My career turned twenty-one over the weekend. I started my first full-time, paying programming job on October 17, 1983. My career is now old enough to legally drink. Woohoo!
A lot has happened in the past twenty-one years. I’ve worked for state and federal government agencies, created frameworks for a wafer manufacturer, headed projects at a utility company, developed software for a pre-IPO that crashed and burned, and been self-employed. I’ve re-trained myself several times, moving from mainframe batch processing with JCL and VSAM, to client-server development with Powerbuilder and SQL Server, and then distributed application development using Forte (still the best development platform I’ve ever used), and now finally thin-client or web application development using Java, X/HTML, and JSPs.
My career has literally taken me across the country and back again as I’ve lived in Illinois, Washington (state), South Carolina, Illinois (again), and now Kansas. I’ve been fired, laid off, re-hired, promoted, passed over, ignored, and appreciated. I’ve experienced the ego rush of placing my resume on a job search board and getting over twenty responses from around the world in less than twenty-four hours. I’ve also experienced the fear and despondency that comes from no offers week and week after week while being unemployed. In all these years I’ve never had an office with a door. At best I’ve had a cubical all to myself, at worst I’ve shared a church-table with another programmer.
For much of my career I have pursued the next technology, the next title, the next level. I’ve never managed to reach a point of stability or satisfaction. Sure I have held satisfying positions and felt like my career was great at times. Those times have been short, however, and I’ve learned that basing my job satisfaction on elements of the work that were largely (if not totally) beyond my control is foolhardy. Now I am more focused on how to meet my emotional and personal needs outside of the current job. A job is only a job. Like spice adds flavor to a favorite dish, a job adds spice to the meat of your life. It took me a long time to realize that my life was not just my job.
I can only imagine where the next twenty-one years will take me.
WiFi is truly a wonderful thing. Michele has a faculty meeting this afternoon, and lacking anything productive to do, I tagged along. So here I sit in the minimalist “cafe” at the community college surfing the ’net for free on their WiFi network. No fuss, no muss, just set the Airport to connect automatically and I’ve got an IP address and full network access.
It’s hard to believe that I started my computer “lifetime” using acoustic couplers at 300 BAUD. If the past 30 years have taken us from punch cards and reel tape to flash memory and gigabit ethernet, what will the next 30 years bring us?
Most of us, I think, believe that one vote or one voice makes little impact in the world today. Certainly after the debacle of the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida you have to wonder if individuals have any power in the process of our republic. I know I did.
That is until yesterday.
I got a call from the candidate who’s campaign Michele and I joined back in July. I setup a small, rather humble, website for Bob, and filled it with his words and positions. It seems that while out walking door to door campaigning, Bob rang the bell of a young couple who reacted to his name. They had been to his website and read his positions. They told him that as a result of the information provided online they were going to vote for him on November 2nd.
Wow.
The idea that a website I created and hosted for this man is actually causing people to vote differently than they would have otherwise just blows me away. Sure the positions are Bob’s, but without my contribution it is unlikely he would have had a website at all. His district is heavily populated with voters other the other party, so every vote we can garner is critical. My “one voice” does have power. My “one vote” does make a difference.
At a time when so much of my life feels out of control and chaotic, hearing that I made a difference was just about the best news I could have gotten.
I Dare You.
Originally seen here.
Going into tonight’s Presidential Debate I expected that Senator Kerry, with his years of experience debating in the Senate, to be the better overall debater. I was not disappointed. I feel that Senator Kerry did a better job of presenting his points and of rebutting President Bush’s points.
Senator Kerry had better rhythm to his speaking, and overall was smoother in his presentation. President Bush is a less polished debater, and several times during his answers he seem to falter or stumble in his speaking. However, it was obvious that the President’s coaching team worked hard on the last 30-seconds of each answer period. As soon as the green, 30-second warning light came on there was a dynamic shift in President Bush’s presentation. He speech rhythm increased in speed and his delivery was more dynamic.
In terms of content I think Senator Kerry presented broader, and deeper answers to the questions. His platform appeared to be more extensive. President Bush had only a few themes, “wrong war”, consistent message, and war on terror. In terms of who would be a better president, I personally think broader is better, unfortunately I fear the country has a three-theme attention span.
On my score card Senator Kerry won the debate, he started strong and continued in the same vein throughout the debate. President Bush stumbled in his opening answer period, trying to thank the moderator and commiserating with Florida. His answers were often rambling and disconnected. Throughout the debate President Bush was less polished, seemingly less prepared.
I fear the country will only remember the few points President Bush repeated over and over and over again. I fear that the seemingly easier to digest answers from the President will win the election. In the end it really doesn’t matter who wins the debate when the entire country, and the world by proxy, loses.
I first saw this image over at i heart mena, and it made enough of an impression that I wanted to post it here.
The tracks of Jeanie and Francis as they cross Florida at frighteningly similar to my eye. Spooky.
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The image seen below is taken from my ShortStat page. It is the list of browsers that have visited my humble page in the past two weeks or so. All the browsers version are included here, i.e. each row is a summary row by browser type. The version shown is the highest version seen.
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At least in my little corner of the Internet, Windows IE isn’t the powerhouse it once might have been. Firefox is gaining ground, and fast.
I had a wonderful day of cooking today. Michele and I have been talking about a homemade carrot cake for a while. We even bought the cream cheese and carrots last weekend. Today I was in the “mood” and the resulting cake was spectacular. While this apartment may have some faults, the accuracy of the oven temperature isn’t one of them. It makes a great cake.
We also had a nice sirloin from our new favorite butcher. We had talked about making beef stew with it, but while I was perusing the Betty Crocker cookbook for a suitable recipe I stumbled across Szechwan Beef Stir Fry. Carrots, corn, green pepper, thinly sliced beef and a spicy hoisin sauce with garlic, ginger root, and crushed red pepper flakes. It was delicious.
Oh, and we started the day with a brunch of Huevos Rancheros. When we make the Old El Paso taco mix there is always a small portion of taco-seasoned meat left over. I make a baked omelet, with the spicy meat and some shredded cheese. When it is ready we spread salsa on top for a fantastic flavor combination. MMM-mmm good.
We eat pretty good around here.
It was a good week here for me. My new job continues to be engaging and rewarding. One of my assignments was to oversee the creation of a network link between the client and a resource center outside of their network. Over the course of several weeks I managed to identify all the players at both ends of the proposed connection, and to get them all headed in the same direction. As of early last week we had a virtual private network (VPN) connection established between to the two firewalls, and work to configure the firewalls was underway. It turns out that this is the first time in the history of the client that such a connection has been successfully established. I guess it’s really true what they say about nothing being impossible if you don’t know what you are doing.
I also started working on a database for the local campaign I am assisting. I downloaded and installed MySQL on my PowerBook using the Server Logistics MySQL Package. It could not have been any easier. In less then 10 minutes I had MySQL installed and running. In less than an hour I had created a database and the necessary tables for my part in the campaign. Sometimes information technology is truly fun.
I’ve also tweaked the new site statistics page I’ve been using, ShortStat to not track hits from my IP address. As I get more into PHP I am finding it to be enjoyable and easy to work with.
Michele and I are being more social here than we’ve been in a long time. Last Sunday we had a wonderful couple of hours at the local Panera Bread with some people we’ve met through the campaign. We are repeating that outing this afternoon at another local coffee shop.
Interview game: THE RULES
Heather Champ gave me these questions:
If you could travel back in time, what would you tell yourself 10 years ago? I’m not sure that I’d tell myself anything 10 years ago. You see it will only be 9 years this December that my wife and I met for the first time, online in an AOL chat room. I’d be afraid of disturbing that event. At most I’d tell my 10-year younger self to stop chasing after the perfect job and focus more on building a life outside of work.
Sweet or sour? Sweet.
What is your dream car? I always wanted a Triumph Spitfire. I’d settle for any recent car that was fully paid for. I’ve had a continuous car payment since 1984. Eek! Let’s see: 36 months @ $188/month equals $6768 (‘84 Pontiac Fiero) 48 months @ $225/month equals $10800 (‘87 Honda Prelude) 36 months @ $335/month equals $12060 (‘91 Mazda Najavo) 42 months @ $390/month equals $16380 (‘94 BMW 318i lease) 08 months @ $450/month equals $3600 (‘91 Lexus ES300) 12 months @ $750/month equals $9000 (‘91 Lexus ES300 + 2000 Nissan Altima) 18 months @ $600/month equals $10800 (‘00 Lexus ES300) 30 months @ $1100/month equals $33000 (‘00 Lexus ES300 + 2001 Audi TT lease) 13 months @$850/month equals $11050 (‘01 Lexus LS430)
Or $113,458. Oh. My. God.
Who is Deep Throat? Linda Lovelace suffered under that unfortunate title. In political circles s/he is the mysterious underground parking lot denizen who provided Woodward and Bernstien information they needed to expose the Watergate coverup. While speculation runs rampant at to their true identify I personally think it was a senior aide, someone with access to information but overlooked since they weren’t really a player.
You wake up one morning and a new tattoo adorns your chest. What does it say? “Do not try this at home, I am a professional” Or a ying-yang symbol.