Ajax

Currently in my "career", I could be best labeled as a "software developer"; though some people have other ideas. Like most other things in my life, I try not to let my occupation define me. I don't really consider myself a "techie" or a "computer geek" or any of the other terms that society assign (or people assume) for people who work with computers. (For that matter, I don't really like being labeled "cyclist", "homebrewer", or "jerk". "dad" is ok. as is "friend".) I am not the type of person who is constantly messing with linux or servers or "open source" stuff. Actually, the stuff I prefer to mess with is the graphical side of things and the usability and "ahh" factors of the web. I am almost constantly messing with different sites that offer new or different ways for people (or me) to express themselves online. (My newest is tumblr.) I am also on facebook, goodReads, ... (the list goes on). I don't really frequently use any of them, but I find most of them interesting for their approach to people, information, and expression.

In spite of my professed non-geekiness and lack of "hacking" interest, I still often have small projects that I am messing with on the side of work. Some are work related and some not-so-much. Usually I only get as far as seeing how things should or would work, and then I often will walk away without even fully implementing the project. It is the understanding the logic or the algorithm behind it that interests me. I also tend to redesign my website at www.mycryption.com almost monthly (right now I am simply redirecting to my custom tumblr site).

When Sudoku was growing in popularity a few years ago, I got into the puzzles because the logic and numbers tend to soothe my mind. Then I ruined it for myself by writing an algorithm that would solve about any sudoku puzzle I came across. By defining how to do it, I lost interest in the puzzles completely. Now I only solve them if I am really bored on a long flight. It is understanding the logic and finding a clever solution that do it for me.

But anyway... one project I have recently been messing with is working with Ajax. Ajax is essentially a "design pattern" or mechanism for web development that enables specific elements on a web page to refresh without refreshing the whole page. Gmail is one of the most obvious web sites that use ajax. It isn't a language, but more of a way of moving data. It also isn't new at all. I have used/implemented in past (and present) professional situations, but I have never really messed with it much on a personal level because I never wanted to mess with the grunt work involved in moving the data. I tend to wait a while to mess with new stuff because eventually someone will release some slick, easy-to-use libraries that handle all the grunt work. That is where jQuery has come in. JQuery is a javascript library that makes many things easier on the client (browser) side of web development, including ajax.

Now that the grunt work associated with passing data back and forth with the server is handled, I can concentrate purely on the web-site-specific side of things. But this isn't enough. There is still grunt-work in handling the data on both sides of the fence (client and server sides), and I don't like grunt work. So my latest push is to essentially write a simple framework (library) that will utilize the jquery tools to make ajax transactions dead simple to the web developer (me). Once I figure it out sufficiently, I may actually complete its implementation... or I may try to convince my employers to grant me the time to complete it at the workplace. (They read this blog - so you could call this entry a passive form of intra-office communication.) So my goal here is more than personal logic interest, but potentially having a slicker, easier way of creating useable web pages.

So you could question my earlier claims to a geek-free existence, but I do need something to keep my mind engaged. And I never did figure out how to work those logic puzzles in the newspaper.. and who gets a newspaper these days anyway.

testing

This is a test. I am messing with a new service.. Cheers.

Intentional Living

Ever since I developed a self-consciousness and started thinking for myself, I always valued the idea of intentional living. At least it always sounded good. To me, intentional living was always choosing my own path through life, not leaving things up to chance, having a reason for making the choices I make. My resolve hasn't always been the best, but it hasn't been bad, either. My choices have certainly been questionable, but I have tried to learn and apply the lessons to my life.

Sometime a few years ago, around the time I turned 30, I was struck by a realization that, to me, is closely related to this concept of intentional living. My realization was that life is no longer in the future, but is in the present. This may seem trivial, obvious, or even unimportant, but to me, it was a watershed moment. We spend so much of our lives preparing for the future that it is difficult to change gears or even know when to make that change. We go to school in order to prepare for a career; we spend a career preparing for retirement. We buy a starter home so that we can eventually buy a larger home that will serve the needs of the family in our future. We spend our late twenties and thirties acquiring things to add to that home and life that will one day meet our goals of what home and life are supposed to be. Now don't get me wrong, I am a proponent of being smart and being prepared and working for goals, but at some point one has to decide that the now is just as important as the future. This was huge for me because it freed me from worrying about all of these goals and expectations that had for so long been before me (most of which were not even my own but were, instead, inherited from my family, peers, media, etc.). This also freed me to define, more specifically and more relevantly, the intentions for which I should live.

This intentional living stuff is still a process, though. And lately it has been confusing and jumbled. Part of this was because I have still held onto many ideals that do not really jive with my intentions. Many of these ideals, much like the goals and expectations mentioned above, have been inherited, but many have also defaulted due to lack of consideration on my part. I would try to make decisions, but then other arguments would come to mind and the correct answer would not always be apparent. In case this is confusing, I am talking about anything from how to budget a paycheck to what books or movies I consume. Very practical life actions. With fighting ideals and philosophies, coming to a conclusion can be quite a difficult task.

(An aside.. most people consider me a pretty laid back person and may be confused about me stressing about this stuff.. truth be told, I don't stress about these things, I merely try to consider actions and alternatives instead of just going with the flow... if it gets stressful, I typically default to the flow, but I am trying to intentionally modify my defaults.)

So that leads me to where I am now. I am on a personal "mission" to define, for myself, the philosophies by which I want to live my life and make practical decisions. Then, once I have figured where I stand about a particular area of my life, I can intentionally change my life (if necessary) to be better aligned with my own personal philosophy. I will probably also record these actions in similar fashion. The "mission" aspect of this is simply the record-keeping. By writing down my thoughts, I am better able to understand how to move forward and stick to my decisions.

By "define", I will be writing (typing) down the conclusions I come to. This document, in its raw form, will not be available for public consumption, but I do plan to publish some of my thoughts and actions on this here forum. For those of you who fine this all boring and nonsense, I will still post with my normal drivel, but by recording philosophies and decisions here I serve a couple of purposes. One, I can be challenged by others with concepts or angles I hadn't considered on my own. Two, by recording thoughts and resolutions on such a public forum, I will guarantee myself a higher level of accountability to myself; for me, writing such things is not taken lightly. Note that I neither expect anyone else to hold me accountable (and pray grace if I do not follow through) nor am I in any way evangelizing any of my philosophies or actions.

Don't be surprised if you don't see anything related to this for quite a while, but putting this post out there is, for me, the first step in raising my life to a higher level of intention.

Please bear with me..... I'm figuring it out...

A Hole in the HSR Plan

This morning, President Obama gave a press conference about his plan for a national high-speed rail system, and his plan has a big glaring hole in the middle of it. That hole is Tennessee and Kentucky. My fellow Nashvillians (not pronounced nash-villins) and I are smack-dab in the middle of that hole. If that hole were a Donut, Nashville wouldn't even get any of the icing drippings.



This makes me wonder who is to blame for being overlooked, and the blame seems to fall most appropriately on our local representatives for not pushing for more rail attention here in middle Tennessee. Or is the fault ours, the constituents? Most people in this area seem to regard rail travel as a nice idea, but not worth giving priority when it comes to time in legislature or other infrastructure needs.

So what does this mean for Nashville? Well, if Obama is successful in assigning a national HSR system to his presidential legacy, then rail travel will once again become a major form of transportation in this country. US residents will consider train travel as a legitimate option when it comes to travel (especially as people are moving back into cities) and foreign visitors will increasingly use rail transportation when visiting the US, choosing to exclusively visit cities accessible by train (much like we do in other countries). So I ask again, what does this mean for Nashville? It means being left behind. It means Nashville loses stature in the realm of world-class cities. It means that maybe Nashville isn't as important as we think it is.

Anyone need to go to Lebanon (TN)? We can take a train there....

Portland is sounding better and better all the time... (Portland Oregon, not Portland TN)

Another Election

Last week there was a special election for my metro district here in Nashville (or I guess it would be better identified as the district that I live in). Evidently, there are about 12000 registered voters in this district. Considering the demographic, I would guess that is a high percentage of the eligible voters. For this election, however, only about 10% of the voters actually voiced their opinion. (A little annoying, really, but so it goes...)

With such small elections, there is more opportunity for candidates to focus on campaigning for each available vote. I received no fewer than 8 calls in the week leading up to the election, the bulk of which were received in the 24 hours before the voting location closed. I had voted early, so it was little more than an annoyance to me, but again, so it goes. The little bit that wasn't annoyed was glad to have a voice that mattered.

So the total number of voters for that district election was 1229. Here is where this process really turns into an exercise of futility: no single voter received enough votes to actually win. Somewhere on the rule books, it states that the winner has to have received at least 50% of the votes. So now, a runoff special election has been scheduled for the end of April. I will be curious to see how many people turn out for that one. Since the person I voted for is now out of the running, I can't say I have much of an opinion about either of the remaining two candidates. I do, however, plan to vote anyway. I guess I will just have to dig deeper to find redeeming values in one or other of the candidates.

It's mainly just another month without council representation.