Rhythm

Posting to the blog is a ritual. It becomes a part of my life's rhythm -- a rhythm that can continue flowing for days or weeks without me noticing. It's only when things become disrupted, I go on a trip or have visitors spend some time in our house, do I see it. I become aware of what I've been doing. The absence of action is what exposes itself. Will I know what I'm doing if nothing changes around me and realize later that fourty years have passed?

Pure NJ

Muir and I got together over the weekend. We started off on Friday night with burritos, Coronas, and six hours of Eco Challenge to watch on the VCR. On Saturday, after getting appropriately pumped from seeing a man fall asleep while rappelling down a 300 foot rock face in the pitch blackness of the New Zealand night, we were ready to tackle Mount Diablo.

We started at Macedo Ranch and without resting summited the 3,849 foot peak, ate lunch, and returned to the car in five hours. With the up down nature of the Wall Point trail, we estimated our total elevation change to have approached 8,000 feet over a distance of 14 miles. Of course, after watching the New Zealand team on Eco Challenge, team Pure NZ, we had a good time with our own "team", Pure NJ.

In the gravelly Aussie voice of Mark Burnett after a two night bender:

Team Pure NJ is in a class of their own, having shown a total disregard for all the rules and strategy of Eco Challenge. Having not slept for 3 days now, and carrying a heavy load of Schmidt's, many doubt the capability of this team only now an hour into the race. Not to mention, they spit on me, the race director, at the starting line and have been heckling the other competitors with vulgarity that would make a Tourette's patient blush. I'll tell you something thou, these lads are pure genius...

Finally...

Sometimes a small and unexpected piece of news makes me irrationally happy. My Dad sent me some newspaper clippings a few days ago and one included an article on this year's Dad Vail regatta results. I raced for years, was on some good crews, and have a nice medal and shirt collection (bronze in the Dad Vail in case your curious), but I never beat Temple (except as a freshmen, but I don't like to count that one, were talking varsity here). I hated those guys because no one could beat them in the Dad Vail. They just dominated the race. In Washington D.C. my crew almost beat them in the Cherry Blossom regatta, but we came up short by a tenth of a second. Now I am elated as someone finally beat them.

Yes, it's me in the bow.

Captain Confused

Is being a software manager difficult? It strikes me as a problem that becomes difficult only when it's allowed to become so. Presenting Management Made Easy, an ongoing series of thoughts and guiding principles regarding software management.

• When a manager says "We're all going to scratch our asses every morning" things are great, but when your the only person scratching your ass next Monday morning, you realize your wasting your time and plan on ignoring any future such wastes of time. Don't give a command you can't or won't enforce.
• One day your manager is freaking out over coding deadlines, the next day ISO process is the top order of the day. How is anyone to know what they should be doing and prioritizing. Present a consistent viewpoint that evolves slowly and predictably. This doesn't mean that business goals can't change -- they'll probably change quite often. Rather this rule is referring to the philosophy, or guiding principles, that are used to guide any decisions.

Mmmm... Lunch Time!

The average office desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat, according to a new University of Arizona study. Is this surprising? I'd swear there are fecal stains near the top of my keyboard. You can read more about this on Slashdot.

Career Change

I was watching Survivor last night and thinking about all the odd little voice overs that are in the show. Those paganistic "Huwah!" and gravelly "Rum hum tuh" are produced by some lucky fella. I need that gig.

Debbie Schlussel

This is related to my thoughts on how people make their arguments with bluster rather then logic. Debbie Schlussel is a columnist whose articles are designed to evoke emotion and simplify complicated issues into polarized viewpoints.

As she tells us in her bio, Debbie is a member of Mensa (which she explains is "High IQ") and is also in the "Who's Who of Executives", but fails to explain that the later is basically a paid advertisement. My belief is that the truly effective and intelligent amongst us don't bother trying to convince us they're smart, rather their arguments and presentation of the subject matter at hand draws us naturally to that conclusion. Debbie is in reality an entertainer who pretends to be a serious pundit. She tries to incite our emotions through faulty syllogisms, omission of fact, and outrageous acts of sophistry so that we'll believe that things are good vs. evil, black and white, and there is only one real choice.

One of my favorite articles, "How Democrats treat their child molesters" (by the way, I'm not angered by any of this, but rather sadly amused) discusses how the Republican party handles sexual misconduct responsibly whereas the Democrats are quite unconscionable. My favorite line in the article claims that Newt Gingrich is an example of virtue in this area, never mind he is arguably a more committed adulterer then Clinton. This captures the details quite well.

Thought for the Day I wonder if I'm a good man in "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

Lost? Come on in...

Search queries that led to this site: Top 3 of 3 Total Search Strings # Hits Search String 1 1 33.33% all tabitha stevens -adul -xx 2 1 33.33% ikea low voltage lights 3 1 33.33% picture of men eating lunch

Babble & Arrogance

I was going to write about the morning meeting with my financial planner over life insurance and what a suicide option is and how legislation is like software development, but I have a new thought. Over the past two years at my job, I've predicted a number of major trends before they happened, but people didn't always agree with me at the time, and we were inadequately prepared as a result. Tomorrow, I'm going to suggest a course of action to address a future problem, and I hope I can convince people to follow me. Otherwise, my ability to see the problem is meaningless because I can't get people to change their behavior.

Today also had unusually high synaptic activity on my part where I made a number of "+3 Insightful" observations regarding current problems. My potential is wasted here asI don't get pushed to exceed my arbitrary and self imposed boundaries. Of course, I'm always thinking I can do more -- but I doubt there is a level of accomplishment where I'll say "Great, I'm done now".

Comstock Ball Sack

I'm trying to decide what the most memorable event was from the trip to Nevada. Although I wish it was something else, there is no denying the vision of the faux ball sack -- burned in my mind with an intensity matching that lidless eye in the Lord of the Rings movie. Tempest and and I were in a parking lot in Carson City where upon we noticed your typical white trash pickup -- 6" lift kit, spoiler, peeing Calvin sticker, the whole deal. What distinguished this particular vehicle was what could only be an anatomically correct fake set of testicles (in red stretch plastic) hanging from the back bumper. I searched the farthest reaches of my mind in an attempt to reach an alternate conclusion. Perhaps it's a new type of boat hitch, the hair sack 2000? Nope, just a pair of fake 'nads.

I was disappointed that we didn't get to go in any old gold or silver mines. Apparently they're very unstable due to the amount of clay in the ground. Tempest pointed out a newspaper article about an unmarried school teacher and his male "friend" dying in an abandoned mine due to "bad air". Guess Nevada isn't as progressive as California. You still have to brave dangerous, abandoned mines to be with your "friend". I also missed the red light district museum. They featured medical tools for "women of pleasure" circa 1850. I'm sure it would have been a hoot. On the plus side, I learned (based on a quick calculation of a museum display) that 3 out 4 common medicinal products in 1850 were for constipation, or head aches caused by constipation, or lethargy caused by constipation. No notes on the diet of miners were available for correlation.

Imaginary Friends

Blogging can be very incestuous. Case in point, here is the blog of a friend of a friend that I like.

California Dreaming

I'm ready to go away this weekend -- the exotic destination of Carson City, Nevada is calling my name. I don't have any real plan as to what I'll do there, other then sit in a hot spring at a resort in the Sierras. I'll do some gambling with the pitifully small amount of money I have for such types of activities. There's something I like about going on a trip and having only the vaguest idea as to what I'll. It's the open possibilities and their contrast to my day to day life that is refreshing. Maybe I'll go to Virginia City, a "boom town" where the original Comstock load was found. That might be good since I can learn what a "comstock" is, other then a ski lift at Northstar.

Big Dick

Based on the amount of spam I get regarding penis growth, I'm estimating it to be a 17.8 billion dollar a year market in the U.S. alone. Here are some spam excerpts from just today:

From: bigpecker@mail.com 67% of women say they're unhappy with their lovers penis size. Now a world famous pharmacist has created a herbal science breakthrough. Revolutionary pill that is guaranteed to increase your penis size by at least 1-3" or more in just a few short weeks.

From: SuperSize CLICK HERE TO GO LARGE NOW!

From: pwdsgoer@yahoo.com FUCK FOR 8 HOURS STRAIGHT! AND LOSE 50 LBS WHILE YOU DO IT!

Perhaps my favorite:

From: sqnqa@k.ro FURRY NAKED BARNYARD FRIENDS!!!!!!

I had 67 messages like this in my junk folder. God bless the Internet.

Norm Abrams

So we got this old (but reupholstered), classy couch that was handmade in Philadelphia and is about nine feet long. Imagine what Cleopatra lies on as she's being fed grapes from a man servant. The problem is it sags somewhat when you sit on it so I needed to add some wooden bracing underneath it so the couch can last for years to come. A year ago, I would have been dumbfounded with such a problem. Now, I confidently purchased a milled piece of poplar and a wood stain that approximates the couch's existing wood color. I made some measurements under the couch with the steel tape, confidently cut the lengths for two center leg supports with a miter saw, and tested them for fit. Then I cut a cross brace to connect the two new legs.

Here's where the challenging work started. I (Captain Obvious) recognized that having squared lumber as part of an elegant piece of furniture is not, shall we say, aesthetically pleasing. The existing woodwork is rounded so the new woodwork should follow the style as much as possible. A few passes on the router table solved that issue. Then I needed to precisely measure and counterbore pilot holes for the screws that hold the brace together. It is a crucial phase that can negate all of the positive work done so far. My skill must be getting better, because it was a perfect fit. Some sanding, staining, and two coats of poly later, I've performed a nice furniture fix.

In college, we used to say that crew practice was the pursuit of "effortless effort". During this project, for a brief moment, I was in that zone.

The Color Blue

I know that personal computers are notoriously unreliable, but I've rarely had this experience at home, and a part of me has always been somewhat skeptical that computers are really that difficult. Last night I unpacked the new Dell and turned it on with my wife. The experience was pleasant with Windows XP guiding us through a few screens of basic questions and then starting up without issue. We plugged in the cable modem to the USB port and Windows asked us for the CD with the drivers. We inserted the CD and the modem was configured. We then changed changed a network setting and... oh no, the "blue screen of death"!

To be honest, I've not seen that screen in a few years, and was somewhat amused. Unfortunately, the computer would not start up again, as the BIOS was unable to detect the hard drive anymore. After an hour speaking to a nice man with a Texan drawl, it was decided that the hard drive was faulty and a new one would be shipped. So much for splurging on the second day delivery option.

To recap: Computer starts, runs five minutes, blue screen, dead.

The funny thing is, I'm not that upset -- I've come to understand why quality is given short shrift in hardware and software. Hopefully the law of averages will protect me and the next disk is functional.