Author: Kevin Lawver

Web developer, Software Engineer @ Gusto, Co-founder @ TechSAV, husband, father, aspiring social capitalist and troublemaker.

Lawvers Around the World

I am now on a quest. Since I started this site, started checking search engines for it, and other people have found me because of the domain name, I’ve become fascinated by all the Lawvers in the world that I never knew existed.

I guess that wouldn’t surprise a “Smith”, “Brown”, or “Black”. Lawver’s not a normal last name. It’s weird. I didn’t think there were many of us out there, because once a name’s been out there for a while, people start to recognize it and don’t mispronounce it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been Kevin Lawyer. I’m sure the other Lawvers can raise their hands in agreement.

I always wanted a normal last name growing up. I wanted my mom’s maiden name: Cookson. There was always a lot of history wrapped up in. There were the stories of the guy who came to New York in the 1600s. We went to see a chest he made in a museum in Utica when I was in high school. Thomas Buell was his name. There was Lord Dalrymple the Earl of Stair who started a war in Ireland because he forgot to relay a message (or something like that). On the Lawver side? Zip. We didn’t even see my dad’s family. There were no great family stories. So, I thought we were alone in the world, a little Lawver Ship floating in a see of giant SmithLiners and BrownTankers.

Back to the present. I’ve been contacted by a Lawver who has a really cool first name (Tone, yeah, really). There are a couple Professor Lawvers. There’s a chiropracter Lawver, a racecar driver. There’s a type of soil called Lawver. There’s weather station in Wyoming called Lawver. There’s a Lawver Post Office in Campbell County, Wyoming. We’re all over the place.

There was a Lawver I know nothing about who showed up in a Google Lawver search who lived in Rawlins County, Kansas in 1900.

I like seeing that there are more Lawvers than I will ever know. It’s nice to know that on both sides of my family, I go back farther than the eye can see. I can’t explain as eloquently as I’d like, but knowing that I come from a long line of people who lived, worked, did their people things and died long before I existed makes me feel like I’m somebody. I’m standing on a mountain of people who’s essences came together, got distilled, jumbled and mangled to produce me. The farther down the mountain I go, the more people there are. The more lives lived and stories that I have yet to hear.

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Huddled In The Rocks

Monkeybutt, and the joys of being 10. It reminds me of walking home from school in Iceland. The school and our apartment house were about 150 yards apart across a rocky field (they call it “tundra”, which is the perfect word for it). There were a couple of us who went to the school (A.T. Mahan K-12) and lived in our little apartment house or the one next door. In the winter, the wind would whip across that field between the houses and the school at about 30 miles an hour. To combat this, my little group of friends made a leanto out of rocks about halfway across the field. We’d run for the windbreak, collapse into it and catch our breath for the rest of the trip. It felt like an odyssey every day. Mr. Wilson wishes he was 10. I wish I was 7, sitting in the little leanto all bundled up, puffing steam laughing with my little brother.

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My A-List O’ Bloggers

Dave’s post about the “A-List” got me thinking about the blogs I read that really fall into my own private list. I started out with the people Dave listed, but I’ve since moved on to other people. I think it’s mostly because most of the A-Listers that I read don’t update often enough. So, here’s the KP-List:

  • Open Brackets: She’s twitterpated and is probably the best writer among all the blogs I frequent. She can break your heart in a paragraph.
  • OddFellow: He has a son a who’s a little older than Max and lives in Texas. His writing always rings true, and a lot of it makes me laugh. He’s the kind of guy I’d hang out with if he lived down the street.
  • Jodi: She gets bitten by the “woe-is-me” bug sometimes, but when she’s on, it’s fun to watch. Funny observations about single life in Minnesota.
  • Bluishorange: She’s a college student in Texas. She paints a window into a world I don’t know, never knew, and am fascinated by. If she weren’t such a good writer, it would be just another blog, but she’s good, very good.
  • The Norm: I know, I know, it’s a comic strip. But, it feels like a blog. Again, it rings true, which is a must-have. Oh, and funny. I like funny.

That’s it. That’s my A-List. I wanted to keep it short. There are a lot of people I left out that I read daily. But, these guys are the ones I check frequently. Is there one thing that sets them apart? Looking over my descriptions, my list is filled with people who are good writers who write the truth. Whether it’s fiction or not, it rings true. They offer a window into their lives and don’t shy away from painful topics. I hope they keep it up.

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Because I was starving this

Because I was starving this morning, I gave the cafeteria’s homefries yet another chance. Usually, they’re underdone. This morning was noooo different. The omelette was great, as usual. The potatoes were half done. Guys, come on, it’s crunchy on the outside, soft and comforting on the outside, not the other way around.

The Big Update

So, I guess you’ve noticed that I haven’t updated in a while. I had last week off, and just didn’t feel like touching the computer for anything more than checking my mail for emergencies. Here’s an update of what’s been going on:

  • Monday and Tuesday: Sick. I’m still trying to kick my fantastic sinus infection.
  • Wednesday, 11/23: Jen, Mom, Steve and I took Max to see Monsters, Inc.. It was his first movie theater experience and Jen wanted to do it right. We got him a hot dog, popcorn and he shared our sodas. I was nervous about the whole thing, bringing a wild two-year-old into a dark theater just sounded like trouble to me. Boy, was I wrong! Max ate it up! He got so into the movie that he barely touched his food unless we put it in his hands. He was GREAT! He sat in his little booster seat wearing the sunglasses he stole from Steve, and just taking it all in. He got a little squirmy towards the end, but he just moved to Mom’s lap, then Jen’s, then back to the booster seat, and that was the end of the squirming. He was so adorable, I wish I had pictures.After the movie, I went over to Mom’s to do some baking. We made shoo-fly pie that didn’t turn out so hot (you know, there’s a direction component to recipes, and NOT just the ingredients? Good goin’, Kev). Then, we made an Annie/Kevin original. It was basically an Apple Brown Betty, but we made super-Crumblies for the top (the real win of the whole experience) and added cranberries (too many… tart city!! It was much better the second day after the apples had a chance to fight the tartness).
  • Thanksgiving: You know how I was going to help cook and all that jazz? Didn’t happen. I was still a little under-the-weather. I did manage to make the world’s best batch of mashed potatoes though.
  • The Weekend: We got TiVo!! (we actually got it Wednesday, but spent the weekend playing with it). It’s not as cool as I thought it would be, but it’s very very nice. I can now record Letterman and Conan every night, the Daily Show, Cowboy Bebop – you know, the shows you’d stay up and watch if you were still in school and could sleep in?. Lots of fun.

There you have it… my fantastic week away from work. Now, it’s back to the grindstone…

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Less Than Lucid Musings

I’m fighting a wicked sinus infection. Jen and Max are at church, and I’m sitting here with the laptop, wrapped up in my blanket, watching Meet the Press and reading my favorite blogs.

I’ve been thinking recently about why personal journals and blogs fascinate me. For me, it’s the chance to get a glimpse into lives of people I’d never meet otherwise. Whether it’s a freelance translator in France, a college librarian in Texas, a single web designer in Minneapolis or any of the other dozen and a half blogs I check out on a mostly daily basis, I enjoy seeing the pieces of their lives they share through their sites. Most of them are much better writers than I am, and have no problem sharing their feelings on the topics they discuss.

These people are strangers. They’re strangers who in a lot of cases I consider friends, even though we’ve never met or done more than exchange a couple e-mails. It’s another strange witness to the power and mystery of interpersonal interaction on the internet.

I’m going to go make some hot chocolate and lay down. I can’t stop coughing, and I think my face is going to pop.

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Freedom!!

Nine days. I have nine days off in a row. I don’t believe it. It’s too good to be true. I have a terrible feeling that I won’t get to take all nine off because something will break at work, someone will need me to rescue them from either their own incompetance or implement somethin that will make somebody a whole lot of money.

Every time I’ve tried to take a vacation this year, I’ve had to move something around. I have to go back to work, do something and mess up our plans. Please, not this week.

I like what I do. I’m good at it. Whenever I look at where I am, I think back to my interview for this job over two years ago. The guy interviewing me asked what I wanted to be doing in six months. I said I wanted to be the go-to guy. I want to be the guy people come to when something needs doing. I’m that guy. Then he asked what I wanted to be doing in 5 years. I said I wanted to be running a big site like Amazon (yeah, shoot for the moon). Well, it’s almost three years later and I’m the only production guy on one of the most-used search engines on the web. There’s a whole team for the backend. A whole team that keeps it up and running. I am the only guy who works on the frontend and middleware pieces. And now, I’ve got a dozen other search projects that I’m the only frontend guy on. I guess I’m running a collection of sites that gets (I think) more hits than Amazon on any given day. How crazy is that? How messed up is the world that I’m the only guy for these projects?

You know, this stuff is bad for my ego. It’s made me arrogant. I’m trying not to be, I swear I am. I know I’m in the position I’m in because my group has made some really bad decisions over the years, letting the wrong people get away, while replacing them with people with little-to-no talent or imagination. That means that they make up for the lack of talent in most by overworking those that have some. That’s also the way they lose good people. It’s a vicious cycle, and now the economics of everything mean we’re not hiring. So, it will be this way for the foreseeable future. What a downer…

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