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.
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
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?
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?
Monday, April 7, 2008
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?
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?
Monday, March 31, 2008
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.
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.
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