Recently in Personal Category

It's time to announce my goals for the coming year. Apparently, I missed last year (even though I did a recap on New Year's Eve). I love making resolutions because they crystallize the big picture plan for the whole year, but I do believe that goal setting is an ongoing process that's part of the general self-improvement that should be a part of everyone's life. So here they are:

1. Read 12 books: I'd like to be more aggressive about this, but twelve seems like a realistic number. I don't think I read that many last year cover to cover so it would still be an improvement.
2. Settle down: I tend to start new things entirely too often. It's time to stop and focus on a few things. I want to get into some routines and get much of my life on autopilot so I can concentrate my attention on the things that really matter.
3. Limit television: I haven't attached a number to this yet, but that'll be the first order of business. I've re-added my halved feed subscriptions since I'm blogging heavily at The New Clarion, so I've got to cut out some other time sinks. Television fits the bill. I'm going to watch Lost—that's a given—but I'm going to try to pick a handful of other shows and be ruthless in not caring about anything else.
4. Adore Sandi: with the adoption and ensuing chaos last year, I've really let my relationship coast too much. After 15 years of marriage, that's not unusual but I don't want it to be like that. I still feel a thrill being around her and I can't imagine life without her, but I know I don't convey that adequately. I want her to feel like she's the most special person in the world to me, when all too often I'm the only one that knows that.
5. Improve my writing: I think I can write better. By and large, the best way to improve writing skills is by writing more. I'm going to do that, but I think I can gain by being more deliberate also. Start from an outline, ask the metaquestions, and revise—things I don't normally do as I dash off a blog entry.

I think that covers what I'd like in resolutions: general statements about this year's direction.

I have much to be thankful for this year. Honestly, every year of my adult life has been great even with the ups and downs. My wife and I work very hard at living consciously and deliberately, so I feel like I've really earned whatever success and pleasantness I've experienced. Here's a smattering:

• My wife: I wouldn't be the man I am today if I had never met her. I feel so fortunate that we have such a strong relationship after 15 years of marriage, but it doesn't surprise me since I have so much admiration for her.
• My girls: my three daughters (5, 5, 3) are the biggest joy in my life. They're rambunctious, contentious, and mischievous but mostly they're just marvelous. I think I'm a better man for having them.
• My son: we're three days away from the journey to pick him up from Ethiopia. That will be the culmination of over a year of effort, paying through the nose, and complying with maddening bureaucracies. He will complete our family and I just can't wait to meet him.
• My job: Go Daddy is a great employer. The benefits and pay are outstanding. I've been fortunate to have challenging and interesting work. My team is reliable, competent, and nimble. I'm taking a month off to be with my new son and had to move my plans up a week with only two days notice, but my boss was fine with it (much more than I was) and expressed excitement at my upcoming adventure. I plan to stay there as long as they'll have me.
• My friend Larry: he lives in San Diego and I don't talk to him nearly enough, but whenever we do it feels exciting and refreshing. He's also the smartest guy I know—besides myself, ahem. We see him several times a year and the kids adore him.

I was going to list my iPod, my MacBook, and my MINI Cooper but their importance in my life is different in kind from the items listed above. They're great and all but their absence wouldn't leave a void in my life.

Let's compare how I voted to how the rest of my Arizonans voted. Outside of my district and county, I pretty much am out of step. I'm glad they voted down the "homeowner's bill of rights" and took a tax on home sales off the table permanently, but they also stopped same-sex marriage with a constitutional amendment, snuffed payday loans out of existence, and enabled a Masschusetts-style denial of private insurance.

My wife thinks that the proposition voting mirrored the spending trends on commercials. I cannot believe that, but it's a compelling argument. Some of the proposition wording was very precise and commercials about those measures were very deceptive—did people not look into the matter further?

It's done finally, so now's the time to move on and start accepting the outcome. I have got a couple of months to lay low, relax, and study before I join the Kulturkampf. An Obama presidency is a grand opportunity to publicize Ayn Rand and Objectivism since he represents such a stark contrast to us.

I've been searching for the perfect word to describe Barack Obama fanatics. Portmanteaus seemed to be the perfect neologistical type but all the ones I have found were unsatisfying to pronounce. "Obamaniac" was the closest but it just doesn't work as a word and I've seen too many of them co-opt it for themselves. I don't disparage people who like it.

While driving home from dinner tonight, I came up with a doozy. With a sigh of relief at the conclusion of a long, tiring expedition, I offer up Obamaton. Looking over the results at Google and Twitter, I cannot lay claim to originality but at least I'm well clear of cliché.

I am a longtime fan of John Shadegg. I have voted for him in every election he's been on my ballot. I was heartened to see his name in opposition to the bailout bill when it failed in the House of Representatives. And I was disgusted when I saw his name in support when it came back around, this time with pork.

My initial idea was to punish him by voting for Bob Lord, his Democratic opponent. But that was just the initial feeling of betrayal talking. If I let politicians stabbing me in the back determine who to vote for, my voting would be governed solely by revenge. In today's political climate of unprincipled pragmatism, flipping politicians are in fashion.

After reading his reason for the reversal, I'm certain that he is definitely not his father. If Barack Obama gets elected, we'll need all the Republicans we can get in Congress so I just couldn't let my disappointment affect the long-range view. And he is more oriented towards small government than most of his GOP brethren.

Here's how I voted, starting at the top of my ballot and working my way down:

• President: John McCain
• U.S. Representative, District 3: John Shadegg
• State Senator, District 6: Pamela Gorman
• State Representative, District 6:
  • Sam Crump
• Corporation Commissioner:
  • Barry Wong
  • Marian McClure
  • Bob Stump
• Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, District 3: Andy Kunasek
• Maricopa County Assessor: Keith Russell
• Maricopa County Attorney: Andrew Thomas
• Maricopa County Recorder: Helen Purcell
• Maricopa County School Superintendent: Don Covey
• Maricopa County Sheriff: Dan Saban
• Maricopa County Treasurer: Charles "Hos" Hoskins
• Justice of the Peace, Desert Ridge: Paul Henderson (write-in)
• Constable, Desert Ridge: Cory Hazlett
• Maricopa County Special Health Care District, District 3: Susan Gerard
• Maricopa County Community College, District 3: Pam Petty
• PVUSD Board Member:
  • West Kenyon
  • Nancy Case
  • Anne Greenberg
• Question 1: NO
• Question 2: NO

Here's how I voted on the propositions:

• 100: YES
• 101: YES
• 102: NO
• 105: YES
• 200: YES
• 201: NO
• 202: YES
• 300: NO

If you are interested in why I voted for a particular candidate or proposition, leave a comment.

Google's made their 2001 index available for a month to see what the Web was like back when Google was first starting out. It was like a trip down memory lane: there I am at #7 in a search for my name.

Oh yes, I was on the Web since maybe 1996 back before there were blogs. We used to call them home pages, kiddos, and I called mine The Bill Brown Information Center. It used hover effects on the links and everything. It also reveals that I have loved yellow and blue for at least a decade now.

It's worth a look see: I used to have all of my essays available, exhaustive lists of my values, and a funny bio that is just so me. It's also interesting to note that back then Google and Northern Light were tied as my favorite search engines.

Man, I was so cool!

[UPDATE: Ooo, there's also this Bill Brown-designed club Web site that brings back a wave of nostalgia. I loved that font!]

The A.V. Club had a feature asking a bunch of people I've never heard of the question "what's your most-rewatched movie?" Their responses were interesting—and would be more so if I were familiar with the individuals—so I thought I'd share my answer.

I've thought about the subject a lot because my favorite movies aren't necessarily the ones I watch regularly. It's a crucial distinction because there are several movies that I don't think are good or great by any stretch but I enjoy watching a lot. My favorite movies aren't necessarily those that I can (or do) watch regularly but they really resonate with me whenever I do.

My all-time most re-watched movie has to be Happy Gilmore, which I think most people who know me would be surprised to find out. I watch this at least once a month and sometimes more, I can quote from it liberally and extensively. My favorite scenes are definitely the ones with Ben Stiller as a nursing home orderly. It makes me laugh every time.

Aside from that, I like The Italian Job, Dumb and Dumber, and Back to the Future. I must say that getting rid of satellite and the three-at-a-time plan from Netflix have cut into the time I have to re-watch movies: I could have made a much more extensive list two years ago, for example.

Go Daddy's bringing Merlin Mann out to give a new talk tomorrow and I'm pretty jazzed. You may recall that he came out for an earlier event just this May for his Inbox Zero talk.

I'm excited for this presentation because its subject matter has been on my mind lately. I've been experiencing a debilitating sense of ennui and a lack of motivation. After much introspection and deliberation, I think I've located the source: too many great ideas and a fundamental uncertainty about which is the best course of action.

When I say too many great ideas, I mean it. At this moment, I've got some compelling ideas to contribute to an open-source project I've taken over—I still need to write up a blog entry about that fine mess I got myself into; a book idea that is unique, unprecedented, and possibly the start of an entire franchise—two actually, but the second one is going to require the first to be very successful; an iPhone application that could make me some decent side income; a historical project that could bring me enormous satisfaction; and a raft of business ideas that are all feasible to varying degrees.

In the face of all these nearly-equally viable choices, how do you pick one and set yourself to it? Normally, I'd consider a matrix of factors like which one has the most potential, which one lends itself well to maximizing time with my family, which one fits in with the life I envision for myself, and which one is best suited to my strengths. But there's no clear winner in this regard.

So I stew and dawdle and get distracted easily. That lack of focus makes me upset because that's not me! Any time I start to make some progress on one of these big-ticket ideas, some inner voice nags that another one is a better use of my time. Meanwhile, I'm caught up on my feed reading and on top of Twitter, which makes me even more unsettled because I know that these things are not the best uses of my time right now.

Merlin is not going to tell me anything I don't already know. Heck, I am even familiar with all of the techniques he's listed in his slide deck. But maybe his talk will be rousing enough to jar me from this rut, to just pick one from the many and get things done.

Then again, maybe writing this blog entry itself has provided sufficient impetus.

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

I'm getting ready to fly out to San Francisco for the F8 Conference put on by Facebook. We're leaving Phoenix at 7:20 AM and returning to Sky Harbor by 10:30 PM, so it's going to be a long day but very much worth it—I hope. I plan to blog my raw notes for each session throughout the conference for my colleagues that couldn't attend as well as posterity.

I just deployed my latest effort: the Official GoDaddy.com Domain Search Dashboard Widget. I know, it's not a terribly catchy name but it's quite descriptive. It's a Dashboard widget for Mac OS X that enables you to check domain name availability. It's certainly a variation on a common theme but what can I say? Domain registration is bread and butter.

This widget was a little different than the other ones I've done, however. It's got all the visual flair attendant with Mac OS X, to be sure. The animation took forever to get just right and smooth. It also had to have an update mechanism since it doesn't reside anywhere that we can control. The update process is fairly simple but so is the app itself.

It consumed a lot more time than you'd expect, but I enjoyed it. Well, except for some of the fighting with Dashcode. Oh and that issue I had all yesterday with the little loading spinner: that drove me nuts trying to pin down the cause. (Incidentally, in the open method of the XmlHttpRequest object, if you specify false for the asynchronous parameter, it will not run any code that updates the widget until the response comes back. But only in the Dashboard version of WebKit. Safari works just fine. It was a pain to track down.)

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

I left a store the other day and was accosted by one of those signature gatherers trying to get some initiatives on the November ballot. This one was a little unusual in that he had nearly a dozen petitions for me to sign. I asked what they were because I ain't signing squat without knowing.

He breezed through them stating the position of each: prescription medicine plan, banning payday loans, lowering taxes on new home sales, and some others that I can't remember. I suggested that I'd be willing to sign for the tax decrease but that I didn't agree with the others. He was dumbfounded and said that I wasn't voting on any of them just enabling them to be on the ballot. I again said that I'll sign one but none of the rest. He shrugged and said that I couldn't sign any of them then.

If I wasn't in a hurry, I would have explained to him that there are things that don't belong on the ballot. I don't want them to be put to a vote because they're restrictive and infringe on our liberties—the initiative process should not be an end run around individual rights. I would have analogized it to signing a petition to enslave illegal immigrants: it would likely be defeated at the polls but it should never get that far. I'm certain that it would have been entirely lost on the guy.

I stumbled this weekend across an intriguing Ask Metafilter post about backyard theaters. With the idea of community building on my mind, visions of neighborhood movie nights swirled in my mind. People love drive-ins and a well-considered slate of movies could really bring out the people.

In the ensuing thread, I found an awesome site for doing it right. It covers all the technical details as well as the logistical ones. For example, showing a movie to anyone interested in attending is considered a public viewing and would therefore require a public performance license. But showing a movie only to invited guests is a private viewing, like watching your DVD at home.

In addition to the possible community aspects, I could see using a backyard theater for poolside movie watching or the inevitable slumber party fun. I am really jazzed about the idea, but I'm going to wait to act on it because there's so much other groundwork that is more pressing.

Today was Go Daddy's first annual TechFest, which brought together all of Go Daddy's IT staff from around the nation for a conference. It was a chance to meet the people you might have only ever dealt with via email, IM, or phone. It was held at F1 Race Factory, which we bought out for the whole day. Events took place in its set of meeting rooms as well as a massive air-conditioned tent set up in the parking lot.

The main suite of presentations dealt with the company as a whole: Bob Parsons' candid (and hilarious) biographical sketch and reminiscences of the early days from employees that had been there 5, 9, and 10 years. It is simply astounding how far the company's come from those salad days—it's grown significantly in just the three years I've been there. For the first couple years of its existence, all the employees of Go Daddy worked in a house out in Cave Creek. The old-timers regaled us with tales of servers in the laundry room and concrete pillars erected in front of the garage for insurance reasons so that an errant car wouldn't take out the entire development staff!

I gave a presentation on unit testing and test-driven development to approximately 37 people. (I say "approximately" because that was the attendance figure I had going into the presentation but I didn't actually do a count during.) It was a version of the one I'd given in March to an internal team but all gussied up. By popular request (of those who didn't attend the talk), here's the slide deck. I can put it up because it's entirely meaningless without me flapping my gums up there for an hour.

The set up surrounding the presentation was one disaster after another. I couldn't find my VPN card so I couldn't do a demo using a live connection. Then I made a screencast version of the demo, but the software I used for Windows could only export to a SWF. That meant that I had to open it up in a browser and use the context menu controls of the Flash plugin to navigate the video. My room was designed for 20-25 and didn't have a built-in projector system, which further limited the available seating. I overcame each of these obstacles in turn because I allowed plenty of time to sweat out the details. I can't emphasize enough the need to really explore your presentation environment before your talk; if I had relied on the previous night's once-over, I would've chewed through valuable talk time fretting little hurdles as they arose.

I think the presentation went swimmingly! My boss came in for moral support but left rather quickly when he realized that I had it well under control. I was joking, I was animated, I was lively. I'm really happy with my decision to use rather spartan slides: it prevented me from just reading off them, eliminated reading ahead, and kept the audience guessing as to the images' significance. Further, the audience asked technical, methodological, and insightful questions during the Q&A. That told me that they were engaged with the material, which is exactly what a presenter dreams of. And quite a few stayed 15-20 minutes past my allotted time to go into more detail!

The event closed with Merlin Mann's presentation of Inbox Zero, which was amazing, and then the traditional overdoing of the prizes. I've been doing Inbox Zero for years but I found myself rapt due to his easygoing and quietly-hilarious style. It was worthwhile just to watch his presentation style; I think he made a big impact on the Go Daddy crowd.

Next year's can't come soon enough!

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

This weekend, Sandi and I were watching television when we saw an advertisement for a new show on CBS called Swingtown about a married couple that decide to engage in swinging. What the hell is wrong with the world? I'm no prude, but casual sex among married couples strikes me as profoundly wrong and not to be celebrated. Promiscuity is wrong in general but beyond the pale in spouses. Celebrating it is reprehensible.

We decided then and there that we wanted to live in a small town—a more wholesome place with better values that repudiates this Bacchanalian emotionalism that seems to have taken hold of our culture (at least the public face of it). The trouble is that we love our house, we love Phoenix, and we love the desert. No small towns accommodate those needs. So what to do?

My wife, the observant one, realized that Boulder Creek—our little subdivision section of Phoenix—is kind of like a small town. Why can't we make this into the small town we'd like? Well, obviously, the residents of Boulder Creek are varied and all-too-transient so I'm speaking figuratively. If we surround ourselves with good people (with good children), there's no reason why we couldn't get the positives of a small town while retaining the benefits of the big city!

Our little community is just like every other subdivision: get home from work, close up the garage door, and retreat into the microcosm. So we've just got to think of how to crack into that, how to give our area an identity that makes people want to participate. We've got to build the community that we want to live in.

Got any ideas to share? I'm thinking about a community Web site and perhaps a block party, but maybe you've seen something that works better. Please let me know either in a comment or by emailing me.

I was reading Clay Shirky's "Gin, Television, and the Social Surplus" today and came across this paragraph that really spoke to me:

Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don't? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn't posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it's not, and that's the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

The larger point of his essay is that we, collectively, waste a lot of time watching television. If even a small portion of that were put to better (maybe different is more a propos) use, we could accomplish a lot. Shirky quantifies it with the entirely-made-up number that a 1% reduction in television viewing is the equivalent of 100 Wikipedia projects. I think that's bogus, but the general point rings true to me.

I think about these things often because a) I grew up watching a lot of TV, b) I am interested in the cultural shifts that the Internet has fostered and forced, and c) I watch too much television as it is. In January of this year, we ditched satellite TV and have limited ourselves to what comes over the antenna. That has severely curtailed the random, idle TV watching but it has largely been replaced with movie watching via Netflix.

Is that really any better? Perhaps, since movies are typically of higher quality and more worthwhile than television sitcoms. But isn't it, in the end, exactly the same? I shudder at all the great books I've neglected, all the music I've never heard, and all the blogs I haven't read—just kidding on that last one—as I fritter away the hours watching Antiques Roadshow or Lost. (Just kidding about Lost: the only way I'll stop watching that is when the series ends.)

I guess it's high time that I got a life.

Today is the third anniversary of working at Go Daddy. In my time there, I've seen it grow from 600 employees to over 1,900. A similar level of growth has also occurred in revenue, domain registrations, and many other measurements. What's really neat is that it still feels like a smaller company to me, even though it's become an Internet powerhouse.

I haven't talked about work lately beyond the actual work itself. Work has been, in a word, splendid! As I mentioned not too long ago, I transferred from the Quick Blogcast team to start a new team that I think is officially called the Gadgets Team. For a while, it was just me and I whipped up an iGoogle gadget that was well-received. My team doubled in size in January with the addition of my colleague Dominic and we've been cranking out code as a team. He's been great to work with: I can assign him some work and know that it's in good hands.

I have never been happier as a developer than I am right now. I've been working on an entry about why I like my job so much but I haven't been able to be sufficiently specific to make it comprehensible. I've got eight projects on my plate that I'm either coding or managing and I can't talk about any of them. I will when I can. Suffice it to say, they're exciting and challenging and engrossing. And they're so varied that I could continue at this rate for years and years without ever getting bored or restless.

Aside from the work, my pay is excellent and the benefits are outstanding. Next week, we're having an offsite technical conference that brings together all the company's IT staff from Denver, Iowa, Gilbert, Tempe, and Scottsdale. I'm presenting on unit testing and test-driven development and we're bringing Merlin Mann in to give his Inbox Zero talk. This is the first of its kind and I've heard that it won't be the last, which is a very promising development.

It's funny how I feel like an old-timer having only been there for three years; I can't imagine what things will look like after another three!

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

I deployed my most recent project at work today. It's a Facebook application that allows Quick Blogcast customers to link their accounts to their Facebook profiles.

I know that bringing a blog into your Facebook profile is nothing new. There are many such applications out there right now that can do that. But I think this Quick Blogcast version is unique in that you can make it so that your friends and visitors never leave Facebook, even to comment! What's more, we leverage nearly all of the Facebook integration points. This allows the Quick Blogcast customer to publicize his or her blog to the fullest extent while still respecting the conventions and norms of the Facebook world. While that may not sound like much, it's been quite a learning experience for me.

For one thing, I had to master the Facebook API. Luckily, I only had to learn it secondhand because I had an excellent framework called Facebook.NET to lean on. After a month or so of experience, I even felt conversant enough to help others and supply patches. In so doing, I apparently really helped the developer of Thugz Passion, a game which I've grown to enjoy.

It was also a chance to get to know memcached better. I used the terrific Enyim.com Memcached framework to interact with a Win32 port of the service. I wish I knew enough C++ to move that project to the current version of the Linux original. I futilely check the danga email archives to see whether anyone's gotten impatient with progress and just did it on their own.

I was (and am) very impressed by memcached, which is an excellent (and free) distributed caching system. ASP.NET is top-notch at scaling but its caching mechanisms (namely, the object bags like Cache, Application, and Session) can easily become bottlenecks after enough usage is thrown at them. I think memcached offers a way out—it's certainly worked wonders in the Linux world.

I affectionately call this integration app Quick FaceBlogBookCast. It cracks me up every time; it's easily the most cumbersome portmanteau I've come across. (I can't believe I forgot the other Facebook app I released today: Domain Center for Facebook! It's a way to spontaneously generate domain name suggestions from the information contained on your Facebook profile. The algorithms right now are pretty coarse, but I plan to refine them each and every release until they're uncannily right some day.)

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

"… eudaimonia is the human entelechy." — Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 349

I can vividly remember the first time I read those words back in 1991. I was still in high school and I immediately went to the dictionary to find out the meaning of the two words I didn't know. That phrase solidified my desire to study philosophy in college. (There wasn't enough courses that fit my schedule to get my bachelor's in philosophy, so I had to minor in it and major in history.)

Eudaimonia, Aristotle's idea of happiness or the good life derived through rational living, has informed my entire life since then. Ayn Rand's Objectivism is, I think, the perfect realization of his conception. Lately I've gotten it into my head that I need to write on the subject and bring their ideas into the self-improvement, self-help canon.

If you've read that genre to any degree, you'll know that it invariably takes emotion as a given, such that the goal of it is to feel better about yourself. It's almost as if the authors regard the subject of virtue and reason as irrelevant. Even the cognitive psychologists like Seligman and Beck emphasize the centrality of emotion, though they're immeasurably better because they understand that thought precedes emotion.

I'm working on my outline but I'm not going to get into it just in case it fizzles like so many of my grandly-started ideas. I'm really enamored of the central idea, which I think could be the start of something big. We'll see. I will, of course, keep this blog updated with any progress.

I went to Netflix just now to rate a movie I watched. On the front page, the image at right greeted me.

You may or may not know, but Netflix is offering a $1 million prize for a 10% improvement in its recommendation algorithm. I honestly don't know if the recommendation at right is what they're trying to improve but if it is then 10% better shouldn't be too difficult.

I mean, because I liked a documentary about capital punishment, a 80s puppet children's show, and my children liked an insipid phonics teaching program they think that I'd really dig a pseudo-martial arts exercise video. Sorry, but WTF?!

They just completed a big ol' upgrade but I think they missed a spot. Yeah, over there. See that recommendation engine-sized dark spot over there. There you go, you've found it.