor. I have the next article lined up so going to start writing soon. I set a goal of 10 articles this year, and that seems really unrealistic at the moment. I think I need to work with others to try and make that happens as I don't think I can get to 10 articles on my own. We'll see though.

back..

Came in last night dead to the world. Had a great trip out East, but now I'm back. Fridge is stocked with a bit of junk as we came in dead, so grabbed a pizza. Also brought home a cheesesteak from Michael's. Is teh goodness as they say on the interweb. Looking to catch up with the world and then get rolling in some new directions. Started reading the book Susan sent me and it made me realize focus some plans that had been floating about. I have some items to focus on, starting with time planning, but going in to training and weight loss as well as work progress. The new book has given me some insight into all of it. Just need to look at how to proceed.

slacking again

Out of town for the weekend, so avoiding the pc thing as much as possible. Will probably post some more when I get back. Maybe.

Moving on

Draft is completed, but still feeling incomplete. Going to try and get a bit further with my Zero experiments. Hopefully I'll be able to get an app working in Zero. Next step will then be to chose the next project to turn to next. I suspect it will be related to virtualization, either in the cloud or perhaps building a VMWare image for use with Zero, either for my use or general use.

For the last few months I've been in a bit of malaise about what I was doing, but at the moment I feel myself getting engaged with different ideas and projects and it is really giving me a lot of energy.

outta juice

spent too much time the last few days on paper and work. Need some cycles to recover. May just call it an early night.

hd antics

Last night, got home to edit my paper, boot the laptop.. and hung. Ubuntu wasn't happily sharing my desktop with me. It was having issues booting. After panicing a few times a reboot restored things. So spent the rest of the night identifying what I want to keep and moving it off.

Didn't finish it off, but got enough that if it died today I wouldn't miss too much. Still have more to try and move off, but at least I can get started on this machine. I'm bringing up a new laptop faster that I intended, but up it must come.

New box is Ubuntu 8.04. Looks nice, still getting a handle on it all. No VMWare from Canonical yet, but I have found workarounds for it. New graphics look cool, but after trying them out, I shut'em off again. Starting to play with screenlets, but I'll let that play out over time.

Article is coming along nicely and I'm having fun playing with the different tech. Experimenting with the gadgets and fiddling with Zero/sMash feed flows actually works out pretty well. I may play with this further to build some interesting feeds and flows to do something interesting. But for now the playing is good enough.

I've got my eye on a few future projects, but I am trying to keep it real by focusing on one project at a time. Making a point of keeping only 8 hours to Project A (my official work project). And then taking any extra cycles towards my fun projects. It seems to be working better for me.

Offline...and back to the future

Spent two days offline. Friday, just to stay away from the internet. Saturday, spent the time on the pc drilling down on a new article. One of my goals this year was to write more, and between this blog and a few ideas I have, I think I'll make good on this goal.

Working out how I want to handle the rest of the year. Building plans for the next 3 months. I need to figure out what I want to prioritize, and then start moving forward. Some items (in order)

• Make time everyday for A & Z
• Make health a priority
  
• Entering racing season, I want to get more runs in per week
• I've been slacking on my strength training. Got to get back to a balanced routine
• Eat well. Cut the junk further
• Sleep!
  
• Writing and IC. Make time to read, absorb and write. The daily writing to the blog is a good start,but I need to start writing earlier in the day, rather than just at the end. Write more articles and practice towards a book.

This is how I want to prioritize my time over the next few months. Z is already 8 month old, and that went by way to fast. We found a video recording we made the 1st week she was home. She's changed so much since then, and I'm not willing to miss too much more. I will enjoy that time. The health and fitness gives me base to build the rest of my life on. If I'm sick or tired, I can't get anything done, so I need to prioritize taking care of myself and getting a strong foundation to build everything else on. Exercise is also a good way to reinforce focus. When I exercise I think about what I'm doing and I don't let my mind wander too far. To drive all the things I want to get done, focus is the key.

The Writing and IC is a mental form of exercise. Exploring new ideas and communicating them is critical. Having a great idea but not being able to share it with others is worthless. I'd like to play with more ideas and start mixing them up.

grinding forward

Getting a handle on things again. The break was good, now I can focus a bit more. Still need to start up some of the other good habits. My exercise habit has drifted way south of where I want it to be. Trying some morning pushups, but really I need to start the full body work outs again. Part of that is a reference to needing to clean up my workout area, a project I think I can tackle this weekend. It feels good to have some projects behind me that I can focus forward again. I have a bunch of things starting to pile up, but we'll see what else I can add to the story.

whirlwhinded

Too much going on, but flowing in the right direction. Trying to cap things from getting too out of control and maintain some sense of balance. Not sure if I'm succeeding, but I'm trying. Putting a few irons in the fire to see what comes. We'll see if anything comes of it all.

mixing and other items.

So yesterday was pretty much just a pure quote but I think it reflects my thinking a good bit. I think I'll do a small remix exercise to turn into a mashup exercise. Lots of good information there to pick thru and reuse.

Got the P0/sMash Milestone 7 to run the Web Based IDE today. Works pretty well. Working on transforming it into something interesting now. Lots of new plans and ideas forming and growing. Realizing now that I need to bring more to work now to survive there. Reading Work-Life Balancing and recognizing how much I need to keep my passion in my work. Not by trying to be passionate about my Project A, but rather keeping side projects that reflect my passions and get me going. Time to remix my job.

Quick Mix Theory 101

From The Pirate's Dilemma

Ingredients:

• A big idea (this doesn't have to be your own; a borrowed one will do);
  
• An idea of who is on your dance floor (Audience)
• A handful of other people's ideas (chopped up)
• A pinch of originality

Directions:
1. Take your big idea. This can be something you've worked on, thinking about, have, or want. If you are on a train it could be the seat under you, or the girl opposite's earrings. It really doesn't matter; literally anything will do. This is your base, the subject you're going to remix.
2. Break the idea down into its component parts. In a song that would mean the drums, base line, strings, vocals, etc. Separate out the things that work and don't work. If this was a dub version of a record, we'd lose the vocals and turn up the drums and bass. If it's the seat on the train is it comfy? Aesthetically pleasing? What is it made of? How are the parts joined together? Pare it down -- look at what's good and what's deadwood.
3. Next, think about the end users, your dance floor, the people consuming your remix. Who are they? What do they want? How can you reedit the base, the way Tom Moulton did,to better suit their needs? IF the seat on the train, what would you need to do to it to put it in a trendy bar? How could you repurpose it so it was right for an old folks home? Who are the people on your dance floor? What keeps them moving? What causes them to walk away? How are you going to make them go crazy?
4. Now look at your base again. Maybe there was an element you missed that would work really well or something that, on second thought you overestimated. If it's a record,a producer might think he needs louder bass, less treble, or more cowbell. DJ Kool Herc focused soley on using the break beats in disco and funk records, because this was the only part of the record his audience of break dancers was interested in. If it's the train seat for the old folks' home, maybe you need to think about that lower back support. The remix is about taking an idea and making it suitable for a whole new audience.
5. The idea should already look very different, but we're just getting started. What you've done so far is a simple reedit. Now it's time to apply some quick mix theory. Go back to your dance floor, look at the other ideas out there that get it moving and sample them. Line up your idea your idea next to other things your audience seems to be into. When Afrika Bambaataaa and Arthur Baker made "Planet Rock," their base was two records by the German group Kraftwerk, which where popular in New York at the time. But they also knew the punks and disco kids downtown liked hip-hop and the uptown hip-hop heads were feeling disco breaks, so they sampled elements from records that alread had these ingredients, and reused them to hook in these two different crowds.
Look at your new samples the same way you look at your base, chery-pick the best elements, and discard the rest. Once you have them distilled, work out how you an apply these new ingredients. Our old folks' train seat hybrid might benefit from a set of wheels, so why not mix it up with a golf cart? Or mash it up with a La-Z-Boy to make it more comfy, or even add some hopped-up hydraulics from a muscle car to help people get in and out of it more easily, controlled with technology our audience is already used to, swiped straight from a Craftmatic adjustable bed. Where will these new samples all sit in the mix? Once they're in and it's working, stand back and take another look.
6. The idea you are now looking at can be considered a remix, a new original arrangement that contains elements from previous original works or works. Through good reediting of samples, great new original material can be produced from unoriginal parts. But just like Bam and Arthur added rapping and a drum machine to their samples, throwing in something completely original isn't a bad idea. A good remix is defined by its signature original isn't a bad idea. A good remix is defined by its signature original elements. It might be composing a new base line, playing some in some new keys, or adding a new kick drum. You may decide the originality is already there; an original process or take on sampled materials counts. Or you may end up with one tiny piece of the original mixed with an entirely new score of your own. Either way, your originality should outshine the borrowed elements, or at the very least, present them ina new light. A good remix adds value to something. If everything has gone right, you should now have a new idea that contains elements from, but is independent of, the original. The new idea is a remix. Garnish and serve.

Back!

After a week in Vegas, I have returned! Technically got back two days ago, but really getting back in gear. Ran the Race for the Cure this morning. Took it easy and managed a 33 minute 42 second run. Averaged around an 11 minute mile, but I wasn't pushing much after a week in Vegas plus the enormous crowd of people. It was a fun little run that I got to run along with my wife's sister-in-law. Look forward to a few more races this year, and getting back in the running habit.

Catching up with life, and spending time with Zoe and Amy. Did a good bit of reading which I will be writing up here hopefully in the next few days. Also managed to build a HUGE to read pile, that I look forward to taking apart. Now that I have finished up my lab experience, looking forward to focusing on other projects.

Slower posting that I thought. Good sessions today. WSTC is getting a bit worn. Just too much going on to get enthused. Got sick again today, but felt better after a bit of a rest. Need to spend some time tomorrow polishing my presentation an lab.

must...

...stop... ellipses...

Just realized that the last few posts have had a few too many ellipses and had to stop it as only Kirk could stop them.

In other news, spent some time reading and pondering on the plane. Came to a conclusion of sorts. I thought about what I want to do with this blog. I started thinking about the good life. What makes a good life? What would make my life good? What does it take to live good? To Live good. This is not just the consumption of goods, but more the mix of what is good living? What are my values and my priorities. It kind falls into the space of inquiry that I've started with different directions in my life. More on this after more reflection.

and...

we're good.

Posting should continue for the rest of the week.

with luck...

I'll post again in a few hours.

Otherwise, expect a week free of posting :)

reading...

Reading list for the next week:
The Not So Big Life
Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
The Pirate's Dilemma

Perhaps a leadership book as well?

Counting down...

Not as happy as I was hoping to be with the lab. I'll live with it. I really feel crushed at the moment with too many things I owe to too many people. Calling a late night again, hopefully the last one for a while.

these late nights...

are not conducive to much beyond getting sick. Going to crash soon. The new parts for my lab look good. My lab presentation needs a good bit of work, but will try and get that done tommorow. Taking a half day to spend some time with Z & A Friday. So much going on. Can't wait for Wednesday to be over!

brainfried

Grr.. when will I learn that trading sleep for work will never pay off well !?!

Too many flying objects at the moment, with many a plan going to fruition. Some ripe, some less that ripe, and some very rotten. I am a victem of my own success. Need to work on that moving forward.

Had a decent career meeting with my manager today. Spent most of it look at his new toy. I'll blog about it if I ever get one, but it was fun to help.

better late than... ?

A double yesterday, doesn't really cover today, but working until 1 AM, I'll cut myself some slack. Lots of things shifting around today. Got a bunch of different tasks added to the todo list. I got a few of the paired away, and I see a direction to reduce the flow of some of the others, but I have a good deal to take care of still.

T-minus 4 days til Vegas. Lots to do and not much time! I got a few of my article ideas approved, so now I need to do some playing and some writing. Opportunity knocks all the time.

Last thought of the night

"Where does the time go?" and "Where do I want it to go?" are becoming more important to me. I think I need a way to measure -- what can I do in 30 minutes? in 15? In 5? I don't have a strong timesense. Something I need to work on. Not to overinstrument and abuse, but making sure that I'm putting the hours to what I consider important.

I need to figure out where I can put the 30 minutes to do the most good for my goals, my family and my world.

All sorts of good stuff...

Got a couple of good things running in my head as I try and get my presentations out the door

Part way thru the Pirate's Dilemma [blog] -- chock full of good references to the Punk DIY style of creation. Learning the way piracy can help change the world is interesting. The remix section alone was worth the price of entry for me -- understanding the history of the remix and a quick recipe that will help my writing one I get a grip on it.

Watched this video by way of Warren Ellis on Clay Shirkey's talk on Cognitive Surplus.



So much interesting thought here that's all running together. Starting to see a few ideas coalesce together. Just need to get things running!

Reflective surfaces

Heads in an odd spot this morning so going with it to see where it goes. I have a meeting with my manager this week to discuss my career as part of my annual planning. A week after my birthday seems like I should be doing some thinking about my plans for life as well. I'm vaguely surprised that I've turned into someone who wants to have a 5 year plan, but life is full of surprises. I am waking to a world of ambitions and dreams. Most fairly pedestrian but I'm starting to see the value of dreaming big. What does it take to feel alive? Attention and focus. Go figure. So it pays to be careful with where and what I spend my time on.

A strange phrase "Spend my time", like I consume time like I consume goods. Figuring out how I consume my money and time seem to be well linked but a direction I would like to decouple. I realize now that I can be a bit frivolous towards my money. I can do better at consuming less but enjoying life more.

But I digress. I have a great deal of thinking to do and planning to take care of, but most importantly I need a way to look at how I execute, when I execute and measure and react to what I do.

last call...

I've got seven days until I fly to Vegas for the conference. I want to finish it up in six. Got some changes in the last 24 hours to keep things interesting. Looking to see what I need to get done in the next week -- it'll be interesting. Things will get better in 2 weeks. Ubuntu 8.04 is out. This is the latest Long Term Support version (LTS). Good to know. In two weeks I'll be able to wipe my loaner laptop and install 8.04. It is looking good. Looking forward to trying out some new features including google gadget integration. Google Gadgets is looking like a larger and larger part of my future.

resetting the track

Got a bit of a change in my lab for WSTC. Need to refactor my plan for what I want to cover and how I want to cover it. Got a query for some work on a side topic which looks interesting. I may delve into it. Post more as the opportunity presents itself.

1 down...

Completed my Agile talk for WSTC -- getting some feedback from my peers, but essentially done. Still need to work on the rest of my lab. Finished up a networking tutorial. Next up is going to be doing a bit more work with Xen, then some more focus on VMWare. Some time soon I will post a note about running xen images in vmware. But that is for another day.

Twice in a week?!

Granted it was exactly a week -- but still. Got sick last night and just crashed about an hour after I got home. I'll try to post extra today to catch up.

ajax rpg

Yay for the interweb and a blow against idea rot.

I had nothing to do with this, it was done completely independently of me, I just had the same idea a few years ago. Did I do anything with it? No. Should I have? Maybe. But it is a great idea and I'm glad some one implemented it. I look forward to tracking the progress on it.

To be clear, the closest I ever came to this was a few sketches on a piece of paper. No code, no implementation, just a series of thoughts. Coming up with a good idea is fairly easy. Turning it into a reality is a good bit tougher. I need to work on focusing myself and executing better. Thinking of an idea is a good start, but execution is the only thing that counts. Innovation is best served by a execution over planning.

focus on forward

So spent a good chunk of the weekend relaxing. Running a little late this year on my annual review. I'm running at full throttle on too many topics at the moment. I suspect that is what I need to figure out for the next year, how to recognize and prioritize what is important to me, and how to get rid of the tasks that don't fit in that category. The key is going to be better leadership skills. Both learning to delegate and say 'no'. I need to think about where I want to grow and focus on those areas, but at the same time find a way to stay organic in my growth.

My current position doesn't leave me a great deal of room to grow in new directions. I need to stop running to get my bearings and figure out if I'm getting closer to my goals or running in the wrong directions! I think I need to do this at multiple levels, on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. I don't want to burn out on the things that interest me. I don't want to waste the time that I have, because that's all the time I have.

yasp

Yet another short Post!

I received a copy of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture and read thru it today. Very interesting read. Good advice on living. I need to examine it again and pull out more interesting bits to discuss.

half day

Took a half day today. Enjoyed the afternoon hanging about with Z. Much more relaxing and useful than what I normally do with a Friday Afternoon. I think I need a way to turn this into a common practice rather than the rare event.

posting

just for postings sake.

I had expected to be writing a bit more these days in terms of self reflection, but work has me concentrating too much on .. well work! I need to take some time to consider what I want to do for the next year. Think about my longer term goals and the steps I want to take to get there. For now I think I just want to call it a night.

Doh

Missed it again. Started a post last night then got distracted. But two misses in 2 months doesn't seem so bad. In high gear trying to get all my presentations together. Need to get a few more things done in the next two weeks.

Was hoping to attend a web 2.0 session tommorow, but that seems to be dropping out the window. We'll see what the time brings.

Inbox Zero

So in the Getting Things Done paradigm, there is a goal of keeping your inbox empty. Strict email management should be used to make sure that your inbox is kept empty, and all new items are immediately addressed.

I am failing at this. I came close in January, but I am quickly falling behind. I can manage the SPAM just fine. Trying to get rid of the 'bacon' in my inbox, is getting better. But I still have a ton of mail to deal with. I need to be a bit more critical of my inbox and either deal with it faster or wipe it out. It just amounts to another version of clutter. I suppose I could nuke the whole inbox but I suspect the fallout would not be worth the price.

On piracy and free support

While no one probably cares, I have on occasion used pirated software. On more than a few occasions I have built a machine using a copy of Windows that I have not purchased, but was purchased by someone else. I have reformed! Learned my lesson, I will no longer pirate Windows. Between the new anti-pirating features and the availability of free software, I no longer use Windows. I've been using Linux at home for a number of years and I think I just hit two years of Linux exclusively at work. I admit there are a few programs I miss. And the gaming has been horrible, but for the most part I don't miss it too much. OK, on occasion I'll admit the VMWare image does come out for use on replicating customer issues, or some Visio Presentations.

But Microsoft no longer has to worry about me pirating a copy of Windows. Which is great for them, isn't it? I used to think it would be but I'm less sure now. My brother-in-law is looking for a new computer, in years past I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a good Windows machine and that would be that. Now, I'm not so sure. I'll probably need to help tech-support this machine in the future. I'm not using Vista, how can I support it well? His family doesn't need much beyond support for Email and Web Games. So why not a Mac? They are a bit more expensive. No doubt. I can get a cheaper Dell, or Lenovo or HP, but what is the overhead for using Windows? If we were talking Laptops, I'd be closer to going with Windows. I could support them on a Linux box, but I'm not sure if they want to go that far. Firefox works just as well with either system and thunderbird or Gmail would take care of their email needs. The kids don't game all that much, and might be happier using the PS2 for games rather than the Computer. Something to discuss with them I suppose.

Good Company

Sweet deal! My Inove flashlight died while I was in RTP. This is one of my favorite EDC, so I was a bit bummed about it. I sent an email to Inova to try and see if it would be covered by a warrenty. I got a GREAT response from them very quickly:

I’m sorry to hear that you are experiencing problems with your INOVA T1 flashlight.

All of our INOVA flashlights carry a limited lifetime warranty. We will be more than happy to replace your flashlight for you. Simply return your flashlight in a box including a brief description of the problem you are experiencing.
We have just recently released our brand new, upgraded 2008 T1. The new T1-MP light has been increased to 100 lumens. We will replace your current T1-WB with the new improved upgraded
T1-MP. I think you will be very pleased with your new flashlight.

I'm sending it back this week, but I was really impressed with their service and response.

review.

A week done, on to the weekend. Last week I started asking where I'll be in 5 weeks. Am I closer to any of my goals? I feel I've got mixed progress.

I've been slacking on the exercise. I need to get that one back in the bag. I've gotten closer to getting my lab running I have only 1 more section to work with. Of course that's the key part, but I'll handle that another day. I think I'm starting to get a stride together with work. A few more weeks of the heavy stuff and then I can relax a bit more.

I'm also starting to get a feel for where I want to be going next in different areas. Not concrete enough for goals, but on the way there. The vision is starting to coalesce. More to do, more to learn and more to execute on but I think the path is the right one.

short one.

Fried after a long day. Just keeping it short with some interesting links.

Super Mario in javascript.

Project Zero is taking on a new metamorphosis to WebSphere sMash. Expect more content on this from me when I get some more cycles. The short of it is a new platform for doing fast Web 2.0 development, writing in Java, Groovy or PHP. A just in time model closer to PHP than AppServer.

48 Posts ... more or less

This brings us to about half way through the 3 month goal. To be honest I'm surprised at how easy this turned out to be. The last time I had made a goal to do blog posting I got about a week in and fizzled out :) So keeping a good steam going this time. Guess I have more to carp about than I thought. Taking the time to post every day didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought it would be. Is this a habit I'll take on after the challenge... maybe?

Still a lot to say and do, and it is a time commitment. But I think it can be good commitment, the exploration and reflection on whatever I take the time to write about is helping me keep my head in the right space. I think I could get more ambitious about setting themes and goals in the blog. Writing on everything is easy. Writing on topic... slightly harder. But then again if it was easier, then it really wouldn't be a challenge would it?

Another possible next step is to turn the monologue into a dialog and start advertising my blog out to others. Having a way of communicating with the world really is good, but if I'm not advertising it, am I really communicating with the world?

Leadership and Management

Read a great post yesterday distinguishing between leadership and management. At the heart is the concept that for an organization to be successful they need to balance between leadership and management. Leadership bringing innovation and the ability to deal with change, and management as bringing a drive to minimize complexity.

I am starting to understand a bit more about what leadership means, both to myself and to my company. I'm kinda split between trying to tread carefully and to experiment more. Although I suppose experimenting on the job is a leadership related trait :)

Too many thoughts and projects I'd like to try, but not enough cycles to experiment with them all. I think this is the sort of thing where leadership pays off. Being able to convince and recruit people to my ideas would be helpful. As a technical leader I need to be able to express my ideas better, and as a people leader, get people behind those ideas. Building a vision of what I want the world or the work to be requires me to understand my drives and the requirements that world provides.

blog part deux?

Thinking about starting a secondary blog. One that I would post too a little less often but focused on technical concerns. This would be a place to reflect on my day-to-day experiments and experiences with coding and technology. A place to document what I've discovered, tried etc. I suppose I could pull it all into this blog, but I don't think I want to cross post too much. While I still haven't mastered a theme for this blog, I have started thinking of it as a certain personae.

On further reflection, perhaps I am skirting a theme. I'm almost leaning towards personal development here. Not as cool as the Post-Apocalyptic workout, but then what is? It is a theme that is striking a chord with me at the moment. Perhaps I need to be bolder with it, chart a direction then measure my progress. Something to ponder anyway.

I guess it all depends on what I want to communicate with the world. I'll say this, after 47 posts in a row, I'm feeling pretty good about keeping the line open. I just need to figure out what to say with it. Seth Godin makes some good points on keeping a focus on the message you want to transmit. I don't think I have a message here, yet. I think this is really just an experiment with a habit. So maybe a second technical journal is the way to go. A place where I have messages I want to send.

And here I thought I was done with the existential questions. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? A good deal of my reading of late has been focused on leadership and simplicity. Both really stem from an examination of values. If the values are bad, then nothing good can follow. If values are ignored then it seems we live in a vacuum of one form or another. We end up with Enron like situations in leadership, and tons of clutter in the search for simplicity. To extrapolate that in technical leadership if we do not stick to our values we end up with overloaded crappy software. This smacks of another theme for investigation -- what are my technical values? What do I consider important as an architect, developer and technical leader? Are these different values from what I do in the other aspects of my life?

Started the day early -- Z couldn't quite decide if she was up, which left her in cranky, noisy state. Fortunately she got settled back in for a nap. Unfortunately I didn't settle back in. Instead got my run going. Did the Schenley Loop in 44 minutes 32 seconds. I may be creaky tommorow but that wasn't too bad. I'm going for distance and time, figuring I'll pick up speed later. I did a good 25 minute run, followed by 5 minutes walking, then 12 minutes of run, then a run walk cycle of much shorter intervals. Still not bad for a Sunday morning. Need to try and get some good runs in this week as well.

Interesting article titled Death and Taxes from Men's Health Magazine. The summary was that the author's tax advisor passed away. In five weeks from diagnosis to death. I found it most interesting from the tag line -- where will you be in 5 weeks. In thinking ahead I tend to go for longer horizons, but there is something to be said for 5 week goals. It is an incarnation of agile, with smaller deliveries towards larger goals. I had a goal realization today when I figured out that I tend to focus on the career track because it is a track. It has well defined levels that make it easy to checklist and plan against. The rest of life doesn't have such nice milestones. Or rather it doesn't have them as well documented. It takes dreams and planning to create those milestones and perseverance to make them a reality.

The other quote of the day that strikes me is from the liner notes of Cowboy Mouth's 1996 album "Are you With Me?" by Patrick H. LeBalanc, who passed away in 1995, "To you who are still alive what are the things that are truly important? And while you are still alive, what are you doing about them?" Good food for thought.

Project Zero:1 Me: 1

Got it! Installed the cmd line tools and figured out how to rebuild the exported file into the appropriate directories. What I did:
- Exported the project from Eclipse
- Created a new project using the cli "zero create projectX"
- unziped the exported file and copied all the files into the projectX directory, overwriting the existing files
- Since the ivy.xml was overwritten, rerun the resolver "zero resolve"
- That got my PHP dependencies added into the default project.
- Start the project "zero start" in the the projectX directory.

Project Zero:1 Me: zero

Working on getting a new copy of ProjectZero running on Linux with PHP using the Version .6 Milestone. It will not let me run the server within eclipse. I've seen this before, but unfortunately the solution was to wait for the next build. It could be done by Monday, but I'd like to get further before then. Trying to run the command line interface is getting frustrating. I am a bit short on sleep so I may just chalk it up to that.

May just head to bed early and get an early start tomorrow. I want to go for a run to get back in the habit. I promised my sister-in-law that I'd try and run the Race for the Cure on Mother's Day with her. It's a good challenge, but coming up a bit soon so I need to get more training runs in, both on the weekends and during the week. On the plus side, the weather is getting better so it should be easier. Once I finalize my lab then only 1 laptop to carry around, which should help with running home.

Gonna call it an early night and get some rest.

in the office

After a week of travel and face to face meetings, I must admit it was a bit of a bummer to be in the office on calls again. Feeling the pain of not cleanly sharing my vision as a bunch of things hit the fan that shouldn't have. Apparently I was not clear enough with the team about what I wanted, so Monday will be a fun exercise in cleaning house.

Almost done with the lab, hope to finish this weekend. I need to put some hours in my presentation, which is also due soon. If I can get them both behind me I can spend more time on building the fun stuff. Looking forward to building fun apps as opposed to all the work related stuff. Talking to T on Project B, I'm not there officially but I am trying to lend a hand where I can. We'll see how that goes.

I want to get back to Market Driven Development soon. I'd like to post that on my website to measure my current projects. The MDD app and my Plugins. I haven't started working on my Firefox entry yet, but I need to start on that soon. Also want to start playing more with Project Zero. So many interesting things to tackle...

... I was going to say 'not enough time', but I'm thinking about that subject a little more these days. I make assumptions against my time and habits that consume my time, but I think I need to start revisiting all of those habits and assumptions. Just as the cleaning/decluttering of the house is giving me new insite about what I have and what my stuff means to me, I think I need to work out how to declutter my time. Something to explore and write about.

back home

too much of an email backlog. I'll deal with it tomorrow.

catching up

... in more ways than one.

Getting in touch with folks via Facebook. Old HS friends and associates. People I ponder about and old faces that I suddenly want to connect to once I find them. Of course I am totally unreliable in terms of checking fb, but it is what it is (thank you Dilbert)

Almost done with my lab. Looking forward to working with EI. They have some interesting ideas and things they want to try that I'd like to help them with.

blargh

In RTP. Dealing with a headache. Minimalistic post.

back in the RTP...

Back in RTP again. Traveling for work and staying at the Wyndham again. Flight out was a little late a little bumpy, but manageable.

The flight out had me thinking about legislating technology. For the best reasons legislation was created to make airtravel safe. The down side to this legislation is that the Air companies are slow to adopt innovations. Our planes are old and unable to take advantage of all the advances that technology has put forward into other areas of transportation. Think how far our cars have come forward in the last few decades. I'm sure the issues is more complex than I lay out but I still that the current round of American air companies have become dependent on the outlays of the government and aviation rules which have led to a decaying infrastructure that is unable to cope with rapidly changing environments and requirements. I do enjoy travel but I really want to avoid American air companies as much as possible, whenever possible, at least until I see some changes.

The lab is coming along slowly. Built the first image for VMWare. Next step is going to be deploying to ESX. I'm a step behind in Xen, need to do a little more work to get that going. Also need to upload all this stuff tomorrow so that Cathy can test it.

Started reading "A Not So Small Life" not very far with it, but it is giving me some perspective. It is pulling me in the direction of additional introspection. The question I have next is whether I want do exhibit my introspection. On the one hand I think I can benefit from the feedback of my friends and family. On the other hand, it is a fairly public website connected to google. There is a limit to how much I need to share that wide :) Is there a penalty to how much I share? Probably. There are limits to what I should say. But at the same time I think there is something worthwhile to thinking about what I can say and putting more out there.

I should disclaim up front that these are my opinions and not those of my employers. Hmm. Something to update in the template I think.

Work, Writing and other foibles.

Last few days I've noticed I've been hitting the posts rather long. I'm remembering how to write and remembering that I kinda enjoy it. I used to try and journal more, but that fell by the wayside. Too many things to work thru or think thru and time just shriveled up. Not that I have much more time now, but I will see if I can do more writing. Writing as self discovery is always a fun form of cheap therapy. It is a lot easier to know oneself on a couple of lines than sitting around pondering. Not that sitting about pondering doesn't have its place but writing it out give it a sense of grounding and permanence. Of course I'd really like to keep it from degenerating into sophmoric, whiny, emo crap. There is too much to be excited about, to be angry about, to be sad about, to be happy about, that I really shouldn't spend all my time woe-is-me-ing.

I decided yesterday to pull back a little at work. I've been a bit obsessed with work lately, between PBCs and the new project, and meeting with Execs, I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to really cave into the work. Since our final sprint of the last iteration I've been putting in a ton of hours, with very little relief. I need to stop. Part of the key to Agile is working at a sustainable pace. As one of the managers pointed out to me, if I'm violating the principal of Agile, how can I get my team to follow along with me as well? Do as I say not as I do, doesn't fly much with adults either.

I've been trying to focus my efforts on doing things that my management and team want, which in some ways is the right thing to do, but I've been neglecting my own personal drives and goal. My career plan is a pretty vague affair. I've been looking at the band ladder and saying --yeah, I should be scaling this. I need to really think about what I want to do. I will say I do enjoy working with a team and building something bigger than what I could do on my own. Leadership is hard but still a good challenge. I still enjoy doing individual development -- MDD while currently under wraps due to time constraints, is a good bit of fun.

One of the struggles I have with work has been that I've got a good insight into what will be useful for our team and for our company -- technologies like Object Grid or PHP or Virtualization, and while I've been right, I haven't been able to show the value to my management or grow the skills enough on my own to make them worthwhile. What hit me the other day is that understanding the need and the value of these skills and growing them either personally or within the team is really what technical leadership means. I should be exploring this stuff, and even if my management doesn't care or see value, I should take it as far as I can.
I've been focused a little too much on bands and certification, and not really enough on leadership. If I want to get better at it, I need to practice it more. So while I'm not going to stop listening to the needs of my management or the teams I'm working with, I still feel I need to be responsive to both, I need to trust my instincts a little more and be able to follow thru with what I think it is important and right.

I may not have all the opportunities to deploy all of these cutting edge technologies like some of the leads in ISSW, but I can take the opportunities to play and grow in things that interest me. I can write this stuff and blog it with the best of them. Exploration is cool, but the important part is bring back what you discovered. I was challenged by my manager that no one gets paid to sit around and work with the cool toys and dreaming about what is important. I think I realized that to challenge back -- that is exactly what we're paying our leaders for --creating a vision of how we can deliver value back to our customers, and then executing on it. If I can transform a vision to a reality faster with PHP or Project Zero, then I am doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

For promising to shrink back from work, this has been alot of words about work :) But it has proven cathartic. I've put the career thing in perspective rather than blowing it out of proportion. I have validated and focused on what I want to be important to me, solving difficult challenges with cool technology. I want to grow and lead technical direction, rather than being a n empty consumer driven by management whimsy. I can get back to reality a bit more and work on the rest of my life. I can work to those goals that are not covered in a PBC or a IDP, but rather my own goal list. Sucker that I am, I really like the " Say" Video from John Mayer for the Movie "The Bucket List". I may get around to seeing the film, but for now the video and wikipedia spoilers were good enough. It's good to have goals 43 or otherwise. My birthday is coming up so expect to see a few more goal related posts as I ponder last year and plan the years ahead.

Long Walk today

Had a good long walk this afternoon. Walked with A and Z from the end of the Jail Trail up over the bridge and around the South Side Works. It was a nice little walk. Weather was good, and it was good to get out for a stretch after fighting with my lab all day. Strolled around Joseph Beth Booksellers and grabbed dinner to go at Qboda. The only downsides were when A was almost hit by a car while we were crossing in a crosswalk and as we were crossing the bridge to get back to the jail trail, Z was asleep until a fire truck with full lights and sirens crossed underneath us. She wasn't thrilled with the sirens as a wakeup.

But dinner was tasty and the walk was nice. Probably something good to repeat this summer! Maybe even take the longer walk and start from home.

30 days in..

still searching for a theme. Sadly I think the actual theme is mostly around work. In truth nothing wrong with that, but I think I need to expand my topics a bit more. I still like taking about the geeky. The new PHP framework or the wierd little programming tic, but I think I've been a little too focused on those of late.

The reality of it is of course that I tend to wax and wane with all my interests. I think I follow a 3 month cycle of obsessions and then I point to one of the other ones. I tend to jump between work, financial planning, fitness and self improvement. I think my reading habit is taking a beating. Too many unfinished works. Having a hard time getting into fiction at all these days. From TV to books -- I just can't seem to dig anything. Kinda annoying. The closest I see is a few out takes from Cartoon Network. Of course I say that and then I pick up the sci-fi book club catalog and start paging thru it ;)

Enjoying the taste of chocolate after giving up candy for lent. I decided to try out Lent this year just because. Not a religious thing, but more of a personal challenge. Since I didn't grow up with it I had never heard the rules before. The whole 'you're allowed to give up your fasting on Sunday, since it represents a mini-Easter' sounded a bit like cheating to me. I thought it was made up until I read it on Wikipedia. Going in I allowed myself 1 cheat -- if it was a once in a life time event, I'd let myself indulge. The only qualifying criteria event was my nephew's birthday. An 7th birthday only comes once in his lifetime, so I figured that would qualify.

In general I'm seeing a trend towards simplification in my life. I'm not sure why at this point. It has a bit of an appeal for me. I'm not looking to become a monk or give up all my earthly possessions to walk the earth like Caine on Kung Fu or become a bum (Thank you Quintin Tarantino), but I would like to reduce. Part of it may just be a control thing, learning to make choices. Choosing what to keep and what to part with. Choosing what habits I keep and which I let go. Perhaps it will pass, and I'll go back to whatever it was I did before, but it doesn't feel like it. I'm not looking to become No Impact Man, but I want to think about the kind of impact I have. Maybe it's Z. She definitely put a new light on things. And V, I still feel his presence on my life every day. That is the nature of fatherhood I think.

In any case I still feel like I have more to do. More clean up of my actions. A good bit of cleanup on the house :) A few more books to read and ponder. I think a good part of the reason that I've slowed my reading is that I thought that I should write more notes about what I'm reading. And organizing that process has been slow in coming forward. Perhaps I should start a wiki or a blog. I should take the lazy path -- I can create another blog here to capture what I want to write.

On a tangent to that -- I should figure out how to back up my blogs! I'm sure Google is good at keeping this stuff available, but I think I'd like to have a backup.

Can't get my brain in gear. Got a spare laptop today to work on my lab this weekend. Hope to get it 2/3s wrapped by Tuesday. Flying to RTP on Monday. Not looking forward to the trip. Not that the work is hard or bad, just long and potentially useless. Made a mistake with my lab selection for this year. It is very hard to do a good job with a lab if you don't have some sort of passion for the topic. Struggling to find some passion this year. So many other ideas feel more interesting right now. I still think Virtualization is critical. It is the win. But I think the Cloud computing model provides a much better reflection of virtualization's potential. Running multiple images on one machine -- nice, saves energy and effort; Running many images on multiple pieces of hardware smoothly transitioning from failed hw -- priceless! Of course nothing comes without cost and overhead but still.

I'm falling behind on the year of IC. At the end of March now. If I can finish up my lab, I'll have a piece for Jan/Feb and a piece for April. I may count this blog as a piece for March. I have a few ideas that I want to try and publish. As either a patent or as a piece to publish. I need to write faster. Both code and the other stuff.

On the otherhand I think I need to think about work a little bit less. I focus on work and Z, but I think I should be spreading my brain to other areas. My brain needs a change. Less development and work and more variety. Been reading a few different books lately, which help. "In Defense of Food" By Michael Pollen was pretty good. At first I didn't understand the title, but Pollan points out correctly that a lot of the products that we see at the grocery store are not really food. The cult of nutritionism has convinced us that it's not the food that it is important but the component parts. While I've followed nutrient guidelines for a long time I never gave this much thought. But at the heart of this is the idea that foods are simply components that can be well understood reduced to parts rather than pieces of a complex whole that is more than the sum it's parts. A fairly good read with decent advice on eating. Eat Food, not too much, mostly plants. Simple and to the point. I'm finding different ways to simplify my life right now, and this was right up my alley.

At some point I think I need to talk this out a bit more. But not tonight.

Out and about

Went out for a walk with Z this evening. Had a great walk. We went down to the park, strolled for a bit and came back. Out for around 40 minutes. I enjoyed getting out of the house, and I think she did too. I suspect if I walk with her anywhere she wouldn't care, so long as I didn't pause during the walk.

A few of the DeveloperWorks Editors spoke at our dept meeting to talk about opportunities to write for DW. As this year is the year of IC, I definitely want to take advantage of the opportunity. Fortunately it sounds like there could be some good opportunities for me.

career plan says what?

So it is that time of the year again to start thinking about career moves. Management has started asking to make a plan for the year. What are we doing today, what do we think we can do this year, how does this year impact your career plan? Tough questions, ok maybe I supplied about half but I hate think of the future in such little chunks. So much to accomplish, so little time!

In other news reading up on Portal 6.1. The beta is running and the new docs are out for Beta 3!

Post Early, Post often

With the near misses and tons of shame the last few posts, I've decided to try and get my posts done in the morning. I may also start drafting additional posts as backups and then just post them when I've polished them enough.

The danger of that is my post list may end up like my draft folder -- full of unfinished items. I'll play with this over time and see how it works. All this blogging is getting me thinking about blogging more for work. I'm going to suggest if we can create a blog for Project A. Since this is a customer centric service, it may be worthwhile to have some of these discussions in public forums. Either internally blogged, so others within IBM can understand our pain^H^H^H^H path, or preferably externally so our customers can contribute to the discussion.

If it worked for the TSA, it's gotta work for us.

Woot 30!

30 days of posting! Thanks to Joe for taking the challenge with me and keeping me motivated!

Finished Michael Pollan's book: In Defense of Food last night. Very interesting read. In short a good description of how nutrionism is replacing culture in deciding what we should eat.

EDIT: Wrote this last night, but only posted it at 9 AM this morning. Was a bit fried yesterday as Z only decided to sleep for 4 hours last night, and no naps all day.

Running late

Trying to get my lab together for WSTC and falling behind a good bit. Need to really pick up the pace. I have the outline together now, but the full lab instructions will take some work. Projects in the air at the moment:
- WSTC Lab
- Caching proposal for Project A
- Market Driven Development / CakePHP
- WSTC Lecture
- Presenting to the Project A Core Team Wednesday. Need to prep some slides.

Not quite in the air yet
- Firefox Extension : I want to update Quoteurltext, but I think I'd like to submit something new that plays with the new firefox 3 feature set.

At a different layer of play
- Between visitors and sickness we've stalled abit at the house cleanup. Need to start picking up on that again.
- Got to start running again. Went out last Sunday, and while it hurt, it was good. Managed the first mile well, the second and third -- not quite so proud. But April is almost here and the summer race season soon to follow. My goal for this year is to see if I can break an 8:30 for the Great Race.
- Reading 100 books this year is going slow. I've had a few slow starts in past years, but with Z here, I suspect I'm not really going to make good progress. Stuck in the middle of a bunch of books. Still need to log the last 4 I completed.

I have some bare outlines for the lab, but I need a draft for Monday. I need to get Xen going and try to upload a VM image to ESX on Monday.

The MDD/Cake PHP development is shaping up slowly, but it feels like therapy, of being able to touch the code and actually make some of my ideas real. I forget how good it feels to actually dig into to code and solve issues at that level. Very different from the juggling I do day-to-day.

Oh the shame, the shame!

So last night's missive was started at 10:15 but I got distracted so I didn't complete until 1 AM -- The shame -- the SHAME! I will hang my head in shame.

In other news: Extend Firefox 3 is Live!

Looking forward to competing again. Contest Ends July 4th, which I have learned from the last round comes a lot quicker than one expects.

Heading to RTP first week of April. May need to say howdy to some folks while I'm in the neighborhood.

Agile

Today I had two experiences that made me glad I'm working with an agile style team. The first is that looking at the progress we made thus far we could make an update to the plan in a resonable way very quickly. I can't say the numbers were perfect, or that we're totally happy with them, but we made a decent guess very quickly.

The second was talking to someone on an old project that was still mired up in deathmarches trying to get things wrapped up. We suffered with our last release, but I think that was a one time flaw rather than a way of life.

Happy Birthday Mr Rodgers.

Won't you wear a sweater?

resume

Seth Godin's bit about not needing a resume strikes me as interesting motivation. The gist of it being, the interesting, rewarding jobs don't require resumes, they require actions. To get an interesting job, you need to be interesting -- by building something, or blogging something or doing something of merit in the space you want.

In some ways it sounds a lot like 'it takes money to make money' -- I need an interesting job to get an interesting job, but I think it is doable to be amazing without an amazing job. Joshua Bloch was a programmer for a financial firm when he launched del.icio.us on the side. Building an project and growing it can be as rewarding, if not more rewarding than getting the perfect job.

So how does one build a reputation or an amazing project? Little steps, one day at a time.

privacy say what?

So I was looking to post a set of content here from my Google Docs, but at the last minute wanted to restrict it to the people I know who read it (Joe and my wife). Imagine my surprise that blogger does not support the concept of private posts. I can have a private blog, but that is the limit of the granularity. Annoying but there it is.

Thinking a good deal about my software development process. For some reason this rings true...

blargh

coming down with the cold. A forgone conclusion. Trying to hit up the extra fluids and vitamins.

Out to Barnes and Noble tonight. Mostly just browsing but picked up a copy of In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Looking forward to reading it. Too many items on my to read list at the moment.

Need more time!

Or rather, I need to more stuff in less time! Pondering building faster prototypes. Maybe this is an opportunity to play with RAILS or Django? Either seems like a good platform to try and build some quick prototypes. I have a few ideas that I want to try out and I don't want to do the full prototyping in Java. PHP is my normal vector of choice, but running into issues getting the right packages to do what I want.

Maybe the answer is Cake? I've heard on good authority that the answer is usually cake.

a few threads...

Family is dealing with illness, Z got us started, then Amy and I might be getting hit as well. Tried to take a nap this afternoon while Z slept. Mostly worked, had a few thoughts I wanted to try and follow up on. Budding them here, to drive further later.

- Managing requirements for a project is a lot like managing clutter. Few ever say "I want to have 36 McDonald's Souvenir Cups with Grimmace." Much the same way no one asks for a project to come in over budget and late. But scope creep is just like clutter, it starts by reacting to a desire, rather than working towards a vision. Just because you want something doesn't mean it has a place in your life(for clutter)/project.

Now there is something to be said for the vision changing and growing, but at key points when you're starting to grow you vision statement, then you need to stop and reevaluate your project. Is it the right place to grow, or is it better to start a separate project. Sometimes the right thing is to grow the project. Some times not. Growth is a natural process that works within the process of Supply and Demand. Growth that is uncontrolled tends to be bad. Cancer is unrestrained growth of bad ideas.
There is something to be said for dealing with the principles of simplicity and good architectural practice. There is something slightly disturbing about parallels between projects at work and episodes of Clean Sweep. :)

- In starting a project, I am increasingly seeing the need to capture a vision statement. It sounds all hokey and typical management bs, but at the end of the day, if you can't explain a simple vision of what you're trying to do, that probably means, you don't know what you want to to do. Once you have a vision you need to look at Strategies and Tactics. Strategies are the steps you need to take to meet your vision. Tactics are the actions you take to implement your strategy.

- The care and feeding of a project are not hard rules to figure out. It kinda goes along with keeping healthy. The rules are simple -- eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly. Screw with either of those options and the risk of bad things happening grows. Compare with a project-- you want to make sure you're getting the right inputs -- requirements, funding, approvals, and the right actions -- clearing technical debt, quality control, doable benchmarks and voila -- project success.

- Often projects come in like the patient who comes in with a gunshot wound and finds out they have a heart condition. If you don't deal with the gunshot wound, the patient dies. If you fix the gunshot would, and neglect the long term care necessary to treat the heart condition, well, the odds to not stack up in their favor. In a crisis, triage is important, and getting the biggest wound out of the way is critical, but unless the long term behavior of the project changes, the project is doomed anyway.

-- Perhaps that last example would work better thinking about a patient with a heart attack or stroke. You have the immediate crisis, but long term care and change are necessary to improve.

-- The hardest job as an architect is figuring out what the problem the customer needs to solve is. Finding out what their problem is, when most of the time they can't express the nature of the problems, only a glimpse of the ideas they had. Started reading "The Not So Big Life" by Sarah Susanka. I suspect there is a good bit of learning I can do as a software architect from reading from construction architects.

As an aside, we're in the process of de-cluttering our house. With Z soon to be on the move we want to give her a safe and friendly place to move through. In examining my own relationships to my stuff and my space, I'm learning a lot about my stuff and myself. Highly recommend reading "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh. Very useful if you're wondering why things get so messy.

Next Gen quoteurltext.

Always an interesting task figuring out what the next generation of a software will be. I'm mostly happy with what I have in quoteurltext, but there is always room for improvement. I'm looking at ways I can improve the capabilities. Perhaps giving more options for quote templates? Or adding a web service integration to allow users to store quotes to servers? Not sure I want to run a software as a service around this, but the concept is kinda neat.

That kinda give me an idea of a plugin that syncs with my history and my quotes to give me the paths I follow from a given quote. Or a way to interact with the web of sites connected to quoted material. Actually, let me take that step forward -- linking items chronologically as well as thematically.

That could be fun to write. Have a service that accepts a quote, source, timestamp and tags. Then generate maps that link items based on tags, or timestamp/progressions or any combo there of. Ambitious, but interesting. The tough part would be the visualization tech. Perhaps Flex?

Certified Madness

Looking at the certification stuff for work again. Management has decided it would be best if we would all certify with as many product certifications as possible. Not my favorite route. I suppose I can study up and certify for WSTC, but I think I need to grow my skills in other areas. I'm also debating further career certification, either for Senior IT Specialist, or IT Architect. I need to find the architectural thinking course to complete my coursework for IT Architect.

The plus side is this stuff carries very nicely with the Open Group Certifications.

Perhaps I could get my LSI cert or a Zend Cert. Not really what my mangement is looking for, but I'm looking for a little more diversity in my path.

blogger blogger blogger

So started exploring the blogger interface today, to see what it can do. Went to the Edit Posts tab and found a) I had a few posts that I had roughed out and forgotten and b) there are more comments than I had realized. Need to figure out a way to get alerted when I get comments.

Looking for ways to integrate what I do daily with blogger. Looking for the API to see what tools have been created and what tools I have to work with. Google has such fun APIs to deal with, I really want to figure out how to play with them more.

ah progress

A few hours after I post QuoteURLText with FF3b3 compatibility, they provide FF3b4.

I'll catch up with it tomorrow.

New Quotetexturl

Released the new version of QuoteURLText today -v1.0.8. This one has been updated for Firefox 3.0b3. I've added a debug mode to try and figure out what's been going on with some of the strange versions I've been seeing. We'll see if it helps with error reports.

Updates and such

Thanks to Amy for reminding me 10 to midnite that I still need to post.

So searching further for a server solution for the house, the build vs buy debate seems to be falling clearly toward build. The max memory supported from most of the desktop machines out there seems to be 8GB of memory. Normally more that enough, but if I max it out now, can I expand later? I've found a few motherboards that support 16 GB of memory. I'll probably only max out at 8 GB for now, but nice to know I have some headroom available.

Coded up some updates to QuoteURLText. Submitted for review. Should publish version 1.0.7 sometime tomorrow. I'll link when I get confirmation. Reading thru the reviews and comments there seems to be a set of errors that I haven't been able to track down. I've added a debug mode so we'll see if that helps me figure out what's going on.

Home Servers

I'm considering upgrading the house server. I currently have an old Athlon 2000 running as my main server. I've got it Ubuntu Gutsy with Apache and a few other knick-knacks installed. I've been playing around with VMWare server for the past year or so and I've decided I'd like to have a heafy box at home to handle a couple of virtual images.

I'd like to be able to run images I use for work from the server rather than running them from my laptop, unfortunately that requires a ton of memory. So looking for a decent box with a ton of memory to keep multiple VMs up and running. I was considering buying but after exploring the options it might just be best to build to get what I'm after.