lAtesT uNconditionaL wIsdoM -->

Ever since I became a father I tend to mark certain holidays by my son's growth over that time. You know, kid related holidays, like Easter and Christmas. Pictures and video are good to see how far he's come and what he's doing. I'm real proud of my son. He's smart, developing well and is a very handsome boy. I want to give him every advantage I can. That's one of the reason's I work so hard. I thought it would be cool to share a little Easter Video I made last year around this time for his Easter Egg Hunt in 2009. I'm going to shoot some video this weekend of his Easter and put that up as well!

I pass this Hollywood Video every time I leave my house to take my son to school in the morning. Notice something special? Yes, it's closing. Why? Redbox, Hulu, iTunes, On Demand, Netflix, etc... The business model is dead and/or dying quickly.

I do admit some nostalgia about going to the video store as a kid with my father and wondering if the latest and greatest movie or game would be available. My anticipation would be so deep when I entered the doors of the video store. Many times I would find out that someone else had rented it or that my information was wrong and it wasn't quite out yet. Rarely do I feel the same way about that because why would I?

It costs me a dollar to rent from Redbox and I don't need membership... then if I'm obscenely late I just end up owning the movie. My debit/credit card is my membership so I don't fill out anything or deal with people. Netflix also is a great model... I just pay $x a month and I can get two movies and send them back and get new ones whenever I want. In that model there is no late fees and I can easily manage my account online. Netflix also offers streaming through it's website for many movies so I don't even have to wait on some things. I have an AppleTV so I can just pick what movie I want and the rental downloads and I watch it instantly and it charges me through iTunes. Also, through my cable company I have On Demand where I can just order any movie I want and it's charged to my cable bill. So, other methods are so convenient or cheaper that I never would think of joining a movie store.

As this vestige of the 20th century dies I just want to say "Good riddance!". I'm feel very badly for all those who will lose jobs because of it but as things that made sense in the 20th century die off new things will take their place. It's easier than ever to start your own business with almost no investment. When you fold up your 20th century mindset and start shrugging off that antiquated way of thinking that still holds many of us a wage slave or a slave to old patterns with no seeming logic then you will feel that much better about joining the rest of us in a century of convenience and pragmatic decisions. I will be the first to welcome you!

As I look to the future I can't help but glance over my shoulder. I see a lot behind me that is good, bad and indifferent. In my former company I let costs get out of control and watched some of our best talent walk away because we couldn't afford to pay them any more. There's not a lot of distance between now and those situations and I feel weighed down by it in many ways. I've worked very hard to correct mistakes after the split between my partner and I on the Cogwise Software company. I established two new companies and pushed away from the past mistakes while learning from them. I've learned that I create great software and I'm an excellent software architect. My ideas about using technology to help small businesses could revolutionize small businesses that work with me. I also learned that I need ways to control cost so I can offer my services to smaller businesses that normally wouldn't be able to afford it. Lastly I learned I need an accountant and a decent lawyer to call on if I need them. No matter how good your intentions are for some people and how much you jump over yourself to help them you can still get screwed. 

I did decide to never take on a partner for my core businesses and only take on venture partners. When I say 'venture partners' I mean partners for a specific opportunity. Further I took up a practice I used to do years ago. I did a quarterly self-review on each client and gave them advice. I also rated my service to them and gave them the opportunity to give me feedback. This keeps the lines of communication open and helps foster a stronger relationship between myself and the client. 

I've also been getting my hands dirty by getting in the code and providing more feedback to my developers to help tune them to a mold that works for my brand. Recently I got screwed in a big way from one of my clients who had me worked on a contract that was supposed to sustain our business for about 8 weeks or so. I didn't work on bringing in new business because I was working on growing my new companies slow. Well, this client decided after 5 days of coding (which is almost no time when you have an 8 week project) that we weren't meeting goals fast enough. Even after we met the goals outlined in the first milestone they decided to drop us and not pay for our work to that point. I guess that's what I get for trusting someone so young who doesn't really understand development. You know who you are but I won't put your name out in public because I don't do that kind of thing. Now, I know this person has been burned a few times by other developers and that's why they were hesitant to trust me but I've been doing this 11 years and I have a huge reputation to uphold so I wouldn't screw anyone. I have a tattoo on my shoulder of a circle with two arrows that means 'What goes around comes around' so I don't take it lightly when someone thinks I'm trying to screw them. I never have an intention to screw anyone and I work hard to build the best software money can buy in a thoughtful and properly paced manner. You can't pay for professional software development from scratch and have a functional product in 5 days. 

But, whatever, at this point I'm doing my best to recoup my loss and find new contracts to put in place of the one I got screwed on. I've never really been without work so I'm sure something will come along soon. But I hope that it comes sooner rather than later and I'm working every angle I can to look for new work (which I haven't had to do in years). I'm not deterred even though I may sound like it. I'm emboldened and will soon use my ideas and executive ability to produce awesome software for those who need my services. 

So, this was last week and I wrote this long article about it but somehow my editor ate it and it didn't get posted. But I'm going to resurrect it from my memory. Basically, my son came in my room for the first time and described a dream which seemed very real to him. It took me a fair amount of time to understand he was describing a dream. I was awake but just laying in the bed and he was running through the house looking for me. This was the morning and normally he knows to come in and come to the door in the morning because I'm asleep. He wakes me up. So it was unusual that he was running around the house. I thought maybe someone else was here but that wasn't the case. He finally did come to the door and came in the room. He told me that he was all alone in the house and Daddy & Alicia (my girlfriend) were outside. He said a doggie had turned out the lights in the green room (his play room). I couldn't understand everything that was going on that he was telling me but I could understand the desperation and loneliness in his voice.

It makes me wonder if maybe he has anxiety about being alone. This among other signs has given me some pause about him clearly having some abandonment issues likely related to his mom moving away from him. He also asks me if she's mad at him. I think he possibly thinks she's mad at him and doesn't want to see him even though I've worked hard to counter these concerns. At this age it's hard for me to know what he thinks. The barrier between what's real and imagination tends to be somewhat thin at this age and for that matter most of early childhood.

I somewhat remember having nightmares about being alone when I was a child. My mom worked a lot because she had a couple jobs when I was growing up just to keep us afloat financially. My father wasn't around a lot when I was a small child either. So, I'm sure I had issues with a lack of attention from both parents. But I wonder if all children have these kinds of dreams about being left alone or if it's because of his situation. I don't really know. I know he seems to be coping well with his mom being away but every now and then I wonder because he says something subtle or worries about me leaving him alone for too long. It's extremely subtle but it's there.

It is interesting to watch my son grow from a baby in to a boy. He's learning very quickly... starting to understand the names of the days and starting to inquire about things he never thought of before. He's approaching boyhood with a wonder and curiosity I'm sure that is common among children his age but it's a unique way for me to experience life again. I'm seeing the world through his eyes and it's a very unique experience which I cherish very much.

As an engineer I think my main purpose it to solve problems. Of course engineer has little to do with engines any more but the concept is the same. The word 'engineer' is originated in the eleventh century from the Latin ingeniator, meaning one with ingenium, the ingenious one. I serve many roles but engineer is a core one that I claim. I'm as much an engineer as I am a human or male. It's embedded in my make-up. I've been a tinkerer since I was very young and at some point I would assume that I graduated to become an engineer. I guess I'm kinda just rambling in this article but more or less I want to describe what it's like to be an engineer. This may serve to assist people who are considering a path in engineering - whether it be software engineer as I selected or some other type of engineering. 

One of the core elements of being an engineer is having a deep desire to understand how things operate and why they operate the way they do. Have you ever disassembled the TV in your mind or thought about how your phone works and if you could alter it to use it for something else? Well, if you want to rip things apart and put them back together and it's no big deal for you to do so then you might be on the path to be an engineer. I know personally I even disassemble people and relationships to better understand how people operate and why (I'm being figurative of course). 

Another element of being a good engineer is questioning standards. I think this goes hand in hand with the above element but questioning the norm is a big part of being an engineer. I guess this is because the norm or status quo rarely makes perfect sense to an engineer. Many of the things we consider social standards are open for investigation to the mind of an engineer and have a deep potential to be ignored or changed in their life. Though many engineers will follow social standards begrudgingly. This is why engineers tend to gravitate to the more geeky and seemingly odd tendencies that are edge culture in most people's opinion. But geeky has been popular and more welcome as the norm for a while now. This is because of the power and position that geeks hold in an increasingly technological society.

There are many more elements but these are the ones I chose to describe. So, I'll talk about one more. An engineer is rarely happy with good enough. This is a drawback as much as it's a motivational force for good. It can tie a good engineer in to all sorts of pursuits that suck the time and life out of them because nothing is good enough. Being that I serve the role of businessman and engineer I'm constantly pushing between the two roles because being an engineer is sometimes not cost effective and being a businessman is sometimes willing to accept good enough on a cost to benefit analysis. 

I'm very proud to be an engineer and I love the insight on life that it gives me. I even love it when it doesn't serve me because it keeps me in balance. I guess this was my "I love engineeering" article. Here's a cool link to a very brief history of engineering.