I make my living by providing custom software solutions to small businesses.  To stay sane  in this industry one thing you have to learn to do is test, test, test, test, test…  It is much easier to fix a bug before something gets delivered to a customer then after.  And nothing is worse then waking up to an angry customer who just found that bug that YOU didn’t.  So I test my software hard.  I go through every edge case, I test dirty input, I test on multiple browsers.  I click as fast as I can through things.  I go slowly, I click around.  I try huge uploads.  I try weird combinations of data.  I write extra code so that I can quickly test things.  The list goes on…  Because of this, when I deploy something to production I feel good about it.  I don’t have the dread in back of my head that I missed something and it will break.

Well, I like to feel the same way about the car I drive.  That’s easy with my scooter.  It’s so simple it just works.  (And it’s a Honda).  But this new car I got (1996 Geo Prizm / Toyota Corolla I bought from a friend who had some problems with it for $450. ) I’m not sure about yet.

I’ve made a few repairs on it, and I need to test it.  I want to KNOW that it isn’t going to over heat the first time I take the scouts on a camp-out in the mou.  I want to KNOW it will JUST WORK.  So, what is the equivalent of beating on software for a car?  Several things.  First, a trip to the car wash to clean the engine.  If you can’t blast the engine compartment with water without the car dieing, you probably don’t want to drive it in the rain.  I cleaned it really good, and one of the cylinders started miss-firing.  This wasn’t wholly unexpected as it’s pretty common when you get the ignition system wet. I just drove it long enough for the water to evaporate and everything was great.  Next stop, the highway. Shifting the transmission manually I ran at 75mph near red-line for about 10 minutes.   WARNING: Don’t do this unless your car is made in Japan.  Seriously, we don’t have anything on the Japanese when it comes to building bullet-proof 4 cylinder gasoline engines.  At this point I was impressed.  No burning oil, no over heating, no weird sounds.  In fact, this is one of the smoothest running cars I’ve ever owned.  Next test, handling…  A few speedy left and right turns, no squealing, no wheel noises, no excessive under steer, very nice.  Everything seems good.  To test the suspension a little I head home (still manually shifting and keeping the engine screaming near red-line) to the speed bumps and drainage dips on the way.  Unlike our other car (A Classic Prius) the Corolla glides over the bumps, and through the dips without bottoming out.  No odd noises either, the struts and springs seem to be in good shape. When I get home, I check on my repairs and am happy to see they are still working just fine.

Overall I was extremely impressed.  Now before you get in a tizzy about me abusing the car, you have to understand that for several reasons I was confident this car should be able to take this kind of treatment.  One is that Kiplinger rates it as the #2 car that JUST WON’T DIE.  I also ran a compression check before hand and was AMAZED that with almost 200k miles it was still pushing 195psi across all four cylinders (many new cars won’t test that high).  Add to that my previous experience with Toyota vehicles, as well as the many you tube videos of people trying to destroy old Toyotas and having a hard time doing it.

Now, I am as confident as I can be without a complete tear-down that this car won’t leave me stranded anytime soon.

Once a year a day with the best Christmas Dessert’s but without the stress of traveling and extended family comes along.

PI DAY!!!!

So, go out and celebrate.  Buy yourself your favorite Pi and Chow down!

I talked for a few minutes with someone who recently immigrated from Germany.  His story was interesting and is a classic example of the opportunities here in America.

He came to the US 4 years ago from Germany.  When he arrived he knew two words of English “Yes”, and “No”, was married, and in his late 30′s.  He applied with 127 different companies for everything from window washing to floor cleaning.  He got a job on a warehouse floor and on the first day noticed how lazy his boss was.  In his head he warned the man “I’m going to have your seat.” And shortly he did.  He enrolled in school 3 nights a week after work and his work ethic continued to be recognized.  He watched American TV even though he didn’t understand it.  He read the newspaper, and even the telephone book.  He said his transcending experience  was a joke on TV and he laughed.  His wife said “what” and he replied that they had just said a funny joke on TV.  His English is very good now.

He is now the floor manager for the Standard Restaurant Supply across the street.    He never passes me in the store without asking in a very friendly way if I would like some help finding something.  Today I bought an Apron to wear while working in the shop and it didn’t have a price when I checked-out.  He asked where I got it, and RAN (literally RAN) to the back of the store to get the price.  He is always smiling, cheerful and helpful.  If I ever have an open position for someone like him Standard Restaurant Supply better keep him close…

To hard working immigrants like him everywhere, I say Welcome.

This is a topic I frequently ponder.

Is it wrong to manipulate / influence someone for their own good.

I think the line between good and bad is close to the line between influencing or manipulating.  Are you guiding them to a good decision or forcing them down the path you want without them even realizing it?

Are you grabbing their hand and forcing them to pick up something you want them to, or are you trying to explain to them why they want to pick it up?

What about dangerous circumstances.  You are in a car when the driver snaps and decides to intentionally crash the car into a telephone pole just for kicks.  Do you grab the wheel and steer the car away?  What if you aren’t in the car, but still had the ability to steer the car?

What if it’s something less dangerous?  They are playing with illegal drugs, and while alone you flush their stash down the toilet.

Something harmless?  Your spouse asks you to take her to the chain grocery store, and you tell them about all the great deals at the corner market.

You’re talking on the phone with a support rep and you notice they are not very confident, so you engage them in conversation in an attempt to get better service?

Does it all come down to honesty?

Have you heard of the 5 Love Languages?  Do you know the love languages of the most important people in your life?  Your kids? Your Spouse?  Your friends?

What I believe is the most important principle of leadership is love.  I believe that showing love for those you lead is the most powerful thing you can do for long term results.  If short term immediate results is what you are looking for then just tell them how they need to change, but if you want lasting results and real change love is the answer. In the words of Ender Wiggin “The easiest way to make someone do something is to make them want to do it.”

Do you know how to tell the important people around you that they are loved?  Or, do you know the most effective way to tell the people around you that you love them?  I don’t believe that most people do.  We all speak our own love language and we just assume that everyone else speaks the same language.  For some a simple reassuring hand on the back is more powerful than a million dollar gift. While for others, a simple act of service means more than all the hugs, kisses, and other intimate behaviors could ever mean.

Do you want the people around you to know that you love them?  Then find out their love languages and learn to speak them.

I recently changed the head gasket for a friend of mine who overheated his Mitsubishi Gallant.  I thought we were screwed when I started it up and it made LOTS of white smoke.  I was thinking maybe the block was cracked, or I did something wrong; Which is silly because we did EVERYTHING right.  We had the head rebuilt, cleaned the block, chased out the head bolt threads.  Torqued the head bolts exactly by the book and even double checked the accuracy of our torque wrench, and after an anomaly even got a new set of head bolts and did it again to be sure.  I let it run for a while, I rev’d it up, everything to see if the smoke would go away to no avail.  It smoked for like 10 minutes. BAD too.  I told my buddy the car was scrap but he insisted he would just try to get by on it.  Well, the smoking stopped after his first drive.  And he is driving it around now without a problem.

I think what was really wrong is that while he was trying to start it after the head gasket blew a LOT of coolant made it into the exhaust.  And it just took a LONG time for all the coolant to burn out.

Two other possibilities remain.  The heating, cooling, heating, cooling, heating, cooling process may have caused the head gasket to seal better, OR divine intervention…  Lots of prayers were said on behalf of the car, and my buddy is a really really good guy who is deserving of any breaks he gets.

We have an old dog, that has some trouble with spacial coordination…  He doesn’t like going backwards…  Almost won’t do it, so he is very careful never to walk into a corner…

He also has a hard time getting things through the dog door…  See the picture below of him trying to get a bone through the dog door…  It usually takes him a half dozen or so tries before he gets it through.

Last night, my wife and I were drifting to sleep after an hour of playing plants vs zombies on our iPhones when we were awakened from sleep by our doorbell.  It was 2am.  As I got out of bed to answer the door I was thinking, “who would ring our doorbell urgently at 2am?”  I thought about grabbing a gun to take with me, but decided I would scope it out first and go back for the gun if needed (on retrospect, I decided next time I’ll just make it standard practice to take it with me when answering the door after 11pm.)

To my surprise, there were three police in our driveway.  I opened the door and greeted them.  They asked if they could search our backyard.  They didn’t volunteer why and I just assumed it was to look for someone.  I put the dogs away and the three officers and a k9 (who looked like he was having the time of his life playing “police dog”) went into our backyard and did a thorough search.  I kind of feel bad for them because our backyard has a lot of places to hide.  It took them about 5 minutes to search the whole thing.  They were very cautious. Gently pushing our shop door open to peer inside carefully, never staying in the open longer than necessary to ensure their “hide n go seek” partner wasn’t inside.  I wish I had cameras set up with Zone Minder so that if they guy did ever pass through our backyard I could give the police a good mug shot of him and point out where he went.  One day..

They came back out and said “Thanks” and wandered back out, and a few minutes later we heard our neighbor opening his gate and letting them into his yard.  The whole time, I was hoping to hear shouts of “Get on the ground!”  But no, they didn’t find him while I was awake.

I’ve had an interesting turn in respect for law enforcement offices.  It is unfortunate that most of our contact with them comes in the form of traffic violations.  I used to dis-like them.  Recently I’ve made good friends with one, and I realize their importance in maintaining an orderly society.  There are lots and lots and lots of really really really bad people.  And the police risk injury and death to take these people down and put them in jail.  And the bad ones never go willingly.  It takes a special breed to be a police officer.  While many think police are rude, that is part of their job.   The best way to stay safe for them is to stay in control of all situations, and that comes across as rude sometimes. Sure, there are some that are just plain rude, and have a superiority complex, but even they put the bad guys away and make us safer.

Now when I see a police officer, it makes me smile and feel good inside.  They are keeping us safe.  Life without the police would be anarchy.  And that would SUCK.  The next time you see a police officer, tell him thanks, and that you enjoy seeing him around. You probably don’t realize just how much they do for us that we never see.

As a funny point, my friend who is a police offer told me the other day “Did you know that we fire warning shots before shooting someone?”  I was shocked, as typically the practice (to avoid liability)  is not to shoot until you know you have the right to kill the person and then empty your magazine into them.  He said “Yeah, the first one is always followed by another dozen right behind it.”

Joey

I found this really good write up of how the TSA circumvents the 4th amendment.  Specifically their new extremely intrusive pat down methods.  As the author points out, screaming and yelling isn’t going to fix it.  To solve it, a bunch of people need to get together and follow the correct legal course of action to narrow the scope of what the TSA can and can’t do.

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2010/11/20/how-the-tsa-legally-circumvents-the-fourth-amendment/

I bought a few pairs of an expensive brand name product with a reputation for quality.  To my dismay, they failed within months of purchase and my cheaper equivalents outlasted them by over a year.  Today while cleaning house I found them and am sending them back to the manufacturer with a note.  I have intentionally withheld the details of what and whom in this post so that the response to my letter will not in any way be influenced by my blog article. This may seem pointless to some but many companies monitor everything said about them online to maintain their public image.

When I hear back from them I’ll fill in the details and let you know what they say.

So stay tuned…