Folks wear their jobs as a badge of honor. How many hours they put in. How much of their lives they set to a single goal / task and claim it loud and proud. Their start-up is their entire life, blah blah blah. Hell, I’ve even made reference to the fact that for quite a while, I got 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. But that was more out of habit and lack of focus than anything else.

This isn’t about them, though. It’s not about me, either. This is about someone who actually has done things worth mentioning.

Ladies and gentleman, I present Theodore Roosevelt, our 26th President.

• In 1912, he was shot in the chest during a speech. So like any normal person, he proceeded to deliver the speech with the bullet still in him. He left the bullet in his body until his death seven years later. He knew that since he wasn’t coughing up blood, the bullet hadn’t penetrated his lungs. Which means, for those scoring at home, he thought about it and MADE A DECISION about a bullet in his chest.
• As governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye (a fact not made public until many years later).
• As police chief of New York City, he would often walk the officer’s late night beats just to see if they were indeed working
• Created the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act (basically, you can’t sell poison or spoiled meat. Yes, that used to be legal)

There are quite a few other things. He was pretty famous. People knew him. So the next time you read a self-serving blog post about someone who thinks they are hardcore, remember this: they aren’t working with a bullet in their chest.

You all know I’m a serious guy. A serious guy who talks about serious things. Important life issues, and pressing matters that affect today’s common man (or woman). So I want to tell you a story about Taco Bell.

I don’t eat a lot of fast food. But when I do, I usually choose two places: Arbys or Taco Bell. Usually depends on which one is on the side of the road I am on. Since I’m already busy (or lazy) enough at that point to get fast food, clearly I can’t be bothered by making a left turn. So the other day I’m running some errands, and decide that a Chalupa would be awesome. Having a few extra minutes than I planned on, I decided to just park and go into the fine establishment. I wait in line, and get up to place my order (a number 6, no tomatoes, the taco soft, and a Mountain Dew if you were wondering). As I’m ordering, I decide that while I do want all that gut-busting food, I don’t want the 32oz beverage that comes with it. Call me crazy, but I don’t need a quart of soda. So I made what I thought was a simple request. I asked to have a smaller soda size. Now, the look on the gal’s face was akin to showing a dog a card trick. Confusion. Then she said: "ahhhh, we can’t do that sir.” It was as if I asked her to explain Newton’s law of universal gravitation. Apparently, the keypad on the cash register didn’t include an option to have a smaller soda. So after a few moments, I simply told her to charge me the normal price, and just give me a smaller cup. The look of relief on her face was as though I was a cop and let her go with a warning instead of a ticket. It got me thinking. The whole process of ordering (selecting a number, choosing a few variables, pressing corresponding buttons, etc) is extremely efficient. But have we become TOO efficient?

Think of it with other purchases. Macs come in two colors, white and black. A package not on a car physically in the lot at the dealership involves a lengthy wait process and usually a LOT of extra money. Hell, even most newer neighborhoods offer 3 or 4 models with a handful of color schemes. There is an over-efficiency problem to the extent that institutions offer you only a limited set of choices and what results is a subtle determinism of your behavior. I believe that this isn’t what people really want. They want to be more free. They want to exercise their freedom of choice. Do you remember the old marketing slogan of Burger King? "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us. Today, special orders might not upset them, they just short-circuit their brain synapses. The "Have it your way" mentality of the past is no longer valid. Today, virtually all of the fast food chains are saying "Have it our way". You are not free to choose. And this is a serious issue.

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.

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

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.

Hey folks, just wanted to let you all know a few things. First off, this blog has a new co-author, one I think you’ll all enjoy. My good buddy Matt has been gracious enough to get on board, so let’s all give him a good hello. His first post is below.

Also, I’ve updated the feeds accordingly. Here’s the breakdown:

The entire blog – http://feeds.feedburner.com/RestlessLikeMe

Norcross – http://feeds.feedburner.com/RestlessLikeNorcross
Matt – http://feeds.feedburner.com/RestlessLikeMatt

I always talk about getting rid of cable. Unfortunately, I never get around to it because I have little interest in dropping off the box. And, I have a routine in the morning where I watch Morning Joe on MSNBC. It’s actually a pretty terrible habit if you think about it. But, like all reasonably obsessive compulsive people, I have a hard time breaking habits.

Anyways, I always complain about Morning Joe because the pundit banter is pretty obnoxious and I think Joe Scarborough is a tool. Here’s a guy who went to UF but roots for Bama. That’s like doing a tour of duty in Iraq and going “you know what bro, I just root for Al Queda. I like where their heads’ are at and I think they’ve got a good tradition going on.”

So based on the above example, it’s clear that when watching Morning Joe, you are dealing with a complete boner of a host. As such, there are often many guests who are of the same caliber. Jim Cramer is one of them.

Jim Cramer got his first big break as a journalist by covering the Ted Bundy murders in Tallahassee. In other words, he lived in Tallahassee, which means he probably likes FSU. Hey buddy, you know why you’re bald? It’s not genetics, it’s the Lord’s way of telling you that FSU sucks and you suck for being even remotely associated with them.

Weirdly enough though, these two dipshits got something right this morning. They were talking about health care and Jim Cramer made an excellent point about the social forces that were dictating the debate and could ultimately lead to its defeat. Jim more or less explains that the people who don’t want to raise taxes on the rich are not necessarily the rich, but the average Americans who somehow think they’re going to eventually become rich. Jim goes on to explain that he’s already a millionaire and really doesn’t give a shit if they raise his taxes by a percent or two if it would save the health care system, and potentially save a whole slew of other things being paid for by the federal government. He alludes to the fact that the real problem you have is that too many people in America think they’re going to become millionaires and don’t want to be taxed more once they get there. And! Joe kind of agreed with him by regaling the panel with ridiculous stories from his youth about driving around in the panhandle and wondering how he could live in the big houses on the water and was told that all he had to do was go to school and work real hard and become a congressman and then quit and then get a tv show and then root for Bama even though the school that give him a good education was UF. Fuck you Joe. You’re a dick and I want that diploma back.

Anyway, I’m getting away from their point.

Their real point was that wanting to be a millionaire is cool, but not very likely. I agree with this.

I am not a millionaire, but would like to be. If I were to get there, I wouldn’t mind paying an extra one percent tax for other people’s health care. I’m not the most sympathetic or empathetic person, but it seems reasonable enough. So, Joe or Jim, can you guys show me where I can make a million dollars? I’m not asking for a lottery ticket bro. Just a shot at the big time. Joe, you owe me. You sold out the gator nation and I hate you.

I admit, this blog has been somewhat quiet as of late. I’ve got a few drafts in the works, but they just aren’t quite ready for prime-time yet. Also, I’ve been gearing up for a big change that’s on the horizon (more information to come). In addition, I’ve been working behind the scenes with Jun Loayza and the Viralogy.com team on their new project: Viralogy Themes.

You can read all about it here.

(So does this mean I’m also “living the start-up life”?)

This is from one of my favorite writers, Tim Weaver, who writes at (among other places) at his blog Not So Subtle:

When you start taking care of your minority populations (France) and stop pretending to be anything more than a totalitarian dystopia (Russia) then maybe you can come down to our doorstep and tell us how to run our fucked up, egomaniacal, self-centered, self-gratifying, violent, depraved, hypocritical country. Until then, take that freshly printed newspaper, turn it sideways, and ram it right up your candy ass.

From the recent post “Really Russia? 4 Reals?”

That’s a level of anger and sarcasm I can get behind. Bravo, sir.