Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Blogs of August.

Photo courtesy of When Giants Meet.

So one of the tech journalists that I really enjoy and have a lot of respect for, Mike Elgan, has challenged some bloggers to use Google+ exclusively for the month of August. I have accepted this challenge and have actually found that it has made me blog more than usual so far this month.

There’s a few snags here and there, for example, I have to group multiple pictures together and hyperlinking is a little wonky, but for the most part, it is working quite well and I am experiencing more feedback there than I have through my actual blog in a long while.

Aside from this entry, I am pushing my blog entries from Google+ to my blog here. From here, it gets pushed to Twitter and Facebook like it always has.

In addition to my normal blog entries, you might find additional content on my Google+ profile which is here. I tend to REALLY geek out on Google+ so if you’re inclined to see what’s going on in my geekdom, feel free to take a peek.

This Google+ experience has made me sort of reevaluate how I use social networking, and my thoughts on that are going to be blogged about soon.

In the meanwhile, I shall be getting back to my vacation.

4 August 2013 by J.P. Geek 2

Travelocity

So we pulled into the Hilton Garden Inn in Appleton/Kimberly, Wisconsin, excited about this next part of our adventure. My partner gave his last name at the front desk, the customary way of checking in for the night.

No reservation.

I gave my last name, remembering I had booked the reservation through Travelocity. One of the things about this particular reservation is that I had snagged one of the last one or two rooms in the area due to the EAA AirVenture (http://www.airventure.org/) currently taking place in nearby Oshkosh (the reason we're in town here).

No reservation.

And they were completely sold out.

Using the Travelocity email that was provided to me when I booked the room back in April, I showed the front desk clerk my reservation number, which apparently did not have enough digits nor did it even resemble anything that they had ever seen before. The fact that "Your credit card has been charged" was emblazoned across the bottom of this reservation escaped no one's notice.

The hotel clerk was very apologetic and if you're ever in the area looking for a hotel, I can vouch that Amanda at the Hilton Garden Inn is very friendly and professional, even when dealing with Travelocity on a customer's behalf. They arranged the refund to our credit card for us and even checked into the nearby Hampton Inn to see if there was a room available.

We snagged the last room. It's a room with one double bed but they're providing a cot (we're big boys) so all is good.

However, Travelocity has been a complete fail. Not knowing that the clerk at Hilton Garden Inn had arranged for our refund (we were driving across the city trying to get this last room at the Hampton Inn), we were on hold for over 25 minutes listening to really bad hold music and a woman with a Brooklyn accent letting us know that someone "will assist ya soon" ever 15 seconds. When I finally reached the customer service representative, he made the mistake of asking how I was doing today.

"I am aggravated." I think he was taken aback by my response. I was just being honest. That's the first time I actually answered how I was really feeling. It felt good.

I have to wonder how many people have traveled the world on reservations through Travelocity and had to deal with this sort of thing. Is this some sort of freak accident or is this something that happens regularly for Travelocity customers?

I can say with no trace of humor or uncertainty in my voice that this is the last time that we're using Travelocity. The Hilton Companies have gone above and beyond for us today and there's a reason that we maintain a loyalty to their brand (my husband is a Diamond Club member due to all the travel he does for work).

From now on I'm sticking to reservations that I know are real and leaving the middle man out. It's not worth the aggravation.

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3 August 2013 by J.P. Geek 5

Roaming

One of the things I love about travel is trying things that we can't do around home, even if what we're doing would seem mundane to most.

We are currently sitting in a Starbucks in Crystal Lake, Illinois. We are en route to Oshkosh, Wisconsin and are taking the back roads to get there. We are becoming well acquainted with Illinois Route 31.

Our little nook in Upstate New York lacks Starbucks. Many find this hard to believe. We are surrounded by dozens of Dunkin' Donuts franchises, and there's nothing inherently wrong with DD, but their stores lack a certain warmth and "technology comfort" that one finds in Starbucks. Plus, DD doesn't serve a Trenta unsweetened, shaken green tea. This is one of my favorite, fairly guiltless drinks. There are two ways for us to enjoy Starbucks at home: drive 50+ miles to the nearest location or to illegally sneak through the backside of one of the nearby New York State Thruway service areas and pay exorbitantly high prices for the aforementioned green tea. Plus, the service area franchisees don't believe in attaching scanners to their point of sale systems, so the clerk needs to manhandle my phone and manually input my Starbucks account number, whereas at a real Starbucks it's just a quick scan and we're on our way.

Sometimes it's the simple things that make a vacation a little extra special. And right now, it's sitting at a table in a real Starbucks, drinking a green tea that's getting this day off to a good start.

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3 August 2013 by J.P. Geek 2

Day 2: Fremont, Ohio – Chicago – St. Charles, Illinois

So the Great Jeep Tour 2013 continued this morning. The task of the day was to secure an apartment in Chicago for Jamie, who is headed to college later this month. He will be attending the School of the Art Institute Chicago as a photography major. He is a talented man (see jmmoorephotography.com).

Google Maps (and the mildly schizophrenic Apple Maps) both agreed that it would take a little over four hours to make the drive to our destination. We left shortly after 9:00 a.m., which would have given us plenty of time to get to our 3:00 p.m. appointment, especially since we were traveling from the Eastern time zone to the Central time zone, which bought us an additional hour.

Four hours and some change. Piece of cake, right?

Not when traffic is backed up on the Indiana Toll Road. Not once, not twice, but three times.

We lucked out on the third traffic backup because we ended up stopping right before one of the South Bend interchanges. A quick consult of the map and before we knew it we were in Michigan, trying to make our way to Interstate 94 via US Route 12.

Except the trucks that were apparently using the same mapping software thought to do the same and were chugging their way through the back roads just like we were. By chugging I mean they were moving no faster than 40 MPH.

We finally made our way onto Interstate 94 and as soon as we crossed back into Indiana, we hit traffic again.

The idea of four hours and some change was now just a memory and Earl was making a call to the apartment guy to let him know we were running late. He understood.

Interstates 90 and 94 through Chicago were at a standstill, as to be expected, but so was Interstate 55 and Lake Shore Blvd.

So we spent most of the day looking at the taillights of whoever was in front of us.

We finally got to our appointment seven hours and 10 minutes later. The deal was signed in less than an hour and we were on the road again.

Apparently more traffic was trying to get into Chicago versus the likes of us trying to leave, so we only hit a few snags on Interstate 90 as we headed west out of the city. I did manage to snag a photo of an American flight coming into O'Hare as we sat in traffic near the Des Plaines Oasis.

By the time we arrived to visit family in St. Charles we were in the mood for the excellent home cooking and conversation. So the day of frustration ended on a high note.

A couple of things I noticed along the trip today:

1. only about 1/2 the men in a toll road service plaza wash their hands after using a stall with a door in the rest room. I'm not sure I like this trend.

2. There are a LOT of angry lyrics in some of the music that is blasted out of windows in a traffic jam.

3. There are a LOT of loose license plates frames rattling to the angry music that is blasted out of windows in a traffic jam.

4. FitBit does not count the number of times you step on a clutch in a Chicago traffic jam.

5. I'm a country boy through and through and damn proud of it. I may be able to adapt to city living but my heart will always be in the farm land in the middle of an open field.

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2 August 2013 by J.P. Geek 5

Day 1: Fremont, Ohio

So today my husband and I started our big summer Jeep tour. For the next 10 days we will be on (and probably off) the road in our 2011 Jeep Rubicon, exploring the midwest.

Our first target destination is Chicago, Illinois to take care of some family business. Since we both had to work a half day this morning, we were on the road by 2:00 p.m. and slowly headed west through the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York and then across the Southern Tier. Now, as of 11:30 p.m., we have settled in for the night in along the Ohio Turnpike in Fremont, Ohio. This will make for a short drive to the Windy City tomorrow.

I wish the Interstate system was more interesting but I'm looking forward to doing some exploring in the very near future.

This post was originally written in Google+. If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should. Wicked cool. #share

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2 August 2013 by J.P. Geek 5

Counting Down.

I am feeling footloose and fancy free for a Monday. I’m celebrating by enjoying my lunch hour barefooted today. This is only significant because I am working at the office today and this is one office where I can’t be barefooted.

Even though it is Monday I am in a celebratory mood because it is a short work week for us as we are taking some needed time off at the end of the week. We are in the process of getting the house ready for our vacation (security lights, check, security system, check, house sitter, check, etc) and I have been gazing at maps and the like for the past couple of weeks planning out our spontaneous route.

There are a couple of givens along this trip: we will be stopping in OshKosh, Wis. and also in northwest Arkansas along the way. I’ve insisted to Earl that we drive in Iowa because I love Iowa (he doesn’t even look at me like I’m crazy anymore because that’s just another given). I’ll be sharing photos and details in future blog entries as we go along.

At this moment I am curious as to whether there is some sort of status quarrel going on amongst the seagulls in the parking lot I’m camped out in for the lunch hour. The lightest colored of the seagulls seems quite smug.

It can be bothered to partake in the activity the other gulls are partaking in, namely screaming about abandoned french fries and jumping on one another. They bring the phrase “flying leap” to a whole new level.

Perhaps they are upset that I didn’t share a Chili Lime PopChip with them. I’m mean that way.

29 July 2013 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 3

Zone.

I’m having a hard time finding my zone today. I’m trying to write some code for some personal projects I have going on and I am seriously lacking the ability construct code that is going to make any sense.

I know, I should be outside enjoying the gorgeous weather. I’m sitting on the back patio enjoying the decent amount of breeze we have going on. I’m kind of in the mood for a bike ride but I’m going to wait until the sun isn’t at its peak in the sky before attempting that.

I’m not missing motivation today. I’m kind of missing focus but that’s because I’m mostly missing comprehension. I try to learn something new but it just doesn’t make sense to me and because I’m not comprehending what I’m reading I’m losing focus.

Does that make sense?

I’ve gone for a walk. I took a short nap. I had a few M&Ms.

Maybe I’ll find my zone after I write about not finding my zone. Things occasionally happen that way.

27 July 2013 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Inspiration.

Last night, after deliberation and forethought, we made the spontaneous decision to go to Saranac Thursday, an event held every week during the summer at the local brewery. Proceeds from this weekly event go to the United Way.

I love to people watch at Saranac Thursday, because folks range from NeimanMarcus to People Of Wal*Mart and all points in between. Last night we met up with some of my former co-workers and their partners, as well a couple of people that we have met via mutual friends and/or the Internet. All in all, a good time.

While we were visiting, the conversation made its way through a myriad of topics, as conversations fueled by alcohol often do, and the subject of TED talks came up. Earl was unfamiliar with TED Talks but I had discovered them a couple of years ago when I came across the first explanation in a talk that actually kind of changed my life in a way, The Power of Introverts. Since discovering these talks, I have installed the TED Talk app on my iPhone and when I’m feeling out of sorts I’ll dial one up in search of some sort of inspiration. A favorite of mine is Steve Jobs’ Stanford University commencement speech, “How To Live Before You Die”. In fact, I enjoyed Steve’s speech again this morning. My day has been quite productive and enjoyable because of it.

I was delighted to hear that our friend Ann does a similar thing with the TED app; she dials up the “Inspire Me!” category when she’s feeling the need to feel inspired. I find this interesting in a way, because she’s has a really good vibe about her but I guess all of us can use some inspiration to keep our vibe adjusted accordingly.

Helping each other out, it’s rather awesome.

This led to the conversation about an upcoming TEDx Event here in Utica, as two of the other folks that were part of our little social circle last night as coordinating the event. John (and his better half Christine) and I all worked together at my previous employer. (Christine, John’s better half, impresses the hell out of me with what she has done with On Location Vacations or OLV.) Ryan, the organizer of the local event, and I met on Twitter a few years ago and then met IRL (In Real Life) at John’s photo gallery showing earlier this spring. Ann (the aforementioned inspired by TED person) knows everyone that was in the little circle we had formed last night.

It’s a small world after all.

Last night we had the opportunity to meet Ryan’s girlfriend, Sara and she was telling us about her experience trying out someone’s Google Glass. She found them to be amazing. That was just another confirmation for me that they are freakin’ awesome and are going to be on the “must have” list. Quite inspiring as well and that’s two IRL hits I’ve had with Google Glass. w00t!

Earl gave me the “think of the budget” look when he saw my smirk.

If I had to describe last night I would have to use two words: inspiring (surprise!) and dynamic. I don’t think it was the beer making me feel this way, I think it was just a groovy night and I needed the reminder that good things do happen close to home.

I hope to have the chance to be in the audience at TEDx Utica (but if not, I’m certain I’ll still enjoy the videos) and in the meanwhile, I’m going to continue to enjoy this feeling of inspiration.

It’s making me smile. And smiling is good.

26 July 2013 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

On Call.

So last night I started my latest round of on-call. I shall carry this torch until Wednesday morning at 8:00 a.m. This is something that comes around every seven weeks or so and honestly, it’s the one thing about my job that really bugs me.

It’s not the “on-call” that bugs me really. It’s the circumstances. You see, my job is basically comprised of two parts. One part of my job is developing, planning, building and maintaining a pretty robust “event management system” (troubles, outages, changes, stuff like that) software package. This is the part of my job that I love and this is what makes me thrive in my career. I get to build pretty web pages that do really nifty things and I get to see users be able to do their jobs effectively because of the application that I have built. I get to stretch my geekiness in ways to make people more efficient and that’s something I really enjoy doing. I could do this part of my job forever and not really complain about it. I’m on call for this 24 hours a day, seven days a week and because the application is of my design and basically under my control, if I do my job well, I don’t get called (barring any sort of hardware or network failure). When I’m called for this it’s because I’ve done something wrong, so I make sure I do everything right. That’s easy to handle. That’s in my geek blood.

The other part of my job is being part of a team that maintains the software platform that monitors the entire network of the communications company I work for. The Network Operations Centers use this software to make sure that grandma can let her fingers do the walking via telephone or via internet, whenever she wants to walk her fingers. The software that did this when I was hired onto the team was a brilliant piece of design, did its job very well and didn’t require a lot of coddling. It was sleek, fast and efficient. While routine maintenance was very important to its health, many elements were “set it and forget it” and it was all geeky with the way it worked so I loved it. On-call with this was pretty much 24/7 for me and in 18 months I was called twice. Piece of cake, right? Unfortunately, when it was time to upgrade in preparation for tripling the size of the company, the company that provided the software at the time didn’t do very well in the bidding department when it was time to evaluate options for looking to move to something bigger, so the company migrated to a new platform that seemed to be quite popular with similar companies.

Knowing that co-workers and the like may read this I will soft shoe my way through this and simply say that I’m not a fan of this convoluted cluster of stuff that we are maintaining now. It feels like a constant game of Jenga with only 3/4 of the blocks that is being played in a very stiff wind. To make it doubly interesting, much of the interface is written in Java and only likes to run on Internet Explorer. There’s a lack of intuitiveness. What makes sense to me often isn’t what the software wants to do. I feel dumb. Sigh. Double sigh. Triple sigh.

Because the stiff wind occasionally moves to a gale force, on-call has the potential to be quite busy. I try very, very hard not to be frustrated by calls I may receive in the middle of the night and to do so I count to 10. A lot (my odometer is getting ready to roll over to over one million burgers served). But the geek side of me is constantly asking myself why this new software platform has to be so complicated. I’m concerned that I might develop some sort of involuntary twitch whenever I’m asked to do some sort of task on this system. The biggest reason for my discomfort is because I feel like in this part of my job I might be letting users down because the software just isn’t doing what it’s suppose to do, and I can’t determine if it’s the software, the people the installed the software, the person maintaining the software or the sun, the moon or the stars. However, since my position with the company is comprised of both of these roles, I just do what I can to the best of my ability. That’s all that is expected of me, but this just runs contrary to my personal achievement standards.

So last night was the first night of on-call and it went by without incident. Yay! I have found that it’s often hardest for me to get through that first night of on-call and I am thankful to whichever on-call god deemed me worthy of an incident free night. Only six more nights to go. I am hoping to use this on-call weekend to be productive at some projects I’ve been cooking up in my head.

I’ll relax next weekend.

25 July 2013 by J.P. Geek 2

Digital Nomad.

We like to travel. I don’t think that’s a secret to anyone. I’ve written enough about our travel adventures to make it blatantly apparent that we enjoy seeing what the world has to offer and we really enjoy discovering both popular and out-of-the-way places as often as we can. This is something that we plan on doing until we are unable to do it anymore.

As we get along in our years we start to look ahead to our retirement years and the like and this is where our age difference figures into the equation. Now I know this sounds crazy, but when Earl retires he actually expects me to keep on working until I am eligible for retirement. While I joke about this sort of thing, the fact of the matter is that I really want to continue working but at the same time I don’t want to detract from Earl enjoying his retirement.

This is where the phrase “Digital Nomad” comes into play.

Because my career is totally dependent on technology, I’m 95% of the way to becoming a Digital Nomad already. Though I didn’t mention on my conference calls this morning, I was already playing Digital Nomad by working from the hotel room I stayed at last night. Using the hotel wifi, with the ability of my iPad to be a hotspot as a backup plan, I was able to be quite productive this morning from the third floor of the classic hotel. Aside from every vending machine being empty (people, I need geek fuel!), it was a pleasant experience and I think the change in scenery actually helped me be more focused than I would have been in my cubicle back at the office.

I’ve played Digital Nomad before during my stints with on-call duties; Earl and I have successfully traveled during on-call and no one ended up any worse off because of it. When you have servers in Fort Wayne, users in Texas and more servers in Upstate New York, it’s not like I need to drive anywhere to actually touch anything to get things going again.

I’ve been reading the adventures of Digital Nomads. Software developers, web designers, writers and the like successfully conduct their business from hotel rooms, coffee shops and other places that offer connectivity. It’s a wicked cool concept to me but there are two important elements that I need to improve on to make this plan a full success: discipline and focus, knowing when it’s play time and when it’s work time and then maintaining a healthy balance between the two.

I like to think that I’m pretty driven when it comes to getting work done. I have a few motivators when it comes to discipline. I’m goal oriented. Give me a timeline and I’ll work to make that timeline a reality.

Focus is another issue, but this is something that I have been working on as well. Though I can be distracted by outside noise and the like, I’ve been working this week with my Bose noise-canceling headphones and this has helped immensely. When I’m working at the office, the surrounding areas can be quite noisy, and while I can’t really wear the Bose headphones in that environment (in case someone comes in my cube, etc), I can wear my iPod earbuds and successfully tune out the noise of the office. I also know that when I’m writing serious code or trying to solve a more complex problem, listening to music with lyrics (or anything with words, like a podcast or something), is going to bring my concentration levels down. Outside of using Apple products, I share Jony Ive’s taste in music as so far that I enjoy ambient electronic music like stuff from DJ John Digweed and the like.

I think this Digital Nomad approach is something that I could pull off when Earl retires. Though this is still a few years away, I’m focused on improving myself to make this a reality. After all, my husband should be able to really enjoy himself when he retires. He deserves it.

24 July 2013 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 2

Blogs of August.

Counting Down.

Zone.

Inspiration.

On Call.

Digital Nomad.

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