Peak Progress

Another Blog

Tim — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:01:42 -0500

A quick pointer to the latest project for me and Kate. We bought a house, and it needs work, and we're blogging the experience. The site itself is a little lame, but that's because we've been working on the house. You can also check out the Flickr Photostream dedicated to the house.

Prairie Home Companion Under the Stars

Tim — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:06:03 -0500

Last Friday, the 22nd, Kate took me to see A Prairie Home Companion at the Starlight Theater. The tickets were given to me for my birthday this year, and I had a great time. She is about the only person who would have known that I might enjoy the show, so it was quite a thoughtful gift.

The rain held off, and it was a beautiful evening. Apparently their last trip to Starlight for a Saturday show ended with people passing out from the heat, so we saw the show on Friday night even though the show is "live" on Saturday. The Carolina Chocolate Drops made a guest appearance, and I enjoyed their traditional folk music as well as their folk interpretation of modern music. They are well worth a listen.

I am not sure I would have thought to purchase the tickets, so I am glad Kate took the initiative. After going once, I can say with certainty that I will enjoy going again.

I'm Out of the Bomb Business

Tim — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:22:06 -0500

I started as an intern at Honeywell FM&T on February 29, 2000. Three months in, I didn't think I'd come back for another year, and I certainly didn't think I'd stay on for over 7 years. I met some great people as the summer went on, and they put me in the middle of some great projects. All things come to an end, and my last day was June 5th. I enjoy writing software, but the business wants to buy software instead, so I had to leave to keep writing code. Furthermore, the idea of building bombs became less and less appealing to me over the years. With only one time through this life, at far as anyone can prove, I want to have a legacy other than "weapon factory worker." Even still, I enjoyed my time in the facility while it lasted.

I started working at my new job on the 6th. It has been an energizing experience so far. I even got a computer to work on yesterday, so things are looking and feeling good. Walking out of a job that I worked for 7 years was a little unreal, but I can only see this transition improving my opportunities and outlook.

But I'm Only One Person

Tim — Sat, 19 May 2007 13:14:22 -0500

I mentioned that complacency is a personal problem when confronting things in this world that bother me. I just don't act as much as I could or should. I want to do great things, but I don't do all of the great things that I am capable of doing, even on this very day. I came across a podcast series called the "Nonprofit Boot Camp", and one episode in particular took me right back to the complacency issue. Kevin Danaher gave a presentation on cross pollination among non-profit organizations, and the following quote sums up the problem with rationalizing complacency:

People come up to me afterwards and say "...but I'm only one person, what can I do?" I'm always tempted to say "oh, that's nice. I'm eight people. Nice to meet you."

OK, point taken. We are each only one person, and if we all used the "I'm one person excuse", then nothing would get done. What can I do that will most effectively use my talents to do something important? There is a non-profit service in my mind that is waiting to get out. I have talked about it twice at my Toastmasters club, and I am working on a demo right now, but I am way behind schedule on getting the website up. Seems like there is no better time than right now to put a stake in the ground. Watch this space for an announcement by the end of May.

Going to Jail

Tim — Sat, 05 May 2007 20:35:01 -0500

No, I'm not personally going to jail. A good friend of mine posed the question, "what would you go to jail for?" When I originally asked myself this question, I had a hard time answering. There are things in this world that really bother me, and one of the things that bothers me the most is my complacency in dealing with things that bother me. Rationalizations abound. In short, I couldn't answer, at least not right away.

I hang out in the #typo channel on Freenode because I run Typo. Today there was a discussion among two people about homelessness and a new law that is in place in Orlando, FL. It is now against the law to feed more than 25 people in downtown Orlando parks. Charitable organizations can get permits to feed people, but only two per year per organization will be issued. Why the fuss? Business owners were complaining. For a country where so many citizens call themselves Christians, it seems horribly cold hearted to outlaw feeding people in need. Isn't that one of the things we are told to do? Matthew 25:35-40 seems about right.

The programmer hanging out in #typo apparently had the same idea. He started a little website called "Jesus Was Homeless" to help spread awareness of the new law and hopefully start a backlash.

There has been at least one arrest resulting in a misdemeanor charge. Would you accept a misdemeanor on your record if it were for feeding people? That seems like a worthy cause to me.

More information:

Do you live in Kansas City? Get out in the streets with the Uplift organization, or make a donation to Harvesters. They accept monthly giving via check or credit card.

Mingus, Our Second Mongrel

Tim — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:35:59 -0500

Kate has always wanted a second dog, but every time we found one we liked, there was a reason to not adopt. We were browsing Animal Haven a few weeks ago and came across a dog named Harley. He was very calm for being in the middle of a hectic shelter, and affectionate as well. We liked him, but we couldn't adopt him on the spot without first introducing Tango.

We bought all of the requisite supplies on Wednesday of that week. Saturday we took Tango over to my parents house and left her in the back yard. We went and spent some time with Harley, enjoyed him very much, and went back to get Tango for an introduction. A little over an hour later we were taking them both home, except that Harley was now called Mingus.

After an initial adjustment period where Mingus spent most of his time crated, he is now a full member of the family. He sleeps well, and that means a lot to us. :-)

Thank you to Mom and Dad for letting us stash Tango at your house while we introduced ourselves to Mingus, and thank you to Jacquie for helping us out with Tango while we filled out the paperwork for Mingus.

Way Too Late, Way Too Cold

Tim — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 02:58:06 -0600

It is way too late to still be awake. Not so much because my alarm will go off in a few hours, but because I have the furnace set to allow the temperature to drop all the way down to 66 degrees after midnight. It is one of the tiny ways in which I conserve energy, and I'd like to think that it makes up for running computers all day every day.

I didn't write quite as much code this weekend as I hoped, but I did deal with some rather tricky issues in the code that I was able to write. Unicode isn't fun. I still have one unicode input/output bug that is appearing in one instance of CogPlanet, but absent in another. What the heck?

I also had a chance to spend Saturday afternoon with Kate, eating sushi and running errands. It is nice when she has a day off on the weekend. We asked the sushi chef to choose our last roll for us, and we got a pizza roll. It was beautifully prepared, and octopus is about as chewy as I expected. The only maki roll that we had eaten before was the crunchy salmon, and it was as delicious as always. The other rolls we tried were the barbecued eel and the spicy scallop rolls. Both were tasty. A sushi newbie could be convinced to try the eel, but I wouldn't suggest the spicy scallop to someone who is squeamish about the idea of sushi in the first place.

Christmas Vacation

Tim — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:59:56 -0600

Christmas vacation officially came to a close today. I went back to work, but I have something to show for my time off. In addition to all of the holiday merriment, some household repair work, and some (presently) unpublished code, I was able to get CogPlanet into good enough shape for its first public release. More information is available at the CogPlanet project page.

I think Tango got comfortable with the idea of me being around the house. She seemed to really enjoy the extra walks.

Kate and I really got to spend a great deal of time together, and that was a welcome change after the last two hectic months. We rang in the new year with a homemade dinner of scallops, roasted potatoes and cannoli. Yum. Speaking of, I managed to gain three pounds between Christmas Eve and today. Impressive! :-)

Eating With Less

Tim — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 23:15:21 -0600

Kate and I spent $22 on Chinese food today. That was for two entrees, two sodas, and an order of crab rangoon at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Awesome. I tried the Mongolian Chicken. It was good, but not great. I'll probably get one of my "regular" dishes next time.

Then tonight I read about this guy named Evan, from Lansing Michigan, and he spent $27.28 on food, but here's the catch: that was for the entire month of November. It sounds like an interesting experiment, and a tough 30 day dare. If you have a little while, I'd suggest reading his blog, Hungry for a Month.

GOODCalc Now 50% More Friendly

Tim — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 01:36:46 -0600

GOODCalc is now more friendly. Maybe not 50% more friendly, but better handling of money and percent values were included in this update. Read about what changed, or go straight to GOODCalc and try it yourself.