Step up

I saw a great sign at the Franklin Institute the other day.  It was in the Franklin Food Works, it said, "Please, Step up and help yourself."  (Here's a photo) Some employee was clearly trying to overcome the confusing layout of the place.  But he did more than that, he offered a tremendous life lesson.

Waking up and going about your day should not be drudgery, it should represent the thing you want to do more days than not.  If you find that is not true then, what are you waiting for, figure out why.  There are tons of people out there who will help you learn and cultivate the things you want, then the crucial thing is to make a plan to get there.  And don't let anything stand in your way.  The only way things will change for you is if you change them.  So what I have to say in response to that sign. That's god damn right!

This is all stuff that's been said thousands of times in much better ways than that sign, that movie clip I linked to or this blog post.  But I think it's helpful to have it pointed out in a variety of ways.  It can be surprisingly easy to go numb to things around you if you don't remember how wonderful it is to be alive.

Cover Letter

Warning this is just a rant, but it does contain a useful piece of advice.  If you are looking for a Job, especially if you have absolutely no experience.  Don't just spam your résumé at companies.  Try writing a cover letter for the job, and even tailor your résumé appropriately.  Is this extra work?  Yes, of course it is.  But I have a question for you, do you want the job?

I knew this sounded familiar, apparently, I wrote about it before.  Last time I was trying to hire someone. 

So even though I stole my own thunder, here is the bottom line.  If you are going to get a job, a human is going to read your application.  Treat the hiring person as a human.  Reach out to them.  Ask them a question.  Sure, you need a résumé that meets all the keyword search tests, or whatever way some numb nuts HR person is going to use to sort through them all, but, read the job description.  Think about the job.  Think about the person who is going to make the decision.  Write that person a letter explaining what you find interesting about the job posting.  Be honest.

I would be more likely to look twice at a candidates application if they had a letter that was written with me as the audience.  And remember the letter is not a class assignment.  Write it like you are writing to a human being.

Anyway deleting monster.com emails always frustrates me.

asking questions in email

How the heck do you get someone to answer more than one question in an email? I have read lots of email ettiquite articles, and I pride myself on concise emails that tell you something simple, ask a question or two or delegate some sort of action. But very often I send an email with 2 or 3 questions, because I need to know something like: 1. Have you handled xyz? 2. If yes, something specific about the handling?

And the response I will get is. "Yep I handled it." or "Yes" or in a very special instance I have gotten my own emails forwarded to me with the simple line "FYI" :-/

Of course while the last example above is true, it is not central to my question here. How do you get someone to not just selectively answer one of your questions, in my experience it is either the first question or the last question. Or they respond to your initial setup of the context of the email.

Perpetually getting organized

I have been trying to "get organized" since sometime in high-school when I was probably told to "buckle down." Nothing seems to have taken very well, however. The problem that I seem to have is two-fold. First, every time I see a neat discussion or article or book on how to help you do stuff, I read it and get all fired up and start thinking about how to implement that philosphy. Second I am letting the **best** destroy the good. And I think this is the bigger of the two problems.

Basically I start trying to plan out some structure that is used to capture the main things I need capturing, which anyone can tell you are a list of your projects. A list of your next actions. And some sort of calendar to capture the hard landscape of what is happening. And finally a reliable reference file. Where to store stuff you may need to reference later, reliably, in a form that is easy to look up.

Well as a guy who builds systems and programs this is a nightmare, I start thinking this is simple enough to build something. Well it isn't, because all of the sudden I have something way more complex than the [37signals](http://37signals.com/) people have built, and it will take me a good 8 or 40 hours to put together. And then I start thinking about backup, because hell if this is my life I better be able to back it up. And of course I don't have time for this because while I am thinking about this I am shirking all kinds of other responsibilities, and the fires are growing all around me. Then I run around for 3 days putting them out and long for an uninterrupted month where I can construct this super-duper life runner application.

Well I am a father, and I work, and I have hobbies, there is no uninterrupted month coming any time in the forseeable future, which I can't really see much of anyway because I am so busy running around putting out fires, or planning for the utopia in some distant future. I really need to work on my middle game.

Anyway, starting today, I am going to errect a little bit of scaffolding to try and hold my life together. I am going to spend about 10 minutes thinking about the simplest system that can possibly work.

*I am picturing a calendar and a notebook.*

I think the biggest thing here is consistency of putting everything there, and to get in the habit of looking at it several times a day. Maybe I can trick myself and write "email" or "bloglines" on the cover, since I typically look at both of those several times an hour.

I have to convince my brain that it doesn't have to be perfect to start using it.

home field advantage

I was going to write some complicated assessment of How, so far, I really like working from home rather than trekking 40+ miles to work. But the essence is really captured here.

Still First

When your already long commute gets doubled by bad traffic to 2 hours, it can be frustrating. But it is also odd to note that you are still the first person in the office.

The importance of icebergs

The Iceberg Secret article: Joel on Software - The Iceberg Secret, Revealed also known as Chapter 25 in the Joel on Software book. Has inspired in me a profound revelation, when it comes to developing software.

Once you understand the Iceberg Secret, it's easy to work with it. Understand that any demos you do in a darkened room with a projector are going to be all about pixels. If you can, build your UI in such a way that unfinished parts look unfinished.

Outside of the context of my life this may not be huge to you. But if you shared some of the experiences I have over the past 5 years, you would understand how profound this is. Or you might say, yeah, I know that, who doesn't know that.

But it doesn't matter, based on the understanding I reached this morning reading Chapter 25, it will forever alter the way I handle the creation of software. Sure there are other great insights provided by Joel, and they may all be even more important, or seem more important. But as for me, as for right now, there is nothing more important to understand.

When it comes to software there is nothing, absolutely nothing more important about it than the user interface.

I, Open Source Developer

According to our press release on Tuesday, CentraView, the contact management, calendar, opportunity tracking J2EE application which is not only used for running a business, but also used for feeding me and my family is going to be open source on November 16th. So once it is available download it, check it out and convince your employer to buy it.

Truancy?

truancy:n. pl. truancies The act or condition of being absent without permission.

Madden 2005 is due out soon. Pick a reason.

Soffit Vents

This holiday weekend kept me busy spending money and doing minor construction. My brother, Tom, and my wife, Michelle. Helped me do half the job of installing continuous soffit vents under the eaves of my house. I still need to do the back of the house because it was raining, and it took too long to do the front.

Basically it involved taking dow the vinyl cap that was covering the underside of the eaves, and snapping 2 chalk lines 2 inches apart, using my new circular saw (got it for $45 on clearance at Lowe's) to cut a hole, affixing the vents and replacing the cap. It gave me a chance to clean up all the dirt and caccons and crap that were on the hidden side of the caps, and I noted that some previous owner had 24, 2 inch diameter holes drilled into the soffit to provide some ventilation. Of course they didn't put any kind of vent plug in there, so I bought some of them and popped them in also. And I am pretty sure the free space provided by the holes was not sufficient.

To get the how-to on doing this job I searched google for soffit vent installation. And read the first 20 or so pages returned. I basically followed the instructions from here. Now the only concern I have is that the vinyl caps aren't allowing enough airflow, in that case I will have to find new caps that are more air permissive. And go through the pain in the ass job of cutting it to fit.

Hopefully it isn't raining on Saturday, and I will be able to do the back and finish the job.

By the way, I also purchased a Canon PowerShot S410 camera this weekend. It rocks! The pictures above and other pictures of the job were taken with it, and can be found in my gallery. However, there is no way this expensive piece of equipment will be capturing the glory at the bike race, that is a job strictly for the much more inexpensive pen-cam.

Lorem Ipsum

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

I've noticed this Lorem Ipsum quote on a number of developing web pages or interfaces. And sometimes wondered what it was, and what it meant. Well I finally asked google, and found lipsum.com with the explanation, a translation, and a generator.

Focus and Warp offs

I just read an excellent article related to an entry I recently made, which was followed up by Mike here.

I tend to agree with the viewpoint that it takes 3 hours of individual concentration to get anything done (in general). Although I, and my work, have benefitted significantly from interactive like work as Mike suggests, I think the 3 hours of uninterrupted focus suggested in the article, are a great way to get things done, as long as you can avoid what he calls "warp-offs." Which is my key obstacle to overcome. I think I am going to make a concerted effort to catch myself right before I do this, and take that energy and re-apply it to my work. I may even keep a log for a few days so I can find what is usually the trigger of the warp-offs. I guess this means no gaim, no irc, and no email.

Apparently before I got a chance to flesh out this entry, Slashdot got a hold of it and now the site is running a little slow. But I swear I saw it first, on someone elses blog. :-)

Focus

I find that my focus is sometimes really strong, and then for apparently no reason it diverges to nothing, and suddenly I am writing a senseless entry on this site. I am really into the work I am doing, but then out of nowhere I can't focus and start looking around for things to do.

I think just stronger mental discipline will cure it, just force myself back to work and I will cause my interest to peak again, as soon as I see a neat problem or situation that I need to solve.

Diving back in!