Auspicious

A remnant of my Drexel Senior Design Project

A friend of mine teaches middle school and wanted some help. He was looking for volunteers to be interviewed by students in his 8th grade class. His goal was to teach communication skill and to give the students an opportunity to learn about possible careers. The method was we would exchange letters, the student would then craft questions for the interview.

The letter shared by my paired student was a perfect jolt of spiritual fuel at just the time I could use it.

Over the past year or so I've been feeling bombarded by negativity from many online places I used to enjoy spending some time and attention. I'd even started to consider—like many others—that social media and the internet at large are terrible.

The thing is I've spent a good portion of my life working on, learning, and enjoying the ways we can connect using the internet. So I was reluctant to give it up or consider it bad but the evidence was srtong. Or so I thought.

The teacher knowing I'm an engineer paired me with a student who is very interested in electronics and video games. In his introductory letter he shared with me three youtube videos of him doing electronics work, modifying and repairing a broken Nintendo DS, modifying his Game Boy Advance, and building a handheld RetroPie setup in an altoids tin. The spark of curiosity and desire to overcome his obstacles as he worked through his project were intoxicating. And his willingness to share it with the world confident that in the same way he found other people's work and exploration useful others may find the same from him. Finally the pride of accomplishment of a goal achieved were amazing to witness.

Seeing this at the same time I was to write a return letter about my career made me realize how important the Internet has been in my career and life overall and it helped me conceptualize why the thoguhts dwelling on how terrible a place it can be were really bringing me down.

Plus I could see what is possible to a young person intersted in electronics today. I took apart plenty of technology when I was middle school aged but I didn't have youtube to help me learn what it was I was looking at and to share my findings so readily.

And I say the timing couldn't be more perfect. I read this letter and wrote my response last night right before the scheduled presidential debate with two people I disagree with on many levels were going to put on a show and be adulated by the supporters for things I find horrifying.

What I saw, what I've known for years, but can forget at times. People with a real thirst to pursue values and to achieve are what is important. And the rest, the suffering, and the pain: "We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?"

The Planner Business

This year Michelle started as a travel agent working with Mickey’s Dream Vacations. To support her I plan to write a series of posts here with what I know about travel.

Unfortunately for me and you and her that is somewhat limited but I think I can clear up a few things and then leave the rest to my wife who is the expert.

The Money

Well now the real issue is how does this work? How does the travel agent get paid?

At least for Michelle the deal is that she gets paid by the vendor. This means if you book a Disney trip, or Universal package, or cruise she gets a commission.

So this of course must drive up the cost to you. Well it turns out that it doesn’t. The deals are the same if you book them or if an agent books them. And this makes sense because the commission is worth it to the people providing the trips and experiences just to get business. This may be counterintuitive to you but my company has been very successful by enabling the channel. Which is basically what you call aligning the interests between multiple parties so one does a bunch of the selling.

Why Bother

Well okay fine it’s not going to cost you anything but why should you bother?

The best reason is expertise. Some of these trips can be quite complicated. If you’re going to do Walt Disney World there are many options, which lead to further choices and finally deadlines which are difficult to navigate unless you have a lot of experience.

Okay maybe you like the puzzle of figuring out all this stuff and optimizing your experience. Great! An agent can give you the relevant facts and do research to ensure you are getting everything you want out of your vacation.

Finally. You’re already paying for it. So no matter what deal you get you can have someone help you without any additional cost. Basically you’re choosing to leave free help on the table.

Why Michelle

Michelle is the smartest and hardest working person I’ve ever met. She is hungry to earn your business and your referrals.

So go like her Facebook page and look for a deal or reach out and just start figuring out what your next adventure will be.

Looking back

I've mostly avoided looking at this for years. I assumed the neglect would make me feel bad. But I enjoyed paging through a few of the things I've written. And since social media seems to be a disaster lately but I still want an outlet for this sort of self-indulgent stuff I think I'll try using this again.

Heck maybe I'll even fire up an RSS reader too. I used to really enjoy the Internet.

Wonder if Alli & Ash will help me by updating the logo and making some other drawings.

Alli doodled the drawing to the left in about 30 seconds to try out my new pencil and iPad. She didn’t give me permission to post it but hopefully she won’t mind.

Improvement and Reflection

I’m always seeking improvement in many areas.

I want to be better at my work. I want to be physically stronger, faster, and have more endurance. I often have to prioritize in my pursuit of values and I don’t bemoan this as a necessary evil, I try to embrace the limitations of time and attention and fill them with only the best things.

However I’m noticing an area that is extremely value dense but I often neglect for the comfort of the busyness of other things. Items of reflection and introspection.  

I happened to notice afew of the photos and videos I took the week of Christmas and spent a few moments looking at them.

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And I think I’d like to find a way for regular purposeful organization of my thoughts, photos, videos, and whatever else.

I know I have limited time and attention but I want to make sure I continually practice focusing it on the most important things.

Lights out twenty fourteen

I'd have liked to put a nice highlight reel together for 2014 and talk about my big plans for 2015. I've had plenty of highlights and I have plenty of big plans but I didn't take the time to examine them and write it out.

The last year especially has felt extremely hectic at times and I think one of the things I'll focus on in the beginning of 2015 is trying to minimize that. To drop the comfort of busy and be even more ruthless in my priorities. And finally to regularly reflect on how things are going.

I've had a great twenty fourteen. Twenty fifteen will be great too.

Lights out!

Ninety in the books

I posted a while ago about my current health kick. I successfully finished 90 days on Sunday.

I noticed partway through that there were some slight issues. I think I was doing too much gym leading to a flare up of plantar fasciitis and there were a few days where I needed a break. Finally I have a tendancy to backslide into eating sugary snacks after sustained exercise routines, rationalizing that I've earned it.

I decided to take a week off from the gym to let me recover a bit and refocus on the non-snacking since it undermines my primary goal.

The primary number: I lost 31 lbs. Down from 254 lbs to 223. This is basically my pre-marriage, pre-child weight back when I was studying Kempo after losing about 80 lbs between 11/2001 - 5/2002.

I'm going to take 5-7 days off from the gym and then get back to work. My goal is to get to 190 lbs and emboldened by my recent success, I think I can do it by my birthday.

I'd put in a count of gym visits but Lift appears to be down, but as a guess I think I went to the gym about 75 out of 90 days. Probably too much, but it pumps me full of energy and I enjoy it.

Objectivity of the bystander

If you would just take yourself out of the line of fire, you will think more clearly. That's easy for me to say. Sure it's easy to say I'm not talking about taking fire at all. I'm talking about thinking and communicating. In other words, working.

Here's what I mean

Some time ago an awesome co-worker was planning a twenty-seven hour day involving at least five acts of heroism. Something like getting in early and preparing for a late-night maintenance, then travelling to another office for some meetings and then going back to finalize preparations before going home to eat and then to come back and participate in the overnight work. I think this was the plan.

I didn't come up with this plan so I wasn't invested. I couldn't understand why the meetings were important because I didn't promise to be there. It seemed crazy. So we threw out all the time-wasting stuff and made that day a little less painful.

I was certain I would have come up with the same plan.

Fine, but what about being yelled at by your boss?

I watched it happen. There was no yelling. There was a challenging question. The kind of collaborative question you'd use to find a flaw in a plan and make it better. And it was asked by the boss. The room went still. Everyone stiffened. The answers that followed were defensive, meant to shut down the challenge.

It was easy to see because I didn't draw any conclusions about where the question was leading. I didn't infer any judgment about my work. I wasn't asked.

However, I know I never saw the benevolence and collaboration in this type of questions when I was asked. I would also go on defense.

How to stand by

How do I get to the essence of this? How do I wield this super-power of objectivity? How do I take myself out of the line of fire?

I don't know.

But I think I can get way better at everything when I find out.

Ruthless 39 of 90

The last 38 days plus today have been pretty good on a few fronts. I've let work keep me from really focusing on my health for years. But something about September 2nd made me commit to ruthlessly stick to a few simple rules and it's been going great.

Rule 1: Sleep at least 7 hours Every night.

I've tried for a long time to "try and get around 8 hours of sleep a night," forever. But I never picked a number and set it in stone and did everything I could to stick to it. Over the past 39 days I've accomplished this goal 38 times. (The morning after the Eagles Monday night game is my lone miss).

This was the hardest rule to follow and also I think the most beneficial. Because of rule 3 I was getting up early, so I had to make sure I was in bed going to sleep no later than 10:10, every night. In a hectic life working at a growing company and with a family, this means cutting out time where I can actually sit quietly and think or work on my own projects.

I think this has been the most beneficial. Getting sufficient sleep is like discovering a cognitive and emotional super power. I'm more effective and more relaxed.

Rule 2: Track everything I eat.

I use MyFitnessPal on my phone and I just put everything in there. I also set a calorie goal in there and try to hit it (ignoring exercise). The goal is a side-effect and natural consequence of tracking. I find myself incapable of tracking something and not trying to hit a goal.

This is because I really want to lose weight, and the only thing I've found to be effective is being very particular about what I eat. So I focus on hiting 1670 calories a day or fewer.

There have been a few times this was close to being missed. But I've done it every day since 9/2.

Rule 3: Go to the gym 6 days a week.

Now the rule is basically daily, because it's easier to stick to. I work best when I try to do something every day. If I had it 3 or 4 days a week it wouldn't work. I've gone 33 out of 39 days. So I'm right on track.

I enjoy working out, and feel much more energetic throughout the day when I do. The only way I can fit this into my life daily is to do it first thing in the morning. So I've been getting up at 5:10 almost every weekday and a bit later on the weekends (the LA Fitness gyms near me open at 7 or 8) and getting it in first thing. Also this does help with Rule 1, because I am usually tired by 10 anyway.

I'm seeing improvements in my numbers and feeling good.

So what?

I'm letting the hard structure of these three priorities drive my days. I need to fit everything in around them, and it's very clarifying. And I've been ruthless doing it. Not succumbing to whim or letting anything else drive my decisions. I've lost 17 lbs in that time, and at almost 40 days in I feel like this is pretty sustainable.

I picked 90 not because I'll magically stop then, but simply to have a goal. See what I accomplish in that time and then decide what I want to do next. At this point I'll probably just sign up for another 90.

But it's not been easy. Looking back, it feels easy. But I paid close attention to all the small decisions that I've had to make to keep up with this committment. And at each new decision in favor sticking with it, it does get easier. But that doesn't mean it's easy. It's been hard work. I think someone who commits to a program like this can do it, but, it's an ongoing process and not a single big decision.

More Audible Recommendations

A friend and co-worker who probably recommended half the books on my list put up a list of Audible sale recommendations of his own. Go check it out.

Audible SciFi Sale recommendations

Once I had children and continued to fill my life with values, it became difficult to make the time to read even though I've loved reading as long as I can remember. Then I discovered Audible and it was love of books and not music that drove me to buy my first iPod in 2005.

Today I still do most of my fiction reading using Audible since I can do it during my commute, washing dishes, or any other mostly-mindless home maintenance task. So if you aren't using Audible, I whole heartedly recommend signing up and taking advantage of their free trials.

This post is really for people who already are using Audible.

They currently are running a Super Sci-Fi Sale Through the end of the day May 10, 2014, where they have over 100 books available for $6.95 each. I paged through like I do many of their sales and found they had a number of books I want or that I've read and enjoyed and wanted to dash off something quick to recommend to others.

So here is the list, some of these I've read. Others are on my wishlist or I recognize the authors and think they might be worth looking at. Other than that grouping they are in no particular order:

Read

• Assignment in Eternity, Robert A. Heinlein: I always recommend everything Heinlein wrote, plus this was narrated by Balki
• A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller: good classic SciFi, read it years ago on advice of my father and enjoyed it.
• Diplomatic Immunity: A Miles Vorkosigan Novel, Lois McMaster Bujold: The Vorkosigan saga is very enjoyable. This is book 14 in the series so you have quite a bit of work to catch up to it, but you might as well grab this one inexpensively now! This is not one of those series that I suffer from sunk costs, I liked each book.
• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley: A classic.
• Little Fuzzy, H. Beam Piper: I actually listened to the version of this that came with Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi and I hated the Scalzi retelling of the story, but found the original Piper version to be a much better telling, where the Scalzi story was crude and obvious and pumped full of a certain political view that all corporations and any selfishness is evil, the Piper story suffered none of this and actually told an interesting story.
• Reamde, Neal Stephenson: I thankfully never got hooked on World of Warcraft, but got to enjoy machine guns and intrigue surrounding a video game world in this book. It was crazy at times, but I enjoyed it.
• The Dreaming Void: Void Trilogy Book 1, Peter F. Hamilton: I listened to the Commonwealth Saga and The Void Trilogy and recommend them both. I'd probably listen to the Commonwealth Saga first, but you can start here if you'd like. I think this is what they call a space opera, and I approve.
• The Lost Fleet: Dauntless, Jack Campbell: The Lost Fleet series was another long series that if you like space nerdery, is awesome.

Haven't Read

• Beowulf's Children, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes: I haven't read this, but read something else by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle called The Mote in God's Eye and enjoyed it so I think this one is probably worth a shot.
• With the Ligtnings: RCN Series, Book 1, David Drake: I think I picked this up on a reliable friends recommendation, just haven't gotten around to it yet.
• Stealing Light: Shoal, Book 1, Gary Gibson: In my wishlist and recommended to me, haven't had a chance to pick it up yet. Probably will here.
• Firestar: Firestar Saga, Book 1, Michael Flynn: Another in my wishlist and I'm not sure who recommeneded it. But I'll probably grab this one here too.

Bums Rush

I've been rushed lately due to work, normal family things and other personal projects. As such I've just discovered something I need to remind myself. That is to slow the hell down so as not to come across as a bum.

I pride myself on understanding technical issues no matter how I learn of them. I'll sit and think and re-read the ticket or bug. Or I'll ask questions always building up the example in my head, going step-by-step and ensuring I am clear of the problem and my understanding of the technical system.

I recently have found myself jumping to conclusions and launching right into a response to people instead of careful consideration. This is most prevalent with email, but I've done it in face-to-face conversations and even on twitter. When I go back and read a tweet and realize all the context is actually there and my response was way off base it makes me realize some real slowing down is in order.

Additionally I read a friends blog post: Libtards, Teabaggers and other stuff which reminded me not to assume people I disagree with are idiots. And for now if I have the time and come across what appears to be a vitriolic comment somewhere by someone I know I may ask questions to learn the person's position. It has been a nice change of pace today to ask a few questions especially in light of the highly charged conversation about Government shutdown and new health care laws.

Getting some reasonable answers made me feel a little less isolated and silently annoyed.

Fighting regulation and winning

Any startup facing an existential threat from regulation should remember these stories. The laws of the land are not laws of physics: they can be changed.

Jason Crawford's article is a good read to inspire you that some fights can be won.  Or discourage you that the creative people trying to make awesome things often have to waste their time and energy fighting regulations that should not exist.

The Unremarkable Bisy Backson

I don't think this is a great article, You Can Be Busy or Remarkable—But Not Both. But when I read it—after a tremendously busy day—it struck a chord. Plus I couldn't resist a title reference to the Tao of Pooh after seeing the guy referenced in the article was some dude named Tao.

I read something that said being lost is not about not knowing where you are, but giving too much focus and anxiety to where you are not. I don't have any idea what the origin of this was, maybe some quote in my High School yearbook.

I think often the sense of anxiety that accompanies being busy is about knowing all the things you aren't doing and letting that fill up your mind. Or allowing your mind-reading of other people's expectations to dictate how you feel about your life. These things all are awful ideas.

Anyway I'm feeling a inspired to spend a more of of my time trying to relax, be realistic, and have some fun.

Update: I read what I wrote and was completely confused, so I reworded some things. See I was tremendously busy yesterday and my brain doesn't work anymore.

Reflection on beginnings

I enjoyed Michael Lopp's article An Introduction to You, specifically this part:

We are in an incredible hurry building important things and have no time for nuance. We're impatient. We're busy. We want everything to move faster, so we make huge, comforting assumptions and slap easy to understand labels on complex concepts.

Though I've been thinking little about the idea of oversimplifying and therefore over or under estimating the contribution of a new employee. Rather the quoted section made me think about how much is often missed in the "incredible hurry" when building products and the systems and processes to support a business.

It would have resonated more with me if he had written the exact same article but if it were not about an employee, but a new technology being integrated into the same busy-worshiping company culture.

Fitting in

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This Radio Flyer was an excellent investment.

I would help my two little girls carefully climb into the seats. Make sure the stuffed friends, drinks and sunscreen were down in the ample room by their feet and we'd walk the half a mile to Roslyn Park and play on the playground. We'd make up chasing games where we'd be heroes protecting the park. And we'd order "Cherry Whipples" from the little counter under the climbing wall. All of this was probably four years ago.

Just recently I created a little spark of interest in X-Men reading to Ashley on the flight home from Disney and she has just fanned that spark into the full flame of obsession that today has even overtaken her sister. So after Michelle and I put the trampoline together today (in record time) we played X-Men all afternoon. Part of this somehow entailed squeezing some much larger little people into the Radio Flyer again.

And even though we're all older—and all have many more super important things to do—somehow a playing all day like the wagon was still a perfect fit.

Better all the time

Someone once told me that raising children would have good times and some rough times, but that the overall trend was always upward in his experience. After 8 years and 4 months I am in full agreement with him.

And it's nothing huge that makes me say that. I suspect it would probably qualify as boring or at least plain evening for lots of folks. But I sat and read some X-Men comics with Ashley and then sat and read a chapter of Watership Down with Allison before they went to bed. And this is the type of stuff I couldn't wait to do when they were born. Share my interests, discuss the various characters ask and answer questions.

It was a great night.

Terrors and Virtues

One of my favorite podcasts spent their whole show talking about this article.

Get comfortable with the idea that you won’t know what’s good until it’s already happened.

It's a very good article on working when you don't have any idea what your doing.

It's convinced me that I should be listening to the whole back catalog of Radiolab.

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10,000 Words a Day

A great example of someone paying close attention to reality while experimenting with changing their way of working to achieve success they didn't believe possible.

Definitely worth a read.

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Don't Think Again

The challenge in doing creative work is understanding and managing limits. The most obvious limit is the amount of time you have to work. However, even if you could somehow remove all interruptions and practical concerns you couldn't possibly do high quality creative work for 18 or even 10 straight hours a day. You only have a fixed amount of creative energy to use before you need to relax and renew that energy store. Even if you're young, highly motivated or if you drink all the coffee, there is no sense in working beyond that limit. The work you do will either be junk or your mind will freeze up and slide you right into procrastination mode. Sometimes you may be able to push hard and get another hour or two but this usually comes at the expense of tomorrow. This creative energy is your most precious resource. There are many ways you can waste that energy but I think a very insidious way is by inventing new ways to repeat yourself. When you do creative work you are inventing not only the thing you make, but also a way of framing the problem. To do any of this you have to think. When you complete your work you will forget that thinking. The next time you work on a similar problem you will waste energy re-thinking it. Any work you do isn't really done until you can repeat it.

Maybe one of your many responsibilities is fixing broken technology. You can treat each incident as separate, start from scratch, and try to determine what things you need to know about the problem. Then you can hunt down evidence and follow the leads from the symptoms, take broken notes, and you will eventually build a solid mental picture of what is wrong and a possible solution. As an alternative, you could automatically do a standard workup, and get some crucial statistics about the problem like the equipment involved, time, software versions, and captures of log files. It would be as easy creating a form for yourself to fill out. This standard format for reporting your findings is good if you work as part of a team, but even if you don't this can give you a head start on the problem and let you save your creative thinking for the hard part.

Or you wish you were a writer of some sort—be it books, blog posts or documentation. You could just sit down and write what catches your fancy when you feel like it. You might be pretty successful. Or you might never find yourself writing; especially if writing is your second, third, fourth or tenth job. You could decide it's important enough to schedule 30 minutes every day to move it forward a little bit. You could formalize it further and create a rough outline of your writing process, developing a progression that starts at finding an idea and maps next steps to the end result. Then you can really use short bursts of work daily, because you have a framework to let you jump right into the actual work. For example, after not writing for years it was only by giving myself permission to write for a short block of time every day that I created this site.

You may rebel against this idea by thinking that working to a checklist is dooming yourself to boring bureaucratic work. Or maybe you see this as selling out and turning yourself from a creative person into a drone of a factory worker. If you don't give yourself a checklist to follow, then you are choosing to waste your creative energy on a solved problem—a problem that you solved already. If you've come up with a way to write an article, why throw that away and start fresh with the next article? Why not start with that scaffolding in place next time to let your creativity soar in new ways you didn't have room or energy for last time, because you were busy inventing the scaffolding? You are going to do the work in some way. Why not be serious and deliberately choose the way you are going to do it?

And the most important advantage to this type of approach is you can build on your framework. You can build gradual improvement into the way you do everything. If the next time you do some work you take a minute at the end and think about how you can do it better next time, you will be giving the future you a head-start. If you don't do this, you are choosing to put a limit on your best by not recognizing and embracing the fact that you have a limit on your best that you can do in one sitting.

The only thing you need in order to take advantage of this idea immediately is a notebook that you know you'll look at again. And the next time you finish a task, open that notebook, set a timer for 5 minutes and answer one question in full sentences, "how can I make this better next time?"

Leaving work at 5:30

A few interesting things in this article.

I don't advise playing the game Sheryl Sandberg was playing trying to look like she was working more than she was, but I certainly understand the pressure.

Also really liked the idea attributed to Marrisa Meyer.

If you resent the fact that you don’t eat dinner every night at 8 then you will get burnout and your work will not be as good.

The fact is you can only do so much so you have to ruthlessly prioritize. And if you resent the fact that you can't do everything with unrealisticly high quality you'll just invite more pain and anxiety.

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