This morning I took YAMF (yet another morning flight) and as usual went around to Hertz to pickup my rental. Now often I can just breeze right through. Spot my name on the board, head to car, and I'm off! But from time to time, things get hinky so I have to step to the Gold counter and get it sorted.

Before I jump into the situation from this morning, let me set the context. I'm a full-time traveler. I don't own a car; instead I drove rental cars for about 320 days this past year (I was out of the country the rest of the year). Last year and the year before were about the same, so when it comes to renting cars I think I qualify as an authority.

This morning, the service I personally received at the rental counter was pretty good, which is not always the case in Seattle. The guy that helped me was courteous and helpful and handled my business efficiently. But the next guy over was discourteous and rude.

He comes out from the back room listening to an IPod and wearing a scowl. Unlike the other three employees, I couldn't find a name tag. When he finally decided to remove the headset, he didn't greet the customer just sort of grunted and motioned. The poor chap didn't have a Gold reservation, but instead of just quietly fixing it and sending him along, he has to embarrass the kid by announcing his shortcoming to entire room. And when the kid corrected the employee, the employee argued with him making it worse! When he finally finished printing things out he just handed him the papers without any send-off at all.

The next fellow also got the silent treatment mixed with sighing and generally disposition that says I wish I was somewhere else and you people weren't bothering me.

Lastly, this lady came up to make some changes to her rental. He told her she had to call-in or go online to "fix her profile". As if it was broken. He didn't offer the number or the URL. Just go do it somewhere else and don't bother me. She then asked again if he would make the changes for this rental, and he told her to go back out to the car and bring him the contract. She said "excuse me?" and he said, "just go grab your contract from the car". I was shocked.

At this point, my car was ready, so I asked to speak with the manager. He showed up and I made a point of asking if we could speak privately. We went outside and I told him what I had witnessed. Just after we started, the employee came outside and eavesdropped on the conversation, right where I could see him! He did this after I specifically asked for a private conversation. The manager wasn't particularly helpful, but did appear to listen. When he asked me to confirm who it was, I just pointed and said he was the guy listening in, right there.

Most people (myself included) are really at a disadvantage when picking up the rental car.  We've just flown in from some random place and we need to get on the road.  Getting jerked around by the rental company is hard, but then you don't feel like you can take the time to say something.  You are in a hurry, and why bother to try and make it known that this guy needs more training before unleashing him on customers?  Just give me my car and let me go, right?  Sometimes it's just too much and you have to let it out, else how will they get better?  So this morning, I was the voice of three obviously dissatisfied people because I don't want my next experience to suck too.

Hertz, you need to shake things up a bit in Seattle. I've been a great customer, and your other locations are usually pretty decent. But this is the fourth really distasteful experience I've had in Seattle this year. Please clean it up!

There are a few things I'm really good at. One or two I am extremely great at. And a host of things at which I suck horribly. I know you are thinking this is totally obvious, but stick with me. I'm going somewhere with this one.

Generally speaking, you can drop people into of three categories concerning any skill. They're either Novice, Experienced, or Expert. When you are first learning something you are a Novice. You don't really know anything and you have no muscle or long-term memory for the skill at this stage. Once you have developed some proficiency you can move past the Novice stage and enter the Experienced stage. At this point in development, you either commit or you give up. Those who commit can eventually become Experts. Those who give up stay in the realm of the Experienced.

Whether it is about building products and services to be consumed, or in your own development, identifying when the commitment point occurs is key to understanding your adoption rate and capability for advancement.

Being a novice sucks. When you are just learning any new skill you always stink. At some point, with practice or just time, you stop being awful. That's the point when you move into Experienced. Unfortunately, sometimes we are willing to settle at the proficiency level we have reached simply because the effort to advance is too great. I don't want to try and get better, because trying something new means I'm going to suck again. After all the effort I put in so I don't stink as a Novice, if I move to the Experienced bracket I'm just falling right back into being horrible again.

If you aren't passionate or motivated, if the costs to get better are just too high, you get stuck. But the reality is, the better you get at something, the more fulfilling it will be. The more successful you are with a skill, the more joy and excitement you will feel from exercising it.

So how do you make sure your product or service won't lull people into this middle ground? How can you un-stick yourself when you realize you are settling for mediocrity?

For products and services you need to understand your Attrition Rate. What percentage gives up? What features were used or not before attrition? When considering the effort involved in adoption, what can be provided to help speed the transition into experienced?

For yourself it can help to keep your eye on the end goal. Remember that passion can ebb and flow, especially as you reach each new level and realize how much further your progression can go. It's natural to be daunted because you suck with something new. Focus on the result, establish the habits daily so you aren't fighting yourself everyday. When you do reach a new level, revel in it for a while.

For the weekend, I re-lived some small parts of a previous life. There is a lot that recalled fondly and relished in revisiting.

Surprisingly, Gate 10 was one of them. It would be a pleasure to partake of this great gate again should the opportunity arise.

Who'd have guessed?

The RX8 is fun to drive.

Someday I'll buy a car instead of renting all the time.

Or not.

This one is for Josh. Maybe he's not the only one leading a semi-charmed kind of life.

Days like this help me see why everyone wants to live in the O.C. and the rich try and keep everyone out.

Just gorgeous.

Every now and then, we all get knocked back on our heels. It might be finally writing the 400th page of your new novel and realizing you aren't even close to being done. Or maybe you woke up and decided that after a decade slaving away you just don't like your job anymore. Maybe you got too much sun and now realize that warm toes beat cold weather every time. Regardless of why you are taking the hits, and we all take 'em, there are a couple of things we've all tried when hit with a wake-up call.

Deciding to start a new relationship and chain someone to the bow of your personal misery ship is one of the Very Bad Ideas.

Let's face it, drama is inevitable in each of our little worlds. As we stumble along our own roads we collect varying degrees of baggage at some points and discard it at others. When it comes to jumping headlong into a new relationship you probably want to make sure you can tread water by yourself a little first.

It isn't that you won't grow and change and evolve in a relationship. But a certain core of stability must be present so that you have something upon which to build. If you are both emotionally-stunted and only quasi-available, the best you can hope for is some severely dysfunctional chaos. Which might take the form of some really passionate interplay or some wildly distracting conversations. But ultimately, without a foundation, anything you build together will probably end in rubble with first few tremors.

Sadly, the best advice is the oldest advice. You'll know you are ready to be with someone else, when you are capable of being by yourself. Only you can really say when it's time to leap from the sidelines into the Great Dance. From time to time you might even end up on the floor because you let go of the rail a little too early. Those are the times we might need to lean on other partners and friends who help us limp back to the comfort of the couch with cuddling or some casual flings. If leaning on them in your crisis helps you cease being crippled, then lean heavy. But only for a season. If you want your limbs to limber and strong you must learn to lean on them alone.

Partners in the Great Dance are only evenly matched when they can both stand on their own, come together on their own terms, and bring their independent strengths and leverage. If you are properly equipped then by all means, hit the floor. If you aren't properly equipped you should definitely be prepared to hit the floor, but we prefer you don't drag us down with you.

But she's hot enough that they were wondering...

As I was trucking around the beautiful city of Scottsdale today I ended up behind a truck with lots of signage.

It wasn't helpful, professional signage, this was personal all the way. Now normally I think bumper stickers and the like are only sported by ignorant and naive people who are so closed-minded and self-absorbed that they think the general public will actually care about their opinions and stances on assorted crap.

For some reason this particular truck didn't make me jump to judgement quite so fast. Which made me wonder about me more. (Now who's self-absorbed.)

Why is it that when I agree with the sentiments displayed that I'm less heated about the ignoramus displaying them? Am I really so shallow as to be swayed simply by alignment of sympathy? I would like to see myself more consistent than that. Alas.

If you have signage I agree with, even partially, I will be much less apt to despise you and declare you dumb. If you really only want to espouse moronic overly impractical platitudes through the venue of your vehicle, I will openly mock you in my head. If that happens to be on the way to a job interview with me, you probably won't get it because I'll have already decided you aren't smart enough just using your bumper sticker as empirical evidence of your poor decision-making and communication skills. The same goes if you show up for the interview on a motorcycle without wearing a helmet.

Yes I am that shallowly analytical. Best to own up quickly eh?

Last night watching George Lopez perform he did a great bit about Crocs. It was super funny and Josh mentioned it as we were leaving that he thought it was one of the funniest bits in the whole show.

Today walking to the gate at SeaTac airport I pass the Crocs store and about pissed myself laughing so hard.

I just had to pass this photo on.

The Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle is really a great hotel. I don't usually spend a ton of time looking out the hotel windows, but today's rainy view of The Sound and the Space Needle was really entrancing for some reason.

It's no secret that I'm a creature of volatility who generally avoids habits. However there are certain habits to which I do steadfastly adhere and encourage others. The first is prayer. The second is reading. The third is (wait for it. . .) writing.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
-- Deuteronomy 6:4-5

It's fairly common find the habits of the daily devotional, which usually encompasses the reading and the prayer. For me that's not enough. We are called to "pray without ceasing" which to my mind is really about an attitude or mindset. Unfortunately, we are human and such a broadly ambiguous goal usually ends up serving as license for casualness and a general slacking-off.

My desire to treat such a call with practicality of purpose and honor the intent with sincerity gives me pause to consider the more formal religions and their merits. The above passage from Deuteronomy is called The Shema and is the main prayer for Jews. Shema can be translated "hear" in Hebrew a name derived from the contents of the passage. It is customarily said at least twice a day, firstly when you arise for the day and again when you retire.

The Shema is the centerpiece of Jewish thought and practice. It is a cornerstone habit, if you will.

Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
-- Matthew 22:37-40

As we are reminded in this passage, habits by themselves aren't all the Lord requires of us. Surely love for our God and our neighbors is mandate here. But in practicality we are also given the mechanism by which to make this real in our lives. Jesus makes it clear that we are to interpret all of scripture through the filter of these two imperatives.

For myself, I stand amazed at how simply impactful and relevant that simple adjustment makes on such a weighty issue. With one small clarification the precepts are moved from concept to application. They are made relevant and real only by shifting them from simple habits to a lens through which we can view all the rest of our world.

In case you were wondering, yes, I often speak The Shema. (wow, how self-centered am I?)

Chilled at the Nord with the fellas.

Later we're gonna hand out leftover lunches to the homeless at the Mission.

Recently, I had a down and dirty discussion with a team who is gearing up for a new engagement. This team has been doing Scrum for a while but was struggling with how to fold testing more tightly into their development processes.

The heart of the matter ended up being differences in the purpose and perception of Unit Tests specifically. One camp saw the role of Unit Test as "to find bugs". That's it. They tell you where the bugs are. If they are just about finding bugs, they have more value to new developers than established developers. After all, great developers are much less likely to allow the kind of bugs found by Unit Tests in their code. As a great developer I'm going to catch bad parameters and logic flaws before checking in my code. Integration and functional bugs are probably not going to be found in Unit Tests anyway.

The other camp (read: in my opinion) was resolute that Unit Tests fill a much larger purpose. To my eyes, Units Tests go way beyond just finding bugs. Following are four big ways that Unit Tests can add significant value over and above just finding bugs.

Proving Integration
Today's applications are more distributed and componentized than ever. The number of moving parts has just sky-rocketed with the use of frameworks and new API's, the prevalence of SOA and more component-oriented designs. Personally I see goodness here, but regardless if you like this direction or not, it's happening and is relevant to address. With this fragmentation comes a need to understand when the integration between components is complete. Simple Unit Tests can tell you quickly if the work being delegated downstream of a component is completed and ready. As you are bringing on multiple layers of components the pass rates of the Unit Tests at various layers can quickly show you the level of completeness for the entire integrated system.

Sample Code
One of the difficult parts of delivering a complete software product especially when the product is a framework or an API, if the product is extensible or supports programmability. In these cases specifically, Unit Tests can serve as great examples of how to utilize the API or exercise the programming model. They can often be directly consumed as documentation and sample code for SDKs or in knowledge transfers throughout the life of the product. Building this from outside the team without relying on the author of the component is extremely costly and difficult. However the returns are typically the most valuable.

Proving Design
Designing and building components is easy with the current toolsets. The downside of this is that we can create classes and objects so easily that we don't always think about the bigger picture. Taking time to write code that exercises a new component or interface can act as a sanity check to ensure that the component is easy to use and meets the programmability desires. It's quite often that I see a single API that requires two or three different programming or data interaction models. Some quick Unit Tests would have shown the designer how difficult and inconsistent the usage of the API had become.

Change Management
As a great engineer, it might be totally natural for you to write code that has few bugs. Are the engineers who take up your legacy as experienced? Will the engineer who will open the code in six months to add some features or fix an integration issue be as comfortable knowing how to change things without breaking anything? Would you? Being able to run regressions over time adds a wonderful safety net in the identification of the impact of changes upstream, downstream, or inside your code. It doesn't mean you will (or can) catch everything with Unit Tests but it can sure give you a head start and a level of confidence.

So perhaps this is more about semantics or expectation setting, but I think it helps to keep in mind the variety of purposes Unit Testing can serve. When you expand the contributions made by Unit Tests hopefully you will have an incentive to get even your experienced engineers to spend time writing them.

He cuts such a handsome figure!

Brunch is always the best with my beautiful boy. Emma and I both enjoyed a Panera morning. Caleb was grumpy but warmed up with a cinnamon roll.

Enjoying some quality time with a bro at Zeitgeist. Love the Black Cherry.

Checking out Harvey Danger later. Brother of a friend is the lead singer. I love how small the world is these days.

It is a pretty normal day for me when a friend says they want to accomplish something and yet they have no idea how to go about it. They want to start a business, but aren't sure what kind of business. They want to make more money, but aren't sure how. They want to get certified/learn new technology/become famous/[insert random goal here]. In all cases, they have an ambiguous idea but not a specific agenda.

A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure. -- Segal's Law

In our era of The Paradox of Choice, it is the amazing potential we all have to stand on the shoulders of giants and achieve greatness that is most often our downfall.

We have to choose every day as engineers which technologies to support, which languages to learn, which certifications to pursue. We are bombarded with choices for what social networks to participate in, which email system to rely on, and should we use an Mac or PC? Is it IPhone or Windows Mobile?

As an architect, the most valuable thing you can do is be deliberate in your choices. The hard part is being deliberate quickly. Digesting the massive amounts of ambiguity at a breathtaking pace to synthesize answers and clarity as and when they are needed, usually well before the obvious answers have become apparent. If being an architect was just about picking the obvious when it became obvious, then everyone could do it. (Which probably explains why everyone thinks they can do it.)

If you want to get out there and do something, first narrow down what that something might be. Perhaps start by writing down what it isn't. Then start writing down the attributes or identifying characteristics for what it is. If you can describe what the world looks like when you've achieved your goal, you'll be a good way towards deciding what road will get you there.

Or don't.

It's your choice.

Every now and again, I find myself in need of a clear reminder. My desperate need as a human to make a connection with other humans. I avoid it sometimes, lash out at it other times, find distractions from it regularly. Intellectually, I know it is better if I make the connections, rather than waiting for the connections to make me.

But I don't have to like it…

I am a man on a mission
I have tunnel vision
Just 'cause I'm not talking
Don't mean that I'm not listening
You can say I suffer from a lifelong condition
You know I love you baby
But try to understand I am a man

I am a man of passion
Maybe it's magic, maybe it's a chemical reaction
All I know is you walk in the room
There's a fire deep inside me
And it's burning just for you
You know I want you baby
Try to understand
I am a man

I'm right, I'm wrong
I'm weak, I'm strong
And I'm all points in between
I don't say much
But when we touch
You know just what I mean

I'm a man of conviction
I do believe in God
But I wrestle with the devils of addiction
Sometimes I lie awake at night
Pray that you'll turn over
Wrap your arms around me tight
Put my head on your shoulder
You know I need you baby
Try to understand
I am a man

-- I Am A Man by Lonestar from the album Coming Home

And yes, sometimes the easiest way to express myself, especially when it's 4am is to use other people lyrics. So piss off Cory.

When you are buying property, how much property you are talking abut really does matter. If you want to buy a house to live in, they care about your income, your personal ability to pay the mortgage. If you are buying a 20 unit apartment building they care about the occupancy rates and your ability to keep it occupied. It really as simple as that. The deal factors change with the size of the deal. But within certain ranges, the factors don't change at all. Buy a 10 million dollar house to live in, they still care about your income. Buy a 1000 unit apartment block and they still only care about occupancy rates and your management experience.

Now, I've estimated, planned, negotiated and sold dozens of technology deals that exceeded 3 million. I've done the same for a double handful of 10+ million dollar deals. And I've worked on one or two that reached the 50 million mark. The thing they have in common is that when it comes to the estimates, the plans, and the negotiations, the factors don't change. The delivery changes drastically, the oversight and number of hands in the pie sure change, but the actual work involved doesn't. The steps you go through, questions you ask, information you need to digest is basically the same regardless of the size of the deal. Which you only realize if you've successfully done it a few times.

Just like my friends who are think buying a 5-unit townhouse is the same as financing their second mortgage. You can always tell who has come out the other side having learned something by the way they approach their next deal. The ones who only survived their deal, who came out the other side but weren't changed, haven't evolved, who didn't learn anything, they're the ones who approach every deal the same way. They have a hammer that works, and they just keep whacking away assuming they'll hit some nails eventually.

If you want to make sure you aren't one of the un-evolved ones, make sure you are seeking first to understand. That's a little phrase I picked up from someone much smarter than myself, but I find myself using it way to often. In my mind, it sums up the attitude of the nimble among us. It separates those who are continually learning, from those who think they've got it figured out and are waiting for the world to agree with them. When you play in the realm of architects and executives, you see both attitudes often enough. Most of being a great architect or executive is being willing to make decisions, to hold a vision in your head and be articulate about that vision. This means there is a very fine line to walk when you are surrounded by ambiguity and collaborating with numerous conflicting opinions and personalities. You have to be very nimble or you'll quickly end up on the wrong side of the line.

If you are seeking first to understand, you will spend more of your time upfront listening and questioning. But you can't spend all your time there. At some point you have to discern the relevant information, express some decisions, be willing to wrong and allow others to correct you, and then drive for consensus. You must engage first to understand, but if all you do is understand and can't utilize that information, the value vanishes. You can be told the difference between financing your home and a multi-unit dwelling, but if you don't chance your approach and act on the information, you've lost the value. You are just as effective as if you kept hammering away with your single tool.

When it comes down to it, it is the size of your ears that matter most. But a nimble attitude and brains are also needed if you don't want to look goofy.

What seems like ages ago in the late 90's I started building up my digital music collection and because of my close ties with Microsoft naturally I chose Windows Media Audio as the format I would support. Who knew?

Who knew that Microsoft would do such a piss-poor job of supporting digital technology? Who knew they'd see massive churn in their hardware expertise and completely screw-up their entrée into the music player market? Who knew they'd talk so freakin' long to make even token progress in car audio, phone audio, and personal devices? More's the sucker I.

Now I find myself with a library of more than 100,000 songs and the vast majority from online retailers who supported WMA. But I can't put the audio where I want it any more. I doesn't play well with my Nano, it won't play well in the car, it's a pain to work with on my phones. In short, I'm through suffering to support a format that has been so hideously mishandled.

So know I've been struggling with the easy way to convert ten thousand albums into MP3 format without losing the substantial investment I've made in ratings, album covers, categorization, and data clean-up. I'm notoriously picky about data, and my music collection is one of those places it shows the most. But seriously, convert 100K songs automatically with back-up and verification?

First off, I went a-hunting. I tried tool after tool, widget after widget, and spent some decent coin trying out even the more high-end utilities and packages. Generally speaking, they all are fine for the little guys, but when you are talking THOUSANDS of albums, they stop being useful.

So naturally, my engineering spirit erupted in full bloom and I've had to create several utilities to manage and control this process. Hundreds of hours later, I'm still not finished with the conversion process even though it is largely automatic with only a minimal set of smooth (to my mind) human verification steps.

The moral I learned from this adventure is to place your technology bets wisely. Had I given up after the first ASF debacle I would only have 40 or 50 gigabytes of music to manage instead of 600 GB of digital audio that needs to be handled with care.