Posts in the “personal” category

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a thousand words about what the Republican and Democratic parties look like in the United States.

~ image from this tweet

This is probably the coolest and creepiest thing you’ll see all week: Baby owls in the loft.

Per Dr. Tania Dempsey, one of the leading researchers in the mast cell field, “MCAS/MCAD causes chronic inflammation in multiple organs/tissue/systems, with or without allergic-type problems and sometimes even abnormal growth and development in various tissues, and there can be acute flares of symptoms.”

Anyone who has seen the inside of my body through MRIs, CT scans, and ultrasounds will agree with that statement. (I write that with Surgery #8 coming up in about three weeks. As usual, a very experienced doctor used words like, “I’ve never seen that before,” “abnormal,” yada yada yada.)

“Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do.”

~ Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

I’ve been working on a Kotlin book on and off for the past few months, and this morning I pulled a Steve Jobs on myself and canceled the project, even though it’s about 75% complete (by chapter count).

The problem with the book is that at this point it doesn’t contain anything unique, although arguably my way of explaining things might be better than other approaches. Unlike the Scala Cookbook, which provides solutions to common Scala problems, and Functional Programming, Simplified, which provides a unique approach to explaining functional programming in Scala, I don’t feel like there’s anything new here.

So, in short, without getting into the details of what’s next, the “vision guy” part of me decided that there are better things to do with my time. (And if you’ve ever been on a project that was canceled and you thought it was hard to take, imagine canceling your own project.)

“Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.”

~ Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

“Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.”

~ Hafiz (here’s a link to the full poem)

“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”

~ I’ve seen this thought come from many people, but this particular quote is from Steven Furtick

One tin soldier. :)

Speaking as a guy, a nice thing about the local JC Penney is that nobody seems to want to help you. I went in there to look at suits, and nobody bothered me the whole time, which was nice. I’ll ask for help if I need it.

Conversely, I went to the local Dillards to look at suits, and right away someone was all over me trying to make suggestions. Personally I don’t like that. I don’t mind if someone introduces themselves, but then (IMHO) they should leave you alone. Personally I’m much more likely to buy something if you give me time to compare things and make up my own mind instead of trying to sell me on something. As I wrote in A Survival Guide for New Consultants, a good salesperson is really a buyer’s assistant, and sometimes that means giving the buyer space and time to think.

(I left the Dillards pretty quick when it became apparent they weren’t going to leave me alone.)

“If you care about someone you have to let them be the person they are, not the person you want them to be. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

~ From an episode of “Death in Paradise”

“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”

~ Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 (as heard in Midsomer Murders)

“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”

~ possibly by Thomas Jefferson

“I view spiritual practice as the freeing of awareness from identification with anything.”

~ Ram Dass (from this page on his website)

From Mozilla Pocket, The world has just over a decade to get climate change under control, and if climate changes don’t kill you, If you want to live forever, flush out your zombie (senescent) cells.

Recent events remind me that people often have two reasons for doing something: a reason that they’ll tell you, and the real reason.

(I initially learned that when I read the 1947 version of this book by Frank Bettger.)

When editing my own writing I like to write “constipated thinking” or just “constipated” on some of my text that clearly deserves it (as an homage to the movie, Finding Forrester).

Back when I owned my own business I had a philosophy of recruiting employees after we hired them. You know how it is, when a company recruits you they put on their best face, they buy you lunch, buy you gifts, they tell you why they want you, etc. My idea was to keep doing that after we hired you, to let you know how much we appreciated you. This was kindness/gratitude and also good business sense: it’s hard to find good employees.

I think marriage should be the same way. Rather than thinking, “You married me, now you’re stuck with me” — which is a dangerous thought — I think it’s important to keep recruiting your marriage partner in the same way.

Just a thought.

Sunrise from a road trip this morning, September 10, 2018.

“I didn’t understand it at first,” Jack says. “As I got older I understood. It’s so enriching to your life to have a brotherhood of guys that you know have your back.”

~ that quote comes from this article about football, but i find the same to be true when you’re working with a great team of men and women