Month / April 2008

by carlos

Sometimes I just wish

There are times when I really wish that I hadn't become such a chicken.  Since when did I become so risk averse? Since when did I stop relishing challenges and started playing it safe?

I think part of the problem is that I live in the here and now without taking into account what the future is. I've always played it like the future is going to become "here and now" soon enough anyway and then it'll be ok to deal with it then, if at all.

Problem is that the lack of planning and foresight means that I'm never quite ready to deal with things that happen in the "here and now." That is no longer acceptable... I have to be more careful as to how I plan for the future and, for once, I have to stick the plan and deal with the consequences.

Personal events have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that planning is becoming more and more important as I move forward with whatever is going to be next. 

Must start planning about summer and how things are going to work when I'm not around the first week in June and the second week in July for conferences, planning for the Bbworld events that I want to be a part of, prepare for Fall to try and see what is it that I need to do to keep me from going insane, plan what's next if UGA doesn't accept me, plan the move in case I am accepted for the PhD program.

I have to admit to a little pettiness in June, not a lot but enough not to feel 100% comfortable with the idea.

Another aspect that has sucked recently is the feeling of betrayal of someone who until recently I considered a friend. It's been hard to adapt to that without wanting to rearrange his face but it's important to move on and plan around the SOB and what he's going to do in the not so distant future. If he conforms to patterns of behavior, he'll come back acting as if nothing had happened and wondering why am I being such an ass.... See, he can do no wrong because he's changing but the rest of the world can do wrong to him, and often do, because we don't adjust to his outlook of the world.

People who claim they have changed, or in this case, to be working on it, are usually the last ones to actually change. I've been told by several people to just forget it and move on. I think I finally accepted it and will do so

Gotta be patient and see how things evolve 🙂

Spending most of a weekend writing a paper is not fun, particularly when it's procrastination that lead to it being written the week before it's due. At least I have the consolation that I have written the paper that was due today ^_^

I've been watching JAG series' finale "Fair winds and following seas" and, like the last time I had it on my DVR and thinking about fate, about how we make our own fate and how things work, or don't work, when we try to push fate in directions in which it doesn't want to go

I know it's a contradiction. I said we make our own fate yet we there are times when we must work against fate to accomplish the really important things in life as long as we don't make a habit out of it. 

Time to start over 🙂

Today (5/6) I'm feeling more keenly than usual the need to reinvent myself.  This time it's not a single-instance event but an ongoing reconstructive surgery. 

It is not an admission that I need change (at least not for the reasons you're thinking) but an acknowledgement that I'm stagnating. A call to make sure that you actually live life and don't let it just run by.

There is a reason for both the lyrics to Days Go By posted elsewhere and the videos I chose for this post.  In their own way they each are a reminder that we need to do things and not let life go by without enjoying it. I also got a friendly prod to actually do things from a friend.

by carlos

Priorities, realizations and commitments

Priorities

It's not even may and I'm apprehensive as hell. Why is it that the stress level goes up the closer I get to an important date or event? I'm not even close to the damn date and I'm already starting to stress out about the application. I know that once I complete the letter, transcripts and GRE is not going to be under my control. I did the best I can and now it's in other people's hands which is something I most definitely hate. On the other hand, the GRE is my responsibility and something that I need to work hard at

Realizations

"El tiempo pasa, nos vamos poniendo viejos"

I connected with  the children of two of my professors at central. The oldest already graduated from college, the youngest is starting college this fall. I'm just like holly cow! I didn't think that so much time had passed since I last saw them.

When you give feedback

If you feel like you have to give negative feedback at least pretend that the person you're criticizing did something, however small, well. 

Commitments

To my grad school application process

To continue doing my best, regardless of how hard I'm finding it to be

To my health, both mental and physical

 

Listening:

  • Linkin Park
  • Darryl Hall

Reading:

  • The Art of Project Management
  • Managing Humans
  • Wolf's Honour (Awesome Ragnar Blackmane's novel) 

Doing:

  • Getting to the point where I have to motivate myself to do my final project

Watching:

  • Reruns of Jag, NCIS and Power Rangers
by carlos

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. The back cover from the last issue of the Whole Earth Catalog . . . . But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

. . .

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

. . .

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything... all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech @ Stanford

What are my heart and my intuition (Brain and Guts) telling me? after today I'm not so sure.... I had an interesting conversation with Tim today about identifying the causes for being angry and pissed off.  I was only half surprised that trust issues flowed up the current. What did surprise me though is how unfulfilled I am right now.... I'm upset that I have to take vacation time to go to TTIX (less than I was when I learned about this but still plenty), I am upset that I can't use my laptop for work (at least for a subset of the reasons I was given.

Now that you've identified the problem, what do you do?

  1. What did surprise me though is how unfulfilled I am right now....
    Find something that you think will fulfill you professionally and go for it. Doesn't have to be at work, it may be something else, but don't settle. If something doesn't change or doesn't move fast enough move onto something else or push for it to move faster

    It doesn't have to be work related. When you're done with school think about writing for Battlecorps. Something you've always wanted to do but always procrastinated. You know you can get it done if you get your mind to it and that it'll be the realization of a long-held dream that would make you a published author 🙂

  2. I'm upset that I have to take vacation time to go to TTIX
    The flipside to having to take vacation is that you have complete freedom. You're leaving a day early to go to Park City and still be able to make it to the pre-conference workshop that I want to go to. I can speak my mind freely without committing Chico State to any course of action that hasn't been approved.

    There were some presentations in the conference program that also take a look at online community building. Since that's what I want to do for my PhD work (if I'm accepted) it makes sense to go and learn about what I want to do before I actually have to do it, doesn't it?

  3. I am upset that I can't use my laptop for work (at least for a subset of the reasons I was given)
    Worry about what you can control and don't stress over those things  you can't.  You were given instructions you don't like.... Tough, you have to deal with it and move on. No time to dwell on what you perceive are the facts. Add another learning experience to your "if I ever have to lead a team" playbook.

Takeaway and related plans (in no particular order)

  1. Get done with class work.  That is my first and unconditional priority
  2. Download the battlecorps writers guidelines
  3. After I'm done with the GRE outline, draft, draft again, and submit at least 1 story to Battlecorps before the end of summer. I think I have an idea... outline it and see

Listening:

  • Top Gun Extended Soundtrack
  • Linkin Park

Reading:

  • Second Foundation
  • Bred for war (Old School Battletech)

Doing:

  • Trying to write a paper and failing miserably but it's not due till Sunday

Watching:

  • NCIS (New and Reruns)

by carlos

The Last Lecture

Talk about not taking things for granted! I had heard this lecture before but now, in light of what I'm going through as far as choices, it sounds different, very much so.

The title of the lecture to the left is How to really achieve your childhood dreams and was given by a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

There's a lot to be digested in the 76-minute lecture not just about how to pursue your dreams but also how to ground yourself in the little, everyday, sometimes insignificant, things that we take for granted.

The one takeaway from this lecture is that I've allowed  myself to forget fundamental things about human nature and about myself.

  • I've allowed myself to forget that there are times when a friendly word will carry you farther than anger will.
  • I've allowed myself to ignore how other people feel and put myself first without consideration to the other person.
  • I've allowed myself to forget that other people are not up to the standards you set for yourself and that you should be considerate and act accordingly.
  • I've allowed myself to be complacent and not pay attention to those people and situations around me where I could have made a difference.

The excerpt below, from Douglas McArthur's Speech "Duty, Honor, Country", reminds me of those things I've allowed myself to ignore or forget. It also paints a picture of who I really aspire to be:

They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for action; not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness; the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

They give you a temperate will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.

. . .

Their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory - always victory, always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men, reverently following your password of Duty, Honor, Country.

I've always had this fear of failure. I take failure personally and I tend to be harsh on those who "cruises" along or who don't live to my expectations. I have to constantly remind myself that most of the time I'm not up to those standards either. I hate hypocrites and, even more, I hate when I see those same behaviors in myself.  Being such an arrogant ass doesn't help the team and people in my office tend to mirror my mood, it doesn't really help, does it?

I realized that the best thing to do is play it cool, do the work I'm expected to do and not an inch more.  From my perspective I've become a glorified technician and I'll be damned if I let that happen.  Sure... I don't have the big picture, but the little corner that I do have is getting more and more uncomfortable.

And that's where Jobs'  speech at Stanford comes in. Don't settle, don't let life become boring or predictable. Seek challenges and face them head on and if you can't find them, if you find that you're not able to be happy with your life if today was to be the last day, then it's time to say fuck it and move on.

For too long I've allowed my fears to shape who I am, what I do and what I say. I know I've said this several times over the past couple years but there's a difference. I want the change, I want to live a life that makes a difference and, more important, I want to say when my last day finally comes that I am happy with my life and the way I lived it.

I found out that something I was expecting to happen did happen (I'm going to be given work time to go to a conference I am paying for) and, at first, it made me angry. Hell, it still pisses me off but it wasn't as bad, boss-type-person delivered  and softened the news over a few beers that evening :-)  And when you think about it; it is really refreshing and liberating. I can speak as Carlos without having to qualify my answers as being mine and not the University's.... I can start looking at joint projects with some really smart people whom I've always thought were awesome to work with.

The more important part of my going to TTIX is that I get to exercise the mental muscles that are really starting to atrophy and that, just like training, will become useless if they are not exercised.

 

by carlos

New Jersey hacker wraps his marriage proposal in lines of code

A future bride, bejeweled

LARRY CORNIES

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

April 16, 2008 at 4:02 AM EDT

For self-confessed New Jersey computer nerd Bernie Peng, 26, getting down on one knee or hiding a diamond ring in a bouquet was, well, just too old school. When it came time to pop the question to Tammy Li, 27, his girlfriend of three years, he preferred to let her favourite video game do the talking for him.

Mr. Peng, a financial software programmer, spent nearly a month last fall reprogramming the popular video game Bejeweled for Ms. Li's Nintendo DS - a handheld system for which no commercial version of the game exists. And buried inside all those lines of code, at a relatively easy-to-reach level, Mr. Peng inserted a marriage proposal and a digital image of a pink engagement ring.

She played. She soon reached the threshold. And she said yes. "It's a very pleasant surprise," said Ms. Li, a TV producer whose ring finger is now adorned by a pink sapphire identical to the digital version.

Plans are under way for a wedding on Labour Day weekend.

But in an age of zealous copyright protection, the global gaming community - who had followed Mr. Peng's feat through his blog - wondered how PopCap, the Seattle-based company that makes Bejeweled, would respond.

It turns out they're impressed.

"What he did was take the game and manipulate and modify it for a particular purpose," company spokesman Garth Chouteau told Double Take yesterday, adding that if Mr. Peng were to commercialize his endeavour in some way, "we might have a different response."

"We were amazed and impressed that he was able to do what he did. Besides, any time a hacker manipulates code so that a guy gets the gal, well, you have to respect that," Mr. Chouteau said.

The company respects it so much, in fact, that it's providing copies of Bejeweled 2 Deluxe as wedding favours for each of the couple's 200 guests, providing $1,000 for jewel-themed decorations and flying the couple to Seattle as a second honeymoon.

Mr. Peng and Ms. Li are busily trying to pare down a growing guest list and making other arrangements.

All of which, for Mr. Peng, makes weeks of rewriting C++ code seem simple by comparison.

"This is a lot more work," he said.

With reports from Associated Press and NJ.com

by carlos

Moving Forward

Days go by
Lifehouse

So don't sit back and watch the days go by
Are you ever gonna live before you die
And when things fall apart
The world has come undone
Leave it all behind
Leave the loneliness alone
You wait forever blind

So come on and leave the years
When you watched the days go by
Come on and leave the fears
That you were afraid to find
Cause while you wait inside
The days go by

So all the memories fade
And the days go by
Forget the lonely yesterdays in mind
I know it's never gonna be the way you like
I know you don't wanna think about the endlessness you find
You wait forever blind

So come on and leave the years
When you watched the days go by
Come on and leave the fears
That you were afraid to find
You're waiting for your time
Waiting for your time
All these days gone wrong
Who broke your fall
What a way to learn

So come on and leave the years
When you watched the days go by
Come on and leave the fears
That you were afraid to find
Time is passing by
Time is passing by

So come on and leave the years
When you watched the days go by
Come on and leave the fears
That you were afraid to find
Cause while you wait inside
The days go by

by carlos

Reflections on a Sunday Afternoon

When we are young
Wandering the face of the earth
Wondering what our dreams may be worth
Learning that we're only immortal
For a limited time

Time is a gypsy caravan
Steals away in the night
To leave you stranded in dreamland
Distance is a long range filter
Memory a flickering light
Left behind in the heartland

Rush - Deamline

One image that has stayed with me for years and years is when i went to see mom at the ICU in Chile. I remember glimpses of my mom laying in bed and banks of machines by her side with all the corresponding attachments going from one to the other.  Fortunately it wasn't anything serious, just scary as hell.

Remember that you're not immortal. Your time in this world is limited, you're required to do the best you can in the time you're given

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Steve Jobs

If you're not happy, move on. If you're not happy with yourself and where you are then move on!  You can't connect the dots while knee deep in the situation. The connecting only happens afterwards.... It's refreshing when you hear from people who took over after you left and they tell you that faculty speak so highly of you. It validates all the nightmares and

These are the days you might
fill with laughter until you break.
These days you might
feel a shaft of light make its way
across your face.
And when you do
you'll know how it was meant to be.
See the signs and know their meaning.
It's true, you'll know how it was meant to be.
Hear the signs and know
they're speaking to you, to you

10,000 Maniacs -- These are the days

Know when to give up and move on. It's coming way too late but it's an important decision that you've made in moving on.... Just live life with no regrets 🙂

Learning the hard way
Gin Blossoms (Major Lodge Victory)

Summer came too early
Springtime came too late
Weather went from freezing
To bleached out summer days

*Holed* up in your bedroom
Hiding like two thieves
Counting up the hours
For the perfect time to leave

Woo, hoo
We're learning the hard way
Woo, hoo
It just don't matter what they say

*Nighttime* through this desert
Driving straight out west
Stop for gas and coffee
Close your eyes for rest

I wonder what you're dreaming
While we're halfway cross this bridge
We've come too far to turn back
We're just too close to quit

Woo, hoo
We're learning the hard way
Woo, hoo
It just don't matter what they say
Woo, hoo
We're learning the hard way
Woo, hoo
Woo, hoo

*Holed* up in your bedroom
Hiding like two thieves
Counting up the hours
For the perfect time to leave

Woo, hoo
We're learning the hard way
Woo, hoo
It just don't matter what they say
Woo, hoo
We're learning the hard way
Woo, hoo
Woo, hoo

Woo, hoo
Woo, hoo
Woo, hoo
Na, na, na, na
Woo, hoo
Na, na, na, na
Who, hoo
Na, na, na, na

by carlos

Learning from loving, letting go and being stupid

Want to
Sugarland

I've packed a cooler and a change of clothes
Let's jump and see how far it goes
You got my heart and your daddy's boat
We got all night to make it float
We could sit on the shore, we could just be friends
Or we could jump in

Whole world could change in a minute
Just one kiss could stop it spinning
We could think it through
But I don't want to, if you don't want to
We could keep things just the same
Leave here the way we came, with nothing to lose
But I don't want to, if you don't want to

I got your ring around my neck
And a couple of nights I don't regret
You got a dream of a degree
And a shirt that smells like me
Yeah we both got dreams, we could chase alone
Or we could make our own

Whole world could change in a minute
Just one kiss could stop it spinning
We could think it through
But I don't want to, if you don't want to
We could keep things just the same
Leave here the way we came, with nothing to lose
But I don't want to, if you don't want to

Never waste another day
Wonderin' what you threw away
Holdin' me, holdin' you
I don't want to, if you don't want to

We could keep things just the same
Leave here the way we came, with nothing to lose
But I don't want to if you don't want to

but I want to

I want you

 

 

 

There are areas of my life and my relationships where I've been so damn stupid.... Sometimes I wonder if it was deliberate or not.

Part of me is scared to death of relationships.... Shit, it's taken me years and years of very painful growth to get to the point where my defenses won't crumble at the first criticism and now I have to look at relationships where the first pre-requisite is to drop your barriers and make yourself vulnerable and have your partner make herself vulnerable to you.

Part of me rebels against that kind of relationship. We all have our 3 facets, that which we show in our everyday lives, another one that we keep to ourselves and a third one that is so dark that we don't even let ourselves acknowledge its existence.  How can we really make ourselves vulnerable and, more important, keep ourselves vulnerable in a relationship? Sooner or later that part of us we keep to ourselves will surface and will cause the other partner to question if the relationship was real to begin with (at least it has in my case).

Yet another part of me wishes I could have that kind of relationship. It's not impossible... most of those around me, even the ones whom I don't value more than 1/100 of 1 cent have managed to find fulfilling relationships that have endured the test of time and have not crumbled...  yet, in some cases.

Then there's the cynical me that says all that relationships are good for is to warm the bed in winter, get laid occasionally and propagate the species. 

Then why is it that loneliness hit me hard this year?

  • it may be the acknowledgement that I stupidly let go of people who were/are/will always be important to me. Or it may be the acknowledgement that I tend to measure people against those idyllic relationships of the past... and what past relationship doesn't look rosy 10 years later?
  • it may be that I'm tired of being the third wheel of the bicycle?  I've come to hate the idea of hanging out with friends because they are all coupled (is it even a word?) and there are the little interactions that happen when people don't like each other and ends up being a package deal, most recently it was that the SO of the "friend" in question didn't like me but I found this out through 3rd parties... then to hell with both of them
  • it may be that I'm seeing all people I know with children? I have to decide soon if children are in the plans for me or not. If the answer is no, then I will definitely have to explain myself to whoever I get in a relationship with 🙂

This song has crept on my mind again, both the song itself and the memories of someone special back in Chile /sigh

Leaving New York 
R.E.M (Around the sun)

It's quiet now, and what it brings, is everything
comes calling back, a brilliant night, I'm still awake
I looked ahead, I'm sure I saw you there.
You don't need me to tell you now, that nothing can compare

(chorus)
You might've laughed if I told you,
You might have hidden your frown.
You might've succeeded in changing me,
I might've been turned around.
It's easier to leave than to be left behind,
Leaving was never my proud,
Leaving New York never easy,
I saw the light fading out.

Now life is sweet, and what it brings
I tried to take.
the loneliness it wears me out,
it lies in wait.
and all I've lost, you're in my eyes,
shatter a necklace across your thighs
i might've lived my life in a dream
but i swear it, this is real
memories refuses, and it shatters like glass
mercurial future, forget the past,
but it's you, it's what I feel

You might've laughed if I told you,
You might have hidden your frown.
You might've succeeded in changing me,
I might've been turned around.
It's easier to leave than to be left behind,
Leaving was never my proud,
Leaving New York never easy,
I saw the light fading out.

You find it in your heart, it's pulling me apart,
You find it in your heart, it's pulling me apart.

I told you, forever, I love you, forever - continues during
I told you, forever, I love you, forever / last chorus.
I told you, forever, I love you, forever
I told you, forever, I love you, forever

You might've laughed if I told you,
You might have hidden your frown.
You might've succeeded in changing me,
I might've been turned around.
It's easier to leave than to be left behind,
Leaving was never my proud,
Leaving New York never easy,
I saw the light fading out.