Readjusting to New/Old Environs

I have molasses on my feet. I guess it's going to take a few days of this to get into the swing of jumping into morning work. I was distracted this morning by my guitar, then the BeeGees, Jeff Goldblum, wikipedia and CBC's Jian Ghomeshi's show QTV - the youtube version, not the live one that is going on just now if I were to turn on my radio. Then I was distracted by my dislke of Naomi Klein and I had to look for some video to reassure myself that I actually do dislike her so much - and found it on the Bill Maher talk show. Yeesh.

I do in fact have some will power but you'd never know it. I should refill my tea cup and get another crack at starting this.

I am also trying to get my neice's address to send a baby gift outfit that is now only big enough to fit around the kid's wrist, but nobody seems to have her address.

Uh-oh, I just thought of facebook as a way to contact her - I'm sure that will eat some more time.

Well, there you go - it certainly did - connecting with neices and such. Better wrap this up and get that tea. Morning is almost thru!

Researcher laments his distracted work day...

Monday - Black Monday

I must have the worst timing for venture launching. Well, maybe this won't affect the venture markets as much as the banking markets. As a start-up I don't expect to get any bank help anyway.

But the Americans have sure screwed things up. I've been trying to think of the best analogy for what they're doing. Their house has currently rejected the bailout package as they are afraid of the optics for their constituents.

But it makes no sense, because by not putting this support in place, their constituents will have get severely hammered as a result. Are people really that incapable of seeing the big picture? There were stupid deregulation moves made, which made the finance industry crash, and as it threatens to take down the rest of the economy, the people refuse to shore up the remains.

Analogy one. Lawmakers remove speed-limits on all highways. A bus immediately crashes, all the people are pinned under flaming wreckage, and the townsfolk refuse them ambulance aid because the speed limit removal was a stupid idea.

Not bad, but missing the grander repercussions.

Analogy two: A city's building codes are eliminated. Some idiot builds a 30 storey sky scraper in a residential neighbourhood. As the building starts to crumble, the neighbours stop the city's rescue trucks and work crews from stabilizing the situation because it was stupid to remove the building code. "Why should we use city taxes to fix that crappy building" they exclaim. Instead the building falls over and wipes out most of the neighbouring houses sets the rest aflame.

That's pretty good. It has both the stupid initial situation and the damage to both the bad guys and the innocents who are too stupid to allow the remedial action.

Anyway, I guess we need a good, nasty correction to the economic world every decade or so to scare another round of people.

I wonder how many politicians sold short before going in to vote, and are now covering their positions and picking up long positions before going back in for another round of voting and approving it. They'll make money on the way down and back up as the rich get richer and the poor get further hosed.

Meanwhile, lil ol' me is working away in my tiny office, minding my own business. Had a tasty goat roti for lunch, and got some decent exercise in as well. That should make up for some of this incessant desktime my project inflicts upon me.

Researchinator watches the world burn.

Back from Hiatus

A brief hiatus comes to a close. What an awesome couple of days it was too. Rather than worry about research goals, threw a canoe on my car and was off the the Canadian wilderness for some solo canoe camping.

It was everything that it should be. Being autumn and midweek, it was very quiet, with the whole 5km lake paddle to myself. It was pristine and perfect. I did forget my camera at home, but as usual the world is well documented by others already, so what the heck. Here are some pictures from flickr - not sure if blogger will support showing these - but if not, just click on the resulting graphical detritus:










The photos are a credit to their respective photographers. :)

Back in the saddle on a Friday, I'm hoping to clean up some underlying plumbing. I want to dump my ISP and get a new one, and in preparation, I have to move lots of email addresses in various locations, to a final, lifelong location. This will no doubt blow lots of my time, but it's a necessary evil.

Also, I have an old website for my previous consulting business. I need to update that to something suitably shell like, and use it as a thin means to connect should I wish to do some consulting for cash along the way.

Lots of housekeeping to do before I can move onto my real work. Ugh - I need some staff!

Researchinator picks up a broom and gets down to it.

Off Topic!

Morning was a bunch of baking for me today. I guess I've pretty much had the day off. Then again, I was working on 'the project' yesterday evening somewhat, so I don't feel too bad.

So I made several loaves of bread in the morning, then started gathering stuff for camping tomorrow. I also altered my canoe a bit to include tie-downs for gear. Also sewed some straps for holding the canoe on the roof of the car more securely.

Then some shopping - dealing with someone who showed interest in an appliance we've listed for sale. And a bit of organizing food for the trip.

Got an evening meeting I should really start walking toward. Then tonight, I need to remember to make some pancake batter and freeze it over night. Tomorrow, out I go. Hmmm. Also want to fix my axe handle. Do you think I'll remember all this stuff? Seems unlikely.

Researchinator isn't doing any just now...

A Weeks Worth of Open Space in Front of Me

Got the day started off with appt's - but ones I'd have done if I were still in corporate environment. Part of my annual (okay triennial) physical to go get tests for the usual stuff (cholesterol etc). Then back to my home office and digging into the programming.

The challenge at this point is to move my applications along toward full demo capability. It should be easier now with fewer distractions. My work so far today has been focussed on platform related UI presentation. Font sizing and positioning take too much time with this process. I wish there were a better way!

The day is sunny and cool. Shaping up towards a good mid-week break - when I throw a canoe on the car and head out for a spot of camping. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to paddle my through the autumn weather and enjoy the time communing with nature. Of course, getting time alone is hardly a central value now, so that part of it is not so much of a goal. But the getting out into the bush is a high value for me, given my childhood in such environs. I miss it when I'm away for too long.

I should take some time to plan my food for the trip and gather some gear together.

Researchinator works at tuning time and task constraints...

Free at Last, Free at last

The tyranny of freedom. The structure is imposed by myself - but I've been through this before so know what to expect. And there is now shortage of stuff to do. Keeping a balance of home-related chores and start-up focussed activities is the tough part. The weather is changing, and last night was a cold night. I've been thinking I should get the furnace ready - just a quick vacuuming, clean the filter and keep a close watch over the first ignition, check the flame colour etc.

So I did that as my first, and very symbolic, chore this morning. Some warmth spread through the house and symbolize the stoking of the flames under my ass to get going.

Here I am now at a restaurant enjoying a leisurely breakfast, and catching up on the first 'each morning' blog of the latest phase of my life. I have lunch today with an old friend and former colleague. I had some conversations yesterday with a very experienced start-up guy who put together a successful company (before being pushed out at some point), and a patent lawyer for my old firm, with some ideas about where to get some cheap patent work done.

A chat with another old friend a couple of nights ago might lead to some space where I can put down some daily roots.

Then, on the other side of the 'life balance' I'm going to enjoy myself too. I need to get a bit of paraphernalia for my canoe, and perhaps even take it out for a brief paddle today to test it out, and again perhaps tomorrow with my SO.

So the first day unfolds (hmmm, why is unfolding good, but unravelling bad?).

Researchinator explores folding and ravelling options.

A final day at the bastion of oceanographic research. The desk is clear. I have a couple of folders worth of stuff to take home, but mostly it's all cleaned up. A bit of final use of my computer before sacrificing it to the asset redistribution gods.

As I free myself from these shackles I will impose new ones of course. More financial than hierarchically obligatory; more self-imposed than imposed through the structure of an organization. Sending notes to various colleagues is kind of fun. Being careful not to burn any bridges, though I can't help but think about the people here whose motivations are totally self-serving, empire building, and adversarial. Perhaps I just havn't been here long enough, but I can't imagine taking such a negative approach to my daily job.

Still, the experience has been fun. The opportunity to explore a new organization entertaining and one cannot help but learn stuff in such an environment.

Researchinator signing off - changing gears - starting a new chapter.

The Big Cleanout

The challenge of going through a big pile of files - both paper and digital - is a daunting one. When you know that each sheet - each megabyte - was a significant effort. Sometimes involving days to get the wording right, it makes it all the more tough to throw them into the recycling bin.

But such is my lot today. However, I've left jobs before, and don't kid myself about the opportunity to either a) reuse any of this stuff in the future, and b) find someone else that will value the work. So into the dumpster it all goes.

My environment is pretty much down to bare bones now. A few file folders of stuff I'll keep. Actually one of them peeking out at me is full of maps for various cities I've visited in this job. I suppose with google maps etc I can just toss those as well.

The challenge of getting rid of old computer files is a bit more substantial. Especially as some of them are software developments. I suppose a big chunk of the effort there was learning environments, languages etc, and the loss is not total, as I retain some of that. However, it's still tough to flush the bucket on those files too.

Tomorrow we'll do a kind of half day. I'm certainly thinking about my new venture. I need to do some incorporation stuff - and I should probably limit what I do on my biz computer, as I don't want to leave any files behind by accident. It's easy to get into the habit of storing a copy of things you do for safekeeping. Post cleanup, I don't want to do any of that.

I think my final step will be to reformat my hard drive perhaps.

For now, I think I'll do some surfing to answer a few questions in my head. Maybe plan my canoe route for next week. Then I'll be on my way. Tomorrow - the end is nigh!

It seems that whenever I change jobs, the stock market takes a significant plunge. So, perhaps it's not the sub-prime mortgage crisis afterall, but rather just my change of employment that's caused this!

Researchinator tries to look forward rather than backward.

Transition is Palpable

The shape of things to come. Left the office a bit early today for a Dr's appointment (long delayed physical). So with that and a rather leisurely afternoon afterward, it's a bit of a hint of my next week, and several months afterwards - free-form working. Take time if you want it.

Of course, leading oceanographic research is much like that anyway. I mean there is nobody cracking a whip. But still not reporting to anyone is a feature I will enjoy.

Then again, in my interactions there becomes much more of a sense of trying to get someone to buy into our religion. Well, lunches and beers are scheduled. Starting with a close circle of contacts and gradually growing from there. I need to shake the bushes for all the contacts I can get in the venture related area. Already I've described some of my ideas with folks, and more of that as my stealthiness gradually dissipates in coming months perhaps.

But now, my biggest concern is the cat that is moaning for food. Poor starving, chubby cat.

Effort-wise, I've been slogging away. Moving development tools onto a Mac OSX platform. Some of it has been good (e.g. the Unix-like environment is so refreshing after winpc), but others a challenge. I've totally bogged down with trying to build a little piece of junk called psycopg2 which just totally refuses to come together on the Mac 'tiger' platform. I junked that puppy in favour of SQLite - which was pretty painless to build and install.

Well a bit of time still left in the day. I think I'll google some camping options for next week. I hope to take one night, and the days on either side for a little communing with nature.

Researchinator stops to smell the trees.

Wilderness Retreat?

The transition to mac from PC for work activities is going ok. Hope to complete it today. The work I'm doing has lots of bits of open source applications required, and getting them all installed and mutually connected takes some work.

I'm contemplating my activity for next week. I am seriously thinking of taking a day or two to go camping. Load up the canoe and veg out in the Canadian wilds. Actually, I'd probably go nuts thinking of all the things I should be doing, and end up on my cell phone making cold-calls to VC's from beside a fire on a Northern lake.

Then again, I realized my laptop matches my canoe - a white macBook and a white 'Bob Special' Hmmm I wonder if they make laptop holders for canoes?

Researchinator anticipates decompression lakeside.

Migration in Progress

This may seem counter intuitive, but my blogging has suffered today from having too much computer time. I have my home mac laptop here with me in the workplace as I try and get an equivalent environment in place for development work at home. With all the machinations it's kept me away from more frivolous activity, such as keeping the blog up to date.

Yesterday a group of us went out for lunch to acknowledge our departure - that was nice. A card signed by all and sundry. Many unknown folk, but that's fine. A lunch today with my irrational republican friend. :)

Over to my left disk space continues to ebb away from my mac's hard drive as I install things and I cringe each time. Ugh - I'm going to need some more storage.

This is kind of a good example of what's ahead of me... resources eroding away as I prepare to move out of one work environment into another. Oy.

Researchinator prepares for the big departure week...

The Old Corporate Slog

Nothing worse than meetings when you're on your way out of a company. Oh wait, yes there is. I can imagine that having your departure cancelled when you're already in the mindset of moving on would be pretty rough. Well, for a dysfunctional organization anyway. If it were a hard hitting, success story of an oceanographic research organization, it would be exciting to be kept on. But when it's crumbling around those who remain... well, that would be deflating.

And I've got a meeting about the hand-off of our old work - which was stopped months ago, and in which I have totally lost interest. That's going to be a tough session.

Anyway, presentations are flying around with big plans for the future. High tech lobster traps, levitating ocean skimmers and autonomous diving robots. In the background there's always mention of the big inventions of the past... like from the 40's and 50's that the organization did. Like the discovery of whole new species of mollusks and the first crab tagging apparatus. The ivory tower is shored up by old logs and duct tape, but it's still there.

Meanwhile I'm getting my own tower built. Well, it's more of a foundation, a platform perhaps. Got my URL and place holder web page in place. The first step for any modern company, even before incorporating. We'll see if it ever gets much further than this, but for now it's a start.

Researchinator wishes this last week was over!

Theme Songs Embellish Daily Life

Just noticing that I provide theme music between scenes in my life. I finish a task, and turn to the kettle behind me to make some tea, and a short jingle emits from my whistling lips.

Thinking about the tune, I'm not sure what it is. My life-guiding theory is that all behaviours come from prototype events in your first 5-10 years, so I suspect that these happy little 4 second tunes I use for such transitions are from Gilligan's Island, or Partridge family or something.

Ah, how we are defined by the popular media of our childhood.

The day's a wasting, but I've been pretty productive. The little tasks on my project today have advanced me surprisingly close to a demonstrable proof-of-concept path. I have crafted a tool that allows me to create some stuff that gets handled by a server to deliver to people over the internet. There, that's vague enough I think. Well, the stuff I create is taking shape pretty well. A big chunk of it was created with a few lines of code today, which kind of surprised me. Ah the beauty of Python. I'm working a bit without a schedule: well, I have a high level one here, but it's pretty loose. It's nice to work with such constraints... but achieving one's goals is then driven primarily by your enthusiasm. There's a lot of that in the early days of a project. But I'm a good one for losing interest along the way... so I need to ensure there's a bit of structure in place.

Well, back to work.
Researchinator: "Doo be do, do, do, do, dum dum, dum dum" (transistion music)

Taking Scary Steps Forward...

Starting to think about the tough stuff, as I'm distracted from my coding time by the impending departure from the big 'oceanographic research' firm that has been home for a couple of years. The tough steps are getting other people involved (ie building a team) and looking for funding. The latter sucks, as everyone immediately puts themselves in the place of mentor, regardless of their experience. The talking in platitudes, and telling you obvious stuff is that hardest to take. Someone who has never held down a real job, will sit there and explain the 'importance of market research' or 'revenue' to me. Puhleese.

Oh well - it's a necessary evil if I want to avoid mortgaging my house for a risky venture. Meanwhile, I've nailed down a name, and need to buy the URL and incorporate. Best jump into this thing full bore or I'll not be committed enough to make a go of it.

And I've still got to round up some reasonable collaborators and advance the coding side of things!

Researchinator wonders if he should just look for a job!

No Show

Ugh - migraine morning. Not a good one, but trying to focus on some work, and making a bit of progress. Really would rather just sit in a dark, windy room. (Yeah, I know doesn't make sense but just ask someone who lives with migraines).

Staring at this white background is hard on the eyes, so I'll stop there.

What is in a Name... and is it Available?

Well I should get used to this - I'm in the home office and trying to get stuff done on my project. I've been thinking about company names and not having really good luck. I've got a short list of perhaps 20, but I'm not sure which one to go with. My original working name is a bit too long and perhaps not clear. I'd like something that's vague enough to not paint us into a corner on product direction, weird enough to be unique on google, and specific enough to make sense with what our initial core offering is.

Then on top of that, finding an available URL is a challenge as well.

Searching URL availabililty is a bit of a hassle, but I came across a great site, with a live typing box (no doubt using a back-end xmlhttprequest) to give you live feedback as you type. So you can check dozens of names in a very short time. It's located here: instantdomainsearch.com There, my first plug for someone else's venture.

So working from home so that I could get ready (done) for a visitor who will take my kitchen cab's away from me for a few bucks. Finally, the garage will be cleaned up a bit, and I can do some other stuff that requires that space.

Anyway, I've not been too productive today so far, but am comfortably positioned in the home office. And, it's time for lunch.

Researchinator ponders what's edible in the house.

Back to School

Even those outside the kids-to-school ritual can't help but be aware of the goings on this morning, and I immediately think about getting my Susan Anton binder and my Star Wars pencil case together to head out the door, and catch the bus for the hour-long ride to school.

Thankfully that has turned to putting the laptop in my back and my cell in my pocket and driving a leisurely 20min to the office... And soon that will involve rolling out of bed and shifting to the room on the left.

But the morning school thing has kicked in again. Glad to see that structure return, but will be sorry to see the parking lot fill up next week, with the vacations all over and the traffic picking up. But hey, just for a week or two.

Meanwhile, I'm also eager to get back into my project and make some headway. My previous entry probably sounds suitably positive and raring to go. Alas it was not to be as a nasty headache showed up later that morning, and I managed merely to launch the deployment of my project archive, while holding my head in pain, and it went it's usual 14 hours wiping out all my eagerness and positivity.

So here I am again - feeling reasonably coherent this morning as I head into my day, the project beckons me, but so does email, as I can take a look to see if their is any response to my deployed archive.

Researchinator is back at school.