Category: Personal Development

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Internal Conflict

After a discussion a few weeks ago with a colleague about cars, I’ve found myself having an internal argument and conflict over his deep love, Tesla. You see, I’ve become a bit of a petrol head. I’ve always had inclinations that way when, in the late 80’s, my father purchased an old 1966 Ford F100 from a neighbor, to help give the neighbor some extra cash to help them moving.

The truck had a wood rack in the back, and the entire vehicle was a rusting white. My data beefed up the suspension on the back end, so he could haul a large amount of weight when hauling equipment.

Our neighbor was a bit of a weekend warrior. The truck was built for racing, and was WAY overpowered. When my older brother got his drivers license, he ended up getting that truck to drive (since it was an extra vehicle). The truck was eventually handed down to me when I got my license.

The vehicle was a complete gas guzzler, and a whole lot of fun. This big, heavy, loud old truck could beat most cars at a green light (I’ve dusted many Corvette’s and Camero’s in this truck).

I also gained a basic knowledge of auto repair, since it would break quite regularly (for the uninitiated, older vehicles tend to break more, and overpowered vehicles tend to break more, due the stress they put on the rest of the vehicle).

Eventually, the end of my Junior year of high school, we had to put the old girl down. Two weeks before the end of the year, between my brother and I, we had stripped to transmission forks smooth (you would put the truck in gear, but the gears no longer had the ability to engage, so you didn’t go anywhere). We ended up selling the truck to a scrapper for $30 (the only one who wouldn’t charge us a towing fee). Oddly enough, the scrapper put another transmission in the truck, and drove it around town. Our family had moved out of state, and a lot of my friends didn’t realize we had left already, due to that truck standing out like a sore thumb in that town.

For most of the years since, I’ve driven vehicles that got me from point A to point B, but rarely anything that excited me. Until last year. I ended up buying a 1997 BMW 328i convertible from my friends daughter. Given it’s age, I realized I would be doing quite a few repairs on it. But, the price was right (especially for just under 100,00 miles), and when things are working, it’s a blast to drive. Even better on a warm evening with the top down (convertible therapy). It’s a car that I get excited to drive (admittedly, it’s a bit of a mid-life crisis toy).

While I’m not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, I have come to enjoy tinkering on my cars, not just the BMW. I’ve come to appreciate the ability to do repairs, and keep my cars going far longer than most of my contemporaries (all while forgoing a car payment).

Now, when I was having the conversation with my colleague, he’s a Tesla devotee. Where we live is a semi-rural area, with an abundance of retirees. We’re 2 hours from the next big city (Las Vegas, over the state line), and 4 hours from the state capitol. We disagreed that Tesla’s were made a lot of sense for most of the populace here. While I agree they make a lot of sense for urban centers, out here not so much. Of course, that also comes from my viewpoint, where I never know when I’m going to jump in a car and drive 2 hours to Las Vegas, or more commonly, 6 hours back to California. And I rarely have the time to sit for 45 minutes along the way, or at the end to wait for my vehicle to recharge.

He did agree that he would never want to take his Tesla to our State Capitol (due to lack of charging stations), but has no inclination of what I see as wasted time. Don’t get me wrong. I do find the technology very interesting, and a step in the right direction for urban blight. I also don’t buy in to the fact that these vehicles are zero emission. Yes, there is no emissions coming out of the vehicles, but the energy is generated someplace, so it’s displaced emissions. While there are several nuclear power stations in the United States, and a handful of solar and wind stations, the bulk of our power is still generated by coal, which does create emissions. It does calculate better than a vehicle due to scale, but emissions are created.

What also is rarely talked about it the toxic wastelands that are being created in places like South Africa, in extracting the rare earth minerals required to create the batteries. No seems to like to talk about this. Technology always has a double edged sword.

This isn’t wasn’t what created my internal conflict. What has been causing my conflict is what’s coming next: Transportation As A Service. This is the next logical step for urban congestion. Even the administration of my smaller city is touting the future of driver less buses. On the one hand, I completely recognize is large populations the pure efficiency of an automated mass transportation system. Aside from the displaced emissions, and the congestion removed from the roads, the lack of accidents will make huge difference to our lives.

The payoff though, is the loss of freedom, to go where I want and when I want. Also, is the loss of the pure thrill of dropping a gear in beefy vehicle, to raise the revolutions of motor, and release the new bounded torque, to feel the explosive velocity, and rocket around the idiot in front of you going 5 miles under the speed limit for no apparent reason.

I hope that when Transportation as a Service becomes reality, those of us who love vehicles will still have the ability to enjoy that technology.

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Passions And Alignment

It’s funny how life works. The highs and lows, ebb and flows are what makes life interesting.

My first career was in live production. Lighting, Sound, Rigging. Doing concerts, theater and conventions. I honestly very much loved that career. I spent the last five years of that career as the Technical Director for a fairly large theater, with a mid-sized events arena, located in a smaller market.

The problem was, being in a smaller market, there was a fairly low cap to my income potential. Eventually, my wife and I realized that in order to make the income I had projected for myself required a change, either moving to a larger market, or changing careers. The biggest downside to moving to a larger market was I would inevitably end up working on the road, which isn’t a great environment for a family, plus my wife prefers the size of community we live in.

Since I had been involved with programming since the third grade, furthering my education in this area was a natural fit. The college I ended up attending required at the time a minor for all students going after a Bachelors degree. While many of my Computer Science compatriots chose a Math minor (which only required a handful of extra classes), I viewed my degree from an investment standpoint. I figured if I was having an issue getting a job as a Software Engineer, there was very little chance of getting a job as a Mathematician, especially with a Math minor. So, I did a minor in Network Administration, figuring there would always be someone needing a computer fixed.

This choice ended up being a wise one. I finished my degree two months after the dot com bubble burst, pretty much killing the software industry in the Unites States. Between 2002 and 2009, I worked as a Software Engineer for about two and a half years. The rest of the time was as a Network Administrator (a few times working as a Software Engineer who also did Network Administration for the companies I worked for).

In 2009, I was asked to help build a pirate themed restaurant. At the end of my live entertainment career, I was able to help build a theme park that was installed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I worked on two contracts for that park. The first was doing lighting, audio, video integration and show control for a “haunted mine ride”. I received a second contract doing lighting, audio and show control throughout all the walkways of the park, and a few specific themed areas.

With that experience, I was able to design the show segments, lighting, audio, special effects and show control for the restaurant. Several of the special effects I build were using small, discrete controllers, based off of the Basic Stamp processor. I had never done this before, and was an enjoyable learning experience.

After a few years working with the themed restaurant, thing started to slow down, and I needed to find other work. I did some contract mobile programming in the interim, but finally went after a full time development job. I ended up getting hired by an airline as a C# developer.

After working here a few years, I ended up transitioning to another company as a PHP Software Engineer. Through some individuals I had worked with previously, I ended up, on the side, starting to build displays for a local Children’s Museum. The museum has a great staff that builds and conceived most of the displays. They use me to add electronics, or build really odd projects. As part of this, I learned how to build interactivity with devices like Arduino’s and Raspberry Pi’s.

In the last six months, the company I was working for and I split ways. I used my side contracts to bring in income during this period (plus a descent severance package), but eventually, my wife insisted I get a regular job again (at some point I’ll do a post on the contracting mindset vs the employee mindset). I ended up as the I.T. Lead Instructor and I.T. Manager for a tech college.

A month and a half after I took this job, the corporation that owns the college (and several others) made a shift in their approach. In short, they decided to no longer take on any more on-ground students, and moving all new students to the online university that is part of their portfolio. They made the commitment to support all current students through graduation, which game my position a specific timeline.

During this time, I’ve been waiting for another project I’ve been helping to design to officially start-up. That project is still coming, but there is no specific timeline yet, and my job here ends in a little over two months. Once again, my wife was becoming very uncomfortable with the unknowns coming up.

Here’s where the stars aligned. My mother, who is also a Software Engineer, has been working for a trucking company for many years, helping with devices to reprogram the vehicle computer (modern version of chipping a vehicle). Several years ago, they came out with a device not intended for deals, but for end users. As part of the project, I was able to design and build a web platform to allow updating of the devices.

After the project, a discussion was had on the possibility of bringing me on full time. My mother was told due to history in the company, they did not like to hire family members. Bummer. I really like the project, and the people I worked with.

Flash forward, and a few weeks ago, they ended up letting go one of their developers. A few days ago, my mothers manager had a discussion with her on finding someone that would be able to program on these custom chip devices. She reminded them I could pick it up pretty quick, but they had said no before. Due to my background, my history with the company, timing, and just plain dumb luck, within a day I was brought in for an interview, and offered a job.

As one of my friends put it, part of it was odd skills they needed, but also was the connection to get me in the door. There’s a lot to be said for that. This is where networking is so important. Don’t pass up networking opportunities, because it is much easier to find a job or a project when you already have relationships.

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Hard Things

As part of the journey I’ve taken in self improvement, one of my mentors have a list of hard things to do. The concept is that if you force yourself to do hard things, when life throws curve balls at you, they will seem easy. You can’t do hard things once. It’s a workout, sometimes physical, more often mental. And just like going to the gym, you can’t go once a year for two weeks, and expect to have any long lasting results. You need to create a pattern, a habit, and follow that pattern again and again to see the growth.

There are quite a few hard challenges that involve exercise. Specifically running. Well, that’s out. No that I’m lazy. I used to enjoy running quite a bit. Until I blew out my ankle in a theater rigging accident. Can’t run now. On the exercise front, I have taken the challenge from exercising once to twice a week, to constantly exercising three times a week (I plan to eventually move to five days a week, but really need to build up more endurance to be able to do that. I’ve only been going to the gym consistently at all over the last four months).

One of the other challenges is to create a blog, and write in it at least once a week. I’m combining that with another challenge of writing at least 1,000 words a day for a year. So, sometimes I may post more than once in a day. Maybe I’ll prep several posts to happen in a week. Sometimes, the writing will be private correspondence. I do plan on achieving these two goals.

Another goal I’m looking at is starting a YouTube channel and make a video every day. Well, I already have a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/litemizer), though I haven’t done much with it. I’m obviously not afraid of getting in front of the camera. I’m just not sure what subjects I’d cover. Reading the posts in my blog would be pretty boring (both for the me and the audience). Hopefully, I can come up with some ideas for content, so I can follow up with that goal.

Many of these goals are intended to creating a rhythm of doing hard tasks. Some are to feel the elation when goals are completed. Several are both. I’m very interested in seeing where this goes.