Stereotypes

Boring and steady. Yes, my candid friends, these two descriptors have been used to describe yours truly.

Cut me to the heart and call me an artichoke! I may not be the most humorous or energetic follow around, but ascribing to me the same attributes as a slate of granite is not at all endearing. Picture the following personals entry: "wanted: a boring man to spend a life with together, must be stable and incapable of living life on the edge."

Yeah, I'm having a hard time picturing it too.

But this blog post isn't about having one-half of a love seat filled. Think about it. Boring men don't scale mountains. Stable men don't experience the thrill of victory and the shattering echo of defeat. Granted, there's a place for rocks. You can't scale a mountain without them. Still, there's a spirit in a man that wants to be at the top of the peak, not holding up the foundation.

Of course, there are two sides to the coin. Stereotypes are rarely attributed without any underlying facts or reasons.

I have a reputation as a No Man (those who didn't catch the Jim Carrey reference, retain your innocence and watch something else). Many times I've said no to job opportunities, I've closed doors, I've ignored risky friendships, I've refused to let my emotions show. These are perfectly sensible actions, but boring and stable through and through.

Yes, the chickens have come home to roost.

Unfortunate Reality #1: My gut reaction has been to act more random and insane than usual. At this, I've succeeded.

Unfortunate Reality #2: Pulling it off hasn't worked so well. (I guess that "first-impressions last a lifetime" stuff is true)

Changing image. Ah yes, the utopian goal of everyone from the crookedest felon to the wealthiest bank executive, and elusive to both. Fact of the matter is, true change has be accompanied by... wait for it... true change, not just a freshly-applied veneer.

So, what does true change look like? I've decided replacing boredom and stability with mental insanity and acting like a fruitcake hasn't worked. Instead, what's the motivation behind the boring? Simple. It's fear. And how do you change your image with that knowledge?

Stop saying "no" to stuff simply because it scares you or makes you uncomfortable.

So no, this post isn't about being maligned. If boredom and stability float your boat, go for it, but make sure your reasons are in the right place. Go for stability because it's what's best for keeping your family together, not because you're afraid of saying yes to a job opportunity. Go for boredom because it keeps you out of bad company, not because it affords you an excuse to say no to that next missions trip.

In short, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Live loud for Christ, but with the "boredom" to be content in Him and the "stability" to follow His statutes for the rest of your life.

Me? I'll be the guy summiting South Sister this weekend. Hooah.

Cats (and why I want mace for Christmas)

I'm not a vengeful person by nature, but the next time a mangy hound of the Baskervilles sprints up behind me, he's getting a shot of mace. Between the eyes. I don't run a 4 minute/mile pace for their amusement.

Yes, I know they're only following their hunter instincts. Four legs, sharp incisors, and monosyllabic barks are designed for one and one thing only... bringing home the bacon. Apparently they didn't get the memo. Humans aren't bacon.

Cats are different. The sense of danger isn't as imminent, but my instinct tells me it's just as real. Perhaps more so. (I'd tell you once I've proved my theory once and for all, but by that time I'll probably be dead.)

Seriously, look in a cat's eyes. Just once. You'll see one thing. Death. (Don't believe me? Spend a few minutes considering all the disemboweled little bodies that have been strewn about your threshold over the years, and you will.)

But here's where humans have a lot more in common with cats than with dogs (sans disemboweled bodies, though I'm sure more than a few of us have some skeletons in our closets). When dogs see prey, they chase it... loudly. When cats and humans see prey, they stalk it... quietly.

Sure, we stalk different things. Cats stalk bugs, birds, mice, and squirrels. Humans stalk fancy cars, food in the fridge, and each other. Regardless, when we get in range of our prey, whatever it is, we pounce. Sometimes it's a scary sight (just ask me about Josh and the Leftover Meatloaf sometime).

Still, as it is, since cats seem to at least tolerate our existence, my attention will remain on the nefarious canine. I'm going to REI tomorrow. Mace awaits...

(credits to Sarah G. for the shot of Megan the sumo cat)

Single Guys

I have a friend. His name... for anonymity sake, let's call him Randy. Randy is a single guy. Consequently, as might be expected, he is prone to certain strange behaviors.

Now, I don't have anything against courtship and marriage. I don't. Really. But I do commiserate with Randy. When you lack that special someone in your life, you've got to spend your spare time somehow. Ministry activities are all well and good. So are group social times. But sometimes... you find yourself... alone.

...and when those times come, who you gonna call?

In Randy's case, there was only one option. He's got a plethora of single guy friends--most of whom have airsoft guns, camping gear, and redneck tendencies. And yes, I'm one of those guys.

:flash forward 24 hours:

We were screaming down the highway in a dilapidated compact sedan. Of course, compacts weren't really designed to hold five full-grown men (middle seatbelt = false advertising). No worries. We rolled down the windows and let bodies bulge out of the makeshift openings. It was just as well, 'cause we still had to pack all the ammo and weaponry. By the end, the backseat passengers represented martian gun platforms with legs.

All this must have appeared--to the casual observer at least--to be some kind of guerilla uprising. ...except for Rascal Flatts singing Stand at full blast through the radio... it kind of ruined the effect.

We rolled into the back woods of a friendly farmer (with the requisite cloud of dust). Doors opened, releasing the flood of pent-up male energy. The contorted backseat passengers briefly regained their human forms... that is, until Randy put on his ghille suit and transformed into a bush. Magazines clicked into place and we donned our rumpled forest-colored caps. Teams picked, we ran for the woods.

60 minutes of chaos ensued.

See, it's no fun to shoot someone with a high-powered airsoft rifle unless you're within 20 feet. Naturally, this meant we had to pick a field of combat where it was impossible to see anyone more than 10 feet away.

Randy, the only player present with a ghille suit, quickly felt like a tennis ball in a velcro factory. Ripping free from bushes--in the process sounding four times bigger than he really was--he used the noise to his advantage. Shadowy figures fled before the barrage of plastic missiles. Trust me, nobody wants to mess with a Bigfoot at any time of day--especially when he's armed.

The charge was shortlived; the retribution quick and severe. A sniper nailed several opposing teammates with 0.28g ammo fired at a velocity of 400 ft/sec. Bigfoot went down. The white flag of truce went up. Everybody recongregated at the spawn point.

We laughed, reloaded, and went back in again...

and again...

Not to be more alarming than necessary, but I've only recounted the airsoft portion of the weekend. The camping itself... well. Let's just say it involved a mixture of the Old Spice Guy, pillow fights, and chopping random stuff into bits... not necessarily in that order.

Male singles--a largely hopeless race...
...but at least we have fun while we're doing it.

Downtown Portland

I've always feared downtown Portland. Ever since I could drive, the region bordered by I-405 and I-5 has been the Bermuda Triangle of my nightmares. One-way streets, frenetic bike/pedestrian traffic, erratic grid layouts, illogically placed on- and off-ramps. The stuff of legends.

Needless to say, I've avoided downtown like the plague. Until recently, that is. You see, I was offered an internship in the Pearl district, and--poor college student that I am--was loathe to turn it down.

The name of the company--Puppet Labs--was intriguing enough to override my survival instincts. I'm pleased to report that, contrary to initial expectations, the company doesn't act as a benevolent marionette master (or a malignant one, for that matter). Instead, they're a software company that develops tools used to automate server administration. But, to be frank, the most interesting thing about the company isn't the product, it's the workplace environment.

In my brief stints at other tech companies, I've been exposed to a fairly standard set of workplace guidelines.

• Dress code? Business casual.
• Pets allowed? No.
• Assigned workspace? Cubical; bench in an RF-shielded lab; trapeze over the company shark pool, etc… (just kidding)

Puppet Labs is… different.

• Dress code? Bare feet, surfer shorts, and a mohawk (with pink highlights, if you like).
• Pets allowed? The more the merrier (dogs produce such a wondrous cacophony of sound).
• Assigned workspace? Workbench, or couch, or hammock… or coffee joint down the street.

It's different, it's bizarre, but I'm liking the casual environment. It almost felt like a sin to come into work dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, but it's something I'll acclimatize to rapidly.

Another great thing about the company. Even though they're a startup, they provide their employees with drool-worthy hardware. In fact, if I have any complaint against my prior multi-national employers, it's the four-year-old laptops they outfit their employees with. You have to be a genie (and a good one at that) to be productive on 1-2GB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. I nearly had an epileptic seizure (and I don't even have epilepsy) when my new boss handed me a 27" Apple cinema display and MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. I kept looking furtively over my shoulder, as though there were some social injustice in trusting an intern with $4000-worth of hardware.

But as I say, I'll adjust. Give me a week or two, and this won't feel wrong anymore. Well… except for the Bermuda Triangle of Portland. That one's gonna take time.

Ciao,
- Daniel

Rekindling a Love of Reading

The Amazon Kindle is fairly boring by modern computational standards. It's an 8"x5" tablet with a monochrome screen and primitive QWERTY keyboard. What's it used for? Reading. That's about it.

Why would you want to buy a dedicated device just for reading? Good question. Let me reverse the question. Why wouldn't you want to use a general-purpose computer for reading? (hint: it's all in the screen)

A modern computer uses an LCD screen. LCD screens work by refreshing 60-120 times per second, which makes them useful for displaying video and smooth animations (the human eye requires at least 24 frames per second to create the illusion of motion). The catch is that this constant flickering causes eye strain. You know the kind. Head-splitting, migrane-inducing, wanton destruction of brain cells.

What about the Kindle screen? It's most certainly not an LCD screen, as the agnoizingly slow 4 frame per second refresh speed would suggest (first-person shooters, anybody?). Color isn't a selling point either, as it can only handle 16 different shades of gray (even the cheapest of LCDs can display 16,700,000 colors). Indeed. So what's special about the screen?

There are a couple of interesting points to make. First, the technology behind the Kindle's screen, known as e-Ink, consists of tiny charged black-and-white particles. Power is only required when particles are moved to the front or back of the screen, not to hold them there. Consequently, you only draw power when turning pages, not when reading a page. This means that a Kindle has an astonishing battery life--up to 2 months in the case of the Kindle 3.

Second, a corollary of the way pages are displayed is the effect it has on the eyes. When you're reading a page, the screen is static--it isn't being refreshed (flickering) at all. Consequently, it induces almost the same level of eyestrain as a printed page, which is to say, not a lot.

Do I love my Kindle? Yes I do. I've already downloaded a bevy of free classics from the Amazon Kindle store, as well as some technical books that would easily weigh 5 pounds apiece. My gut instinct isn't to pick up light readling like "A Tale of Two Cities" or "Uncle Tom's Cabin", but when said literature is a 30 second download away, why not?

Oh, and did I mention that the 3G version of the Kindle comes with free Internet access? No, I probably shouldn't have. It'll wreak havok with your literary escapades. On second thought, forget I said anything at all.

Until next time,
- Daniel