Thoughts
New theme, and update.
Posting from my iPod! Just updated wordpress to make use of the touch app for wordpress. Seems pretty slick so far.
Post Demo Camp
I was very impressed. Thanks to all the people, and sponsors that were part of this great day. It was such a great environment to share, and I really got the sense that there was a community vibe. There was a great energy, and anticipation when we showed up, and I was not let down. The sessions I took part in were as follows:
- Angel investors presenting what they are about, and what they look for. This was really cool, as these were some of the group that funded nexopia.com.
- U of A Aerial Robotics Club.
- Fundamental Programming Skills vs Framework Knowledge.
- Accessibility & Usability For Disabled.
- How to ‘be’ a Contractor.
- Emerging Mobile Platforms.
- Zero Budget Marketing.
- Analytics: How it can help.
Probably some of the highlights for me were the angel investor group, the zero budget marketing, and of course the endless supply of beer, and wi-fi.
Tricia Helfer Appreciation Day
Okay, so perhaps not officially, but perhaps it should be. Or, maybe everyday should be. At least if you are a horny sci-fi nerd from Alberta. Sure, Tricia Helfer plays the to-die-for Cylon siren “Number 6″ in the Sci-Fi series Battlestar Galactica (which I may have alreay mentioned that I LOVE), but as it turns out she’s amazing in nearly every possible way. I guess the only things that would keep her from perfection is that, well, she’s married. Or, more accurately, not married to me. Bah, I’m just joking. Seriously though, there are plenty of reasons to love this elegant woman. For starters, she loves animals, and she’s an environmentalist (one that actually does something). And so, please take a moment with me to appreciate this fine lady.
Discipline
So Nine Inch Nails has released a free single on their website, and it’s actually pretty good for a free song. It kind of reminds me more of Only, or With Teeth from the With Teeth album. Ghosts I-IV was pretty good for a free album as well, but it wasn’t really inspiring with the lack of vocals. Is this a sign of what Trent Reznor is planning on doing with his music? I sure hope so. I’ve always appreciated his music, but I’m seeing his entrepreneurial spirit with how he’s marketing his music, and I’m finding it pretty inspiring.
My First Day of Work
Or rather, my first day being self employed again. It turned out to be fairly interesting. A good mix of struggling with Zend Framework, which is awesome in every way despite some often confusing documentation. The classes themselves are documented as well as one could hope for, but there are times when peicing the library together to make an actual framework takes some trial and error.
I also had some issues with SVN not quite working properly. My hunch is that the service I use, and the combination of my wireless network dropping packets like crazy, causing commits to time out, and corrupting my working copy. This technically should not happen, but it did. I had to create a new project, and create the directories manually, and copy over each file, and commit. All 53 files.
I did get a lot done, and I plan on announcing my project within a few days in a fairly big way (at least that is the hope).
Ferrari Dream
I usually don’t like to think selfishly, and I’m not normally one to have materialistic desires. While I’ll admit I do love stylish clothes, and technology gadgets, and rarely pay full price for clothing, and the gadgets I do buy have to be justified fairly well before I lay down the plastic.
I had a dream that I bought a Ferrari last night though. It was pretty sweet. It was used in a race, and was a little quirky, but I really loved it. I think the cool thing about the dream was the feeling of going fast, more so than spending the money. I’m not much of a dream analyst, but I’m pretty sure euphoric feelings, and going fast, or flying are pretty good signs.
Finished BSG Season 3 Last Night
<maybe spoilers> And what made the experience even more awesome is that I had been listening to a song from the soundtrack several times throughout the day, and it ended up being stuck in my head. The song was “All Along The Watchtower”, and I had been humming it to myself. Watching the final episode and seeing some of the characters humming the song in a similar fashion to what I had been doing through out the day gave me shivers. This was a song I knew I already loved, but now seeing what it meant in the season 3 finale, all I can say is “holy frack, that’s awesome”. </maybe spoilers>
I still have Razor to look forward to, but I have a feeling waiting for season 4 will be agonizing to say the least. There are so many questions I have. Perhaps it’s no reason to get excited, but there’s too much confusion, and I can’t get no relief.
Creative People Do Not Make Good Employees
I think that creative individuals are not willing to give their finite time and energy very cheaply, for something that will only get them approval. So if the approval fuel isn’t satisfactory, people tend to get bored and complacent very quickly. I think creative people will tend to start fires to bring some risk and excitement to their uncreative jobs. If the game you’re playing isn’t big enough, you’ll do something to screw it up, just to make it interesting. Meaning you’ll slack off, and leave all your tasks till the last second, just to get a rush of adrenaline, and satisfaction.
I find it so disheartening in the corporate world, that the gift of being well rounded is as undervalued as it is. The ability to learn new skills very quickly, and be a very well rounded individual, is extremely important when it comes to becoming a successful entrepreneur. But, when you’re hired to do a task within a corperation, you are asked to specialize in a subset of those skills, and you will always peak very quickly, and begin to stagnate those other muscles that aren’t being used. This, for me, is when I began to feel frustrated, and feel like a loose cannon, even though that is not a natural personality trait for me.
This sort of paints a picture of how I’ve felt very recently at a job, that I had very high hopes for. But I think there are many differences between looking for approval, and looking for appreciation in what you do. I think if approval is what creates security in a persons life, appreciation is what creates the passion. Like, it’s if you were at the most amazing concert of your life, and somebody told you that the music was terrible. You’d probably laugh at the idiot, and keep on rocking out. Where I think approval really stems from insecurity.
I think appreciation is the fuel for the creative. I plan on looking for more of it in my life.