Category: Personal

Since I’ll be away from Thursday the 8th until Thursday the 15th, I’ve invited my friend Brent and my boss/friend Jay to be guest bloggers. Let’s hope they don’t trash the place while I’m gone…

Ok, here’s a pic so the adoring hordes can pick me out of the adoring hordes at SXSW. The Matt Haughey glasses aren’t mine. My favourite thing about this photo is the word “Philth” just behind me. Great composition.

Also, just wanted to mention that I finished Simon Singh’s The Code Book a few days ago. A well-researched and mostly readable account of the science of cryptography, including a great account of the German Enigma machine popularized by films like U-571 and books like Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. He only lost me at the end when he began talking about quantum computers and quantum cryptography, but he warned me he was going to lose me, so that helped. I’m ready to begin Cryptonomicon soon, I think, although I just started Naomi Klein’s No Logo, which promises to be very interesting indeed. One thing I need to clear up already: my cowlick is in no way inspired by the Nike swoosh.

Thinking more about the whole “flow managing” thing. It sort of reminds me of my DJ’ing experience in college. You know, trying to keep the same “groove” going (boy that sounds so uncool coming from me!). It sort of relates. It’s an art as well as a science. I’m more and more attracted to the field if I can approach it in this way. Should I put my DJ experience on the resume? 🙂

Is it possible to be exhausted from not working? Things at work have been so slow since the beginning of December, I feel more stressed than if we were busy. My days are unfocussed, and with that goes a certain amount of guilt. I want to be productive, but I’m not being asked to do very much. And I either lack the motivation to start my own projects, or feel guilty working on them, like I’m stealing company time. It doesn’t help that my boss and I share the same tiny office space. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how service based companies work. We depend on a certain flow of work, and when the flow isn’t continuous (and it never is), we need people who know how to manage the flow so that the workers think it’s continous. This allows them be more productive and it reduces their stress. This is true when there is too much work as well as when there is not enough. Part of it is good time management, and part of it is just good communication. This is what I want to do, to be the “flow managing” guy. I suppose this is what project managers do. Well, I guess that’s what I should be preparing to do.

I just found out by reading Denise‘s excellent Guide to Austin that Austin used to be called Waterloo. Hmmmm…. (Note: Don’t bother reading my entire story. It’s probably coming down soon)