Well, things have almost returned to normal. I stopped for lunch about 4pm and I noticed that all the major networks were carrying the war now and even MTV was doing some limited coverage. Most of their coverage was of the protests in New York City, but at least their attention is now on what is happening.
Of course seeing reporters in Kuwait donning gas masks still adds a bit of surreal effect.
This morning was totally surreal. I’m trying to get back to an early morning schedule, so I’ve begun waking up earlier and will keep pushing back the time I wake up until I reach 5am. A few years ago, I shifted my internal clock and was able to wake up at 5am every morning and believe it or not, it was a good experience. 🙂 However, it seems that in the “computer world” things tend to run late into the night and I’ve slipped back to my normal routine of staying up quite late.
So, here I am up at 6:00am and I go downstairs to do my AM Yoga. 20 minutes later, I rewind the video and turn on the TV – the war with Iraq has begun. I quickly absorb the news of what has happened thus far and am glad to hear that nothing severe has happened to our troops thus far. We’re in the early stages, but so far so good.
I went to church yesterday. They played a Johnny Cash video. It’s a Nine Inch Nails cover called ‘Hurt.’ It blew me away and I cry everytime I see it. My words simply don’t do it justice. The video and about the video.
It all started with SETI@Home.
On May 16, 1999 someone turned me on to the whole SETI@Home project and although the idea of finding intelligent life in outer space is cool, my real draw to it was to see how fast I could run the program. For me, it was more of a “hot rod” application more than anything else. How fast can I process a unit? The first computer I ran it on was a 133MHz Sharp Widenote and it took about 36 hours to process. I would compare this to other friends who were running the program as well and then see how my “ride” stacked up. Of course, I was running a laptop and I’d had it for a couple of years, so I was a bit behind the curve, but I later put together a workstation and then began tweaking in earnest to try and be the fastest among my peers. I even started a group for NPUG.
Like all fads, this one ran it’s course in due time. Yet, to this day, I’m still running the little program. There have been other Distributed Computing projects, but none of them really struck my fancy. Some had truly noble goals and what not, but I just had this feeling of “been there done that,” and I just didn’t feel like jumping into another one. Then I ran across something called Project-Dolphin. Although it was a distributed computing application, it was a different animal all together.
Instead of using your computer to crunch data, all this little applet did was count your key clicks and then submit the count to a web server for all to see. At first I thought it was an asinine idea, but as I thought more about it, the idea began to grow on me. I know I sit at the computer and type a lot – hell, my wife has nicknamed me “clicky” – but what struck me about this little app was that it would tell me just how MUCH I click.
I’m still a newbie when it comes to this weblog thing, so I’ve been thinking about what type of stuff I would write about. Since I really enjoy reading, I figured a Reading List might be in order. So, I’ve posted a few comments about some books that I’ve been reading recently: The E-Myth Revisited and Getting Things Done. They aren’t all going to be business books, but that’s what I’ve been reading the most of recently.
There’s an old Louisiana saying, ‘When you’re up to your ass in alligators is when you remember you were supposed to drain the swamp.’ 2002 was my year of the alligator and luckily Tony Ching of the San Francisco Palm Users Group recommended this book to me. What struck me by his recommendation was not the level of excitement he had about the book (like my excitement over The E-Myth Revisited), but rather the Zen like calm he had when discussing it.
David Allen is president of David Allen & Co. and has more than twenty years’ experience as a management consultant, executive coach, and educator. He has been a keynote speaker and productivity facilitator for organizations such as Oracle, L. L. Bean, Microsoft, Lockheed, and the World Bank.His work has been featured in Fast Company, Fortune, and many other publications. With a background like that I was really expecting a dry and very business like book. However, in the first chapter he referrs to “flow,” and to reach a state where your mental state is a “mind like water,” I knew that this was going to be a different kind of book. That is not to say that just because you throw in a few Eastern philosophies you have a good book. Obviously, you have to have real-world solutions and not just another collection of buzz words and this book delivers. The premise of the book is that you have to have a system that works irregardless of what technology you use. In other words, a new piece of software, or a new type of binder isn’t going to do it. You need a fool-proof system that can adapt as you need to.
Rarely does a book come along that touches such a strong nerve that it vibrates through your whole body, but this one did for me. For the last year I have been eagerly searching for answers to some of the problems facing my business, however I kept coming up empty. Then a friend of mine recommended this book to me and I haven’t been the same since.
The “E” in The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber, stands for “entrepreneur” and the premise is that it’s not entrepreneurs that start small businesses, but something else entirely. There’s no way that I can do his text justice by trying to condense it. Luckily, I don’t have to – the e-myth web site has the first four pages available on-line [Edit: link no longer available online]. Suffice to say that if you’re considering starting your own business, or find yourself currently running your own business, this book is a must read. Michael Gerber nails running a small business right on the head and gives real world solutions to problems that every small business will run into.
After two weeks of sanding and painting the vanity in the guest bathroom is finally complete. 6 new photos added to the guest bathroom re-design photo gallery.
After being somewhat adverse to weblogs, I’ve started my own.