weekends are for leisure

New container of creamer. Slight shake. Open. Pour. Yuck, what just plopped into my coffee? Oh right, they were bubbles. That gets me every damn time.

How does requesting scrambled eggs give the cook permission to use an egg substitute?

If I ever play drumset in a band again, and the front-man decides to jump off my bass drum in a display of showmanship, he’ll never jump again.

The job of a manager is to make their employees happy, so their employees in-turn, can make the customers happy.

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It may already be apparent to you, but I’ve recently realized that the best blogs, tweets and podcasts are the ones that actually do something for me. Seems obvious, right? By “do”, I mean they do at least one of the following:

• Enrich my life
• Inspire me
• Teach me something

Enrichment makes me glad to be human, and quite often makes me feel human once-again. The good stuff makes me laugh, smirk at some bit of unexpected cleverness, or gain a fresh perspective. The best sources of my enrichment are often non-tech, almost always come from unexpected places, especially when I’m not looking for it.

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This continues my coverage of our trip out west … the move to Portland. This leg is from Omaha, NE to Cheyenne, WY.

You might as well look at these and these while you read.

Nebraska started getting hilly, rocky and very pretty near the end. The first ¾ was pretty boring. As we neared Wyoming the rocks and cliffs started getting higher. The sparse clouds were low and scattered the low flat land, and some of the hillsides, with pronounced patches of shade.

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This continues my coverage of our trip out west … the move to Portland. This leg is from St. Louis, MO to Omaha, NE.

You might as well view these and these while you read.

The drive to Omaha from St. Louis was pretty uneventful, as one might imagine floating through a sea of crops would be. The last few miles had no towering arch surprise. There was no “holy crap that’s a big body of water” bridge over the Mississippi. Nonetheless, Omaha was nice. We arrived around 4:45pm. For some reason I didn’t reserve a hotel ahead of time, which cost me an extra $10, but luckily they still had rooms left. The rooms hadn’t yet been taken by the soccer players that were in town. I knew of their presence from the sign that said, “Please, no cleats in the lobby.”

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This continues my coverage of our trip out west … the move to Portland. This recounts our second day in St. Louis, MO.

(View these while you read.)

We were surprised to find that they basically converted the old Union Station train station into a mall, complete with Food Court, fountains, planters and stores. Luckily, the architecture is a great redeeming quality. The outside of the building is beautiful, as are the inside rafters and other support structures. If you’d like to take a leisurely stroll in the A/C in St. Louis, check it out. And while you’re at it you can eat at Houlihans like we did.

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This continues my coverage of our trip out west … the move to Portland. This recounts our first day in St. Louis, MO.

The Gateway Arch is a great attraction. The sun was intense, and the heat wave still with us, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. Luckily the park around the Arch had walkways shaded by trees. We broke off and walked by some of the ponds, only to retreat quickly because we must have smelled great to the mosquitos.

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This continues my coverage of our trip out west … the move to Portland. This leg is from Carrollton, GA to St. Louis, MO.

Everything is starting to feel like a blur. We made it to St. Louis, Missouri on day two of our journey. When you look at the distance on the map it’s impressive. We’ll be staying here for two nights so we can check out the Arch tomorrow, and Union Station if all goes well. Should be pretty kickass.

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Four friends went to Tom Brown Park in Tallahassee. They walked, talked and one even took some pictures. The things you’d expect. The back stretch along the railroad tracks was longer than they expected, but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. For some reason one of them started running. I think it started to drizzle. Soon all four were running and screaming a bit. Four awesome 20-somethings were running and screaming through the woods. They didn’t really care about the light rain. Shortness of breathe was reached. Some walking for a bit. Weak attempts to run again. They pressed on. Full release. Blissful memories.

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Not sure why, but I’ve stumbled across some amazing essays this week. Of course, they’re written by people involved in technology and design, but I’m pretty sure you’ll find the advice sound.

I’ve read many essays about the “top ten things I’ve learned in my lifetime”, but this one is the best.

I always thought not taking compliments too strongly to heart was a side-effect of being humble, and a sure way to avoid having too large of an ego. But yeah, that hasn’t worked out so well. This one’s on optimism.

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The hacker community is impressive. You’d expect all programmer nerds to be far-removed from reality, but a good number are not. The new breed of computer scientists is much like the new breed of computers. They’re self-aware, they control themselves, they’re finally cool, they work great in all settings, and they’re running some of the best companies in the world.

Matt Maroon wrote an article last year that really struck a chord. It’s an article I find great value in, and I consider such an excellent explanation of the way things are, that I wanted to print it out and postal mail it to my dad. It’d be an attempt to get him up to speed with why I see things the way I do. Namely: I don’t value the concept of a life-long career. I don’t see the point in giving 110% to an employer that I really don’t care about, with a mission I don’t really care about, and that doesn’t care for me beyond what the law requires.

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