Raible Designs

America's obsession with Productivity

My family and I had a great time last night. I picked my Dad up from the airport and we hit a local microbrewery on the way home so I could school him at a couple of games of pool. He's usually pretty good, but the more beer I drank, the better I got, while it was the opposite for him. He'll blame it on his age.

One of the hot topics of the night was American's obsession with Productivity. We've talked about this topic many times; we used to call it American males are defined by their jobs. It's sad really, but if you're an American, you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever been out of work, chances are you felt less of yourself for it. The problem my Dad and I were discussing was what happens when you retire? And how do you enjoy your life now when you're so obessesed with productivity?

Russ is experiencing it. He's killing himself being so productive. I do the same thing, staying up late working on an open source project. Where my productivity does nothing more than get my name out there so someone can hire me to be more productive. Why can't we be satisfied with being un-productive? I need to find a middle-ground; a way to be satisfied with spending the entire night away from the computer. I've found that a good hard bike ride or basketball game after work will motivate me to NOT work on the computer - and that's what I'm looking for. I want to be unproductive and satisfied with it. Can you do that - or is it to un-American for you? ;-)

New Job, New Computers

Have you see what Chris is getting at his new job? Holy shit - I was lucky to even get a machine at my current contract!

• Pentium 4 3GHz with 1GB RAM, 120GB disk, etc, and a 20" flat panel display
• New G4 Tower (maybe dual proc? not sure yet), 1GB RAM, 20" flat panel display
• 15" Ti Powerbook

Sounds like either 1) a great company to work for, or 2) a company that won't be around very long. But it sounds like a good company...

The new job will be way more stable (think big company, but not evil company ;) pay a lot more, have stock that's actually worth something, and rockin' benefits.

Man am I jealous!

Home Sick

I figured riding to work yesterday would get me in better shape, but rather, it has crippled me. After my hour n' 45 minute ride to work, I started to feel sick in the afternoon. Sick like a sore throat and headache. Around 5 o'clock (time to go home), I still felt like crap, but thought some more exercise would do me good. It took me an hour and 35 minutes to get home, and I was wiped out when I got here - in bed at 8:30. I didn't feel too bad last night, just tired. This morning I woke up to tonsils the size of golf balls (yep, I still have my tonsils), a headache and that "I-have-a-cold, man-I'm-tired" feeling. So I e-mailed in sick today, and slept in until 11. I've discovered that my lack of internet connection might be my router, as my LAN does not work anymore. It did work when this first happened, but now it doesn't. I guess I'll drag myself down to Circuit City and try to get a replacement before the repair guys show up and charge me $75/hour.

One thing I've learned using dial-up this week. It isn't that bad. In fact, this site seems to perform just as well on dial-up as it does on broadband. Aaaah, the beauty of server-side code. As for the fact that FreeRoller has been up since Monday, I think it's due to the newest version of Tomcat more than anything.

Update: Well, my ISP sent someone out today to fix my internet connection. It was wierd, my router (a Linksys) would restart itself every few seconds while it was plugged into their wireless receiver. The solution turned out to be replacing the ethernet cable between their router and mine. However, my internet access has been pretty spotty ever since, and I even upgraded the firmware on my router. The guy mentioned that Linksys where probably the poorest quality routers, but awful easy to configure. So I think I'm still going to head down to Circuit City and buy a new one. In order to post this, I ended up using dial-up.

9 GB Served Last Month

I have a hard time believing it, but stats don't lie. I got my monthly bill from KGB Internet and discovered that I had 9 GB of traffic in March. At $.01 per extra MB, 4,062 extra megs adds up to $40.62 extra this month! It looks like the biggest bandwidth hogs are the downloads which means I'd better move everything I can over to SourceForge. I'm already up to the Silver plan, and I'm not about to pay $80/month for the Gold plan.

Life without the Internet

Our internet connection at home went down for the first time in two years yesterday. It's still down - which means I had to try to stop the shakes while I sat in front of the computer all night (working on an XDoclet/Remember Me presentation). I couldn't read any blogs, check any e-mail accounts, or talk to any CVS servers. It was miserable. However, I got a lot done and my productivity was much better. The problem is, who knows when it'll come back. Our ISP thinks it's on our end, and I think it's on their's. I suppose it could be my router. Have any of you had a Linksys router go out on you? My LAN still works fine, so I doubt it's the router. I just hope I don't have to resort to dial-up tonight.

To top it all off, when I got into work this morning, I was locked out of the network. In fact, I'm still locked out, but I have internet access, so the shakes have subsided for the moment. I guess my original contract was supposed to expire at the end of March.

I'm curious to know if anyone played an April Fools joke on anyone yet? I did on Julie - running into the bedroom all flustered and pissed, claiming that someone had stolen our car. She said, "which one?" and "well, better call the police." It barely even phased her, but I definitely got her hook, line and sinker. Then she got me back with "Want a quickie?" Of course I said "Sure!" and she retorted with "April Fools!" Damnit.

Good Story

Read this - sounds cool! If only it where true, that would rock. However, it's a featured story from Weekly World News, which we all know is a bunhc of horse pucky.

NEW YORK -- Federal investigators have arrested an enigmatic Wall Street wiz on insider-trading charges -- and incredibly, he claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2256! [more...]

Anyone with University of Miami connections?

I found this sweet job this morning. I submitted my resume, but, as most of you know, the hiring manager has probably received 1000+ resumes in his/her inbox today. So my question is - do any of you know any University of Miami folks that could get me an "inside track." Any help is appreciated.

Red Hat 9 to be released soon

After receiving the e-mail below, I'm guessing that Red Hat 9 will be released on April 7th. Is it worth paying $60 to get it early - I think not. Hopefully, I'll have the same easy download and install experience I did with 8.0 in October.

Dear Matt:

You may know that Red Hat Network is the best way to keep your 
systems running the latest errata and always up to date. What you 
might not know is that Red Hat Network passed the one million users 
mark earlier this year. We've listened to valuable feedback and have
added two items of interest to keep those users happy - early release 
of Red Hat Linux 9 ISOs and improved technical support.

Beginning March 31, 2003, paid subscribers to Red Hat Network will 
have access to Red Hat Linux 9 ISOs - a full week before retail store 
and Red Hat FTP availability. Also, Red Hat Network subscribers will
receive dedicated Red Hat Network Technical Support. 

Learn more about the benefits of being a Red Hat Network Subscriber:
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$f1ahAJPSNNAMoxTCAFzqKeVO/rhat1

To purchase a Red Hat Network subscription:
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$f1ahAJPSNNAMoxTCAFzqKeVO/rhat2

Thanks again for using Red Hat Linux. We appreciate all feedback 
from our users and hope you enjoy Red Hat Linux 9.

Sincerely,

Red Hat

Where's Erik?

My best source of news (Erik Thauvin) is MIA. I hope everything's OK. Erik is at the top of my Blogrolling list, mainly because he's always on top of the latest tech news and he posts often. He hasn't posted since Friday and my blog reading just isn't the same without him.

Update: Go figure - whithin mere minutes of my posting this, Erik posts. Good to have you back Erik!

Job Hunt in Florida

My Job Hunt in South Florida is at a standstill. My countless e-mails to job postings from Monster and DICE are not receiving any replies. Not that I expected any, but receiving an e-mail reply saying "we hired someone else" would be nice. I've done the Monster and DICE thing for many years now and never gotten a job from them, so I don't know why I'm expecting one now. Most of my jobs/contracts have come from connections. That is, folks that I know (or have worked with in the past) that are looking for someone with my skills. The problem is, I don't have any connections in Florida. I really would like to move in June, but at the rate I'm going, it looks like we might be stuck in Denver for awhile. So it's time to come up with a new strategy.

Step #1: Lookup companies in the South Florida Business Journal and send e-mails to HR Directors - or at least searching for jobs on their websites.

Step #2: If I'm not successful by mid/late-April in getting at least one interview, it's time to fly. I'll schedule a trip down there and start soliciting my resume door-to-door and attending networking events (i.e. JUG Meetings).

Or I could revert back to my tried and true philosophy. The best things come to those who wait. It's much easier and requires a lot less work. Besides, I like it in Denver and currently have a great day job. Suggestions are welcome.