Living life without regrets

Or: The Difference Between a Job And a Career

Can't turn back the years
Phill Collins (Both Sides)

Couldve given you everything that you need
But I cannot turn back the years
The perfect love was all you wanted from me
But I cannot turn back the years

So we have to be strong, and Im finding that hard
We have to move on, but no matter how hard I try
If your hearts in pieces, you look for the truth
And when I look deep down inside I know, its too bad I love you

Sometimes. hits me in the morning, hits me at night
That I cannot turn back the years

So I look out my window, turn off my light
But I cannot turn back the years
Cant make it seem easy, when you're all that I see
Cant live in a dream and I wont serenade the truth
People are hurting and they're looking to me
And I look at you there's nothing more to say, its too bad I love you
But Im never gonna give it up

All that I lived for, all that I dreamed
But I cannot turn back the years
You're the water I drink, you're the air that I breathe
But I cannot turn back the years

So we have to be strong, and Im finding that hard
We have to move on, but no matter how hard I try
If your hearts in pieces, you look for the truth
And when I look deep down inside I know, its too bad I love you

But Im never gonna give it up

How do you define regret? If I got anything else from my conversation with Tim this week is that question. When you make a decision you are committing to something, maybe better and maybe not but it's the commitment that does it for me.

These deceptively simple questions are what triggered this whole line of thought:

  • If you take a job elsewhere and look back after 10 years; what would your reaction be looking back?
  • On the other hand, if you decide to go to Grad School for your doctorate and then look back after 10 years; what would your reaction be looking back then? 

I say they're deceptively simple because they point me to what really makes these kinds of choices so hard. There is no wrong choice. Each choice leads to a different path and that, even more so than having to make a choice, is what scares the crap out of me.

I keep coming back to immediate satisfaction versus long-term stability. As my mom very wisely didn't point out I've always been the kind of person who prefers the right here, right now type of situations regardless of how much they hurt in the long run.

I have an aunt who, whenever she poured anything for you, would say "Say when." My aunt would say "Say when" and of course, we never did. We don't say when because there's something about the possibility, of more. More tequila, more love, more anything. More is better.

Grey's Anatomy

 I didn't realize this potential hurt of this attitude until I started suffering the consequences of not having money when I needed it.

My mom also pointed out something that I hadn't thought about in a while. I regretted tremendously after I found out that my position at SJSU had been fully funded 3 months after I left.

It's one of those what if situations that I really hate. I guess I just have to deal with and accept the fact that I made the best choices with the information I had available at the time. Whether I would make the same kinds of choices with the information I have now is something that I don't really want to get into.... the thing is what to do from now on without worrying about the past and what might have been 10 years ago

Damn, has it been that long?

Twenty-five years later, 'Tron' and other 'geek' classics are more compelling than ever
~ By MIKE WINDER ~

Image from Tron

Photo by Disney Enterprises, Inc.

~ "What's a nice program like you doing in a computer like this?": Cindy Morgan and Bruce Boxleitner in Tron ~

"Oh man, this isn't happening. It only thinks it's happening." So says computer programmer extraordinaire Kevin Flynn in Disney's 1982 film Tron, after he's zapped into the electronic world of the computer.

Though this line is never fully explained, it does provoke several metaphysical questions. Does Flynn - played with child-like enthusiasm by Jeff Bridges - think he's dreaming? Is he playing a bit role in an elaborate manipulated reality? Is his digitized incarnation any less real than his flesh-and-blood self?

Wait a nanosecond! Wasn't Tron set inside a video game? Didn't this film feature guys wearing glowing helmets and tight spandex? Throwing Frisbees at each other? Riding neon motorcycles?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And while Tron was undoubtedly a special effects summer extravaganza, the film also had enough style and brainy notions to make it enjoyable and relevant today.

To help celebrate the silver anniversary of Tron and several other genre films released that same year, the American Cinematheque and Geek Monthly magazine are presenting 1982: Greatest Geek Movie Year Ever! at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica from June 15 through 17. In addition to Tron, the festival will present Cat People, The Thing, The Dark Crystal, Poltergeist, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Various cast and crew are scheduled to make appearances.

"The classics of 1982 were all boldly original visions," says Mark A. Altman, editorial director of Geek Monthly. "They're also some of the last great visual effects films from the pre-computer-generated imagery era. Or, in the case of Tron, a precursor to that era."

The monumental task of supervising the computer-generated imagery for Tron went to Richard Taylor, whom director Steven Lisberger had initially approached for advice on doing a two-dimensional animated film about characters made of light.

As one of the film's visual effects supervisors, Taylor worked closely on various designs with visual futurist Syd Mead (Blade Runner) and French comic book artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud (The Fifth Element) and oversaw the four different computer graphic houses that created imagery for the film. While Tron made history as the first film to make extensive use of computer graphics, many of its otherworldly effects were achieved with traditional animation techniques.

"The process to make Tron was only used to make Tron, and it will never be used again," says Taylor. This was, after all, the pre-digital era. Everything was done optically, which was highly labor-intensive.

For example, Taylor created the effects that gave the characters and objects in the electronic world their distinctive internal glow. To achieve the effect, actors were first shot against all black sets using 65mm black-and-white film. Several high-contrast negatives and prints were created from this footage, then they were back-lit, and eventually the cells were hand-painted.

The Tron glow evolved from techniques Taylor had invented earlier for advertisements and on-air graphics, but its origins date back to Rainbow Jam, his light show and graphics company, which toured for six months with the Grateful Dead. "I was a full-on hippie at one point," he laughs. "We did shows at the Fillmore, the Avalon, all those places in San Francisco. Unlike other light shows, we were really painting-by-number with light. We were using slide and motion picture projectors. It was like lithography made of light."

The film's extreme stylization - dark backgrounds, glowing neon colors, polygonal landscapes, geometric vehicles, and an absence of external lighting - was an aesthetic decision that embraced the limitations of computer-generated imagery. "The actual process of making something out of polygons, then shading it, became a design influence," explains Taylor. "Not only was the film made with computers, but it was about cyberspace."

Tron's groundbreaking visuals were not recognized by the Academy Awards that year - the visual effects Oscar went to Spielberg's E.T. the Extra Terrestrial - but the techniques Tron pioneered earned it a place in film history. The Visual Effects Society (VES) has ranked Tron number six on a list of the 50 most influential visual effects films of all time. VES member Gene Kozicki, of the L.A.-based visual effects house Rhythm & Hues, believes Tron's legacy was in moving computer-generated visuals into the realm of storytelling. "Research into this type of imagery had been going on for over 15 years, but it was more scientific in nature," Kozicki says, "Once artists began to share their ideas and treat the computer as a tool, it moved away from strict research and towards an art form."

Tron's story of humans interacting with sentient computer programs in an electronic world placed the narrative ahead of its time as well. In 1982, the term "cyberspace" had just been coined by science fiction author William Gibson. In another two years, Gibson's seminal work Neuromancer would launch the cyberpunk genre.

To help flesh out this new electronic frontier, director Lisberger drew inspiration from gladiator films (Spartacus), video games (Pong), and the writings of Carl Jung. "I was studying Jungian imagery and his notion of the higher self," says Lisberger. "Jung calls that process of trying to communicate with the higher version of one's self 'individuation.' When I saw computer programmers in the early days, trying to communicate with programs they created, it was obvious to me they were trying to reach [their] maximum potential."

Tron calls individuals in the electronic world "programs" and the programmers who created them "users." Though they can't quite comprehend their creators, "programs" nevertheless hold "users" in high esteem. So high, in fact, that their reverence takes on religious overtones. This angers the megalomaniacal Master Control Program (affectionately known as MCP) - a malicious piece of software, brilliantly conceived and animated as a gigantic spinning cylinder, and voiced with panache by David Warner - who believes it has grown smarter and more powerful than the "users" and is hell-bent on conquering both the electronic and real worlds.

Lisberger, another product of the '60s, explored alternative forms of spirituality. He offers an unconventional interpretation for the relationship between "programs" and their "users."

"When the characters in Tron are saying the 'users' are up there and they're perfect and they're going to take care of us, it's exactly like being in our world and thinking angels and God are going to take care of us," he says. "The difference is, in the world of computers there isn't one sole entity - each 'program' has a 'user.' I believe the closest we can get to spirituality is not to externalize it, but to try to find it in ourselves. There's no daddy with white hair sitting on a throne who's going to make everything right if I behave correctly."

Lisberger's enthusiasm and love for Tron is still going strong 25 years later. Unfortunately, audiences back then didn'treflect his enthusiasm, and Tron failed to meet its box office expectations. Chalk it up to poor timing or mismanaged marketing - it opened one month following E.T. - but perhaps the message of the film was a bit anachronistic.

"These are not the times for what we were talking about," Lisberger ponders. "If anything embodies the times we live in, it's Johnny Depp's character in Pirates of the Caribbean. He's ready to take every chance on any fly-by-night scheme to get rich. If the spiritual quest we're talking about hearkens back t
o the '60s, then that's where we're at right now. I'm not condemning it. It's just the backlash."

Seeking a balance point

Right now or later

I think I can finally start breathing again; not too deep and not for very long but I think that the worst of the first summer storm at work is over (took long enough) and I can go back to planning and thinking about what is it that I'm really looking for.

I think it all goes back to the question of Do you want satisfaction right now or are you ready and willing to work for a longer-term goal even if it means sacrificing the immediate stuff?

I've always been one for immediate gratification which has been good and bad at the same time. It has been good because it keeps you firmly grounded in the here and now without distractions as to what you're going to do, when or how are things going to get done. At the same time it has been bad because the immediateness of everything I do leaves me really vulnerable to unforeseen events and complications as it was very painfully proved when I was laid off

Single or attached

When It's Love
Van Halen (OU812)

Hey!

Everybody's lookin' for somethin'
Somethin' to fill in the holes
We think a lot but don't talk much about it
'Till things get out of control, oh!

How do I know when it's love?
I can't tell you but it lasts forever
Oh! How does it feel when it's love?
It's just somethin' you feel together
When it's love

You look at every face in a crowd
Some shine and some keep you guessin'
Waiting for someone to come into focus
Teach you your final love lesson
Ooh!

How do I know when it's love?
I can't tell you but it lasts forever
Oh! How does it feel when it's love?
It's just something you feel together

(Oh oh oh oh) Oh, when it's love
(Oh oh oh oh) You can feel it, yeah!
(Oh oh oh oh) Nothin's missin', yeah!

(Guitar Solo)

(Oh oh oh oh) Yeah, you can feel it
(Oh oh oh oh) Oh, when it's love
(Oh oh oh oh) When nothin's missing, ow!

How do I know when it's love?
I can't tell you but it lasts forever
Ooh, how does it feel when it' love?
It's just something you feel together, hey!
How do I know when it's love?
I can't tell you but it lasts forever

When it's love
Ooh, when it's love
Hey! It'll last forever
(Na na na-ah na na)
When it's love
(Na na na-ah na na)
(Na na na-ah na na)
(Na na na-ah na na)
You and I, we're gonna feel this thing together
(Na na na-ah na na) (repeat to end)

When it's love, ooh
When it's love, baby
You can feel it, yeah!
We'll make it last forever
Ooh-ooh, when it's love

It's so easy to deceive yourself when thinking/talking about relationships that you some times take the deception as the truth and live your life accordingly. It specially sucks when life has a way of slaping you with reality

Resignation or perseverance?

Find the River
REM (Automatic for the people)

Hey now, little speedyhead,
The read on the speedmeter says
You have to go to task in the city
Where people drown and people serve.
Don't be shy. your just deserve
Is only just light years to go.

Me, my thoughts are flower strewn
Ocean storm, bayberry moon.
I have got to leave to find my way.
Watch the road and memorize
This life that pass before my eyes.
Nothing is going my way.

The ocean is the rivers goal,
A need to leave the water knows
We're closer now than light years to go.

I have got to find the river,
Bergamot and vetiver
Run through my head and fall away.
Leave the road and memorize
This life that pass before my eyes.
Nothing is going my way.

There's no one left to take the lead,
But I tell you and you can see
Were closer now than light years to go.
Pick up here and chase the ride.
The river empties to the tide.
Fall into the ocean.

The river to the ocean goes,
A fortune for the undertow.
None of this is going my way.
There is nothing left to throw
Of ginger, lemon, indigo,
Coriander stem and rose of hay.
Strength and courage overrides
The privileged and weary eyes
Of river poet search naivete.
Pick up here and chase the ride.
The river empties to the tide.
All of this is coming your way

Rest and Relax

Maybe we like the pain. Maybe we're wired that way. Because without it, I don't know; maybe we just wouldn't feel real. What's that saying? Why do I keep hitting myself with a hammer? Because it feels so good when I stop.

Grey's Anatomy

 I can't tell you how much I relaxed this part weekend. It was even worth missing LARP on Friday

Possibilities, remote but still worth exploring

Closing Time
Semisonic (Feeling Strangely Fine)

Closing time - time for you to go out, go out into the world.
Closing time - turn the lights up over every boy and every girl.
Closing time - one last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer.
Closing time - you don't have to go home but you can't stay here.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
Take me home...
Closing time - time for you to go back to the places you will be from.
Closing time - this room won't be open 'til your brothers or you sisters
come.
So gather up your jackets, and move it to the exits -
I hope you have found a friend.
Closing time - every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
Yeah, I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
Take me home...
Closing time - time for you to go back to the places you will be from...
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
Take me home...
Closing time - every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end...

 

 


Conflicting Goals and Consequences of your Actions

Learn to Fly
Foo Fighter

Run and tell all of the angels
This could take all night
Think I need a devil to help me get things right
Hook me up a new revolution
Cause this one is a lie
We sat around laughing and watched the last one die

I'm looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something to help me burn out bright
I'm looking for complication
Looking cause I'm tired of lying
Make my way back home when I learn to fly

I think I'm done nursing the patience
I can wait one night
I'd give it all away if you give me one last try
We'll live happily ever trapped if you just save my life
Run and tell the angels that everything is alright..

I'm looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something to help me burn out bright
I'm looking for complication
Looking cause I'm tired of trying
Make my way back home when I learn to fly
Make my way back home when I learn to fly

Fly along with me, I can't quite make it alone
Try and make this life my own

Fly along with me, I can't quite make it alone
Try and make this life my own

I'm looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something to help me burn out bright
I'm looking for complication
Looking cause I'm tired of trying
Make my way back home when I learn to fly

 I think that I understand now why it's so difficult to make a choice... it's a matter of degrees, of whether I want immediate satisfaction or whether I'm willing to take a hit now in order to look at the longer term picture.  

A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don't know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I'd have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you're wrong? What if you're making a mistake you can't undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we hadn't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.

Grey's Anatomy

Applying for that job means a change right now and a delay or postponement of any graduate school plan for a year in the best of cases or longer up to being put in an indefinite hold in the worst of cases 

"We're adults. When did that happen?
And how do we make it stop?"

Grey's Anatomy

This past two years have been learning  how to play in a sandbox that keeps getting smaller and smaller as I grow into the position. I've compromised what I wanted in return for getting what I needed (at the time when I came to Chico, I had been unemployed for a while and I wanted to be able to do the stuff I wanted). Don't misunderstand me, it's been great and I've enjoyed most of the people and the learning experiences while here but those have been mostly in project management and soft skills rather than technical learning or training-related learning. Part of the problem with being in a box, to me, is that every so often (2.5 years on average) I get the itch to move and try something new and get a different set of challenges.

Addison: Makes you think, you know? If I went missing would anyone notice I was gone?
Alex: "I'd notice."
Addison: "What?"
Alex: "I'd notice...if you were missing, I'd notice."

Grey's Anatomy

When talking to mom a few days ago she mentioned that perhaps I should do both, apply for a job and apply to Grad School but I've always found it hard to commit to something and then, right after, commit to something else. It doesn't do either one a service, to the job I'd be applying to because I wouldn't be split in concentration and to the University because it's really a hard decision if I want to move or not after such a short period of time.

 


Listening:

  • Rush (Snakes & Arrows)
  • Brandi Carlisle (The story)
  • Foo Fighters (Learn to fly)

Reading:

  • Strike Force -- Brown
  • Rainbow Six -- Clancy
  • The Art of Project Management

Doing:

  • Watching TV
  • Listening to music
  • Creating web pages
  • Writing
  • Trying to get my stupid computer @ home to work

Watching:

  • Grey's Anatomy
  • Dirty Dancing
  • Pain Killer Jane
  • Reruns of JAG

Pursuing the Perfect Project Manager

Posted on April 19, 1991 
http://www.tompeters.com/col_entries.php?note=005297&year=1991.

One theme has poked its head through the lines of these columns time and again -- tomorrow's corporation as a "collection of projects." I've also discussed "networking" beyond the firm's borders: Companies will work as equals, on new products, delivery systems and the like, with a shifting cast of vendors, middlemen and customers.

But as "project" and "network" become the norm, "who's in charge?" becomes problematic. Everyone needs to learn to work in teams, "with" multiple, independent experts, often from multiple, independent companies; each will be dependent upon all the others voluntarily giving their best. The new lead actor/"boss" -- the project manager -- must learn to command and coach; that is, to deal with paradox. Here are eight dilemmas she or he must master:

  1. Total ego/no ego. To succeed, project managers must be consumed by the project; the best invest their egos in the job and "become" their projects, sometimes for years. Yet project managers must also have no ego at all. They deal with numerous, diverse outsiders and insiders, whom they can hardly "command." (They neither have formal authority, nor even a clear understanding of what many of the others are up to.) Contributors must have their own high ego involvement -- which means the project manager must be expert at letting others take full credit for what they've done and a disproportionate share of the kudos for overall success.
  2. Autocrat/delegator. When the chips are down, the project manager has got to issue the orders, fast -- e.g., when the lights go out in the conference center, with 5,000 people streaming in. On the other hand, she or he needs to be a masterful delegator: In that crisis when the lights go out, lighting experts should "own the problem" and have taken the initiative to deal with the situation before the chief ever became aware of it.
  3. Leader/manager. Today's project managers, more so than in traditional settings, are only as good as their teammates' commitment, energy and diverse skills. So project managers must be leaders -- visionaries and invigorators. On the other hand, "management" means being expert at the mechanics. Stellar project bosses match a passion for inspiring others with a love for the nuts and bolts of the job.
  4. Tolerate ambiguity/pursue perfection. The essence of complex project is ambiguity. The only "for sure" is the unexpected. Effective project managers handle equivocality with elan and a sense of humor. But they must have equal zeal for the tidy. The downfall of botched projects is most often a trifle -- e.g., overlooking bus transportation to a special event for 500 convention attendees.
  5. Oral/written. Most people have either an oral or a "put it in writing" bias. Top project managers must have both. They are wrong to insist upon an "audit trail" of memos to document every this or that; dealing orally, on the fly, must come easily. However, project managers must also be compulsive about the written master plan and the daily "to-do list."
  6. Acknowledge complexity/champion simplicity. Nothing is more complex than a sophisticated, multiorganization project. Effective project managers must juggle a thousand balls -- of differing (and ever changing!) shapes and sizes. On the other hand, they must be "Keep It Simple, Stupid" fanatics -- making sure that a few, essential values dominate the organization (e.g., nobody misses the 7 a.m. Monday meeting).
  7. Think big/think small. Project managers must appreciate forests and trees. Those fixated with the "big picture" will come a cropper over details. Yet "god-is-in-the-details" project managers may miss the main point. Success means seeing the relationship of the tiny to the large, the large to the tiny -- at every moment.
  8. Impatient/patient. Project managers must be "action fanatics": Get on with it; don't dwell on yesterday's bobbles. At the same time, they run a network with fragile egos, multiple cultures and complex relationships. Of course, project managers don't "run" networks at all -- they are, at most, first among equals. Forget the word "sub contractor" -- substitute "co-contractor." Think the same way about each member of a project team. When one deals with co-equals, devoting lots of time to "relationship building" becomes as important as impatiently pushing for action.

It's not clear that Mother Theresa could pass all eight tests. Yet I contend that these paradoxes lie near the heart of project-management effectiveness. Elements of the answer for the corporation are (1) acknowledging that project management is becoming all-important; (2) emphasizing project-management skills in performance evaluations from the outset of a career; (3) routinely assigning junior people to project teams (in task-leader positions as soon as possible); and (4) addressing the paradoxes in training programs (project-management skills are often "taken for granted," not even the subject of special training).

The issue won't go away. Confront it now and begin to purposefully build a skilled cadre of project managers. It may turn out to be a matchless basis for competitive advantage.

(C) 1991 TPG Communications.

All rights reserved.

Take it easy on yourself, don't give up and never surrender

The Color Of Right Lyrics
Rush (Test for echo)

I don't have an explanation
For another lonely night
I just feel this sense of mission
And the sense of what is right

Take it easy on me now
I'd be there if I could
I'm so full of what is right
I can't see what is good

It's a hopeless situation
Lie awake for half the night
You're not sure what's going on here
But you're sure it isn't right

Make it easy on yourself
There's nothing more you can do
You're so full of what is right
You can't see what is true

A quality of justice
A quantity of light
A particle of mercy
Makes the color of right
Gravity and distance
Change the passage of light
Gravity and distance
Change the color of right

There are times when even the simplest things are what your soul is looking for.

Friday I had a very validating and gratifying moment at a work presentation by faculty. It was fun and very relieving for me to see how things work out... Because of my work is not customer facing for the most part I don't get to see how they use the stuff that we make available to them. That is always an empowering experience.

Which choice would you make? Learning a new job altogether and spending as much time as you can in that job and growing into a leadership position in the company or go back to school for 4 years and then finish up your dissertation while working full time and getting to a different job and a different goal? The two goals are mutually exclusive of each other in that if I take the job I can't go to school and if I go to school then I can't take the job I'm interested in.

Another realization was the realization that while fear has its place. The brave people are not the ones who have no hear but the ones who accept their fears and act anyways. Always wondered what category I was in and whether that has changed over time

 

Armor and Sword
Rush (Snakes & Arrows)

The snakes and arrows a child is heir to
Are enough to leave a thousand cuts
We build our defenses, a place of safety
And leave the darker places unexplored

Sometimes the fortress is too strong
Or the love is too weak
What should have been our armor
Becomes a sharp and angry sword

Our better natures seek elevation
A refuge for the coming night
No one gets to their heaven without a fight

We hold beliefs as a consolation
A way to take us out of ourselves
Meditation or medication
A comfort ,or a promised reward

Sometimes the spirit is too strong
Or the flesh is too weak
Sometimes the need is just too great
For the solace we seek
The suit of shining armor
Becomes a keen and bloody sword

A refuge for the coming night
A future of eternal light
No one gets to their heaven without a fight

Confused alarms of struggle and flight
Blood is drained of color
By the flashes of artillery light
No one gets to their heaven without a fight
The battle flags are flown
At the feet of a god unknown
No one gets to their heaven without a fight

Sometimes the damage is too great
Or the will is too weak
What should have been our armor
Becomes a sharp and burning sword


Listening:

  • Rush (Snakes & Arrows)

Reading:

  • Rainbow Six -- Clancy
  • The Art of Project Management

Doing:

  • Watching TV
  • Laundry
  • Trying to gather enough energy to show up for work tomorrow

Watching:

  • Dirty Dancing
  • Save the last dance
  • Pain Killer Jane
  • Reruns of JAG