April 2011

The other day I was driving along my commute route later in the morning than normal. This is not remarkable in itself. My commute takes me through a pretty substantial Amish community. I think it might be multiple Amish communities, because there is more than one school house along the route. Two of them are separated by a mile or so. Both are single room buildings, one of them looks like the schoolhouse seen in Walnut Grove in “Little House On The Prairie”. I sometimes look for Miss Beadle but she’s never around.

As I passed by I could see in the windows; there were several desks with children sitting at them. Smoke emanated from the chimney and the curtains on the windows were plainly pulled to one side. I imagine that the teaching and learning going on there is fairly simple in that there’s no computer, overhead project or probably even a dry-erase marker. That is kind of cool to me.

Though the philosophies differ, I admire the Amish for their adherence in what they believe in and how they choose to live their life. I have mentioned before that I really like their pies (it’s almost pie season!). Among the pies they would have had drawn coloring books for sale. No need for an Xbox, just color in the lines.

As a person that lives amongst a lot of technology and all the complications it can bring with it’s wonders, I think it’s important that one be able to also live simply. I believe that the person that is going to truly thrive in their existence is the one who could still live happily without the gadgets and by only the candlelight of the night and the wood fired stove heating the homemade soup. These skills reside in me somewhere, and I could call upon them if ever put in that situation. It would be a heck of an adjustment, but it is definitely doable.

I think it’s important to keep that perspective.

I recently heard of a young girl that was very upset that she couldn’t get in her car because the battery in her “clicker” had gone dead. She couldn’t unlock the door without it. She had no idea that she could put her in the slot and manually unlock the door.

Someone missed the basics along the way.

I think for us to truly thrive we must start with the same basics as a foundation and then build whatever more we want on top of that. But we mist never be afraid or ignorant of the basics.

Sometimes it works better to just keep it simple.

It’s a beautiful day today. There’s a bit of a chill in the air, but that just keeps it interesting.

I had a brainstorm at work about 15 minutes before I left for lunch and that is kind of lingering on my mind. For the past six weeks I have been working on a project that has involved completely rebuilding an internal website. The site is huge and has a ton of information stored in various ways. The old software they used to create the site a long time ago converted most of the text to images, so I am having to type everything over again and build the pages in the process. I think I’m going to take my favorite blogging software, WordPress, and turn it into a content management system. That’s probably a little bit of a heavy discussion for this blog, so instead I’ll just say one thing.

My iPad is really shiny.

One of the things I admire about my father is his sense of discipline. He has always amazed me in that way; if there’s a job to be done, he does it. If he feels a sense of procrastination I don’t know that he would ever say anything out loud about the subject, but I suspect that he wouldn’t procrastinate about it in the first place. This sense of discipline is something that I have always aspired to but rarely found. I still aspire to it. I hope I’m getting closer to that goal.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to calm down on absolute terms: I will always do this or I will never do that. Today is the second day in a row that I have refrained from picking up an iced tea at the drive thru at lunch time. Let’s see if tomorrow will be the third day in a row. I suspect it will be. This “one day at a time” approach is my attempt at being disciplined at something. On day two it’s working. I will strive to make it continue.

I have dreams about being a self-employed web developer, contracting my services to those that need them. This is a ways off in my future, after all, I have a really good gig right now, but I can’t see working for someone and earning a paycheck from someone else for the rest of my life. I want to live under my own steam; it is my hard work and my hard work alone (with the support of the husbear and my family, of course) that will determine whether I make it or not. I don’t want to share an annual pay raise budget with others on a team. I can do the teamwork thing, and I think I do it quite well, but ultimately I want to be the one calling the shots over my own success. I already know I have control issues. A disciplined approach will help keep them in check.

The disciplined aspect of my father’s personality afforded him the opportunity, along with his siblings, to have a successful business for many years. I learned a lot from his experiences with the business and I feel that using what I observed there, coupling it with my own talents and then just taking it one day at a time, will give me the opportunity to someday make a serious go of having my own business.

I will get there. With a sure and steady step, one day at a time.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I am sitting in the Jeep enjoying a lovely early lunch hour on this beautiful Monday morning. Though Mother Nature appears to be feeling rather soggy today, I am feeling quite good. I think it’s because I worked out this morning. It’s amazing what can happen when you take time to move your body.

I am skipping the Dunkin’ Donuts iced tea today. I would like to think that this is the beginning of a trend, but I can only make this determination one day at a time. I have an unfortunate habit of expressing myself in absolute terms: “I will never drink iced tea again.”. This sets me up for failure. By declaring that intend to cut back on iced tea and then making a concerted effort of doing do, I have a broader sense of accomplishment and a smaller sense of drama. I hate drama. I don’t know why I’m so dramatic.

Earl has made me an egg salad sandwich today, which is another step in my constant quest form self improvement; I rarely eat egg salad and I never eat eggs, but it’s time to step out of the box and live a lit, especially if there is the promise of an olive.

I am situated in the Jeep in a different parking lot today because I was in the mood for different scenery. I am parked next to what used to be an Ames but is now a Dollar General. There is a Burger King about 2000 feet away but I can still hear the drive thru speaker. This is unfortunate because I can’t imagine how loud it must be for the driver that is sitting in of the thing. I just heard the classic “ya want fries with that?” over the sound of the rain. I don’t know how the driver responded.

On my way to this parking spot I heard the weather forecast and there was a mention of thunderstorms tonight. Since I no longer have that awful on call gig, I can rejoice once again because thunderstorms, tornadoes and other wild weather phenomenon is wicked cool, as long as you play it smart.

And last, but not least, the geek in me rearranged some of my web services this weekend. I now have a more cost affordable and simpler way of managing photos, music and the like. I will probably lose a point or two, but I opted out of Apple’s MobileMe because after all these years I still find it unreliable and slower than it should be. Dropbox, and apps that use Dropbox for storage, are on my radar now and I’m quite pleased. For example, I can take a photo on my iPhone and have it nearly instantly appear on my iPad. Prior to Dropbox I would have to sync with iTunes and drag things around. Now it’s point and click. This eliminates a few things in my tech costs, including the need to buy an iPad with a camera.

I’m happy with the toys in my toy box right now.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad