I’ve been reading about Pixar, the company. One of my favorite notes is how much of their history lies in failure. The main computer scientist started off working in a boring CAD company, Jon Lasseter was fired from Disney, the company itself was sold by Lucas to Jobs who then tried to sell of parts of it for years. Even when ‘Toy Story’ was set to be released, Mattel and Hasbro couldn’t be bothered to distribute toys (Disney’s primary concern?). ...
Day off from the gym, but Jen and I walked this morning. It was good to get up early and have a couple of hours to make some progress on a few projects before heading to work. I have a list on my desktop asking why am I not working on … mathmatica, music, ruby. There has been a long, bitter and angry history with mathematics in my past but the first time I saw mathematica in college I thought it was fantastic. When the home edition became available this year I snagged it, but haven’t put much time into it. I’ve starting working through some of the tutorials. I really like the idea of using to plot some work issues such as capacity growth and bandwidth usage. I like the idea of forcing myself to break down the numbers and understand what we really need. ...
From Robert Fripp: “We are only ready to undertake a piece of work when we have completed that piece of work. Doing the task prepares us to do the task: we are learning on the job. So, clearly, we don’t understand how to do the job until we’ve already done it.” It always drove me nuts to attempt to estimate time for project managers. Estimates would be tossed out with no basis in reality and I could only say “I don’t know.” A best guess is as useful as no guess at all. Project management seems like a weak use of the term ‘management’ but there’s lots of pretty pictures, charts and numbers to make folks warm and fuzzy. ...
There’s a very short list of musicians that I care to see live. The live environment involves people, and people generally ruin everything. Tom Waits is on that very short list. I’ve been a fan of Mr. Waits since the fall of 1992, borrowing a tape of ‘Bone Machine’ from Jason Guski (sp?) and reveling in the harshness of ‘Earth Died Screaming’ and ‘Goin out West’ as well as the heartbreaking performances of ‘Little Rain’ and ‘Who Are You’. I went on to accumulate the entire Wait’s collection. Mr. Waits’ music has always been with me. ...
Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:32:53 +0000 With the passing of Studs Terkel and DFW last month, Mr. Terkel’s quote is very apt. “With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, ‘Studs, you’re an optimist.’ I never said I was an optimist. I have hope because what’s the alternative to hope? Despair? If you have despair, you might as well put your head in the oven.” ...
Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:03:09 +0000 Making my way through the West Wing DVDs. The end of episode 1 season 4: “If our job teaches us anything, it’s that we don’t know what the next President’s gonna face. And if we choose someone with vision, someone with guts, someone with gravitas, who’s connected to other people’s lives, and cares about making them better… if we choose someone to inspire us, then we’ll be able to face what comes our way and achieve things… we can’t imagine yet. Instead of telling people who’s the most qualified, instead of telling people who’s got the better ideas, let’s make it obvious.”
Sun, 14 Sep 2008 03:29:56 +0000 My favorite writer commited suicide yesterday. Looking at my bookshelves there’s not many left. Bukowski, Burroughs and Carver are long gone, Selby and Thompson much more recent. Alongside with his commencement address, I’ll be re-reading my favorite short story by him as well, ‘Good Old Neon’. ...
Just got back from vacation and trying to catch up on email, rss feeds and laundry. Came across this quote yesterday that I really liked. “In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget–but never shows up in a budget–is morale. If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.” ...
Last Friday I graduated from the MSIT program at Northwestern. It’s took too years and way too much money, but it’s over. It certainly wasn’t every I hoped for, but it’s over. Coming from a tiny town in Indiana, I never thought I would ever graduate from any university of any renown (BM and MM from Ball State). It was a personal success in that regard. ...
Had some personal days to use, so Jen and I headed downtown today. Had a fantastic day, gorgeous weather, good food, no complaints at all. Had a great breakfast at ‘Orange’: fruit sushi, cinnamon roll pancakes, and fruit kabob. We checked out the Apple Store on Michigan Ave, and walked down to Millenium Park and caught part of an orchestra rehearsal. It was a great day off, something I haven’t had since November. ...