Author: Kevin Lawver

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

Because I don’t edit… I

Because I don’t edit… I won’t replace the last post with this one. Has anyone come up with a geographic Blog Directory? I think it would be really cool to see local bloggers. Ok, maybe not REALLY cool, but it would be interesting. And then you could do a big map with dots on cities and the number of bloggers in that city. Yeah, good idea… too bad I don’t have time to do it. I COULD do it, really I could. I just don’t have a public place to host AOLserver, Postgres and RedHat. Maybe when I get DSL… I keep saying it, and some day, it’ll get out here in lovely Sterling. I just don’t know when.

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Categorized as blogging

Ok, this is weird, and

Ok, this is weird, and it’s a totally personal problem. I think because I started my bloggy life reading people who live in San Francisco, or other West Coasty places, I’m still surprised when I find blogs from people living IN MY AREA! Go figure. With more people online than anywhere in the country OTHER than San Francisco, there are probably tons of DC area blogs… I’m just too stupid to realize it. Ok, back to my fetal position under the desk. Ring the bell when it’s time for dinner.

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So, basically, the concept of

So, basically, the concept of the day is comparative advantage. I couldn’t find a good definition on the web, but, basically, it means “do what you do best, and leave the other crap to people who do it better than you do.” In my case, I know I’m not so hot at graphic design. I’ve resigned myself to that fact. At work, I don’t try to design products anymore. I’ve given it up to the people who do it. They, on the other hand, don’t know HTML or Tcl or how to put a site together from scratch. That’s what I do well. So, that’s what I do…

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Categorized as geekery

Ahhhh, the smell of burnout.

Ahhhh, the smell of burnout. It’s funny that I can smell it coming. I’m tired of working on a million different projects and dealing with a million different people who all think they get a say in everything. It would be nice if we all concentrated on what we were supposed to do and did it right. Instead, I have to work with groups and people who have decided that they can stick their hands into everything and make my life hell. People who deal with the backend and hardware shouldn’t care what color something is. People who deal with the design shouldn’t care what the backend looks like as long as things work. Maybe my problem is that I’m in the middle and have to deal with all of it… or at least am touched by all of it. Hopefully, my trip to Boston will help, and I’ll come back ready to deal with them some more. We’ll just have to wait and see.

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So, we were trying to

So, we were trying to go to sleep last night, my wife and I. We were talking, as we normally do, when Jen let loose one of her famously mispronounced words (she doesn’t think they are… maybe she speaks her own dialect?). JenWords come in two varieties: the emphasis-on-the-wrong-syllable and the mixed-up-first-sound. I don’t even remember what it was last night that go me started… but it made me laugh. Now, I love JenWords. They keep me on my toes, and I think maybe she does it to make sure I’m paying attention, because to miss a JenWord is to miss something beautiful and original.

I must also say that most of these happened while Jen was pregnant, and therefore must be attributed to hormones or something. Otherwise, it’s just an endearing quirk that I hope never goes away. Here are some of my favorites of both types:

emphasis-on-the-wrong-syllable: (phonetically)

  • cement: SEE-mint, so it sounds like semen with a t.
  • drixoral: dricks-or-ALL, you know, the allergy medicine.
  • mercury: I don’t even know how to do this one, just be sure it’s funny.
  • syllable: sill-AAAAA-bull – makes me giggle every time.

mixed-up-first-sound:

The wonderful thing about these is that 1) they’re hilarious, and 2) you never know when she’ll do it. The emphasis words are pretty regular, but these are gems!

  • french onion: fred onchion – we went through this phase where chopped up potatos + some mix + 400 degree oven = yummy when we first got married. fred onchion potatos was Jen’s suggestion one day. We still bring up good ole Fred whenever we need a laugh.
  • great outdoors: bud ortdoseman – Sunday morning shortly after moving to Virginia, she asked if SportsCenter was coming on after that bud ortdoseman show… she meant The Great Outdoors… really, it was funny at the time. Now, Bud and Fred are friends.
  • Buddhist Monks: Moodist Bunks – This one was recent, so she can’t use pregnancy as an excuse… eating dinner at my mom’s. I don’t know why we were talking about Buddhism, but there you have it.\
    There are others, and I’ll add them if I remember them, but you get the idea.
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