“As you get older, it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary”
I find the Hemingway quote to be quite true. The older I am getting, I find myself striving to want to live in a world where there are heroes. True, proper heroes. However, it gets harder to find them. Is this because my judgements are harsher, or is it because we in society have placed importance on what I think is the wrong criteria?
Robert Tracinski is quoted as saying that “Who we choose as heroes tells us what our culture really values. Our heroes are not just objects of a passing infatuation; they are the men and women who embody our view of the highest human potential.”
So I started thinking, who are my heroes now? And what do my heroes say about me? During the interview process, I asked that question of all my ducks. Shockingly they couldn’t come up with an answer. Perhaps it was because I am sure no one has ever asked them that question, or perhaps they never thought about it.
I think this is what will be thinking about this weekend. I’m driving to Atlanta this weekend and will have a lot of time in the car.
Today’s site is for the Aptera Electric Vehicle, and this thing looks just plain cool. Currently it’s only on sale in California, but with the pricetag of around $30,000 for the plug-in hybrid version (27k for the all electric). Sporting 120 miles on a single charge.
I cannot express how much I want this. Now.
con·trol /kənˈtroʊl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kuh
n-trohl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -trolled, -trol·ling, noun
–verb (used with object)
| 1. |
to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command. |
| 2. |
to hold in check; curb: to control a horse; to control one’s emotions. |
| 3. |
to test or verify (a scientific experiment) by a parallel experiment or other standard of comparison. |
| 4. |
to eliminate or prevent the flourishing or spread of: to control a forest fire. |
| 5. |
Obsolete. to check or regulate (transactions), originally by means of a duplicate register. |
–noun
| 6. |
the act or power of controlling; regulation; domination or command: Who’s in control here? |
| 7. |
the situation of being under the regulation, domination, or command of another: The car is out of control. |
| 8. |
check or restraint: Her anger is under control. |
| 9. |
a legal or official means of regulation or restraint: to institute wage and price controls. |
| 10. |
a standard of comparison in scientific experimentation. |
| 11. |
a person who acts as a check; controller. |
| 12. |
a device for regulating and guiding a machine, as a motor or airplane. |
| 13. |
controls, a coordinated arrangement of such devices. |
| 14. |
prevention of the flourishing or spread of something undesirable: rodent control. |
| 15. |
Baseball. the ability of a pitcher to throw the ball into the strike zone consistently: The rookie pitcher has great power but no control. |
| 16. |
Philately. any device printed on a postage or revenue stamp to authenticate it as a government issue or to identify it for bookkeeping purposes. |
| 17. |
a spiritual agency believed to assist a medium at a séance. |
| 18. |
the supervisor to whom an espionage agent reports when in the field. |
I have determined that when I die, it will be when I have encountered a situation where I find that I have absolutely no path, no means or manner by which I can exude some control over said situation. It’s easy for all of us to look back at our highest of points and see where we were in the throes of control over the situation, but how many of us can honestly look back at us in our lowest of lows and admit *that* was when we were in the most control ever of our lives.
I face these constructs of control every day - through all fault of my own in actuality. For me, there is a constant, daily ”struggle” to maintain what I consider control in my life. It can be the slightest thing somewhere in the day where I have exerted control over a situation; but I need to just have that small little bite at the apple. And damn anyone who stands in the way of it. Worse still, I admit that I’m using situations at work because I have been missing the opportunity to exert control in my personal life - because, let’s be honest, my personal life has taken a back burner to everything else (now if you really want a mindfuck, re-read the last sentence of the previous paragraph). Worse still, is how conflicted I feel about it all, Worst, in that I even have conflict.
Deep down in me, part of me wants to admit to this as some sort of a sickness -*I* have to be the only one who feels this way. No human person can really base his humanity on the level of control that they think they have manipulated their world around, can they? Am I a good person because I am in what I perceive as “control”? Is it really control that I think I am in? But the other part of me cannot understand how anyone can live their lives, let alone get out of bed in the morning without the will, the constant desire, to absolutely control every last thing that interacts with them in their lives.
I think that this month of July has proven to be the biggest in regards to being a crucible of control for me. From the little things that I’ve dealt with, up to the fact that I am in direct control of the lives of 11 people and their respective loved ones - close to 25 people when its all said and done; and while there are many chances of me to fail throughout various points of the crucible this last point is what scares me the most. More than likely because it is that which I have no control over (or truth be told - too much of it).
*****
Casey Pollard has taken the flight to Moscow, and is slowly, quietly started to make peace with the fact that her father may have indeed died on 9/11. She’s flying there on her own dime so that Hubertus and the rest of Blue Ant can’t find out, even though its because of Hubertus that she would be in a position to even be going to Moscow. She’s going there and we know that Damien is already there. She knows it. Does she even realize it? But does it even matter? The footage is there. Which is more important to her? The ubiquitous footage or Damien?
Casey is fleeting with control, thinking that she’s barely holding onto it as its flying over the continent in the Aeroflot to Sheremetyevo. But I think that somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows she’s only kidding herself and that she’s nowhere in control and that it is the events, the chase that have control over her.
I recently had a chat with a friend of mine where I mentioned Casey’s Adventures and how I can place both of us in the various characters, in multiple examples. Funnier still because we have different desires in relation to control, and use the concept in the most different of manners on its basest levels. It is comforting however, to know that there are others out there who are either hooked on the drug of control (however it manifests itself be it either by wanting to maintain control, or to desperately want to relinquish control) or at least understand why the flame is so warm and inviting.
*****
This is the week that everything changes, and the changes potentially become concrete tomorrow. I hold the lives of eleven people in my hands, all at the whims of the self appointed gods above me. What little control I really have over them, over myself is inconsequential to those that are above me - who give the impression that they do not understand or cannot be bothered to be preoccupied with that small, irritating little fact. This is what scares me. This is what keeps me from sleeping. This is the one thing that I wake up every morning with the desire to control. This is the only thing.
And this is the only thing that I come home to every day knowing that I haven’t grasped. Does that make me less human because I cannot achieve my goal, or does it ratify my knowledge that it is because I am human that i will never attain that one goal?
Is it even possible that anyone else can fathom how control inpacts my life?
Ξ July 23rd, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Work |
I came across this from the Effective CIO:
I am, I fear, driving my team crazy. One moment, I am demanding perfection, unwilling to accept even the slightest error. The next moment, I’m encouraging them to experiment, to make mistakes, to get results rapidly to our customers. It all makes sense to me, but I don’t know that they see the method to my (apparent) madness.
In reality, IS organizations suffer from a split personality. Half of our job is to deliver any and all computing services, 24 by 7, without fail, no matter what. The other half is to innovate, find clever new solutions to problems, and get those soutions out to people as quickly as possible. The former role demands unrelenting perfection; the latter will tolerate (and even requires) failure and iteration.
He continues on describing the two halves of the split personality, and I have to say that I totally agree with him. My problem is that I have mastered my “schizophrenia” and I can seemingly switch back and forth between “Operations” (keeping what you have in place running) and “Innovation” (making new worlds happen). However, I’m not sure that the ducks know how to deal with it. Part of the problem is that they are young and inexperienced for the most part, and I have to constantly remind myself of this. They haven’t had the same experiences as I have; but being in these situations can prepare them both professionally, and on a maturity level they can be perfect.
I have faith in them. I just hope that they have faith in me, and that I have faith in myself.
There are a couple of sites for this week’s Wednesday Weblink.
First off the SuperLame! Comic Word Balloon Engine is a perfect little tool that takes *any* picture and lets you put those little speech baloons all over it. I cannot express how cool this is.
The next site, is Evernote. I have found that I have been using this a lot. It’s a great way to take notes of everything that you see and do on your computer or internet. The photo indexing feature alone has a coolness factor of 42!.
Ξ July 22nd, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Geek |
I received the new chassis from HP to fix Alexandria today, and made a trip back to the condo for lunch. Within a few minutes, I had the drives swapped and I was in business. Alexandria stays powered up now which is good, and I began the process of recreating the factory defaults for the little server which can take up to an hour. So when I return tonight, Alexandria should be all ready (and still powered on). Saturday geeking can pick back up.
A couple of months ago, Llyod Case wrote an article about putting solar panels up in their house. Now that it’s done they revisit it to tell you how they’re doing.
It’s now almost the end of May, and the solar panel installation is almost done.
Back in January, I discussed our investigation into home solar power. We received a total of three bids, but the final decision was surprisingly easy.
The bidding process itself was illustrative of the ongoing evolution of solar power. The first bid was presented by a classical sales guy, who was in his sixties, and talked endlessly about keeping the customer happy. I don’t mean that as a negative; he was pretty knowledgeable about the tech, but when we’d ask deeper questions, he’d have to defer his response. The document arrived in a classical sales binder, with all the salient information.
The second company was much more high tech. Two guys arrived in a van brightly decorated with the company’s logo and color scheme. The main sales guy had a light meter attached to a Pocket PC, and did all his solar readings using actual measurements from our roof. They supplied us with a PDF file of the preliminary bid, on the spot, using a laptop and the readings collected with the Pocket PC. They were also potentially attractive, because the company had cut a deal with the city of Sunnyvale, offering additional discounts to residents.
The third company was again represented by a single person, though a much younger guy. He was very up front about the process from the beginning, and laid out all the options and costs, including full power conversion, best rate of return and best “green” option, which lay somewhere between the other two options.
The neat thing about all the companies bidding, completely separate from the mechanics of the sales process, was the enthusiasm for solar energy. So which did we choose?
I’m positive that the next house we live in I will have the majority if not all of our roof covered in solar panels. I’m really big on this.
Ξ July 21st, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Work |
A group of the ducks came up to me. Their feathers were all ruffled up. Clearly they were agitated. Quickly, Nerd duck, the network engineer asks me, “What do we do when we find out that there is a laptop on the network named ‘Sweetdad’, and they’re downloading a bunch of shit off of the internet?”
“Well, who is it?”
“We don’t know, but they’re in BI-39.”
“Well shut down their port, and lets go find out.”
I led the group of ducks out to BI-39 - a large auditorium and we started going through the break rooms like a well machined, trained, geeky SWAT team. Nerd duck tripped over his shoelaces only twice. I began questioning everyone we ran into, “Are you sweetdad?” “Who is sweetdad?”.
Nothing. They were all clueless gits. Their maws catching flies. Some of them seemed upset because I was standing in front of the television and Judge Judy was on.
Running out of places to hide, we took our search upwards to the third floor. To the sound booth. We’ve dealt with these people before.
After no one answered the knocks at the door, we entered the room with the practiced tactical precision of a blind epileptic; and there it was… right before our eyes.
“Okay, so what I am about to do, no one else in this company has the ability to do. None of you have the ability to do this; and if I find out that you ever do this, I will fire you.” The ducks nod in understanding. I quickly unplug all of the cables connecting the laptop to various USB devices, the electrical supply and most importantly; my network and we quickly make our egress back to the Ivory Tower. I make a side stop at HR to pick up the Policy Handbook that all employees sign. Mother Hen from HR asks me what’s up and I give her a quick, “Someone brought their laptop in and was using our bandwidth to pirate stuff”. Her eyes gloss over.
Back at my desk, I write an email to the ducks:
When the owner of the laptop named “Sweetdad” shows up because his laptop has been “stolen”
Inform him that the Sr. Director of IT has possession of his laptop because of the material he was downloading was in breach of the Computer Policy as described in the Policy Handbook, and that if he would like it back, that I need to speak to their VP first.
Dave
The first thought was ‘This reminds me of San Jose’. Although the beer to soda mix is a little too light for me 
and the only reason why there is water is only because it *does* get hot out and I need to keep the ducks hydrated. I have found that doing this about every two or three weeks has increased department loyalty exponentially in comparison to other endeavors I’ve participated in. Which leads me into my thoughts of leading vs. managing, especially when it comes to geeks in general, but can aptly be applied to any type of technical thought process job.
Taking for example work here, there are many managers; not so many that the workplace is a bureaucracy like my previous job, but enough in place to theoretically managed the entire work staff. Of the two dozen VPs, Sr. Directors and upper level management in the organization it appears to me that there are few leaders - people who are running their departments while understanding that they are responsible for people’s lives and act accordingly. This isn’t to say that the entire company should be staffed with leaders, as there are plenty of departments that need to just be staffed solely with worker bees. However, there are some key positions in this company that are critical to be only leadership positions. Let us worry about how to row the boat, we just need someone to read a map, chart a course, and have the gravitas to point out into the starless night and say “Go that way”.
Sadly, what we have is too many people who think that they should be in that role when they really shouldn’t be, and the people who should be, sans gravitas. All of this frankly, pisses me off; so I decided early on that I would manage my people by leading them. I’m lucky in that my entire staff is rather young so they are easily malleable, and can learn (not just technically, but also socially, and emotionally) new things more so than someone who has been in the same position for even just, say, five years.
I’ve taken a lot of lessons from the book “Leading Geeks” by Paul Glenn. In it, he makes the case on how to properly manage today’s geeks. The good thing was that as I was reading it for the first time, many of my core beliefs were validated. So at least I could be assure that I was somewhat correct in what I was doing, and how I was executing it. I’ve looked at my team more as a family than a confederation of independents. I’ve based decisions from that viewpoint and it’s rubbed off on the ducks. Mohawk duck and Angry Black duck were quickly put into position where they directly reported to Raider duck and they were responsible for keeping the rest of the ducks in line. Mohawk and Angry Black duck both took on the role and quickly transformed into ducks that not only took pride in their jobs, but made sure that the rest of the ducks took pride in their job.
Throughout it all, the team bond is strengthened and the ducks look to themselves as family first, and individuals second.
For me, I hope that this is a lesson that they take with them for the rest of their lives.
Why? What on earth could be causing this? It’s not like I’m not trying to sleep, and I’ve tried everything - sleeping with the TV on, with it off, reading, sleeping in places other than my bed, hot tea - everything.
I’m also exhausted. I want to sleep, its just that my mind isn’t shutting off.
The good news (I guess) is that I’m catching up on movies that I’ve always wanted to see.
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