April 11, 2008 by phillip.

My wife and I were talking a couple months ago and a theme started to emerge. We were going back and forth with situations that we’ve successfully navigated through just by thinking and talking. It shows how long I’ve been developing this idea because I first started this post three months ago but left it alone. My wife just recently wrote a great post on it called, “The Doctor Who in me.” This really explains what we love so much about the British TV series being shown on Scifi-channel. It is great to have weapons of mass destruction like the military, Kung Fu skills like Bruce Lee, or even gadgets like Batman but knowledge and mastery of speech is an art not to be underestimated.

As a kid I didn’t get into any fights but I was never considered a wimp or a nerd. I had mastered a skill that would prove helpful in many situations. There was a certain deterrence to messing with me because of the way I could make you feel. I was the kid that was very well liked and good at sports but with that comes what we call “haters.” Haters are the people that don’t like you because they are jealous of other people thinking highly of you. I didn’t have the pretty girl but I was a man of many talents. I was the troubadour that sat on a classroom step playing guitar, loved to play basketball or any other sport, was tops in my class in grades, and was quick to say something that would make you laugh. However, there were those times when I had to show someone my other side. Read the rest of this entry »

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April 11, 2008 by phillip.

For a long time now I’ve envied the stock broker. Not so much for his financial prowess but more for his grasp of information coming in. I liken it to a naval vessel. Each station on the bridge has about 3 or 4 monitors that he has to look at to get all the information necessary to fully access any given situation. Stock brokers usually have a six monitor setup that has different charts and graphs changing all day long.  Call me crazy but this is what my dreams are made out of.

My wife calls me crazy to this extent but I love being emerced in things to do and totally being on top of all of them. One of the reasons that I stopped liking to write code so very long ago is because when I write code I can only pay attention to the code. I was 10 when I first learned BASIC and I would sit and code on my Timex Sinclair (that’s really old school) all day just to make a space ship move across the screen and shoot a laser. Now days my attention span is so much shorter but I juggle well.

Why do network admins always just use virtual screens instead of real ones? I’m typing this blog post right now on my laptop running Linux and I have 4 virtual screens that I always use. I try to keep things like graphics apps, network/troubleshooting stuff, and web browsing seperate most times. However, I think I really need real screens so on one I can do all my social networking and text messaging. Another for productivity and the others just to keep status on a lot of different things.

A video podcast I like to watch called hak5 has a great mantra that I like to follow: “Feed your techno-lust!” I’ll keep you updated if I ever get this going. Also, can someone please tell me what’s on each one of the stock broker’s screens? I’m dying to know.

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