elizabeth grigg - the other fourth meal

Just a quick post to lament that I can't go to MindCamp and probably can't make it to SXSW or anything else cool this year either. At least, not unless something completely unpredictable happens.

Remember "froth" as in the housing market? Greenspan? Yeah, that guy has a way with words. Well, if your schedule is anything like mine, you need some froth in order to be able to fit these things in. Things are so optimized on a day to day basis, that a weekend away is like a shaken up can of soda. I need to remember this when making decisions, all those small decisions that shape a life but nevertheless lead to the one big decision to eliminate the possibility of time to "waste" - perhaps having a plan for froth would be in order?

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 06:00 AM | Permalink

... and the worst thing any adult can do for his blog is to encourage it.

How about:

"Ban Patrick's Blog! Ban Patrick's Blog!"

Or:

"Ohhh, Patrick, you are in such trouble for blogging!"

Please, no more pats on the back for the guy, he needs all the discouragement he can get.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 05:53 AM | Permalink

What would happen if all those pretty, clean, well adjusted, and racially diverse individuals who show themselves in stock photography pictures decided to stand up and rebel?

Like "This is complete misrepresentation. I would never smile at the idea of corporate security and safety. Never."

Or "What, I'm holding an apple and smiling. But I'm not smiling AT the apple. It's just a freakin' apple. The photographer was making a joke. Now I look like an idiot."

Or "This was NOT A MEETING. This was a PHOTO SHOOT. Sure, we look productive, and one of us is pointing at the computer monitor, but seriously. I'm about to fall over, and Ben here has post-doughnut drool that they photoshopped out."

I have developed an extreme loathing for stock photography, and wonder inordinately much about the people in the photos themselves. Meaningless? Meaning? How much of the individual is in the picture, their personality? Why do we consider these photos "stock?"

There is a piece of post-911 stock photography on the Seattle Metro area buses. It says "ride right" which is some sort of slogan. The person staring out at you intently is saying if something doesn't "look right," tell the bus driver. This is great language.

"Ma'am, that lady is wearing pantyhose. Yes, Nude color. Yeah, I didn't think it was right either. We need to call 1975 and send her home. OK See ya."

"Mister bus driver, that kid is biting the heads off all his caramel corn and putting the tentacle stubs back in the bag."

This particular piece of stock photography, however, is the complete opposite of most. This person is African American, maybe mid-60s. You can't really tell if it's a man or a woman. S/he has h/her hand on face, framing those kind of "good skin" wrinkles people sometimes get if they're lucky. These are the wrinkles that are deliberate, they have a smoothness to them, even though they are still there. The nose is roman and crafted and natural at the same time. The mouth is curvy in a statuesque kind of way.

But it's the eyes that sell the piece. The eyes stare right at you, like "We know better now, don't we. And we don't want to go back to those ignorant days." And you just have to agree, no matter who the idiot was who wrote the accompanying text slash instructions for us to follow.

I imagine little armies of stock photography models, this amazing eyes character at the front. All on foot, marching through towns, passing posters on corporate walls, jumping up over splash screens on power point presentations, obscuring these images physically and inserting real world experience for this canned fakery. Oh, and negotiating a better royalty deal too.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 05:48 AM | Permalink

There is an old joke about a guy who dies and ends up going to hell. The devil gives him a choice of places to spend eternity. The first place people were (doing something unspeakable, my imagination refuses to drum up for you). In the second place, it was no better. Something like getting your hair set on fire or something. But in the third place, people were standing knee deep in shit, and drinking coffee out of cups. The guy said, "that's the place for me!" and was granted admission. Then, when he had his spot, the devil said "ok guys, coffee break's over. Back to standing on your heads!"

I bring this up because I booted my computer tonight - I'm supposed to be working on my solutions homework but here I am - because I was going to take down my previous post. Or at least re-read it to make sure it was not too venomous. I think it is bad form to post something negative about a life experience of someone else's, when they are speaking from their own experience, not mine. Truthfully, the last post had nothing to do with anyone else's opinion, but was the thing that woke up a beast of my own that has been sleeping for a while.

It's true that it's not fair that life is hard. This week, I finished our scheduling meeting with my dh, trying to maximize productivity and usefulness out of every second, and I pushed the computer away. "I don't want this week," I said. Of course, what I really meant was, I don't want to cook for it. The week actually looks pretty good, especially after I filled the fridge with take-out. Paper plates and plastic forks and it's practically nirvana around here. We will see. It's been years since I boycotted the kitchen and I hope it lasts as long as I need it to.

But fairness again. Fair is having a busy week with no time to yourself and allowing yourself a kitchen boycott. Fair is not even considering writing that musical you wanted to write, or buying a guitar, or figuring out how to buy a plane ticket anywhere. Do I procrastinate about these things? No, it's just that it's not fair or reasonable for me to expect to do them.

Sometimes people think they're offering consolation when they recognize with you that life is hard. Hey, I can do hard. I do hard every day, with coffee breaks in between, thank you. It's the kind of consolation where people recognize that sometimes life isn't even possible that is rare and far between. The taskload is not attainable or even attempt-able with the current taskload. That's where those of us instead of adding to our troubles by maintaining the large taskload, delaying ALL tasks via mindless activity, decide instead to trim down. It's an act of faith, that sometime soon a new window of time will come for different activities, and all will get their turn.

So, you be the judge of whether I was a jackass or not. I think yes - but in an interesting way - so I should keep the post up. I certainly owe everyone a continued explanation of why the concept of procrastination as an everyday occurrence for most people is, um, "misguided." Obviously I'm working through issues same as everyone else. Let's see if the topic comes up again.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:26 PM | Permalink

Today I'm reading from the letter T. I chose it because it happened to fit sequentially with my previous choice, and it also looked a little lonely for some reason.

I clickthroughed lots of links based on this read. I could not resist finding out how much $$ my blog was worth. In case you were wondering, it's about 5k. I was also interested in hearing more about the concept of "radical careering" as well as a visual style of mapping goals.

However, no other post in the list got my dander up like this seemingly innocuous advice. In blogs, the dander always wins, so here we are. Today's post is about the mythical evil of procrastination.

I remember procrastination from back in college, and before. As a disenfranchised, unempowered human being who is killing time until you get your degree, or until something happens to you that you can't predict, procrastination makes sense. There are lots of ways to move the boulder up that hill all by yourself. But will it matter? Will it make any difference? There will always be another boulder. And college still lasts four years no matter what, it seems. Still, some amount of responsibility has kicked in. In each day, one spends maybe 1 or 2 hours on basic necessities of life, which seems like an aghastly practical and reasonable number in fact. However, it is incredibly aggressive. 1-2 hours means you eat in a cafeteria, you have no lawn to mow, and have a small amount of personal space to keep clean. It also means you have no children or dogs etc. relying on your expert sandwich making capabilities. What to do, then, with the other 22 hours of the day? Let's take a reasonable amount of sleep, for college age might be 10 hours at the outside. 12 hours of discretionary time per day. Of course you would "procrastinate" by watching TV or goofing around and partying. The part of you that has woken up to what it means to be responsible knows that every hour is precious. But the fixed parameters of your possibilities - a 4 year term, limited immediate gain - makes us turn to things that are more rewarding in the short term.

This is why I find it amazing that when I read material targeted at grown-ups, procrastination is still raised as an issue, as if "It's OK, lots of people have this problem." I don't know what to say to this. Perhaps this is true and there are lots of people out there who are adults, and have a problem with procrastination. Perhaps my nurturing inner voice is a drill sargent with a bull whip. But it doesn't ring true with my experience both personally and observing others in the thick of things. What I observe is people - adults, I mean - feel quite vividly that every action they take is exquisitely crucial to success, not just their own, but their company's, their family's, perhaps for their social network. They are not trapped in a fixed situation where accomplishments will complete on its own pace. There is no vesting schedule for success. No, it is possible to sidestep entire quagmires of failure by getting out and achieving something. Look, here is an example of this from the letter T group I read today. Our actions are proportional to what we accomplish. As a result, we don't procrastinate. We just lament that we don't have enough sleep, or time, or effective painkillers and high quality coffee to make it through the day to our own expectations. The accusation of procrastination - with all its collegiate baggage - is off the mark for those of us who are in what I would call the critical years. Everything counts in large amounts, as they say. And procrastination is not just banished from our lives as if forcibly ejected, but unconsidered. Simply not even present. Procrastination is neither entertained or longed for. I would not long for a moment of procrastination any more than I would long for a meal of top ramen - something else I did through college ad nauseum. Why go back?

I'm sorry guys, but help me understand. Is this a problem people above the age of 22 really have? Even childless, dogless, metrosexuals living in tiny urban apartments seem to be achievement oriented with every nanosecond these days, so no fair blaming the kids or the lawn. I just don't get how adult lives can still exist where every nanosecond doesn't critically matter to some world-saving enterprise.

Rather than getting over our procrastination, I would like to understand how to sit on a porch for years at a time, listen to the phasing bzzzt sound of your and your neighbor's bug zappers, drink mint juleps, and watch the kids grow up in the most passive sense imaginable.

OK that's enough picking on the letter T.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I recently organized all my feeds alphabetically. My hopes was to target the same approximate number of posts per group. Tonight I read U-Z, because it was at the end, and had a low number of entries.

It's very strange reading all these people's posts together. It's like a strange but memorable bus ride that goes on forever, you end up loving everyone in the end, but nobody really has anything in common but the bus ride. I have Scalzi next to KC Lemson, and then Mossberg's baseball feed in there. And why I haven't unsubscribed from Zach Braff yet I have no idea. I suppose someone has to have the looks around here (sorry, Walt).

As with any life change, getting a job suddenly makes new things matter and other things suddenly not matter. My ulterior motive to reading alphabetically is to beef up my secret A list of weblogs that happen to matter to me at the moment. Because honestly, I can't describe it, but I will know it when I see it.

All links to everybody are listed flatly to the left on the html version of this blog.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 11:06 PM | Permalink

Of all weeks, this is the week for the recurrence of the mysterious toe pain from outer space. It's not an ingrown toenail. It's not anything in any book. The toe looks fine. It feels like it is giving birth.

So, goodbye sleep. Goodbye exercise. Goodbye cooking. I even did not want to go into the pumpkin patch corn maze (ironic name, eh!) because I would get lost and have to walk out of there on my feet. Where is the hay ride when you need one?

If you have had a baby, you remember how you looked at your parenting class teacher when s/he told you that you would fall asleep during contractions. Then it comes true. This is now my entire life. When will it mysteriously end, just as it mysteriously begins?

Did I mention I am trying out a new contact lens prescription, which keeps me from being able to even see the words on the screen here? I looked in the mirror today and saw red, bleary, tortured contact lens eyes, with nice dark circles underneath, and also welts where my padless glasses dig into my nose. I had just put the lenses in. I looked - not ugly, not beautiful, but more like ambitious and desperate. I still look that way. Of course I can't really see.

Right now I have taken 1 neurontin, 1 mexican platter, 1 watered down margarita, and 2 tylenol PMs. The P in this case stands for premature because my 5 year old has left is bed and is bonding again with a toy called the hulk hands which was on a semi-permanent time out.

It gets better. I get new glasses and new contacts tomorrow. I have yet a 4th podiatrist to see next week. Somewhere in there I will get a little sleep. I wonder why I do it. But I do know. I got to use the word today "silent disambiguation." And if that doesn't thrill you, I don't want to be your friend.

May all your medical problems have diagnoses and treatments. eom.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:59 PM | Permalink

There's a funny thing about ads. It seems like a great idea for people who are serious about their blog, but not too serious. Let me explain.

Say you're not serious about your blog. You still have it, as some sort of monument to vanity, or time capsule for future alien hosts, but you don't see it as something you will monetize. That's OK. You will probably not put ads on the html or the rss either.

Now, there are some blogs that people are half-serious about monetizing. In this case, people definitely put ads in the html. That's fairly recognized as OK, especially if the site design still allows readability. This practice irks some readers, though. I would call those readers purists. They don't want blogs to be a source of monetization in this radio-era type of way. They don't want blogs to be sponsored, like football stadiums or folk concerts. "The Levi's Jeans Blues Stage." It keeps the arts going, but is not as authentic or tasty. My opinion of html ads is they demonstrate to your readers you are half-serious. Your ideas are interesting only as long as they lead to purchases by others. Lots of people are half-serious and making quite a bundle at it. That's fine, and perfect for where they are at the time in their digital life.

Some half-serious blogs that are monetized also put ads in the RSS. This is not as bad as a partial text RSS feed. Partial text is an automatic unsubscribe. Ads in the RSS tend to be inoccuous at least so far, and people seem to be able to place them at the end of entries. I have yet to feel like my reading experience is burdened. But some people do feel like they should be treated like guests when reading your material. The ads make the relationship less like a guest relationship, and more like a rent party where there is a door fee. One caveat: I believe these ads pay per click, so there is little incentive to place them in the RSS feed if this does not generate clicks. If you are paid by the display, then it is up to your discretion. Again, this is the half-serious case.

The serious blog will look a lot like the blog that is not serious at all. This is the blog that is there to further an idea, rather than a product. It's there to link to a broad cluster of information efficiently, and build community around a concept. It's not there as a venture. But look closely. The reason why these no-ad, super serious blogs are so powerful is because they are participating in a TRUE venture, which furthers ideas and not products. These are the blogs that change careers outside of the blog space, and for people other than the author.

So, when monetizing your blog, I would say use caution. Decide what readers you want, and if you want clicky shoppy readers then by all means. If you want linky thinky readers then abstain. Start with the html first. Do RSS if it makes monetary sense. And never subscribe to partial RSS feeds and tell the errant authors why.

When in doubt, if the Manolo does it, consider it fair game!

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 11:47 PM | Permalink

I know, everyone wants to know about my first week of work. Stephen King wrote in his book on how to write (and if you remember Night Shift, the collection of short stories each and every one a colossal movie license, he has a point), he says that readers can't get enough on hearing about the workplace. After writing this blog I definitely believe him. Go figure. I can give you a few words I am over-using however with my new team:

Oblique
Credibility
Singularity
Crisp, including the dubious variation "Crispness"
Ramp Up

The surprise collection of terms that were used once, and not by me:

Nursery school
Playtime
Boot camp

Tonight (this morning) my task is different. I wish to go back in time to 1983. Well, not really, but rather I wish our ATTENTION to be drawn back to 1983. And now. by reader request, I can give a longer explanation of my part in this post. The fun thing about being wordy is, you can bury the juicy tidbits so only the most devoted readers find them. So look for them if you want, and if the RIAA shows up at my door tomorrow in full gestapo gear I will know it was YOU who turned me in. See how much slack you get for yourself next time. Har.

1983 was perhaps the end of a long and painful career of selling things door to door in the neighborhood. It started when I was super little, selling girl scout cookies of course. That first year I went around with my mom, and when I found out I couldn't keep the money I was absolutely crushed. Flattened. After that, there were a few years where I went around by myself. The eager to please dynamic was running full swing in my childhood. I remember the physical awkwardness. When selling cookies, do I carry the box up to the door or leave it on the sidewalk? Do I answer with a new spiel every time or repeat the current one to optimize for speed and performance? Once I erred on both counts, my hands full with boxes, choosing to "knock" on some little old lady's door. With my foot. She gave me a good scolding and that was it for the year.

I still did not say no to the door to door thing in subsequent years. One year I sold calendars, and split a $65 prize with a friend for selling the most. I sold to newscaster Jean Enersen and she bought so many, I was set. "Don't I know you from somewhere?" I asked. The conversation was inconclusive. I also sold sausages with a program specifically targeting my trip to the USSR. The horror. But the big door-to-door cash cow was the paper route.

Each morning I would get up before my green alarm clock would start screeching. I remember the little plastic switch to push down so the alarm would not go off. The whole thing was mechanical, so when the chosen time came around, the clock still thought about going off, vibrating a little anyway from the force of skipping the alarm. It was set to just before the time where my supervisor would come and pound on the door. To this day I hallucinate the door pounding sound in the middle of the night and wake up with a start, and the insane reluctant acceptance that I will have to go outside in the rain, wind, and dark.

After waking up, I would go outside, bring in the papers, and slit my fingernails on the plastic strap holding them together. All the papers had to be folded, and put in the cart. I did this in front of the space heater by the back door. Some days we needed plastic bags, other times we needed rubberbands. The most advanced I got was to achieve a throw-able paper with no bands, somehow folding it tight with only self-referencing corners. I listened to my walkman as I delivered papers.

The thing to know about newspaper delivery is it may be a child's job, but it is also a business. That means no matter how many envelopes get returned with checks in them in a timely manner - and thanks to the Apple IIC for printing out envelopes and billing slips on our dot matrix printer for that - you have to pay the newspaper company first out of that money. Every month they send you a bill for the papers at wholesale, and you pay that first. The bill is large, like. 80 bucks or something. Scary large for a kid. This bill scheme makes it so the laggards, the people who are slow to pay, the ones you have to knock on their door in the evenings during dinner to try to collect, these are the people who have YOUR money. Often my entire profit was held hostage by laggard payers.

So you see why having a walkman was a big deal for me. The batteries were insanely expensive. I tried rechargeable, but they stopped selling the kind I invested in, and I could not invest in another system. I went through a walkman a year due to heavy use in all weather. I had friends make tapes for me, because we had no boom box in the house to record off the radio. I had Ziggy Stardust, Joni Mitchell. I purchased Let's Dance to compensate for my thievery, which I felt was justified in the light of my extreme burdens funding my operation. So, you see, the music I listened to on the big trip I saved up for, the chance to go to the USSR and see how the other side truly lived, was not contraband so much as it was simply lifted. Why did I do it? I did it because the music meant so much to me, more than getting caught I suppose.

The cassettes that meant the most were U2. I developed a pattern of Boy being for fall, October being for winter, and War being for summer. In the spring I think I listened to INXS. I dragged this walkman all over eastern europe, with the school group my folks fixed me up with, and plugged the headphones in during the bus rides. I remember riding the bus up the hills in Yalta, winding around, most of us asleep and our heads bobbing about uncontrollably. The scenery was spectacular. The narration by the tour guide oddly meaningful. This is where it happened - this is where Roosevelt signed the cold war into existence. And all we could do was sleep.

The main take-home for me from my 1983 trip to Russia was the sense of opportunity I became aware of back home. I had everything, and many people did much more with so much less. I had a responsibility to live up to that, if for no other reason than to not mock the people who had less of a head start. I felt it would be insulting not to aim high. My secondary observation was how messed up the country was, how weak the services and infrastructure was, how this country couldn't possibly be a superpower except over its own people. It just wasn't organized enough. I'm not saying being a superpower was good, I'm just saying as Americans we inflated Russia's capabilities because in general we did not know firsthand its weaknesses. The weakness was evident to me, a snoozy 13 year old with her headphones plugged in. I never worried about deliberate nuclear war again after that trip.

So, that was 13 for me. You?

P.S. Thanks to Todd D, for the reference. If you're reading this, where is the blogger XML feed? I have yet to subscribe to any blogger blogs. And by the way, Hard to explain is practically my tagline. My dh would call it "hard to argue with."

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 01:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I now work at Infospace. I chose that company for a variety of reasons:

* I like the engineering problem. The tenet of the position wasn't "maintain this or that," although there is lots of that to go around, but rather "solve this problem."
* The web space, the blogs I read, are making it loads easier to solve the problems Infospace is tasked with solving. I had the feeling that because my ear was to the ground, I had something unique to offer in this space.
* The offer itself was efficient, and in writing.
* I report to a dev manager as opposed to a lead program manager - group program manager. I value my interaction with dev, and when I look back on my successes, those are the times that stand out.
* The location is a compatible commuting location with my dh, so lots of "quality time" in our one car for us.
* The interview was personal, and not a cattle call style.

It was pretty flukey I even interviewed there. I actually was holding onto an offer from another company - verbally - and called Infospace to tell them not to bother scheduling the in-person. They were able to move quickly and get a loop set up for me before I would have to sign with the other company, so I figured why not. It was the most relaxed interview I ever had. Halfway through, I figured out why: I wasn't being interviewed, I was being treated to a presentation on their part. No complaints out of me on that one.

After leaving the building - which is a fancy one I'll talk about later - I had my offer packet in hand. I drove straight to the beauty school (hey, I'm cheap!) where I had an appointment for a facial. It was the best thing I could have done with my afternoon. I lay there, "hydrating," and thought about my decision. I mulled over what life would hypothetically be like at both companies with what little information I had. I considered my resistance to calling either company and saying I had not chosen them. What should that call be like? A career counselor would say, I should enter into salary negotiation and play one company against the other. However, I felt a resistance to that. It wasn't just laziness, I just didn't think the offers were so lousy that I had to go there. I decided while laying there to step out of that ring entirely, and make the decision based on what was in front of me.

I called, in order, Robert Scoble (he had no opinion on which company, by the way), my dh (he just liked the whole thing), the first company (to say I had made my decision to go with Infospace and here is why), and then my mom. All on the cell phone, which sallied through the day despite being pressed against various hydrations no cell phone should have to withstand.

I have finished my first week already. But know that after this post I will be changing the channel right back. I like this blog's focus, and the topics here will likely not overlap with any press release leaving my new company. I did tell folks I was a "D-list" blogger in my outgoing intro, after I had told my boss. I may pick up a few internal readers for that. As far as my crystal ball shows, I plan to keep on the same topic of happiness: time management, personal organization, work life balance, from of course the distorted and myopic perspective of yours truly.

And yes, it's 5am, the responsibility of disclosing this information to you all has weighed so heavily as to interrupt my dreams. Now, for some homework.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 05:00 AM | Permalink

You could...

Face it head on:
- if it's a person, confront them and say "why"
- if it's a circumstance, re-create it and resolve it the right way

Ignore it:
- it's over, not worth another one of your minutes
- create a safe zone where you will not be confronted with it. The safe zone includes time as well as space.

Use it as material:
- go on and on in your weblog about it
- research people who have gone through the same thing and come through it alive, thereby coping via proxy

Just confess your helplessness:
- yes, you are heartbroken and there's nothing you can do
- no, there's nothing you can change to make it any different
- you can't fix it and might not be able to fix it next time either
- there is nothing fair about it at all
- this is as human as you've ever been in your life

all done now

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 10:03 PM | Permalink

It's Monday, and I completed week one of the zillion week program I mentioned earlier. Only 364 more shopping days until personal transformation! But seriously. Some funny things have happened. Even today, on my first day of a new job, I have "settled" into a schedule that seems like it was there all along. I thought I would be grumpy about packing food for the day, but I wasn't. I get ready without yelling at anyone. Driving the car in, it looked like there was too much traffic so I pulled over in the park and worked in my workbook. I might not have breathed all day, but I did eat the snacks and healthy stuff I packed. I only had about half a cup of coffee, and not really any cravings for it later in the day. Coming home, I looked forward to getting the shoes on and walking on the treadmill. I don't know what my problem is, somebody please wake me up, the real Beth is in here somewhere.

Week 1 was torture. The worst part was all that work on the 3 "menu" days. Yes, I chose to do menus rather than the more flexible plan, but I'm very glad I did. If I chose the more flexible "pay attention to your hunger" type plan, I would have nothing to fall back on when I failed. I swear I am eating less when I am screwing up than when I am on plan. But the funny thing is, I really don't want anything outside the realm of nutrition right now. Yes, I still believe I deserve the fancy cheese and artisan bread and fine wine, but any more quantity than my body can process just feels torturous, almost abhorrent. I don't know how to describe to you how this can be a loving feeling. That's the closest word I have for it.

Lots is happening right now. There's no way I can keep up. The challenge right now is to slow down so I can get more done. That's just the kind of backwards thinking that's working for me right now. Go figure.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:20 PM | Permalink

Jay Allen posts a thorough narrative of the past few years of his, in relation to blogging and technology. In that, he mentions that the mt-blacklist project didn't "end well." Wha? Apparently I'm not the only one who didn't hear last call on that one. I clicked the link and was somewhat comforted to know this has just happened.

Look. MT 2.61 was the last viable free edition of movable type. My hosting service even installed it for me for free. Yes, it's outdated, but that combination (viable + free) is incredibly powerful and has served me well beyond the days of my old radioland weblog. It's unsupported except for community support. But you know? That's fine. I'm still happy with it. I have done practically zero customizations. I don't need this thing to be DreamWeaver for weblogs. I just needed the rss feed to work. If MT was running a marketing campaign, I'd be wearing the dinosaur head for sure on this one. Not only do I not have a broken product right now, but it works so well I have an inherent laziness to upgrading. Am I serious enough about my weblog to add another "tax" to the cost of running it, namely, to pay for the software I use? Not sure. But most of all, I know I don't know how to install it. I KNOW this. I could barely install mt-blacklist when it came out. I'm not saying it will never happen, but it's under the category of, when will I learn how to fix my own car? Interesting, challenging, messy, expensive, and off the path of my other projects.

I want to talk about the opinion that this project did not end well. What if we went into Iraq and for four years, the efforts of one person made it so the streets were safe. What if there was an organic and reliable way for people to help themselves with their own security. The life changes would be incredible. People would start businesses. People would connect with others, walk the streets, take risks that you don't usually take in wartime. This one person would be given the peace prize for sure.

How is writing, maintaining, and providing a free anti-spam application for weblogs any different? True, nobody died from spam. But weblogs do die from it. It can be overwhelming, and icky, and defeat your faith in humanity (esp: the viral marketer fake comments). The success of the mt-blacklist project should rely not on whether some rogue developers were evil, and they were, and Jay made the right decision by the way to pull the plug. No, the success of the project should be based on how many blogs lived on with only this protection. We are social creatures, and this vulnerability needs protected. We are commercial creatures yet we need to distinguish ourselves from search engine optimizers. Jay gave years of his life to enable many blogs to stay afloat. In some way, he saved the internet during that time. Singlehandedly.

So yeah, sure, the project "ended badly." I wish many things would end badly if saving the world is your idea of that. Here's your gold statue and never mind the bullocks, keep up the good work.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 05:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

- Don't try to do your job. Especially, don't promise anything for anyone by any sort of date.
- This is a time for observation. If possible, get the people who's roles you are taking over to do what they were doing, again, one last time, with you watching.
- Ask to be added to aliases and invited to recurring meetings, even outside your group.
- Do not invent any processes. Work within existing processes for at least 2 months.
- If you're bad at names like I am, find a way to take notes "live" with the name-cheat method of your choice.
- This time is all heads-up. No heads-down time. Walk.
- Get an org chart and put office numbers on it. See when people are free and stop by on your own, not with your friendly introducer person, although that cycle should be done too.
- Make sure you get a team e-mail sent out with a conversation starter type bio. You will have to write this bio yourself.
- If you can resist promises for a while, do so. Then deliver just one thing as promised. Try to just make one promise only this week or even month, and do it better than expected.
- Asses the pain points of the organization, and of the business model. Think about remedies.
- Find a slicing concept for the business problem you were hired to solve. For example, what about consistency? What about remix?
- Get a big whiteboard.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 08:34 PM | Permalink

Insomnia has struck. I am greedy for time. Time is my currency. I could go to bed, but that would mean another LOST MINUTE and that's not what we're in business for, is it? The greed has taken me to this blog post and there is much to offer, to prove this minute of lost sleep is truly packed with mica-like slices of reality each unique in their own right. I am writing, not to bore you with "here's what happened since I dropped the ball for real, oh, about a month ago" but rather "look what happens when even the splinters get splinters." The complications are fractal.

Let's take the big stuff first. I am on week 1 of an 18 month program which was developed at the university of san francisco and represents a unique medical advance for managing excesses of all kinds. The kits that comprise the work of the program come with a CD for your spouse or partner to listen to. The best way for me to describe this program is to fictitiously illustrate my dh's experience with the partner CD.

Me: "You will hate this CD. You won't be able to listen to it."
Him: "Why?"
Me: "The program is called the Pathway, and as a result they spend half the CD explaining why this isn't a cult."
Him: "Oh." (sounds worried this is a cult).
Me: "The terminology is a big hurdle. I can barely listen to the terms without wanting to quit the program before I've even started. They're borderline humiliating. Also, they warn that I will go completely bonkers in kit 2 and kit 5, and there is a lot of discussion on how to either save our marriage or part amicably when that happens."
Him: "Oh." (still sounds worried).
Me: "Also there's a sappy piano music intro to the CD."
Him: "Icch. No WAY! That's terrible! Something must be done!"

The next day I hand him the CD to listen to, with a CD walkman thing while waiting for the bus at 6am. I get up at 6 especially to make sure this handoff happens. We connect again later in the day.

Him: "I don't have anything to say about this. I'm just drawing a blank."
Me: "Well, should I go through with this or not?"
Him: "I can't... remember... The only thing I can think of is maybe you're making a big deal out of nothing."
Me: "You mean I'm not an 800lb heroin user with a penchant for fendi?"
Him: "Yeah, I mean, this isn't really a problem that you have, is it?"
Me: "Hmmm. Well, we should talk later."
Him: "OK I will listen to the rest on the bus home."

Later, after things quiet down.
Him: "OK, well, she has convinced me this isn't a cult."
Me: "Ok, that's good."

From there, my dh asked several pointed and perceptive questions using the terminology in an incredibly native way. Note that I still feel like the terminology is sticking to the bottom of my shoe, and he's all "out of the box thinking" "paradigm shift" "low hanging fruit" about it all. Not that those are the terms, but he uses them as naturally as we post web 1.0 folks use these ones I mention. (Note to self: need to develop aversion therapy device to using the above phrases.) I bring this up to explain that my dh is super smart and perceptive. As if you didn't know this.

So I'm working through the kits, in that there is week 1 and I am on my second try for week 1. It's funny. The layman's approach to treating yourself better might be "eat right and exercise." The real-deal approach to treating yourself better might be "help me deal with all my junk so I can eat right and exercise." Well, guess what happens in week 1. Full force emotional junk work, as well as eating right and exercising. There is not any ramp up, no sugar coating of sure, you can work through your issues first and then we can have you on the vegetables. Nope. No wonder I'm on my second try. I hooked the treadmill up to the TV, made sure the vermin were out of the basement, and did a session down there already. I have chosen Tues, Wed, and Thurs to follow a specific menu (it's very california cuisine, but not awful, which coming from me is high praise being such a foodie. It's like restaurant cuisine, for a restaurant I would welcome while traveling but not go back to again in my hometown). The rest of the week I plan to monitor my hunger and fullness levels with the prescience of a zen monk. So, 3 days of menus and 4 days of zen. This has been my job the past 2 weeks. How will I fit in even 20 minutes of walking? How can I cook all these mango salsas and vinaigrettes?

I am having the hardest time with the food plan, and am thinking even three days of being on-menu is a little much. Day 1 and 2 I did not have breakfast, as I was exhausted from prepping a portable and recipe-compliant lunch and 2 snacks. I did not feel like separating egg whites and adding vegetables to a scramble while late to a job interview and wearing something easily stained. I have been 1 meal short of the prescribed number of meals both days, and never hungry. Mostly I am loathe to go into the kitchen to do all this work. Perhaps that's the point.

So, it's true that I have joined a cult in that there is some cultlike sense of submission in here. To be truthful I think of it like a cult because it helps my brain wrap around the sense of submission needed to succeed. I am saying (to the anthropomorphised 18 month program) "I have no idea what to do. Please tell me what I should be doing." Apparently mango salsa is an act of submission. We will see if it keeps me more balanced.

Other big stuff. I have been interviewing straight the past two weeks. Some interviews never happened - yes, these are the ones I show up for as the interviewee but no interviewer is to be seen. Some companies move slowly, others quickly. Some are forthcoming initially and then go into lockdown. Every dynamic has a potential judgment I could make about my own performance. Each nuance. How can this make me grow as a candidate, how can this give me information that will lead to a more successful few months. And now that I have accepted an offer I am shy to bring it up here in this blog until I have done the due diligence on my part. I would like to write about what I am doing. So I will have to go through a process of coming out of the closet at my new job, and hope for the best. I will use some of Robert's guidelines to start things off. However, this will not be a corporate blog, and lots of people say that, but I mean it. I still want to write about happiness, and work life balance, and tools to get there. I still want to write about philosophy and meaning in our thoughts and frustrations. Mostly, I still want to believe that everything I'm experiencing is also being experienced elsewhere, and if I write about it, it will matter. Let's just say I'm very happy about starting my new job on Monday, and just as I tested the waters here about this "pathway" thing (don't laugh) and decided what parts I can write about and what I can't, I will probably do the same for the new position. (ok you can laugh now). You will probably hear more than you will like about both in the time to come.

One area of overlap. Getting a job is usually a call for a big celebration. For me, this means a dinner out with friends and family. Something glitzy, like Daniel's Broiler or I Love Sushi. Something with courses. I understand now that the drive to excess does not contribute to the enjoyment of the life change, and in fact dulls it. Why would I want to dull something that's good? Well, if I knew the answer to that one... Let's just say that now I'm aware of the problem I am going to keep it together (a la goldfinger), and if I get a terrific offer on a "menu" day like I did this week (Tuesday), I can celebrate by sticking to the menu and going wow. I can't believe I didn't eat the whole thing.

One warning about the pathway stuff. They warn you that if you think it's easy, you need to check again. Even in week 1 (okay, 1 and 1/2), I am getting flashes of this might be the only thing holding me together. This new, fragile, risky and flimsy thing that I hardly believe in. This might be the thing around which all things are working. There is new stuff there internally that is keeping me balanced. For example, I am interested in solving the business problem at my new job. I am not interested in who likes me. It is a very new thing to come out from under that cloud, even briefly. I am scared of my impulse to celebrate no longer having to do temp work. I view this fear from a distance and let it go, going about my normal life, as if that impulse was someone else's. I feel guilty that I spent so much time trying to get a position at once certain company, and now that time might have been wasted. Again, the feeling is dislocated from the rails on that train wreck and sent up to the clouds with the others. It's a rich area to mine for personal growth, but not the best indication of how many hamburgers, tv shows, or fendi handbags to buy. All that goes into saying the biggest thrill for me this week is the unusual feeling of cool headedness. Perhaps it is short lived and illusory. But keeping the feeling would be incredibly new.

OK I talked about the big stuff, the lifestyle happiness reboot and the career thing. I will end this post lamely (but thoroughly!) by listing the other things happening, just to amaze you with the sheer quantity.
- Today I got punched in the nose by my kid. And it is very true that making them feel bad does not change their behavior. It is impossible to react to that situation perfectly. I reacted by putting an ice pack on my nose and hoping. Eventually the humanity took over.
- Really lame skin reaction to something that was supposed to clear up my skin. So it's the itchy and scratchy show over here. I'm wearing silk all the time.
- This is my weekend to be interested in the "how much is too much" work wardrobe problem. Because I do have a deficit there, but also a drive to excess, and I have to draw the line. It's a fun problem and one I've been looking forward to solving.
- I need all new subscriptions in my aggregator. I'm considering changing the folder structure to: Fashion, A List (this is my A list who you will never know if you're on or not you sillies), and then a folder each for the letters of the alphabet. I would put all subs starting with B in the B folder etc. That way I can cycle through a letter of the alphabet each day. At a certain level, it doesn't matter what blog you read. If your blog is a Thinker blog, that is. Link blogs always have to read the right feeds, but you can get a great thought from any source.
- We have the canadians over for canadian thanksgiving here this weekend. I will set the turkey to cook automatically at 3am, so we can be done in time for the birthday party circuit. We will see.
- Community building fun picnic with other moms. Maybe they will have some advice for my little puncher.
- Travel plans. Would love to do the conference circuit but family comes first. Will travel on us thanksgiving, also maybe xmas and definitely florida in feb. Disney here we come. Might put the house on ebay for those fixed dates.
- I still blow kisses to the 545. I can't help it. Perhaps this will pass. It's just a bus, after all.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

No posts recently, the portion of my life I can blog about is incredibly narrow right now. The interviewing is going great, but no current leads are with Microsoft. It's bringing up all kinds of anger - yes, unprofessional I know - that I should have probably been experiencing all this time for Microsoft. I have an optimistic view of the company, rather like a marriage. Once the optimism is gone, though, it's open season, and out comes the dirty laundry. There is lots to be mad about, and while I am not alone in feeling it, my personal story is unique. Perhaps I will tell it to you at last next week. I plan to feel this anger for however long it still exists, and for however long it serves a purpose. Likely not much longer, due to that second criterion.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 04:23 PM | Permalink