Yesterday Ember (my oldest child) asked me if I’d play with her. So we sat down on our bed and played with her new toys, Polly Pocket and Littlest Pet Shop figurines.
The bedsheets were all ruffled up, and her wonderful mind found mountains, caves, hills, Garden City (where some of her relatives live in real life), and even a special place for her toys to sleep.
That is what you see here. They are on their side, and as I was looking at them she said to me “They’re sleeping.”
My backyard lawn has become the bane of my homeownership.
As new homeowners we weren’t real educated on how to properly maintain a lawn and by the end of the first summer in the home last year it was looking pretty bare. In the spring of this year, we seeded, fertilized and watered, but the excessive heat this summer, coupled with tons of kids relentlessly playing in the backyard because of my wife’s home-based preschool, eventually brought the lawn to the same condition.
We read up on what we needed to do. I aerated the lawn last Saturday, covered it with seed, fertilizer, and hay, and we’ve been watering the lawn every day since then.
And so, there I was manually hosing down the backyard when I heard Tweetbot update noise emanating from my pocket. I whipped out my iPhone and at the top of my stream was an update that made my heart sink.
Apple says former CEO and founder Steve Jobs has died.
I stood there, motionless, glaring at the tiny screen. It took a minute before I realized I hadn’t moved, watering the same spot that whole time.
I knew it was coming. Everyone knew. My parents are both nurses, and after the WWDC in June when Steve gave what would become his final keynote, my dad commented on how poor his appearance was.
“It looks like he’s dying,” dad said.
When he stepped down as CEO in August, it seemed pretty clear the gig was up. As I commented today on Hacker News, “Steve Jobs needed Apple as much as Apple needed Steve Jobs.”
John Lennon, Elvis, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy – these were ghosts of history. I had heard of them, knew of their impact, but I was never personally impacted by their presence in a tangible way.
No so with Steve.
Impact
I was in the room when a kickball hit the Apple //e.
It was a freak occurance; the kickball managed to make it through the open window and hit the monitor, which then fell, hard, to the linoleum tile floor with a thud. I was sure it was broken. I didn’t even use it then – it was pretty much a teacher only device in that classroom – but the school district in my small town had made some investment in Apple’s computers, which began my love affair with that wonderfully thick beige hardware.
Someone came to check out the computer and much to my surprise, it worked perfectly.
I’ll never forget how amazed I was that it actually turned back on. I was nine years old and knew this thing was special.
Pirating
Just two years later, computing got a lot more hands on. In middle school we were allowed to go to the library and learn to use the computer. Green text, black screen, blinking cursor.
It was awesome.
In the early days of end user computing, there were few rules in play regarding the copyrighting of software, or at least the strict enforcement of it. I remember pecking away on the keyboard, typing a sentence or two at a time and then printing it on a dot matrix printer.
Kids these days have no idea how much printers used to really suck.
One of the coolest things I discovered, which our school librarian of all things educated us on, was the copying of data from one floppy disc to another. Back then it was called copying, but today they call it pirating. The librarian told me and a few other guys we could purchase blank floppies for $.25 each.
School-sanctioned pirating. Giddy up.
I only copied a few things, but one was my favorite game of all called Montezuma’s Revenge. Holy crap I loved that game. I kept that floppy disc with me for a long time. It stayed in the little white sleeve in my backback until I could get a chance to get back to the library and play some more. What fun it was.
Newton
The music teacher in middle school was really getting into digital music. He had an Ensoniq keyboard, and was all into this thing called “midi,” which I never fully understood.
But I understood the Newton. It was a handheld device that you could put notes on, store names and had basic handwriting recognition software built in that would (try to) convert handwriting to text. It’s hard to understand if you’ve grown up with touchscreen devices, but this thing was mind-blowing.
I loved the glowing green screen of the Newton and how its design almost begged you to interact with it. There was even this detail given like that of its counterpart the Macintosh where a little tiny trash can would look full with garbage until you “emptied” it, thus deleting the data you had in there.
Hiatus
I was far removed from any type of computer education in high school. There was a computer class, but it was on PCs. I wasn’t interested. It’s funny to think of that now, because apparently I was establishing myself as part of the Apple camp to the point that I wasn’t even willing to touch a Windows-based computer.
Instead I learned to type in what would come to be the last class that offered typewriting, of all things, on actual electric typewriters.
Next up was college. My mom and I went to campus, checked things out, and I liked most of what I saw. There was only one thing missing: the Macintosh. I went from building to building to see if I could find an Apple anywhere on campus.
I didn’t.
Everywhere I went, Windows was showing just how strong it had become. It was 1994. Steve Jobs wasn’t at Apple and Microsoft was kicking tail.
I was discouraged.
Performa 575
But my parents, who knew I was frustrated, gave me a new hope. They spent a large chunk of cash on an Apple Performa 575.
To say I was elated would understate what this meant to me. It wasn’t technically mine, but they really didn’t touch it. I did, though. I learned about something called email from a company called AOL. I used the encyclopedia from a CD-ROM. I began my college career as a music major, and wrote sheet music for class using that Mac. I got really, really hooked on a beautiful game called Myst.
That machine was a huge chunk of my life until I switched majors three years into college. I decided that I liked playing music, but didn’t want to teach it. I almost got into radio, but a required news writing course led me into journalism instead.
That led me to walk through the doors of the student publication The Chart, and I instantly knew I was home.
There were Macs everywhere.
Since that Apple Performa 575, I’ve not been without an Apple computer in my life.
The Store
In 2004, Apple opened a store on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo. I was one of the employees that opened that store. The experience was great: the people were fun, the environment was a well-oiled machine and the products were spectacular.
In this image from ifoAppleStore.com, the back of my (then slightly balding) head can be seen to the left of the guy with the blue ballcap on the left of the image.
From day one, it was clear Apple knew what it was doing in the retail market. All the computers worked like they would at your home. I had been to plenty of computer stores where the displays were crippled. Apple realized that flaw, and made it so every computer worked without the typical paranoid restrictions.
You could actually try before you buy and ask questions from people who truly loved the products they were selling.
I only lasted six months. I ended up quitting because I liked being a fan of Apple and using Apple’s stuff, but working there took a lot of that away. I wanted my kid-like love back (and the commute was getting to me, plus it was a part-time job after my full-time job was done during the day).
It was the right choice for me to make. But oh, how I would have loved to have been there when the iPhone came out.
Changes
When I decided to learn about the web, I would read HTML books in my car during my lunch break while working for The Ottawa Herald, then come home and work on my Mac to apply what I had read.
Eventually, that led me to a full-time gig, and I’ve kept freelancing and building side projects on my Mac ever since.
The Macintosh and Apple’s other products have been with me through a lot of major events. I recorded music with friends with my iBook, which also served as disc jokey at my wedding reception. I’ve edited home movies and pictures of my wife and kids, enlightened myself with audiobooks on my iPod on long commutes, took some of the first pictures and video of my youngest with my iPhone, and my wife and I each have businesses and projects we run on the Mac.
Apple is part of my existence. It’s part of my history.
One more thing …
As anyone who knows me is aware, I started riding motorcycles last year and have fallen in love with it.
So imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this picture of a young Steve Jobs, riding a motorcycle. It’s easily one of my top favorite pictures of him.
Thanks, Steve
The man who co-founded the company that made such an impact on my life is dead. For that, I’m incredibly sad.
And I’m also eternally grateful for his gifts.
It almost seems silly to become so attached to these machines. But these machines are more than bits, bytes, plastic and silicon. These machines have helped catalog my progress. These machines have helped me create. These machines have helped me learn. These machines have helped me love.
I think that’s what Steve Jobs was after all along. He help bring a spiritual quality to an industry that could be as soulless as we’d let it. But Steve Jobs wouldn’t have it. He had ideas. He had vision. He had passion.
And like the seeds in my backyard, he watered those ideas to help lead a company of incredible people to bring incredible products to the world and in turn, change lives.
So with that, I celebrate the life of Steve Jobs.
“I’ve looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘no’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”
Hitting that mileage was a big deal for me. The number isn’t arbitrary, but rather signifies a rider’s transition from beginner to intermediate. And it was part of my Five Things to Achieve in 2011 post last year.
Culminated with what I learned as outlined in my Shipping post, it appears an outline to achieving goals is pretty simple:
Envision a goal.
Work through a process to achieve that goal.
Achieve the goal.
The trick is, that second step is the hard one. Riding 4,000 on a motorcycle in Kansas? You’re going to deal with seasons that change like a teenager’s moods. There was a lot of butt-in-seat time to make that happen. And it was totally worth it.
But there’s three months left to go of this year, and I still have about 50 percent of my list left to go.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to that podcast (I really can’t remember it’s been so numerous). It’s hilarious. It’s spot on. If you work on the web and have an ounce of desire to a.) not suck at it, and b.) not be a jerkface about money while trying to create something, it’s worth a listen.
Image from Seth Godin's book, Linchpin.
Fast-forward to 2011. I’m still a Merlin Mann fan and listen regularly to his podcast, Back to Work. There are quite a few nuggets of insight from Merlin’s podcasts and I wanted to keep them around for a good kick-in-the-pants. The problem is, they’re audio – scrubbing through hours of podcasts isn’t the easiest way to access them. So I had an idea: why not transcribe my favorite quotes and stick them on a website?
That idea came in June. I purchased a domain name.
And then I did absolutely nothing.
I have this friend at work, John Williams, who likes to write in his spare time. He’s actually written quite a bit but not many have read his work. Why not? Because John and I had a lot in common. We had these ideas, perhaps we had even worked on them a bit, but we never “shipped” them. They never got out the door for anyone to see.
On Aug. 23, after telling John about my idea for a website of Merlin’s quotes, he challenged me to have it online by Sept. 14. I challenged him to something similar: get your work out in the world on the same day.
The Shipping Challenge was born.
Along the way, we picked up one other “contestant,” my friend, David Eldridge. David has gotten into designing bumper stickers as of late. He’s into politics and history, and threw together some designs that speak to the current political climate. Not many people have seen him and he’d be the first to admit that he wasn’t really shipping. He joined us with the challenge to have something released to the world on Sept. 14.
I’m happy to announce that we all reached our goal.
John Williams
John has made three short stories available at his website, Off Yer Rocker.
The great thing about each of these projects is that it doesn’t matter if you like them. It doesn’t matter that you hate them.
What matters is that we each shipped. We each had an idea, we set a date and then we shipped.
There are loads of reasons of reasons we could not have shipped. John hurt his back two days ago. My sewer line broke last week, causing me to spend thousands of dollars on repair, time off from work, and tons of stress. David’s at the beginning of a transition from one job to the next.
But with that deadline looming, and encouragement, and the understanding that nothing needed to be “perfect” to ship, we all met our goals. What a fantastic example of Parkinson’s Law in full effect.
And now we’re dreaming of the next Shipping Challenge. We’re thinking Oct. 25 as the deadline.
We spent all day Saturday visiting Worlds of Fun, and has reserved a room across the street at a Holiday Inn to spend the night in a little weekend staycation of sorts.
I was looking forward to the stay. I had three bad customer service issues in Lawrence last week and was ready to spend money somewhere where I’d be given service in proper fashion. Right off the bat, I was impressed with the Holiday Inn. It was a big place with lots of room, ample parking and a suite with a king size bed, a foldaway bed for the 4-year-old kiddo, and they even brought up a crib for the 2-year-old.
As a silly sidenote, I’m totally in love with Holiday Inn’s logo. There’s something about that green gradient that I really like.
Things were looking up. Then we went to breakfast.
It was fine, but when I went to pay, there was someone else in front of me at the register, so I waited patiently to settle the tab. Then a couple of people showed up on the opposite side of the register. When the guy in front of me was finished, the woman working the register turned to the lady that showed up long after I had been in line and started working on her bill.
“Humrph,” I thought to myself.
After she was done, the woman turned to me, then to the guy behind the lady that just finished up and said “Who’s next?” The guy deferred to me, and I went ahead. Of course, I should have been well before him and the lady in front of him since I had been waiting the longest, but whatever.
But after I was done, I heard the woman at the register say to the other fellow, “I’m sorry for your wait.”
“Sorry for your wait? What? Didn’t you see me this whole time?” Of course, I didn’t say that. I just kept in inside and went on my way.
I left without tipping. It was a buffet, I reasoned, and it’s not like they really did anything. Besides, they barely even noticed me.
I didn’t think anything more of it. I went upstairs, finished packing and brushed my teeth. With my Sonicare on full blast, I walked around the room. The youngest of my spawn, Remi, was looking out the window. We were on the third floor, and the window overlooked the interior, specifically, the dining area we had just returned from.
As we stood there looking out the window, I noticed the dining area workers doing their thing. They were cleaning up the mess left behind from all us who had eaten at the buffet. Everything looked great. All the tables were set up perfectly, like no one had even been there, ready for the next meal. I had noticed that the night before – the tables were arranged perfectly for breakfast, with order, ready to make an impression on us hungry diners.
Then I noticed the shoes. All of the women who worked in that dining area had sneakers on.
I worked at Toys R Us for five years during college; I know what that means – those people were on their feet, on the move, all the time. They needed something comfortable because the job was demanding on their feet.
“You jerk. You big, fat, American jerk,” I thought to myself.
I rinsed out my mouth, explained that I need to do something to Amy, and headed downstairs. I found one of the women, vacuuming around (of course) the table we had sat at and handed her my standard 20-percent tip.
“I forgot to give this before,” I said. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem, hon,” she said with a smile. “I’ll share it with the girls, thanks.”
“Great,” I said. “OK.”
And that was that. What a heel. Everyone has their reasons for rationalizing however amount that is given for tipping (see also: Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs). But for me, I had to stop and think: these workers brought out food for us to pick aplenty from, cleaned up our mess (and with two children, there’s always a mess) and then made it look perfect for the next meal. Am I really going to leave them nothing extra?
Thanks to some free tickets I won from our local TV news station, 6 News Lawrence, I took the family to World of Fun on Saturday for a quick getaway.
While there, my daughter Ember (seen above) saw a face painter and inquired about getting it done.
“We’ll see,” I said.
It’s always “We’ll see” with my kids and things that cost money. They’re fickle. They change their minds. They’re not sure what they want. So, I start with “no” or “maybe” and see if they persist.
I do the same thing at work. I say no a lot. It helps weed out the serious requests from the ones that are truly needed or truly desired from the requests that aren’t well thought out.
But this time, the requests persisted. “Daddy, can I get my face painted? Can we find out about getting my face painted? Daddy, please?”
Oh, all right. Let’s go find out.
I was expecting a $5 face painting. I was prepared to go as high as $7. It is, after all, someone doing art on a canvas of sorts.
But the face-painting was priced by the type of image chosen. Of course, my daughter picked the one with a unicorn that was $14.99. After feeling my heart sink into my stomach, I gave an awkward “We’ll need to go ask mommy” response and walked away.
There was no way I was going to pay $15 for something that would be washed off by morning. No. Way.
I told the wife. She agreed; that is a lot of money, perhaps too much, for something as fleeting as a face painting. So I told Ember, knowing she’d be disappointed but hoping for the best.
I was unprepared for the tears that followed and what I call “The saddest face known to man.”
“Amy, don’t we have a responsibility to teach our kids about buying things of value,” I pleaded? “Shouldn’t we teach them to be somewhat responsible with money? I mean, this thing is just going to get washed off and …”
“Yes,” Amy stopped me. “But, it does hold value to her. She enjoys getting her face painted.”
“And how much did your motorcycle cost?”
Touché.
It’s not that we didn’t have they money. My parents had sent us some cash before we left, so the cost of the face painting was made moot. But in my fashion typical, I was questioning missing out on a lesson of money and value.
In turn, I was missing out on a greater lesson: to discover and celebrate the things my daughter likes and encourage them, even if they cost more money than I deem worthy of the expense.
And so, $14.99 later, my daughter, my wonderful, sweet princess of a daughter, had her unicorn face painting. She was beaming and she even received several compliments from people who walked up to her, unprovoked, just to tell her how great her face painting was.
And I took a picture. In fact, I took several pictures to keep the image long after the paint is gone.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what an ideal working environment would be if I could design it.
Some of the components of this environment include:
A Mac would be my primary machine, with Coda my text editor of choice
I’d have a desk that converted to a standing desk when desired
Telecommuting would be available as an option – or at least the freedom to work somewhere else for a bit to change the scenery – such as a coffee shop or library
A team of at least one other peer who does similar work to me – we could work together and still be able to “talk shop” when needed
I am very much a night owl, so being able to work a later shift would be nice
Plenty but reasonable amount of money and time for training, conferences
Freedom to work on “playtime” projects
Very few in-person interruptions
There’s probably a few more, but I’d need to suss it out a bit. Not to say I don’t appreciate my job, not at all. And you’ve probably already guessed by now, but I have very few of these components available to me now.
Perhaps I need to figure out how to make these happen.
As a huge fan of tech in the midwest, I was really glad to hear about the June 21 KCITP Summer Career Fair.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking to switch jobs, but I know plenty of talented individuals who are looking to do something different. Plus, there are eager grads now entering the workforce and ready to start their careers.
Here’s a chance: The Kansas City IT Professionals Summer Career Fair will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., June 21 (one week from today) at the Regnier Center at Johnson County Community College. (Here’s a map if you need it. It’s a really nice, modern campus.)
And in case you’re wondering, no, I’m not being paid to mention this. I truly believe the Midwest (Plains if you want to get technical) is a great place for IT. We’ve got a low cost of living, excellent work ethic and BBQ. What could be better?
If you end up going to the event, please stop by and let me know how it went. I’d love to hear from you.
As a huge fan of tech in the midwest, I was really glad to hear about the June 21