Blogger is still operating?!?!

Wow. It has been 14 years since I looked and this and here it was, patiently waiting for me.

Do I dare to write a post?

Back to blogging. Actually I've been thinking about restarting this for a while but have been dithering over theme. I don't think I can live in a glass house like Penelope Trunk , but if I wait until I have something interesting enough to share...well, my last post was three years ago. I have not been offline that whole time.

With so many publishing formats, I just haven't been able to figure out how to bring the brand together (that sounds pompous, until you consider that by brand, I don't mean just some kind of superficial persona but your points of intersection with the world.
Could we say that what separates a cheese sandwich blog from a blog about cheese sandwiches is in the first blog, the writer is the only theme and in the second, the theme is something external? Is that the key to effective blogging - something besides yourself to consistently write about?

I mean, here's the list and this is hardly exhaustive. BTW, I like table formatting and table support is a big piece of shoe in Blogger so this table will probably look bad.

Format	What readers look for	Example item
Twitter	What you're doing	I'm at a conference
Facebook	Who knows what you're doing	I went to a conference and my mom hit the like button
Pinterest	What the thing you did looks like	Here's a picture from the conference.
Metafilter	Why you did what you did	The history of this conference from the beginning of time, similar conferences, this thing that sort of inspired the conference
Reddit	Things other people are doing	What did you think of the conference?
Brand You Blog	How you did what you did	A presentation you gave, or commentary on presentation given by someone else.
Email	What you really think	I would have rather stayed home.

Memetown, stop 2 - crap no one else cares about

But someday! Someday, when I am great! Yeah-huh.


(everything that's true about me is in bold).

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers. (what does this mean?)
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children's books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed (what does this mean?)
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp (only day camp)
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

Memetown, stop 1 - where were you when

In order to create content I've resorted to memes. Ugh.

This one is from New Kid In the Hallway - the ugh has nothing to do with that site, just my own disgust at being so hard up for post topics.


Where I was when....

1.) Challenger space shuttle exploded (1986): Asleep. I didn't have any classes that morning, and when I went downstairs and turned on the radio I heard the news. A friend of mine was pregnant and she was admittedly late term, but watched the launch on TV and claimed the shock put her into labor.

2.) Berlin Wall falls down (1989): To be technical, it didn't just fall down, it was torn down by East Germans who'd had just about enough fun with their friends from Moscow. I don't really remember any specific event - it was on the news and people knew it was happening but I don't specific remember any big news breaks about it or anything.

3.) Oklahoma City federal building bombing (1995): At work. I had just signed up for My Yahoo and was basking in the personalized feeds when I saw this little item about an explosion in Oklahoma City. I remember the BS thing about three Middle Eastern guys in a pickup...thank God three Middle Eastern guys didn't pick that morning to go down to the Waffle House for a blue plate or they would have all been shot.

4.) OJ Verdict (1995): At work, furiously updating the news feed on Compuserve trying to get the verdict when it came out..

5.) Princess Diana dies (1997): Coming home from dinner at a Japanese steakhouse with a couple of friends. My girlfriend was at a horse camp and I tried to call her to let her know. One of my friends burst into tears on the news and when they cut away to commercial, it was a commercial for Dean Martin's greatest hits album, to which she wailed, "Oh, he's dead too!"

6.) Columbine massacre (1999): I heard about it at work but there wasn't a ton of information about it at the time - I went out to Ciatti's with a friend of mine and they were cutting between bombing in Bosnia and the kids running out of the school. I said to each "see, good violence...bad violence...good violence...bad violence..."

7.) JFK Jr. Plane crash (1999): Came in from mowing the grass and sat down on the couch to drink a soda and recover from heatstroke. Saw it on TV, and knew I was supposed to be sad but kept thinking that they didn't break into programming when some nobody's plane went down off an island.

8.) Bush/Gore crazy election (2000): We had our furniture out in the front room, can't remember why. I think we'd cleaned the carpets that weekend. We slept on the bed in the front room and I watched this little portable television and wondered who would win. In the morning, we were driving to work and I turned on the radio and they were talking about it still going on, still being undecided and I felt a thrill of hope that Gore might still win it. Ha.

9.) September 11, (2001): She left for work before I did, and I was laying there dreading going in when the phone rang and she said "turn on the TV! a plane just hit the world trade center in new york!" I did and I saw that big hole in that big building and was thinking "how bad of a pilot do you have to be to run into that?" and then the second plane hit the other tower and everything changed. I went to work on the 11th floor of an office building, and a little later one of the marketing guys was looking out the window at a 737 waiting to land, and he said "I don't think I'm ever going to look at airplanes the same way again." And the sky was so blue. Every time I see clear blue sky in the fall I think about it. On the way home, there was a guy waving a huge flag from a highway overpass, and for the first time I really looked at that flag, not just as decoration or something to salute at a game but understood, really felt, why veterans sometimes get tears in their eyes when they look at the flag. So did I.

10.) Space ship Columbia disintegrates (2003): I think this was a Saturday. Saw it on the news. A sad story, and it was obvious they were glossing over the horrific deaths of those astronauts. At the time, and now, I asked the question: would you rather die in a bed, rotting from the inside, gasping for your last breath or in the middle of doing something you'd worked and strived your whole life to achieve? I do feel for the family, but do I shed a tear for them? No. They were doing what they wanted to do, and they knew the odds and I bet you all of them would climb right back into that ship if they had the chance to do it again.

11.) Hurricane Katrina hits (2005): This was not exactly breaking news; they'd known the hurricane was coming since the previous Sunday. I remember one of the last weather bulletins out of NOAA was incredibly ominous and I posted it on my old blog - it was a Katie-bar-the-door kind of warning that this was a really bad storm and it was going to be a direct hit on the city. We had just been there for New Years, staying in these pretty little fishing cabins in the state park. NOLA was one of the few remainng cities with a real personality, not all big-box Michaels' and photocopier nouveau riche crap.

You Tell Me

You tell me, future self - what does this mean to you now?




Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Health Tools - Calorie Calculator for Goal Weight - New York Times

Health Tools - Calorie Calculator for Goal Weight - New York Times: "You should consume about 2173 calories a day to reach your goal weight of 245 pounds by January 7, 2009."

CSA Week 3

Our third box from Culinary Delights Farms - from left, snap peas, spinach, red lettuce, green lettuce, ???, green onions, baby potatoes and radishes. 

This time I washed everything and wrapped it in Ziploc bags and put it in the refrigerator. I was washing the baby potatoes and suddenly I thought of how a box like this would look to the father and son in Cormac McCarthy's book "The Road". I ate one, trying to picture what the feelings would be like to find something like that in the midst of such a dead world and have its life become part of you. I know - more overthinking. Here's what you should do to store these vegetables:

To Store	Do this	Wash first	Use by
snap peas	Remove strings and store in plastic bag or blanch and freeze	No (too late)	7-14 days
spinach	in plastic bag in crisper	No (too late)	3-4 days
red lettuce	Bag in refrigerator (don't store with apples, pears or bananas	Yes	a few (?) days
green lettuce	Bag in refrigerator (don't store with apples, pears or bananas	Yes	a few (?) days
green onions	Bag in fridge	Doesn't seem to matter	5 days
baby potatoes	Indeterminate - dry and dark , 45-50 degrees but do NOT store in plastic (too late)	Yes	2 weeks
radishes	Remove tops and store in plastic bags in refrigerator	Indeterminate	2 weeks

Did I mention how much I hate tables in Blogger?

Sources:

• http://www.foodreference.com/html/artradish.html
• http://www.merexfoodcorp.com/cons_nutrional.html

LIFE final checkin tomorrow

Well, Monday is your final LIFE check-in (we'll see what happens with work). I think you will be net -20 from your starting point after 2 years. Your peak was -46.

Reflecting back on the process, I am not thrilled with the result on my behalf but that's largely a matter of my own failings, not the program. (From my last post, Jesus would probably tell me to pick my butt up out of the chair and take it outside for some non-keyboard exercise).

That's the key for me. I think I have made fundamental changes to my diet and that's been what's kept the weight off for this period - I don't feel like I'm on a diet so much as I'm just being responsible for what I eat. It's not bad deprivation, it's resisting the urge to do what thou wilst in the world.

Now if I could just do the same thing with walking/exercising I think I could get another 20-30 off. But it's time, and not just time (scheduling being the last rampart of avoiding an unpleasant task), it's inclination. Walking with the dogcast was OK but it got lonely at some point and now I have a real distaste for it. Working out early is good but when I get to work early I want to actually work in order to have a chance of being able to go home before sundown.

So it's a challenge for me. I think when this is over I am going to finally complete that project to summarize the LIFE modules and reassess what I'm doing and what I need to do.

For you, older self, this is what I learned in the LIFE program:

• Weight is nothing but biology, which is nothing but physics and chemistry, the most fair judges in the universe. They do not care if you're happy or if you're sad or if you're just doing it this once. If you eat more than you need you gain weight. If you eat less or need more than you eat you will lose weight.
  
  
• Weigh yourself regularly, in the morning. Doesn't have to be every day but if you shoot for every day you'll do better than letting six months go by and then wondering who's that bloated buffoon in the mirror. Track the numbers - CalorieKing was good but I like The Hacker's Diet trend mapping.
  
  
• Nothing good happens between midnight and 4 AM, diet or otherwise. Caffeine makes things happen between midnight aand 4 AM.
  
  
• Take responsibility for your daily calorie budget. Plan. Count calories. Calories count. You know damn well what three ounces of chicken looks like and that three bowls of crunchy corn bran is not a serving.
  
  
• Nothing wrong with a big breakfast (especially when followed up by a smaller lunch) but remember -more protein and less carbs/sugar for breakfast means fewer furtive trips to the substitute bagel lady at 10 AM.
  
  
• Body weight x 12 = number of calories you need to maintain. This stopped working for you earlier this year, unless you are seriously underestimating calorie intake. According to my measure with CalorieKing I should weigh 250 and let's just say I don't.
  
  
• 3500 calories in a pound - 7 days in a week - 500 less calories than your base requirements per day - should result in ABOUT 1 lb loss. It will usually time that 1 lb until just after you weigh in for the 7th day and then stomp off to work in a funk.
  
  
• Non-starchy vegetables (not corn, peas, potatoes, etc) are your best dietary friend. You can eat a bag of them for a penny a calorie and throw them into anything BUT...
  
  
• The more you eat - of anything - the more your body expects to eat. A few tiny meals spread out through the day gets you used to eating tiny meals.
  
  
• If you are going to skip a meal, skip dinner.
  

Where Would Jesus Get His Oil Changed?

Saw this in the local paper:

What would Jesus read? If you're looking for beach reading with purpose, here's a guide to what's hot at religious bookstores.

I have always been a little bemused at the "What Would Jesus (Do/Wear/Drive/Drink/Think/Watch/Read)" business.

Probably not news to anyone, but we are not Jesus - we aren't the only begotten Son of God.

Doesn't it seem kind of presumptious to try and put oneself in the place of a being who was both man and God? What does that say about the people who make up these lists?

I think the question is actually - what would Jesus *want you* - you as a person, as someone Jesus has known all of your life, not whatever group you're a member of, not Republicans, not Democrats, not your Facebook friend circle, but you, to read? Or not read?

When Peter struck the slave in the garden with his sword, Jesus didn't say "Whoa there, that's not what I'd do.". He said put your sword away, because Peter was the one with the sword, not Jesus. Jesus would have never drawn a sword in the first place.

And so it is with all of us - we've all drawn swords of various kinds and asking what Jesus would do with that sword is missing the point in a very fundamental way.

What would Jesus tell you to put away? Or pick up? That seems to me the real question.

And the answer? When I figure it out, I promise I will share. But it's probably going to be a while; I only have the student copy of the Bible, not the teacher's copy with all of the answers in the back.

CSA Part II - July 2nd

Our second box arrived from CSA and this time because my better half was home, more of the contents were utilized. She made a great salad with bacon and most of the greens, with the strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. Excellent. Shows what a difference actual culinary talent makes.

I tried wilting the beet greens with garlic and onions....ugh. Not a hit. Even tried it with a hamburger bun. Should have used bacon with it, maybe, but that's like putting chocolate on lettuce - skip the denial and eat the chocolate.

Still trying to figure out what to do with the asparagus - ATK cookbook has a recipe for broiled asparagus, maybe I will try that.

Community Support Agriculture, Part I - June 23rd box

We signed up for a Community Supported Agriculture farm share (well, half a share) from a farm near our house. This is the first box we received, June 23rd 2008. We picked it up at a house in our town where all the boxes are dropped off.

The farmer sent an email saying the wet spring had slowed the crops down and so this wouldn't be the best set of produce, but it was still a nice package.


The box as we recieved it - picked up from a location not too far from our house.




...and the contents of the box. I didn't store these properly due to ignorance (need to wash them and store them between moist paper towels in the refrigerator) and most of it spoiled except for the spinach. I wilted that in a pan with some garlic (with a recipe from the America's Test Kitchen family cookbook) and it was pretty good.

The real long term stuff

So, future self, this is another note to you, this time about finance. You have that money in that Latin place that's about doubled in value over the last 10 years. I am thinking of doing some rebalancing - the funds are getting old and the Europe thing seems to be playing itself out. According to their portfolio advisor you're looking at 45 stocks, 40 pct bonds, 10 pct international and 5 pct short term. My options are:

1. Rebalance to a new set of funds to meet this allocation mix;
2. Dump it all into a lifecycle fund.

I think #2 is the no-brainer but I don't trust the aggregate asset mix - not as many comparison basis. The key is the progress in bonds - rates are in the tank right now and I just don't see where it will change when our gov't is having a fire sale on Treasuries every week.

You should have joined an investment club, but the ones you've seen are not all that great - lots of very nice people and commiseration over the general confusion but not much in the way of facts. Basically set it and forget it for a year.

Hope it worked out for you.

Requiem for a Tree

This was a tree in our garden which blew over in a intense windstorm. He was one of a pair, and they had been in our garden for at least 10 years. Now he is no more, and his partner stands alone in the night. I read an article that plants can detect the proximity of nearby relatives and since those guys were about the same age and similar type I bet they came from the same nursery and so were probably related.

If you think about it, in the existential sense, if it's true that plants can sense proximity then these trees 'knew' each other and the other plants and trees in my garden. Do you ever wonder what names they have for each other? We call dogs and cats "Louie" and "Spot" but the animals obviously know each other as well - do they have referent names to label each other with? What about plants? Do they use pheromones, or positions, or what?

So how does a plant access the details of a being it "knows" about?

Yes, I think too much. And that's a common problem in the world - too much contemplation. More mindless, thoughtless action is surely the cure for what ails us.

I cut off a piece of the standing tree and threw it in with the remants of the old tree. Maybe silly, but I wouldn't want the dead one going away without some part of the tree it had spent all of its life with.

I guess I should leave a piece of the old tree with the survivor as well. One thing is for sure - the ecosystem of the garden has changed. Wonder what that will mean.

National Ride Your Bike to Work Week

This week is National Ride Your Bike to Work Week. I decided to ride my bike to work but I wasn't sure of the directions so I decided to take my bike to work and ride home.

It was a nice ride, and except for a couple of lights I made good time. The ride was about 10 miles and it took me about 75 minutes. The only problems I had were the seat and the position for riding - most of my weight was on the handle bars and my wrists are pretty sore.

I enjoyed it, though, future self, and I hope I will be able to do a few more rides home and then try a round trip.

Your personal roadmap and New Year's Eve

I've been thinking about an issue that's come up at work, specifically the idea of a feature roadmap. We've been discussing it for the system I work on, and I started wondering..why can't we do that for ourselves?

I don't mean accomplishments like reproducing or climbing Mt. Everest or learning to self-loofah, but adding new capabilities or enhancing old ones.

You could almost make it like they used to do with new cars:

+ Lonstar, new for 2008 with a new XX-inch waistline and management analysis capability!

Or...

+ Lonstar Model 30.X will include a 5 mile run capability, new color-coordinated wardrobe and complete Java certification.

Maybe instead of setting goals to punish myself for not reaching, I could look on self-improvements as developing or adding features to my system. That would allow you to develop a roadmap, right? (channel Kathy Sierra and insert an entertaining graphic here).

And...we should get 2 New Year's every year - one on December 31 and one on the night before one's birthday. Take stock, memorialize those who have passed (sometimes I think I hear him even when I know better) and plan for those future features.

So, older self, looking back on this time, what features am I adding? What features should I be adding? Do you still believe, as I do now, that you gotta keep believing and acting as if your best features - and best days - are ahead of you.

Buddy's story

You know that I care
What happens to you
And I know that you care
For me too
So I don't feel alone
On the way to the stone
Now that I've found somewhere safe
To bury my bones
For any fool knows
A dog needs a home
A shelter
From pigs on the wing...





This is a hard entry for me to write. I'm writing it for you, future self, not because I think you will forget but because I want to say what happened, what really happened, at least through my here-in-2007 eyes so you can come back to this and see. I don't know if you will, or if you would, but I kind of need to do this anyway.

Our dog Buddy died December 21. He was 15. He was born on July 4th, 1992. He belonged to my wife, who adopted him as a puppy from Chelsea Kennels in Chelsea, MI. He was the runt of the litter, and she said when they opened the cage, all the other puppies scattered but he walked right up to her and that's when she knew he was hers.

The people at the kennel said he was the runt and she didn't want him, but all of the other dogs were $300 and they said all they had put into him was $40 worth of shots so she could have him for that.

After she got him home, she took him to the vet and he had a cancerous growth. They removed it and he was all hers. She originally wanted to name him Peanut but all of her friends called him Buddy, so that became his name.

I first met Buddy on my third date with her. I was walking up the stairs to her apartment when I met a beagle on the stairs. I put my hand out, and he sniffed it and wagged his tail and that was all it took. My wife said he bit her last date so I figured I was ahead of the curve, at least in the beagle department.

He went everywhere with her - on walks around the lake, to the video store (he was one of the few dogs allowed in the Uptown Hollywood Video), even to the supermarket - she would tie him outside and sometimes he would break loose and go in, padding up and down the aisles until he found her.

After we got married, he moved right in with us and the kids in the neighborhood all came to see the beagle. He could be standoffish - he'd tolerate a certain amount of petting from strangers and then let out a loud bay and back off from them. He got along with other dogs sort of OK, except for his pal Webster whom he liked a lot. He also liked our nephew quite a bit - when our nephew was very young he'd refer to Buddy as his son. He was always kind of cantankerous with me about getting off the couch, or if I would approach my wife while he was sitting on her lap.

He turned nine, ten, eleven. He seemed lonely, so we got another dog. He taught her how to act and taught me a lot about coaching (dogs do so much with attitude and example that people try to do with policies and process) Time went on, and his tricolor changed; first the brown went gray, then the black. He developed a cough; first in the morning, then morning and night, and finally all of the time. We took him to our regular vet, who acted like they'd never seen a sick dog before and a few hundred dollars of tests later said it was congestive heart failure and he'd have six months at the most. We started him on Lasix, which dehydrated him and stressed his kidneys, so he started peeing in the house, occasionally at first.

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. He began to sleep in the living room because he could no longer get on and off the bed comfortably. Even with the lasix his cough got worse, and he got recurring ear infections which I had to treat with various medications, a muzzle, a handful of strips of cheese slices and q-tips. He stopped wanting to go on walks and when we would occasionally make him take a mile he would rarely be able to finish and I would carry him at least part way. Our other dog would try to play with him, bowing and barking, and he would bark at her while she ran in circles around him. He also started to have bouts of confusion, where he would stare off into space or bark at the wall for 10 minutes. His eyesight became worse as well.

Fifteen. His incontience became worse and worse; eventually he was peeing six times per day, in the house and finally in his bed. He started having seizures; I had been finding wet spots on the pillows and thought he was just drooling until I saw it happen one night. He started jerking and finally his whole body spasmed; he drooled and urinated, then laid panting for about five minutes. After that he seemed very confused and didn't know who I was or who our other (now completely hysterical) dog was. I took him to the vet, who said it was probably dehydration and I should make sure he always had water available.

Finally he started to become not just tired or confused but kind of lost. He'd kind of wander into the kitchen and beg, or find a way to always be in the way when I was carrying something heavy into the house. I saw him trying to go to the bathroom and a few drops of blood came out. We left to visit relatives, leaving our dogs with family, and when we got back he was wheezing and choking in spite of the Lasix.

I don't know why I'm writing all of this down. Maybe I'm still trying to make the case to myself that it had to be done. I am sure I am biasing the story, but I am the definition of an unreliable narrator so you have to live with that. All I can say is that this is what I saw and I am relating it to you as honestly as I can.

Finally we returned from our trip. I discussed it with my wife and she said she couldn't take him herself. I wanted to take him and be with him because I don't think you should have to go through that alone. Yesterday morning I woke up and he had urinated himself and his bed, and then walked through the house urinating. Typical. I don't think he was even aware he was doing it anymore, as he wasn't lifting his leg, just walking and peeing. I had stopped being mad at him for doing it a longt time ago.

I cleaned the house and called the vet, who didn't have any appointments until later. So I went to work but thought about it all day, and left early. I had read that dogs who have a pal can experience bereavement so I brought our other dog as well. I stopped at the cash machine and got money out, then went to McDonald's and bought a double cheeseburger meal.

On the way to the vet, I called to see if we could go straight in; I didn't want to be sitting in the waiting room with all of the other owners talking to him and looking at pictures of happy, healthy dogs who weren't about to die. Of course they were running late, and I got a little cross and asked when they could see him and they said ten minutes. So I sat out in the parking lot with the motor running and fed him french fries and cheeseburger pieces (I gave him one whole cheeseburger to himself and shared the other with our other dog) until the tech came out and said they were ready.

I had asked if I could speak to the vet beforehand; I still needed to hear a prognosis. I wasn't asking her to tell me what to do, that's not fair to the vet, but I did need her to tell me what his future looked like. She was very polite and professional; she listened to my description, looked at his chart, examined him and said that his heart was kind of oK, his lungs were congested, his bladder was failing either through stones or infection and he had severe arthritis. She also said that his pupils were different sizes, and based on his general demeanor while she was examining him that she thought it was likely he had brain damage due to either stroke or some kind of damage. I think she was making the case for herself and if she hadn't agreed with me that this was necessary she would have refused to do it or at least asked me to see another doctor.

She stated her opinion was that individually most of the symptoms were possibly treatable but the dementia was not. Even if they could resolve the other issues he would not be any more functional or outgoing than he was at the moment. I said it was time and I wanted to proceed with the euthansia. I wasn't especially upset - I was by no means happy or at peace with what was happening, though. I think it was mostly denial. We talked about the process, and she asked if I'd like the remains and said she had to go prepare but would send in a tech with the forms. I said I had my other dog and I would like to bring her in after so she could see him; I thought this might help her understand that he was not coming home. She said that was fine, and if I wanted to do that I should, because it wouldn't be right for me to feel like I should have done that.

She left, and I held him for a while and talked to him. Mostly he just stared at the wall but once he looked at me and stuck his nose toward me. It was pretty brief. The tech came in with the form and explained it to me, I looked at it but it could have been the deed to my soul for all I rememeber. They also wanted to be paid up front.

Finally the vet came in and we put him on the table; the idea was to give him a sedative to calm him and then a push of the fatal drug. She lifted his hind leg to give him the sedative and he started crying; his back legs were pretty immobile by that time and any time they were touched he would usually cry. She got about half the shot pushed in and he decided to lay down. I petted him and put my hand near his nose, where he could smell me. His eye was open and looking at me and he started making his usual snoring sound. I petted him and talked to him and at this point I became pretty emotional. At this point I am positive that the lights in the room flickered.

The vet did the second push and listened to his heart - in about 30 seconds I could feel his breathing start to slow and finally cease. A few minutes later she said "his heart's stopped" and I stood there with him for a while. The vet left us alone - I said thanks, and I meant it, though it sounded and felt awkward, it was the right word to use.

I brought our other dog in, and she was so wound up from an hour in the car that she was pretty boisterous. She stepped on him a couple of times, but twice she stopped and sniffed him for a good five seconds. Then she started licking my face, and I hugged him one more time and it was time to go.

Then I went and had two 7 & 7s and that was it. Now we just have to get used to life without him.

I hope this doesn't come across as excessively clinical - I don't mean to sound dispassionate. I just want to record the facts, because time smears them and makes things change in your recollection and I want to be clear about things. So this is to you, future self, not to make you relive the events but to know what they looked like at the time.

He was our dog, and he was a good dog, and it was time for him to go. I'm not sad about that. I'm sad that he got old, and sad that he had to go at all, and sad that we're older too. But I hope you remember him fondly, and you look at this as I am looking at it now; part of being a responsible pet owner and what you take on when you take responsibility for the life of an animal.

Long time no blog

Yep, it's been a while. Since September 2 I have been doing some things and going some places.

1. I went to Chicago and Moscow for a week each


2. Cleaned up about 14 years of crap from my HD (this should be a post some day)


3. Did some work and then some more work


4. finally got my subversion server set up with projects and autobuilds


5. found out the hard way why they tell you to keep home on a separate volume in a linux system - now I won't forget again

Currently I'm ignoring the pile of leaves in my yard and the fact I need new windows on the house in favor of pushing bits around. Priorities, you know.

30 Day Blog - recap and prediction

Well, that's over. Not a good result. Only wrote about 15 posts.

Why so few?

1. No focus - I really didn't want a cheese sandwich/emo blog and I didn't have a focus.


2. I had a number of what I thought were pretty good post ideas, but the time required to write them to what I thought was a good level of quality never materialized.


3. Need to link exchange and network - I didn't do this at all.


4. I have still not come to an internal resolution on the "real name" issue. The Kathy Sierra thing really disturbed me.

If I Ran An IT Department

This was a response I was going to write to a blogpost about how to get promoted. I'm not actually a manager, and probably won't become one, but the thesis of this person's article about updating your mgr was peppered with responses along the lines of "my work speaks for itself" and "I just want to code, what's with all the popularity stuff?"

I wanted to write something from what I think my perspective would be if I were a manager. My opinions are, of course, my own.

- - - -

I'll add something from a career of working at startups and big corporations - I've seen a lot of people come and go from the field.

There's also a balance between interpersonal skills and competence - there's a required minimal level of each, but in general interpersonal skills wins out over competence in most managerial eyes. Not because we want everyone to be best friends (and if you think that's all there is to interpersonal skills you need some more experience), but because having you around raises everyone's game and at the end of the day that's all that really matters.

It's the kind of thing often lampooned with bad bosses having "crazy hawaiian shirt day", etc but the need is quite real. Any manager will tell you that inspiration is one of many things we'd love to create by management but can't. It's gold - what makes people go the extra mile, run the extra test, speak up with the extra idea.

It's easy to create fear, and fear can be a workable substitute. You can pull the "continued employment is your incentive" bit for a while but eventually the ones who can leave do and you're stuck with the ones who can't or won't.

However, what you really want to consistently make and exceed numbers is a shop where people get something more than a paycheck from showing up everyday and giving 110 percent. Their common sense tells them that the check is for 100 percent of the work - they need something else for that extra 10.

I'd look for interpersonal skills first and technical competence second. And that isn't necessarily whoever's telling me the most about what they're doing for the department; remember, I talk and listen to everyone. I can see what others think of you, and what you think of everyone else.

I want interpersonal skills because leads with interpersonal skills draw on the best efforts of the entire department. A technical hotshot feels increasing pressure to have all of the answers, all of the time, and becomes an increasing PITA to work with as their new lead duties take away from their technical skills-building time. They crash by either burning out or blowing up and you have to start all over.

This also often happens to architects in the opposite direction; they're too interpersonal (especially the ones gunning for CIO jobs) and become about winning not just approval but validation from senior management. They turn into white-paper and Gartner report specialists instead of keeping their skills sharp. Makes for great golf games and happy hours and vendor-of-the-quarter delivery of bleeding-edge solutions that don't work.

Learn how to identify problems, take ownership of the solution, sell the solution, implement the solution and hand it off to someone else. Doesn't matter how small. If you can do that - consistently, even in the most narrow of niches - you will be extremely marketable, both as a resource to your boss and in the wider job market if you choose to go that route. We actually like that - if you know you can leave but choose to stay you do better work.

That said, I like to know what's going on with my staff, and try to maintain an open-door policy as much as possible. Drop-ins are fine, but remember that I will always try and make time for you - be courteous by scaling the discussion to the timeframe we have. I don't mind talking about something you just did for five minutes but I don't want to spend my whole open-door time hashing over your ingenious use of a weak-hash algorithm to store the login attributes (also, that seemed to be working fine the way it was, last I heard - did you just make that change on your own?)

If you choose just sit in your cubicle and code all day, no offense but you're basically a code factory - a tool. Tools are useful but we periodically seek upgrades, typically via replacement because a tool's cost and fragility goes up the longer you keep them and you can get a new, cheaper, less fragile model every couple of years.

Your work does not speak for itself - I don't read source code. I look at results because the people I serve only care about outcomes, not solutions.

13/30 - I did it!

Published an app I assembled from a lot of other parts that I actually use on my server. Neat-o! I want to improve it a little and then inflict it on the world.