For those of you that don't know, I'm a software engineer. In as simple terms as possible, I implement rules. These are rules that help businesses save money, cut paper and generally do some boring thing over and over again that it makes no sense to pay someone to do. So as often as I like to think that I am able to keep my views about work separate from the views I have about...I don't know...love, I find that inevitably the two come together. When this happens I have to remind myself that love isn't software, but then again...it kind of is.
The first thing you realize when you write your first program that takes input from a user is that users are crazy! They will do all kinds of untold stuff outside of how you as the programmer designed the program to function. They will hack, they will scheme and create work-a-rounds, and when all else fails they will just lie and say “I didn't do that.” This is just the nature of people. This is why I write if-statement after if-statement to ensure that the user doesn't misbehave and break my software. This is the part of my software engineering life that bleeds over into my love life. As much as I want to “see where things go” when I meet someone, I know that if I don't set the rules up early and quick, I'll have hell to pay!
Why is there hell to pay? Love is like leaving a million dollars during the Clinton years(because in the Bush years a million isn't quite the same) in the middle of an open, public space and hoping that no one will come along and take it. Open and insecure scare good programmers and get bad programmers promotions into management. I struggle with letting myself be unsecured and to be honest, I want to encrypt and secure EVERYTHING! From conversations all the way down to when I feel it is OK to say “I love you.” I want to define the rules of engagement, or how this love thing is going to work.
Like software, love is never glitch-free. These glitches often come from trying to squeeze every possible bad thing a user might do out of the system. The gotcha of all the squeezing is that you have to write more and more rules into the system which usually creates more and more loop holes and points of friction. What is a lover and a programmer to do...?
The solution...
The more you program the more you realize that more rules make code complex and unmaintainable. There will always be back-doors where the user finds some clever way to push some button they shouldn't have access to just when the moons of Jupiter align correctly and cause the world to come to an end. Love like software is ultimately at its best when there are some basic principles and boundaries set but the appropriate amount of trust is given to those people that show themselves deserving. Love shouldn't be a hard, rigid and fixed system of yes and no's but one that evolves over time as we learn more and more about the people that push our buttons. Appreciate and love the hacker in your life.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
"Merry Christmas" - Yep I Said It
It's a really cliché quote “The Reason for the season.”(Christ the Lord) but I am sort of disgusted by the pressure of our society to spend money to show everyone how “loved” they are.
I'm ranting about this for three reasons:
1. I hate when people try and mess with my mind(Yes, you Mr. Advertising Executive).
2. I'm born on Christmas and I HATE that people are trying to make it “standard” to say “Happy Holidays.”
3. Love is more than what we give on one day of the year, its what we show each other in the spare moments that matters.
1. I'm so tired of people trying to get me to spend money on Christmas or any other Holiday of the year. I work hard for the little I have in this world. Honestly I don't care what some business marketing executive tells me, the dollar in my pocket is worth more to me than any plastic electronic doo-dad that some company is hocking. Never do you hear any commercials on how to spend less and save more, while all you hear is how life is more special if you spend money. Where is the truth??? Where is that picture of the people that save money so that the unexpected hard-times come and go just like the good ones? Capitolism, you lie!
2. I'm tired of politcal correctness. I grew up in the South where being a Christian was common place. And while I will say it has been a great learning experience meeting people from different religious backgrounds and some that don't have one, I must say that I'm most offended that corporations and businesses have their employees say Happy Holidays instead of “Merry Christmas.” My reason is simple: Merry Christmas isn't preaching the gospel, or evangelizing Christianity, its the name of the holiday that we wish to be happy! I love being able to say “My birthday is on Christmas.” I wasn't born on some random festive day of the year, I was born on the same day that we celebrate the birth of Christ. The same day I was given life, was the same day the world was given hope of life ever-lasting.
3. Finally, gifts don't show love or admiration for someone, its the gifts of character, understanding and grace shown to each other in our worst moments that demonstrate real love. We spend money on gifts because we fail daily to show how much we love others and as the recipients of those gifts we fail to value the efforts of character by those people that love us the most. Gifts are tangible things that we can point to and say “They spent X dollars on me which means they think I'm Y special.” In truth, its ALWAYS easier to buy a gift than to devote ANY significant time caring and loving a person.
Spend Christmas thinking about how God has spent generations and generations of time with mankind, demonstrating His grace and love for us. Then if you believe, ask yourself do you live up to God's example of understanding, grace and tolerance with those people you are about to go a buy gifts...
I'm ranting about this for three reasons:
1. I hate when people try and mess with my mind(Yes, you Mr. Advertising Executive).
2. I'm born on Christmas and I HATE that people are trying to make it “standard” to say “Happy Holidays.”
3. Love is more than what we give on one day of the year, its what we show each other in the spare moments that matters.
1. I'm so tired of people trying to get me to spend money on Christmas or any other Holiday of the year. I work hard for the little I have in this world. Honestly I don't care what some business marketing executive tells me, the dollar in my pocket is worth more to me than any plastic electronic doo-dad that some company is hocking. Never do you hear any commercials on how to spend less and save more, while all you hear is how life is more special if you spend money. Where is the truth??? Where is that picture of the people that save money so that the unexpected hard-times come and go just like the good ones? Capitolism, you lie!
2. I'm tired of politcal correctness. I grew up in the South where being a Christian was common place. And while I will say it has been a great learning experience meeting people from different religious backgrounds and some that don't have one, I must say that I'm most offended that corporations and businesses have their employees say Happy Holidays instead of “Merry Christmas.” My reason is simple: Merry Christmas isn't preaching the gospel, or evangelizing Christianity, its the name of the holiday that we wish to be happy! I love being able to say “My birthday is on Christmas.” I wasn't born on some random festive day of the year, I was born on the same day that we celebrate the birth of Christ. The same day I was given life, was the same day the world was given hope of life ever-lasting.
3. Finally, gifts don't show love or admiration for someone, its the gifts of character, understanding and grace shown to each other in our worst moments that demonstrate real love. We spend money on gifts because we fail daily to show how much we love others and as the recipients of those gifts we fail to value the efforts of character by those people that love us the most. Gifts are tangible things that we can point to and say “They spent X dollars on me which means they think I'm Y special.” In truth, its ALWAYS easier to buy a gift than to devote ANY significant time caring and loving a person.
Spend Christmas thinking about how God has spent generations and generations of time with mankind, demonstrating His grace and love for us. Then if you believe, ask yourself do you live up to God's example of understanding, grace and tolerance with those people you are about to go a buy gifts...
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Typical Day At The Gym
Let me walk you through a typical day at the gym for me.
I walk into the gym to see some new face working at the front desk. The last person that had just started working the front desk two days ago probably quit because they were tired of making minimum wage while not actually working. Now I know what you are going to say...no one is paid to do nothing... With MOST jobs you'd be right, but at my gym the desk attendants that are supposed to take my membership card and sign me in, simply leave the bar-code reader up on the front of the desk in the classic self-service style of “I'm a lazy bum, that's why I have my brain-dead job in the first place!”
Now as I walk into a sea of perpetually unfit people doing some stupid thing they heard someone talking about seeing someone do while thinking about joining a gym while drinking a grease and sugar smoothie, I can't help but get pissed off. Most people think I'm “in the zone.” I'm in the zone, the zone of idiots that go to the gym just to tell their friends while they are out to lunch eating death warmed over, “I work out, look at me, I'm better than you.”
At my gym the racquetball players are the first contact I have with what I'll call...Some idiot sitting on the equipment like its a freakin' lawn chair! I can kinda are respect that old guy out their bashing a little blue ball around reliving a bit of the time he spent as a young man...but I'm sorry, I have work to do and you sitting on this bench is stopping me from doing it!
After I finish my warm up, I head to the power cage. The power cage is called the power cage because it is a cold steel frame where powerful stuff happens involving big men and heavy weight! In the corner I spy some idiot doing some dumb isolation exercise with poor form right under the end of the power cage bar! On the other side, there is some chick doing the same thing! As a big man that likes to think he does powerful stuff involving kind of heavy weight, I frown at these people which is my way of saying “Please move!”
After throwing some weight around like peanuts, I want a cold drink of water to quench my powerful thirst. I go to a fountain only to taste luke-warm water. I walk ACROSS the gym to the other fountain to have the same experience and then I wonder...why am I paying to torture myself in a place that won't even take my money and fix the compressors on the water fountains?!?!?!?
After completing the rest of my workout and cleaning machines of other people's sweat, I do my cardio(some times...) and I think about lucky I am to have had my eyes opened... Maybe I should be nice and ask the next one of these I see to give me a spot.
I walk into the gym to see some new face working at the front desk. The last person that had just started working the front desk two days ago probably quit because they were tired of making minimum wage while not actually working. Now I know what you are going to say...no one is paid to do nothing... With MOST jobs you'd be right, but at my gym the desk attendants that are supposed to take my membership card and sign me in, simply leave the bar-code reader up on the front of the desk in the classic self-service style of “I'm a lazy bum, that's why I have my brain-dead job in the first place!”
Now as I walk into a sea of perpetually unfit people doing some stupid thing they heard someone talking about seeing someone do while thinking about joining a gym while drinking a grease and sugar smoothie, I can't help but get pissed off. Most people think I'm “in the zone.” I'm in the zone, the zone of idiots that go to the gym just to tell their friends while they are out to lunch eating death warmed over, “I work out, look at me, I'm better than you.”
At my gym the racquetball players are the first contact I have with what I'll call...Some idiot sitting on the equipment like its a freakin' lawn chair! I can kinda are respect that old guy out their bashing a little blue ball around reliving a bit of the time he spent as a young man...but I'm sorry, I have work to do and you sitting on this bench is stopping me from doing it!
After I finish my warm up, I head to the power cage. The power cage is called the power cage because it is a cold steel frame where powerful stuff happens involving big men and heavy weight! In the corner I spy some idiot doing some dumb isolation exercise with poor form right under the end of the power cage bar! On the other side, there is some chick doing the same thing! As a big man that likes to think he does powerful stuff involving kind of heavy weight, I frown at these people which is my way of saying “Please move!”
After throwing some weight around like peanuts, I want a cold drink of water to quench my powerful thirst. I go to a fountain only to taste luke-warm water. I walk ACROSS the gym to the other fountain to have the same experience and then I wonder...why am I paying to torture myself in a place that won't even take my money and fix the compressors on the water fountains?!?!?!?
After completing the rest of my workout and cleaning machines of other people's sweat, I do my cardio(some times...) and I think about lucky I am to have had my eyes opened... Maybe I should be nice and ask the next one of these I see to give me a spot.
Influencing a child
I visited my nephews yesterday. They are the victims of a broken-home where my brother and his wife have for now failed at providing them the traditional two-parent home. The heart of the situation now is that these boys need an influence...some guiding force of character, dignity and courage to give their lives a direction that will lead them to success. Where does this influence come from...?
My nephews are living a life far removed from the worst of what we find to be all to common in the black community. When asked what's wrong in black america, people often point to external influences and historic issues of socio-economic injustice and racism. However after this visit with my nephews I think the crux of the problems any race faces is simply how do we relate to our children and build LASTING and INFLUENTIAL relationships?
The first truism in life is that what parents value(character values, music, social entertainment...) imprints itself upon parent's children through the child's passionate instinct to be like their parents. Children model their lives after what their parents value because that relationship which is forged through genetic replication and a helplessness in a dangerous world is what lays the groundwork for how children grow up. Parents often through a lack of true appreciation for their own accomplishments in life, point to entertainers, wealthy sports stars, and other media driven people that exhibit the worst of humanity as “What they wish they could have been when they grew up.”
Children hear the furious acclaim and worship heaped up on these images and in turn hear the angst in the voices of their parents about living a “normal” life with 2.5 kids, a wife and a middle-class job. This destructive humility, the desecration of a parent's own image when the child is begging and searching for a role-model to pattern their life after...is setting that child up for failure.
What is the answer?
1. Be there! Children can't model what they don't know. Absentee “fathers” undermine the heart of what a child needs...attention, love and a physical tactile relationship.
2. Parents should love themselves. Its a sad thing when a parent can only market themselves to their children a counter-example of what to be. Parents should take pride in the love that they provide their children. Being responsible, being committed and being determined to see your children succeed is a much more venerable set of accomplishments and values than being able to run fast, dunk a basketball, take pictures of a living or have sex with every girl in the world....
3. Forge a lasting relationship with your child. Without being there, without contextualizing their fledgling view of the world, what is a child to do?
My nephews are living a life far removed from the worst of what we find to be all to common in the black community. When asked what's wrong in black america, people often point to external influences and historic issues of socio-economic injustice and racism. However after this visit with my nephews I think the crux of the problems any race faces is simply how do we relate to our children and build LASTING and INFLUENTIAL relationships?
The first truism in life is that what parents value(character values, music, social entertainment...) imprints itself upon parent's children through the child's passionate instinct to be like their parents. Children model their lives after what their parents value because that relationship which is forged through genetic replication and a helplessness in a dangerous world is what lays the groundwork for how children grow up. Parents often through a lack of true appreciation for their own accomplishments in life, point to entertainers, wealthy sports stars, and other media driven people that exhibit the worst of humanity as “What they wish they could have been when they grew up.”
Children hear the furious acclaim and worship heaped up on these images and in turn hear the angst in the voices of their parents about living a “normal” life with 2.5 kids, a wife and a middle-class job. This destructive humility, the desecration of a parent's own image when the child is begging and searching for a role-model to pattern their life after...is setting that child up for failure.
What is the answer?
1. Be there! Children can't model what they don't know. Absentee “fathers” undermine the heart of what a child needs...attention, love and a physical tactile relationship.
2. Parents should love themselves. Its a sad thing when a parent can only market themselves to their children a counter-example of what to be. Parents should take pride in the love that they provide their children. Being responsible, being committed and being determined to see your children succeed is a much more venerable set of accomplishments and values than being able to run fast, dunk a basketball, take pictures of a living or have sex with every girl in the world....
3. Forge a lasting relationship with your child. Without being there, without contextualizing their fledgling view of the world, what is a child to do?
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Re-Introduction and Rant
Ok...so I'm known to rant. Not because I think people really care to hear what I deem to be the glorious and infallible truth, but because I come from a long line of opinionated and judgmental people in my family. I'm passionate and that passion plus a trait of stammering I inherited from my father tends to lead to me sounding a bit pissed off.
That's ok...
Because I can write about how the world around me really aggravates me sometimes... So this first rant is little bit of an introduction about myself, a taste of the things that really get my blood hot and what you can expect to read here you find any of this stuff interesting.
As a young black man(don't say I didn't warn you...might want to hide your purse and avoid delegating responsibility to me...I mean it...*bling*) I have friends that are young. We sit around and talk about what we want our lives to be like and how we want to own our own businesses. However I am amazed at how SOME of them simply go about trying to live daydreams instead of working, learning and then venturing out into the world head on...
Look Here, Spinning Rims! → My first boss told me to learn as much as I can about what it is I wanted to do before trying to start a business of my own. Why did he tell me this, let's see...because he had already done the same thing!
1. Why take my own precious money that I barely had any of and spend it simply to “learn on the job.” People are so quick to say “I hate my boss/job/the thing that keeps my lights on...” when really they need to suck it up, work harder and learn from the successes they indirectly profit from and the failures that don't readily come out their back pockets(if they are lucky). It's the “I'm tired of working for the man all of about 3 to 5 years” when in actuality these people are the gauntlet of knowledge that can beat some sense into you about things...on their dime!
2. You need credibility and relationships before starting your own business. Working for others is a great way of showing others that you can be trusted, don't have a chronic drug addiction and can add enough value every week to get a paycheck. Inevitably you will meet people that will need your services and skills (that you calm are so dope, so tight that you MUST start your own business). Without building establishing these relationships, there is a slim chance your business will succeed.
3. The best friends are the ones that pay you when you work for them!!!! One of my favorite points I hear the conservative Neal Boortz make constantly is that a poor person can't give you a job. Building a business model around helping friends and random encounters of the Craig's List kind is just enough frustration to...you guessed it WORK FOR FREE!!!
So what is the point of all this...I don't have a business, but I do have daydreams of having one someday. Before you tell me you are "working for yourself", please show me something like...I don't know...invoices that say “Paid In Full” on them!
I'll keep writing...I need the practice because my spelling sucks and snatching handbags is too much work for me...*phew* Free Common Sense!
That's ok...
Because I can write about how the world around me really aggravates me sometimes... So this first rant is little bit of an introduction about myself, a taste of the things that really get my blood hot and what you can expect to read here you find any of this stuff interesting.
As a young black man(don't say I didn't warn you...might want to hide your purse and avoid delegating responsibility to me...I mean it...*bling*) I have friends that are young. We sit around and talk about what we want our lives to be like and how we want to own our own businesses. However I am amazed at how SOME of them simply go about trying to live daydreams instead of working, learning and then venturing out into the world head on...
Look Here, Spinning Rims! → My first boss told me to learn as much as I can about what it is I wanted to do before trying to start a business of my own. Why did he tell me this, let's see...because he had already done the same thing!
1. Why take my own precious money that I barely had any of and spend it simply to “learn on the job.” People are so quick to say “I hate my boss/job/the thing that keeps my lights on...” when really they need to suck it up, work harder and learn from the successes they indirectly profit from and the failures that don't readily come out their back pockets(if they are lucky). It's the “I'm tired of working for the man all of about 3 to 5 years” when in actuality these people are the gauntlet of knowledge that can beat some sense into you about things...on their dime!
2. You need credibility and relationships before starting your own business. Working for others is a great way of showing others that you can be trusted, don't have a chronic drug addiction and can add enough value every week to get a paycheck. Inevitably you will meet people that will need your services and skills (that you calm are so dope, so tight that you MUST start your own business). Without building establishing these relationships, there is a slim chance your business will succeed.
3. The best friends are the ones that pay you when you work for them!!!! One of my favorite points I hear the conservative Neal Boortz make constantly is that a poor person can't give you a job. Building a business model around helping friends and random encounters of the Craig's List kind is just enough frustration to...you guessed it WORK FOR FREE!!!
So what is the point of all this...I don't have a business, but I do have daydreams of having one someday. Before you tell me you are "working for yourself", please show me something like...I don't know...invoices that say “Paid In Full” on them!
I'll keep writing...I need the practice because my spelling sucks and snatching handbags is too much work for me...*phew* Free Common Sense!
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