Category: Kevin

2007 in Books

I’ve seen this a couple other places (sorry, can’t remember where at the moment, or I’d link to you), and decided that I’d try to remember all the books I read last year. With all the traveling I did, I did a lot of reading on planes. Thanks to Good Reads, I at least have a starting point to jog my memory.\
h4. Fiction

  • Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony by John Scalzi: A great trilogy by ficlets former blogger-in-chief.
  • The Android’s Dream also by John Scalzi: This one’s not in the same universe as the Old Man’s War trilogy, but a royally good time – great pace, humor and a really good story.
  • Overclocked by Cory Doctorow: I never really read science fiction when I was younger, though I watched a bunch. I started with John Scalzi since he was blogging for ficlets, and then picked this up. I loved it. The story about sysadmins after the apocolypse was awesome.
  • World War Z by Max Brooks: I stayed up all night on the flight to Paris reading this. I wasn’t freaked out at all while reading it, but thinking about it later, got the chills thinking about it. This one will stick with you – a great zombie book.
  • Monster Island, Monster Nation and Monster Planet by David Wellington: The first one is the best of the trilogy and each successive one is less enjoyable, but they’re a lot of fun. An interesting twist on the zombie genre.
  • Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman: I love Neil Gaiman, and this book is a great time. It’s funny, quickly paced, and has his regular wit and skill.
  • Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman: This one’s uneven, because it’s all short stories, but there are a couple real winners.
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling: Much better than the one that came before it, and a decent end to the series. I try not to lay too much of my own expectations for how stories should go on authors and as long as it rings true, I’m usually pretty happy. I was pretty happy by the end.
  • a couple by Michael Connelly, but I can’t think which ones at the moment, which probably means I need to take a break from him since they’re all running together.\
    h4. Non-Fiction
  • Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard: This is my favorite book of the year, even though it was writting over thirty years ago. It’s a collection of essays about life and nature and contains some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read.
  • Agile Web Development With Rails by a bunch of smart dudes: Yeah, I’ve made it through this one a couple times, and I should probably add…
  • Ruby in a Nutshell by Yukihiro Matsumoto: If you count flipping through to jog my memory, I’ve probably read this one eight or nine times this year.
  • Words I Wish I Wrote: A Collection of Writing That Inspired My Ideas collected by Robert Fulghum: A great collection of inspiring stuff. Always handy for a good quote. I’ve read this one every couple years since I got it.
  • Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World by Jack Goldsmith: This was a book club book for work, and I hated it. It’s a dark and unpleasant view of the internet and government control of it.\
    h4. In Progress
  • Wikinomics by Don Tapscott: Mr. Tapscott gave a great presentation at an AOL internal development conference over the summer and I got a copy of his book. I started it, but stuff came up, and I haven’t finished it yet.
  • Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger: Another one I started but haven’t finished. I don’t like taking hardbacks on the plane because they’re cumbersome.
  • Getting Things Done by David Allen: I know. I’ve been meaning to get to this one for over a year. I’m definitely not GTD.\
    I know I’m missing some in each category. I’ll try to remember them and add them later.
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Kevin’s New Year’s Resolutions

I’ve been thinking all week about what my real New Year’s Resolutions would be. The initial list was long, a good baker’s dozen of things I want to accomplish this year. But, the more I thought about it, the more I decided that this year is about one word and one word only: control. So, I’m down to two resolutions:

  1. Get my health under control. If you’ve ever seen me in person, or even just a picture, there’s no hiding the fact that I’m a large man. I make jokes about it, because, well, it’s funny. But, it’s also extremely unhealthy, and I’m not getting any younger. I’ve lost weight before (over sixty pounds a couple years ago), but because of injuries or just not being able to form good habits, it’s almost all come back. This year, that changes. I’m not going to do anything radical, just try to finally follow my doctor’s advice and get my health under control. The easiest goal to track is to try to lose one pound a week. That means I’m shooting to lose fifty-two pounds this year. That feels reasonable and not too hard to accomplish (I’ve already lost three since coming back from Mississippi). I also want to get back to monthly doctor visits and following his advice more closely. If I get to the six month mark and am rocking this one, I’ll up the ante.
  2. Get my time under control. I have a really hard time saying “no” when people ask me to do something, especially when it’s something I think would be cool or worthwhile. I tried to be better last year about agreeing to do things when I know I don’t have the time for them and then either killing myself to get them done or having to bail, which feels awful. I need to go through my commitments and start simplifying things. I spend a lot of time dealing with work stuff, traveling, speaking at conferences (almost a dozen last year, plus a dozen internal presentations), keeping up with W3C stuff and then squeezing in writing a chapter for the book, ficlets. and then spending time with my family, which I don’t do enough of, and when I do, I’m either tired or distracted. I don’t necessarily want to do less, I just want to make sure that anything I commit to will actually get done and that I won’t be shortchanging my family to get it done. I’ll probably start cutting back on some stuff (I’m already trying to keep it to one trip a month, and I’m not planning on writing any more books). Hopefully, if I succeed with my first resolution, I’ll have more energy for the other stuff (and maybe finish reading Getting Things Done – ironic, I know). As an addendum to this one, I’m going to try to set some “data intake” rules:
    1. I will follow no more than 200 people on twitter, and have fifty or less sent to my phone. I just pruned my list to 195, but this one’s going to be struggle, especially as I attend conferences.
    2. I will subscribe to no more than 500 feeds. This one’s going to be really hard. I’m giving myself two weeks to get down to 500. I started this morning with over 630 feeds, and have whittled it down to 531, mostly through dead feeds or feeds I added on a whim. I think the next thirty-one are going to hurt a bit.\
      That’s it. It’s all about control – not some Pinky and the Brain scheme for world domination, just getting myself and my little sphere in order. Feels pretty reasonable and something I can actually get done.
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Raising Cain

I’ve been telling everyone I know about The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard. It’s a modern-day Walden and full of dense, lyrical, beautiful prose about living in Southern Virginia and contemplating nature. It’s as much about how we observe life and participate in it, and there’s one paragraph that makes my heart sing every time I read it (emphasis mine):

Thomas Merton wrote, “There is always a temptation to diddle around in the comtemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

With one paragraph, she eviscerates complacency and sloth. Whenever I read it, I want to go looking for windmills to tilt at and giants to slay.

Kevin won, thanks everyone!

Last mustache joke, I promise: Kevin and I were sitting outside on Halloween to pass out candy. At one point a cop car drove past us. Kevin said, “Hey, cops.” I replied, “They’re recruiting. Quick, hide the ‘stache.” And then I giggled like I was full of sugar. Oh wait, maybe I was.

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This ‘Stache’s a Winner!

Kevin, showing off two months of 'stache-growing.

They posted the final tally and I won! I have no idea what the trophy looks like or when it will show up, but expect pictures when it gets here.\
There’s no way I would have won if not for Howard Uman, who sent an e-mail out to about 800 people (no, really, 750 people inside AOL, his hockey team and who knows who else) asking them to donate. I felt weird about hitting people up at work for money, so Howard did it for me. Expect a picture of Howie’s smiling face holding the trophy in the near future. Thank you, Howard!!\
It was harder than I thought it would be to keep a mustache for two months. It looked ridiculous, itched a lot, was hard to trim (I was always afraid I’d make it uneven, so I just didn’t trim it until I was taking bites of it with my food)… I mean, who wants to look like the fat extra on CHiPS?\
But, now it’s over. We raised some money to save some nuts (I guess I can stop with the testicle jokes now), and had some fun in the process. Thank you to all 29 people who donated, the guys who organized it, Jen for putting up with the ‘stache and not making too many mustache ride jokes, and everyone else for playing along and not giggling too much when I entered the room.

Beggin’ for some nuts.

Kevin got hairy for some nuts these last two months. And by nuts, I mean balls, cojones, nads. You know, testicles. He participated in fund-raising event for the Sean Kimerling Testicular Cancer Foundation, Inc. Testicular cancer a serious problem and a real health issue. To raise money, TPTB decided to have a “mustache-athon”. Yes, it’s a real thing and a legitimate charity. Let’s hear it for the nuts! And by nuts, I mean the people who created this event and the people who participated. Basically, Kevin grew a mustache for two months and solicited donations for the charity. Part of the contest was for him to document his progress. If you click the “photos” link above, you can see his various stages of growth. He gets punchy about 1/3 of the way through the contest. My favorite is the Moose-tache, as I love a good pun.\
I’ve endured, and participated, in porn-guy jokes, Officer Bob jokes, Lance Armstrong jokes, ball jokes. You name it, we’ve probably said it. It was a couple of months full of fun and immaturity. Yay for nuts! And by nuts, I mean the almonds in my ice cream. Yum.\
Today is the last day to donate, if you want to. Check Kevin’s post to the immediate left and you’ll see the “donate” link. I know Kevin really wants to win the trophy for most donations (and appreciate any money going to the charity.) I wonder what the trophy looks like? Oh man. And doesn’t this sound like something Michael Scott would do?

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The Home ‘Stache Stretch

It’s almost over. This bristly curly mass on my face is doomed. Come Thursday morning, it will be gone. I’m currently tied for fourth place in the rankings, and that’s just not good enough, people!\
I’ve hopefully provided some entertainment, and maybe saved a testicle (maybe two, I don’t know what the dollar to nut ratio is). But, we can do better. We must do better. For as little as ten dollars, you too can save a ball from certain doom.

Plus, I really want that trophy.

The Internet Fast

I’ve been stressed out a lot lately… and pretty consistently for the last two years. It finally came to a head this week, and I decided I needed a break from everything. So, I decided that yesterday through Saturday, I would try to live completely without the internet: no blackberry, no laptop, no wi-fi, no nothin’. Since it’s only Friday afternoon, you can see – it didn’t go so well.\
I’ve worked for AOL for over twelve years. In that time, I’ve only been completely offline for more than twenty-four hours twice: first when a bunch of friends and I went to Carlsbad Caverns and none of us had laptops yet (this was 1998), and in 1999 when Jen and I got married and went on a three day cruise. That’s over eight years of pretty much constant connection to e-mail, IM, and everything else.\
Back to the break… in the beginning of my internet life (1995), it was just e-mail, and not a lot of it. I worked with a relatively small number of people, I was relatively isolated within the company, and wasn’t involved in anything outside of work that would produce much e-mail. Then, came the buddy list and instant messaging. OK, two forms of interruption, but pretty much exclusively used for work and at work. Fast forward 12 years, and now here’s what’s built up in the almost thirty-six hours I was able to stay away until the DT’s got me and I had to check:

  • over 270 e-mails
  • over 2,100 unread items in my feed reader (from 581 feeds – recently pruned down from 680 – and I just marked them all read… didn’t even read ’em – it you blogged something you really need me to read, send me e-mail)
  • untold messages on twitter (I haven’t even checked… thankfully, I can ignore all of them and I don’t think anyone’s feelings will be hurt)
  • 45 Facebook notifications (also ignored, mostly because I don’t like Facebook)\
    I checked recently and I receive, on average, 21 instant messages an hour (that’s almost 200 during the course of my regular 9 hour work day).\
    If you figure that out over twenty-four hours and consider the last day and a half “average” (it feels like the normal flow), I handle over 1,700 distinct pieces of communication and information a day, and still manage to do my real job, which is not to just read e-mail, respond to IM’s and read feeds. This pace has only increased in the last five years, and doesn’t show any sign of slowing. It’s only getting worse.\
    I’m not sure what the point of this was, other than to document for myself how bad my information overload is and trying to explain to myself that it’s OK that I was overwhelmed. Dealing with this ever-increasing torrent of data every day for over a decade – it’s OK to take a day off. It’s OK to let people answer their own questions, let the world keep spinning while I take a day to close my eyes and read a book (I’ve been reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard to try to cleanse my system from all the technical books I’ve been reading in my spare time… the most beautiful English prose I’ve read in a long time – a modern Walden).\
    I have another blackout day coming. Monday, I’m heading to London for the Future of Web Apps conference. I’m looking forward to the speakers, but, I’m really looking forward to the eight hours of uninterrupted (well, mostly) reading time on the plane where there’s no way for me to check my mail.