This is my favorite app on the iPhone.

I was looking around for information on Jawbox, one of my favorite bands from the late 80’s, early 90’s. I got to see them live a couple of times when they came out to the west coast. The lead singer, guitar player, and founding member was J. Robbins who was also the bass player for Goverment Issue. Anyhoo, I came across this page on DeSoto records, their label, about J.’s son Callum, DeSoto Records: For the Benefit of Cal Robbins.

Check it out.

Growing up is hard to do. I mean, come on, why should I be concerned about things like housing prices, making responsible decisions with my money, and our government’s inability to balance a budget? For some reason, I’m supposed to be concerned about these things now that I’m a father and a husband and … a grown-up. Ooh! Who wants that label? Not me. Funny thing though, even though I don’t want the label, the concerns I’ve brought up are things that I am really worried about.

Many people make resolutions when a new year approaches. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. Usually when I do, they only last temporarily so that’s why I’m hesitant to make any for 2008. Plus, when you write them down, you’re so earnest in your determination but it never works out like that, does it?

Maybe it’s the Christmas season and being around family and friends, I always get introspective when a new year is right around the corner. I worry about the economy, the kids, the house, the job, etc. I wish that I had the time to examine the moral and ethical decisions that I have to make this coming year before they happen. What will they be? I wonder if the mistakes that were made in 2007 will be made in 08. That includes my mistakes as well as others. The big four-oh is right around the corner for me. What will that be like? Read more  »

We had the privilege of touring Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Pennsylvania last week.

Fallingwater is recognized as one of Wright’s most acclaimed works, and in a 1991 poll of members of the American Institute of Architects, it was voted “the best all-time work of American architecture.” It is a supreme example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s concept of organic architecture, which promotes harmony between man and nature through design so well integrated with its site that buildings, furnishings, and surroundings become part of a unified, interrelated composition. Wright embraced modern technology to achieve this, designing spaces for living which expressed architecturally the expansive freedom of the American frontier.

I think it was the best house I’ve ever been in and I don’t think I will ever see another like it. It was absolutely amazing. Here’s a link to my pictures.

Want to see an example of someone who thinks they lived through the punk rock era but probably missed it completely. Go read The Punk Rock Brand. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Ok, now here we go …

The author, Darryl Ohrt, says

“Punk rock is more than music, it’s a life philosophy. Punks reject what society considers the norm; they question authority and they fight to be different and make a difference.”

Ok, that sounds good. Punk rockers in the early 80’s were hippies who did more than spread slogans about making love not war and they tried to make the world a better place. But then, he says,

“Within the punk rock credo of my youth were the seeds of a larger business philosophy. Ten years in a boutique design and branding firm has shown me how valuable the punk rock attitude is to a successful brand plan. The brands that consistently rise to the top have questioned everything that’s been done before. Adding “X” to a razor’s name? Just a lame attempt at buying an audience with weak, non-genuine branding. Inventing a razor for shaving heads? Totally punk rock.”

Um, no. Punk rock is not about marketing and it is definitely not the seeds of “a larger business philosophy.” Punk rock was not and is not about simply questioning what has come before; part of it was about questioning authority that dictated what was “normal” without any basis for saying so. Another part of the punk rock mentality was about holding onto what was right and true (for example, fighting injustice or protesting a life defined by material things). It was never about marketing. It was, in part, anti-capitalist.

If punks “question authority” and “fight to be different and make a difference”, then they also fight against those who would reduce a movement to a marketing strategy.

Perhaps the author has confused bands like Green Day with punk rock. Not the same thing.

I’ve already broken my promise about publishing an entry every day this week. My only excuse is laziness.

I’ve been getting a new video of Liam ready for the site but its not quite done yet. He is walking now and its quite funny. It should be ready for next week.

In the coming weeks, I will be working my way through varoius problems in combinatorics and writing about them here. Combinatorics is the field of mathematics concerned with problems of selection, arrangement, and operation within a finite or discrete system. It includes permutations, probabilities, and other such topics concerned with how one can arrange distinct and non-distinct items.

So, for starters, Pascal’s Triangle offers all kinds of fun problems and solutions.

I’ve been wanting to write more. Not just blog more often but write essays, how-tos, and just write out ideas that have come to mind. Problem is, as soon as an idea comes, it goes. Writing has become a major personal project and one that I’ve been procrastinating about for awhile.

I’ve been motivated by Jason Kottke’s How I Blog article. Its a commentary on Seth Godin’s What Makes An Idea Viral? where it’s explained how simple ideas can move so fast and complex ones take some time to digest and move from person to person. There’s a price to be paid for putting an idea into writing. One must (1) understand the idea, (2) must want it to spread, and (3) believe that spreading the idea is worth the time to write about it. (Actually, Seth has four points - I’ve condensed the last two into one because “enhancing one’s power or one’s peace of mind” is the benefit for taking the time to spread the idea.) Simple ideas are easy to write down and share. Hence, they proliferate on the web. Complex ideas take time to understand and their benefits don’t always outweigh what it takes to explain them.

One way that I’ve found to organize my ideas is through mind maps. I’ve been working through The Mind Map Book and getting acquainted with FreeMind. According to Wikipedia, “A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, and decision making.” They’ve been tremendous at allowing me to follow an idea to a conclusion or alternative idea that wouldn’t have normally come to me and they’ve made it possible to retain a thought that was originally arrived at via some process that’s hard to record with just plain notes.

Another productivity rule that I’ve learned over the years is to decide - first thing in the morning - what is your most important action item of the day. If it can be done (you’re not waiting for anything else in order to do it), then DO IT. Don’t check email, don’t clear your desk (it should be cleared from the day before), don’t call your boss. Do that most-important-action-item right at the beginning. The rest of the day will flow much better.

So, I’ve decided that, for the rest of the week, my most important action item every day is to publish a written entry to the blog. I’ve got my ideas organized now. Instead of trying to figure out why I can’t put thought to written word, I’m going to just do it. Everyday. No matter what the cost. No matter how inconsequential the idea.

Liam is starting to learn words but we’re not really sure what they mean. “Ma-ma” seems to be baby-talk for “I want” and in order to make people laugh he says “Da … da”.

I’ve had no time to post anything this month. So I thought I’d do a roundup of things that happened in the month of April with a look ahead at things coming up in May. I’ve found that it helps keep some perspective on things when I take some time to reminisce at the end of a month.

To start, Joy and I got to take a week-long trip to Seattle. I’ve uploaded some pictures of our adventure to the Pacific Northwest, including a day-trip up to Victoria, British Columbia and the beautiful Butchard Gardens. I was there for a three-day work conference so we decided to make it a whole week and get a couple of days to ourselves. It was great to be there, just the two of us, but we missed the kids tremendously. Josh and Carie, uncle and aunt extraordinaire, were so kind in watching the kido-monkeys while were gone.

Easter has always been my favorite holiday. Even as a kid, for some reason, I was always drawn more to Easter egg hunts that I was to decorating a Christmas tree. Plus, even growing up in Southern California (where there are no seasons), the time of year, spring, just seemed better. In terms of theological significance (for Christians), Christmas is a celebration of the incarnation and Easter is when we look to the atonement and resurrection of Christ. The incarnation is important - don’t read me wrong - but the atonement is what really matters in the whole scheme of redemptive history. Anyways … here are some pictures of the kids all decked out in their Easter Sunday clothes.

Before we left for Seattle, Liam was starting to crawl. Yet, he wasn’t sure of himself and was crashing quite often. By the time we had gotten back, he was an old pro at it. Now’s he’s a speed crawler. I’ll put up some video soon.

The trip to Seattle also marked the release date for the project at work that’s kept me busy for so long. I don’t think I’ll be any less busy in the coming months, but it does feel good to get the thing out of development and in front of customers. If you’d like to know more about it, you can read about Market Manager at the i3 Innovus (my company’s new name) web site. We’ve re-engineered the product using Macromedia (now Adobe) Flex on the front-end and the Microstrategy platform for the data crunching back-end. Its been very cool to see it come together and we’ve got some glowing responses from current customers.

The Month of May is always a sprint for me. It includes mom’s birthday, Joy’s birthday, Mother’s day, our anniversary, and now Liam’s birthday. Not to mention that I’m starting up a new segment of online coursework and working on some certification stuff for work. Wew!

Liam is turning one on May 26th. Joy is sending out invitations to a big pool party on Memorial day weekend to celebrate. Here’s a blurb that Joy thought up for the invitation:

I love the water And I’m turning One, So won’t you join me For some pool party fun?

As I have time, I’m going to be making some incremental changes to this site. I’m getting bored with the picture of my book shelf up above and I’d like to make the site more accessible and extensible. I’d also like to make more frequent updates to the web site but, as I’ve already stated, things are hectic around here. Finally, I’ve wanted this site to contain some writing and work that I’ve done on the web so as to attract clients for some freelance work. I will start to do that and migrate pictures and more “personal” stuff to a sub-site of this one. Stay tuned.

These are two movies that I recently uploaded to Google Video. Hope you enjoy them.