In digging through some old archives of my previous blog, I found this:

After the events of this week, I remember now why I was always hesitant about working for myself: stability. It started on Sunday, where the person I was rebuilding a massive website (800+ pages) for decided he “couldn’t afford it” and canceled the whole thing. All the time I spent (including 7 hours straight on Sunday…I was in the zone) went wasted. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Here’s a brief rundown of how it went:

Him: I can’t do the site anymore. People owe me money, I am still paying for someone to build the ecommerce store, blah blah blah. Also, your proposed setup (using a site structure) is too detailed. I’m not a “path” person.

Me: I understand. Money’s tight for everyone.

Him: I still need you to set up my Dreamweaver installation so I can edit the site myself

Me: I’ve done that already. The problem is your code has no standard structure to it. Your code needs to be set to point to the location of the image.

Him: I CAN SEE THE FILE ON MY MACHINE! WHY WON’T DREAMWEAVER WORK!!! (He’s now very upset)

Me: Because your server files are a mess. And you code looks like someone ate a website, partially digested it, then vomited the code back on to the page.

Him: I’M NOT A PATH PERSON!

Me: That may be, but servers and HTML code depend on them. I can make Dreamweaver upload the files to Burt Reynold’s personal website if I wanted to, but that won’t matter because you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. I can’t make Dreamweaver adjust to your inability to understand and use basic syntax.

And that was that.

“When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact that modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast with a scientific and technological abundance. We’ve learned to fly the air as birds, we’ve learned to swim the seas as fish, yet we haven’t learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As of this posting, there are 11 days left in the year.

A bunch of stuff happened. Most of it awesome.

But not nearly as awesome as this

But here’s a thought to consider:

Just a few centuries ago, the smartest humans alive were dead wrong about damn near everything. They were wrong about gods. Wrong about astronomy. Wrong about disease. Wrong about heredity. Wrong about physics. Wrong about racism, sexism, nationalism, governance, and many other moral issues. Wrong about geology. Wrong about cosmology. Wrong about chemistry. Wrong about evolution. Wrong about nearly every subject imaginable.

The other night, I had a plan. A good plan. A productive plan. After my AA meeting, I was going to go downtown, fire up the laptop, finish a blog post I’ve been working on, tweak a few things on my laptop, set up some FTP access for a friend, and maybe catch some football on TV. But I did none of that. Instead, I had a cigar and enjoyed the football game with the other patrons. And in doing so, I came to a realization that had been gnawing at me for a while.

You need to turn ‘off’ the multi-tasking and networking from time to time.

Smoking cigars is something I do to relax and unwind. It’s somewhat of a carryover from the 15 years I smoked cigarettes (yes, I started smoking at age 10, and even worse I began again a few months ago.), some of it is tied to my father’s own cigar smoking, but mostly it’s a reason to sit down and decompress. Given that it takes a good 45 minutes to an hour to smoke a cigar, it’s almost as though I am mandating relaxation to myself.

So why do I want to include other work in it? I don’t, and I shouldn’t. While it’s OK to do something else from time to time, there’s a reason I need to relax in the first place. If I begin to incorporate other tasks into it, the meaning and purpose is gone.

There is always the push to always be ‘productive’. Whether it’s the non-stop data feeds of RSS and email, the numerous GTD posts, blogs, gurus, or just the fact that there are more things to do than time to do them, we often lose sight of relaxation. Relaxation IS productive, probably more so than half the things I do to ’stay on top of things’. When I am in a situation that is calming and relaxing, I have a better chance of seeing through the problems and issues I may be facing at that time. I can allow all the half-thoughts to either complete themselves or filter there way out.

And most importantly, I can watch football.

Note: this post is not addressed at any one person or group of people. Just an observation. But if you’re taking it personally, well, then….

Well, is it?

We all know that social media is great. It brings people together and helps businesses (and individuals) market themselves with extremely low barriers to entry. But is it making us dumb?

I’ve noticed a trend lately of folks either on twitter or other channels asking questions. No big deal. But these questions aren’t detailed or complex. No, they are ones that either could be solved with a 10 second Google search or looking at the settings page of whatever the program is. So why spend the time to ask a random group of people and wait for the answer?

I’ve always prided myself on having some pretty good critical thinking and problem solving skills. My parents told me it was important, that I needed to be able to solve whatever problems were thrown my way. It has translated well into my work, both corporate and freelance. That ability has enamored me to employers and co-workers when my somewhat surly attitude otherwise wouldn’t. Basically, I’m the ‘fix it’ person when it otherwise fails.

So why the crowdsourcing hate? What’s the difference between asking twitter and asking the person next to you in class? Simple: you don’t learn. Having the answers given to you at any sign of confusion does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. It’s easy to pass it off as something you ‘don’t need to know’, but the skills are just the same. Either you can figure things out or you can’t. Which kind of person do you want to be?

There are a lot of reasons why I work for a large company, as opposed to a start up or myself. And it isn’t because I enjoy falling in line with the company “vision”, or enjoy dealing with people I otherwise wouldn’t associate with. The main reason is this: Stability. Recently I got a flu shot provided by my employer, and it made me sick. Or, at least lowered my immune system to allow something else to make me sick. Either way, I’m still feeling somewhat crap-tastic. And I haven’t gone to the doctor, since I know what’s wrong. But I could if I wanted to, since I have insurance. It’s that little card glistening in my wallet telling me everything is going to be ok. Here’s a rundown of how it has single-handedly saved me from bankruptcy (and possibly alcoholism):

Instead of railing against something I’m pissed off about, I thought I’d rather just quickly leave a description of one of my favorite local bands Nessie.

How they describe their music:

That feeling you get when, after stopping off for one cold beer after work, you suddenly realize you’re on your sixth cold beer and you haven’t eaten and it’s dark outside and the people you were going to meet out later are here because it IS later, and the band is starting to set up. That feeling you get right before you shrug, smile and order Lucky Number Seven.

So the voters in Maine repealed the same sex marriage law. This isn’t the first time a state has either banned gay marriage, or repealed a law on the books. I am serious when I say that I feel ashamed for my fellow man. The fact that people will make the effort to deny others the joy (and frustration) of being with the person they love, in a relationship ‘approved’ by the state is just mind boggling.

This evening I had a conversation on twitter with Lance Haun, who didn’t see it the same way. Not the issue, but the fact that I felt shame over it. After all, I don’t live in Maine, and I certainly didn’t vote to repeal the law, so why should I care? Lance put forth a call to action, to work on improving the human condition instead of feeling shame. I plan on doing both.

Now to be perfectly honest, I don’t know why I care. I’m a middle-class white guy married to a beautiful woman, and have a great son. No one is attempting to remove any of my rights at all. Consider this, however. My wife is part Cuban, so in the past our marriage would have been viewed in a negative light. Her grandmother was disowned for marrying her grandfather (from Cuba), so we aren’t all that far away from that.

Personally, I think NO marriage should be recognized by the state. At all. After all, I do agree with the argument that marriage is defined as a man and a woman. However, that definition comes from the Bible, a book that I don’t give any credence to. I’m not Christian, so the implied morals and rules that come along with it aren’t relevant to me. So if your faith doesn’t agree with the idea of two men or two women getting ‘married’, fine. The states should strictly issue civil unions, and afford all the rights (property, tax, and otherwise) that comes with what we currently attribute to marriage. Then, if your particular faith involves a marriage ceremony, have at it. My ceremony was done on the beach, with family, and no bible was involved.

At the end of the day, I see it as a matter of rights. Rights that voters have said aren’t the same for everyone. I don’t feel OK with the fact that those people share the same blood and soil that I do.

I was reading some blog archives, and came across a post about friendship and how it relates to a career. I thought about it. And I came to the conclusion that my friends have helped me immensely, but not in the ways most people would imagine. I came the following conclusions, and have found them to be crucial for me, both in my career and in my life.

My friends couldn’t care less about what I do for a living

At first glance, that would appear to be a negative thing. But is it? My friends don’t look at me as another reference or networking tool. While we certainly all do that for each other (I’ve gotten a few people jobs at the firm I work for), it’s the the purpose. A good friend of mine and I get together at least once a week in my “cigar club” (my garage) and talk about everything from the latest Hot Water Music release to the proper way to set up a 4 port router to the latest in our social lives (I should say HIS social life. That cigar room IS my social life these days). I have numerous friends who are the same way. While we all could benefit from our individual connections, we’d rather just hang out and enjoy each other’s company.

They know where I came from, and where I could go

While I won’t go into the details, many of my friends know what I was like in my darkest times. We’ve all picked each other up off the floor (literally and figuratively), helped clean up the blood & broken glass, and in some cases even bailed each other out of jail. I know there’s still a video of me with a green mohawk throwing cans of beer at people in the streets of Savannah, GA one St. Patrick’s Day. No corner office will ever change that.

We were friends before anything else mattered

Now this isn’t the case for everyone. Since I’ve basically lived in the same county since I was 6, I am fortunate enough to have many friends that I’ve had for 10+ years, some even more. One good friend of mine recently graduated from pharmacy school, and is looking at a 6 figure income from the gate. We’ve been friends since 1st grade. We watch baseball, get lunch together when possible, and we’re planning on going to see a Yankee’s game this summer in NYC (finances permitting). Is that a pharmacist and an investment professional networking? No. It’s two lifelong friends enjoying baseball.

My friends certainly keep me grounded in my life. They help me have fun, shed the office mentality for a little while, and look back to time where none of that stuff really mattered. Adulthood is here to say, but with good friends, it’s bearable. In the words of Ferris Bueller, “If you have the means, I highly recommend it”.