Childhood dreams are important, do you remember yours? I can tell you some of mine. I wanted to fly. Fly like superman, I can't tell you how many good bath towels got used as capes and snagged on the old swing set as I'd try to jump of the swings and grab the "cape" to fly. I wanted to be a computer programmer (yes, honestly I was a geek from way back. I'd check out byte magazine from the local library and then type in the programs into the Apple IIe they had in grammar school) I wanted to be a photographer. I was always fascinated with cameras and how the worked. I took pictures in my head all the time as a little kid.

Well now that I'm a "grown-up" I've looked back and can see that I've actually achieved some of my childhood dreams. By day I'm a Sr. Web Developer,  so definitely get to program computers. In fact I get to program for all computers that have an internet connection. How cool is that?

Of course my hobby is photography. (Hobby is used in the most generic way, but obsession is much closer to the truth.) I've taken more pictures of the Boy then I can count (10 or 20 gigs worth). If you want to see some of my work, I have a photoblog, feel free to take a look.

I feel pretty fortunate about both of those things. However I don't think I would of ever realized that both of these things were childhood dreams if I hadn't sat down and watched Randy Pausch's lecture.

Randy is a pretty interesting guy. A Professor at Carnegie Melon, and a leader in the Virtual Reality field. His lecture is called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". It's part of a lecture series called "Last Lecture". The concept behind this series is simply this, hypothetically if you knew you were dying what would your last lecture be?

However Randy has a little twist on this, you see he is actually dying of Pancreatic Cancer. His lived longer than the 6 months that this doctors gave him, but mostly from his courage.

This is one of those inspirational things that I think everyone should watch. The repised version of the lecture that he gave on Oprah is embedded below, his full length lecture is here: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Good In = Good Out

Fred Potatoes
This morning for breakfast I had a yogurt. (I'm sure you're thrilled to know that, but wait there is a point to it.) So this morning The Boy (he's not a little boy any more) saw me eating this for breakfast, and he proceded to lecture me on that not being enough of a breakfast. Then he started to list off alternatives that would be acceptable. Oatmeal, Eggs, a bowl of cereal with Soy Milk (yes he was that specific) or even "Fred Potatos"! Of course he meant Fried Potatoes, I knew that. But this one really made me laugh. Not because he misspoke but because it was the first time in a long time I've heard him say something like this. The little kid goof up of words. I adored them when he was 3 and now that he's 7, I don't get to hear them that often. Soon they'll be gone. But today I'm relishing in Fred Potatoes.

A Shave
Last night The Boy asked me if it hurt to shave. I was a little startled by this question, but I answered no, it pulls a little but it doesn't hurt. He simply said "ohh". So I explained how to hold the razor and which way to move with it as to not cut yourself. While I was answering his question in my mind's eye I journeyed back into the house I grew up in, that little house on the main street and the alley. I saw the 14 year old version of me and my Dad teaching me to shave. I remembered the way the afternoon sunlight fell into the room, the way breeze through the house felt, the smell of the shave cream, it all flooded back and drenched me like a huge wave.

Talking with my Beautiful Wife about the Boys question last night she suggested that I show him how to shave. He hasn't really seen me shave. I'm the kind of guy that does all that stuff in the shower. So this morning I changed my routine. I took my shower first, then got dressed and asked him to come in as I was going to shave and I wanted him to see how to do it. So he ran in there, and I shaved in front of the sink, and showed him how to put on shave cream, which direction to use the blade, the whole bit. You know the stuff us adults take for granted. I even showed him on his arm that the blade doesn't hurt going in the right direction. He looked a little nervous at first, but after he saw that nothing happened, it stood there amazed. It was the best shave I've had in a long time.



The Other Three Words
There are three words your Dad always told you that you never listened to. I don't mean "I Love You", those words we can't ignore, and I'm happy to tell you I heard those words often. No I mean the other three word. You know them, "No", "Listen" and "Be Careful". 

"No", which of course taught us that we don't need everything we think we want. No also taught us that there was always a good reason behind his answer. Not just that he wanted to see us miserable, which of course we all thought as teenagers. No meant learning self-control.

"Listen" which means, don't just hear the words, listen to the meaning and the way they are said. Listen means don't think about what you are going to say as we are talking to you, just recieve what I am saying to you. The older I get the more I understand that to listen, is very valuable advice.

"Be Careful" Okay, you caught me, be careful is actually a two word phrase, but I never heard one without the other. Be Careful seems simple, but it's really a phrase that is inviting you to think. Think about what you are doing. Does it makes sense? Will you hurt yourself? Will you hurt others?

All three are really great advise. Well Dad, it's taken almost 35 years, but I think I'm starting to get it now.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Everyday we are bombarded with information. We get online and there are all these great websites with tons of useful information. Some of them very specific to our interest. At work we have to deal with the avalanche of email we all get everyday. There is so much thrown at us from every direction that information overload  in inevitable. It feels like we are trying to Drinking from the Firehose.  Most of us are classified as "Information Workers", which basically means we add value to information we gather and receive.

Let's face it, most people you know work behind a desk in a cubicle. It's very rare for people to work outside and have something tangible to show for their work at the end of the day. A long time ago I had to come to the conclusion that if the electricity goes out, my work simply doesn't exist. Also in software development, to stagnate is to go backwards. Technology moves fast, and that again requires a ton of new information everyday.

So how do we keep up with all this information that coming at us. Well you make the pipe smaller. That sounds good but how do we do that? Yesterday we talked about email so today lets talk about the websites. Most of these websites or blogs have RSS feeds. An RSS feed is simply the content of the website without the wrapper that can used in anyway the reader sees fit. Now we gather a list of the sites we read most often and we pull all of the data together with a RSS Reader. I personally use Google Reader. This lets me access my feeds from where ever I maybe be without having to have a RSS Reader client installed. However as we discussed yesterday we have to limit how often we access this information and how often it access us. I read about 40 sites a day through it. Not a lot by some, a terribly large amount to others. Either way if the reader is open all day long it will take all our attention just like email would.

I personally try to only check it twice a day. I find skimming through the Feeds in the morning while I drink my cup of coffee is a great way to ease into the day. Then in the afternoon, around 2 or 3 when my focus seems to wain I take skim through whatever was updated. So lets talk about skimming for a minute.To steal a phrase from Stanley Spadowski's Funhouse, I'm trying to find the marble in the oatmeal this is what skimming does for me. I find the three or four post a day that really interest me and I find relavent. There is some really great content out there in internet land the secret is make sure you're drinking from the garden hose, and not the firehose.

Happy Hunting

Hi Y'all, it's been a while, you know it, I know it, lets move on. I've been reading a lot of blog post lately that have to do with being more productive. There are a whole laundry list of them, zenhabits.net, lifereboot.com, 43folders.com, Tim Ferriss ..etc. Of course I'm aggregating these sites through Google Reader (an amazing time saving tool if it's used correctly if used incorrect, a time vacuum). One of the common threads that I'm seeing with these sites/blogs is that they are helping Common Sense make a comeback.

Now it seems to me that Common Sense and the business world as we know and work in it have very little to do with each other. For example, lets say your have a company policy that says all emails and calls need returned within the business day. This is pretty typical of most places. In itself this is not a bad policy, but what ends up happening is you have Senior staff that expect instant responses to email. Now email is being used as a poor substituted for Instant Messaging (Which is a whole other subject). So now you have your email client open all day long. You have the little outlook window popping up to say hey look at me, and you are living in this world where you are trying work and concentrate with a non-stop distractions of emails popping up. Whether they be legitimate work emails, spam or bacn.  So we've all learned to live in this haze of email clients flashing message in our face like flashing lights and ringing bells in a casino. Well this makes no sense, no sense at all. Well  there are growing number of people are demanding that Common Sense makes a comeback. And you know what, it is.

So lets take my email example. There is tons of material written on how to handle email, but I think none are quite as good as what Merlin Mann is doing. His Inbox Zero concept is brilliant and is something I think everyone could truly use and gain from. I highly suggest that you watch the video as well.

Lets talk about eating habits. Something I've not been very good about as of late. Well Zen Habits, had a great post on this topic. It's called " A 12-step Program to Eating Healthier than ever before". I high suggest reading it, it's well worth the 15 or 20 minutes it takes to read it. The best part about it, is it reminds you of things you already know. Eat more fruit. Eat more vegetables. Eat at home. This is all Common Sense stuff, yet he softly reminds you that you already know it, and gives you a new way to try it. For example Number 6 of the steps is pizza, who doesn't love pizza, I know I do. So check this out.

6. Make pizza instead of ordering. Homemade pizza is the best, and if you haven’t made it yet, you should. The simple way is to get a ready-made whole-wheat crust, although making your own tastes even better. Start with the simple version, though, as you don’t want to make things too difficult. For the simple version, just add some gourmet spaghetti sauce (not Ragu), cut up some veggies (I like tomatoes and mushrooms and spinach and olives, but you can use anything, even potatoes). Brush the veggies with some olive oil. You can add grated cheese or soy cheese if you want, though it’s not necessary. Bake till it looks cooked. Mmmm.
-Exerpt from zenhabit.net

You can't tell me that doesn't sound better than that greasy delivery pizza that they are pushing on Tuesday nights with their 10 pizzas for 20 bucks deal, and it takes the same amount of time.

So to recap, Common Sense is making a comeback....Thank goodness!

Happy Life

Hi, my name is Russell Kelly, I'm happily married, to my Beautiful Wife for 7 years now. I have a step grandson who I lovingly refer to as The Little Boy. We live in Southern California, where we get to enjoy hikes and sunshine.

When I'm not in the office, I enjoy spending time with my family and photography. I'm a "hybrid" photographer in that I shoot both digital and film. I have a photoblog please stop by and take a look.

By day I'm a Sr. Web Developer for Lockheed Federal Credit Union and a Microsoft Certified Professional. In this capacity I get to write .NET applications. Some large, some small but all interesting. Which means I've worked on everything from multiple servers, load balanced transactional systems to AJAX enabled web pages. I've recently started implementing GTD (Getting Things Done) in my day to day work.

Badges

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Back to the Blog

An article in the LA Times mentioned the unhealthy air quality today. This is something I've been watching closely. I've not been outside since yesterday morning for a very short time. Where we leave is about 15 miles from the Ontario fires, and south west of the Arrowhead fires, so that smoke is going right through on it's way to the ocean. The article titled "Windblown soot, gas, and dust pose threat", says "Health officials urged the young, the elderly and those with breathing problems to stay indoors until further notice as Southern California's wildfires continued to pollute the air with smoke, gas and dust."

So even if you don't live in the immediate area of any of the fires, take precautions and stay safe. For those of you who do, please at least wear a mask, smoke inhalation even after the fire is out is extremely dangerous.

Stay Safe.

Update: Check out this map from flashearth. It shows the smoke really well.

The reports this morning is that more than 250,000 people have been evacuated from the San Diego area, and more than 1000 homes and business have been lost since Sunday. Here is a map of the fires and the evacuation centers.

Update:
Here is an updated sat image of the fires and the smoke billowing from southern california and the San Diego area.




Stay Safe.

Update: 10/24/2007 10:15am PDT: updated the link to the map, the previous version of the map had stopped being updated due to usage, the new map is from PBS.