Category Archives: Musings

EDC Kit

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EDC stands for every day carry. An EDC kit is comprised of the various and sundry items one carries on their person every day.

My own EDC kit has grown and changed over the years. Recently I’ve wondered if it’s really worth taking the time to assemble so many items and to arrange them on my person. That question was answered for me last night.

I was training with a group of fellow martial artists in a tennis court. When training, I pack my kit in my bag, since my gi lacks pockets. This tennis court is equipped with a door that requires the use of a key both to enter and to exit. After the fellow in possession of the key went home, the door had closed behind him, leaving us trapped in the tennis court.

Looking around, I decided that I could probably scale the fence, even with my rather large and clumsy bag. However, I wasn’t convinced everyone could manage that. I called that plan B. Instead, I pulled out my flashlight to inspect the latch mechanism.

It's always a good idea to keep a flashlight anywhere you might need it.

It’s always a good idea to keep a flashlight anywhere you might need it.

On the inside of the door, the latch was accessible from underneath. Pulling out my multi-tool to amused cries of, “Hey look, it’s MacGyver!” I managed to reach in and manipulate the latch enough for the door to open.

No, it's not a Leatherman, but the Gerber is nice, too.

No, it’s not a Leatherman, but the Gerber is nice, too.

Never leave your EDC kit at home. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “Should I bother packing this tonight?” With everyone carrying a mobile phone, we could have simply waited around for the fellow to return with the key. Still, I’m glad I packed my kit.

2013: An Introspection

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I’ve been sitting on this post since new year’s eve. Well, that’s being generous. I’ve been sitting on a mostly empty draft since December 31. Last year, I reflected on my resolutions, but didn’t really come up with anything new for 2012. Since then, I’ve written all of six articles. In that time I’ve started seven articles, all of which languish in various states of incompletion. Will I ever post them? Maybe. There are seven others, older than one year, that languish along with them.

After sending our Christmas cards to family and friends, I took some heat for not including an annual letter. One of the reasons I started writing this article was to make up for that, but sitting on it for more than a week has been enlightening.

I am not a writer. I sometimes would like to be a writer, but I eventually have to come to terms with reality. I like the idea of being a writer, of people reading my prose, but I lack the dedication required to be one. Amusingly, I write for a living, but in the form of programming languages.

Over the course of the last month, I’ve considered shuttering this site entirely. I don’t post enough to make it worthwhile. I’m far more comfortable posting pithy comments on Twitter or sharing things on Google+. It is in these forums where my style of writing has consolidated. Blogs are the new website, focusing on a single topic. Online, public journals, which is what this site is, have been eclipsed by Facebook status updates.

In fact, this is the other reason I didn’t write a Christmas letter. Nothing of note happened over the last year. Even so, anyone who would have received a letter had already read about our lives, courtesy of Facebook.

Which is perhaps why I spent some time converting the website for my karate group from a static site into a blog. I still want to contribute to the greater good, as it were. This new site will provide a single topic, which will focus my efforts. Hopefully.

Looking Ahead to 2012

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One year ago in this space I attempted to start a new tradition for myself. While I rarely bothered in the past, mostly as an excuse to write a post, I jumped on the bandwagon and composed a set of resolutions for 2011. Now, in the waning hours of 2011, I wanted to take some time to review my resolutions and update them for 2012. Let’s take them from the top.

Spend more time with my daughter.

That should now read daughters, plural. In June we welcomed our second child, Brenna Rose, into the world. I’d like to think I’ve done well on this resolution. I spend every day looking forward to getting home to see my girls.

Read more.

I added this to the list because every year I would read a little less than the year before. I’ve managed to reverse this trend. Sure, I’ve added feeds to Google Reader, but I’ve removed a few as well. I’ve also opted to read actual books in my free time, reducing the amount of television I watch to a mere couple hours per week. I’ve read through two James Herriot books so far, with one remaining. I received a Barnes & Noble Nook for Christmas and purchased my first book for it on Thursday, The Ghosts of Belfast, which I’ve been rapidly devouring.

Write more.

While I frequently sat in front of my computer, pondering topics about which to write, I rarely found the necessary inspiration to put metaphorical pen to paper. Over the last 12 months, I composed a mere 16 posts. Four of those, a quarter of them, were about OSCON, which is far fewer than in years past when I would write an individual post for each session I attended. In addition, there are four drafts I never got around to completing. Looking them over, it appears that at least three of them are mostly done. I just need to give them a quick edit and post. Sadly, one of them is about Kaylee’s summer camp, so it’s a bit stale at this point.

Having read several blogs over the last year, I’ve developed a desire to be a more prolific writer. Not only personal posts, like this one, but anything that comes to mind. I can write about my programming work or even short fiction. I probably won’t delve into the realm of political commentary, but only because I lack any real desire to study the issues in enough depth to do them justice.

Be more Paleo.

More of the same here. I can count on one hand the number of bites of grains I had during the year. While my sweet tooth has been difficult to suppress, I really don’t eat very much sugar. One beer per week, to end Friday on a high note, is all I indulge in anymore. I managed to get my weight down to 158 pounds, which hasn’t budged in a few months. I would like to drop a few more pounds of body fat, so perhaps that is where I’ll focus my efforts for 2012.

Join a CrossFit Box.

I thought about it a few times, but never bothered. I have been going to the gym at work regularly and have been making decent strength gains. I’m mostly pleased with my progress on fitness and even earned my third degree black belt this year, so not accomplishing this particular resolution isn’t bothering me very much.

Get into MovNat.

The closest I got to this was our recent trip to Grape Day Park in Escondido. As a fitness program, it’s still something I want to do.

Actually use Facebook.

I added this one as a joke, but somehow I ended up using it. Sort of. I rarely post anything on Facebook, preferring Twitter and Google Plus, but I do try to keep tabs on what my friends are doing.

Looking Ahead to 2012

Aside from the above, what else should I look forward to doing in 2012?

I’ve recently been putting an emphasis on being more organized and getting things done in a more timely fashion. I’d like to keep this going into the new year, particularly with respect to the things that need doing around the house.

Segueing from organization into preparation, the recent power outage in San Diego made me take a serious look at our disaster preparations. My wife pokes fun at me for treating the entire situation as preparation for the zombie apocalypse, but I find it a fun way to stay motivated. Besides, when zombies show up and start eating people, who will be laughing then?

So that’s my theme for 2012: organization and preparation.

Not Ninja Enough

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Last year, at SCaLE, John made an observation. “You are not ninja enough,” he told me. As a group of us were walking down a hallway in the hotel, I walked over to what I assumed was a portal used for catering events. As I pulled on the doors, finding them locked, John pointed out that I couldn’t go there, for the aforementioned reason.

Last night, as I watched my daughter fall down the stairs, the back of her head hitting the last two hardwood steps, I realized I am in fact not ninja enough. She’s fine, by the way, it wasn’t a bad fall and only scared her a little. The worst part for me, as I reflect on it, is that I knew it was going to happen. Well, I knew it could happen.

Kaylee, who is two years old and has been walking since she was 10 months old, walked up a flight of five hardwood stairs to meet me on the landing and take a book I was offering her. As she took the book and started turning to walk up the next flight of stairs, I observed that she was close to the edge and, if her balance wasn’t just right, she could fall backwards down the stairs.

Sure enough, this is exactly what happened.

Had I taken the simple precaution of stepping closer to her and moving in behind her, I could have repaired her balance when she lost it. Instead, perhaps lulled by her otherwise incredibly good balance, I shrugged off the thought. Right before I found myself lunging forward to catch her, my arms closing on empty air.

In Kiado-Ryu, one of our tenets is, Action is Faster than Reaction. In a fight, a punch can be thrown faster than it can be blocked. To act, an opponent merely needs to think about their action before executing it, a process invisible to an outside observer. To react, the action must be observed, processed, a reaction decided upon, and finally executed. Had I acted, I would not have put myself in a position where reaction was necessary.

Further, and only partially related to the moral of this story, as I prepare for my third degree Black Belt, I’m starting to consider other activities to augment my training. CrossFit is an obvious choice. While I enjoy the gym in concept, I’ve never been a fan of lifting the same weights in the same way every day. I also recently learned about MovNat, and the idea of functional fitness appeals to me. These activities would train me to move more naturally and efficiently when I do need to act or even react. Parkour flat out looks awesome, but I think I’m nowhere near ready to start that. Finally, for tactical training, I just purchased lifetime memberships for my entire family at FrontSight, so we can take all of the offered courses, some of which (as I’m told by those who have attended, who also advise me to ignore their infomercial-esque website) are downright awesome.

In short, I have a theme for 2011. I must level up my ninja.

Resolutions for 2011

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Welcome to the year two thousand eleven. Well, not quite yet; I’m actually writing this with about an hour to go. I’ve never been one for so-called New Year’s Resolutions. After all, why put off until the first of January what you can reasonably start on the twelfth of August?

With that said, here are (in no particular order) my resolutions for the next 365 days.

Spend more time with my daughter.

Not really a resolution, since I already try to spend as much time as possible with her. Still, it seemed important enough to reiterate at the beginning of this list.

Read more.

And not just Twitter. I already do more of that than I probably should. Having several hundred unread items in Google Reader is normal for me, especially now that I have subscribed to so many great nutrition and fitness blogs.

I haven’t had a cable television subscription for months, so if I’m not at my computer (and I use Linux, so you know I’m not playing games) I have the time to read a book. It’s been a long time since I read one or two books per month. In fact, it took me several months to get through the last book I read, The Three Musketeers. I did manage to read through Manthropology since receiving it for Christmas (I should write a review), so I figure it’s a combination of picking the right books and setting aside the time to read them.

Write more.

I neglect my blog, sometimes so much I start to wonder why I bother having one. On my to-do list for some time has been to clean up my blog. I still have too many categories from the days before WordPress supported tags, and images in a lot of my old posts are broken. Worse, I’ll go months without posting anything. Worse yet, I have a handful of half-written posts; always thinking I’ll finish them later. Later never seems to come.

Writing more also applies to programming. There is at least one project I started but never finished. Sure, I can blame my last computer crashing and life generally getting in the way, but how hard would it be to just sit down and finish it? Then there all the Perl modules I write. Unfortunately, most of those are for work, so I’m unable to release them. I tried once, but didn’t get very far.

Also, all those blogs I mentioned in the last resolution? I should comment when I think I have something to say, or participate in forums when they’re available.

Be more Paleo.

While I’ve eaten a fairly low carbohydrate diet since my wife was pregnant with our daughter over two years ago (my wife was diagnosed with gestational diabetes), it wasn’t until last March when I started looking at diet from a Paleo perspective. Looking at a graph of my weight, that really marked a change. From a peak of 235 pounds around three years ago, I finally dropped under 200 in March. As I write this, I’m weighing in at 178 with my eye on getting down to 165.

So far, even though I appear to be “eating Paleo,” I still acquire my meat from Costco. From a budget perspective, this isn’t too bad, but their meat is still conventionally raised and fed grain. There is a local meat CSA which I am interested in joining. Maybe this will be the year I start spending money on quality instead of quantity.

In addition to the meat CSA, there’s one that has partnered with the company I work for to make weekly deliveries of produce at one of our office buildings. I may join this CSA to augment our semi-regular Saturday morning visits to the Vista Farmers Market.

Join a CrossFit Box.

It’s all the rage in the Paleo community and I’ve never been a huge fan of lifting weights and I’ve always loathed chronic cardio. In fact, there’s one within walking distance of my house. Looks like I’m out of excuses.

Get into MovNat.

Because it looks like fun. That’s the kind of shape I want to be in.

In 2012 (if the world doesn’t end) I might throw parkour and ninjitsu into the mix because how cool would that be?

Actually use Facebook.

It seems that all of my friends and family use Facebook now. They chat, they share pictures, they comment on each others’ wall, and when I see them in person I discover I’m totally out of the loop. I tried to wait it out, hoping it would go away (anyone remember MySpace?), but it’s about time I jumped on this particular bandwagon.

Nah, I’m just kidding. Maybe next year.

Prescient Juxtaposition?

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I was listening to NPR’s Morning Edition on my drive into the office this morning and I was struck by the way two stories about the federal government were scheduled one after the other. The first was entitled Budget Chief Peter Orszag: Obama’s ‘Super-Nerd’. The gist of the story was that universal health care is Mr. Orszag’s passion, how he’s given it a lot of thought, and how he has big plans for our next entitlement.

Orszag says a new health care system could use psychology to figure out ways to give better medical care, not just more health care. That’s what he really wants to do: combine caring for people with good economic decisions.

The next story, Postal Deficit Grounds Wilderness Mail, was about the United States Postal Service discontinuing weekly airmail deliveries to remote locations.

The flights from Cascade, Idaho, have served ranches, outfitters, lodges and a University of Idaho research station for 50 years. But the $46,000 annual cost is too much for a postal service $6 billion in the red.

I don’t know if the scheduling was by design or by accident, but listening to them in this order got me thinking about something. Something that could be rather important.

If the federal government’s universal health care plan runs a deficit, will the coverage for outlying individuals, as it were, simply be cut? Who will those unlucky people be who had their care red lined because they were considered an unnecessary expense?

New Year, New Look

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Yeah, so I haven’t written a thing since my daughter’s birth day. Well, I suppose Twitter sort of counts. I’ve decided that, with the new year, my blog needs a new look. So here it is. We’ll see how long until I grow bored with it. I’ll probably never design my own WordPress theme, at least not for this blog. It just doesn’t matter enough.

Oh yeah, I may try to write once in a while, too.

News 2.0: The Age of Twitter

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During the wildfires last year in San Diego, accurate and up to date news was difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. The traditional news media outlets were of little use. The television stations were repeatedly broadcasting the same outdated information. The Web sites of the local news stations and the Union-Tribune were so overloaded that they became inaccessible and worthless.

Into this fray steps KPBS, San Diego’s public radio station. Clearly, they have Internet-savvy employees, because in short order their Web site was moved temporarily to a hosting provider that could handle the load. More impressive, however, was their use of so-called Web 2.0 tools. Using the Google Maps API, KPBS was able to create a map of the fires, evacuation zones, and emergency shelters. This was so useful to the residents of San Diego (and anyone outside the area who was desperate for information) that Google even published a case study.

But that’s not what I want to write about. The fires, and KPBS in particular, were my introduction to Twitter. The very first user I chose to follow was @KPBS News. From them, I was able to stay up to date in a way that neither television nor radio could deliver. This was before Twitter’s amazing popularity led to frequent appearances of the Fail Whale.

I was reminded of this tonight when I read this tweet:

@chslaw your analysis is based purely on two days of sporadic tweets by 1 person and assuming there was equal protest at both conventions?

There is so much going on in this single tweet, I barely know where to begin. First, and perhaps most obvious, KPBS is once again taking advantage of Twitter to keep their readers abreast of goings on in a way that neither radio nor even blog articles can deliver. And they’re doing it well—even going so far as to advertise it during their station identification breaks. This is micro-blogging at its finest: delivering short, pertinent news updates to readers in real-time. Not only is it real-time, but it’s time-shifted as well. I don’t need to pay active attention to the tweets. Instead, if I’ve been away from the computer for a few hours, I can quickly look over the list of tweets I missed.

The contributors to KPBS’s Twitter feed, though I don’t know who they are, clearly enjoy doing it. During the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, there has been a constant stream of tweets, keeping us informed of not only the important news of the day—the kind of thing that will show up on the wire services after the fact— but the seemingly trivial events as well. A VIP sighting in the security line, who just stopped by the news desk for a quick interview, or even unedited, first-person, subjective comments on police actions. This is why I respect KPBS and why we will likely never see a so-called real news service use Twitter: the people running the show would be scared to death to allow this kind of uncensored commentary. Even blogs allow the writer to spend time thinking about the article before they post it, and editors to retract information after the fact. Twitter is immediate. Twitter is real life, as it happens.

Finally, there’s whyu this specific tweet caused me to sit up and take notice. It wasn’t a news bite or color commentary. It was a specific response to another user. This is interactive news—News 2.0 if you will. Suddenly, the audience is a live participant in the story, as it happens. Is there a question the reporter isn’t asking? Is there an angle not being covered completely? Direct a tweet at the news organization and maybe those concerns will be addressed.

That, to me, is what is truly amazing about Twitter. Sure, anyone following me knows what I had for breakfast, or what’s bothering me at work (or, in the near future, when my daughter will be born), but that’s merely the fun stuff. I’ve only been active on Twitter since early summer, but already I can’t remember life before it.

Same As I Ever Was

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I was having a conversation with a friend and fellow Perl hacker the other day, about philosophy and pragmatism in code and work. At one point, he mentioned that I’m not much different now than when we worked together eight years ago.

I’m not entirely sure how to take that. Have I really changed so little? Sure, I’m probably as arrogant as I’ve ever been, but at least now I’m aware of it.