Working from Home

I'm working from home this morning while I'm waiting for a guy to come take a look at our septic line that has separated and been in-grown with roots. At the surface, working from home is great. No commute, free food, no cow-irkers to distract me. And since Kathryne and the boys are out of town, you would think there would be even less distraction. Unfortunately, the cats are not out of town and think I'm staying home to play with them. Then there's always the call of "World of Warcraft" and other not-so-much-work activities.

I post this because one of the new jobs I'm looking at taking would involve working from home for the next few months until they can get an actual office in Austin. Our current house is very ill-equipped for this sort of thing having no area where I can go to be away while the family is home. So in our new house, we're going to make sure there is at least 1 area that is somewhat isolated for office use (and just getting away from the noise of 2 boys running around).

If I do take this job, there's a possibility of using some office space temporarily at a former employer, which would be cool if not somewhat awkward at first.

For now, I just have to ignore K.C. (the cat) and carry on with my work.

Vista Rocks!

The new Windows Vista is the most awesomest thing since Texas-sized sliced bread. It's got this cool clock and can do everything wicked fast.

It's "da Bomb", "da Man", and "da Bears" all wrapped up in one.

Disclaimer:
I'm posting this in the hope of getting a free laptop from Microsoft's PR firm so I can talk about how great Vista is.
See Joel and Scoble for more information.

"I have the Power"

Well, Kathryne may enjoy the 26 hours without electronic interference,
but it was driving me crazy. When the lights came back on at 11:30
this evening, I could feel then energy coursing through my veins.
Actually, we spent the better part of the day out running errands. We
ate breakfast at the McDonalds in Silverdale and it only took 45
minutes to get the food. There are like 5 places in the area that
serve breakfast that had power and all were crowded. Then we got our
electronics fix at Worst Sell and ate lunch at the Black Eagle.
previous sentence has been encrypted with our super secret code which
unfortunately our kids have already broken.>

We went to see "Charlotte's Web" tonight. I cried like 5 times. It
was very well done and really brought the book to life. That's some
pig.

Show me the way

When the right opportunity comes, will I know? Knowing the future is highly overrated. I have a hard enough time knowing what to do in the present (though knowing the future might make that easier, or it might make it harder as I wonder whether there is anything I should do to change the future or I get paralyzed with fear that I will bring the whole space-time continuum to its knees).

When the right job comes along will I know? Times like this I wish God would come down, set up a giant spinner with all the choices available (like in a board game), and spin me around so that where my head lands is the direction I am to go. Barring that, skywriting or other heavenly signs would work too. Having options is nice, but sometimes the decision making process is so stressful that you just want to curl up in the fetal position and wait for the future to pass you by.

From the words of a song I need to listen to some more:
If you say go, we will go
If you say wait, we will wait
If You say step out on the water
And they say it can't be done
We'll fix our eyes on You and we will come
Your ways are higher than our ways
And plans that You have laid
Are good and true
If You call us to the fire
You will not withdraw Your hand
We'll gaze into the flames and look for You

Free Hot Java!

Following in the vein of my string of bandwagon tech new release posts, Java 6 has been released. This one actually affects me somewhat though I probably won't get to use it seriously for a few months at least.

Try it now. It's free.

Also my new favorite song is "White and Nerdy" by Weird Al. I've always liked him, but this release hits close to home. Also, "The Saga Begins" from 1999 is a winner. Check out Al's myspace page page to listen to the song or watch the video.

Life as Speck

[reposted from my MySpace blog]

What is a company's most valuable asset? For a software company (and probably just about any company) the most correct answer is "It's employees". At least that's how I think it should be.

Software, intellectual property, capital assets, etc. are stuck in time and only change at the execution of the employees. If there are no employees then what you have now is what you'll have in the future. As markets shift, you need to be able to move along with the flow. Only the employees can make this happen. If suddenly the customer doesn't give a rip about your current software (and they sure don't care that you consider it IP) and they want something new, you can either give it to them or wither on the vine.

The kind of company I want to find to work for is one that values its employees highly and shows it not just through compensation, but also in the general attitudes of the management.

Also, perception and reality are very different things. Different employees may look at the same company differently based on their roles and experiences past and present. So it's really all about feelings and perceptions as are most things when dealing with other members of the human race.

Just some things I've been thinking about. I wanted to write them down to help make a decision about whether to stay where I am or venture into something new.

Gmail Milestone

I'm now using 1% of my gmail space. Woohoo.

You are currently using 21 MB (1%) of your 2785 MB.


I guess there's some rounding involved.

I've been using gmail for all my personal stuff lately and it's very nice to have it all available over the internet. I also just started using Google Reader for all the RSS feeds (news and blogs) that I read every day. I was using Mozilla Thunderbird but now I can access my subscriptions from anywhere and the interface isn't too bad. I'm getting used to it. I used to just read the blogs while at work, but now I can read all the same ones at home or wherever.

And yes, Kara, I truly am a geek.

Testing Google Calendar

Here's a link to the publicly available calendar for the Central Kitsap church of Christ hosted on Google Calendar:



Right now we're still testing things out but so far it looks really useful.