You minus 10 years probably equals dumbass

This is a retelling of a story that was told to a guy I worked with. The original person is in their 70's, but I thought it interesting enough to pass on.

When the guy was 18 he thought that he had pretty much figured things out in life and knew what was what. When he turned 28 he felt the same way, but he had come a long way since he was 18. His eighteen year old self he now considered a dumbass and he was glad that he had gained that knowledge of the last 10 years.

When he turned 38, now he really knew what was what, had figured out life and looking back his twenty eight year old self was a dumbass. Same conclusions every decade as he aged: no matter how much he had figured out, give it 10 years and hindsight and he really knew squat and behaved like an ass.

I don't think that I have to live to be in my 70's to take this guys lesson. I'll operate under the assumption that 10 years from now, I'll probably look back at my confidence and knowledge and consider my younger self to be a dumbass. This seems yet another way to keep hubris in check.

Do you think that you're smart and have your shit together? Yes? You might not think that in 10 years. Dumbass.

Log entry: Day 8 of the Experiment

So far the experiment of growing a full beard is proceeding without any drastic events. However I have reservations about the eventual outcome and if it will be sustainable. The decision to embark on this path was partially forced by the failure of half of the shaver which meant trimming the neck-ular area took far longer than it had in the past. To an outside observer they might attribute the additional facial hair to the current hockey playoffs, but for the people that know this researcher they would know that is not the case. Only time will tell the outcome of this endeavor, but my heart tells me that it probably won't last. If that is to be the case, then a new shaver will be an expenditure that I must undertake.
End log.

Water around the rock

It's with problems that are "owned" by other people. If they do not have any motivation to change the state of things, it's almost certain that things will remain how they are. Reminds me of a law I once read about. So, if you want things to be different I think that your choices are limited to:
1) change the force so that some movement of the issue happens
2) route around the problem like a stream when it encounters a rock in its path
3) shut the hell up, move on, and focus on issues that you can change

Now #1 sometimes can be impossible if you don't have a lever big enough. #2 might not be an applicable option. That leaves #3. The problem with #3 is that it never actually solves anything. It's a good "I'm too tired of this issue right now, I'm going to move on to something else". The problem will continue to be a pain and it will resurface again and again until someone can figure out how to do #1 or #2 - lather, rinse, repeat.

Since #3 is always going to suck, each time you come to a problem you need to either have be carrying a big enough stick to make the problem go away OR to be able to totally sidestep the source of the problem and come up with an alternative solution. Otherwise you're stuck in some kind of eternal return.

Just gotta let things rest

One thing that I think that I should be doing for the food I make is to let it rest (sit) for a while. It just allows everything to meld and taste oh-so-good. The tricky part is that I don't often make the time to do this. Hell, I don't know what I'm going to serve as I'm preparing the meal sometimes. It is how it is when it's done.

Now, for me to make really good food, I think that I have to come home from work at like noon and start preparing things. Either that, or make 1/2 the things that I want to eat the day before. :-/

I better stop stalling and make some dinner so that it can sit and rest some. :-P

Brilliant deduction Captain Obvious!

A lot of the time people will say something so obvious that I just want to mock them the moment it's out of their mouth. But I'm either not quick enough, or too nice, or a combo of the 2 to actually slam them.

The first thing out of someone's mouth when I show up wearing a bike helmet and shorts, holding panniers is "Did you bike here?". Like every freaking time. I very much want to answer in a deadpan voice and expression "No, I just took the bus." I don't know if it's a social reflex or what, but it's annoying.

One lady a couple of months ago was trying to get into our 7th floor work area. She was looking for some boardroom 10-something. She asked us if we knew where it was, and the first thing that popped out of my mouth was "no, but I'd try the 10th floor". I'm just glad that it was polite. I guess that some people aren't used to numbering conventions...

*sigh*

Calling you man

It's steadily increasing how many times it's been a PITA for Laura and I both not to have a mobile phone. It's annoying, it's harder to co-ordinate or meet up. It's really starting to tick me off. I've been lightly shopping for a new phone for Laura because if there's someone who actually needs a smart phone of the 2 of us, it's her. She usually carries a cell, pager, palm pilot (old school, not wireless, not a phone) - and she actually uses them. It's not a toy for her, it's a tool.

Me on the other hand, it would very much just be a toy. A nice, shiny toy. Do I need a smart phone? No. Do I want one? Of course. But, like most things, I just don't want to pay for one. I think that the simplest (and cheapest) thing that would solve my current frustration would be to add a text messaging plan to our pay-as-you-go phone and for me to carry that one.

I'm excited for Laura because this summer it sounds like both the palm pre and goggle (android) phones are being released, in addition to the iphone and blackberries already on the market.

If I was going to choose one based solely on what I know now, I'd probably get the android based HTC Magic. Looks pretty, has all the google stuff built in (which I use a lot), is somewhat hackable with being able to write java apps for it. It looks like you can even use maven and eclipse for building apps, all you need in a one time 25 $ output to put things into the market. That's the phone I want to play with.

What phone do I think Laura should get? Unfortunately for the apps that she'll probably need, I doubt that they would have an android version right now. (Laura, remind me if you read this to give me a list of the apps you use so I can write the companies asking / requesting android versions). We'll see what kinds of mid-summer deals the carriers will come out with.

Wax on / Wax off

Since we have the brand new car we were hoping to keep it nice for as long as possible. I don't want it to rust out like the focus. So, in order to make it stay shiny and new I spent a good part of the day washing and waxing it. I've never waxed a car I own before. I probably have not waxed a car or anything since I was 10.

After I washed it I left it to dry a bit. When I went to go wax it, the weather has just started to spit. So, in the garage and time for the work. It took a while, but it looks great. I think that I've spent more time cleaning a car today than I have in the last 10 years total. Crazy.

One thing that I should have realized but didn't is that dirt is a Bad Thing. When your car is dirty, moisture, oils, etc stick to the car, eat away at the paint and allows rust (apparently). Clean car == not too rusty car. So we're going to do our best to keep the car clean and have it last as long as possible.

Getting it done

One of the things that I'm coming to realize is that sometimes it's much more important to get things done than waiting until you have time to "do it right". Sub-optimal, but done, is better than not done, but with plans on doing it totally "right". Of course this sub-optimal solution has to be weighed against not doing anything at all. You don't want your half-assed solution to actually cause more work.

Examples work best for me. For one of the COTS apps that I help take care of, it comes with logging configured to create a new file each day and never clears out the old logs. And it logs a lot - somewhere in the range of 1 G + / week. The "right" solution would be to look into changing the logging level and how the files are created. The sub-optimal solution I did was write a cron that finds all files older than the last 5 days and delete them. Not ideal, but it's done.

Done half-assed is better than done no-assed, as I always say. Well, that was the first time, but I'm sure that I'll say it some other time too...

<del>Stuff under my stuff</del> Junk in my Trunk

We just picked up our first new car the other day - a 2009 vw rabbit. Very excited about something so new and shiny. This is the first car that I don't end explaining what car I have with the phrase "... that's all that I could afford that I also fit in". It's quite peppy and corners awesome, I'm just going to have to watch so I don't speed because there is no roar / shake at speeds.

There are many different things that I'm sure that I'm going to be excited about the new car, but I really like the storage underneath the area in the trunk. It's actually useful compared to every other car I've driven. In the back of my other cars, it's difficult to get to the spare tire, and when you do there really isn't any places for anything else. In the rabbit (and many other cars I looked at), it's easy to get to the tire and there is all these spaces for tools or junk.

In the last car I had bungee cords, rope, air compressor, etc all bouncing around in the trunk. That meant that they were always in a tangled ball. In the new car there are these little sections that I can fit all these things in nice rolled up sections. I'm carrying around stuff that I feel is useful, but the trunk looks empty.

I don't know if it's a getting old thing or what, but I really appreciate and enjoy good packaging and when things are "smartly" built. It just shows that there has been some focus on the details, and I find the quality of the details is one of the best indication of overall quality.