Aaron's Random Thoughts

2011-11-09T14:37:00.002-05:00

Just spent some time re-reading old posts here. So strange that my life has changed wildly over the last few years, but internally I'm really not all that different. You'd think I would learn something, or not have the same recurring problems year after year, but apparently you'd be wrong about that.

Hi

2011-10-13T09:32:00.000-04:00

So this "Occupy Wall Street" thing has been going on for close to a month now, and has spread to other cities, including my own. It's a curious thing, and I am watching it with interest.

I'm feeling rather lethargic lately, but that seems to be a long term problem of mine. A theme running through my life. Undirected, unfocused. Disappointed, even.

Yeah, that's a good word for what I feel a lot - disappointment. In myself, a lot of the time, but also in other people. We should all be better than we are. I believe we can be, but for whatever reason, we fall short.

What is this place

2011-03-11T11:54:00.000-05:00

What has this place become? The naked, unabashed, unapologetic power grab going on at the state level in the US is terrifying. The open torture of one of our own soldiers, with no end in sight. The absolute acceptance that corporations can do no wrong, and that workers are the enemy.

How is this America?

There's no "hope" here. There's no striving for a better tomorrow. There is no equality, or fairness, or even virtue in this. This is the strong crushing the weak, the rich dominating the poor, the few enslaving the many.

Why is the government not putting work programs into place? Why do banks get giant bailouts, only to see executives get massive bonuses? Why are chain of ownership laws in real estate being blatantly ignored? Why do giant companies pay less in taxes than I do?

There's no attempt to build a brighter future going on. Only "shared sacrifice" - where "shared" means "not the rich". It's a bleak, depressing future we're being presented with, one where a life in chains of debt is somehow better than any other possible alternative.

I don't like this empty future. I don't want my kids to have a future this dark. I need to figure out what to do to make the world a better place for them.

No real reason

2011-01-22T21:59:00.000-05:00

I don't really have much to say at the moment, save that I notice I have been neglecting this, and perhaps should consider writing here again. It might do me some good to express myself every now and then. Feeling very tired lately, and unmotivated - but that does seem to be a recurring theme in my life.

Startup Weekend

2010-11-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I've posted anything here, almost a year and a half. I'm not going to go into why right now, but instead I want to talk about this past weekend, which was really cool. I participated in a "Startup Weekend" event. The basic idea was to pitch ideas, form teams, and create a functional business - all in one weekend. Sounds insane? It is.

And a hell of a lot of fun.

So here are some of my thoughts on the experience.

Day 1:

Arrived at about 5:30 with a friend in tow. Lots of pizza there, and lots of pizza. Saw a couple familiar faces. Mixed and mingled, heard a good speaker, and about 20 people pitched ideas, including me. (An idea I had over a year ago.) My idea was similar enough to 2 other ideas that we merged teams. Then people voted for ideas, with the idea that the team with the most votes would stand up and pitch again, and people would join that team. Ours went first and wound up with about 14 people, a lot for an event like this. A couple other ideas I really liked, but I stayed with mine.

We all then split into our groups and began working on the projects, staying until midnight.

Day 2:

Arrive at 8:30, the doors open at 9. Go in, have breakfast, get to work. There are updates given, but each team is working like crazy. A few people vanish from our team. I am the only back end dev, and I am scrambling with server problems, and DNS isn't helping. Finally I give up on Rails 3 ever working on my server and restart with Rails 2. Shortly before midnight I get FB Login working, returning some values.

Early in the day we settled on a name - Likedity - and got the domain name.

Day 3:

Arrive at 10 and work. The team is down to 6. A speaker at one point, an update somewhere in the day, final pitches at 5:30. I'm working to get the front end design pulled in. It takes a while, but I finally realize that FB isn't sending me location information in any way. I give up and quickly set up GeoIP with Maxmind, which is a snap. A very short while later I get event information from Eventful working, using the GeoIP. This is at about 4. The business people in the team are working to get a presentation put together. We wrap up at 5:30, and pitches are actually at 6. We go second.

We didn't win the overall contest to go on to the next round, but there's quite a bit of interest in the app, and encouragement to keep moving. The top 2 apps - eatdrink.it and statssquared - really, honestly, kick ass. Statssquared wins, and deservedly so. They have something really cool.

Below is a list of the final companies that came out of this, roughly in the same order as the final pitches, although I am a bit fuzzy on the middle ones.

Go check them all out.

Day 9

2009-06-26T07:48:00.001-04:00

Just finished working out again. Day 3 for each of the appropriate workout weeks. Man, this kicks my ass, but I guess I need it.

Day 8 (A day late)

2009-06-26T07:46:00.001-04:00

Nothing really to report except, once again, headaches and sleepiness are subsiding. Very sure it's the result of adapting to the vitamins. Still the occasional fishy burp from the fish oil, though.

Day 7

2009-06-24T22:59:00.002-04:00

Today was the second day of the exercises, and I got through them as listed. Man, those are hard. I know they are supposed to be, otherwise no progress is made, but damn.

Headaches and sleepiness are definitely diminishing, but still not completely gone.

I'm trying to think of some topics to write some articles on that people would be interested in reading. I suppose I just need to pick a few, and then check on some keyword combinations and see how they stack up in various tools designed for that. Nothing like actual data.

Day 6

2009-06-23T08:59:00.002-04:00

No exercise today. The weird headaches and bouts of sleepiness seem to be fading somewhat. Perhaps my body is adjusting to the vitamins I am pushing through it, figuring out what to do with all this stuff it's not used to getting.

I've been doing some thinking about life, and the world, and I'm not happy with a lot of it. Maybe I'll post here about it later, but right now I just need to deal with it myself.

Day 5 (A day late)

2009-06-23T08:55:00.002-04:00

Forgot to post this yesterday, but in the morning I started day one of exercise. Pushups I did Week 1, Day 1 at the highest of the 3 intensities, situps I did Week 3, Day 1 and the second level of intensity, and squats I did Week 3, Day 1 at the highest level. Pushups, then squats, then situps. Repeat, over and over.

It was hard, but I got through it, and was surprisingly not very sore for long afterward.

Other than that, it was a pretty crappy day for a variety of reasons that I won't go into here, but at least I had my mom over and she and I and the kids had pizza together, and that was good.

Day 4

2009-06-21T12:33:00.002-04:00

It's Father's Day.

Ben just lost another tooth. The third one on top, fifth overall. It came out really easily, apparently he was just poking at it with his tongue and out it came.

Napping a lot today, but I usually sleep a lot on Sundays. A little bit of the achy sinuses thing, but not as much. Maybe it'll clear up soon.

Not much else to say.

Day 3

2009-06-20T17:39:00.003-04:00

Partially because I stayed up too late last night, my body/brain *demanded* a lot of sleep this morning. Curiously, it's been very quiet inside my head for most of the day today. For me, this is a big deal, because usually my mind is going at a million miles an hour, and often I can't get things done. Also, interestingly, I was able to make myself *not* think about things. Often I get stuck in a loop over something, and today I could break out of it, change the subject.

Sinus headaches today, too. It's really pretty out, after yesterday's storms. Not sure if it's pressure changes or the vitamins.

I plan on beginning the exercise routines on Monday.

Day 2

2009-06-20T00:09:00.002-04:00

My legs are really sore today. I was extremely tired around noon, and have had some headaches across the middle of my head, side to side over the top. It's possible that the weather changes have been playing havoc with my sinuses, so I can't really attribute that to the vitamins. My stomach has been a bit queasy, which is likely the fish oil, I think.

Obviously it's too early to see any real effects from any of this.

Day 1

2009-06-18T16:08:00.001-04:00

So I got tired of it and decided to do something. I went and found a few web pages for some simple exercise programs: two hundred squats, one hundred push ups, and two hundred sit-ups. I also signed up at push ups logger to track my progress. This is me. It's sort of weird how that site uses the same pages for push ups as well as sit-ups.

I also just bought some vitamins today:

Fish Oil 1760 mg
Lecithin 400 mg
DHEA 25 mg
Acetyl L-Carnitine 400 mg with Alpha Lipoic Acid 200 mg

The fish oil I took 2 of (already having fishy burps, oh well), the others I am taking 1 of. The fish oil is for the Omega 3 fatty acids, and the others are either acetylcholine precursors or aid in its production. Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter that tells your muscles what to do, and is a primary factor in the executive function of the brain.

I have no idea what the effect of this will be. I intend on sticking with this, modifying it as needed to get better effects.

Lost

2009-06-14T22:59:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since I posted last. I don't even remember what it was about, and I'm not inclined to go and check right now.

I'm in a serious funk right now, and extremely stressed. I have a few bright spots, some hope, but what I need are a serious large scale goal to work toward, a hobby or two, and a girlfriend. It's been long enough since I've had any of those that I am past not even remembering what it was like, and starting to want them again.

I need to move forward with my life. This stagnation is killing my soul.

What I am learning

2009-05-09T14:27:00.002-04:00

I've been wondering a few things about my life, why things don't work the way I want, and I'm coming to a few fairly unpleasant conclusions:

It's ok to torture people. Don't worry, you won't get in trouble for it. Why?

If you're just a grunt, you were just following orders, so it's ok.
If you were in charge, you can keep it under wraps until the next administration comes along, and they'll sweep it under the rug for you.

It's ok to ruin people's lives financially by taking inherently stupid risks. Why?
- The government will just give you more money to play with, and make future generations pay the bill.

It seems to me that people actively try to not think for themselves, and they like getting screwed. I was raised to think that being aggressive was wrong, that I should play nice, but it seems to be that's wrong. That being aggressive is how to get what you want, and the bigger the dick you are, the more you get away with it.

I was raised to think for myself, which means I don't tend to like being told what to do, and I was raised to be nice, which means I tend to think that telling other people what to do isn't right. This combination leads to one very, very frustrated man.

Johnny

2009-04-18T08:28:00.002-04:00

This past Sunday a friend of mine passed away. I hadn't seen him in several years, but in my circle of friends he was very well liked. The viewing was yesterday, and I saw several people I hadn't seen, well, since the last time I saw Johnny.

The funeral itself is today, and I will almost certainly go to it.

Johnny was a good guy, very funny. It's unfortunate to say that my life really won't be all that different with him gone, because I hadn't seen him in so long, but he was the first person in that circle of friends to go that I am aware of. He was only 49 or 50, and this really brings to mind my own mortality.

Very soon

2009-04-16T08:47:00.002-04:00

About a week ago I was chatting with a friend of mine online, and he gave me an idea for a project for a new website. I've been working on it quite a bit since then, with much feedback from him on it, and I'm hoping to get it live today, tomorrow at the latest. It's pretty cool.

I'll post a link to it once it's live.

I'm tired

2009-03-19T11:19:00.001-04:00

Stayed up late watching "The Terminator", and my stupid brain wouldn't let me sleep.

Meh

2009-03-11T12:35:00.002-04:00

I have no energy for dating right now. No real interest. I see an attractive woman and can appreciate the view, and then the thought pops into my head, "I'd have to clean out my car."

Yup.

The potential benefits are outweighed by the minimal effort it would take to clean my car. In short, I'm telling any prospective girlfriend, "You're not worth it."

And that's not far from the truth. I'm tired of other people's crap. I can comfort people with a quick email, or something like that, but right now I just don't want to deal with baggage, and we all have baggage. Lord knows I have a ton of it, myself. I don't want anyone helping me with mine, either.

I'm not slamming any of the people I know. If you're reading this, and you think I mean you, I don't. I mean *everyone*. I only have patience for my kids right now. I'll talk with you over email...but dating? No. Sorry.

Life is just...weird.

2009-03-06T08:42:00.002-05:00

So this morning I was driving to work, and as I was driving through my apartment complex I saw this gigantic piece of metal mostly off to the side of the road. It looked sort of like a bathtub, or huge sink, but with wires. Naturally I stopped my car to get out and look. From every angle I'm looking this thing over, and it turns out that it's the firewall of a car. You know, that part of the car between your dashboard and the engine. There's no frame of the car, no outside part...just this...firewall. I look at the ground, and there's no sign of a wreck - besides, that'd be one hell of a wreck to knock one of those loose, and there'd be more stuff. Nope. There are some pieces of broken plastic on the ground and a white arc on the ground leading up to it.

So what happened is that this huge thing fell off...something...and someone dragged it to the side of the road.

What that hell?

But that's not all. I get back into my car and drive, and as I get to the exit from my complex, I happen to glance into my mirror and see that there's something odd about the mouth of the woman driving the car behind me. It's too big, and green, with a yellow circle hanging off it. Huh?

She's got a pacifier in her mouth.

No, seriously.

I think maybe it's one of those candy rings, you know, with a big sugar "gem", but...I don't think so, actually. The "ring" part is something like an inch and a half in diameter, and sort of hinged, I'm pretty sure. So...she's got a pacifier. And even if it is one of those candy rings, that's still just strange to see at 8 in the morning. In a grown woman's mouth. She's not a teenager, she's close to my age.

So...yeah. Life is just weird.

Snoo

2009-02-26T10:41:00.002-05:00

Late Tuesday or early Wednesday, Snoo died. He was a ball python that I had for about 16 years. He made the trip out to Walla Walla with me, and back. He had to be rescued from my car one time out there when I found out the hard way that I couldn't take him on the plane with me, despite what the airline's website said.

He was a good snake, very even tempered, and never bit me.

He'll be missed.

Oh, crap

2009-01-31T07:40:00.000-05:00

I'm 40.

It's about time

2009-01-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

I must admit to being disappointed that Bush was never impeached. It is a failure of the American people to not have demanded it.

But at least he's out today.

Waiting

2009-01-12T21:48:00.003-05:00

In 8 days we have a new President, and that's a very good thing. It's hard to imagine a worse one than what we have been saddled with for the last 8 years. Nearly and entire decade of economic potential growth, gone. An enormous loss of worldwide prestige. Massive violations of privacy and civil rights. Skyrocketing debt, and now walking a narrow tightrope between deflation and hyperinflation, either of which could happen in short order.

Mr. Obama, you have your work cut out for you.