filed under: programming, rainskit.com, tagging, tru_tags, usability

5 June 2008

I’m working on the next version of tru_tags and one of its major features is the ability to create a tag-based archive page, like this one. After implementing the feature, I tried it out, and I liked it so much that I decided to use it on this site. Specifically, I removed the old “About” page, merged some of that content into the “Links” page (and generally edited that page), and put the “Archive” page in where the About page used to be.

This should all make sense if you look at the menu links at the top of the site. For those of you reading this via the feed – click here to see it.

It’s a really interesting page to browse through – I find it strangely fascinating to see so clearly all the articles I’ve written, and how they clump together. I’ve also used it a few times as a faster way to get to a specific page. It’s somehow more powerful than the normal tag cloud, functionally and emotionally, and that surprises me.

Or maybe it’s just late :)

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filed under: business, dogs, family, kristina, life, travel

25 April 2008

Four weeks ago, life was pretty simple: I was comfortable (but not really happy) in my job, we had a nice apartment, our expenses were low, we had a fairly stable plan for the future, and I was planning on buying a motorcycle. Now, though, everything is different: today was my last day at NetJets, we just bought a car, we’re looking for a new place to live, the future is very uncertain, and it’s not clear if I’ll be getting a motorcycle.

And yet, still, I think today is better than four weeks ago. Crazy, huh?

The story goes something like this: Five weeks ago (to the day), I finally realized (after much prodding from my wife) what I wanted my next career move to be. I wanted to be a Product Manager for a software company, much like I was back before I left Noteworthy Medical Systems, four years ago. I realized how important it is for me to have my hands on real problems that I get to solve myself, and how important it is for me to be on the front lines rather than in an IT department (“in the business, not serving the business”). Nothing against NetJets – they have a truly amazing IT department! – but having tasted life in a software company, I wanted to get back to that. The problem was (five weeks ago) that it’s extremely difficult to get a job as a product manager in a software company, especially in Ohio, so I essentially put that plan on hold for “someday”.

So then four weeks ago (to the day), an old friend/coworker from Noteworthy called me up and basically said “we need you to come back and be a product manager – are you interested?”. Huh, funny how these things happen. I told her I was maybe interested, and spent the next week talking to her, going to Cleveland for interviews, and trying to figure out what had changed since I left. After about a week of this, I was convinced that Noteworthy was in good shape, and that this was a legitimate opportunity, and that I’d really love going back into the product manager job.

So it was easy for me to say yes to the offer – except that Noteworthy is in Cleveland, and we live in Columbus, and Kristina is very happy as a student at OSU. So I was going to have to travel to Cleveland for this job, leaving her in Columbus, and we both know that we don’t do well with full-time travel. So I managed to work out a deal with Noteworthy to travel half-time, working from home the other half, and after much discussion we decided that we could handle that, and I said yes to the offer.

That was two weeks ago (to the day).

So I put in my notice, and we started making plans for how to make this all work. First, obviously, we needed a second car. We’ve never had a second car – our lifestyle just never demanded it, and a car is a huge expense. The question was, which car?

Well, that gets to the next decision, which was to get a dog. As part of agreeing to the travel, Kristina and I made an agreement with each other that we’d get a dog for her, to help keep her company while I’m gone. Well… she wants a big dog. And I think that it’s always better to have two dogs, because they keep each other happy and healthy. And we happen to know of a breeder who has Great Pyrenees puppies for sale, and that happens to be the particular breed of very large dog that we had our eye on… so the plan is to get two huge puppies. Oh, the changes…

So back to the car. Between the two new dogs, and the fact that Kristina is a horticulture student who regularly carries plant stuff around, we decided that we needed a car with lots of space and that’s easy to clean. Minivans were right out, jeeps weren’t big enough, and SUVs are generally a waste of money, so that left the Honda Element – a perfect car for this situation, and one that we really liked. But then that got tough – we were trying to keep the cost low (so we needed a used car), but we like having convenience features (power mirrors) and a nice stereo, and we both like driving stick-shift cars, and we didn’t want one with a ton of miles on it. It is possible to get an Element that meets all these criteria, but we couldn’t find one in Columbus. So we went to Pittsburgh (Monday night) to buy one that we found there, and so far we love it. It took a lot of work to finally settle on that car, and to get the financing sorted out (without having a used car dealer screw us), and get a price negotiated, but it was worth it.

But wait, there’s another consequence to getting these dogs: our current apartment doesn’t let us have pets. (And I wouldn’t put two huge dogs into our place anyway.) So we have to find a new place, preferably a house with a large fenced yard. And we need to rent it because we’ll probably move in two years when Kristina graduates. And our current rent is quite low, and we don’t pay our gas bill, so our housing expenses are about to go way up. And we’re probably not going to find something close to campus with a large fenced yard in a safe neighborhood that’s not too expensive. So that search will continue :)

And finally, all these increased expenses may mean that I can’t get a motorcycle. I have my license (took the class last fall) and a helmet (birthday present, a week ago) and a riding jacket (another birthday present), but no motorcycle. More on this as events unfold.

So, to summarize: new job, new travel lifestyle, new car, new house, new dogs, maybe no motorcycle. Oh, and Kristina’s 30th birthday is in June, so I need to plan that. So yeah, things are a little stirred up around here :) But they’re good.

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

24 March 2008

(Continued from Vegetarian updates)

Well, yesterday was decision time. It came on me somewhat suddenly, when I heard on Saturday that Lent actually ended Friday. After some careful reading I decided that it really ended at sundown on Saturday, or maybe sunup on Sunday, so I just waited until Sunday as I had originally planned. Even then, I wasn’t really ready to decide – I had become comfortable as a vegetarian.

That’s not to say that there aren’t a bunch of downsides to vegetarianism! It’s just that there are also some upsides, so it becomes more of a balanced choice, rather than a restriction. I had acclimated to the vegetarian lifestyle, and I just didn’t feel like I really needed to change.

Without discussing the final decision, the preceding paragraph helps explain why I give up something for Lent each year – it’s an opportunity for me to jump a hurdle and see what is on the other side. Often it isn’t what I expect.

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

19 March 2008

(This article continues the earlier thread.)

A few updates, with only 4 days left until Lent is over and I have to choose whether to remain vegetarian.

First, I went to London and Lisbon last week for work, and had a few new vegetarian experiences, none of them particularly exciting:

• In the airport I realized that I hadn’t set my food preferences to vegetarian when I made the reservation. I asked at the counter about it, and the ever-so-kind woman told me that it was too late to change it. Crap. It turned out, though, that I was flying business class, so I was able to choose the vegetarian option off the menu. (It was acceptable, but that’s the best I can say about it.) Close call!
• In London, I was surprised at how many vegetarian options there were. We were only there for two days, but it was fairly easy to eat both days. I did miss a few great options at dinner, though.
• In Lisbon, I lived on a diet of eggs (breakfast), salad (lunch), and steamed vegetables (dinner). Portugal just isn’t designed to make life easy on vegetarians. The food for non-vegetarians is fantastic (as I know from earlier experience), which made it all the harder to watch my coworkers eat.
  • When Kristina joined me on a trip back in December, we were able to find places for her to eat, but we had to plan ahead to make it work. On this trip, I just ate with the rest of the team, and had to make do with whatever was available, which was often “please have the chef make something for me.” None of it was inspiring.

Second, I weighed myself again yesterday and discovered that my earlier weight loss has reversed by a few pounds. I’m still down a few pounds from my starting weight, but it doesn’t look like the weight loss will be a continuing trend. Crap.

Finally, I gave blood earlier today, and the little test they do to see if I have enough iron in my blood came up positive (I had enough iron). That’s a good sign that I’m eating right, which is reassuring. I’ve been going to bed early the last few nights and that had me worried, but I think it’s just because I overtaxed myself on the trip to Europe, and haven’t really given my body time to recover.

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filed under: politics

2 March 2008

I realized recently that I haven’t said much about my general political beliefs on this blog, and that my last political post might have given the wrong impression. Therefore, to clear that up:

• I’m not a democrat or a republican, nor do I ever expect to be. I disagree with a lot from each party.
• I mostly agree with libertarians on principle, but there are some extremes there that I can’t get comfortable with. It seems too tailored to a certain type of person, and not accepting of other types. I do still think that laws should mostly be about keeping people from hurting each other, and little else.
• I’m somewhat socialistic (or “liberal”?) when it comes to healthcare, largely because I think it’s an area where the feedback cycles take too long to make standard capitalistic models work well. Maybe I’m just impatient, though. Or maybe I want everyone to have healthcare, not just those who can earn it.
• I doubt if I’ll ever settle into any particular party, simply because I don’t see the value in subverting my individual opinions about issues to a larger general sheaf of opinions that I might not always agree with. Maybe if there was such a sheaf that I agreed with exactly, but I don’t think that exists. And it would have to start with “the most important idea is to always find the best idea” and that’s not such a useful position for building up a body of dedicated followers.
• I don’t/can’t vote in primaries (at least in Ohio) because I haven’t/won’t register with any particular party.
• I pretty strongly feel that the role of the president is to lead (execute the laws) and the role of congress is to legislate morality (I really believe that), and that they shouldn’t cross between each other much. I do find myself making judgments about candidates’ leadership ability based on their positions on issues, but mostly around whether they have carefully balanced the constraints, not about the final decision they reach.

On the issues: no comment, for now. I feel strongly about a few issues, but this isn’t that post.

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

2 March 2008

(continued from Days 8-11)

Ok, I slacked off and haven’t kept up with the daily food log. Somewhat that’s because I’m lazy, somewhat because I’ve been too busy, and somewhat because I’ve been on-and-off sick for the last week. (I don’t think it’s related to the vegetarianism – a lot of people at work have been sick.)

But I do have some highlights for you:

• We’ve started making home-made pancakes occasionally, using this recipe. They are fantastic.
• I ate lunch at McCormick & Schmick’s twice in a row; once by surprise when my boss’s boss called a last-minute lunch meeting. They don’t have a single item on the menu that’s vegetarian. The first time I went, I just asked them to take the meat off the caesar salad, forgetting that caesar dressing has anchovies. Oops. The next time, I just asked the waiter to have the chef make up a vegetable pasta for me, and it turned out fantastic.
• Speaking of lunch, buying lunch from the in-house food vendors continues to be a pain, but I continue to do it.
• We ordered Chinese food the other day, and I ordered a dish that sounded interesting (“bean curd in spicy sauce”)… but turned out to be soft cubes of tofu in a mild brown sauce, with rice. About as bland as food gets, although it wasn’t actually bad. Hm.
• Our general restaurant habits have changed a bit. We don’t really go to the places that Kristina doesn’t like (and that I used to like) anymore… because I don’t like them either. That’s going to be a tough one to figure out if/when I go back to eating meat.
• I’ve been pondering whether I want to go back to eating meat. On one hand, it’s much, much easier, and I’m essentially lazy, so that’s very motivational. On the other hand… my lactose intolerance seems to have gone away. The issue isn’t conclusively decided yet, but I’m experimenting to see if it’s really gone, and so far it looks to be safe for me to eat all sorts of dairy.

Man, what a choice: meat or dairy! Or, in other words: steak or ice cream! More on this to come, I’m sure.

I’ll post again as I have more news. Now that we’re in March, I’m over the halfway point, but only by a bit. There’s still quite a ways to go.

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

17 February 2008

(continued from Days 4-7)

For those of you following along, this covers the 13th through the 16th.

Day 8 (Wednesday)

Breakfast: Egg soufflé, half a bagel (from Panera)
Lunch: Cheese pizza
Dinner: Pad Thai with tofu, tomato bisque (from Noodles)

A relatively tasty food day. I’ve started noticing that my body seems to have less resilience to abuse. For example, if I stay up late, my brain becomes abnormally dysfunctional the next day. (Emphasis on the abnormal.) I’m not certain it’s caused by my diet, but I’ve started taking (vegetarian) vitamins, just in case.

Day 9 (Thursday)

I took this Thursday (Valentine’s Day!) and Friday off work, so my normal food schedule was a little disrupted.

Breakfast: Bagel
Lunch: Veggie sandwich, cream of mushroom soup (Le Châtelaine)
Dinner: Veggie sandwich, asparagus, blackberries & blueberries

Dinner at home (with champagne) was super-tasty.

Day 10 (Friday)

Breakfast: Raisin bran with soy milk
Lunch: Smoothie (from a place in the mall)
Dinner: Spinach-artichoke dip, chipotle black-bean burger, fries (from Chili’s)

Chili’s only really has that one vegetarian option, but it was (again) quite tasty.

Day 11 (Saturday)

Brunch: Mushroom frittata
Dinner: Home-made nut burgers with cambozola cheese, fries, an apple. Later on, Jeni’s ice cream.

We made the frittata from a recipe found online, and it wasn’t particularly tasty. The nut burgers are from a recipe that my sister got from an old job, but we haven’t quite perfected it. The cheese made all the difference, though, so they were actually quite delicious.

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

13 February 2008

(continued from Days 1-3)

Day 4

Breakfast: Slept in :)
Lunch: Mozzarella sticks, half a black-bean chipotle burger
Dinner: Spicy lentils, rice (thanks Rowan & Erica!)

That burger (from Chili’s) was actually quite tasty. It’s nice being able to split meals with Kristina.

I watched Erica and Rowan eat a gorgeous flank steak for dinner… it wasn’t too hard.

Day 5

Breakfast: Cereal with soy milk
Lunch: Munched on stuff, but I can’t really remember what
Dinner: 3-pepper 3-cheese enchilada, black beans, rice

Dinner was quite tasty – Mad Mex is moving up on my list of good places to eat.

Day 6

Breakfast: Bagel and cream cheese
Lunch: A “TBM” (Tomato-Basil-Mozzarella) from Cosi, fruit salad, chips
Dinner: Half an iceberg wedge (salad) and gnocchi with marinara. Ate an orange later.

That TBM was downright awful. I don’t think anything was wrong with the food, but the tomato was lifeless, and the mozzarella was a little gritty. But there were no other options.

Day 7

Breakfast: Running late, skipped
Lunch: Creamy potato salad, mac and cheese, cookie
Dinner: Saganaki and a tasty feta pasta with olives and tomatoes. Ate some peanuts and a granola bar later.

For lunch, there were no other options than to eat side dishes, so I did. They were tasty, but high in dairy content :-(

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filed under: politics, religion, reviews

10 February 2008

This is pretty amazing. Click through and watch it. Now! Really, I’ll wait. And you don’t want to miss it.

As I have mentioned before, my feelings about how we should hire a president don’t exactly match those of the rest of the country. To summarize: we should think of the election as hiring the president, and we should hire him or her on the basis of his ability to lead, not based on the issues he believes in. The president’s job isn’t (supposed to be) to set policy – it’s to execute it. As such, I want to vote for the candidate who will be the best leader, regardless of what their policy opinions are.

That makes my decision very difficult, because the campaigns focus mostly on issues, so it’s very hard for me to tell who the best leader is. This song may have introduced me to a side of Obama that shows the leadership. I’m going to have to chase it down.

A relevant side note: I’ve tried a number of those “which candidate should I vote for?” tools, and each one as focused on how well my beliefs match up to the candidates. They make me sad, for two reasons. First, they’re a sign that we’re doomed to always elect a president for the wrong reasons, which makes it a toss of the coin whether they’ll actually be a good leader. Second, when I use those tools, the strongest match is usually around 45%. So even if I wanted to vote by the issues, I’d have nobody to vote for.

I thought it was obvious in the last election that Kerry could be a good leader, and Bush could not. We elected Bush anyway, which is what made me realize how badly-skewed our presidential elections really are. I like to think that I’ve been proven right about Bush over the last four years, so maybe all of you who voted for him last time can take a long hard look at why you made that mistake, and try to learn from it? All the signs were there during the election season, so please don’t think that you couldn’t have figured it out.

And by the way, I’m probably slightly more a republican than a democrat, so I’m not necessarily urging you to vote for a democrat. I’m urging you to vote for the best leader, whomever that may be. If they’re a democrat, that scares me somewhat, because they’ll probably try to restrict my gun rights. But if they’re the better leader, I’d still prefer to have them in office.

Updated: Matt sent me a link to a (40-minute) speech by Obama about politics and religion. It is a strong clue that Obama is a reasoning, thoughtful leader. I am starting to have hope :)

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

9 February 2008

For the last five years or so, I’ve given up something for Lent. One year it was caffeine, one year it was TV, etc. I’m not Catholic (or even Christian, for that matter), but I believe that giving up something for a period of time is beneficial, so I use Lent as an easy marker for when I should do that. This year, I’m giving up meat. Specifically, I’m following my wife’s rules: no meat, no food that contains meat products (like gelatin), but eggs and dairy are OK. I’m told that makes her an “ovo-lacto vegetarian,” so that’s what I’ll be during the 40 days of Lent. (I will remain vegetarian on Sundays.)

That “no meat products” rule eliminates a number of seemingly safe foods: most soups, most candy bars, some nuts, and many cheeses.

I plan to periodically blog my menus and my observations about the experience here. My hope is that there will be something interesting to be gleaned by the end :)

Day 1 – Wednesday, February 6th

Breakfast: A granola bar
Lunch: Cheese pizza and chips
Dinner: Assorted cheeses, crackers, and carrots

Kristina and I occasionally go to McDonald’s for breakfast. She’s never been very excited about it, and now I understand why – having to take the meat off everything makes it just not taste good.

Day 2

Breakfast: A granola bar
Lunch: A salad (with artichoke hearts, which I don’t like)
Dinner: Went to Brio, split an iceberg wedge (no bacon!) with Kristina, had a pasta dish with sun-dried tomatoes, basil, other stuff

My company has arranged to have a different restaurant vendor (Cosi, Potbelly, etc.) come to the office every day, selling lunch to whomever wants it. I almost always just grab whatever is available for lunch, and eat at my desk, because it’s generally tasty, convenient, and inexpensive. Today, I only had one choice: that salad with artichoke hearts. Crap.

Day 3

Breakfast: A goats-milk blueberry yogurt (I’m semi-lactose-intolerant)
Lunch: Macaroni-and-cheese and coleslaw
Dinner: Pizza with mushrooms, onions, olives, and jalapeños

My department had ordered a pizza lunch for everyone, but I got there late. I was glad to see that there was still pizza left, and forgot that I needed vegetarian pizza. So I loaded up my plate, and then realized what I was doing, and then realized that the vegetarian pizza was already all gone. Crap.

So I went to the restaurant vendor, who was selling… barbecue. I had two sides: macaroni-and-cheese and coleslaw. Yummy.

We talked about going to a couple of restaurants for dinner, but none of them seemed appealing now that most of the menu was off-limits. So we ordered pizza, which was actually a tasty choice.

Also, I noticed yesterday that my sense of smell seemed better than usual. Kristina has always had a very strong sense of smell. Related? I’m not sure yet.

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