"Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don’t know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It’s that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don’t know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless." – Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
 Quiet Cul-du-sac? ... Thanks Bing Maps!
 Google announced a new mobile phone today. We have seen a number of announcements for ground-breaking, sexy new mobile devices in recent history - AT&T/Apple’s iPhone
- Palm/Sprint’s Palm Pre
- Verizon/Motorola’s Droid
Google’s new Nexus One is available exclusively from … wait, it isn’t available exclusively to any mobile phone company or locked to any network. As subtle as this can seem on the surface, it changes the game in a profound way. Customers have been oppressed by artificial limitations placed on their hardware- well, the hardware that they kinda own- for far too long, and this simply needs to stop. It is inherently evil for any company to cripple or severely limits hardware they sell for the sole purpose of competitive advantage and to hold their customers captive. Apple learned this lesson many years ago when it lost market share to the PC. The cell phone companies must adapt or die. Personally, I have had dozens of phones on every mobile network under the sun, and don’t recall many, if any, particularly good experiences with any of the companies I did business with. At the end of the standard two year contract period, I regularly jumped ship even if I was reasonably happy with my current provider. There was no reason to stay, their only goal was to hook you and forget about you for two years. We’re reaching a point where it doesn’t really matter who carries your bits from your mobile device to whatever destination you send them to. They’re just bits, 1’s and 0’s whether they represent and email, a photo, a text message, a tweet, or a voice call. So long as they get where they’re going reliably, the pipe they flow across is completely irrelevant. I still use SMS to communicate with my low-tech friends, but have to pay extra for a communication that would be free via email, Twitter, Facebook, et al. Give me a pipe to the Interwebs and get out of my way! The concept of buying a phone and being able to use it on any network its hardware will allow for is necessary step to repair the reviled mobile phone industry in the US today. It is also time to stop arguing VHS vs. Beta and standardize on GSM like the rest of the world already has done. Concentrate on what customers really care about: a fast network, a reliable network, and their choice of any phone they choose to buy. With this crucial shift today, the future is bright for the customer to take back what is rightfully theirs – choice.
Chris is a North Carolina native who grew up in Greensboro. He was introduced to his first computer - a Commodore 64 - at age five and has not been able to disconnect since.
He is passionate about crafting better software, improving the user experience and giving back to the programming community.
Prior to joining Microsoft in 2009, he spent 4 years at Volvo IT working on the world's largest implementation of MCMS 2002. Soon after joining Volvo IT he helped lead the conversion of their CMS with 750,000 content articles from MCMS and SharePoint 2003 to a completely new system based on SharePoint 2007 for the company's Intranet, Extranet, and Internet presence.
To decompress, he enjoys hiking, backpacking, travelling, writing software, mountain biking, motorcycling, photography, live music, reading, playing guitar, doodling, and chasing his furry friends Roxy(a Sheltie) and Brasky(a Ninja Kitty).
While still residing part-time in Greensboro with his girlfriend Bridget, he looks forward to becoming a full-time Charlottean in 2010.
It is Fall, and a season of change for me. This post is long overdue, but today is the first day I've been able to relax a bit and think about blagging.
photo by 416style
A lot has been going on in my life lately. Namely:
All of that in the span of little over a month has been daunting, but overall very good, other than the car dropping incident.
With Volvo, it was my time. After four and a half years there, a change was long overdue. Overall it wasn't a bad job, which is what made it so difficult to leave, but I had reached what I like to call a "career cul-de-sac" and had been keeping my eye out for a fresh new opportunity for some time.
When I got the call from Microsoft saying they wanted to hire me as a contractor, the news was bittersweet. Having lived all my life in Greensboro, NC there was no way for me to know what the coming transition would be like, or would feel like. I didn't really hate my job, and loved the team I worked on. CWPTeam is a unique and talented bunch of people whom I feel privileged to have
been one of the original members of. Then I'm reminded of this quote from Mario Andretti
”If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough."
While mostly tongue-in-cheek, there is a lot of truth just behind the seams.
Seth Godin's book The Dip had been a quick read around this time and put some important thoughts in my head. You have to close a door, even a perfectly good door, to open another one. When you distill things down enough, I was afraid of being a quitter, afraid of change, afraid to go outside of my comfort zone, afraid to jump. But to jump is exactly what I needed to do.
Since joining Volvo IT as a "permanent employee" in February 2008, to say things had gone downhill would not really be full disclosure. Sure the manufacturing and transportation industries are quite cyclical, but things had realigned at a very fundamental level. I joked that our motto had morphed from "Let's make sure" to "Let's make do," but this was hardly in jest. This environment had made me stop caring, an unnatural stance for me. When that happens, it is time to leave and go do something you can and *do* care about, for every-one's sake. The shift in focus helped me to realize that my passion was solely for the software, and the rest didn't matter to me.
Oddly enough, my current manager and I discussed this during my interview, as he had recently left a job with a large bank for a similar reason. It was a light-bulb moment when I came to realize the stark shift in priorities between a company that makes software, and a company that just happens to write software to accomplish a line-of-business task they haven't outsourced yet. While my team there was a talented group of individuals, each of whom I would jump at the opportunity to work with again - but that culture and quality was the exception rather than the rule in the wider scope there.
My first day at Microsoft was tough, and included a minor fender bender at lunch, but I learned the ropes quickly and was committing code to source control before the end of the first week. The fresh new challenge was a welcome one and I buried myself in the codebase, learning everything that I could from the collective intelligence in the air around me. I'm learning new things every day and that's exactly what was missing.
We'll have to see what the future holds, but no regrets thus far.
Charlotte has reminded me how easy I had it with Greensboro traffic. It is no DC, or Atlanta, but commuting was much more challenging until I moved into my new place yesterday. Now my commute is 15 minutes and I can take the light-rail to work if I want. This evening I walked a few blocks to enjoy dinner at Thai Taste and am surprised to admit, that I like urban living.
Update: Badge turned blue on December 21st. A dream realized!
How do grilled BBQ Ribs, a Cauldron of Brunswick stew, chicken, hotdogs & hamburgers sound for a Saturday in Spring? I thought it sounded great, so I'd like you to join me this Saturday for the festivities. Slated to be an extravaganza of southern food, your tastebuds will not soon forgive you for missing out.
Saturday, May 9th at 7pm
Some suggestions for items you might want to bring:
- Chips / Dip
- Sodas
- Beer
- Any Adult Beverages you might like (some will be provided)
- Smores ingredients: Marshmallows, Chocolate Bars, Graham Crackers
- A Blender (i have the stuff to make Margaritas, but a broken blender)
- Anything else you might feel inclined to bring and share
- Or, just bring yourself and a guest if you like
Looking forward to seeing you!
~Chris & Bridget
When Travis mentioned to the group that his Barbershop Quartet would be competing in a Barbershop Quartet competition right around the corner in Winston-Salem, NC, a few of us decided to attend to cheer him on. One day we were discussing it in the Common Area and some crazy ideas were thrown out, namely a few of us dressing up as a Train, befitting their group name, Grand Central. It turned into quite a crazy evening, as the video evidence to the right shows. Thanks to Bridget, Rex, Lucas, Brandon, Jason for your participation in the aforementioned silliness. I would also like to thank Tony and David for responding to our tweets and suppling the cardboard and UPS respectively. You may view the rest of the photos here on Flickr.
Google provides a Charting API with a
host of useful charts. I spent a few minutes playing around with the map chart section to create a
color-coded map of the states I have visited in the USA.
The Venn Diagram was an interesting option that I had not expected, but good
stuff.
If you are building a dashboard, the Google-o-meter might come in
handy
Since I could not find a chart of some sort showing current rankings on
StackOverflow.com, I decided to roll my own. The link that follows points to a
static cached version of the page that will only update manually for now. Enjoy,
and feel free to give your feedback or suggestions for improvements.
Current StackOverflow.com
Rankings 
The Green Drinks Greensboro chapter has its second meeting this evening at Natty Greens Brew Pub in downtown Greensboro. With 88 members on the current email list and 30 people attending the first meeting, I would venture to say it's off to a successful start. I look forward to seeing you there!
From Greendrinks.org:
"We're off to a great start. Over 30 people showed up at the very first event! The next date is....
When: July 16th, 5:30pm
Where: Natty Greene's Brewing Company, 2nd Floor
Why: See below...
What is Green Drinks Greensboro? It's a social hour. It's a networking event. It's unwinding with friends. It's a time and place where it's okay to be green and to find out what others in your city are doing to be green, work green, play green, or live green. And it happens all over the country and the world in over 300 cities. Proving that it's never too late to join the green movement, Green Drinks Greensboro will be meeting every third Wednesday of the month on the 2nd floor of Natty Greene's Brewing Company (345 S. Elm St.) starting from 5:30 until 7:30(ish).
Green Drinks Greensboro invites all those who care about the environment, teach about and learn about the environment, work in an environment-related field, have interest in the environment, environmental products, sustainable building, environmental protection, eating local, ecological design, alternative energy…you get the idea. There will be no agenda and there are no dues. From time-to-time we will allow a few minutes for short presentations. To get on our e-mail list, simply send an email to greendrinksgso@gmail.com and we will keep you posted on our events. See you there!"
I finally got around to creating a blog, so here it is. It could use some content, but I'll get around to it soon enough.
I started as a full-time employee with Volvo IT North America earlier this month, where I had been working as a long-term contractor for just under three years. Things are nearly as busy as they always were, but looks like we're finally going to have a bit of structure in place and maybe start doing things the right way. Only time will tell how much of "doing things the right way" pans out, but I've got a good group of developers in my team who have some great ideas and the ambition to move on them.
On the homefront, Bridget and Roxy are both doing well. My home's aquatic residents are most blissful and doing just great also. Bridget's classes are going to keep her out pretty late in the evenings for a while, but soon she will be done with all her post-licensing classes and have her EcoBroker designation. I'm proud of her new endeavors in the real estate market and think the career suits her well.
In entertainment news I have decided to become a rock star in my spare time, dusting off the strat and putting some effort into getting my fingers well calloused. This evening I'm checking out Steady Elegance's hip-hop group "Ricardo Sanchez's Escort Service" at Greene Street in downtown Greensboro and Big Mike's gig at the same venue on Saturday night.
And now....back to keeping this web server happy!
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