Category: Thoughts

The 25 best opening lyrics

Spinner has an interesting list with samples of the best 25 opening lyrics. I thought most were quite good, although I thought their choice for #1 had more to do with singer’s personal life than the song. Still, a pretty good list.

Here are a few of my favorites that didn’t make Spinner’s list:

“Well I think it’s fine building jumbo planes”

Cat Steven – Where do the Children Play – Click to listen

“Jane says I’m done with Sergio”

Jane’s Addiction – Jane Says – Click for You Tube clip

“Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying”

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On – Click for You Tube clip

“Summertime and the livin’s easy”

Sublime – Doin’ Time – Click to listen

“I read the news today, oh boy”

The Beatles – A Day in the Life – Click to listen

“Crossroads, seem to come and go, yeah”

Allman Brother Band – Melissa – Click for You Tube clip

“So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell”

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here – Click to listen

Two thousand zero zero

I’m interested in how companies woo potential employees. It’s refreshing to come across such an honest pitch. This one is from the Careers page at Blip.tv:

We’re not partying like it’s 1999. We’re not raising a hundred million bucks and promising to build a billion dollar company. We’re building real value for real people and working to turn a real profit.

The Bike Shed and the Atomic Power Plant

I enjoyed reading the writings from C. Northcote Parkinson that were linked to from 37 Signals.

Specifically, he describes the difference between building a bike shed vs. an atomic power plant. He explains that getting approval to build the atomic power plant is easier to do because it’s so vast and so complicated that people can’t understand it. Instead of trying to understand they assume that someone else checked all the facts before it got to them, and they go ahead and approve the project.  

Contrast that with the bike shed which is so simple to build that anyone can do it. And since anyone can build it, everyone feels it’s their job to provide input on how it should be built which creates an environment where the simple turns into the complex and the shed never gets built.

From my experience, this analogy is right on the money. I’ve worked at companies where the most complex software projects were approved with very little oversight from management or the board of directors. Because the projects were so complex and only the management team understood the vision for the product, the normal checks and balances were never put in place. Yet some smaller software projects that would have helped us grow our existing business were bogged down in bureaucracy.

So maybe the moral of the story is to make your project proposal sound so complex and so intimidating that everyone will assume it’s already been checked out.

Barry Bonds

From what I read, I will be one of the few who cheers when Bonds finally breaks Hank Aaron’s hallowed home run record. It’s sad to think about what might have been. This could have been a magical season for Bonds where even casual fans discussed the importance of the record because everyone was following the chase. Much the same way people talked about Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa around the water cooler during the summer of 1998.

bonds My justification in cheering for Bonds goes something like this: During this era of steroids, we have no way of knowing who took what. It’s quite obvious that some of the games great sluggers were juiced. But so were some pitchers yet they haven’t come under the same type of scrutiny. What if the pitchers were inching towards records that were as recognizable as most home runs in a season or most career home runs? Is it possible that some some pitchers, especially hard throwing relievers, were juiced up yet didn’t garner the attention showered on the sluggers? It’s not nearly as exciting to hear about a pitcher who picked up an extra 5 mph on his fast ball through the use of steroids. Why do we demand answers from our sluggers but the pitchers and other players were also gaining an unfair advantage through the use of steroids? Cheating is cheating is cheating.

Maybe Bonds has cheated by taking steroids. Maybe they have helped him recover more quickly from injury. But I have a hard time believing they help him swing a bat or see a baseball more clearly. They don’t improve his swing or his hand-eye coordination. It still takes an enormous amount of talent to hit a baseball at the professional level. Ask Danny Ainge or Michael Jordan.

While I don’t admire Bonds the person, I do admire Bonds the baseball player. And I will cheer when he breaks Aaron’s record.

What do you want to become?

When I was seven or eight years old I wanted to be an F7-Compassarchitect. Back then all I knew about being an architect was that my best friend at the time, Guy, wanted to be one and that it included getting to play with a compass. Guy was the coolest kid on the block so if he wanted to be architect, so did I. It took another few years before I realized I didn’t want to be an architect. 

My father was a coach and teacher for over 30 years. During my teens as well as through college I don’t ever recall wanting to be a coach or teacher. My father would leave before 6 am most mornings and return home late into the evening, especially during football or basketball season. The long hours had an influence on me and I told myself that when I grew up and got a job, it would be one that didn’t keep me away from home so often.

Well, things don’t always go as planned. My first job out of college I worked as a retail store manager. The store was small but the hours were long and included most holidays and weekends. When I got into technology a few years later I told myself that I didn’t want to work weekends or late nights. For the most part I was able to do that except I had to travel a lot, much of the time with very little notice.

Looking back on my career I see that the hours I’ve put in average quite close to those my dad worked while I was growing up. But what I realize now that I didn’t back then was that my dad loved his job and the hours probably didn’t seem so long to him. He loved working with kids. He enjoyed teaching and learning from them. The influence he’s had on kids over the 30 years is immeasurable.

Although my career has been challenging and enjoyable so far, it’s only been the last few years that I’ve felt I’m giving anything back to the younger generation. Most of my career has been spent helping pad the coffers of large companies and high powered executives. But my current jobs allows me to interact with a young, fun group of people who have taught me a lot.

As much as I love technology, I’d switch jobs with my dad in a heartbeat.

Seinfeld’s productivity secret

Lifehacker has an interesting article that explains one reason Jerry Seinfeld has become such a successful comic.

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.

He goes on to explain how Seinfeld uses a large calendar to make off the days he’d write. I might try this to keep track of my exercise.

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A few things I dislike about air travel

  1. Fellow travelers who don’t think the carry-on size restrictions apply to them and decide to bring a full-sized piece of luggage on board and then complain when it won’t fit in the overhead. Check the sucker.
  2. Travelers taking video of their kids in the security line. I saw a dad videotape his son for at least 20 minutes while standing in line. 15 seconds would have been plenty, this isn’t a playground or piano recital.
  3. Having to send my shoes through the x-ray. Is this really necessary? The “shoe bomber” failed miserably and don’t we have technology to solve this?
  4. Airport parking at $22/day. What a ripoff.
  5. Passengers who think it’s ok to carry-on smelly food like take-out Chinese. Eat before you board or toss it. I don’t want to spell like Kung Pao chicken for the next 3 hours.
  6. The safety lecture and emergency row seating requirements. Enough already. Nobody listens or cares that oxygen masks will drop and my seat can be used as a floatation device.
  7. Chatty people in the aisles. Can’t it wait till we land? Four rows worth of travelers don’t need to hear about your escapades at the Hard Rock Cafe the night before last.
  8. A delayed flight followed by the captain saying we’ll “make up time in the air”. How about leaving on time and getting us to our destination early next time?
  9. People who pickup every piece of black luggage as it goes around the carrousel. If you don’t know what your luggage looks like by now, how about putting a big piece of green neon tape on the front so it’s obvious?
  10. Airports that got rid of paper towels in the bathroom and replaced them with air blowers. Do these blowers have to sound like a jet engine on take off?
  11. Curbside check-in with a required rate per bag. I’ll tip $5 a bag if I’m treated well. But when I have to tip $2 per bag, that’s all I’ll do.
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$100 a year to speed through airport security

If I traveled more than a couple of times a year I’d probably cough flyclearup the 100 clams and do this. As I waited for 30 minutes in the security line in Orlando this morning I noticed the CLEAR line was empty. I saw a number of travelers approach the the CLEAR station but none of them were allowed through.

This just feels wrong though. In fact, the whole airport security system is totally wrong. I saw a young mother with two young kids in hand get stopped as she went through the x-ray. She was pulled aside and her bags opened and manually checked. 

I don’t get it. When is the last time a young mother toting two kids hijacked a plane or flew it into a building? Isn’t there a better way to ensure passengers are not packing guns or other obvious weapons without having to spend hours in the security line? I’m sure the deranged mind of a terrorist can and will easily work around the current restrictions the rest of us are under which makes flying so unpleasant.

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Calling a Cab

I called Yellow Cab tonight to schedule a ride to the airport tomorrow morning. I got off the phone and this thought came to mind:

Has there ever been a time where I have called to reserved a cab and the person taking my reservation expresses even the tiniest bit of gratitude that I decided to do business with them?

I’ve called to schedule dozens of cabs and I can’t recall a time when I’ve been asked anything other than my phone, name and address. Would a simple, “Thank you for choosing Yellow Cab” kill them? taxicab

I wonder if the people taking the reservations are outsourced and are paid by the number of appointments they setup. I wonder if the owners of these cab companies have ever called in to schedule a cab to hear just how their customers are being treated.

Why is it that when I spend three bucks on kids hot chocolate at Starbucks the employees there treat me like I spent $300? Yet I spend $50-$80 on a cab and consider my trip a success if I leave the cab not smelling like an ashtray.

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