Robots Don't Sleep

Imagine one of the hardest activities you could possibly push yourself to do. Now, imagine that you’re having the time of your life while you’re doing it.

For the past two weeks on Friday, my company’s CEO has been inviting all the employees to a mountain biking ride on these trails around his house. The Huckabee Mansion, we call it. Anyway, I’ve gone on both of these biking adventures, and so far I have yet to be disappointed. I have to admit that it has been extraordinarily difficult, but at the same time, when I find myself at the top of this beautiful hill overlooking green valleys and the pacific ocean in the distance, I can’t help but feel like I’ve made it.

I’ve made it.

Allow me to explain. There are two distinct and extremely bi-polar aspects of mountain biking. The first is the hill climb – the hardest part. You’ve got to use every muscle in your lower half to push yourself up this steep incline while trying to keep your balance (which is extremely difficult at a very low speed). You find yourself at a point where you’re spinning your pedals furiously, only to find that you’re creeping ever-so-slightly up this hill. The end never seems to get any closer.

Now, I’ll admit that during both of these outings, I’ve reached a point in my climb where I’ve given up. My legs simply cannot push me any further and I am forced to dismount my bike and walk it up the remainder of the hill. I remember these moments not as failures but as learning opportunities. I know there’s been plenty of times in my short career as a developer where I’ve reached a point when it seems like I can’t go any further. I mean, I didn’t have the strength to make it up this hill, so why try going over the next?

The truth is that with every hill you don’t make it up, there will be a time when you can try again.

The second aspect of mountain biking is an extreme polar opposite to the first – the downhill cruise. This requires no physical effort from the biker other than quick thinking and fast reflexes. Don’t get me wrong, there seems to be some strategy to this, but I haven’t seemed to figure it out quite yet. Honestly though, I can’t come up with anything to compare this experience to. Your adrenaline is pumping, you’re exhausted from exerting yourself to your full potential to get to the summit, and now you’re trying your hardest not to offset your balance or lose control. Of course, this would most likely mean that you would fly over your handlebars and roll down a steep decline lined with rocks and brush.

In my opinion, this is the best part. However, I can’t help but hang on to the brakes for dear life and take the fall slowly. Hopefully that means I won’t lose control, smash into a rock, and die. However, I like to imagine letting go of the brakes one of these times and riding out the decline straight to the bottom, without a scratch on me.

I can only hope to be so lucky.

For anyone that’s interested in the power of Microsoft Silverlight, I recommend checking out this amazing project by a blogger named Liquidboy. Basically, he recreates iTunes entirely in Silverlight, and blogged about every step of his process. If you have some time, please check it out. It really blew me away when I saw it.

Here is the main blog post with links to each of his steps. You will need Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh to view any of the prototypes or the finished application. It’s well worth it to see the insane power that Silverlight offers.

Source: dnknormark.net: Silverlight 1.0 Officially Released

It’s titled, “Do We Really Want Another Black President After The Events Of Deep Impact?” Read it here.

When is it acceptable for a team leader to encourage “hard-code everything for now, and then maybe we’ll fix it later”? What about when the rest your team is fine with it? What then?

Hack now, refactor later.

I hope the real world isn’t like this.

There are a lot of things going on right now, and it’s kind of hard for me to collect all my thoughts and make them form cohesive sentences. I might just stay up all night — I’m calling it a “hard reset”. You probably know what that means so I won’t bother explaining.

Most of the last year and a half has been a blur. I remember most of that blur being some of the best times that I can remember, but some of that blur seems like I was just spinning my wheels — not really going anywhere but still pushing the gas to the floor.

Sometimes I’ll be driving to school or on the train to work and I’ll remember something odd about my childhood or a memory from high school that I thought was a defining moment. Maybe at the time it seemed like it was, but now it just seems like a time that never happened. I mean, I know these things happened and I can picture myself there, but it’s so much easier just to stow it away and stop thinking about it.

My 21st is coming up soon, but not soon enough.

I had a great idea for a short story the other day, and I almost sat at my keyboard and starting writing it out. But, I didn’t. It takes too much time to be creative and do my own thing.

I’m starting to get really fed up with a certain person, and I can’t even explain it. I said to Josh today that I’m starting to get annoyed with how much he annoys me. Every word that comes out of his mouth makes me cringe, and I’m starting to wonder if I create this annoyance just so I can have something to complain about. Maybe not.

I’m going to have some really cool stuff to talk about soon, but first I need a big slap in the face and maybe just one glance from a person on the train. I’m here, I’m waiting.

Today officially marks two quarters left until I graduate. Six more months ’til I’m on my own, and it’s pretty scary. However, these final months in school are going to be pretty much a cakewalk because I’m only taking 12 or so credit hours in each one. Right now I’m at the same time thankful for the credits that successfully transferred to Neumont, and also resentful because of all the credits that just got washed down the drain. Wasted time, wasted money. It makes me realize how quickly I could have graduated had all my credits transferred. I guess it’s all for the better, though. I’m reluctant enough as it is right now to graduate.

Getting back into the groove seems so strange after only four weeks off. When I think about it, my brain feels so empty and it feels like some of the skills I’ve gained have slipped through my fingers. However, once I start working on something, it all comes back in a flash. Strange but true.

I’m working in downtown Salt Lake City this quarter for Enterprise Projects. I’m really excited about this one. Hopefully the project that I get to work on is fulfilling and challenging. The company itself seems pretty cool, but I’m just praying for a strong leader. I wouldn’t be able to handle a repeat of last quarter’s NORMA experience. Ambiguous tasks and no direction whatsoever… two things that I hate in projects.

Also, Austin was great! I had a great time, got to meet some interesting people, and was able to see some old friends from school. It was well worth it. However, over this Winter break I ate entirely too much delicious food and tasted a wide range of new beers. It’s time to get back on the diet and get rid of what’s been building up from four weeks of indulgence.

Wow, I’ve been slacking on classes lately. It’s starting to catch up with me and I’m realizing how badly I need to get back on track. I have 3 papers due next week and one very large certification test that is hanging above my head, waiting to come down on me like a guillotine. I am going to study relentlessly this weekend. I have to. It’s worrying me that there is a high possibility that I will fail this test, but I have two chances to pass it. So, today marks the first of three days that I will be disconnected from reality.

I’m ready for this quarter to be over already. For some reason, it’s felt like the longest quarter I’ve ever had here. I think it’s because before this quarter started, I spent almost a week completely by myself. No school, no job, no friends, nothing. So, it was a weird way to start off the quarter I suppose. Just the other day I was talking about something that happened last quarter, and I could have sworn it was two quarters ago. Unfortunately, these past 10 weeks have really just gone by really slow.

So I guess what I’m feeling right now is a combination of things. I’m stressed and I’m worn out. I’m feeling unoriginal and a little empty. I’m feeling like I need to chiggity-check myself before I wriggity-wreck myself. Wow, I can’t believe I just said that. I’m not depressed, no no no. Please don’t think I am. I’m just kind of wishing I had someone to share this with.

I spent entirely too much money and ate entirely too much food over Thanksgiving break. I didn’t get to see as many people as I wanted to, unfortunately, and most of my time spent at home was spent blowing my nose and angrily squirting eye drops into my eyes. In other words, I had horrible allergies the entire time I was home. That may be attributed to the two small dogs running through the house, along with the sick cat I had to take to the vet.

Don’t get me wrong, I love going home. It’s just that, once I’m there, I spend a lot of time thinking about coming back to school. I enjoy hanging out with friends, but then again it always seems like no one’s home or everyone’s busy. Also, the allergies don’t really help my cause either. I like being able to just relax, though. It’s always really important to me to be able to take a step back from work and stress, and just relax and enjoy life.

I’m going to be spending two weekends in a row in an airport, and honestly I couldn’t be happier. I know that not many people enjoy airports, but I actually like them. Especially when I’m by myself, just sitting there, people-watching. I usually buy a TIME magazine or just sit there on my laptop, but it’s really not that bad. I’ve found that my time spent at an airport is a time of self-reflection, and right now that’s pretty good for me. I’m in-between identity crises (I swear, that’s the plural for crisis, I looked it up), and right now I just need to reflect and make sure that I’m OK with myself.

That’s all for right now. I’m still getting over my sickness a bit, so I’d better go lay down and pray for a night without fever dreams.

For some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot today about the difference between going to school for the sole purpose of getting good grades versus actually gaining a wealth of knowledge. There’s no doubt that throughout my time at Neumont, I’ve learned more than I ever could have managed to do on my own, and I’m sure that this is true for anyone else that has gone through the school’s curriculum. However, I’ve noticed that there are some people that seem to care more about the grade they are awarded at the end of the quarter than actually having applicable real-world knowledge in our field.

Now, I have to admit that I was like this in high school. Anyone that knew me then knows that I thought it was a huge waste of time. I wasn’t gaining any useful knowledge in anything that I was interested in. There were very few times I was genuinely interested in my classes, but I still felt like all I was doing was serving my time just like everyone else. At the same time, though, I still felt a strong need to get good grades. I was number 1 in my class and I had to keep it that way. I can’t really explain it. Once I had my 4.0 I couldn’t let it go.

Maybe it was after I accomplished my goal of a 4.0 high school transcript that I realized how pointless it was. Did it necessarily mean I was smarter? Not really. I guess it meant that I put in more work than other people, but other than that I didn’t really feel like I had gained anything by putting in that extra effort. There were plenty of smarter people than me in my class, and there are tons upon tons of more talented high school graduates out there with less than a 4.0 on their transcript.

I guess my point is that now, I know better. Now, when it really counts, I’m not entirely concerned with my GPA. I mean, I don’t want to fail, and it still hurts a bit when I see B’s on my college transcript, but I know that what I’ve learned in this past year and a half is much more valuable to me than any letter grade.

The reason I bring this up is because I was asked an interesting question tonight by one of my roommates. I was mentioning how pointless this one homework assignment was, and he asked “Wouldn’t you rather have a bunch of easy pointless questions than a bunch of hard ones?” Actually, no. I really would rather spend my time figuring out 10 interesting hard problems than sit here doing 10 boring pointless ones, especially if I’m not learning anything from the easy ones.

Either way, even if I had interesting homework to do right now, I guess I would still be procrastinating.

-Ryan.

edit; I like the way my roommate Scott put it just now: “I’m not here to get good grades, necessarily. I’m here to learn!” I completely agree.