AC/OS

If Muse is played loud enough in a minivan, is it still a minivan?

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 04:18:00 +0000

Sorry, I can't help myself. I was driving to my in-law's this evening with my four kids, our minivan cranking Muse's "Starlight," a family favorite. Isaac, Scout, and I belted out the best part of the song (while Lily screamed that she wanted to hear "Video Killed the Radio Star" instead):

You electrify my life
Let's conspire to re-ignite
All the souls that would die just to feel alive...

Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations

It almost feels like Dostoevsky singing those last two lines. What a great song. You can listen to it here.

Little things like great music make life worth living.

(Yes, I know that I was driving a minivan. That's why I had the music up so loud. I was trying to pretend that I was cool "again." You know, that one-week period during high school when I was cool? At least, that's how I like to remember it....)

The in-law antidote

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:54:00 +0000

People who know me from work never seem to believe it, but I'm pretty antisocial. Just ask my in-laws. They've been dealing with me since 1993, when I started to write to Jen from Belgium. Eighteen months later when I got home, they still thought I was nice. It was only when I actually married into the family that they discovered that I'm a bit lame as a brother-in-law.

Kathy (my mother-in-law) wanted a "Steve" (mythical child/perfect son). She got me instead.

Now, my wife's family is quite chatty. I won't say it's because it's a family of six daughters, lest I be accused of being misogynist, but...it's because it's a family of six daughters. As such, though I've managed to band together with my brothers-in-law, it still crimps my style to be asked to play endless board games and generally have to pretend to be a loving person.

Today, however, I discovered a perfect antidote: Fatigue. I went on a two-hour mountain bike ride in the morning, then worked in the garden for another three hours. I had to inject Diet Coke into my veins to stay awake on the drive down to my in-laws' house, but it proved to be the perfect preparation for the evening. In my fatigue, I found myself doing all sorts of odd things, like talking to people and smiling.

One person, however, wasn't fooled by "the new Matt." Iris, my niece, kept an eye on me, even during the blessing on the food, as shown here. She always was a smart girl....(By the way, she's also a beautiful little girl, though her suspicious face isn't her prettiest face.)

Neither were my two youngest. True to form, instead of watch fireworks I used Lily and Greta as in-law shields to provide cover for heading home early. Some day it's going to be odd when I try to use my 16- and 18-year old children as excuses to leave early from family gatherings, but I'll take it while I can.

Not that anyone is fooled. They used to try to convince me to stay. But then they realized that life is better for them when I go home early. Jen, the fun side of the Asay home, always stays. So did Scout and Isaac. Me? I'm going to sleep.

See, I told you I'm antisocial. My neighbors called to see if I wanted to watch the fireworks outside. I told them I was watching Lily and Greta.... :-)

Kit and Depression

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:26:00 +0000

To escape, if only briefly, from the perils of blogging on CNET, I took my 11-year old daughter, Scout, to see Kit Kittredge tonight. Nothing like pre-teen escapism....

I really liked it though, oddly enough, I found the movie a bit frightening. I hadn't realized that Kit was a child of the Depression, and so the movie centered on the Depression. I suspect the movie softened the era somewhat (who wants to send a group of 11-year olds for the Kleenex and Paxil?), but I found it disturbing all the same.

Jen and I recently decided to start budgeting again, and actually holding to our budget. (Shocking thought, I know.) After watching the movie, I was on the verge of selling our car to save more money. I've had family members out of work for prolonged periods of time, and dearly hope that our mild recession won't deepen into something stronger, and more destructive to the morale of the United States.

I suppose after years of rampant consumerism, we probably deserve it. But that doesn't make the thought any more pleasant.

Kit got through by writing for a newspaper. Maybe my blog will come in handy, after all.

For anyone reading this that is out of work, if I can be of any help, I will. Again, I've seen close family members go through unemployment, and wouldn't wish it on anyone. About the only thing I'm good for is opinions on software and connections to people who can employ others.

Poor Germany

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:04:00 +0000

I already felt really bad for Germany, getting spanked by the Spaniards (I, of course, was rooting for Spain, as Fabregas and a few potential Arsenal players play for the Spanish national team). But I felt really bad when I saw this.

It's OK to celebrate. But come on, guys! Have a heart. :-)

Good as in "G"

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:09:00 +0000

We went and saw WALL-E last week and loved it. It was almost astonishing, it was so good. I can't remember the last movie that I saw with such a dearth of dialog and yet a wealth of feeling. Pixar is amazing.

Tomorrow I'm going to see Kit Kittredge with Scout. I'm told that by doing daddy-daughter things like this Scout will one day hate me less than she otherwise will. While a comforting thought, I'm not sure how I'm going to get through nearly two hours of American Girl.

Yet Kitt, like WALL-E, has received fantastic reviews. I'm impressed: Two G-rated movies in a month that Hollywood has managed to release, and both of them (apparently) quite good. I'd go see a lot more movies if I could count on not having to wade through all the rubbish (Sex, violence, profanity, etc.).

It's not as if that stuff is required in order to make a good movie. The Spiderman movies have been excellent (well, except for that last one, which was lame, but that had nothing to do with bad content and everything to do with bad writing), and I can hardly wait to see The Dark Knight. Many of my other favorites manage to be good without being bad. For those that insist on including the bad, I just get an edited copy. I've never felt like I was missing anything (except for Good Will Hunting which apparently edited out 99 percent of the movie :-).

By the way, you probably don't care, but if you want to know what's in a movie before you see it, use Screen It. It's a great service. I don't think I'd want to be the person who catalogs (in excruciating detail) a movie's offensive content, but I appreciate the service. I know exactly what I'm getting into before I go (though Jen tells me that reading the report is so detailed that I might as well see the movie :-).

Whitehurst reaches out

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:59:00 +0000

I'm feeling lucky to be able to have dinner with Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, in a few weeks. It's not that I'm special, but that he has been making a point to get around and talk with a wide range of people in the open-source world. This is just one of the get-togethers he has been hosting.

Matthew Szulik, for all his many virtues (and I'm a big Szulik fan), didn't do this. At least, not much. Perhaps he never needed to or perhaps it wasn't as easy because at one time Matthew was basically alone at the helm of an open-source company. It never seemed to hurt Red Hat.

I think Jim's approach is right for the current open-source market. It's growing and diversifying. We can't afford to have an isolated Red Hat, no matter how successful it may be. We need more dialogue. I don't think open source will get much further in isolation.

It needs to happen opportunistically, of course. I'm integrating Alfresco with Zimbra right now because it makes a lot of financial sense, given the overlap we have in the Higher Education market, for example. But there probably can be a little bit more than crass materialism involved in open-source partnerships. Just a little bit more. :-)

Anyway, it's good to have Jim at Red Hat. He's doing a good job. Let's see if he can bring the open-source market together.

Minivan militia

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:03:00 +0000

A group of Jen's friends from our Stanford days came to visit today, most pulling up in various shades of minivan. Each of these women is impressive. Each has given up a lot in terms of personal ambition to be a mom (and, at the time while we were at Stanford, to support their spouses while we were in school).

Today, they drive minivans in a pack. I doubt any one of them would have chosen to drive a minivan. There just comes a point when you succumb because it becomes too tedious to have to help yet another child climb into whatever cool car you might prefer to drive. It's just not worth it. Not on the thousandth time.

Anyway, I loved seeing these ladies at our house, each with a few children in tow. Again, this is a hugely impressive group of women, capable of holding their own with men and women in any job, any school, any profession.

That's why they're moms.

And, for that matter, that's why I'm a dad. I'm not a particularly good one, whatever my mom and sister may comment to the contrary on this blog. (Just wait until my own kids are old enough to comment here. Then you'll know the truth!) But I'm a dad all the same, and the wonderful thing about kids is that they really don't care very much about the fact that parents have no training and no real competence to be doing what we're doing. They just expect you to take care of them, and so you do. However imperfectly.

But this group of women? They're experts. Exceptional, exceptional women. In spite of their motherhood. Or, rather, because of their motherhood. There's nothing better on this planet than a mom. Not even open source. :-)

A little loyalty

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:24:00 +0000

I cringed when I read this report from the UK's Guardian about the way soccer contracts are changing. I learned in law school that there are many ways to break a contract, but it's frustrating to see people break their words with regularity and impunity.

In this case, it's only soccer, but if a player truly feels indebted to a coach for discovering him or her, why not repay that favor with a little loyalty?

It has really been bothering me, as I've been dealing with this as a devout Arsenal fan for three seasons, first with Thierry Henry (who eventually left) and now with Flamini (gone to AC Milan), Hleb (can't leave soon enough for me), and Adebayor (I'll be happy to see him leave as soon as we have a good replacement lined up). With the exception of Adebayor, each was/is locked into a long-term contract, and wants to leave (or get paid more than they contracted for) the minute they start to live up to their side of the contract (i.e., playing well).

I've started thinking through my own loyalty, because I really don't want to be like these guys. I've always wanted to start my own company, but the more I think about it, the more I think it would be wrong for me to leave my current company to do so, no matter the opportunity that might present itself. I could make a lot more money elsewhere (if that "elsewhere" proved to be successful), but that's not the point. The point is that I committed to do something. I need to do it.

It's the same thing with my blogging. I left InfoWorld for what I perceived to be a better platform (CNET). In retrospect, however, I wonder if I should have stayed. The primary reason for wanting to jump wasn't a better publication, but rather that I wanted to have my own blogging space. So maybe it was right. I don't know. I just think I need to be more careful in the future to ensure that I think about my actions in a broader context, rather than what's in it for me, right now.

One good Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:32:00 +0000

Yesterday was awesome. Days like yesterday are what make life worth living.

As with most good days, this one started with exercise. In this case, mountain biking. I woke up early to put up a blog entry, then by 7:00 I was on the trail, spending the next two hours mountain biking.

The only hitch came as I tried to climb Rocky Ridge (part of the Dry Creek trail, and particularly difficult to navigate because it's strewn with rocks/small boulders): Legs pumping, my front tire hit a rock and went straight up like a horse rearing up, dumping me painfully onto my tailbone and my derailer into a rock. I had a hard time shifting the rest of the ride, which made climbing Hell Hill (dumb name for a difficult ascent) even harder than normal, but it was still a great way to start the day.

The rest of the day was spent visiting family (my nephew for his birthday party, my grandma to ensure she was doing OK, and my brand-new niece, Adelle (Brett's daughter), my own family for a belated Fathers Day dinner). The "glue" that held each of these together was driving down I-15 with Radiohead, Duran Duran (yes, I'm going through a renaissance period with my favorite 80s bands), The Buggles, and more blasting was fantastic. There are few things in life that I enjoy so much as good music, except for perhaps this view out the window of my car driving down Provo Canyon after visiting my sister/nephew at my parents' house:

There are few places as beautiful as Utah. Grasmere, England? Yes. The Vosges Mountains of France? Yes. The Columbia River Gorge in Oregon? Yes. But I don't get to see those every day as I do Utah....

OK, given the kind of person I am, I will admit that some of these visits only demonstrate my "check-box Christianity" where I do things because I'm supposed to do them, and not necessarily because I really wanted to. Even so, I find that doing the right things for the wrong reasons tends to motivate me to do them for the right reasons the next time. If I only did things because I wanted to I doubt I'd ever do much more than mountain bike, read books, and write my blog. Not a very useful human existence....

Speaking of the blog, I'm now getting over half a million people reading it each month, which is amazing given that a) However much I may like open source, it's really not all that interesting a topic for 99.99999999999999 percent of the world's population and b) just two years ago I was lucky to get 50,000 people reading it.

I suppose this is a very poignant reminder that location matters even more in blogging than it does in real estate. Going from Blogger (this very blog, in fact) to InfoWorld (traffic tripled over my AC/OS blog numbers) to CNET (traffic exploded) has been the big differentiator, not my writing.

Anyway, for those of you still expecting to read open source stuff here, you'd better move on to my CNET blog which is 100 percent open source (or related) content. This has become my personal space. If you don't care about me as a person (and I can't blame you if you don't - heck, my kids even struggle to do so! :-), then best to unsubscribe and just read CNET. Besides, I don't get paid for this one and do for CNET, so I'll like your traffic there better. :-)

What morning looks like in Utah

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:24:00 +0000

Bryce Roberts and I headed up to the foothills this morning for a quick 45-minute ride. There's very little better in life than climbing up above Salt Lake City to look down from a mountain bike. This is what it looked like this morning:

Come out to Utah, and I'll take you up on the mountain. You won't regret it.

(Well, you might regret seeing me, but you won't regret seeing the mountain.)

Stanford would have passed even quicker...

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:42:00 +0000

I will admit that I was a bit distracted while doing my law studies at Stanford. I was married with two kids and worked full time for Lineo, an embedded Linux vendor, for two of my three years. I was knee-deep in open source between Lineo and my research under Larry Lessig and others among my professors.

But if Stanford would have just done away with grades, well, I might never have been seen again on campus. (I was a bit of a ghost as it was, except in the classes that I really liked, like Antitrust, Open Sources, Copyright, etc.)

Well, now Stanford Law School has done it: No more grades. The School has gone to a pass/fail system, copying Yale's policy.

I wonder if it will make any difference? It's virtually impossible not to pass, anyway (just like at Yale), and at least on the employment track that I took, no one ever asked me about my grades (which were, by some miraculous feat, actually pretty good despite myself).

The one thing this policy change might do is to encourage more people to take risks with their careers, rather than plod down the Big Law Firm path like automatons. (Sorry, Clark. :-) Theoretically, if students spend a little less time fixated on grades during law school, they might discover that they have other interests and pursue them, either academically, personally, or professionally.

For me, I was fortunate to know almost from the first day of law school that I had no interest in being a lawyer. That set me free to scramble for other work, which I did from the end of my first semester. I knew that I needed more work experience if I wanted to leave law school as something other than a corporate attorney. And so I got it.

Would the same course be appealing to others...? I suspect so. It's not that it's a bad thing to go to work as a lawyer, but that people should be more thoughtful in heading into the profession. This might help.

How Alfresco spends its money

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:57:00 +0000

Here at Alfresco we go cheap on some things like cars...

...but not on the things that really matter:

That's why we're so happy. :-)

I could have been skiing today

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 03:00:00 +0000

Bryce called me early this morning to see if I wanted to go skiing. The answer, of course, was "Yes," but I couldn't. Jen was off to have a girls-day-out and I was set to have a kids-day-in. But what an amazing thing, to be skiing in June. Utah rocks.

Here's a picture of Bryce today, skiing the last day of the year at Snowbird.

And burns. I figured I'd surprise Jen by clearing out our weed garden (which used to be filled with wildflowers). An hour into it, however, I started trying to figure out more efficient ways to clear the weeds. At 100 degrees Fahrenheit, fire seemed like a good idea.

So, with my kids gathered around, I started torching the crumbling weeds (which I had poisoned two weeks ago so that today they were crispy). I had the hose cranked up, ready to douse the flames before they chewed into our cedar fence.

As it turned out, the billowing black smoke freaked me out more than the flames - I was worried the neighbors were going to call the fire department. So, with the job only one-third of the way done, I put out the fire and went back to digging. Ugh.

At least a neighbor was nice enough to pick up some berries for me at Costco. So this evening I made a vanilla sweet cream crust for a raspberry-blackberry pie that I'm going to make tomorrow. I can't wait.

Delta owes me a memory

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:32:00 +0000

I should be home right now, watching my son's championship game. But I've been stuck in Atlanta, my flight delayed by over three hours. Delta has stolen a once in a lifetime opportunity from me. I am not happy.

My wild and crazy night of drunken revelry

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:49:00 +0000

It all started so well. France was playing Italy, and I asked the hotel for a recommendation on a place to watch it with my Alfresco friends. "The King's Arms Pub," the concierge told me.

This was my first foray into a pub, one that Martin Musierowicz, Phil Robinson, and Jeff Cramer eagerly anticipated. This was their chance to show me all that I've been missing all these years by going home early instead of visiting pubs with them. As for me, I didn't care so much about the pub - I just wanted to enjoy the game.

Well, it turns out that it's very hard to enjoy a soccer game with a whacky, drunk-out-of-his-mind French-Spanish guy hanging on you. At least, it was for me.

I look happy in this photo, don't I? Well, what you're actually seeing is Matt Asay under severe strain. On the right is my good friend and colleague, Martin . On the left? Well, let's just say that this pub crawler glommed onto me and it took $20 and a stealthy escape to rid myself of him.

Before he left he managed to spray spittle into my face (and mouth, which nearly made me puke - he was hanging on me and talking right into my face), buy a round of beers for himself and the Alfrescans (and then ask me to pay when it turned out he didn't actually have any money), and challenge a few peacable Welshmen to a fight. (I made the mistake of speaking to him in French, which may have occasioned his unyielding affection for me.)

Unfortunately, all I was drinking was San Pelligrino. It might have helped to be drunk or on hard narcotics to help me escape the grossness of the situation, but given my "friend's" display, I don't think I'm going to bother taking up alcohol any time soon.

At least now I see what I've been missing all these years. :-)

Having said that, Martin, Phil, and Jeff seemed to be a bit more responsible in their drinking. Well, they didn't spit in my mouth, anyway. Thanks, guys!

The beautiful game

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:12:00 +0000

Though I'm cheering for France in Euro 2008, I am first and foremost a fan of the game. France played well in yesterday's game against The Netherlands, but the Dutch were sublime. Watching Van Niestrlroy's play to spin through two defenders and thread the ball to Robben was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It was like reading Emerson, only slightly more profound. Having it capped off with Van Persie putting the ball into the goal was icing on the cake.

It was a beautiful, beautiful thing to see. Robbed and Schneijder then followed it up with two more exceptional goals, while Henry demonstrated his former class in front of goal. It made my day. I was literally nearly in tears.

Last night I capped off a great day with a campout in Weber Canyon with Isaac. He was so happy to be up there, as was I. It was sweet to fall asleep to the sound of a river rushing by in the distance. I'm not sure that life could possibly get better than it was yesterday.

Except, perhaps, seconds ago when Isaac hit a single.

Unfortunately, I've got a flight to London this afternoon with a big contract to edit on the way there, and no soccer to see when I arrive. And life had been so good.... (-:

My Dad moment

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 09:53:00 +0000

It's 3:53 AM. I'm awake, not by choice, but because of my little niece, Willa, who is staying over and who apparently doesn't yet know how to sleep through the night. Jen warned me of this before we went to sleep, but I figured I'd be able to sleep through it.

Nope.

So, here I am, sitting on my couch in the wee hours of the morning, wondering what to do to fall back asleep. I've been up for two hours with the same question, and don't appear to be getting any closer to an answer.

It makes me think of my dad. My dad coached me in sports and I have a wide array of memories of spending time with him, but an enduring memory that I have of him is the early morning/late night dad, sitting in an easy chair with a book or at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal. Or five. (Shredded Wheat, too, so he clearly wasn't eating out of enjoyment. Maybe it was the equivalent of a Mormon hairshirt?)

While my dad currently serves our church in Argentina, he was a cardiologist before that (and, presumably, will be again when he returns in 2010, just in time for the World Cup). Always on call, I don't think my dad has had a normal night's sleep in his life. He had to forage for sleep when and how he could (sometimes with the help of Ambien :-), and often sleep wouldn't come at all.

Hence, the book/cereal when everyone else was sleeping, sitting there in his blue robe.

I'd like to say that I'm awake because I had to get up to save someone's life and just couldn't fall asleep afterwards. But being awakened at 2:00 AM only made me want to take lives, not save them.

Dad read or ate cardboard-disguised-as-cereal. I'm blogging. I think I'm going to read some Dickens and then try for sleep in a half hour. After all, there's no Ambien in the house since Dad went to Argentina. :-)

The joy of Costco

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:56:00 +0000

And on the eighth day, God created Costco.

I had to stop by Costco yesterday to get berries (Blackberries and blueberries to make my "Black and Blue Pie") and ended up leaving with steaks, cereal, and $300 worth of other stuff. Costco is deceptive: Apparently you're saving money while you're there, but it gets me to spend on so many things that I'm sure I stopped saving long, long ago....

But my favorite part of costco is the fruit (with the meat coming in a close second). Costco has the best fruit, hands down, and it stocks fruit in huge quantities. I love good fruit, especially peaches and berries, and I have enough to last us...

...two days. After a Costco trip we end up gorging ourselves on fruit for the few days afterward. It's one of the healthiest times in the Asay home. It's also one of the piggiest.

Let the berry fest begin!

When will it get easier?

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:27:00 +0000

Just closed my quarter. 106% of my commit. Not as good as some quarters we've had but still in excess of a very aggressive sales ramp.

I just wonder when it's going to get easier. Life used to be so easy when all I had to do was talk about things. Strategy, you know. It's easy. You talk about what people should do, and if it doesn't work, well, someone else must have screwed up the execution!

When you own the operations, however, there's no excuse for failure. It stinks. :-)

I've never worked harder or worried more than I have at Alfresco. In consequence, I've never learned more or enjoyed myself as much. This has been the best job I've ever had. No question.

Still, I wouldn't mind if it became markedly easier. When I say "open-source software sells itself," take that with a huge mountain of salt. Anytime you're dealing with people-generated sales rather than automated sales, it's going to be a slog.

And all I got was this lousy shirt

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:07:00 +0000

I'm in Edmonton, Canada, tonight, speaking at an Alfresco partner event tomorrow. I didn't know what to expect from Edmonton but so far it has been great. I jogged six or seven miles along the river so that I could then indulge in what turned out to be an excellent meal at the Hardware Grill (pricey but very good).

But now I'm sitting in my hotel room, watching videos from the All Things Digital Conference and wondering why I'm not instead at the Google I/O event. Jen is there and just sent me this picture from the Flight of the Conchords concert there.

I will admit that my love for Jen just took a nosedive. Or maybe that's my envy taking a sharp spike upwards. :-)

Next year, I'm not missing the evening entertainment at Google I/O for anything. Except customers, of course. Or maybe I'll just have them join me there.

Death Cab for the Asays

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:27:00 +0000

Perhaps it's because I got to see Rick Springfield with a friend back in sixth grade. Perhaps it's because there's a small part of me that still persists in believing I'll be cool some day.

Whatever the reason, I (along with Jen) took Scout and Isaac (and Scout's friend, Hana) to see Death Cab for Cutie last night at Thanksgiving Point in Utah. It had been dumping rain all day long, which didn't make the prospect of an outdoor concert seem like much fun, but by the time we got there the weather had cleared making for a beautiful (if still freezing) evening.

And a fun one. No, I didn't dance. I can remember the days of Metallica and Morrissey concerts when I did dance (or did something that approximated dancing), but I'm now old enough to recognize when I look foolish, and to care far more than I should. I think I'd be a bit more relaxed at a Radiohead concert, but I'll have to test that theory later this year.

In the meantime, I'm pretty much the safest concert chaperone possible: I don't drink, don't dance, don't do much of anything except tap my feet. Slightly.

As Jen says, I like the idea of a concert, but not the reality very much. As soon as I arrived I started planning our exit so that we could avoid traffic, and then ensured I turned on my best grimace to anyone smoking within 100 yards of me. I'm my dad's son, alright.

I'm only 35, and I'm already boring. Who knew it would come so early?

Days like today

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:03:00 +0000

Make me grateful. I just got back from visiting a family that lives nearby. I was asked by my church to spend time with them and help them out. I'm a pretty self-centered person by nature, so this sort of thing is great for me. I'd otherwise sit inside all day working (or watching Arsenal).

I had a great visit with them and felt like I had done real good. Not often I get to say that. I love my work but at the end of the day it's mostly "just work" without any lasting impact on anyone other than the families fed through the paychecks my company issues, including for my own family.

Yesterday, at Jen's suggestion, we went out to visit my sister, Brittany, for her birthday. She lives so far away that I'd normally take a plane to get there. (OK, it's only 100 miles, but that feels far....) It's remote enough that she had cows in her backyard and had we stayed late enough, we could have seen stars.

Remember them? Stars? Well did Emerson write in "Nature":

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

It was nice to get away from cities and spend time with cows, sisters, and a beautifully green part of Utah that I'd never seen. It was so green, it felt like Switzerland. As for Brittany, she's one of the funnest, quirkiest people I know.

Earlier in the day I went mountain biking with Matt Harrison, a former developer for SpikeSource and a friend from Stanford. We rode the Bobsled, an awesome trail above Salt Lake City that has been seriously tricked out by someone, not sure who.

Then last night we went over to our friends' house across the street to watch an Anne Bronte dramatization and eat the rhubarb cobbler that Bretta made. Time well spent (and food well-eaten :-).

Life is good. Sorry to ramble, but I'm just feeling lucky this morning. I'm glad that I'm occasionally lucky enough to experience life outside of work. Software is good, but family/friends/great literature/mountain biking/etc. are even better. Now if I could just convince myself to spend more time on these things and a little less on work....

All work and no play makes a person...

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Sat, 24 May 2008 03:46:00 +0000

...boring. I couldn't help but feel some disgust and sympathy for the Ivy League undergraduates recently profiled in Businessweek. The kids have started special clubs at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc. so as to make their already frantic scramble to "the top" even more frantic.

Throughout the article they take themselves very seriously, talking up their ability to due diligence in different languages (as if people in the real business world can't) and saying self-important things like:

It's extremely competitive and cutthroat out there, so you have to take initiative.

What rot.

I remember the same crowd foraging for differentiation at Stanford Law School when I was there. They were fighting over Law Review and for professorial attention, desperately trying to stand out. Ironically, the more they competed with each other in the classroom, the less interesting they became outside of it.

Where are they now? Most are at law firms and leaving at the soonest opportunity. Others are still living the dream, clawing away at each other to "make partner" or finagle their way into the Supreme Court.

I only know one of my former classmates that really loves his job. I assume these undergraduates will at some point wake up and wonder when their lives were due to begin.

Compare that to my friend, Skyler. He was a good student but didn't make a fetish of it. Most days saw him out on his porch swing, (re)reading Sports Illustrated while watching his kids. He and his family now live in a small-but-growing community in southern Utah, where he has a thriving real estate development business and seems to thoroughly enjoy his life, just as he always has. I suspect most of my law school friends would gladly trade lives with Skyler. They easily can. They just have to shift their priorities a bit.

I say this as a very competitive person who spends most of my life working. But at least I recognize that I do so because I'm a loser, not because I need to get ahead. The people I admire most are those that I see playing with their kids, with jobs that may never make them rich but which leave them plenty of time to be home.

Perhaps these Businessweek hyper-competitive kids will cancel each other out. Perhaps they'll be too busy to raise families, ensuring their gene pool will die out. Funny, that: If Darwin was even remotely right, perhaps it's those slothful, doting parents who will inherit the earth, rather than the "strong." I sure hope so. They're much nicer to be around.

Now I just need to become more like them.

Entrepreneurs are old fogeys

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:10:00 +0000

New research from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation suggests that the myth of the 20-something entrepreneur is just that: A myth.

It turns out that the average and median age of US-born technology founders is 39. Twice as many are older than 50 as are younger than 25.

The old fogeys shall inherit the (startup) earth.

I'm 35. I've always wanted to start my own company. That's my goal post-Alfresco, unless someone offers a CEO slot of a very early stage company. I figure I have four years until I hit my peak. I can't wait. :-)

Since Arsenal couldn't win...

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Asay) — Thu, 22 May 2008 02:35:00 +0000

...I'm glad Manchester United won. Yes, ManU could only manage to win the league by a few points while spending hundreds of millions of dollars more than Arsenal, and yes they got lucky that Ronaldo never got injured, but they're still worlds better than Chelsea. Chelsea is a billionaire's toy: No class, no cohesion, just brute strength. Chelsea is boring to watch, even at their best, because they never look like more than a random assortment of talented players going one on one with the opposing team.

ManU at least plays with style and class. I would have preferred that they did it with real money rather than American-style debt, but what can you do?

The only thing that would have made the match better (It was a pretty drab game until the final seconds) would have been to see Ashley Cole miss his penalty kick. I haven't forgiven him for the way he left Arsenal.

And so Chelsea ends the season with exactly as much as Arsenal did: Nothing. Tant pis.