Student: The hole is deep.
Master: And broad.
Year: 2008
Look out for the 53 car!
Looks like I’m working remotely via a borrowed laptop today. I am taking my daughter to the DMV to get her learner’s permit. She has already declared that she doesn’t want to learn how to drive from me because "that would be annoying." When I asked, "What wouldn’t be annoying? Do you want me to just sit quietly and let you get in an accident?" I got silence in return. I think Miss Know It All thinks she already knows how to drive and would just like to get behind the wheel and go with no one else in the car. This should be interesting.
Now, if you see the 53 van, one of the most recognized vehicles in Knoxville, swerving down the road, hitting curbs, driving against traffic, and running people off the road, it is probably Tommy or Sarah (or me texting). And we apologize.
Update: Failed eye examine keeps another teenager off the road. Our eye doctor won’t see her until October. Looking into other solutions.
Update: I’ve painted an old cane of mine red and white 
and am going to see if they’ll let Sarah take the test without the eye exam under the American Disabilities Act on the premise that she is blind.
Update: After many hours of struggle, a lot of attitude, a 16th mortgage, and two eyeglass stores later, Sarah can see clearly now..the rain is gone.
Quote of the Day
From Les Jones who got it from Random Nuclear Strikes:
"Most people are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
— Abraham Lincoln
I always question whether or not these famous people really said these things, but it doesn’t matter because I really like the message.
Vacations have sleep
I can tell I’m back from vacation because of my sleep pattern. On vacation, I got the right amount of sleep at the right times. At home, I stay up to 2am coding and started jolting from bed at 6am (finally rose at 7:45 but that was like doing sit ups every 10 minutes for 1.75 hours…no, I don’t use an alarm clock and haven’t for 6.5 years). Wish I could go for a quick swim. Have to shuttle Tommy to Lenior City then get to work.
Filed Under Stoopid
When you type for a living, playing dodge ball is less than intelligent. Oh my swollen thumb!
See, I’m an adrenaline junkie. As a child, I was bad at sports. Couldn’t cut it at t-ball. Football was fun but I was just cannon fodder and didn’t really understand the rules. Basketball was befuddling; to me everything was a foul and besides, I was too short. Volleyball was cool but they still spiked me into the ground. Now put me in man against self or man against nature and the rules are different. I’ve kayaked, flown a glider, camped and hiked the backcountry, climbed, spelunked, scuba’d, qualified as a lifeguard, mountain biked myself bloody, repelled now closed cliffs, and fallen asleep on a motorcycle at 50mph in a curve. If it will push my limits, I’ll take it on! But these sports with balls being thrown around? You’d think that a juggler could catch a rubber ball. At least that’s what my face thought tonight!
Jock? Not me. Crazy thrill seeker? Yeah, I’ll take that.
Cutting a plugin loose – Goodbye WP-Project
I liked the concept of WP-Project. It’s a WordPress plugin which adds a tab in your dashboard for project management. It was inspired by Basecamp (collaboration piece for project management) and Harvest(er) (a timetracker). Conceptually we like to spend a lot of time in our dashboards so why not do our project management there too? I just didn’t find the plugin robust enough for my needs. And if it was robust enough, I’d be concerned that my database, which already has issues with Spam Karma eating its space, would fillup too quickly. (n.b. The database has a 100MB allocation.) For now, I’m going to try out Zoho’s project management.
WordPress Support on IRC is on Freenode
For those looking, WordPress.com support on IRC is on the Freenode servers at #wordpress.com while WordPress.org support is on the Freenode servers at #wordpress. #wordpress.com is primarily WordPress.com developers/employees and staff of Automattic while #wordpress is the open source community.
c# Support on IRC is on Freenode
Just for the record, the active IRC server for c# is #csharp on Freenode. I’m sure there are others. I just didn’t find anything on Efnet. I know. Who does Efnet anymore? Old schoolers.
Outlook Dim
I am retiring Outlook as my email client and moving entirely to GMail. I’ve used numerous clients over the years including Fidonet and the other BBS packages (my first email experiences), sendmail at the command line, emacs, cc:Mail, Lotus Notes, Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Outlook, and others I can’t remember. Outlook express isn’t bad if you are simply checking email. If you are doing scheduling, group collaboration, todo lists and the works, then you should be using Outlook (not Express). As much as it goes against my philosophy of "be in control of your content," I think that using an email client and downloading email to your desktop is old school. Collaboration is moving to portals such as BEA’s Plumtree and Microsoft’s SharePoint. Meetings are done online now with Webex, GoToMeeting, Skype (I am djuggler), Adobe’s ConnectNow, and even Microsoft’s instant messenger using ShareView. Communication is being accomplished through instant messengers and in some cases instant messengers are being replaced by services such as Twitter. Text messaging is frequently favored over a voice call as it reduces the urgency of the conversation and can provide additional benefit such as retention of information (if I give you a phone number via voice you have to memorize it or write it down..in a text message the number is stored). I can make argument that email is in its death bed. Much like snail mail and fax, it won’t go away completely but is bound to be ignored in favor of better technologies.
The way we communicate is changing rapidly. Video conferencing over mobile phones was promised by AT&T last fall in the Motorola RARZ v3xx and looks to be delivered on July 11, 2008 with the new iPhones will come sooner than later. Collaborative tools are far more powerful than hording information on single machines. And using third party or server tools to store information makes the information portable and available to you from any computer and any location. A couple of decades ago Bill Gates said the personal computer would evolve into a terminal and all software and data would be managed on network connected servers. He was right.
ps. I didn’t forget IMAP but that’s for a different post.
Note: During my transition from Outlook to Gmail I may overlook some email. If you have emailed me and been ignored, please resend your message as I am having to adjust some email habits in light of the different way Gmail handles email.
Back in the groove
This past week we took the family to Ocean Isle, North Carolina and joined my brother, his wife, and my parents for a week of relaxation. I feel great! I am relaxed and my mind is clear. Time to get back to the grind and try to maintain this peace of mind.
Oh, that’s right, first day back from vacation is like being marinated in blood and thrown in a tank of piranhas…
Before:
After:
Boycotting the AP?
A week of vacation has put me a little out of touch. Am I boycotting the AP?
Ambivalence from Too Much
Ever feel overwhelmed? Sometimes we have too much on our plates and cannot decide what to do. I have just returned from the beach and feel very relaxed. Nonetheless, I look at my desk and my todo list and know that I should be doing something productive. Instead of doing anything, I hid in bed and pondered what to do. It is vicious because the more you think about it the more you can raise your anxiety level and still accomplish nothing. A half an hour later you may still be under those covers having accomplished nothing and still unable to decide what to do.
I don’t want to lose my peace, the relaxed state of being I achieved over this past week. So how do you break this ambivalence? Easy! Achieve and succeed! Pick something small and achievable and do it! You must succeed so make sure the task can be done in a brief time. For me, I am going to clean out the car. For others, that may be too much. Perhaps for someone else, the task might be "make a cup of coffee." But set a goal that can be done in a brief time, focus only on it, and get it done quickly. Welcome back!
From the mouths of babes
Loud thud heard upstairs.
Amy: "I’m okay!"
7 people, 1 car, and a long drive
The beach heals
As a child, when I had a wound, my grandmother would send me to the ocean. "The ocean will heal that!" A cut surely stings wading out into the salt water but it does seem to mend quickly. Perhaps the healing is psychological. The fun of the surf making you forget your scrape. Maybe its more. This week we had the full moon overhead. It lit the ocean remarkably. Thunderstorms blew in briefly and gave vivid light shows. Tides swelled and the ocean gave both lulling calm and thunderous waves without explanation for the ocean’s mood swings. Great forces were at work. And magical times for long lasting memories.
We have not had a family vacation since the last week of December 2000. This was a much needed break. Time to go home now.
ps. We only got referenced as "The Griswold’s" once.
