My Father's Blog

Readers will already know my father as Akakie, the most prolific commentator on my blog. He has a new blog location on BlogSpot, and I have found the first few posts there very interesting.

Dingos

I passed by an equipment rental place today that rents, among other things, Dingos, which is a type of frontloader. The sign out front read, "Our dingos won't eat your baby."

The Kids do CSI

I've put up another very short photo album. Elizabeth and her friends created their own CSI episode, "filmed" by taking a series of photos of their staged shots. It's pretty creative and I invite you to check it out.

The Importance of Reading Comprehension

Someone I know that we’ll call John (and some of you will know who I mean) recently demonstrated to me just how important it is to be able to comprehend what you read. He read the preface to a book I’ve recommended, Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. It’s about two pages where Sowell lays out the underlying principles of his book and what he hopes to accomplish with it.

John then expressed to me how awful Sowell is and told me how he would never bother with someone with so clearly low morals. I found this totally confusing, as I’ve read a lot of Sowell’s writings and have a lot of respect for the man. John told me that he couldn’t respect anyone whose underlying belief system includes the Machiavellian concept, “The ends justifies the means.”

Thinking that maybe there was something in the preface I’d missed or that maybe I’d just skipped past the preface and not read a key concept, I went back and read it with an eye toward what John had discovered. I believe I found the offending sentence: “That means that consequences matter more than intentions….” Yes, that sentence includes the word “means”, although used with a different meaning, and “consequences” have something to do with “ends”, but clearly John had seen a couple of words relating to concept he’d heard before and jumped to a conclusion that was entirely false.

Now that I got what John meant, I sent him an email clarifying what he’d read and asking if it has changed his opinion of Sowell and if he’d then give Sowell’s writing a chance. So far, after three days, I’ve heard nothing back.

Nice Feature of Office

I have recently discovered a very nice feature of Office 2003. I don’t know if it exists in earlier versions. If you highlight a word and right-click, one of the options on the pop-up menu is “Look Up…” This brings up a sidebar in your message that looks though integrated reference books, like a dictionary and thesaurus, and gives you definitions, pronunciations, and such. This is very handy and works even when reading someone else’s email to you in Outlook.

House-Cooling Party

Shortly before settlement on my hosue sale, I plan to have a house-cooling party, which is like a house-warming party, but without toasters, vases, or candles as gifts.

New Offer on My House

The previous offer I mentioned in my blog seems to have fallen through, although that potential buyer was back at the house last weekend for over an hour taking measurements, perhaps in preparation for a new offer. Unfortunately for them, they are now probably out of luck, although that's good news for me.

I have a new offer, full price with almost no potential roadblocks. I've accepted the offer and that means my house is now officially under contract. If all goes well, I will have my house well and truly sold by February 24th.

Once the inspection contingency lifts, a process I expect will be a mere formality considering I had it inspected in June and the builder fixed the few things discovered, my agent says that it's then basically a done deal and I can make my move plans.

“Driving” Requires Involvement along the Way

I have been asked to “drive” a meeting next week. Unfortunately, I was not asked to be involved in the discussions leading up to this meeting, which is the denouement of a long set of discussions between our management team and another management team that has a product with which we have considered integration. This is a mistake.

Driving, by the way, is one of those Microsoft (or perhaps corporate) words with special meaning. Driving means to set the agenda and ensure that the agenda is followed and the goals of the meeting are met.

To effectively set the agenda and make sure the goals are attained, you have to fully understand the background of the situation. This requires, at a minimum, that you are fully informed about the discussions, meetings, and materials that pertain to the subject matter. Better, since only rarely is there good documentation or accurate and inclusive verbal synopses of what has already been discussed, is to simply have meetings driven by someone that has been regularly involved.

How Movies Identify the Villain

Something I’ve noticed recently is that when a character, early in an action, drama, or thriller movie, kills one of his own henchmen, that means he’s the major bad guy for the story. Most recently, watching “King Arthur”, it was the Saxon leader. I don’t think he was on screen for more than a couple minutes before he killed one of his followers that was molesting some English woman in a sacked village. Of course, just to make it absolutely clear he’s not just defending the woman (which might make him have some good in him), he instructs his surviving followers to kill her, too, admonishing them not to dilute the Saxon gene-pool by fraternizing with non-Saxon women. Maybe it’s not the best example, but if you watch for it, you’ll see this pattern time and time again.

Locking Your Workstation

One security precaution you learn really fast at Microsoft is to lock your workstation each and every time you step away, even for a moment or two. When I started here, I never really thought about it until a co-worker, while I walked to the printer and back to get something we were discussing in our meeting, hopped on my email and sent a message to a bunch of people in our group that said, “Hi, my name is Aaron and I’m insecure.” It was just after that I learned about the Windows-L button shortcut for locking your workstation. (See, there is a use for the Windows button on your keyboard – Windows-L is a shortcut for Ctrl-Alt-Del followed by the Lock Computer button.)

Another of my co-workers apparently left his workstation unlocked and left for a long time, as he’s now had at least two long emails that have been sent to Bill Gates. An excerpt from one: “I have to say, you’re really being rude here. I mean, I’ve been there for you man. Remember that time back in college? Yeah, THAT time.” Ah, correction: As I’m writing this, the guy that wrote the messages tells me he only typed and addressed them, but was nice about it and didn’t actually hit Send.

The point is, once you log in, don’t just assume that no one will walk up to your workstation while you’re around the corner and do stuff with it that is totally attributable to you. Lock your workstation, even when you step away only for a few minutes.

Photo Albums Online

I finally got around to putting some of my pictures from Hawaii online in photo albums. I don't have them all up or any kind of index to them, but here's what I have so far.

Opeakaa Falls
http://warpeyes.com/albums/Hawaii%20-%20Opaekaa%20Falls/index.html
This short hike takes you down a relatively secret path that leads to the base of a pretty significant waterfall. If you don't know about the path (that is, didn't pick up the right guidebook and read about it, or hear from a local, both of which I did) you'd never know you could get there and would have to content yourself with the view from the highway-accessed parking lot. The last few pictures in the album are from there.

Outfitters Day Trip
http://warpeyes.com/albums/Hawaii%20Outfitters%20Trip/
I bought a timeshare while in Hawaii. Since I'd agreed to go listen to their sales pitch, I got a full-day "adventure" package for something like $18. These photos are from that day. The large pool with the rope swing at the end was especially impressive, but there was a limit to how much I could photograph since I was busy swimming instead. That particular spot was especially interesting to me, since it was where they filmed the opening scenes of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which is one of my favorite movies.

Why Kung Fu Movies Are Cool

OK, I think there are a lot of reasons, but I was just going to mention one that occurred to me after watching “Shaolin Soccer” recently. What’s cool is how men and women in those movies are seen as different but equal, but in a way that is so understated that it’s not even really stated. Most Hollywood action movies have a heroic man who does all the physical stuff and women that scream a lot and can’t seem to run more than five steps without falling down, at least when chased. However, when that’s not the case, the female character is made into an almost masculine hero instead – that is, in an overstated way. Not so for kung fu movies, and I think that’s great.

Microsoft Project Absurdity

We are now using Microsoft Project Server to track project status for Taranna (the project on which I’m a program manager, at Microsoft for those that might not know.) Project Server lets the team have a central server rather than a shared file, much like the difference between SQL Server and Access. There are two ways to interact with the Project server: a Sharepoint web site and an Outlook plug-in. I was much more interested in the Outlook plug-in, since I use Outlook for so many other things that I’m already actively in it constantly. What the plug-in does is lets you synchronize tasks between your local Outlook file and the Project server, either at given times or when you click an update button.

Here’s where it gets absurd. When you synchronize your tasks, it creates tasks, right? Wrong. It creates calendar items. This requires that the plug-in, on installation, adds custom fields to the calendar object definition to support things like percent complete or estimated duration. In other words, it creates new fields that already exist in tasks, exactly where you would expect that kind of stuff to exist. On top of that, it clutters your calendar with a bunch of calendar items. To just look at your tasks, you have to select a special custom view also installed by the plug-in that hides “regular” calendar items and displays the “project” calendar items in tabular format with categories that looks remarkably like the default task view.

What were they thinking? It’s clear someone on that team knows this is just plain foolishness, because the marketing page on Project Server has a sentence about, “Note, this imports items as calendar items, not tasks.” Pointing this out means that whoever wrote that text, likely someone in marketing on the Project team, knew that the expected behavior to customers would that Project tasks would become Outlook tasks. This is just so disappointing, that smart people can just miss the boat in such an obvious way.

A is for Adventure

I’d like to write a children’s alphabet book. A typical page would read something like, “A is for Adventure and Action and Artistry. But A is also for Apathy. B is for Bravery and Benevolence. But B is also for Boredom.” Properly illustrated, I think it would be a welcome departure from, “A is for Apple” and I think that it would be good to teach little kids those words. They are entirely capable of learning a vast vocabulary if given a chance.

I need an illustrator with whom I could collaborate. Send suggestions to me at aaron (dot) overton AT gmail (dot) com.

Matt & Daniel

One of the best steakhouses in Seattle is Daniel’s Broiler, but it’s expensive. I happen to like the burger at Matt’s Oyster Bar & Grill in Redmond, and it’s way cheaper. I ate at Matt’s recently, and my waiter’s name was Daniel. I asked him if he thought there was anyone named Matt that works at Daniel’s. As it turns out, there is and Daniel knows Matt, but Daniel said he had never thought about it before.

Top Ten Fears

http://hub.lcp.linst.ac.uk/archive/gmd2002/keythemes/phobia/topten.html

I like this site on the top ten fears. What a great presentation! So, I had to look through them and see how many of them apply to me. I have doses of only three: arachnophobia (spiders), acrophobia (falling), and necrophobia (death). I'm not actually phobic about any of them, but those are the areas that bring the greatest anxiety when considered. It's also completely sane and reasonable, because all those things are awful, as we all know.

Ian's Been Located

Perhaps because of prompting from my blog, I've finally been told that Ian has in fact left school and is working in Seattle, of all places. That means he's local to me, so perhaps I'll actually see him soon.

I took this photo while on a hike at Mt. Dickerman on November 6, 2004. I'm sure which mountain this is (it's not Dickerman, which I was standing on when I took the picture.) A beta build of Hello that works with a proxy server helped me bring this to readers two months later! 

An Offer on My House!

Last night, my realtor presented me with an offer on my house. It has a contigency clause and isn't quite enough money, but it's close enough that I'm optimistic that it's going to result in a deal. Since negotiations continue, I can't say much else about it, but this makes me very, very happy!

I Guess I'll Go to Work Late

It's important that if you do your laundry, and you put every pair of pants you own in the washer, that you remember to at least put the laundry into the dryer before you go to bed, or you won't have anything to wear the next morning. Trust me, I know what this can do to your morning schedule.

Where in the World is Ian?

My youngest brother, Ian, seems to be missing. Not in a raise-the-alarm, APB kind of way, but just out of touch. My last several emails to him finally came back as undeliverable, as it appears his email account at UAA has been turned off. Plus, I haven't received any email or other contact from him since mid-December. Based on the timing, the closed email account, and that I didn't think he was quite ready to graduate (and would hope I'd be invited to the graduation ceremony if he was) that suggests he's left school.

If any of my readers happen to see him somewhere, tell him to give me a call or drop me an email. Like that's going to happen.

Best Ice-Scraper Ever

My car's been parked outside because I have too much clutter in the garage to park the car inside. I need to fix that, because I really have become unused to having a car with frost on it. But this morning, the car did have frost and I was too impatient to just let the car defroster run for ten minutes to clear it, so I checked for an ice-scraper in the car. None to be found.

So, I went into the garage and hunted around for stuff that might work. I tried a CD jewel case first. No dice. Then I tried a spackle knife, like you use to spread spackle on drywall. Wow! That thing works better than any ice-scraper I've ever owned. It now resides in the car.

Hiatus

Yes, I've been slow to post for the last couple weeks, but I'm back on! I kind of slowed down with my trip to Maryland, then I came back and was sick for a couple days. This week, I've also done a lot of typing for work, and I've noticed that getting over the first post hump when I'm already doing a lot of typing is hard. But I guess I can solve that by having the first post be one like this, saying I'm going to post!