No Progress: Part 2

Today I realized that my no progress was a lot of progress as is usually the case.

Frederick Douglass said "Without struggle there is no progress."  But the flipside of that statement is that with the correct struggle progress is very probable.  

Over the last day or two I was trying to figure out how to get Aptana to interpret my PHP scripts.  Finally after trolling the discussion boards, asking questions, and other such I got to the root of the problem.  The problem is that I did not have a web server installed and that PHP was not installed either.  I had an editor.  I needed an interpreter which usually requires a web server.  


Most people would be angry or disappointed.  But I was and still am quite excited.  I feel as though I have just made a discovery which is equivalent to jet packs being strapped to both of my feet.  My journey is forcing me to learn about the nuiances of Apache, Linux, and PHP, not to mention Magneto and other technologies.  

I feel as though soon enough I will be working for a firm where I am simply honing these skills constantly and breathing them into my own projects.  My feet are on the path and my learning will only pick up.  


The next steps are to continue working on the technical aspects and then to turn my full attention to learning about Linux and Apache and writing in order to add to my media business.  


During the learning process I have an ability to also write.  I will leverage that and learn technically and write creatively at the same time.  


I am a man of purpose.

ViP (Vision in Process)

Next year I have some goals:

1.  Complete another book (Baseball 2.0)
2.  Complete three more websites (GFM, GT, and S+L)
3.  Complete two screen plays
4.  Sell both screenplays for a million with the rights to revert back to me if they're not made within a set term.
5.  Make 5,000 dollars a month to me from S+L

But these goals don't answer a fundamental question.   What is the driving vision behind my life?  


I know there are things I want to do: own a successful software company, own a successful game company that changes the paradigm of playing games, and own a successful media and clothing company.  But I do not know what the overarching vision is.  


Right now this is what I am sure of:


1.  I want to allow my technological work to feed my media company, meaning that the profit (ongoing profit from one of my technical ventures) will feed building my publishing company.


2.  I will own all the means of production for all of my films and self fund them.


3.  There are three drives to my learning: technology as it gives power.  It's the only source of pure power in the form of knowledge that I know of and it leverages my natural intellectual advantages.  The second is marketing.  Being able to craft a message to reach the largest number of people in the most accurate way can't be overstated.  Finally, languages will allow for a greater communication, more creativity, and more opportunities.


I should go to bed now and begin to wake up earlier.  I have not had a drink in weeks and I want to begin to leverage that advantage by waking up earlier and doing more.

Girl Wish List

Nicole Bilderback -- actress in Numb3rs.

No Progress

Today I worked very hard on some code and I made no progress.  To be specific I was trying to pass a JSON object from the client to the "server" on a PHP script.  I just couldn't get it to work and I spent hours on it.  Finally I stopped and decided that I would post something to a message board.  I haven't received a reply yet but it's a noob question.  But that's not the important thing.

I've been here before.  When I was working on a project for EY I went three grueling days trying to figure out the solution to what should have been a very simple problem.  The project was over budget and I was under pressure.  Three days staring at a screen.  Then finally I came upon a small segment of an article that presented a slice of code.  That slice was the solution.  I finished the entire project three days later.  Now I'm a ninja on that application.


I'm starting to feel the same thing now.  Today was intractable.  But I know that it's simply the growing pain.  I know that a few steps down the line I'll be awesome at this too.  It'll just take some late nights and a lot of pressure.  Then I'll be able to take my eyes off of the techniques and begin to freely and quickly create.


But until then after I'm done with this blog post and dinner I'll probably go right back to trying to crack that problem.  I'm ready and eager to move forward.

Design Driven

Steve Jobs let the design drive the engineering.  At most companies it's the other way around. 

I gather that's the difference between Facebook, Google, Space X and perhaps even Tesla.  All of these companies pride themselves on being engineering driven.

Steve was art driven.  Art is design.  Design creates an emotional connection.  Design drives engineering. 

Personal Note:

The way you dress, the items in your home, your transport, they are all design.  They all say something about you.  That's what Apple products do.  They say something about you.  It's important and this importance will reverberate throughout my life.  I am just beginning to feel it's impact.

Steve Job's Brilliance

I'm learning a lot from Steve Job's book by Walter Isaacson, so much in fact that it'll be a series of blog posts so I can keep track of these lessons.  I'll have to review the book after I read it to make it actionable.

But the one insight I've just had is that this book is Steve's last product launch to us.  It's the product launch of Apple to us, the public.  It uses Steve's story as a hook.  But it's real purpose is to introduce us to Apple and the people in it.  He is introducing us with elegance to the people that are now running Apple.  It's his last message to us that we can still trust Apple.  

I am learning so much.

Everything Delivered

GFM must have a very simple aesthetic.  Go For Me.   Everything delivered.  A picture of a girl at her computer.  A picture a guy delivering stuff to her.

Idle Hands

Today my hands have been far from idle.  I've been programming all day.  It's cool but I need a break.  Man I need a break.  I've got so much work to do.  The more I do work on this project the more I see the need to do more work on this project.  It really is great but it is an effort.

I've still got to build regex into each of these screens, build that mySQL reference DB out, import data into it, build the event handling capabilities into it, and tons of other stuff.  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Nonetheless, I'm gonna take a break and then get back to it.  I think I'm going to try to see a late show of Ghost Protocol and then maybe do some more work.  All work and no play.  But what if your play is your work?

Okay.  Viper signing off.

Work and Ambition

So today I pretty much got to code free and clear all day.  I had a bit of work to do before I started coding but overall I pretty much got to work.  It was nice.  But the holidays.  They just keep getting in the way.  So now I have to deal with them.  Tomorrow I would've at least got through the Regex work which is point four on my to-do list.  Maybe even through point seven.  But I won't be able to get there now because I have to go down South for the holidays.  I'm looking forward to it but I'm looking forward to actually getting my job done first.  I have real goals I want to accomplish and while this is important and it is very important I really would like to take this week to focus exclusively on my work.  Alas, what am I to do.  Now, moving right along, so what's next?  


Well, I have to keep working.  Well, packing and then working.  I really can't wait to get this project done and to get my next one done and then to get funded as a start-up so I can start working on my work exclusively, waking up and exclusively working on a project that will allow me to truly build something.  My goal right now is simply to build a company and sell it for five billion dollars.  That's it.  That's all I want to do.  Sell my first one for 100 million and sell the next one for five billion.  Ach!  C'mon all ready.

Today and the End of the Year

There are some things that I must do before the year ends:

Work: 

1.  This chartfield analysis (Doing now.  Making me nauseous.) -- (Done.)
2.  Think through the calculations analysis (Done)


Other Obligations:


1.  Federico's Work (Done!  I did this in twenty minutes and made a couple hundred bucks.)


My Personal Work

1.  Edit 20 pages. (Done)
2.  Finish 6 UI Interfaces
3.  Watch 6 Videos about Linux
4.  Finish 6 more UI Interfaces


I really can't wait for the upcoming week.  I want to focus on my personal work as I know what I'm supposed to be doing.  Last night I went to a company dinner.  It was not a good experience.  It wasn't a good experience not because it was so terrible in and of itself though I did have someone from my group go a little too hard at me.  

Sometimes when I endure slights at work I take comfortable refuge in the fact that I'll be leaving sometime soon.  I'll be leaving soon not only because I want to leave but because I have to go.  I have people to help, people to save and therefore I have work, my work, to do.  I take solace in it like a prisoner who will be escaping soon.  It gives him a new found ability to endure the slights and abuses from the system with a smirk, knowing that his exodus cometh.  

But rather it was also informative and something that I couldn't wholly understand.  I sat and watched everyone stomach a guy, who was wholly boring, an uninteresting kid in high school and still living with the insecurities from it, who had grown into a man of some power.  However, he was uninteresting and because of this he wanted to lord it over other people that he was now the man.  He enjoyed playing king and speaking at his table to the exclusion of others.   People clamored to give him space and make way.  I laughed at it internally and even somewhat externally.  It seemed terribly humorous and also sad.  


It was sad because these people had somehow abdicated their own power to someone else.  They had given up on the idea of their own vision for their lives and contented themselves with this servile role.  I heard very little original thought in any conversation and now that I think on it it is this point that incenses me the most.  Why are people not thinking originally?  Or if they are why are they not willing to demonstrate it?  Innovation grows out of original thought.  Steve Jobs said it best.  Think different.  


Think different.


Think different.


Think different.


There was no thinking different.  It was group think.  Group social mannerisms.  Group everything.  No one even seemed to have a vision for their lives.  


Maybe Steve Jobs was right.  He mentioned the idea of the Uber Mensch and that he was one.  One to which the rules did not apply but rather one who bent society to his or her will and others followed that path.  I believe I am an uber mensch.  I am here to set the vision and design large bore solutions.  But the most important thing is that none of this is for me.  But it is in the service to the society, to people.

Task List

My consulting skills are more useful than I know.  Instead of going about my work haphazardly with no possible end in sight what I've done is applied what I learned at EY to my task. I simply went about my work in a consulting way.  

I mapped out the workflows and the technical flows and printed screen shots of all of my progress up to this point and tied them to the flows that I built.  Now I'm using that to build out a task list of all the work required.  The reason why I'm writing this blog post is this task list.  Damn!

This task list is big and it's only getting bigger.  I started writing it up and it's at 13 items and I'm only on page three (end of page two actually).  I'm hungry so I'm going to eat lunch now.  But wow.  But at the same time it is manageable only because I managed it.  Now I realize that in order to make continual progress I will have to implement daily learning, i.e. Linux Fedora and Apache into my day-to-day work.  

I've got so much work to do but as the founder of Dogfish Ales said in an interview on Bloomberg TV, "I'm grateful for the weight of my rucksack."  

No Traffic. Now What's Next?

I know most bloggers want traffic.  But I am very happy that I truly do not have any.  I have no web traffic at all and I hope it stays that way for the foreseeable future.  This is a way that I can get my thoughts out and still be safe.  It's funny.  In the vast world of the WWW I can speak and no one is paying any attention.  I'm writing a journal in plain site and no one cares because I don't care to promote it.  It's pretty great if you think about it.

Now, onto my work.  So today I installed a Fedora virtual box onto my desktop.  Next, I'm looking to install one onto my laptop.  I also put together all the workflows and diagrams for the next steps in the UI build out for the GFM system.  But what's next?

1.  Build out a task list.
2.  Watch 3 more videos on Linux.
3.  Build out the remaining UI screens for GFM.
4.  Test all UI screens and make sure they work appropriately.
5.  Build back end DB and store all information.
6.  Install PHP and MySQL information on all computers including DBs and Aptana.
7.  Build out PHP backends.
8.  Work through 100 pages in Linux Fedora book.
9.  Work through 100 pages in Linux Fedora book.
10.  Work through 100 pages in Linux Fedora book.
11.  Work through 100 pages in Apache book.
12.  Work through 100 pages in Apache book.
13.  Work through 100 pages in Apache book.
14.  Seed through the work-reading materials tasks for GFM, i.e. building out GIMP buttons, putting site on a externally facing PW protected site, build in CGI work in PERL.  By the end of the Apache text I should be able to post the entire site online.  


Wait, I'll have to learn Magneto as well.


15.  Work through Magneto 1 Book
16.  Work through Magneto 2 Book
17.  Work through Magneto 3 Book


I should have also set up a webserver by this time where I can test all the Magneto functionality.  


18.  Take iPhone development course.
19.  Map out iPhone App.
20.  Take an Android development course.
21.  Map out Android App.
22.  Publish both apps to App store and build a business plan around system build.


Whether this project works or not the point of it is to be able to build something and the technology build out from this.  If it turns into a fantastic business great.  If it does not then that is great too.  I'll be able to turn the skills I learned from this into another project.


"If it doesn't start out by growing fast chances are it never will.  Waiting is not a solution." 


-- SQ

Setback

So I started my next project, GFM yesterday.  I intended to actually write some code yesterday using my Eclipse IDE.  Unfortunately the IDE was giving me all kinds of problems.  Therefore I had to get rid of the IDE and reload it.  But while I was doing that I decided that I wouldn't use Eclipse at all.  Eclipse is an IDE for Java with a bunch of plugins for other environments.  Why do that when I could just use Aptana.


Aptana is a web-based tool and is lighter, simpler, and just a better suited tool to my needs.  So after downloading and installing Aptana on both my laptop and my desktop I now am ready to start developing ... after I do some work planning out the various screens for the user interface.  


So tonight I'm going to plan the UI and then build out two screens.  Check in tomorrow folks.  

Driven

Tonight I finished another book.  It's locked and loaded.  I plan to send out ten copies by the end of this week.  

But it's funny.  Now that I've finished this book I'm looking to (or have all ready) started on my next project.  I have a lot of work to do on it but I am really excited about getting it done, about seeing it through completely.  It's awesome.  I feel like I am achieving what I want to achieve.

Women

Where to begin with a title like that one?

Here's where to begin.  How do you attract women?  Is it physique?  I'm sure that does it for some of them.  Is it smarts?  I'm sure that works too.  But here's what I think really works. Real fun.


Women are helpmates.  That's what God calls them in the Bible and I haven't mindlessly accepted that.  I believe it.  In the relationships that I've seen that work couples that often run a business together or work together are often the closest.  They're the closest because they help each other and women are great companions and helpers.  Helper is a disrespected word but it can be argued that every employee in a firm is a helper of the CEO who sets the vision.  Surely no one looks down upon employees.  Rather a great helper is something to be exhaulted, respected, and even beloved.  In the case of a woman, I say this with trepidation knowing the weight of the sentence, loved.


Okay, so how do you attract the right one.  Well, start by doing you.  Do what you do naturally.  Have a vision for your life.  Have a plan.  Know what makes you happy.  Then do it.  Your well being ... let me repeat, your being well will attract a woman to you.  Don't worry about it.  Just focus on being happy and doing your mission (I believe every person on this planet was sent here with something they need to get done) and God will send a woman by soon enough.  You've got my word on it.

Manliness

I have been thinking upon the idea of manliness lately.  I think in this day and age it is a question that a large number of men wrestle with.  Some have a firm grasp on it while others may not.  If not then this post is for you.

Often I see things, particularly in the media today, that attempt to co-opt the idea of manliness, or rather what it means to be a man.  They often boil down to a set of rules about what it means to be a man.  The rules seem disjointed, disconnected and some how just foolish.  An example of which can be seen below.

Really Miller Light?  Really?  So my manliness is now determined by the type of beer I drink.   This I think points to the confusion around the idea of manliness nowadays.  If we are relying on advertising executives on Madison Avenue to define manliness for us and the trite answer they come up with is a beer then that is sad.  Our grandfathers and their fathers would be ashamed. 

I was reading GQ and they had a very straightforward answer.  What is manliness?  So here's the answer:


It's manly to do whatever the hell you like.

Emphasis on whatever.  Subject done.

Don't Live By Their Rules. Live By Your Own.

As of late I've been discovering somethings.  Lately I've been doing a lot of discovering and re-discovering.  I guess that's part of the path to enlightenment.  This is what I've discovered today.

I was writing L&M and I was thinking about this article I read from Madeline Buston, an agent at Lee Child's agency, and she put this rule on her website about having a mini-drama every five pages.  I worked really hard a week ago to put that into effect.  However, after being in my present self I looked at what I had written.  It was balance, beautiful, interesting, and most importantly, it was true to myself.  I liked it.  I liked it a lot.  Then I decided something.  Writing, like life, is about perfecting your voice.  It's about everyday while giving reverence and respect to God, about becoming your perfect self (which I feel is impossible without God).  In order to be that perfect self it becomes about truly becoming in tune with the voice within, the voice which tells you what's right and what's wrong.  It's almost like the voice that will lead you into the light.  It's the path.   

I can't follow their rules.  I must listen to that voice and follow my own.  L&M is L&M the way it is.  It is pure.  It is what I give from me to you.  There is gray, black, white, yellow, blue, purple, and brown.  It was given to me from the universe, from God, to give to you.  It wasn't given to others to be shaped by them, but rather was given to me to me to steward.  Just like the vision for your life was given to you for you to shepherd.  Therefore I guard mine, just as you should guard yours, openly but vigilantly.  


The vision for my life, just as for yours, can't be lived by the rules of others, whether they be Mrs. Buston or your parents, or your boss, or mentor, or anyone else.  It is up to me and to you to as Paul said "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."  I think what he may have been trying to say was to work out your own path, your own principles by which you live your life.  I'm sorry Mrs. Buston.  I can not write the way anyone says.  I am guided by the key of my own soul.


As in everything I am guided by the key of my own soul.

Ahhh.  Happiness. 

Writing Makes Me Hate Reading Like Fucking Makes Me Hate Women

I used to love reading, especially fiction.  I would throw myself into the author's world haphazardly, with complete abandon, surrendering my mind to the author's textured world, allowing him to paint vivid pictures in my head, using my vast imagination as the canvas.  I would trust the architect and I would fill in the blanks.  Now since I write all that has changed.  

I read with a critical eye, examining the screws and headlights so closely now that I can't really appreciate the car.  I, like an engineer, relentlessly compare my work to his.  To read it sometimes annoys me or saddens me or makes me happy.  But the emotional roller coaster of this neurosis by comparison is too much.  It no longer allows me to fully appreciate the creation in front of me.  Is it insecurity?  I don't think so.  I think it's comparison, maybe even competition.  It's the driving question of why doesn't he do it like me or why don't I do it like him.  It's the question of whose method is superior and that constant weighing which saps my joy.


Just like women.  When I was in high school and my early years of college I could simply appreciate them.  I could appreciate their beauty.  I could appreciate the fine shape of her legs (I'm thinking of one in particular now) or her style and the way her aloof manner mesmerized me.  I could appreciate the come hither look in her eye or the flip of her hair or her lightly flirtacious manner.  

But now I don't trust her.  You see, I've started fucking her.  I know her far too well.  I know that any romantic musings I've had about her were all a product of ignorance.  I know she lies.  I know she doesn't care about a moral code that she expects me to enforce when it comes to her but she discards when it comes to her sisters.  I know that her aloofness and style is really vapid and she is simply waiting for me to screw her so that somehow she has a claim, regardless of what it will be used for.  I know that beneath a facade of simplicity lies a calculus that is at best off putting and at worst manipulative.


So in my reading, just as in my women, I look at both of them askance.  It's because I just know both of them too well.  And knowing something too well makes romance impossible.

Leaving on the Next Plane

Ever since I was a child I wanted to be an entrepreneur.  Now more than ever I know that I have to leave my corporate job.  


In corporate America it is required that you use corporate speak.  Problem becomes challenge.  Issue becomes opportunity.  You learn to stifle your opinions and to filter what you say through some conservatively socially acceptable filter by which your thoughts, indeed your very soul, go into an iron maiden.  I don't want that to happen to me but I fear it is happening. 


I don't buy into the corporate climb and I know I am leaving but an entrepreneur needs a point of view, needs a brashness, a me against the world feel.  Thankfully for me because I know that at some point in the near future I'm leaving my firm I can not invest in the climb and the image building, etc, the mechanisms of the maiden.  But rather I can preserve myself, giving them a little bit, and in the meantime nurturing my own point of view to the point that when I go I'll be able to shape my firm(s) with my own stamp, my own personality, imbuing them with the values I hold dear.

Rhythm

I was having a bit of a rough time editing L&M the other night.  It was rough because it's like having a tough day at work and then going back in the next day dreading it because you think it's going to be such a tough task again.  But actually how today usually has no real connection to how yesterday was.  Each day seems to fall of it's own accord.  


Well, that's how it was for this particular editing session.  However, I got to it and surely the next twenty pages were much easier to edit, really not requiring much re-working.  But funny enough I just got offered my first paid work in writing today.  


It came through my sister.  Her boyfriend's family need someone to rewrite the text for their website and my sister suggested me.  I don't think there is anything here that will significantly help me in my writing career but I do know this.  This is a small opportunity, a shoot of grass, first fruits, being offered to me by the universe in response to all the work I've done with writing.  I know that if I say yes to this it will allow more paid writing work to flow toward me.  


There will be challenges.  There always are, but the Bible says "Whatever a man sow that also shall he reap."  This text is often used to reference ill but it also applies to good.  In this sense I have sown a respectable amount of work in writing.   Now I am reaping the first fruits of my reward.  Thank God.  Thank God.  And thank God. 


I am eager to see what else the future will hold, very eager.

Girl

There's this girl that I want to see.  But we can't seem to get together.   I'm not really sure what I should do.  Heck, I'm not really even sure what my plans are for her.  I'm not super into her but I do think there is some promise there.  I have tried twice and anything beyond one more try seems to be pushing it.  A phone call will feel awkward and forced.  I'm just not really sure what I should do.  


But I do know this.  Trusting the universe.  Trusting in the plan rhythm of the universe and the Architect who created it has always served me well.  I'll think on it a bit more but whatever happens just going with the flow has always worked best for me.  That's what I think I'll do here.

Life Hack

I am not a morning person.  Therefore I must trick myself into waking up in the morning.  Therefore tomorrow morning I want to wake up and go to church.  Or at least go for a walk.  (Church seems like a bit much at 10 am for me ... the singing and the word ... I do better in the evening so a walk sounds like a better idea).  


Life Hack:  The first thing I'll do before I do anything else is to get a cup of coffee.   Wake up.  Walk to the kitchen.  Get the coffee.  Drink it.  That's it.  If I don't do that I'll never wake up.


Tomorrow I'd like to edit cut four pages out of L&M, to read the Word, ideally to go to church, and to help my sister.  Also to edit another ten pages of L&M and to do some programming.  Man, I'd better go to bed.

Mental Fitness

Tonight I decided not to do two things.  


First, I decided not to go out drinking.  Alcohol, like most objects, is a tool.  It is a tool to relieve stress.  God has seen fit to give me a body that really does not require much maintenance.  However it does require me not to abuse it.  In order to prevent abuse I should only really use alcohol when the amount of stress on my system is overwhelming.  Otherwise I should leave it alone.  I have done so tonight.


Second, I decided not to watch any streaming video tonight.  I have found that watching television for hours seems to numb my brain in it's frontal lobes, deadening it somewhat, sort of like a sleeping foot.  Since I am a cerebral being by nature this is the equivalent of being temporarily disabled.  I don't like it so therefore I didn't do it.  


Rather I chose to read tonight.  I am reading and learning and feel as though my comprehension skills are increasing and my mental dexterity is being served.  I must be careful with how much non-active stimulus (television, movies, even I gather plays to some extent) I introduce into my mind.  I am more suited to interactive stimulus (reading, writing, programming, learning) and of these positive activities I can have as much of as I like.  

New Words

Ardor: enthusiasm or passion.

Spiritual Hunger

Sometimes I feel a little emptiness inside, a little space in my soul.  Often I feel like it might just be me being hungry but this morning (it's 2:30 am EST) it's so quiet that I can actually hear my own soul.  This hunger wasn't physical.  It was spiritual.  I read the Bible and somehow instantly my soul felt better.  That emptiness, that slice of darkness, went away.  I looked in the mirror as I believe the eyes are truly the windows to the soul and just like that my eyes were somehow fuller, more at peace.  All I can say is praise be to God and thanks for Your Son Jesus Christ.  Amen.


BTW: What did I learn.  I read Philippians Chapter 2.  There were three sections and I learned two things for sure. The third I'll have to think about.


1.  Paul espouses people in the church to value each other more than themselves and to serve one another, doing nothing out of ambition but rather in the spirit of service to each other.


2.  Paul also tells people in the church never to grumble or argue so that we as Christians may shine among the people as stars.  It's in service to the name of Christ which we represent that we should not grumble or argue so that we can stand apart.


I am amazed at how much better I feel now that I have read the Word.  My soul truly feels more whole, more at ease, more fulfilled, just more.  Spiritual hunger is real and if I am to grow into the man that I want to be, that God desires for me to be, then it is up to me not only to eat once a week when I'm at church but to eat everyday, gaining the strength to walk this walk daily.  

Writing Music

I'm sitting here coding for work.  Yes, it's in a rudimentary not very exciting application which I'm embarrassed to mention.  Yet it's pretty great.  I have become truly proficient with this rudimentary form of programming and I must say that I am happy about it.  

In high school I used to enjoy simply doing math and listening to music at the same time. It was almost as if when I was doing math I was writing music.  I felt truly at peace, zen.  Now that I am writing code and listening to music and I am past the struggle stage of writing code but am simply and fluidly creating I must say that I feel the same way.  

This feeling of zen is really enjoyable.  I wonder will I ever feel this way about writing books?  Will I ever get this fluid.  Perhaps.  But I do know one thing.  I will not deviate (with God's blessing) from the plan.  I will continue to write and to write code.  But I don't know.  If dancing with one woman feels so right why would I want to dance with anyone else?