Seeping Matter

Sometimes, dreams are just dreams.  But sometimes they are more than just dreams.  Sometimes you learn something really valuable.

Last night I had just such a dream.  I was heading off to work, carpooling with a person from my neighborhood with whom I never carpool.  For some reason we were in my hometown of Roosevelt.  We were turning onto my parent’s street when we were held at the intersection to wait for a passenger jet airplane, which came hurtling down my parent’s street and into the parking lot of the strip mall at the end of the street, pulled up abruptly and banked hard right to avoid running into the store at the back of the parking lot, then leveled out and pulled up hard again, then banked hard right again 180 degrees and pulled up a third time to complete the take-off.

Someone commented to me, “Only the very best pilots fly in and out of here.”

At about this point the person with whom I was carpooling said to me, “So, how do you want to square up on the carpooling?”

I said, “Well, what did you have in mind?”

“Well, I usually charge $25 to carpool plus mileage at a minimum.”

“Okay.  See you at work,” I said as I walked off toward my (not my parent’s) house.

I thought to myself, “I’ll just drive my ’67 Camaro to work.  It’s a nice day today anyway.”

I walked back toward my parent’s home and watched another airplane take off.  ”This is weird.  This seems like a dream,” I thought to myself.  I pinched myself pretty hard on the arm.

“Ouch,” I said.  I didn’t wake up though.  I kept walking toward my house to get into my Camaro.

Then I woke up later.  ”That WAS a weird dream,” I thought.

Like I said, sometimes you learn from your dreams.  For example, I learned that pinching yourself doesn’t really wake you up.  That’s good to know for future reference.

That last post reminded me of a funny story.  It is 100% true.

It was April of 2000 and we had just moved to Utah because I’d taken a job at Novell.  We were closing on our home the following day and I had just received a paycheck I needed in order to close on our new home.

Some of you already know where this is going.

I walked into the bank with paycheck in hand.  I went up to the counter and said, “I need to deposit this check, and then I need to draw a counter check for certified funds in [x] amount.”

The teller looks up my account information and says, “Uh, you don’t have enough money in your account to draw a check for certified funds in that amount.”

“Well, that’s why I’m depositing this check, see.”

“We have to wait for the money from that check to clear before we can draw a check for certified funds with that money.”

“How long does that take?” I asked.

“Usually two or three business days.”

“Well, that is not going to work for me.  I need to close on a home tomorrow!”

“I’m sorry, sir, that is our policy.  I’m afraid there is nothing I can do for you.”

I thought for a minute, nearly stepped away from the window.

Then I said, “Can I cash this check instead?”

“Well, yes sir, you can cash your check, if you want.”

“Alright,” I said.  ”I would like to cash this check.”

I endorsed the check and she counted out the money into my hand.  But I didn’t leave.

“Is there something else I can help you with?”

“Yes, just a question.  If I deposit this cash, can you draw a check for certified funds using this cash?”

She looks at me, a bit stymied.  ”Well, yes.”

I handed her the cash she had just given me.  ”I would like to deposit this cash into my account, and then draw a counter check for certified funds for [x] amount.”

She proceeded to do just as I asked.  We closed on the house the next day.

(Homework assignment:  Essay:  Should I feel more annoyed at such a stupid rule with such an obvious workaround, or at the fact that an employee of the bank was unable to identify the workaround and help me out?  Discuss.)

Not long ago I had an assignment to prepare a slide deck for work.  It was really only work related in the sense that I was asked to do it at work, so I took some liberties with it.  One of my slides featured a large picture of the moon, with the phrase “TANSTAAFL, but TISTAAFD!” followed, in smaller letters, by the statement “Heinlein was wrong!”  The significance of this was lost on almost everyone.

After the meeting I had to explain the following:

• TANSTAAFL stands for “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch,” a phrase we all understand which was popularized by Robert Heinlein in his book “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”
• TISTAAFD is something I made up, namely, an acronym for “There Is Such Thing As A Free Dinner,” a reference to the multiple times that Microsoft bought us dinner when we were crunching to deliver MED-V v2
• Sci-fi is probably the best form of fiction there is, and Heinlein is probably the most notable sci-fi author of all time

Subsequent discussion led to a request for a list of what I consider the most important books to read.  I pointed out that, in truth, I mostly read non-fiction, but they were not to be denied!

So I put them off.  Until now, anyway.

In order to make this list, the book must be more than just good.  A good, entertaining story or presentation of interesting information isn’t enough.  If it were, there would be many, many more books on this list.

No, to make this list, the book must be truly influential.  It must have a permanent effect on the way that I see the world and/or the way that I approach life to make my list.

So I now present, in no particular order, a list of books that I consider most influential thusfar in my life.

• “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey. Outside of scripture, possibly the most important book I’ve ever read, and also unfortunately blamed (inappropriately) for a lot of corporate-speak like “Proactivity” and “Synergy.”  ”Seven Habits” is often ridiculed, but almost never by people who have read it.
  • Key Takeaway: This book is full of valuable lessons, on proactivity, on leadership, on stewardship, on prioritization.  But one of my favorite nuggets from the book is, “Be efficient with things, but effective, never efficient, with people.”
  • Other great books by Covey:  ”The 8th Habit”
• “1984″ by George Orwell. The concept of an all-seeing “Big Brother” comes from 1984, including the name itself.  Orwell paints a bleak and somber picture of a dystopian future in this book written in 1949.  This is not a happy book.  It is disturbing, frightening, and powerful.  But I don’t know how you could tell the message any other way, and I consider the message absolutely essential.  Everyone should read this book.
  • Key Takeaway: Freedom to choose is of utmost importance to happiness, more than fulfillment, security, or prosperity.  Once you start to trade freedom to your government for those other things, you may not be able to stop it, including giving up the freedom to choose who you love.
  • Other great books by Orwell:  ”Animal Farm”
• “Buffettology” by Mary Buffett and David Clark. “Buffettology” is primarily a financial book, wherein Warren Buffett’s ex-daughter-in-law Mary Buffett describes the investing techniques that Warren Buffett has used for decades to become the world’s wealthiest investor.  As a financial book, it is not bad, although I doubt this book alone will make you rich.  But it will teach you to think like an investor, and that will change the way you think about a lot of things.
  • Key Takeaway: Regardless of whether you trade stocks, you are an investor.  You invest your time and your money — in your career, in your family, in your friendships, in your hobbies.  Thinking about things from an investing point of view has had a significant impact on how I view business decisions, family decisions, and personal decisions.
• “The Code Book” by Simon Singh. You might be surprised at just how entertaining and valuable a book on the history of cryptography can be.  And you might be surprised at how much it enriches your life.
  • Key Takeaway: There is an ongoing race between the creation of cryptographic forms and the creation of techniques to crack those cryptographic forms.  For centuries, the two sides have traded the lead back and forth countless times.  All of which makes modern legislative efforts around cryptography seem pretty stupid.  This further erodes my confidence in all the other things they are trying to “fix” also.
• “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” by Eric S. Raymond. You might think you have a pretty good grasp on the software industry and how all of that should work.  You might think all those open-source wackos are beyond comprehension by normal, capitalism-minded folks.  You might think all of that until you read “The Cathedral and the Bazaar.”  Until you read it, you won’t understand open source.  And afterward, you will start to wonder whether there really is a better way.
  • Key Takeaway: Open source software may not cost anything to obtain, but it is not free.  How do you pay for open source software?  Businesses that do not  understand this will never be successful in open source, no matter how much noise they make about it.
• “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” by John Gray. It isn’t too popular, especially among men, to read books on relationships.  So I do realize that most men would make fun of me for admitting that I’ve read this book.  Of course, most men don’t have as great a marriage as I have either, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
  • Key Takeaway: Men and women feel love differently from each other and are therefore differently motivated and differently rewarded.  To have fulfilling relationships, each must learn to show love in ways that will make the other feel loved, not necessarily in ways that would cause the person expressing the love to feel loved themselves.
  • Other great books by Gray:  ”Mars And Venus Together Forever”
  • Note:  Despite me having read this book, I do give my wife most of the credit for our fabulous marriage.
• “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe. In this classic novel, Defoe tells the tale of the fictional hero Robinson Crusoe who lived some 28 years marooned on a tropical island at sea before finally being rescued.  It is still an epic story today full of countless life lessons.
  • Key Takeaway: What would be your outlook on life if you were in his situation?  How likely would you be to make of your life what Robinson Crusoe did in such difficult circumstances?
• “The Millionaire Mind” by Thomas J. Stanley. While Stanley is probably better known for another title, my favorite of his is “The Millionaire Mind.”  Through extensive surveys and university research, Stanley gathered the information presented in this book to expose many surprising traits about the truly wealthy in America, and what they do — and do not — spend their money on.
  • Key Takeaway: Being wealthy can be defined as having some quantity of money (usually enough to never need to work again), but it can also be defined as a state of mind, an attitude towards money.  Regardless of where you currently are financially, you can start thinking of yourself as wealthy.  Then when faced with a financial decision, you can use this frame of reference:  ”I’m a wealthy person, and that is not the sort of thing a wealthy person spends money on.”  Over time, conducting your life as a wealthy person will eventually lead you to actual financial wealth.
  • Other great books by Stanley:  ”The Millionaire Next Door”
• “The Universe In A Nutshell” by Stephen Hawking. When it requires the effort to type that it must for Stephen Hawking, you can expect that he would pine over every word before writing it out.  The result is an elegantly written and easily understood explanation of modern theoretical physics that is truly enriching.  And whether he meant it or not, Hawking’s writing strengthened my belief in God and his plan for us.
  • Key Takeaway: You can think of our universe as walnut-shaped, where the size of the universe follows roughly the shape of the nut as time moves along the axis of the nut from top to bottom.  If true, how many of these might there be?  Might not God create one of these periodically as a timed test environment in which his billions of spirit children can prove to themselves whether they choose good or evil?  Does this explain how God can know the beginning from the end and yet still allow individual agency?
  • Other great books by Hawking:  I haven’t actually read it, but I’m sure “A Brief History of Time” is excellent and is definitely on my must-read list.
• “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card. This story of a young boy, a child prodigy of military strategy and tactics, is more than just a story about aliens and war.  It will make you think about international relations, the philosophy of preemptive strike, the place of diplomacy, submitting to a higher will, the right to destroy something (or someone) for the greater good, and more.
  • Key Takeaway: Do your very best work, give your very best effort, always.  You never know just how important it might be that you give the very best of yourself.
  • Other great books by Card:  ”Speaker for the Dead” and many others.
• “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s actually not his best-received book, but probably my favorite.  While he eventually provides some counterpoints to the argument, the central premise of “Blink” is that our initial analysis of a situation is usually the best.
  • Key Takeaway: You know all those times you said, “I should’ve followed my gut?”  Yep, you were right.  Pay more attention to the gut next time.
  • Other great books by Gladwell:  ”The Tipping Point” and “Outliers”
• “Starship Troopers” by Robert Heinlein. Not every Heinlein book is that great, and some of them are either too edgy or too over the top.  But not “Starship Troopers.”  This is a great book with a smattering of philosophical and societal concepts that will really make you think.  And the way he predicts, in 1959, the consequences that would come from juvenile delinquency and leniency are pretty freaky.
  • Key Takeaway: I can’t stick with just one here.  One of my favorites is the need for balance between authority and responsibility, a principle that is so blindingly obvious when you examine it, yet so appallingly absent in nearly every social structure today, especially government entities and corporate environments.  Another is his reasoning behind why, in the future world of “Starship Troopers,” military service is a prerequisite for citizenship and, thus, for voting rights:  Before you let people vote on public policy, they should learn how to put the needs of the whole ahead of their own personal desires.
  • Other great books by Heinlein:  Be warned, these are progressively more edgy, but still pretty amazing:  ”The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,” “Farnham’s Freehold,” and “Stranger In A Strange Land”
• “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. “Freakonomics” claims to explore “the hidden side of everything,” which is a lie (one that both authors admit to in the follow-up book).  But they do explore the hidden side of many things, which makes the book interesting.  In my world, however, interesting doesn’t mean great.  What makes it great is, well, the key takeaway below.
  • Key Takeaway: No matter how confusing the problem or how perplexing the situation, there is probably a fairly simple and logical explanation, if you just can obtain the right information.  This learning is key in a number of ways.  In politics, for example, whatever confusing story you’re being sold is probably not the whole story.  At work, your boss’s erratic behavior probably makes perfect sense if you just understand his motives.  So question everything, and seek for the hidden side of everything.
  • Other great books by Levitt and Dubner:  ”SuperFreakonomics”
• “Linchpin” by Seth Godin. I wrote before about Linchpin and how meaningful it was to me.  Godin does a masterful job of encouraging you to be more than you are today, and while he doesn’t tell you exactly what to do, he gives you a framework to work within to achieve it.
  • Key Takeaway: No matter what career you are in, you have a choice.  You can either become a Linchpin, wherein you make yourself indispensable and therefore worth increasingly more, or you can participate in the race to the bottom, wherein you become worth increasingly less.
  • Other great books by Godin:  ”The Dip”
• “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. Funny, interesting, insightful, and influential, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” is a must-read for everyone, especially people in technology.  Once you read this book, you will understand where fjords come from, why “42″ is the answer to any question, why Altavista named their language translator “Babelfish,” and why towels are so important.
  • Key Takeaway: Perspective.  Among all the other greatnesses of this book, the one thing I come away with every time I read it is a better ability to see things from a different perspective.
  • Other great books by Adams:  ”Life, the Universe, and Everything” and “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe” are great too.  Actually, I’d recommend just buying the leather-bound “Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide” which contains all of the books in the series in a beautiful package.
• “The Cashflow Quadrant” by Robert Kiyosaki. Kiyosaki isn’t exactly a fantastic writer, but the concepts in Cashflow Quadrant are excellent.  Even if, like me, you don’t actually get around to putting them into practice for a while, the Cashflow Quadrant provides a great frame of reference for understanding how money is made and how the business world works with respect to you personally, and it helps you know where you are trying to go.
  • Key Takeaway: If you want to make more money, you have to be willing to take more risk.  You might not be willing to take more risk — that’s perfectly fine.  Just don’t be too upset when, after shunning risk, you find money shunning you.
  • Other great books by Kiyosaki:  ”Rich Dad Poor Dad”
• “The Book of Mormon” (Scripture). On one hand, it seems weird to discuss scripture in a post that has otherwise discussed secular books; on the other hand, no set of books has influenced my thinking more than my scriptures, and no scriptural book has done this more than the Book of Mormon.  Compared to the Bible, the messages are comparable and complimentary, but the writing style is clearer and the lessons more obviously relevant to us today.  If you have not read it, give it a good old college try.  You might be surprised.
  • Key Takeaway: There are a number.  The most important is that Jesus Christ is the Savior and did truly atone for the sins of all mankind.  But there’s a couple of others that I like.  One is that a society cannot exist forever by choosing to condone only some sin.  All sinful behavior eventually leads away from peace toward war and destruction.  Another is that, aside from life itself and the atonement of His son, God’s greatest gift to us is our freedom to choose what we will do with the life we are given and the time we have to live.  Specifically, freedom to choose is more important than personal safety.  How are we honoring that gift, both individually and as a society?
  • Other great scripture:  Obviously, the Bible, the original testament of Jesus Christ, to which the Book of Mormon is a companion.

It takes about one year for my big toenail to grow back.

I’ve verified this on two separate occasions.  The first was in college, when we were having a killer waterfight with the girls who lived across the parking lot, and we were just about to enter complete domination phase when I smashed my big toe into one of those scallop-topped concrete edging stones and broke my big toenail right off.  It looked like normal a year later.  Then, last year when we hiked Maple Mountain, I broke my big toenail halfway off at the root and have been sort of managing that situation ever since.  It almost looks like normal now, and it’s been almost a year.

I’m sure, like me, you will not be surprised to know that I’m not the first to notice this fantastic phenomenon.

A quick search revealed that the ancient Yrgyuilf tribe also noticed this phenomenon.  Located deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle near the equator, the story goes that this simple tribe had a problem:  They could not tell time, because they had no seasons, being near the equator, and they had not noticed the sun yet.  They also owned everything they had.

One day the tribe elder had a revelation.  He called a tribe council.  ”I’ve figured out our problem!” he announced.  ”We’re all depressed and unhappy!”  A murmur ran through the tribe.  Yes! they thought.  I hadn’t realized it until now, but yes! I am depressed!  And  unhappy!

“Probably the reason we are so depressed and unhappy is because we own everything we have, and we don’t have a bunch of crap we don’t really need!” the crowd exclaimed.

“What will we do about it?”

“We need a reason to spend money that we don’t have, and go into debt, on a regular basis!” someone suggested.

“Hey yeah!  That’ll work!”

“But … but, when should we do this?”

“Wait — isn’t that what Christmas is for?” someone asked.

The elder took control of the situation.  ”Excellent, everyone.  We’ve figured out what is wrong with us:  we are depressed and unhappy, and we didn’t even know it until now.  The reason we are depressed and unhappy is because we don’t have any debt or crap we don’t really need.  Celebrating Christmas will solve our problem, as it provides the opportunity to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need.  Only problem is, we need to know when to celebrate.”

A wise old man stepped forward.  ”Once,” he said, “I stubbed the crap out of my big toe and my toenail broke right off.  It took a long time to grow back.  We could call that time period, uh, a ‘year’.”

“We will celebrate Christmas every year by spending money we don’t have on stuff we don’t need,” said the tribe elder.  ”I feel happier already!”

As the council continued, they decided that each year, they would select a young virgin and smash her big toenail until it fell off.  When it had completely grown back, it would be time to celebrate!

It wasn’t long until they realized they could use similar logic for other measurements of time:

• How long after I sprain my ankle until it doesn’t hurt anymore?  One month.
• How long after I pull a tooth out of my head until it doesn’t hurt anymore?  One week.
• How long after I shave until my whiskers grow back?  One day.
• How long after I bean you in the head with this rock until your headache goes away?  One hour.
• How long after I prick my finger until the bleeding stops?  One minute.

Figuring out a measurement for one day took some time, as the young virgins in town didn’t seem to be growing their whiskers back.  After some deliberation, they figured that a male virgin could work.  It took a while, but they eventually found a male virgin that actually could grow whiskers back, and they celebrated because now they could measure days.

This worked quite well for the Yrgyuilf tribe for a while.  It created jobs as some people were in charge of rounding up the young virgins for timekeeping purposes, and others would regularly prick their fingers or bean them in the head with rocks in order to know things like whether it was time for lunch.

After a while, they started having trouble finding young virgins and also had to simultaneously deal with a significant teenage pregnancy epidemic, so they decided that perhaps any old person could be used for measuring time.  Surprisingly, experimentation showed that it worked about the same.

Eventually someone asked the question, “How long is forever?”  They had a hard time deciding how to measure this, so they eventually settled on three different options:

• If you bash someone’s skull in with a rock, forever is how long it takes for them to wake up.
• If you sever someone’s legs at the hips with a chainsaw, forever is how long it takes for them to grow back.
• If you impale someone through the heart on a sharpened post, forever is how long it takes for their heart to start beating again.

Since it was so essential to get this experiment right, they searched and searched and eventually found three young virgins to help them complete this experiment.  Unfortunately, it was about this time that the tribe pretty much disbanded.  Three of the original Yrgyuilf tribe members are still there, spraining each other’s ankles and pricking each other’s fingers and smashing each other’s toenails off and beaning each other in the head with rocks in order to measure time while they are waiting to see how long forever is.  They’ve stopped measuring weeks because they are all out of teeth and don’t know how to do it anymore.

The rest of the tribe members moved to the city and became dentists.

Faithful readers, if I have any, will recall how I blew out my knee upgrading my PC to Windows 7 about three months ago.  You probably think I’m joking but I’m not really.  I can promise you, the pain was definitely not a joke.

Finally on last December 4 I had orthoscopic surgery on my right knee to repair the torn medial meniscus.  When the nurse handed me the pictures after I woke up from surgery, it was pretty obvious why it hurt so bad.  See how that piece in the middle is folded over on top of itself?  Wedged there between the end of those two bones on the top and bottom?  Yeah, it is not supposed to do  that.

My right knee never hurt as bad post-surgery as it did pre-surgery, even right after I woke up from surgery.  It was certainly stiffer and more swollen and not as stable or strong, but it certainly hurt less.  Plus, narcotics.  This is one of the greatest advantages of surgery.

After a good month or so of limping around on a bad knee (before and after surgery), I started to notice some pain in my other knee.  Not even “some” pain.  A very specific pain.  It didn’t hurt very much but I knew the feeling — it was the exact same type of pain I felt in my right knee right before it blew out.

So when I went to see my doctor for the post-op follow-up visit, I mentioned this pain to him.  ”Is it possible to injure your other knee just because you are compensating for an injured one?”

“Yeah; in fact, that happens a lot,” he replied.

“Well, I’m thinking my other knee is having the same problem.”

He checked it out and, yep, torn medial meniscus in my left knee.  So, exactly two months after my previous surgery, I had orthoscopic surgery on my left knee on February 4, 2010.  It’s a good thing, too; you can easily see here that the meniscus is torn.  It was just a matter of time before that loose stuff caused a real problem.

I’m pretty much a pro at this by now, and me and my orthoscopic surgeon, Dr. Kimball, are pretty good friends by now.  He’s a good doctor and a good person.  I don’t think he killed his wife.  He says the one-armed man did it, and I believe him.

I got an interesting e-mail the other day from Novell:

Please Note: You have been sent this email because you are listed as an administrator of one or more Novell Forge projects.

When Novell Forge was first launched Novell recognized the need for a site dedicated to providing hosting services to a growing number of software development projects, many supporting our open source initiatives. Novell Forge quickly grew and was soon providing these service to nearly 1000 such projects. Demand for new projects has all but disappeared during the past two years while a number of additional project hosting options have begun that can provide a similar set of services to those of Novell Forge.

Now that there are many other options, Novell can turn its focus to other areas and pass the project hosting responsibilities to these other dedicated hosting sites. Novell will be decommissioning the Novell Forge system on December 15, 2009.

This is interesting to me because it is not entirely true.  I should know, because without me there would never have been a Novell Forge.

It’s a bold statement, I know.  It’s one I’m happy to explain.

I came to Novell from IBM in 2000.  It didn’t take long to realize that Novell’s developer story and strategy, or rather the complete lack thereof, was (and still is) a significant weakness in their overall execution.  People buy a computer operating system in large part because of the applications that they can run on it; if a business wants to run a CRM system, they’ll want to be sure that whatever platform they buy will run a CRM suite that is acceptable to them.  This is why having a strong developer strategy is crucial to platform providers, and almost everyone seems to understand this.  Novell certainly should; NetWare owned the x86 server market in the 80′s and early 90′s until Microsoft entered that market.  Initially, the Microsoft offering was not necessarily better than NetWare in terms of stability or performance, but Microsoft definitely outgunned Novell when it came to applications.  It was so much easier to create applications for Microsoft’s platform that their supported portfolio dwarfed Novell’s, and that was a significant key to dethroning Novell’s dominant position in the x86 server market in the mid 90′s.

Anyway, when I came to Novell and learned this, I thought that probably Novell’s Developer Services organization just didn’t know what to do (a mistaken analysis, I later learned) and if I worked there I could probably fix everything.  I was pretty young, arrogant, and naive then.  But in 2002 I was presented an opportunity to work in Developer Services and I took it.

One of the first things I was asked to do was to provide support to customers programming to eDirectory.  I decided to try to learn more about how to do this the same way our third-party developers would, by using the resources that were available online.  I found what appeared to be our authoritative how-to-program-to-eDirectory tutorial, got most of the way through my sample app, and got stuck.  Finally I started asking questions.  I quickly learned that everything I’d been doing was wrong; the authoritative documentation was incorrect.  It used an out-of-date and deprecated API and was no longer considered best practice.  It was some two or three years out of date, but hadn’t been changed yet because changing the documentation was just too painful.

I felt this situation was unacceptable.  We needed the freedom to create an abundance of rich and helpful developer content and to have it published and updated freely and frequently.  We needed to be able to do this without going through drawn-out and tedious approval processes and staging phases for even minor edits.  We needed to be able to continuously deliver not only whitepapers but tutorials and sample applications.  I felt that what was needed was a complete overhaul of Novell’s developer site, converting it into a web application where administrators (Novell Developer Services employees) could update the content and have complete control over what information was being provided to our developer community.

I discussed this with a colleague and my manager, and then we called a formal meeting to discuss this proposal.  I think there were four Developer Services employees in the room.  As we discussed the reasons to do this, other advantages surfaced.  A key issue was that, in Novell’s then-existing developer forums, many Novell developers were already contributing to solving each other’s problems, including answering each other’s questions and even sharing code, from small snippets to complete applications.  We realized that instead of top-down support flowing from company to customer, what our customers really preferred was community support with Novell as an active participant.  As we discussed this, one of my colleagues suggested that instead of writing the web app I suggested, we should do a project hosting site, like SourceForge.  Such a site would allow us to participate as a community with our users to exchange sample code, documentation, tutorials, and other content.  Novell Forge was born.

As we began to socialize the idea, we found out that a separate group within Novell had been tasked with creating a project hosting site for internal company use.  When we both became aware of each other’s goals, the synergies were obvious and it seemed apparent that we should try to coordinate our efforts.  Interestingly, we had human resources to give to the project but lacked funding for capital expenses; the other group had capital expense budget but lacked human resources.  Ultimately we agreed that, as my team developed the Novell Forge solution, we would also develop an internal-use version of the site to meet the goals of this team; in exchange, they would help us to get the hardware we needed to host Novell Forge.

Around the time Novell Forge was launched and completed, a number of people involved directly or indirectly from that team claimed credit for having launched Novell Forge.  Some of them were quite handsomely rewarded by the company, presumably at least in part due to their claimed credit for the site.  Others still claim in public that they are responsible for the site even though they had absolutely nothing to do with the conceptualization, proposal, approval, or implementation.

Meanwhile, those of us who did come up with the idea, who did make the business case and get the approval and deliver the site, well, we pretty much had to settle for a brief pat on the back from Novell.  Or did we even get that?  Anyway.

Novell Forge, despite its pretty lame name and humble beginnings, was actually quite well received by the press.  It earned kudos for Novell from Dave Kearns of NetworkWorld, which was not exactly easy to come by.  And as Novell tried to reinvent itself with an open source focus, purchasing such open source companies as Ximian and SUSE Linux, the existence of Novell Forge was frequently cited as evidence that Novell was serious about an open source strategy (example).  Interest in the site grew quickly and it soon hosted over 1000 external projects, as stated in the e-mail I quoted above.  My team was excited about the traction the site was gaining.  We had many, many ideas for how to grow the site and make it an even more useful tool for software developers.  We had more work to do than time to do it, and it was neat to feel like what we were doing had an impact to Novell.

Even though Novell didn’t seem to care about it.

Oddly, in spite of what my team thought was a pretty obvious success, we could not get approval for funding to continue to promote the site.  The team was gradually reduced in size, again and again.  When people would leave, their vacancies would languish unfilled until that position was eventually lost.  The team was instructed to not develop the site but instead to work on undefined new work in other undefined areas, wasting many person-years of development effort.  The community could sense Novell’s lack of investment and they lost interest.  Novell Forge became a laughing stock.  It was used as evidence of what a company does when they “just don’t get” open source, when it was ironically used as evidence of Novell’s good faith not too long before.

Things finally came to the point where there was only one employee assigned to maintain the site, along with other unrelated duties (I, and the rest of the team, had by now been reassigned to different projects).  Novell Forge was completely unsupported by Novell’s IT group, leaving instead the support of the site to this one individual.  I recall an occasion where the site went down over the weekend and was out for a couple of days.  It was obvious that the site was in demand, because users made Novell aware of the outage quite quickly.  However, Novell was not willing to pay for 24/7 support for the site, so instead of being brought back online right away, the site was down for the entire weekend until that resource came in to work the next Monday.  My manager brought this to the attention of our team with the insistence that we address it.  He stated that from that point on, that one employee would be the primary off-hours maintenance person for the site, and I would be the backup.

I then asked if Novell was going to start reimbursing me for my cell phone bill.  He said no.  I asked if they were going to buy me an additional cell phone, pay that bill, and also pay me extra to carry that additional phone.  He said no.  He said they would just list my personal cell number in the emergency contact list, and would call it if there were an emergency.  I stated that in that case I maintained the right to not answer.  He stated that I would have to answer, that it was my assignment.  I claimed that Novell could not require me to answer my personal cell phone if I’m the one paying the bill.  I then reminded him that in Novell’s support organization, at least at that time, people that were expected to respond 24/7 had their cell phone bill paid by Novell, were paid an additional amount to be on call, and were paid an additional amount if they actually took a call and worked that call during off hours.  I said, “If the site is important to Novell, that is what Novell should do.  If the site is important, it should be important enough that Novell is willing to pay in order to maintain uptime and keep our customers satisfied.”

Novell was not willing to pay.

I shortly moved on to a different team within Novell, and the other guy left the company altogether.  I’m not sure who has been maintaining the site since then.

What Novell chooses to do with their money and their human resources is their business.  This isn’t meant as a criticism; I don’t claim to have the right experience to criticize their decision to strangle Novell Forge to death.  This is simply meant as a statement of fact, and the facts are pretty clear:

• You get what you pay for.
• Novell did not pay for Novell Forge by giving due reward and recognition to those who truly brought this idea to the company.
• Novell did not pay for Novell Forge by feeding its success with additional funding, promotion, and development.
• Novell did not pay for Novell Forge by giving it the kind of support and maintenance that its customers expected.
• The customers of Novell Forge were initially enthusiastic, but grew to sense the lack of commitment by the company and thus stopped participating.
• Novell Forge died as a result.

Novell Forge may be planned for decommission this December, but it died years ago.  And don’t think you can fool me, Novell.  Novell Forge did not die because of lack of interest by the user community.  Novell Forge died because you did not care about it.  Whether that was a good decision or not is not for me to decide, but please, Novell, at least be honest with your community.  We did not kill Novell Forge — you did.

UPDATE:  Dan Reese, a member of my team back then, corroborated this in his blog.

I wrapped up phase two of the second fuel mileage experiment last Friday, anticipating a trip to Roosevelt where I would have to fill with gas and forget the receipt (which I did).  Luckily I ended the experiment ahead of time.  Here’s the results:

• Miles driven:  463
• Fuel used:  17.863
• Average MPG:  25.92

This seemed pretty much the same as the fall-off I’d seen in fuel efficiency the last time I did the experiment, so I looked into it a bit further.  Actually it is amazingly similar.

	2002 Pontiac Grand Prix		2003 Nissan 350Z
	Slow Driving	Normal Driving	Slow Driving	Normal Driving
Fun Level	Lame	Acceptable	Embarrassingly Lame	Fun
MPG	29.05	27.69	27.25	25.92
MPG Difference	1.36		1.33

A funny thing (only sort-of related, but worth discussing):  After I got my 350Z, my director decided to show me up by buying a brand new 370Z.  He even let me drive it, and it is definitely a better car.  But karma is real, and he got his first speeding ticket in his new 370Z only a few days after he bought it.

Anyway, he said that he really wasn’t going that much faster than anyone else on the road, but he was singled out because of his car.  It appears that having a sports car will make you more inclined to get a ticket, not only because it is so easy to speed, but also because our policeman friends are more likely to pull you over in a sports car.  It isn’t that they are discriminating against sports cars so much as that they are choosing to enforce the laws more stringently against sports cars simply because they are sports cars.

Anyway, it appears that in a sad twist of fate, there’s an irony of sports car ownership, which is that I actually have to drive SLOWER than the other people in order to avoid getting ticketed, even though that lifted 4×4 that just blew by me at 85 is definitely much more poorly equipped to negotiate the freeway at those speeds than I am in my 350Z.

No matter.  It’s still a blast to drive it.

Just wrapped up week one today.  Week one was (trying to) drive the normal speed limit everywhere I went.  Here’s the results:

• Miles driven:  453
• Fuel used:  16.62 gallons
• Average MPG:  27.25

Like I expected, not as good as my Grand Prix.  But much better than I thought.  27.25 is not too bad for a 3.5L V6 tuned for performance.

Stay tuned for the results of week two, which is driving like a normal person, i.e. 70-ish in a 65 on the freeway, not 65, etc.

For nearly ten years we’ve lived in the shadow of Maple Mountain.

The USGS refers to it as Spanish Fork Peak.  And indeed, if you are looking for information on the Internet about this mountain, that’s the name you should look for.  However, people around these parts call it Maple Mountain, and so do I.  We’ll refer to the highest point as Spanish Fork Peak.

Anyway, having lived here and looked at it for so many years, it only seemed logical that Derrick and I should climb it someday.  So early this year, we set a goal to climb it this summer.  I sold Derrick on it by convincing him that it would be neat to say he’s climbed a mountain.  I had a slightly different motive.  Of course, I wanted to climb it myself.  But my main reason for doing it was to give Derrick a character-building experience.  I felt he needed an opportunity to do something hard, something so challenging that it would break his body down to the point that he’d have to dig past what his body wanted and rely on the will of his spirit and the help of God in order to achieve it.  Experiences like that stay with us and strengthen us forever.

The big day was actually two days, last weekend, August 21 and 22.

Here’s some information about the mountain:

• The elevation at our house is about 5200 feet above sea level.
• The base elevation at the trailhead is 5612 feet.
• The official elevation at the top of Spanish Fork Peak is 10192 feet.
• That gives a total elevation gain for the hike of 4580 feet.
• The distance from the trailhead to the summit is 5.2 miles.
• The average grade (slope) of the climb is 20% — that means you’re going up a foot on average every five feet (about one foot up per full pace).

Here’s a map of the trail, in blue:

This is a pretty good map if you know how to read contour maps.  However, it isn’t really labeled, so I added some:

My friend Greg came with us.  Greg’s done this hike before, and he thinks this is one of the most difficult hikes in Utah, because:

• The trail is rough and uneven, strewn with large rocks and tree roots or loose topsoil for most of the trail
• The trail is steep — as we’ve said already, you rise almost one mile in just over five miles of hiking
• The trail is almost consistently climbing — there is very little opportunity for rest
• There are no sources of water anywhere along the trail — you have to pack all of the water you need

Because there was no water, I brought my own in, about 8 or 9 liters for Derrick and I.

We started up the trail around 6:00 in the evening on August 21, 2009.  The plan was to hike about 2 miles up to about 7100 feet, the first place where the trail has any sort of flat space where you can pitch a tent.

This is pretty much what the trail looks like for the 1 to 1 1/2 miles preceding the campsite (in other words, the bulk of the trail):

It is CONSTANT CLIMBING for that 1 to 1 1/2 miles over terrain like that. There are some neat distractions though, like this wild raspberry we found:

My pack was pretty heavy because I was trying to keep Derrick’s pack light so I was hauling a bit more than my share.  The trail was not only strewn with rocks as shown above, but also had a lot of large steps to climb created by tree roots crossing the trail.  These big steps were really hard for Derrick:  With smaller legs and a backpack hanging off his back, it was hard for him to get up those big steps without falling over backwards.  I caught him and helped him a couple of times.

Hauling that pack up that trail was TOUGH.  I was pretty relieved to finally see the meadow.  Derrick was tired also, but did pretty well.  We got there about 8:00 p.m.  Dinner was rehydrated chicken and rice. I used my awesome new backpacking stove and a sweet mess kit to prepare it. I must’ve been awfully tired. I know the ground I slept on wasn’t real soft or flat, but I slept like a rock anyway.

The next morning, we got up, ate, packed up our stuff, and stashed most of it.  Derrick and I were just going to take the small pack up the hill with a full 2L bladder of water and some energy gels and power bars.  Derrick offered to carry the pack.

Here’s a view of the campsite looking up the trail.   By the time we got to those aspen trees Derrick decided I could carry the pack for the rest of the day.

Here’s a picture of Greg at the campsite.  He looks a lot more chipper than I do.

We headed out of camp about 10:00 a.m.  The next landmark on the trail is called Maple Lake (labeled in the annotated map as “Disgusting Water”).  They call it Maple Lake because that sounds a lot better than Maple Mud Puddle.  But in truth, it is not much more than a large mud puddle.   It’s pretty much just fed by snow and rain; there’s no exit and no streams or springs feeding it.

I guess what I’m saying is, don’t start thinking you can avoid packing water and just purify this stuff.  I’d have to be almost dead to drink it.

We made it to the lake at about 11:30 a.m.  We rested for a bit on a log that you can barely see in the shade of the trees in this picture below, then continued on our way.  Just after the lake you start climbing again.

About this point you come out of the trees a bit and things open up.  Lots of mountain flowers up there, for one thing.

Great views at this point, also:

There’s a set of switchbacks that lead up to the mountain ridge; as you crest the ridge you can see Utah Valley again.  Anyway, just before we started up these switchbacks we saw this bald eagle:

At least, Greg said he saw a white head and was convinced it was a bald eagle.  I couldn’t tell, but in my opinion this was much too big to be a hawk for sure.   We watched it fly over and nest in the cliffs behind Spanish Fork Peak.  We thought we could hear eagle babies crying out from the nesting area.

So, yeah, it is pretty and all, but it’s still a rough hike, and it was really hot that day.  We started up those brutal switchbacks (labeled in the annotated map as “Pure Hell”).  Greg had been cramping up for about a half hour already by this time, and one time he almost fell down the mountain because of the cramping.  On our way up, we ran into some guys who were leading horses down the trail.  Dirty rotten cheaters.

Eventually we crested the ridge (labeled in the annotated map as “Great Views”).  That was really cool to see our home again from that perspective.  It came just in time, too.  Derrick was starting to get tired of all the walking.  I think coming up over the top of that ridge helped him realize that he did want to go the rest of the way.  Or maybe he was too exhausted to complain anymore.  He had been complaining a bit, but it pretty much stopped by this time.

In this shot, we’re looking back over the trail we’ve just followed, from about 9600 feet up. In other words, this shot is looking about straight east from that first ridge.

This shot is looking ahead from the same place, basically looking south.   You can see the trail in the bottom right portion of the picture. Spanish Fork Peak is up in the upper left corner.  We have to go around the front side of the peak directly in front of us.

Once you’ve scaled that first ridge, the trail goes through a stand of trees on the front side of the mountain, and then you emerge on the other side with a really excellent view of the whole valley (labeled in the map as “Awesome Views”).  We got here about 1:00 p.m.

Flickr won’t accept the full size picture; click here for the whole thing.  The view is actually much more open than this appears; in the picture I’m covering about 180 degrees.

Oh, and sorry it doesn’t line up well.  Hey, I’m a computer programmer, not a graphic artist.

From here you continue around to the south side of that peak and crest the ridge again (labeled in the annotated map as “Excellent Views”).   Here’s another view of Utah County from this point:

And here’s the view looking back at the back side of the mountain.  You can see Maple Lake in the bottom right corner.  We’re looking straight east in this photo, and Spanish Fork Peak is southeast of us, or kind of ahead and to the right.

It was at this point that Greg ran out of water.

We worked our way up the final part of the trail.  By now we were pretty pooped.  Even if you’ve grown up a mile above sea level, adding another 5000 feet makes a difference.  The trail heading up the final slope (labeled in the annotated map as “The Utter Depths of Hell”) to the summit is a killer, but we were determined not to quit.  We made it all the way to the top (“Killer Views”).

Here’s Derrick, myself, and Greg at the top: 10192 feet up.

In that pile of rocks there is a mailbox that holds the registry. Derrick and I wrote:

“Derrick Ryan, Matt Ryan – 8/22/2009 – We Made It! Woo-hoo!!!”

So look for that if you ever go up there.

Also at the top of Spanish Fork Peak is a large orange triangular structure that has to be at least 12 feet high.  Select peaks in Utah have these; they are used as surveying landmarks.

It was awesome up there, and totally worth the climb.  But we were honestly pretty worn out by this time, and we still had five miles back down the trail to hike before we were done. Plus, the top is actually pretty pointed; I’m not sure there’s enough square footage up there to make a proper-sized bedroom, even.  Think of a bedroom, that’s about how big it is up there.  It was about 2:00 p.m. by this time, so we started back down the trail.  It’s a bit nostalgic to leave.  I mean, you know you have to leave, because you have to get home, and there really isn’t a lot to do up there.  But nonetheless you kinda hate to leave when you’ve worked so hard to get up there in the first place.

We continued down around the front peak and back to the saddle ridge, the first ridge you crest when you come up those switchbacks.  It was here that I ran out of water.

We were out of water and still about 2 1/2 miles from our campsite.  It was about 2:30 in the afternoon on one of the hottest days of the year.

We headed down the switchbacks.  Greg was cramping up pretty badly and having a hard time walking down those steep slopes.  The trail there is covered with loose soil and small rocks, making it very slippery.  A number of times one of us would step, slip a bit and catch ourselves.  This is not good if you are cramping up or running out of energy.  Finally, just before we got to the bottom, Greg’s momentum got the best of him and he found himself jogging down the trail trying to keep from falling.  He put on the brakes and completely lost his footing.  He landed hard on his elbow, which hurt plenty, but what hurt him even worse was the cramping in his legs as he tried to stand up again.

We were getting into a bad situation here, but the only way out was to keep going and try to make it to camp.

Meanwhile, my toes were killing me.  If you’ve hiked down a hill, you know how your toes can start to hurt as they jam themselves against the front of your shoes.  I worried that I might have my nails too long, exacerbating the problem.  When we got to the lake we sat down to rest again at the log and I took out the first aid kit.  We didn’t have nail clippers in there, but we did have scissors.  I took my boots off and trimmed my toenails with scissors.  This is not a recommended procedure under normal conditions, because it is very hard to control and you sometimes end up cutting off too much, like I did.

We started off again and made for camp.  All we kept thinking about was the fact that I still had about 2 liters of water waiting for us there, leftover from the hike the evening before.  I could tell that we were getting more and more tired, as we’d just trudge along for several minutes without anyone saying anything.  The only noises we made were usually dull, trudging footstep sounds and those deep sighs you take to try to reassure yourself.

We finally made it to camp about 4:30.  I went straight for my pack where the remaining water bladders were stored.  I pulled one out and gave it to Derrick, and pulled the other one out and handed it to Greg.  With all his cramping I knew he was more dehydrated than I was.  After he’d had a bit to drink, I took my turn.  As I started drinking, I could feel my body start sweating again.

We just rested there for probably 1/2 hour.

Derrick was mentally in a place he’d never been before.  Oh, he was fine, it wasn’t like he was losing his mind or anything.  I think he just had no idea something could be so hard.  And he knew the worst was yet to come, at least for him.  He sat down on the grass to rest.

“Dad, will you sit next to me?” he asked.

I sat down right next to him.  He rested his arm on my leg and leaned against me.  Derrick’s never really been much of a cuddler, so when he acts like this you know something’s going on.  I just put my arm around his shoulders and patted him.

We knew we had to get going.  We were all really tired.  But we were running out of water, and the only way to get more was to get back to the truck.  We stood up to go, and I stared and stared at those packs.  Even though Derrick was carrying hardly anything, I knew he dreaded the thought of having to put that on.  I hated that thought myself.  And I couldn’t even fathom putting mine on.  I didn’t know how I’d be able to stand up with it on, I was so tired.

Greg offered to say a prayer.  We stood in a circle while Greg said the prayer.  It was a good thing he did it, because I don’t think I could have spoken at that moment.

I’ll never forget that prayer.  It wasn’t long or fancy.  But I felt at that moment that Heavenly Father was aware of us.  I felt that He knew why I’d tried to do this — to help give my son a valuable growing experience — and that He would help us get out.  I wasn’t worried anymore.

I’m grateful for a friend like Greg who thinks of that sort of thing.  I’m ashamed to say I would not have thought to pray on my own.  It isn’t that I don’t believe in prayer; I do.  I don’t know why I don’t think to do that more often.

I picked up Derrick’s pack and put it on him.  I felt horrible doing it.  I wished I could carry it for him.  But I knew there was no way I was going to be able to carry his and mine also.  I readjusted it to fit him and then put mine on.  I felt the way Derrick looked.

We headed off down the trail again.  Derrick had a water bladder in his pack and I had one in mine.  Greg was out, having run out on the saddle ridge earlier, but we were letting him use ours.  But we didn’t really have much left.  About a half hour down the trail, Derrick and I both ran out.  That was the end of the water.

The first 1 – 1 1/2 miles down that hill after camp were basically a controlled stumble for me.  I never thought I’d get tired and have to rest going down the hill.  Every so often Derrick would stop and put his hands on his knees and rest.  He’d say some variation of, “Dad, I’m tired.  I don’t think I can go on anymore.”

This worried me.  It was different from the complaining.  He wasn’t saying he didn’t want to; he was calmly expressing his concerned belief that he was unable to.

I’d tell him different things to keep him going.  Sometimes I just reassured him:  “Yes, you can.  You can make it.”

Another time, I told him:  “We can stop and rest whenever you need to.  But every minute you stop to rest is a minute longer you are holding that pack and not getting any closer to the truck.”

It worried me, and yet, this is exactly what I was hoping for when I made these plans in the first place.  He was having exactly the experience I wanted him to have, and it was about killing me having to watch him go through it.

Finally I told him how the prayer had made me feel.  I told him I knew Heavenly Father was aware of us on the hike.  He knew where we were.  I told him He would help us get back, and I knew it.  We didn’t have to worry — we just had to keep doing our part, keep walking.

Finally the trail flattened out.  My left big toe was throbbing.  I was relieved to get to some flat ground that was a bit easier to hike.  Suddenly we could see the gate at the trailhead, and the parking lot, and the truck.  We’d made it.

We got to the truck and I took Derrick’s pack off of his little body and threw it in the back.  I put my arm around him and gave him a hug.  I told him how proud I was of him.  He was sobbing quietly to himself.

I got my pack off, then helped Derrick climb into the truck to sit and rest.  The trailhead is at the top of Whiting Campground, and the campground had a culinary water tap about 100 feet away.  So I took Derrick’s water bladder over to the water tap and filled it up with nice cold water and brought it over to him.  I had a 1 liter bottle for water in the truck, so after I got Derrick some water I filled that bottle up for myself.  It was almost gone by the time we got home about 20 minutes later.

If you want some other really great images of Spanish Fork Peak, click here.

I have a new car so I guess it is time to do the fuel mileage experiment again.  I filled up with gas this morning on my way to work so today is a good day to begin.  I’m going to try to only go the speed limit for a whole week.  I’m not sure if I can do it, but I will try.  Next week I will drive like a normal person.

Mileage to begin:  74055.

It is probably worth noting that I don’t expect the mileage to be as good as in my other car, the 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix.  Mostly what we’re trying to figure out is how much more it costs to drive like a normal person versus driving conservatively everywhere.  And also, if I can even stand to do it.

Stay tuned.