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Reminisces of my first day reporting for oil spill cleanup duty on Friday, August 13, 2010:
It is 4:20 AM. I've just gotten up and turned on the coffee maker. The head supervisor at the oil spill cleanup staging area told me yesterday to come in today. There will be many workers like me at the staging site, a local elementary school parking lot. Because of the crowd, I've been instructed that when I get there, I should stay in my car until 5:30 AM, when we're supposed to line up and have our badges scanned to clock in by 6 AM. I put on my work jeans, a special long-sleeved white shirt made up of breathable fibers treated to reflect heat and UV rays, and my steel toed work boots, pour the coffee in a travel cup, and head out the door.
At 5:15 AM, I arrive at the parking lot. It's difficult to see what's happening at the clock-in area because there is a line of large charter busses in the circular drive. We're supposed to park in the "grass" - there isn't much grass left, it's mostly red clay mud, but it's not too wet. As I park I notice that none of the other workers is waiting in his or her car. I gather my hard hat, safety glasses, and fluorescent vest from the passenger seat and head up toward the front of the school. My heart stops - I see that there is already a long line of workers snaking around the edge of the circular drive. My brain starts calculating whether there are already more people here than bus seats, but I keep walking anyway until I reach the end of the line.
At 5:30, the line moves through the two badge scanning administrators surprisingly quickly. We workers are herded toward a number of tables labeled "Strike Team 1" to "Strike Team 5". I recall that the supervisor told me to look for Strike Team 1 or 2, so I head to the Strike Team 1 line. We are signing in (in spite of the fact that we were just scanned in) and printing our names on the Team Roster list for the specific team to which we belong. After 15 minutes of worrying that Strike Team 1 will fill up, I get to the head of the line and look for my name. It isn't on the list. I ask a supervisor behind the table and he asks me what my name is. When I tell him, he says, "Oh, last names L through Z are on Strike Team 2, get in that other line!" So I get in the other line, just certain I'm going to be put on standby. But it turns out that they've had to change the rotation, so some of the people in line aren't supposed to be here today and they are instructed to leave. When I reach the head of the line, I locate my name on the sheet and sign in. I locate the bus for my team, climb inside, and find a seat along with about 30 other workers and a few foremen.
It's 6:15 AM. A couple of men have spoken to us on the bus about why we haven't left yet, though none of them has identified himself as a foreman or a supervisor. One of them has started passing back a notebook and pen, instructing us to print our names and phone numbers so the team foreman can contact us in the days ahead if need be. Then the notebook is passed through again, and we're supposed to put our names, addresses and social security numbers on a different list. The foreman explains that he wants to make extra sure that the administration department has this information for all of his team members so that our paychecks will be processed correctly. After about a dozen people have already filled in this information, a general uproar from the workers convinces the foreman that we should only have to put down the last four digits of our SSNs. He locates the list and scratches out the first five digits for the people who've already begun the list. As a software engineer, this constant duplication of information is driving me nuts. I start designing a web-based oil spill team management application in my mind...
Our bus rolls out of the staging site and we arrive shortly along with a second bus at a location that has an access road to a long stretch of ocean front in Ft. Walton Beach. Some logistics people are already there, they have all terrain vehicles (ATVs) that get loaded up with the equipment stored in our bus. We wait for what seems like a long time after the ATVs leave. In the meantime, various people get on the bus and address us, only one of whom, a safety enforcement person, bothers to tell us who he is. Since we are still waiting, I get the sudden urge to stand up, pretend to be someone in authority, and make a speech about what is going to happen today. But I successfully resist this temptation and we are off the bus at 7:30 AM.
I ride with 13 other people to one of the work sites in an open-sided trailer pulled by a farming tractor. (think of a covered hayride with bench seats) My team's site for today is not too far from the beach access road. We exit the people carrier and set up a the site by erecting a portable canopy near the dunes for a break area and laying a large rectangle of plastic sheeting in front of it for a decontamination area. (where we will put on and remove our protective gear) The team is divided into two squads that will rotate between working and resting due to our exposure to the heat and humidity. Spilled oil from the BP well has been weathered by the sun and the sea over a period of days, so it is no longer off-gassing dangerous fumes like benzene or tolulene. (unlike the oil from the Exxon Valdez which was much closer to the shoreline) There is no smell of anything on the beach but salty ocean air.
It is 8:15 AM. My squad is chosen to work first. We line up at the decontamination area and don the special oil resistant gloves and boot covers. There aren't many visible tarballs on the surface of the sand but I soon find out that there are many of them hidden below the surface. Our squad has four roles to fill while looking for the oil tarballs. Some of us use plastic rake shovels with metal mesh to rake the sand. Almost immediately, oil tarballs ranging in size from a dime to a quarter pop up from beneath the surface. The rake person could scoop these up and sift the extra sand out through the mesh, but it's more efficient for them to keep raking while a second role uses a long handled net to capture and sift the tarballs. A third role follows the rakers and sifters with buckets or thich plastic bags to hold the captured tarballs. A fourth role uses a plastic shovel to dig exploratory holes in the sand at various locations around the work area. Occasionally this person will find much larger veins of oil tarballs (some of which are as large as a human hand) that the rest of the team can concentrate on. Sooner than I realize, 30 minutes has elapsed and it is time for our team to be relieved by the other squad. We lay down our tools at the far end of the decontamination mat and remove and discard our protective gloves and boot covers while the next squad puts on fresh ones.
Our squad shifts continue to rotate like this throughout the day with a general break at noon for lunch and an occasional stand down due to rain or nearby lightning. Lunch happens under the team canopy but safety stand downs require us to be transported back to the busses. In the early afternoon, we strike the work sites and head back to the busses. The logistics people retrieve the work site gear in the ATVs. In the meantime, various foremen and safety personnel get on the busses to tell us how we did and what general work habits they observed that were either exemplary or borderline dangerous. After what seems like a long time, the busses are loaded up. I make a mental note to bring something to read with me on future shifts. By 3 PM, we have arrived back at the staging location and have clocked out, the work day is over.
Overall, a very positive experience. The work is not back-breaking, but it is definitely back-aching - the sand can get heavy, especially after a rain shower. Yet, I am glad to be participating in the cleanup effort. I was lucky to be at a place in my life that made it easy to drop what I was doing and come to help out. There were times when I felt a little discouraged by the obstacles on the path to becoming qualified for this work. It's gratifying to have persevered and achieved the goal that I set for myself. And there are the bonuses: I'm making some new friends and enjoying my time living in the Ft Walton Beach area. I won't be doing this work for too long, but doing it makes me feel like I was able to help out my country in a time of need. And that has been worth more than all the rest of it.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Weighing Separate Wisdom Paths: Business Choice 2010
It's springtime in the American economy - time to plant seeds of enterprise that may, with some luck and a good bit of determination and skill, bring forth a bountiful harvest as the recovery kicks into high gear over the next few years. And I've been reading and listening to a lot of great business educational material lately. I find that there are two broad categories of advice with regard to the choice of a business.
The first wisdom path is the "Do What You Love And The Money Will Come" school of thought. This line of reasoning dates back at least as far as Confucius (500 BCE) who was the first person we know of to write, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." It is tempting to take this advice just to prove to myself (and to my slice of the world) whether or not it is really true. If, as Deepak Chopra writes, I choose the path that I would have chosen anyway (were I already rich), the path that most completely matches my gifts to the needs of the world, I would unhesitatingly choose to become an author and speaker in the field of personal development. (AKA "Motivational Speaker") I've got a great life story that already sounds like something you'd read in a movie script and it lights me up to pass on the wisdom that had made such a dramatic difference in my life. Any of my close friends could attest to the truth of these assertions.
I've recently gone far enough along this path to create stubs for chapters of a book that I think would be timely and relevant to America's current economic situation. It's entitled, "How To Thrive During The Recovery". It has specific, practical advice about how to take advantage of our developing economic upturn - whether the reader is interested in employment, business, real estate, or stock investing. I've also created the opening portions of a free, 90-minute seminar that I could give in cities as the book is launched to help introduce it to the public. (as well as enroll people in future advanced seminars offered for pay)
The drawback with pursuing the first path is that I'm currently a completely unknown commodity to the public. Even though I feel confident in the value of what I have to say, I'd be starting from scratch without the benefit of having created a "brand" as a person of well-known or easily researched accomplishments. To say it more plainly, it would be a heck of a lot easier to put butts in seats and sell my books if I'd already developed a certain level of authentic celebrity. There would be hard work involved either way but there's nothing wrong with having as many factors as possible in your favor when you attempt something big.
The second broad wisdom path says, "Find out what the market wants, crunch the numbers, and then choose the opportunity with the best bottom line." Jim Rohn would say something like: Don't worry so much about discovering your passion; find a great opportunity and then pour your own passion into it. When I crunch the numbers, it is obvious that the field of wealth management offers me the greatest upside potential for financial success given my marketable skills. While it is true that I'd be starting as an unknown commodity in this field as well, the rewards of doing well over time dwarf the rewards I could reasonably expect from a speaking career or even starting up a new tech company. My close friends could also attest to my skills in the stock market, so I feel some confidence in my abilities here. I'd have a lot of growing to do to sell and market my services successfully, but I view that as a growth opportunity, not a problem. And I'd need to develop these skills for the motivational speaking career anyway.
It's by no means a done deal, but the second wisdom path looks more and more attractive to me. Assuming I created a wealth management practice and did well with it, I could use that track record later as the marketing springboard for the motivational speaking/writing career. Although this seems to be common sense, I have an innate sense of aversion to anything that looks like putting a dream on hold for a mythical "someday" when one is finally ready to get started on it. So I'm still percolating on these things. Maybe this time around the lesson will be to overcome that aversion and go with the practical path for a change. No matter which one I choose, I intend to devote my sole focus to that choice for at least the next decade or longer. This is why I'm sitting with the question for now... The outcome of this process will mean saying "No" to something I'm very interested in pursuing, whichever choice wins out. And (simply as an acknowledgement of my lack of omniscience) until I decide, I am open to discovering an even better path than the ones I'm currently considering.
I don't intend to take long to decide. Springtime doesn't last forever. One is better served by planting seeds and getting some crop than by staring at the field for too long wondering which crop would be best.
The first wisdom path is the "Do What You Love And The Money Will Come" school of thought. This line of reasoning dates back at least as far as Confucius (500 BCE) who was the first person we know of to write, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." It is tempting to take this advice just to prove to myself (and to my slice of the world) whether or not it is really true. If, as Deepak Chopra writes, I choose the path that I would have chosen anyway (were I already rich), the path that most completely matches my gifts to the needs of the world, I would unhesitatingly choose to become an author and speaker in the field of personal development. (AKA "Motivational Speaker") I've got a great life story that already sounds like something you'd read in a movie script and it lights me up to pass on the wisdom that had made such a dramatic difference in my life. Any of my close friends could attest to the truth of these assertions.
I've recently gone far enough along this path to create stubs for chapters of a book that I think would be timely and relevant to America's current economic situation. It's entitled, "How To Thrive During The Recovery". It has specific, practical advice about how to take advantage of our developing economic upturn - whether the reader is interested in employment, business, real estate, or stock investing. I've also created the opening portions of a free, 90-minute seminar that I could give in cities as the book is launched to help introduce it to the public. (as well as enroll people in future advanced seminars offered for pay)
The drawback with pursuing the first path is that I'm currently a completely unknown commodity to the public. Even though I feel confident in the value of what I have to say, I'd be starting from scratch without the benefit of having created a "brand" as a person of well-known or easily researched accomplishments. To say it more plainly, it would be a heck of a lot easier to put butts in seats and sell my books if I'd already developed a certain level of authentic celebrity. There would be hard work involved either way but there's nothing wrong with having as many factors as possible in your favor when you attempt something big.
The second broad wisdom path says, "Find out what the market wants, crunch the numbers, and then choose the opportunity with the best bottom line." Jim Rohn would say something like: Don't worry so much about discovering your passion; find a great opportunity and then pour your own passion into it. When I crunch the numbers, it is obvious that the field of wealth management offers me the greatest upside potential for financial success given my marketable skills. While it is true that I'd be starting as an unknown commodity in this field as well, the rewards of doing well over time dwarf the rewards I could reasonably expect from a speaking career or even starting up a new tech company. My close friends could also attest to my skills in the stock market, so I feel some confidence in my abilities here. I'd have a lot of growing to do to sell and market my services successfully, but I view that as a growth opportunity, not a problem. And I'd need to develop these skills for the motivational speaking career anyway.
It's by no means a done deal, but the second wisdom path looks more and more attractive to me. Assuming I created a wealth management practice and did well with it, I could use that track record later as the marketing springboard for the motivational speaking/writing career. Although this seems to be common sense, I have an innate sense of aversion to anything that looks like putting a dream on hold for a mythical "someday" when one is finally ready to get started on it. So I'm still percolating on these things. Maybe this time around the lesson will be to overcome that aversion and go with the practical path for a change. No matter which one I choose, I intend to devote my sole focus to that choice for at least the next decade or longer. This is why I'm sitting with the question for now... The outcome of this process will mean saying "No" to something I'm very interested in pursuing, whichever choice wins out. And (simply as an acknowledgement of my lack of omniscience) until I decide, I am open to discovering an even better path than the ones I'm currently considering.
I don't intend to take long to decide. Springtime doesn't last forever. One is better served by planting seeds and getting some crop than by staring at the field for too long wondering which crop would be best.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Starting Anew In Austin
I moved to Austin, Texas the weekend of April 10. I drove a rental truck with my car in tow from Orlando, Florida, and the whole trip took about 30 hours, including a five hour stop at a motel to get some rest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Packing and getting underway was made a good bit easier thanks to the help of some good friends in Orlando who helped me organize and box up my stuff. Much appreciated!
So now I've been in Austin almost two weeks. It's gone by fast, and I'm finally just about settled in where I'm staying, a room share in a beautiful four-bedroom house up in the Arboretum area (northwest from downtown). Although my ultimate plan is business ownership and development, I have allowed myself to be courted by a couple of software companies for full-time employment. One of them had previously extended me an offer in spring '08, but I took a competing offer in the DC area instead.
Why would I participate in job interviews if I want to go into business? This is the question I am living with currently. There are a few ways to look at it: 1) I'm selling out on my dreams by pursuing full-time work, postponing the "real" life I keep telling myself I'll have someday. 2) It's something practical to do while I keep my ear to the ground and get a feel for the best avenues of business opportunity that are available. 3) It's a way to practice some of the best wisdom I've ever learned, being willing to be "open to everything and attached to nothing". (Wayne Dyer)
I am truly blessed. I followed opportunity back in 1995 and built the kind of career and skills that get me noticed in the job market for very good pay. But sometimes I wonder if this situation has also created a kind of gravity that keeps me from moving up into an orbit that is higher still. When I read the business stories of people like Richard Branson, Felix Dennis - even Bill Gates and Michael Dell - I feel like I may be settling for something less than what I have the potential of becoming by taking on a salaried position. You see, it's always a good time to take a job, and it's never a good time to jump into business. A software job offers me good money. The benefits are nice. There's a lot to like about it and I would never dishonor the value of working for a paycheck. It's just that something deep inside of me wants to the one who creates jobs, who puts capital at risk, who makes a difference (of whatever magnitude) in this world by creating and promoting his own products and services.
I was recently re-reading a chapter in Ken Fisher's excellent book The Ten Roads To Wealth where he writes about managing other peoples' money. Wealth managers make up the largest percentage of the annual Forbes 400 list of the world's richest people. Fisher himself is on the list for that reason. He was saying in his book that the most important part of getting started (from a business survival standpoint) is learning how to sell. In fact, he recommends a person interested in this path to learn selling even before learning investing. That got me thinking - maybe what I want to do is take on a sales job and get some more real-world experience there. I say "more" because I have worked as a salesman in the past - my first job was concession sales at the Toledo Zoo, after which I sold computers at KMart. Back in the '90s, I occasionally took up holiday sales work at Circuit City. Most of my friends think I have this skill in spades, but like so many areas of my life, it's mostly raw talent that hasn't been developed in a focused, sustained way.
One thing is for sure, I feel as energized now as I did when I first took computer programming seriously back in 1995, when I had a sense that the world was my oyster and only opportunity was ahead. As my dear friend Mimi Munroe would remind me, "You can't get it wrong." No Mim, I can't. I remain clear about my eventual outcome, yet the path to that destination is an unknown adventure that I embrace with abandon.
So now I've been in Austin almost two weeks. It's gone by fast, and I'm finally just about settled in where I'm staying, a room share in a beautiful four-bedroom house up in the Arboretum area (northwest from downtown). Although my ultimate plan is business ownership and development, I have allowed myself to be courted by a couple of software companies for full-time employment. One of them had previously extended me an offer in spring '08, but I took a competing offer in the DC area instead.
Why would I participate in job interviews if I want to go into business? This is the question I am living with currently. There are a few ways to look at it: 1) I'm selling out on my dreams by pursuing full-time work, postponing the "real" life I keep telling myself I'll have someday. 2) It's something practical to do while I keep my ear to the ground and get a feel for the best avenues of business opportunity that are available. 3) It's a way to practice some of the best wisdom I've ever learned, being willing to be "open to everything and attached to nothing". (Wayne Dyer)
I am truly blessed. I followed opportunity back in 1995 and built the kind of career and skills that get me noticed in the job market for very good pay. But sometimes I wonder if this situation has also created a kind of gravity that keeps me from moving up into an orbit that is higher still. When I read the business stories of people like Richard Branson, Felix Dennis - even Bill Gates and Michael Dell - I feel like I may be settling for something less than what I have the potential of becoming by taking on a salaried position. You see, it's always a good time to take a job, and it's never a good time to jump into business. A software job offers me good money. The benefits are nice. There's a lot to like about it and I would never dishonor the value of working for a paycheck. It's just that something deep inside of me wants to the one who creates jobs, who puts capital at risk, who makes a difference (of whatever magnitude) in this world by creating and promoting his own products and services.
I was recently re-reading a chapter in Ken Fisher's excellent book The Ten Roads To Wealth where he writes about managing other peoples' money. Wealth managers make up the largest percentage of the annual Forbes 400 list of the world's richest people. Fisher himself is on the list for that reason. He was saying in his book that the most important part of getting started (from a business survival standpoint) is learning how to sell. In fact, he recommends a person interested in this path to learn selling even before learning investing. That got me thinking - maybe what I want to do is take on a sales job and get some more real-world experience there. I say "more" because I have worked as a salesman in the past - my first job was concession sales at the Toledo Zoo, after which I sold computers at KMart. Back in the '90s, I occasionally took up holiday sales work at Circuit City. Most of my friends think I have this skill in spades, but like so many areas of my life, it's mostly raw talent that hasn't been developed in a focused, sustained way.
One thing is for sure, I feel as energized now as I did when I first took computer programming seriously back in 1995, when I had a sense that the world was my oyster and only opportunity was ahead. As my dear friend Mimi Munroe would remind me, "You can't get it wrong." No Mim, I can't. I remain clear about my eventual outcome, yet the path to that destination is an unknown adventure that I embrace with abandon.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
"Getting" Twitter
When I first heard about Twitter.com, it was through a co-worker in the computer games industry. He didn't get Twitter and he described it to me in a way that made it sound like a crack pipe for narcissistic ADD sufferers. It was only recently, during emergency relief efforts for the Haiti and Chile earthquakes that I even gave Twitter a second thought. Turns out Twitter was very useful as a communication tool of last resort for hundreds of thousands of people during those crises.
I'm currently attending South by Southwest Interactive, a conference that features the latest information about all the cool technology that makes Web 2.0 happen. (Facebook, Farmville, Twitter, etc) I arrived here without a Twitter account set up and with a very basic (read: non-"smart") mobile phone. It was a riot. Whenever I introduced myself to someone, they either wanted my Twitter ID or they wanted me to use a smartphone to scan their badge barcode to get their info. I felt like an armless man at a canoe-rowing party. It certainly didn't help that I decided to come just two weeks ago and didn't print up any personal business cards. Yes kids, it turns out that spontaneity can have its drawbacks.
But being immersed in this conference and it's amazing sea of digitally connected people had a very positive effect on me. I came to understand that Twitter's model of following others and very short update messages really does enable something positive. It allows the rapid creation and destruction of networks of helpful acquaintances who have the information you are interested in right now. It helps break people out of the dreadful fright they have about "tooting your own horn." As the wise advice goes - if you don't toot your horn, who is going to toot it?
So Twitter isn't about narcissism in a negative sense. I've come to see that it is a useful platform to allow natural leaders in various areas to emerge organically, based on their insight into topics that matter in any given context. It basically allows instantly formed chat rooms around topics that suddenly become relevant. The readers and other contributors to the topics can get to know very quickly who is and who is not relevant with regard to the topic and can choose to follow those who distinguish themselves. Since we all are more conversant on some topics than others, it is a true democratization of information - each of us can contribute to the benefit of all of us, based on the topics that matter to any of us.
I hope you will go to twitter.com and give it a try. Create a free account, upload a profile photo, and let it's introductory screen try to locate your other friends (based on your email contacts). Then start "tweeting". Go one step further in the setup screens and turn on the ability to send updates from your mobile phone. It's really easy and it allows you to "get the word out" to the people who matter to you very very easily. (even if you have an old phone that only sends text messages - btw, standard text fees apply of course) Open your mind to the possibilities, and you'll be surprised at the benefits you gain, both socially and personally.
I'm currently attending South by Southwest Interactive, a conference that features the latest information about all the cool technology that makes Web 2.0 happen. (Facebook, Farmville, Twitter, etc) I arrived here without a Twitter account set up and with a very basic (read: non-"smart") mobile phone. It was a riot. Whenever I introduced myself to someone, they either wanted my Twitter ID or they wanted me to use a smartphone to scan their badge barcode to get their info. I felt like an armless man at a canoe-rowing party. It certainly didn't help that I decided to come just two weeks ago and didn't print up any personal business cards. Yes kids, it turns out that spontaneity can have its drawbacks.
But being immersed in this conference and it's amazing sea of digitally connected people had a very positive effect on me. I came to understand that Twitter's model of following others and very short update messages really does enable something positive. It allows the rapid creation and destruction of networks of helpful acquaintances who have the information you are interested in right now. It helps break people out of the dreadful fright they have about "tooting your own horn." As the wise advice goes - if you don't toot your horn, who is going to toot it?
So Twitter isn't about narcissism in a negative sense. I've come to see that it is a useful platform to allow natural leaders in various areas to emerge organically, based on their insight into topics that matter in any given context. It basically allows instantly formed chat rooms around topics that suddenly become relevant. The readers and other contributors to the topics can get to know very quickly who is and who is not relevant with regard to the topic and can choose to follow those who distinguish themselves. Since we all are more conversant on some topics than others, it is a true democratization of information - each of us can contribute to the benefit of all of us, based on the topics that matter to any of us.
I hope you will go to twitter.com and give it a try. Create a free account, upload a profile photo, and let it's introductory screen try to locate your other friends (based on your email contacts). Then start "tweeting". Go one step further in the setup screens and turn on the ability to send updates from your mobile phone. It's really easy and it allows you to "get the word out" to the people who matter to you very very easily. (even if you have an old phone that only sends text messages - btw, standard text fees apply of course) Open your mind to the possibilities, and you'll be surprised at the benefits you gain, both socially and personally.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
That Was Easy
Last night I installed the latest version of Ubuntu Linux (9.10) on my main PC. Went off without a hitch. I was able to quickly get up-to-speed with the app (called a package manager) that lets you find and install other programs. This is a more impressive job by Ubuntu than it sounds, because I installed the "server" version of the OS that doesn't come with a graphical user interface by default. Finding the window manager I wanted and getting it up and running quickly (with all dependencies and a sensible set of default graphical programs) "just worked". This is something that couldn't be said of many Linux experiences of years gone by. Sound didn't work right away for me, but hey - you've almost got to have some kind of glitch or it wouldn't feel like a genuine Linux experience! It was a known issue with an easy fix.
Since I've been vegging out with Windows 7 at home for just about a year now, (though I used Linux at work) it was fun to observe my brain zoom back up to speed with the UNIX command line mojo I've developed over the years. Like riding a bicycle - it all came rushing back. On a philosophical note, I, by far, prefer a system that does everything via command-line processing with GUI sugar added on (like Linux) to a system that starts with a GUI and then tries to expose some of its functionality via command line later. (like Windows and the old Mac OS) This makes it possible to easily create scripts that do useful things - easy to make a system run the way I want it to rather than the way its creator wants me to: Legos versus a jigsaw puzzle.
I've already installed the latest versions of several programming languages. Among these are the usual suspects like c++, Java, and Python. But I did a little digging and installed Google's new language, "go!", as well. I figure any language co-created by a guy who helped birth UNIX (as well as the obscure "Plan9" OS - the name was inspired by the title of a cult sci-fi movie) has got to have something going for it. Well, more seriously, go! is interesting to me for two reasons: it exposes multiprocessing in the language itself, and it is the first new well-backed "systems" language (you can build low-level servers with it) in decades. This latter point makes me happy because it is a pie the face of snobby academia elites who decry, "We don't need any more computer languages! It couldn't possibly bring anything new to the table!"
So yeah - geekin' out, coding, trying out riffs of ideas that have been rolling around in the back of my mind for a while.
Since I've been vegging out with Windows 7 at home for just about a year now, (though I used Linux at work) it was fun to observe my brain zoom back up to speed with the UNIX command line mojo I've developed over the years. Like riding a bicycle - it all came rushing back. On a philosophical note, I, by far, prefer a system that does everything via command-line processing with GUI sugar added on (like Linux) to a system that starts with a GUI and then tries to expose some of its functionality via command line later. (like Windows and the old Mac OS) This makes it possible to easily create scripts that do useful things - easy to make a system run the way I want it to rather than the way its creator wants me to: Legos versus a jigsaw puzzle.
I've already installed the latest versions of several programming languages. Among these are the usual suspects like c++, Java, and Python. But I did a little digging and installed Google's new language, "go!", as well. I figure any language co-created by a guy who helped birth UNIX (as well as the obscure "Plan9" OS - the name was inspired by the title of a cult sci-fi movie) has got to have something going for it. Well, more seriously, go! is interesting to me for two reasons: it exposes multiprocessing in the language itself, and it is the first new well-backed "systems" language (you can build low-level servers with it) in decades. This latter point makes me happy because it is a pie the face of snobby academia elites who decry, "We don't need any more computer languages! It couldn't possibly bring anything new to the table!"
So yeah - geekin' out, coding, trying out riffs of ideas that have been rolling around in the back of my mind for a while.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Losing An Uncle, Gaining A Family
I'm not sure why it takes a death in the family to spur us to reconnect with loved ones we've lost track of, but that's what the last few days has been like for me. My beloved Uncle Stan died on Valentine's day and I traveled to his part of the country to attend the memorial service held in his honor last weekend.
Stan lived a long and interesting life and he was rich in the areas that count most, love and life experiences - as well as being well off materially. Like a star, his homestead attracted the nearby dwelling places of his natural and extended families. His own fascinating house commands an incredible view at the top of a low summit aptly named "Love's Hill". It's tempting to write about the cool cars he drove and raced, his pilot's license, his professional ascent to Chief of Medicine at the hospital where he worked, as well as the less auspicious but satisfying medical work he did at local schools and prisons. My dad says that his brother "Wanted to do everything, try everything." It's pretty clear from my life history that I inherited that part of the family's genetic sequence myself.
Whether it was the turbulent transition from the sixties to the seventies or personal transitions in their own lives, my father and uncle left the wives of their 20s and 30s at a similar time, stranding cousins and aunts from the regular contact that would have happened if it had not been so. We all went by nicknames back then. I was "Buddy" (Bernard II), Stan Jr. was "Chummy", and his brother John was "Johnny". My paternal grandparents were a hub of occasional re-uniting, and it was always fun to get together. Well fun for me anyway, I was the youngest of us three. I'm sure I was a bit of a pain in the butt to Chummy and Johnny, but it was the good kind of pain in the butt - they got back at me whenever we went outside and played catch. Guess who got to be the eternal and everlasting monkey in the middle? Good times.
And then the inevitable high school commencements and goings out into the world, some to college, some to the military. We were spread out all over the country. Every once in a while one of us would make an effort and re-establish contact. But like in the parable of the sower, "the cares of this world" took their toll and it would often be years before we would hear from one another.
So last weekend, I got the chance to hug the necks of some dear people I hadn't seen in a good long while, not just Chummy and Johnny and their mother, but Stan's second family and friends of the family as well. Miss Baltimore came with me (I had been visiting her for Valentine's weekend when I got the news) and it was a delight to introduce her to them and vice versa. It felt so good to be so connected again after all the years. I hope we all make the effort to keep in touch and visit from time to time.
Stan lived a long and interesting life and he was rich in the areas that count most, love and life experiences - as well as being well off materially. Like a star, his homestead attracted the nearby dwelling places of his natural and extended families. His own fascinating house commands an incredible view at the top of a low summit aptly named "Love's Hill". It's tempting to write about the cool cars he drove and raced, his pilot's license, his professional ascent to Chief of Medicine at the hospital where he worked, as well as the less auspicious but satisfying medical work he did at local schools and prisons. My dad says that his brother "Wanted to do everything, try everything." It's pretty clear from my life history that I inherited that part of the family's genetic sequence myself.
Whether it was the turbulent transition from the sixties to the seventies or personal transitions in their own lives, my father and uncle left the wives of their 20s and 30s at a similar time, stranding cousins and aunts from the regular contact that would have happened if it had not been so. We all went by nicknames back then. I was "Buddy" (Bernard II), Stan Jr. was "Chummy", and his brother John was "Johnny". My paternal grandparents were a hub of occasional re-uniting, and it was always fun to get together. Well fun for me anyway, I was the youngest of us three. I'm sure I was a bit of a pain in the butt to Chummy and Johnny, but it was the good kind of pain in the butt - they got back at me whenever we went outside and played catch. Guess who got to be the eternal and everlasting monkey in the middle? Good times.
And then the inevitable high school commencements and goings out into the world, some to college, some to the military. We were spread out all over the country. Every once in a while one of us would make an effort and re-establish contact. But like in the parable of the sower, "the cares of this world" took their toll and it would often be years before we would hear from one another.
So last weekend, I got the chance to hug the necks of some dear people I hadn't seen in a good long while, not just Chummy and Johnny and their mother, but Stan's second family and friends of the family as well. Miss Baltimore came with me (I had been visiting her for Valentine's weekend when I got the news) and it was a delight to introduce her to them and vice versa. It felt so good to be so connected again after all the years. I hope we all make the effort to keep in touch and visit from time to time.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Back On The Horse
Yes, yes, I've been neglecting my blog, but it's never too late to get back on the horse. I got so used to updating my status on social networking sites that I got away from posting "big picture" articles here. But I intend to create the kind of structure in my life that supports taking care of both.
Thanks for reading, and staying with me!
Thanks for reading, and staying with me!
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