This morning I re-learned a lesson about software development because of an electrician.
An electrician at my office handled an edge case (“don’t flip the switch right now”) with a very simple, and cheap, mechanism – tape.
Simple and cheap, in this case, turns out to be a very effective way to control the behavior of a random and seemingly uncontrollable population, including himself.
The danger ranges from
ahhhh! Bright lights!
to
ZZZch* zzchczzchghhh*!!
depending on the switch we are talking about.
Now, in the software world, stakeholders all too often see their edge cases like this:
There is a time when I don’t want my uncontrollable population to flip this switch / see that data / take that action.
and they react by demanding something like this:
Create a rule that runs on certain conditions for certain people that only allows that switch to be flipped / data to be viewed / action to be taken IF and ONLY IF the possible negative effects will occur.
And…the negative possibilities usually don’t include
ZZZch* zzchczzchghhh*!!
Not even counting how difficult it is to cleanly code and test
* certain conditions
* certain people
* and future negative effects
Generally speaking the most difficult thing is for those same persons to clearly define those self-same parameters.
My point ISN’T to discount those needs – sometimes “certain conditions” is the case, but more frequently than we like to believe, the most effective answer in terms of cost, speed, and capability is still tape.
Ever since reading a book called Good To Great I’ve been on a pessimistic bent – a pessimistic hole if you like.
It’s been about a month now and I’ve finally realized my predicament and since denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, I reckon that my sudden realization is the most important step towards getting back to my natural optimism. Great.
The irony of my recovery is that I think I’m only about half way there.
So, where does that leave me?
This past weekend TheMommy and I flew to Dallas Texas for a wedding – Tony and Apryl’s wedding. We are now flying back. While we enjoyed our first vacation without The Mermaids for it’s relaxing pace (after the wedding) we missed their dimples and their laughs and the many opportunities to share the sights, sounds, and tastes of Texas with them.
The wedding itself turned out to be a wonderful day and night. Warm but not hot, some clouds rolled over for the event and dulled the full brunt of the Texas sun. I wore a chocolate tux and stood in as best man while TheMommy took a behind the scenes approach preparing the brides’ (and flowergirls’) hair.
I had the distinction of offering the first toast and the pleasure of delivering some of the finest words in cinema history related to weddings. If you know The Princess Bride then you know of what I spoke.
I have a few pictures on my phone which help to tell the story.
LaGrande entered the 3rd grade this year.
She started school, oddly enough, last Wednesday.
And, even more oddlier, TheWeeOne entered Kindergarten the next day.
No it isn’t oddlier that TheWeeOne entered Kindergarten – she was quite ready for that – rather it was odd that the school district (just this school?) decided to start half the class Wednesday while the other half started the next day, Thursday.
Then, the entire class convened for a full day on Friday.
Later Friday night, despite the BBQ and party going on in our cul-de-sac until late, TheWeeOne asked to go to bed at 8PM. Full day on Friday right out of the gate was hard for a new Kindergartner.
We, by that I mean TheMermaids and I, spent most of this Labor Day Weekend plotting another movie and when we found out that JG was going to be in town…we had to include him.
I didn’t have time to finish all of the edits in the full movie this weekend but I told JG that I would have a short teaser trailer up no matter what.
This is for you JG.
[these actors I tell ya, and their demands? The next thing you know they’re gonna want a chance to direct]
Towards the end of my staycation, we fished around for some new ideas, made some future plans for a sleepover with friends, and began to clean the house in anticipation of a coming garage sale.
[tangent] Now, several weeks later, the garage is clogged with all of that garage sale stuff – not the best promoters. But I digress. [/tangent]
One particular early evening The Mermaids and I sat down to a movie and I rebuffed the usual suspects; My Little Princess-Pony-Carebear-Mermaid-Barbie just wasn’t on my menu tonight – so I put my foot down and said (with that over-super-ultra-mega-mondo excitement meant to drum up support that is frankly…aaaaa bit transparent to The Mermaids. Or to any kid really; in this day and age of carefully architected marketing savvy? I must sound like I’ve only got one bar on my cellphone.
So I said, all ultra-mega like,
I know! Let’s watch The Last Airbenderrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Nooooooo – Daddy!?! We wanna watch My-Little-Princess-Pony-CareBear-Mermaid-Barbie!!
Sigh.
A little weaker this time.
Nope – Daddy is vetoing that one. Let’s watch The Last Airbender. It’s supposed to be good! 🙂
How the heck should I know?
But Daaaadddddyyyyy?!?!?!?……….does it have a girl in it?
No.
But am I hearing a spark of possibility in that question?!
Then I don’t wanna watch it!
ME NEITHER!
Drat! Guess I’m gonna have to go 1950’s on ’em.
Fine. Then I’ll watch it myself and you two can go do something else.
…and I hit play, on my little remote, with such…authority! I’m so 1950’s.
Only five minutes later I had two very engaged Mermaids on my lap, eyes wide, mouths open. In a phrase – they loved it.
You see, it’s a story about a young boy who can control the primary elements of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. And he, and his children group of power-specialists, can “bend” those elements to their will. A mix of martial arts, fantasy, naturally a love story, and a healthy dose of kid power led to The Mermaids doing their usual – acting out their favorite scenes, picking out clothes that resemble the characters and reliving the movie.
Then one of them asked,
How do they do that?
I attempted a movie making explanation and since it was still light out I went the ostensive route and said
C’mon, let’s go outside and make a quick movie. Just a test.
With action movie eagerness, we spent about 15 minutes setting up and shooting the various scenes in our backyard, one take only, and then repaired to my Macintosh to cut it together quickly – maybe 20 minutes. It was understandably choppy and lame and actually, quite perfect.
They liked it so much, they must’ve watched all 45 seconds about ten times, huge grins and all. So I proposed,
Tomorrow, let’s do it full on – right.
So we did, The Mermaids picked their costumes, we manufactured some “weapons”, and over breakfast we spent a good deal of time (and I burned through some Mermaid patience) writing a scene storyboard. With all that, and more, in hand, we moved the operation to a small wooded section of our neighborhood and what you see below is the result – a crowning achievement to an excellent staycation.
All in all, there is probably 20 min of footage, which took about 2 hours to shoot, and 15-20 hours to edit into the three and a half minute movie you see here. This video also includes about 3.5 minutes of credits and outtakes for a total of nearly seven minutes.
Needless to say – I wasn’t ready with the final product until the aforementioned “future” sleepover several days later. 🙂
Yesterday I rode with TT, a fellow recumbent bike rider whom I met in Portland, north from his place up to Big Lake along the Centennial Trail and beyond. Total mileage was about 76 miles.
The destination was a 5.5 mile time trial up a hill held every year by the Skagit Valley Bicycle Club.
Thanks to Marshall the marshall who timed us and sagged.
TT handled this time trial (also known as a TT) quite well showing me and the other rider just how it’s done. I finished third 🙂 a full six minutes and change behind TT.
This picture is my meager iPhone-attempt at capturing the amazing view from the top of little mountain park.
I’m pretty tired today after all that riding. My 60 min, commute-based, conditioning doesn’t do much to prepare for an 80 miler with a Hillclimb sprint.
One of The Mermaids noticed this caterpillar, after our latest kayak expedition, under the willow tree by the boat launch.
It was just chilling there on one of the paddles.
I’ve looked it up on whatsthatbug.com but can’t find an identified picture which matches the patterns and markings.
Could be a Tomato Hornworm or a Sphinx Hornworm.
I did see an exact match on a flickr site (google image search for [caterpillar “blue horn”]) but that guy thinks it’s a hummingbird moth caterpillar.
I think that’s wrong based on what I’ve seen.
The second part of my recent stay-cation, and every bit as good as Empire, ended up being focused on things that might be generally categorized as “science”.
We began at The Burke Museum and saw lots of fossils, bones, stories, and pictures.
The Burke (hipsters like me shorten the name affectionately – not to be confused with the trail of the same affectionate, hipster-like name) is an amazing resource really, it is nicely sized for a short day-trip and amounts to a bit more than your typical childs attention span. And if you feed them appropriately, the children that is, it may stretch even longer.
It’s no Smithsonian but it’s also not a drive-thru tree with an attached gift-shop.
Still amazing to me is the beak on this prehistoric, and aptly named, Terror Bird.
It was supposedly only about 9-10 feet tall – imposing sucker I tell you and I would have sworn it was 15 feet tall if it was an inch. I am rather glad we don’t have to contend with this beast in the modern day; lions and bees and bears and lunatics are quite enough for this slightly paunchy father of two thankyouverymuch.
At the Woodland Park Zoo we got to see “REAL” dinosaurs; this one even spit at us.
The T-Rex actually caused LaGrande to recoil and cry – and I can see why; it was HUGE and imposing.
TheWeeOne on the other hand [amazed tangent] Ya know I just realized that TheWeeOne – if I were forced to resort to giving her an acronym – would be TWO…hehe, not bad.
I may have a natural fallback for when she isn’t so “wee” anymore. [/amazed tangent]
…as I was saying…TheWeeOne on the other hand wasn’t as fearful and in fact several minutes later made sure that I capture a picture of her running away from the lion…that was chasing her.
I mean…THE LION that was chasing her.
There.
Yet another day, we also saved a nice butterfly from death-by-vehicle as it fluttered haplessly about the roadway.
This butterfly spent two days coddled on fresh flowers in the playhouse and then finally flew away of it’s own volition. That made The Rescue Mermaids VERY happy.
All the while TheMermaids completed their swimming lessons, we swam, and played, and hatched some plans for our last adventure of my staycation, our swansong…which I will detail in the final installment, Part III, of my 2011 Staycation.
blief 