Finding Things

Some days you lose things so fast it seems they're running away. Yesterday was our day to find the things that didn't run fast or far enough.

First was the Wii Sports disc, missing for a week. I don't know if one of the cats knocked it off of the entertainment center or if it slipped unnoticed when Lisa decluttered around the TV, but it ended up under the side table where we have the Wii and a turntable. The bottom shelf of the table practically rests on the floor, close enough that we couldn't see under it. Lisa happened to see the disc when she shifted the table to clean around it. Now, we can have that bowling tournament.

Next, I checked the office printer/fax, and I found the fax confirmation that simply hadn't printed out before I left work on Monday. I guess I should've waited a little longer.

And lastly, my checkbook gave up on our game of hide-and-seek. I found it in the bottom of my backpack. I'm glad to postpone ordering more checks.

In every case, this quote applies: Persistence is like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you get tired. You quit when the gorilla gets tired.

Today's Outbreak of Common Sense

Leadership requires freedom to take responsibility. Over the years the accretion of programs and entitlements has disconnected our leaders from this indispensable ingredient of all human accomplishment. No official, not even the president, has authority to make needed choices. Responsibility has been suffocated by law. The destruction of responsibility is a progressive disease, dragging the rest of society down with it. Ask any teacher or doctor. They're immersed in law all day long, preventing them from using their common sense to do what they believe is right. The only solution is to dredge the Potomac. Washington must start over, area by area, and simplify law so that officials have a chance of applying it sensibly to meet current needs. Individual responsibility should be the litmus test for all laws and programs.

- Philip K. Howard

And Now For Something Different...

Just to prove the Babble On epigram, here's Rock Sugar!



Via Whatever.

Why Do I Do That?

Is there anything you do that, every time you do it, you find yourself at least mentally pausing and asking yourself, "Why do I do that?"

For my part, when I leave the room she's in for a task or short errand, I tell Lisa, "Be right back", or "Be back in a minute." I'm pretty sure she knows I'll return shortly, but I nearly always say it.

Opening Ceremonies

We watched the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Games on Friday night, and thanks to The Experiment, we saw them on the local NBC station in HD. How gorgeous! And it was truly appropriate that it was snowing in Greensboro as the Games opened.

Lisa has Native American ancestry, and she was thrilled with the First Country participation in the cultural portion of the ceremonies. We've attended a couple of pow-wows conducted by the Guilford Native American Association, and that helped me recognize several of the styles of dance.

The lighting effects were fantastic -- how did they pull off the orcas swimming in the open sea and spouting as they surfaced to breathe?!

I was still awake when the Olympic flag was carried into the stadium, but as the image and sound on the TV stuttered -- thanks be to my government for a great TV picture and erratic signal! -- I zoned out and missed the snafu where the fourth arm of the cauldron wouldn't rise from the floor. The replays show that the four torch bearers kept their dignity and did their country proud. However, can anyone explain to me, when the Olympic flame in the outdoor cauldron was lit, why didn't the woman who could only stand by as the other three lit the indoor flame get the honor?

The Experiment

Lisa and I have been living in our apartment ever since we got married. In fact, I've lived in the same apartment building, in three different apartments as my circumstances have changed over the years, for nine years now. Before that, I lived in two other apartment complexes for a bit over four years, after my first wife and I split. And Lisa lived in her apartment in Virginia for fourteen years before we got married.

Apartment living certainly beats not having a home, but it's time for a new goal. We're going to put our savings program in high gear, so we can put together a down payment for a house.

We've already taken the first step. As of last Tuesday, we no longer have cable television. Because we bundled our television and high-speed Internet, I didn't realize just how much we were paying, mainly to watch reruns of our favorite network series. Now, we have an extra $60 a month to put in savings.

The good thing is, since the DTV transition last year, a lot of local broadcasts are in high definition. The bad thing is, digital transmissions are a lot more susceptible interruption. Between unusually high winds and more snow storms than any winter in this area I can remember, we've been watching a lot of start-and-stop TV.

There's always Hulu, which is adding more "old" TV programming all the time.

Saints 31, Colts 17

With apologies to The Who (great halftime show, by the way): Meet the new boss, not the same as the old boss.

This Peyton Manning fan feels no regret at the way the Saints won Super Bowl XLIV.

Joe Posnanski Thinks Brett Favre Should Have Run

Yes, I shouted "Run!" at the TV. It was a reflex. But, of course, Brett Favre did not run. He clearly had no intention of running. Instead, he attempted the single dumbest pass anyone can remember -- a rolling right, throwing left, cross-his-body back-to-the-middle-of-the-field pass, the sort of pass they teach you not to throw about 47 minutes after you are born.*

*First lesson: This is how you breast feed. Second lesson: Cry and someone will change your diaper. Third lesson: In the NFL, you don't throw across your body back into the middle of the field.

The play has been dissected to death already -- and rightfully so -- and there is no shortage of things Favre SHOULD HAVE DONE instead of throwing that pass. Hell, he could have stopped in the middle of the play and started doing an interpretive dance to protest the treatment of Conan O'Brien and THAT would have been smarter than what he did.

No Bookstore

The B. Dalton in the Mall del Norte in Laredo, Texas recently closed. The makes Laredo, with its population of 250,000, one of the largest cities in the United States without a bookstore. Greensboro is slightly larger than Laredo, and we have three big box bookstores in town.

B. Dalton is owned by Barnes and Noble, and even thought the Laredo store was profitable, B&N's corporate strategy is to get out of the mall bookstore line-of-business. This leaves the closest bookstore 150 miles away in San Antonio.

There is much concern in Laredo that this closing is going to hurt local literacy efforts. No one really expects the two public libraries, despite a catalog of over 200,000 volumes, to be able to meet the demand for popular titles.

There's a void here for someone to fill. Either Barnes and Noble or Borders could open one of their big box stores, but they've both been shrinking of late. Books-A-Million would be more likely, since it is largely in the South.

Or perhaps the most interesting notion: would Larry McMurtry be interested in expanding his bookstore business?

50 - 201: Words

A week ago today, Lisa and I had one of our rare fights. It started because I was careless.

We're working on taming a stray cat we're calling Ollie. She's a pretty little cat, with very soft fur and markings that are a cross between a gray tabby and a calico. Lisa is letting her come inside occasionally, both to get warm and to get used to us. Last Saturday, Ollie did something new. She jumped up on one of our recliners.

Now, I have a strange sense of humor that leans a great deal on absurdities. Most of the time, when someone doesn't get one of my jokes, it's because I haven't given them my often warped mental context.

When Ollie got on the recliner, I said what I thought was a harmless joke aimed at her. I used a rather rude word. Lisa thought it was aimed at her and took great offense. The next few hours were not pleasant for me.

Lisa wasn't my target. For that matter, neither was Ollie. The situation was, but without my context, how could my wife know that? It really didn't make things better that I got snippy with her that she didn't buy my explanation, not at first.

We got over it. We always do. But I forgot a very valuable lesson from a business communications class I took almost 20 years ago: take 100% of the responsibility for your message.

I'm certain most of us have heard this old saying - Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Well, this old saw is well-intentioned, but like using a rusty hammer when you mean to make a precise cut in a board, it's wrong.

We are a social species. Our ability to live with each other is bound up in our ability to tell each other our stories. Our ability to think is both shaped and limited by our language. We can transcend this limit, which in turn shapes our language.

If your doubt the power of words, consider these phrases:
- I love you.
- You may now kiss the bride.
- It's a boy/girl!
- We find the defendant guilty as charged.
- I'm sorry for your loss.

Words can wound, and words can heal. They can imprison you, and they can set you free. They can illuminate ideas with perfect clarity, and they can obfuscate them with infuriating indirection.

They can tell you the daily same old, same old. They can teach you timeless history. They can give you a boundless future.

The key is to be aware of the tools you have in your words, so that you are their master and not their slave. Or, to use another old saw, say what you mean and mean what you say.

A Thought On Language

Just as a sculptor has to know the stone, and an orchestrator needs to understand all the instruments, so also the writer needs to know the language down to the bone.

- Orson Scott Card

On Laughter

However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and to be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.

- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Pigeon: Impossible

This could be a Pixar short. Yes, it's that good. Enjoy.

Buried and Strange

A lawyer named Strange died, and his friend asked the tombstone maker to inscribe on his tombstone, "Here lies Strange, an honest man, and a lawyer."

The inscriber insisted that such an inscription would be confusing, for passersby would tend to think that three men were buried under the stone.

However he suggested an alternative: He would inscribe, "Here lies a man who was both honest and a lawyer. That way, whenever anyone walked by the tombstone and read it, they would be certain to remark: 'That's Strange!'"

Thanks to John Varley, and if I'm unintentionally violating copyright, I want him to know that I don't use Sidewiki!

Sal the Cat

He looks up at you with huge eyes, as if to say "It's not my fault!"

Short Visits

Lisa and I were at home a week ago, having exchanged our Christmas gifts to each other and listening to freezing rain and sleet coming down. I had just called Dad and Mom to let them know that we weren't traveling to Whiteville after all.

That was the second time we changed travel plans in two days.

We originally planned to go see them this week when the kids got here from Indiana. I talked to my ex's partner on Wednesday night, and she told me that they intended to be on the road to North Carolina on the 27th, returning home on the 30th. I checked the Weather Channel web site and saw a great deal of snow in their forecast. That made me believe that they would not be able to make the trip, so I told my parents that Lisa and I would see them on Christmas Day.

That was the first time we changed travel plans.

I got a call in the middle of Christmas afternoon. It was Gigi, with welcome news. They had already started their trip south, expecting to stop overnight in Ohio and get to Greensboro on the 26th. This was most unexpected, given the forecasts, and I felt like I'd gotten the best Christmas present since I was a kid. I called Dad and Mom again to let them know that the kids were going to be here for a couple of days after all and to that we were coming down for a day trip on the 28th.

That was our third change in travel plans, and the most pleasant.

Dad was grilling inch-thick steaks when we got there, along with seasoned potatoes in foil. Lord, but we were all stuffed! We exchanged gifts after lunch, I played tech support for Mom's computer -- Internet Explorer was giving her problems, imagine that -- and my cousin Denise and her daughter Alex stopped by. Alex is 10 months older than Gigi, and they're thicker than thieves. I got to enjoy just sitting and listening to two or three other conversations for a while.

After Denise and Alex left, we went to visit Aunt Mildred, Dad's oldest sister by 10 years. She has a bad back, can't hear very well, and is a bit forgetful, but she's getting around better than Dad these days. She always makes coffee when I visit, even though she doesn't drink it anymore. And what coffee does she have? Decaf Fresh Market Christmas Blend. We gave it to her a couple of years ago, and she keeps it in the freezer. It still tastes fresh, and she's just a joy.

At home, we watched a lot of TV on DVD that the kids either don't usually see or were quite behind on: Seasons 1 and 2 of The Big Bang Theory (Everyone loves "The Saturnalia Miracle" episode!), and Season 1 of Better Off Ted (Who wouldn't want to work for Viridian Dynamics?).

Since they were departing for Indiana very early on the 30th, I took them back to their aunt and uncle's house the evening before. On the drive home, I felt, as always, the emptiness they leave behind. It doesn't persist quite as long as it used to, and why should it? My children are growing up well, and they have reached ages where it's natural for them to make their own ways in the world. Time has caught up with the changes in my role as a parent.

An Administrative Note

I am almost always glad when visitors to Babble On leave comments. More often than not, that means I have amused someone, and that's a pleasure to me. However, that was not the case with the comments on my previous post.

One comment, left anonymously, was nothing but links to girly, probably porn, sites. The other was an ad for an online gambling site.

I was a regular contributor to several Usenets sites during the last 10 years, and I have seen many troll-instigated flame wars. That is always a risk following unmoderated newsgroups.

Here, commentary falls under almost the same category. The difference is that this my property, and while I, should I ever have a high enough volume of readers, will gladly tolerate lively differences of opinion, I will be a host to neither pornography nor someone else's advertising.

I have therefore deleted the comments that have offended my sensibilities, and will do so in the future. Yes, this is censorship, but don't bother blathering on about the First Amendment; I am not abridging any one's political speech. I am muzzling trespass.

I Thought That Cover Looked Quaint

Stanley Dudek, on behalf of his mother, returned Facts I Ought to Know about the Government of My Country to the New Bedford, Massachusetts library a little late. The due date was May 2, 1910. The $360 late fee was waived.

On the Off Ramp

I have several different routes to and from work. The variety helps relieve tedium. This habit of mine drives my wife crazy, as she likes her routes well-mapped out and consistent. I try to remember this when she's riding with me and keep to the same routes, because giving her a nice comfort level is worth it to me.

Part of my route this morning was on the interstate. After taking my exit, I had to stop for a red light at the bottom of the off ramp. I was in the outside one of the two left turn lanes. There was no car next to me for a couple of minutes, and I had a clear view of a fresh cigarette butt. I watched the smoke rising from it as it rolled away from me toward the edge of the road, and I envisioned a tumbling, fiery wreck. After all, cigarettes are dangerous -- no one but those who are ignorant of a half-century of scientific research, those who are willfully delusional, or tobacco company executives can believe differently -- just much slower in the damage they inflict. And in this mental image, I felt strangely, strangely alone.

Then, the light changed, and I came on in to the office. I think I need another cup of coffee.

A Breakroom Exchange

A co-worker was filling his water jug when I walked in to get hot water for my coffee. Here's a portion of our conversation:

Co-worker: And how are you today?
Me: I can't complain.
Co-worker: You could try.
Me: I could, but it wouldn't do any good.
Co-worker: I like that, a self-aware man.

Not a bad way to start a morning, being called self-aware.

The Things Twitter Leads You To

The personal trainer t-shirt. If this doesn't have a bigger future than the pet rock, it should at least have a more practical one.

A Doggone Good Job

Thanks, Sandy!

A Moment of Recognition

Yesterday, I left work at 7:00 pm, in the late autumn evening darkness. I noted a clear sky, a warm temperature for the season, and twinkling stars. Once I parked my car outside the apartment, I looked through the open patio door and saw our Christmas tree and my wife sitting at her computer.

My thought right then? I'm richly blessed.

50 - 238: The Holiday Moratorium

Monday starts an annual event at work. For three weeks, lacking executive management approval or a system outage affecting customers, we can't move any changes to production. This is a self-defense mechanism implemented by the European parent corporation, a reaction to the sheer number of people taking time off from the job. The reasoning goes, "Where is the production support coming from, if a change breaks something?"

While I enjoy my Christmas vacation as much as anyone, I've been on-call during the holiday period, and I've handled work calls on Christmas Day before, so I just can't imagine a purely American company operating so.

This is simply one of a myriad of cultural differences.

The most prominent difference is that the parent culture prizes consensus, the prolonged decision making where everyone is welcome to question and to provide input, up to the point that the group realizes a decision has been reached. At that point, everyone is expected to conform to the group decision and not rock the boat.

American culture prizes individual initiative, giving the one who takes the lead the freedom to rock the boat, as long as the path taken works without exorbitant costs in either money or process.

In the current structure of my company, this difference is exacerbated by a recently completed reorganization. Here in Greensboro, we used to act like the internal IT department for our largest local client company; we're under the same corporate umbrella. Now, the parent company's mantra is that we work with common methods on global solutions. Further, over the next few years, the company will be creating centers of competency, thereby locating specific functions at one or two sites, each serving the entire corporation. This means that jobs will be rightsized to a rationalized cost structure.

Because I have a good deal of contact with my customers, because I have accepted the function of maintenance manager for multiple applications, and because I already work on a global application, I'm not really scared of losing my job. At this point, I'm more concerned that the nature of my job is going to change into something that is less enjoyable than what I do now.

Be that as it may, I have a job that I am reasonably well compensated for, that lets me support my wife, that lets me pay my share of the college tuition for my two oldest children, that provides shelter and clothing and a few luxuries for my family. I have programming challenges that keep my mind engaged, customers that I generally keep happy with the support I provide, and colleagues with whom I enjoy mutual respect.

And oh yeah, quite a few genuine friendships at work that I treasure.

So, how's the holiday moratorium going to affect me this year? Well, I got the last of several required user approvals on a package of enhancements to my global application this morning, IT approval to implement this afternoon, and tomorrow right after the end of the business day, I going to move this set of changes to production. Good for me.

There's a change to one of my web services that I'm working with a European consumer on, and we've had coordination problems for the last month. I've already started the process to get executive approval on a moratorium exception on this one, since project funding runs out at the end of the year. There's still testing to do, but I'm optimistic that this will work out.

A Christmas Greeting

Compare And Contrast: A Trans-Siberian Orchestra Concert And A US Airways Flight

In the past two days, I've attended this year's TSO concert in Greensboro and taken a flight on US Airways to visit my kids at Thanksgiving. Let's examine a few aspects of the two experiences.

Food. We ate a meal at CiCi's Pizza before the concert. It's certainly more expensive there now than when I could take all the kids and feed all four of us for under $15. Still, it's filling (very), there's plenty of variety, the pizza is quite tasty, and we were satisfied.

I took a couple of breakfast bars on the flight out Greensboro, Chex Mix Turtle bars, to be exact. They're my favorite quick breakfast this side of Chick-Fil-A's chicken burritos, but they left me feeling hungry.

My connecting flight was through Philadelphia, and I had enough time to get a larger breakfast of scrambled eggs, home fries, and sausage. Yummy, and reasonably priced for airport fare. It's a little bit surreal that I got this from an Italian eatery...

All told, the concert experience wins the food battle.

The wait. We got into the parking lot at the Coliseum with very little delay. TSO scheduled two shows in Greensboro this year, the four o'clock show started a half-hour late, and since they perform for 2.5 hours, we had to wait to enter the arena for the 8:00 show. Of course, that show started about 20 minutes late...

Both of my flights arrived at their destinations on time, but they were stuck on the tarmacs before departures. In fact, the flight from Philadelphia to Indianapolis left Philly about 20 minutes late, but we still arrived early in Indy.

This one's a tie.

Seating. There was more room on the airplane than at the Greensboro Coliseum. The flight wins this leg.

Noise. Who are we kidding here? TSO puts on a rock concert, wired for sound and light and light and sound, and they rock hard. Next category.

Speed. Greensboro to Philadelphia to Indianapolis in less than six hours, including 2.5 hours of airport wait time. Point to US Airways.

Atmosphere. The air at the Greensboro Coliseum was smoky from the pyrotechnics used in the show. The air before the flight from Greensboro was foggy, enough so in Philly to make us wait on the runway. Tie.

So, Eddie, who won? I did, in every way imaginable.

This Makes Me Happy

I had a similar experience, way back in the dark, dark pre-YouTube days. I didn't have a camcorder back in 1994, so there's no record of David shakin' it to Alan Jackson's Livin' On Love on the radio, but the memory gives me great joy.

50 - 254: Where He Says "If", I Am

In my Taking Stock series, I usually do not rely on the words of others, but the publisher of Skeptic magazine captured my belief on religion vs. science perfectly.

If one is a theist, it should not matter when God made the universe -- 10,000 years ago or 10 billion years ago. The difference of six zeros is meaningless to an omniscient and omnipotent being, and the glory of divine creation cries out for praise regardless of when it happened.

Likewise, it should not matter how God created life, whether it was through a miraculous spoken word or through the natural forces of the universe that He created. The grandeur of God's works commands awe regardless of what processes He used.

As for meanings and morals, it is here where our humanity arises from our biology. We evolved as a social primate species with the tendency of being cooperative and altruistic within our own groups, but competitive and bellicose between groups. The purpose of civilization is to help us rise above our hearts of darkness and to accentuate the better angels of our nature.

- Michael Shermer, cnn.com

I'm Just Wondering

Would the world be a better place if folks did like I did at the grocery store this morning? After I unloaded my cart and pushed it over to the cart return, I took the time to gather the scattered carts together. I normally only do that with my cart, but there were only three others this time, and by taking about 30 seconds out of my day, I made things easier for the next store employee who will be sent out to bring carts in, and I made sure that three carts were less likely to roll around the parking lot.

It's a simple courtesy that I didn't used to care about, but I find now that, like giving a smile to someone as I walk by, it costs me next to nothing and brightens my small corner of the world.

From 4 To 5

There's always been a periodic something, throughout my whole career, about that last hour of the workday. I experienced it twice this week, for the first time in quite a while. It's something you'll probably understand, if your labor is more mental than physical, as mine is when I'm deep into a programming task.

I literally cannot count the number of times that I've opened my work day optimistically, just knowing that I've picked apart a knotty bit of logic and that I was going to dazzle myself and my fellow developers. Almost every time, I would have been better following the old saw about being a pessimist -- you're pleasantly surprised when things turn out well.

Programming is described by Fred Brooks, the project manager behind IBM's OS/360 and the author of The Mythical Man-Month, as the discipline of building things out of pure thought stuff. This means that there's no limit on the raw material needed for the job. It means as well that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to do any particular task, and even more ways to it wrong.

Programming is an exacting discipline. Computers make no assumptions, provide no defaults. This means that developers must supply all the details in every layer, from the bare metal and plastic and silicon to the operating system to the network to the database to the web page in the browser.

It's those little details that trip me up: the need to specify an absolute path to the directory where I want to write a file rather than a relative path from the web page I'm programming; drilling down to the exact property of an object to get the value I want to work with rather than stopping at too high a level; forgetting a period or a semi-colon (depending on the punctuation a programming language demands) and thereby blowing the scope of a conditional statement.

These are just a sampling of the reasons that programming, testing, and debugging are still more art than science.

So after the optimistic start to a day writing computer code gets shot and left dying in the dust, after frustrating hours of echoing obscenities in my head, how is it that in that last hour of the workday, my subconscious mind is liable to offer up a solution? Not only a solution, but one that is usually not only workable, but even elegant?

I rather hope this remains a question whose answer eludes me. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have graduated from craft to engineering, and I'll feel more like a cog in a wheel than a mystic.