Twitter Realization

After last Tea Time things came together in a new way for me. Hearing Ev speak and putting together some of the smaller things that Twitter does, it really strives to be a personalized news network. This means Twitter is a lot more like me turning on the TV to watch the local news and the reporters telling me only the news that is interesting to me - "News of the future" in a way. I see this expressed in the terminology like "Follow" vs. "Friend".

Prior to Friday, I did see Twitter as another social network. But if you treat it like a news company, Facebook is not the main competitor. I also don't think that you could say traditional news networks are "competition" because at 140 characters, Twitter is content-poor and relies on 3rd party sites to provide content. In that case, their growing integration with CNN makes more and more sense.

Conclusion: Facebook is for friends, but get your news on at http://twitter.com

I Want to Understand

Why do people take their work home with them? I get it that you're showing "ambition" and that "more" is getting done. But aren't you really just burning yourself out? I like working at Pivotal Labs because the people there don't take their work home, they take their skills home. My coworkers lead rich, fulfilling lives outside the 9-6 day. You can tell this is true when you meet their wives, or their children. These people have awesome family relationships. They also do a lot of other fun things, biking, hiking, improv comedy, side projects that people outside the company can use, dancing, political activism, and on and on.

Conversely, the people I've worked with in the past who do take their work home come in and talk about the reality TV show they caught last night. They don't bring their wives out to social events, and you get the impression things are a little rocky. Before too long, those people start looking drained of life.  This may work if you're a solo act at work, but what if you're a part of a team? Every day you have to sync up with the rest of the team. Stuff gets done that the rest of the team had no say in doing.

Despite the list of consequences I could make here, it really just comes down to "Why?". Why would you pick work over anything else - personal health, relationships, fun? There's a saying that no one on his death bed ever said, "If only I had worked more...". People wish they had spent more time with family and friends and living life. I just don't get it.

Just Thinking

When I was 19, I thought I knew nothing about relationships, and I dated a lot.

Now that I'm 28, I think I know a lot about relationships, and yet dating seems much, much harder.

Out of Touch

Coming back from the Oakland Oracle Arena on BART, separated from my friends and standing way too close to other people, I thought, as I do from time to time.

Part of what's going on is that I have a crap memory of the past and time lines. In my head, I was constantly in a relationship from the ages of 19 to 25. In truth, I spent most of those six years in one relationship or another, but there were plenty of 6 month blocks of singleosity in there. Presently, I've been on "several dates with one lady" as recently as October, but I also like to argue with myself that the last substantial relationship I had was back when I was 25. That's just unfair to say.

What's really going on?

1. I'm out of college. People like me who are my age are farther apart - density is way lower out here in "the real world".


2. What I'm looking for has changed somewhat. Dating a student is no longer high on my list. If she doesn't live on her own, that can also be a big downer. She's got to be employed, show ambition, be assertive, and have a killer smile.


3. This is the kicker, I have no idea who I am anymore.

Back when I was a fencer I could get behind it and sell it, "Hello, I'm a fencer, take it or leave it." essentially. Now, there's no elevator pitch for "Well I'm a guy who enjoys introspection, and I write software for the web, I'm kind of goofy, but not like most software guys, and I'm a little more in touch with human behavior, but not like someone who got a degree in psych, and blah blah blah." I'd need a big ass skyscraper to begin to describe myself to someone in an elevator - that, or for someone to pull the fire alarm.

I need the box so I know how to market Will Read. I need to have a definition so I have something to shape perceptions around. Right now I'm more like fog than I am a definite shape.

Protect

Steve Harvey says that a good dude does three things for his lady: Provide, Profess (hi love), and Protect. I can certainly provide. And we know that my professing is perhaps a bit too profess-ional. So what about protecting? I don't think anyone sees me as a good protector. I mean that on both the physical and emotional level. Physically, I'm a skinny guy, let's be honest. No, I'm not a towering giant, and I will probably never be taller than I am right now. What is in my control is my weight and strength. I do not have to be a skinny punk.

On a less physical sense, I am not a defender of much. I like to play the moderator role. I like to see other people happy. I don't take sides, I don't stand up very often. When I do, I don't have any experience fighting for it. I can see how that's not very desirable. I can dig in, I can make a stand. I can be a guy that makes you feel safe that you'll always been defended.

Change. Direction. Ah the good Will-Read-life.

The Wisdom of the GD

I wrote recently a post that got Matt Dickerson and I wondering what struggles brought us together as friends. True, we did share a dorm floor together freshman year, and arguably college is a struggle for anyone, but we didn't share many of the struggles. He was an engineer, I was in the school of science. I think a big part of it was that Matt always listened to me, and he engaged me when I had unanswerable questions like, "should I keep seeing this girl?" He asked me his own questions that made me pick apart my own value system and come to my own conclusions after better understanding myself.

So while I was trying to answer the question of what common struggle we shared, I realized that I've gleaned a lot of wisdom from Matt over the years.

1. Brush your teeth. Aside from the health benefits, it's a good way to make friends.


2. "If a woman throws herself at you, make sure you catch her." I assume this policy no longer is applicable directly to him since he's now married, but it certainly got me to open up my eyes and let myself get involved and have experiences I would have otherwise passed up.


3. There's nothing to worry about if you have a hot wife. Matt knows he's got a great spouse in all categories that he loves deeply. He knows she loves him, and their marriage is a promise of that love. So even though Matt knows other guys may want to steal away his wife, he doesn't worry about them, and can just focus on being a great husband to Lauren.


4. Run. Matt is a marathon runner, and I think a certain amount of his identity is wrapped up in running. The real Matt wisdom is probably something more along the lines of "Tie 'who you are' into a healthy activity".


5. Fiscal sensibility is a way of life. Matt loves doing taxes, to the point where I think he looks forward to the day where he also gets to do his kids' taxes. Beyond April, Matt loves understanding his spending habits and making trade-offs and adjustments so that he can afford the things he wants. I wouldn't say "Matt loves money", but he certainly loves making money work for him.

Such is the wisdom I've garnered form him over the years. I'm certain there is more that I've just absorbed, but he's one fo those people that helps me set the bar higher for Will Read.

Appearances

If you're going to be a security guard, you got to at least give me the impression that you might be physically capable of giving chase. I know it probably isn't the "safe" thing to do, and that if you are faced with a real criminal, your training probably just tells you to phone it in. However, if you can't walk down the isle on BART without being out of breath, I'm not sure you can really deter any crime.

Brainstorm: Struggles

Something I believe is that relationships are forged through shared "struggles" - times we step out of our comfort zone and do something out of the ordinary. When I was a kid, things like church lock ins, running props backstage, and going to late night coffee shops qualified. As I got older it was things like spending a week sleeping on a gym floor in the Appalachian mountains repairing homes for people in need. In college fencing supplied all the struggles I could possibly need - leadership, budget concerns, teaching, learning, more teaching, travel, competition. I held on to that brand of struggle after college when I was running my own fencing club which presented the same challenges.

Now, life is easier. I go to work, the bills get paid, I go to sleep knowing that my bed will still be there tomorrow and that I won't be stranded in some other state. My life is safe. I think this is the reason why I haven't found any lasting relationships here in SF. So I need to risk something. I need something that I might fail at. I need something that I might succeed at with the help of others.

I could volunteer again. Maybe Habitat is better out here. Maybe there's something I can do at a local high school, or college. I don't want to fence again. I'm not a fencer. I could go sky diving. Or I could take up a gambling addiction. Race car driving. Stunt double/devil. But this works better when I risk my pride and not necessarily my body. My pride. THis works when I'm scared, or humble, or weak.

Leadership also seems important. I need something to lead. Something to lead... And teach... And humbling... And preferably doesn't cut in to work hours...

I know it doesn't answer the points above, but I think I need to go to school. Night classes. Pottery? Woodworking? Automotive repair? Business Management? Economics? Marketing? Psychology? Pysch lends itself to being a Lifecoach. Getting a MBA would be handy if I do ever form a start-up. At school I would meet people too. School...

More About Her

I recently wrote about the impossible woman, and I wanted to add two things to the list. The first is that she'll be the kind of woman who is a teacher on her way to being a CEO (there's no "career path" for that). The second is that I'll know her as she will feel like "home" to me.

I've been watching Battle Star Galactica, which makes me a big nerd, but we're getting to the end and there's a lot of talk about what "home" means to the characters. Four years ago, it was the planet they lived on, but now it's the ships they reside in. And it isn't so much the ships, but the people, the experiences they have had on those ships. The things that bind them together, their common struggles, their memories - all that makes it a home.

What that really says is that I need to find a way to struggle with someone. Not fight, but to go through a hardship or challenge or something and come out on our feet together. Dinner and a movie isn't something one bonds over. It's just food. Getting stuck in the rain is something you can bond over. High school is something you can bond over. Conquering a fear of heights or snakes is something you can bond over. I hate snakes.

Government: Freedom vs. Safety

I think about the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. These documents spell out exactly what freedoms we, as citizens of the United States of America, are promised. They do not talk about a "right to public transit systems", nor do they mention a "right to affordable health care."So it makes me wonder what is government's role? All I really need from my government is the protection of the promise it made to me: freedom.

But the older I get, the more I feel like government has become a tool for keeping people safe. But safety and freedom are orthogonal goals. You can relate to what I mean if you have ever had a "corporate security policy" in place on your work computer. Your network admin does his best to keep you safe, but the cost is that you are not free to surf all of the web, you cannot download the important attachment from your vendor to move your project forward. For freedom is restricted, and you cannot make much forward progress.

There are services I need, don't get me wrong. Things like fire fighters, and ambulances, and roads so they can get there quickly and reliably that I don't need all the time, but I'm willing to pay a slice for alongside my fellow neighbors so that we all may enjoy the safety of those services when the need arises.

What bothers me is that the government (via the people) seem hell bent, not on protecting their freedom, but protecting a way of life. They want to preserve a thing that is showing itself to be inadequate, needing adjustment. They want regulations, and bail outs. People have become afraid of failure, afraid of death, afraid of the very frailty that makes us take chances.

If we lived forever, there would be mo need to take risks. We could simply wait until we arrived upon the correct way to do everything. But we don't have "all the time in the world", most of us have seventy years at best. So we have to guess, we have to take chances. We have to do things that put us and sometimes others at risk if we are going to move forward.

You see, we have to be free. Free to speak. Free to defend ourselves. Free to vote. And most of all, free to take a chance.

They Don't Make Guys Like Me

As Jenny points out, in a round about way in my last post I said that I do not exist. But I do exist. I'm here, and I persist, despite all the parts of me that may seem at odds with themselves.

Especially when it comes to dating, and trying to justify in my head why an amazing woman would want to hang out with me, I've always thought, "They don't make guys like me." They really don't. Guys who don't have substance abuse problems, guys who are responsible, guys who are gainfully employed. Apparently just those seemingly bare bones qualifiers limits the datable population quite a lot.

I realize this post is reading as rather self-indulgent. You're reading my blog, about me. Deal.

Then you add on the "normal" good stuff. For instance, I'm pretty funny. I also look pretty hansom, not gorgeous, but hansom enough. I can carry on a conversation and I listen to what people say instead of drifting off in my own thoughts. I'm the kind of guy your mom would like for you to date, and that your dad wouldn't need to brandish a gun at to get his daughter home on time. They don't make guys like that anymore.

Then there's the quirky parts; most of which stem from my lack of social inhibitions or lack of shame.The only way you can get me to turn red is to call me up in front of a group and tell me I'm doing a good job. But I can't be cut down by jokes about the things I like, or the people I hang out with. I'm bullet proof in this way. I even mis-match my shoes so that you know how much your cuts don't hurt me. Peer pressure was a non-issue growing up; I've always been my own person.

I have only one big fear - of dying and having people say that my life was cut short before I could really enjoy it, or take advantage of it, or be happy. So I constantly battle that fear by saying "yes" when an opportunity presents itself, by spending time with friends, by riding the cable car instead of the bus to work. I love my life.

The thing I want most in life, is to have someone to protect. Someone to love fully, without the boundaries. Someone who will protect me and love me without limits. But people freak out when you tell them things like that. They don't make guys like me.

What I Swore Off Girls For

I swore off girls in search of something. Now they're less sworn off (and yes, dudes, you're still out in case you were curious). There was something I had lost. Something I was good at doing, and it was something I had forgotten. It was the thing that made relationships special, magical.

Shoes.

Not the kind you wear, but the kind you stand in that belong to your girlfriend. The kind that tell you that she's worked a lot on being more earth friendly, so when you notice that she went to the effort to get a blue bin so recycling is easier, it melts her heart.

Tonight, I was reminded of those shoes that I had stopped standing in. Someone I know complimented me on my ability to keep running with a humorous story to the point where it gets her laughing so hard she can no longer breathe. I love those stories, and that's "my flavor" of comedy. It's what I love doing, what I feel I'm really good at. To have a simple compliment, something made almost in passing, made my day.

I hope I can return the favor soon enough.

Furthest Friend

All day long at work I deal in kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes. Sometimes we even talk about terabytes of data. But when it comes to distance, everyone sticks to the kilo- prefix (or miles because we can't get on board with metrics).

I got to thinking about it, 2,865 miles from here to Long Valley, NJ sounds like a horribly long distance. But really, Laura is only

4.61077056 megameters

away from me. Four point six... she might as well be next door. They say it's a small world, but that still puts a lot of important people a plane ride (or two) away from me. I feel like that distance gets in the way a lot. There are people I ought to talk to more, people whom I consider to be my friend who might have gotten married in the time that has slipped by.

As for the pronunciation of "megameters", wheter it is me-GAM-e-ters, or meg-A-mee-ters, the guys at work and I couldn't decide.

The Failure of Awesome

Josh sent me this link to a touch interface for desktops. It's pretty awesome (and pretty vapor-ware), but it'll meet the same demise of all input device innovation: lack of software.

Apple got it. Multi-touch hardware, and a whole lot of software that leverages that functionality. But if I hook up a multi-touch input  pad to a Windows box, what benefit do I get? Not much, maybe none.

It is very much a chicken and egg problem. Developers don't want to write (or don't get paid to write) software that is for a minuscule slice of the market. They write for the masses. So that means you have to get everyone to buy a multi-touch input device. But consumers aren't [that] dumb. They want to buy stuff that adds value, and if there's no software, they're going to spend their dollar elsewhere.

Apple had a compelling story with the iPhone. It wasn't just, "Hey look! Use your fingerS!!!!" It has a big ass screen with a great viewing angle. It had the best web browsing experience of any phone on the market. It went out of it's way to make your life easier, and oh by the way, "...we do that with multi-touch". It's the same reason we got mice in the first place - input is just a thing, not the thing.

Fencing

The Purdue Open was this weekend. It is always an interesting beast to me. The Fall one is almost always better attended than the Spring, but the Spring one is always better organized.

This year, looking at pictures that the other fencers took of the event, it made me miss fencing. I don't know that I've missed it before now. I thought about getting back into it, wondering where I might find a good fencing home around here. Really it was about the people.

I could spot Big Joe Landin in his black socks from a mile away. I knew the twist of Sam Noonan counter attacking. I knew the call of Josh Williams. It is more fair to say I missed the people, and that fencing was the vehicle we all car pooled in.

Beep beep.

Just a Thought

I wonder if the crazy shit that went down in the Bible was just a sign of the times. "Oh my wife? She, uh, got turned into a pillar of salt, you know how that goes." is like the modern-day equivalent of "Sorry I didn't get that party invite, the internet must've eaten it."

Then again, maybe not.

Pieces of You

An acquaintance of mine warned me about putting too much value in the people I know. Her intention was to tell me that I need to be my own person.

I disagree.

The people I know, the ones I call friends, are people of the highest quality, people I am honored to share my life with. Those people give me strength, and they affect my personality in all kinds of ways, even those people I only know for a short time.

For instance a girl I dated for only a few weeks, she says "I know" in the context of "You like to not smell like garbage? That's crazy talk", and then she says, "I know" with a huge smile and in an almost song like tone. Now every time I'm in that situation, or hear someone say those words in an incredulous sarcastic tone, I am reminded of how that part of her is still a part of me.

It's like when I go back to Lafayette and people say "Let's kick this pig" meaning "I'm ready to go". What most of them don't even realize is that the expression comes from a fencing time before they knew who Will Read was, let alone who originally was ready to kick pigs.

So you see, I'm an agglomeration of the people that are in or have passed through my life. I draw very little distinction between the people I know and have known, and the person I am - they're virtually synonymous.

Matt Asked

So here's the answer to his question, "What have you finally started to listen to?"

1. In high school and on and off the last ten years I have joked that I'm the "eternal bachelor". I say "joked" but it was always that kind of joking where there was more truth than you wanted to let on. I think it's time to resign to the fact that it just isn't going to happen. Life keeps yelling failure at me.


2. I have these moments where I feel like I'm having a cramp, but in my chest. Making a totally uninformed guess it probably is related to a high cholesterol level. This weekend while camping and feeling winded (but not muscle sore) while hiking up Cinder Cone I realized how much I need to take better care of my body. I don't eat very well either. Today a coworker pointed out how many calories I end up drinking  throughout the day in Coke. Life keeps yelling that I'm not doing a good enough job in the health department.


3. With the addition of a niece to my family I realize how distant I keep myself from my family. I look at pictures of her and it's easy to see how she is Jon's daughter. My cousin is going to be in town this weekend. A month back I saw another cousin who was south of the city. It's literally been years since I've seen them before now. Life keeps yelling at me to do better with my family ties.


4. I see the same thing in the pictures of the Roger's new daughter. Every baby I see reminds me of how I don't have a face to look at, someone who has my nose, my chin, my squinty eyes. Knowing my birth family is more important than I want to admit it is. Life keeps yelling at me that "nature" is also important.


5. I have a business idea. The hard kind of idea. The kind that means long hours, hard work, and a "shit-ton" of risk. The kind that tries to steal a person away from tending to his health, family, or romantic life. The kind that ought to be done, but is like carrying around a uranium rod - tremendous potential, but can also destroy all that it touches if one isn't careful.
   
   I've also served in a mentor/teacher/coach role in a lot of different ways. I am happier with life when I am in those roles. I feel like I am growing most during those times.

Conclusion:  My whole life is pretty unhealthy, not to mention my ongoing moral bankruptcy, and life is telling me.

Cat Dudes

We were talking about Cat Ladies at work today, the ladies that have 57 cats and she loves them all and never has children because "the cats are her children", when someone mockingly said "you're being sexist". My brain, kinda mushy from the day anyway, decided to explore.

What it came up with was an observation that I don't know any single guys who have been living alone who owned a cat. None. Dudes just don't need cats. I have no reason to account for this, but an informal survey at the office quickly supported my observation.

Sure, single guys will take care of someone else's cat for extended periods of time. Guys might even verbally assert "I'm thinking about getting a cat, it'd be way easier than having a dog in my apartment." But I think at the end of the day you'd be hard pressed to find a guy who owns a cat of his own volition. Girls are crazy.

You Can't Find Me in the Crowd

I've been part of several conversations lately that tell me people are afraid that "big brother" knows or will soon know more than they're comfortable with. One conversation was about the Patriot Act, I also was recently sent this link about what ordering pizza could be like. It basically shows a pizza girl clicking through the customer's health info, recent travel purchases, etc.,  and it is all meant to scare you so that you "Take Action" at the end.

But why shouldn't a pizza joint help me make good health decisions by upping the price when I order a pie? I still have the choice, it just is less attractive now to do the thing I wanted to do. Is it really so bad that this information is at someone's fingertips? If you live in a small community you already know what it can be like with everyone knowing what everyone else is up to. This isn't new. More importantly, why are you living life in a way that you have something to hide?

You argue back, "I don't have anything to hide, but what if I'm overlooked for a job because I have a heart condition, or because I spend a lot of money on pink flamingos?" To that I submit that you've probably been overlooked for things that weren't true about you. Wouldn't you rather people made decisions about you based on the truth?

Sure, if one person lets it all hang out while the rest of us keep it all in, he's going to be pretty vulnerable. But if we all lay it on the line for public examination, the guy who hides and holds back sticks out and draws attention. The more you make visible, the easier it is for people to trust you.

The spread of information isn't anything new, we see it in society old an new. You're already being judged, so why not give someone more than just a cover to go off of? Lastly, airing out your dirty laundry builds trust, so you have nothing to lose and so much to gain. Share your life, share it freely with anyone who will listen.