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?
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Monday, April 7, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, March 28, 2008
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.
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.
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