No. Just....No.

Paul: try not to stress about the things outside your control
Paul: relax and think about puppies
Shana: Can I get a puppy?
Paul: a stuffed one?
Shana: No, a real one
Shana: Or a kitty?
Paul: hell no
Paul: let me rephrase
Paul: so that I'm clear
Paul: HELL NO, IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN IN A MILLION BILLION YEARS
Shana: But I'm stressed and upset and you said I should think about puppies and I did and now I want one
Paul: Well, think about a stuffed puppy then
Shana: It could be a small puppy

News challenge

Goofy writing challenge: Make your own news!

Is the news boring the crap out of you? Do what the smart people do -- Make it up yourself!

How? Find any news article online that you have read today. Find the second sentence in the third paragraph of the article. Find two more unrelated news articles and repeat. This is your news snippet.

Here is my example:

Google also is bolstering its mobile-ad business. The priority is to retrieve hunters who might be low on food and heating fuel, and get to them before the next storm hits, possibly this weekend, Blair said. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 32 percent in the six months to September, the biggest two-quarter gain since 1975, while home values increased by $244.7 billion, according to the report.

Now rewrite the paragraph so it still contains some of the same facts/people, but reads a little better:

Investors were buoyed by a report outlining positive gains in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, which has grown 32 percent in the last six months, the biggest two-quarter gain since 1975. This news comes on the heels of an announcement by Google that they are bolstering its mobile-ad business. "This is terrific news for tech savvy hunters, who have been investing so they could afford to buy food and heating fuel, which will be critical if they are to survive the massive storm threatening to destroy their small community next weekend." says Arthur Blair, Chief Strategery Director of the National Council for Misinformed and Obscure Sources.

I SO should have been a journalist.

I killed a dragon

So I've been playing (and have been horribly addicted to) Dragon Age: Origins.

Just so you know, this game is completely in my wheelhouse, in terms of games that suck me in for hours (and days) on end.

Mind you, I like just about all types of games. I'm pretty equal opportunity as far as that goes.

RTS? I played Starcraft to DEATH once upon a time. Some of my other favorites in that genre include Total Annihilation, C&C Generals, Age of Empires, Civ2 (although 'real time' in the RTS title really doesn't apply, but it is kinda the same), and I even played Simcity. (though not the Sims...I hated that game)

FPS? I was a Quake junkie back in the pre-internet LAN party days. The original Wolfenstein and Doom games were a lot of fun, and more recently I've been a huge fan of the Battlefield Series. (Side note: I'm not as big a fan of these games on the console. I'm a mouse looker. without a mouse, FPS feels so...inaccurate)

Platformer? Mario! I've played every Mario title since the original Donkey Kong and with few exceptions, loved playing all of them. I don't generally seek out these titles (other than Mario), but they are nice time wasting fun.

Racing games? From Mario Kart to Burnout, I enjoy most of the 'Arcade' types of this genre, but usually don't go for the 'simulation' games -- Haven't really played any since the old Grand Prix series back in the day. I have some of the new ones in my Gamefly queue to check out though, to give them a look.

Sports games? I've played Madden a lot. I mean a whole hell of a lot. I also played (and loved) NFL Blitz, NBA Jam, and pretty much all of the 'Arcade' style sports games (Hockey, Soccer...heck, even Tennis on the Wii).

All that said...my true love in the PC game are RPG's, particularly ones with an engaging story. The play is simple. You kill stuff, and as a result of that killing (via XP and/or loot), you get more and more powerful, and as a result of that power, you can kill more difficult things and unlock another chapter in the story.

With an rpg, you are always playing for the story. Great RPG's have a big main story that you can't wait to see the next chapter of, as well tons of great side stories that you want to finish as well.

In terms of combat, it can be arcade style (such as Zelda or even Kingdom Hearts) or strategic (like Final Fantasy). It can even be something in between. It really doesn't matter. What sucks you into an rpg is the story. Great ones are like a good book that you stay up reading because you can't bear to put it down.

World of Warcraft has an 'okay' story. It is mass-media fantasy lore that is sometimes inventive, but mostly all old hat. Some of the gameplay mechanics make for a really good game. Getting together with 24 other people to down a new boss with unique and interesting abilities? Awesome fun. And...those fights advance the story. And then you can go rehash them on hard mode for the same 'story' but better loot. bleh...loot is boring.

Dragon's Age has a great main story. The gameplay is pretty standard for the rpg fare. Combat is real-time, but you can pause the battle to setup strategic encounters. 'Bosses' are fairly easy (though some have proven a challenge). Overall the gameplay itself is pretty simple. It has some depth to it, but once you learn the basics, you can kill just about anything with a single strategy. (Tank gets aggro, healer heals tank, dps pew pews, repeat until dead). There are some encounters where you have to think outside of that box, but for the most part, that box is where you live. It's a happy box. A peaceful box. (I've taken the box thing too far now haven't I?)

The game is far from perfect. The loading times are pretty bad and even on a decent computer I was having framerate issues until I turned down some stuff, which almost never happens for me. Beyond the technical, there are some gameplay things. For example, mages are pretty overpowered. Currently I believe I could win most encounters on my mage without the rest of the people in my party. I'm just that OP.

Also, the aforementioned story is fairly typical fantasy fare. Not a lot of twists to be found.

That said, the positives for this game outweigh the negative and then some. The story is engaging and the decisions you make impact the story.

For example, do you let a mother sacrifice herself to save her possessed son, kill the boy so that you kill the demon/end the threat, or go look for another option somewhere? I let the mom sacrifice herself and now I'll never see her again. Later she could have influenced the story... I'll never know (until I replay it). She is dead as a doornail. Maybe next time I'll be evil and kill the boy. I dunno. If I did that I'm sure some of my good party members would not like that decision (causing me to lose influence with them, costing me in stats). Also, the mom wouldn't like that, so she would be unlikely to help me later and might even inhibit my mission.

You are faced with choices like this throughout the game. Choices that matter. I love it. It makes the game interesting to me because all along the way I'm evaluating what choices I will make differently on my next run through the game. And I can't wait to do that run.

Anyway, it is a great game, I highly recommend checking it out.

Team players

So last night I was playing World of Warcraft and we had some items drop at the end of an instance. The instance run was informal, so it was just a random roll off for the loot and pretty much everybody rolled on one of the items. This item was one that every person in the group could use.

But...a few people passed, even though they could technically use the item. It is just that the item would have been a larger upgrade for others or the person who passed was on an alt, and passed to a 'main character' (meaning he runs instances on his 'main' character more than any of his other 'alternate' characters).

Without exception, the officers of the guild all passed. Others in the group chose not to pass, and were instead grabbing the upgrade.

Now, to be fair, it isn't in the loot rules to pass on this item. Every person in that run contributed to that run's success and every person had rights to the loot. Just that some people chose to think of the team first, and others didn't bother.

It was interesting to me that all of the officers passed. It brought to mind a question: Were those folks more 'team oriented' because they were in positions of responsibility, or were they chosen for that responsibility because they were 'team oriented'?

Now, I didn't pick any of the officers, so I can't really speculate on why each person was chosen, but it seems to me that people in my guild are selected as officers because they exhibit a great deal of skill at their position, generally have demonstrated some maturity, and have some degree of tenure with the guild (I think I may be an exception to the latter considering I was still fairly new'ish to the guild when I was asked to step up).

My suspicion is that the 'team oriented' aspect was always there prior to getting an officer nod, but I really see it demonstrated more from those folks than I do others (though it certainly isn't restricted to just officers by any means)

The question is...why? Do you become more of a team player by being given responsibility? Does one lead to the other? Are my perceptions skewed due to being an officer? Do I just 'notice' that people are being more team oriented because those are the most visible people in the guild? Am I actually more team oriented because I am an officer?

There are many articles on the interwebz that postulate that responsibility does bring about responsible people, but I wonder if that is true for everyone? Can you take a completely irresponsible non-team player, make him an officer, and magically turn him into a team player?

Does that also work in life? Could I take a total screwup kid and put him in charge of a company and thereby make him a more responsible person?

I'm not sure that is true, at least not in the extreme. Certainly some people would take that challenge and excel, but I have a feeling more of those companies would sink than the norm.

It would be interesting to see if it worked in WoW. Take the most screwed up person you can think of and put them in charge of running a few raids. Would they rise to the challenge and start to look at the game from a new lens? Would it lead to an increased feeling of a 'team' atmosphere? Would a loot whore turn over a new leaf if given that opportunity?

Or would the raid he led just be the worst experience ever? I guess the risk of worst case would mean I couldn't it just to conduct an experiment. I couldn't do it to the team. I guess that makes me a team player. Or something.

Musings on search engines

So as a part of my new job situation, I currently have a vested interest in the search engine wars. Which, comes as some surprise to me considering my history with search engines.

Back in 1999 I had one search engine that I used. Infoseek. Period. I never really had any desire to check out a new one. Infoseek was the tool I used because I could use 'advanced' search criteria on it. If I wanted to search for apple pie, but not get any page that had mention of cherry pie, it was very simple to do.

I never cared for Yahoo, the completely dominant player at the time, because it's information was dated. Because they used humans to sort through links they would display, the information could sometimes be months out of date and sometimes inaccurate (humans it seems, make mistakes. Weird.)

Then, in about October of 2000, I came across a new search engine (well, new to me anyway)...Google. It took some time to adjust, but it won me over with one new concept that absolutely blew me away....relevance.

Where it took me 4-5 pages of sorting to find what I was looking for, in google...I found it in 1-2. It greatly decreased the time it took me to find things. In less than a month, I was using only Google and I removed infoseek from my bookmarks.

Since I made the switch, Google has only improved. These days I consider myself an expert in searching for information on the internet. When I do a search, 99% of the time not only is the thing I'm looking for on the first page, it is generally the #1 or #2 hit.

So...how does a new search engine *win* against google? Lets say you work for a company that wanted to compete. How could they do so?

Here is my list:
* Provide a method that simplifies search even more and saves time.
As I said, I consider myself somewhat an expert in search. To win against Google, you need to provide a method whereby somebody who is not an expert in search can get my same performance out of the search engine.

How? I have a few thoughts:
- Contextual searching.
Not one search bar for everything. That has been done. Give me a link to say 'I want technical support' (or something), and have a form to fill out that includes "Put error message here". That way, when a user puts an error message in that field, they don't have to enclose it in quotes and commonly used conjunctions or other small words are not ignored.

Also, you could have a 'shopping' form that allows you to input shopping related searching. Same for searching for videos, music, travel, and weather information. Whatever.

-Cater to the geeks first
Look, I know the highlight is the consumer, but broad consumer adoption just isn't going to happen until you win over the geeks. My non-geek friends are going to look to their geek friends to figure out what search engine to use. A 30 second TV spot will get them to check out the site, but is it going to make them change their bookmarks? A consumer isn't going to dig into the nuts and bolts and figure out why this is such a great new search engine. A geek will, and then will distill the new features to their non-geek friends that is RELEVANT to their interests.

I'm not going to tell my wife every reason the iphone is cool. I'm going to tell her cool things she will use on the iphone. Win the geeks, and the non-geeks will follow.

- Emphasis on how you are better. Not different. Better.
Microsoft has this commercial on how Bing is a 'decision' engine. What does that mean? I realize it is hard to get anything across in a 30 second TV spot, but learn from your Windows 7 commercials! Show me what your search engine DOES. The Windows 7 commercials are brilliant. They show me a new feature of Windows 7, wrap in a little cheesy humor (the reenactment's being played by a really buff guy, while the guy talking is kinda overweight...awesome. :P), and then they lay the stupid marketing 'catch phrase' on me "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea"...or whatever.

Anyway, those commercials are pretty effective. If I like the feature, I might give Windows 7 a whirl because of that commercial..since I have to pay for it, it might be a small chance, but it would weigh into my decision for sure. For a search engine that COSTS ME NOTHING, if I liked a feature I saw on TV, there is an absolute 100 percent chance I would try it.

Calling it a 'decision engine' doesn't make me want to try it because I have no bloody clue what that means. I have no particular problem with Bing, but their marketing is ridiculous. Anyway, where was I? I got a little sidetracked there.

Here is the point: If you want to be the player that makes a dent in Google's market share:
Do something better than Google.
Make sure the geeks know about how your feature is better.
Show your awesome new feature off in your advertising.

Easy right? Well...problem is that Google does the whole search thing really well. It is going to be pretty difficult to do it better.

BTW: Good search engine ad: http://www.youtube.com/searchstories?x=R31ge09jaXw

Performance reviews rant

If you have been a part of a corporate culture for a long time, chances are you have had performance reviews. And, you have had mandatory meetings describing the process.

Generally, the company comes up with a few 'traits' that you get rated against. They explain that they came up with these traits with some statement similar to this:

"We did a survey of top successful people both inside and outside this organization. We have found many traits that these successful people had in common, so those are the traits you will be rated against."

Okay, I have a problem with this statement. First, the purpose of a performance review is to determine how successful you are. I mean, that is the bottom line, right?

So to determine how successful you are, they evaluate you based on the traits of successful people. Let me ask you this question: How do you know the people you surveyed...were successful? How did you measure that?

Why then, are we not being measured by the same standard of success that got these people to take this survey anyway? Why develop a list of traits that are either generic or irrelevant? If 'honesty' is a trait that matters, wouldn't dishonest people tick 'honesty' in the survey anyway?

Also, were all these people in my job specialization, or were they all sales people, doctors, and car mechanics?

I mean I'll bet some traits are more important than others for each person's individual job title. My job requires absolutely zero customer interaction. I interact with DBAs, QA people, peers and management, but no customers at all. Ever.

Thus, a trait of high quality customer service is pretty moot one for me, wouldn't you say? I mean, it certainly doesn't hurt me to have it, but it doesn't help me be successful in my job nearly as much as it would to say...a receptionist or a helpdesk support person.

Or to give another example, being creative isn't really a big plus when you are dealing with Financial Systems. I mean hey, there were some big accounting people at Enron who got pretty "creative" with their Financials and I wouldn't call those folks "successful". And yet, if you are an Art Director...I'd imagine creativity being pretty important.

Anyway, my point is that any traits designed to measure every person in any given company are going to wind up being either too generic to be meaningful or so specific as to make them largely irrelevant to a large subset of the workforce.

Another stupidity that I hear a lot is this (though thankfully, this is not every company):

"Don't worry, the performance review is not directly tied to compensation"

My question: "Why the hell not?".

So basically what you are saying is not matter how good or bad I do my job, I go in the same pool as all the other people and we all get a seperate system for determining compensation. A system where a manager (or director...VP...whatever) assigns who gets what in terms of raises and bonus...which will almost always still be tied to performance, but not to your review (meaning you get absolutely no input at all into the process...).

How disappointing.

Here is my dream performance review process:
1) Manager presents you with a list of goals they want you to fufill over the next year.
2) At the end of the year you get graded on the goals you accomplished (or didn't accomplish).
3) Raises/Bonuses are divided based on the outcome of #2.

That. is. it. The end. No more writing up a paragraph on how you demonstrated each of the 5 'leadership skills' that the CEO came up with while high on qualudes at a management retreat three years ago (and of course spells out into a clever acronym).

Also, you will notice that this process requires very little interaction by the employee. You of course, will go over the goals set by your manager. Your manager will have to include you in the discussions based around how you will be graded at the end of the year. Mostly tho, the grades should be no surprise at all if the manager is doing their job and keeping up dialog on the goals in the 1 on 1 meetings.

But basically, come performance review time...you have basically 5-10 minutes worth of paperwork time.

It will never work out that way because HR people apparently have to justify their existence. This time is time that people that could be actually working, are instead writing a couple paragraphs on how they demonstrated "trustworthiness" over the past year. And of course, ranting about how stupid this crap is on the internet.

Blah...back to explaining how "accountable" I was in the past year.... /vomit.

MYSTERY!!

So the other day I was thinking about the Boeing Museum of Flight. If you have never been to this place, and you are in the Seattle area, you seriously have to go. Very fun.

Anywho, I hadn't been in quite a some time and was thinking of taking my Mom there when she came to visit later this month.

In fact... I tried to think of how long it had been, but my mind hit a blank. Have you ever run across a totally inconsequential fact that you cannot remember but it will drive you NUTS until you figure it out?

Yeah, this was one of those times.

I had a MYSTERY to solve!!

The facts I could remember (clues):
1) I went with my Mom.
2) My Mom has only been up to Seattle to visit me 4 times since I've lived here.

The first was when I was first stationed at Fort Lewis. I had just returned from Germany and instead of flying up to Ft. Lewis to report in for my duty assignment, I decided that it would be cool to rent a car and drive up.

Side Story: ROAD TRIP!!

I thought it would be really cool to go up as a family and take a look at the area. So I rented a car and my Mother, Sister, and two brothers all piled in and I drove to Washington. I think I scared my mother because I had just returned from Germany and speed limits...well, they just didn't apply to me anymore. RAWR!!!

We made it to Washington in 22 hours.

Now...for those of you who are keeping track, that doesn't seem like a land speed record, but in REALITY, our rental car broke down on the way up (broken accellerator...I wonder how that happened?) and we had to wait 6 hours at a gas station someplace off the highway in Northern California (in the middle of nowhere) for the rental car company to come out to give us a replacement.

Subtract those 6 hours and you can see we were flying low on the way up.

Side story within a side story: My mom got a ticket (for going just 70!!) in Oregon on the way back. haahhahahahaha

Anyway, that was just a side story. Where was I? Oh yes...

The other times my Mom has been up to Seattle was for my wedding, once when she drove up with Steven, and once when she drove up with my sister and her family.

In order to solve the grand mystery of when I had gone to the Museum of Flight, I followed up on the only clue I had...I called my mother.

She could remember going, but couldn't remember when. But...she asked Trina and Trina said she couldn't remember going. Ah ha!! The mystery deepens! If Trina hadn't gone, it could only have been when Steven and Mom drove up alone!

But...I didn't think that was it. I don't remember bringing MY kids with me. And Shana was sure she hadn't come with. I definitely had kids (and Shana) around when Mom and Steven drove up. And I'm pretty sure we would not have left them at home while I went to a museum. The mystery deepens!!!

So, I called up Steven. I explained the situation to him (and the critical importance that we get to the bottom of this IMMEDIATELY) and he couldn't remember the exact time either, but he was sure he went with us when we went to the museum (I'm starting to think we have all been visited by the Haitian).

But...what he could remember is that we went to go see Apollo 13, in the theater, afterward.

AH HA!!!!

A quick search on IMDB to find out when Apollo 13 was in the Theater and I find out it was in 1995! When I was first stationed at Fort Lewis!! Yay! I win! I have found the answer to life, the universe, and EVERYTHING (42).

Next, I call up my Mom to let her know that Trina is completely untrustworthy. She was there, at the Museum, in the conservatory, with the candlestick.

I win the game.

Rules are made to be broken

This blog has a pretty strict 'no pictures' rule, but what the heck...just this once. I'm currently writing a story to go along with these pictures.

First, I had my Daughter wear a tinfoil hat. Ever the accommodating girl (well, that and she is a ham), she posed for a pic on my iphone. Then...I based this drawing on it. :) And now you have my daughter being chased by aliens. I think she is going to make a great character for a story. But I'm probably biased, being that I'm her Dad and all. (BTW: I know I have very little artistic talent. It's just for fun, no need to get all mean about it. Sheeesh.)

It is funny because when she was really little, I'd tell her stories about alien invasions. To the point where she'd actually get scared of them and have nightmares.

I'm such an awesome parent.

Anyway, back to work... :P

Murderous hippy raccoon kidnappers

Yesterday I took a ride in a car.

It was a long ride.

The day before that I sat on my butt and played video games.

It was a relaxing day.

The day before that I left work early. My kids had a parent teacher conference. (I didn't go to it, but I still took off work early.)

They did okay.

The day before that I did stuff at work. I forget what I did.

It was pretty boring.

The day before that I walked 3 miles that I didn't have to. But I got a free ferry pass and I can get into Microsoft buildings now.

My feet still hurt though.

The day before that I prepped for the stuff I was doing at work on Thursday.

I still don't remember what it was.

The day before that I meticulously avoided doing any actual work, because it was Monday and I was tired.

That was my week.

IM's with Shana

Paul: HEY
Paul: I want to get a PS3 so bad now
Paul: SO BAD
Paul: Are you there?
Paul: Don't toy with my emotions woman
Shana: just a sec...I'm busy....
Paul: Busy?
Paul: What is more important than me?
Paul: Who is he? I'll kill him
Shana: I'm editing pics from yesterday and trying to get them sent out to the fam
Paul: K-I-L-L
Shana: and I'm emailing Katie back and forth...and trying to research ticket sales for An Evening with John Cleese...
Paul: blah, pics are more important than me?
Paul: KATIE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ME? WTF
Paul: bah!
Paul: Bah I say!
Paul: but that is beside the point
Paul: the point is...PS3
Paul: Can we buy it
Paul: ?
Paul: puh-leeeeeeeze?
Shana: So you want the PS3 now? I thought we had decided to buy it for Christmas...
Paul: well...its ALMOST christmas
Shana: Well...what would we get with the system?
Paul: a blu-ray player, little big planet and uncharted 2.
Shana: yeah...we have to look at our finances. We still have a dishwasher to buy...and if that damn truck needs something else done...
Shana: hey, off subject....any dinner ideas?
Paul: I dunno
Shana: u suck
Paul: Brats
Shana: k
Paul: spagheti
Paul: umm
Shana: jesus
Paul: no, I'm not the son of god, I'm actually god himself
Shana: knock it off. I'm tired of spaghetti
Paul: I prefer to be referred to as 'almighty one'
Shana: shut it
Paul: why are you tired of it?
Shana: it seems like we have it all the time!
Paul: We haven't had it in like 2 weeks
Paul: we have EVERYTHING all the time.
Paul: We only have like 10 meals you eat
Paul: BECAUSE YOU ARE PICKY
Shana: why do you think I 'm asking for ideas? I know it drives you nuts that we have the same thing all the time so I am asking for menu ideas!!
Shana: !!!!
Shana: how about pad thai? Would you be interested in making it one of these nights?
Paul: sure
Paul: how about roast beef?
Shana: I'm not sure how to make that...
Shana: I've never made it before...
Paul: What if I got you a recipe?
Shana: you mean like a pot roast?
Paul: the only problem with roast beef (or pot roast), is that you and I like beef at different doneness
Shana: yeah...I was just thinking about that...
Paul: I prefer not to eat leather, and you think burnt is underdone.
Shana: Maybe two small roasts?
Paul: might as well do steak at that point
Shana: we just did steak
Paul: no we didn't
Paul: we had to throw it out
Shana: OH yea
Paul: how about roast chicken?
Shana: You know my feelings on chicken...
Shana: How about steak? That I make sure we cook before it goes bad
Paul: how can you not like chicken?
Paul: I hate you
Shana: I just don't
Paul: You eat turkey
Shana: rarely...and not very much...
Shana: So how about the steak?
Paul: what if I did roast chicken and mushrooms?
Paul: Then you could eat mushrooms
Shana: Like portobello?
Paul: portobello doesn't really match chicken, but I could do wild mushroom and rice stuffing
Shana: Like stuffing it in the bird...?
Paul: yes
Shana: blech
Paul: OMG
Paul: seriously?
Shana: I don't like food cooked in the ass of a dead bird!
Paul: first of all, it isn't it's ass
Paul: its the body cavity. That is like saying you had a baby out your ass.
Shana: So stuffing is cooked in the uterus of a dead bird?!
Paul: no...still different
Shana: If you cooked the stuffing out of the bird...then I would try it
Paul: *sigh*
Paul: okay...how about we skip the chicken and we make a wild rice & mushrooms casserole?
Shana: you have a recipe for that?
Paul: err
Paul: I just made it up, but I can probably find one.
Paul: will be hard to find one without chicken tho
Paul: BECAUSE EVERYBODY IN THE FREE WORLD LIKES CHICKEN
Shana: Not everyone loves chicken
Paul: EVERYBODY
Shana: Vegetarians don't
Paul: Vegetarians aren't people.
Shana: Vegetarians are too people...people who don't eat chicken!!
Paul: people are omnivores
Paul: so vegos aren't people.
Shana: You are a vego-bigot
Paul: true
Shana: What else do you need from the store?
Paul: Ice Cream
Paul: duh
Shana: got that
Shana: anything else?
Paul: underline it
Shana: k
Paul: put a couple exclamation marks next to it
Shana: k
Shana: I need two more dinner ideas
Paul: homemade chili?
Paul: I don't know of anything that doesn't involve something you hate.
Shana: Don't know how to make that. I like Nalley's
Paul: ARGH!!
Paul: You are impossible
Shana: Besides I had homemade chili last night
Paul: Well I didn't
Shana: You should have come with us.
Paul: really...you want to have this discussion right now?
Paul: how about burritos?
Paul: I like burritos
Paul: you like burritos
Shana: We just did burritos. I still have the leftovers
Paul: I
Paul: HATE
Paul: YOU
Shana: hehehehe
Paul: so...you don't like chicken
Paul: you don't like seafood
Paul: you don't really like pork
Paul: you don't like sausage
Shana: Captain Obvious....
Paul: maybe we could make salmon
Shana: ummm.....
Paul: You aren't going to eat anything I cook anyway
Paul: so I might as well make something I'd like to eat
Shana: Oh! I just thought of a dinner! That twice baked potato casserole thing
Paul: okay
Paul: WE JUST HAD IT THO
Shana: LIsten Wisenheimer...
Shana: We haven't had that in a month
Paul: it isn't fun when somebody else does it, is it?
Shana: No. I'm right, you are wrong
Paul: How about beef pot pies?
Shana: ewww
Paul: ................
Paul: Will you stop that
Shana: what?
Paul: saying eww to everything I suggest
Shana: Then stop suggesting icky things?
Paul: what exactly don't you like about beef pot pie?
Shana: the gravy
Paul: So lets make gravy you do like
Shana: I don't like gravy
Shana: And pie should not have meat in it
Shana: It's unnatural
Paul: Okay, lets call it a SAUCE
Paul: You don't like any SAUCES?
Paul: ANY AT ALL?
Shana: I wouldn't know how to make that anyway
Paul: you know those pies you made yesterday?
Paul: Make a different filling, and put it in it
Paul: DONE
Paul: So hard...
Shana: You know how much filling goes in those things? Hardly any! It would be a piss poor meal
Paul: Thats why you make a lot of pies
Paul: You are impossible
Paul: You like french dip right?
Shana: yeah
Paul: That is a sauce
Paul: made from the drippings of meat
Shana: not the one I like
Paul: YES IT IS
Shana: it's powder
Shana: and water
Paul: what do you think they make the powder from?
Shana: i dunno
Paul: MAGIC FAIRY DUST?
Shana: yes!
Shana: yummy fairy dust
Paul: I'm making the beef pies
Shana: this week?
Paul: yes
Shana: k...and I didn't say I wouldn't try it...I had pot pies growing up and never like them...I may like your version. I will try a bite
Shana: So when are we buying the PS3?
Paul: I'd love to buy the PS3 today
Paul: but I'm not sure you will let me
Paul: so...yeah
Shana: I never said no...I just wanted to clarify how we are justifying this purchase...I want it too. Especially LBP...
Shana: do we need to stop chatting so you can go eat?
Paul: pretty much
Shana: k
Paul: if you went out to best buy and bought the PS3 with little big planet and uncharted 2, I wouldn't be unhappy
Paul: just saying.
Paul: anyway, laters

There is no such thing as 110%

I'm sure that we have all heard the expression 'I'm giving it 110 percent'.

This expression frustrates me.

There is no such thing as 110 percent. 100 percent is all there is. Anybody who asks for 110%, asks for the impossible and anybody who says they are giving 110% is lying to you.

If you give me 100%, but you still have 10 percent more to give, then you were only giving me 90 percent. Because 100% is everything. EVERYTHING. 110 percent is a fallacy!!!

I have a particularly frustrating person in my life who keeps repeating 110% over and over and over again, and I really want to slap this person and it is taking 100% of my self control not to do it. Okay...maybe 87.4% of my self control. There is a 34% chance I'm going to kick a puppy instead. But if I do it will only be with 4% effort.

Some people seem to think adding percentages to everything makes you sound smarter. I don't think it works like that. But that is probably for another another blog post.

WoW dramas

This post is about drama. Well, it starts like that, then goes pretty random and winds up somewhere else. Sorry...just brain dumping into the nothingness that is my blog.

When you play games in a large multiplayer environment, you get...lots of players. Each of these players has a different personality, likes/dislikes in how they want to play the game, and different ways of expressing themselves.

Usually, a lot of mechanics in the game separate large personality divisions. PvP players who hate PvE will not usually join PvE guilds. PvE raiders will not generally join pvp guilds. Hardcore raiders don't join casual guilds. The list goes on.

Anyway, the point is that players tend to segment themselves into guilds that fit their personality and playstyle. This is a good thing really. Put people together that get along and like to do similar things within their hobby (WoW really is a hobby).

Sometimes though you get players in the guild that don't fit the mold of that guild because they came in with friends, and there is where the root of a lot of guild drama starts. A hardcore raider may join a guild with his casual friend and try to turn that casual guild into something it is not. A 'carebear' type joins a pvp guild and tries to get them to raid or run heroics. This is the cause of one type of drama.

As a leader, this is probably the hardest type of drama to deal with. You have a player in a raiding guild that doesn't want to do anything but heroics. He is frustrated because he always has to PuG for it, and can never get a heroic going. The raiders want to raid, and may occasionally do a heroic..but it is never their focus.

The most honest thing you can do is tell them "You don't belong here. You should join a guild that matches your interest". But you don't. Why? He is best friends with one of your best raiders, and you don't want to hurt his feelings or by proxy, your raider's feelings.

It works the other direction though too. The raider in a casual guild. The raider is frustrated because he shows up to raids on time, with consumables, ready to go. He has researched his class, other classes, all the raid encounters, and watched a few videos...

Then the rest of the guild shows up. They trickle in slowly, playing at an incredibly slow pace and a majority of the people don't perform very well. That hardcore raider is frustrated because they never progress very far, and they only really progress as far as they do because the 'hardcore' people are carrying them.

The kindest thing a casual guild leader could do is tell them..."go find a raiding guild". But you can't really do that...this person is friends with the people in your guild, you don't want to hurt anybodies feelings, and quite frankly...you NEED him for your guild to do any semblance of raiding at all.

I've seen this problem cause splits and other things before, and if I ever do a raiding guild again, I'm only going to invite raiders to the guild. I'll make a whole separate guild for friends and family. It probably seems kind of heartless, but I've decided that it is better to be 100% clear on what you are there to accomplish.

If I make a guild again (it won't be at least until Cataclysm), I'm going to treat it like a Sports Team. You are there to play a sport and win. The sport must be clearly defined. If it is a 25-man guild, there are 30 people on the roster (bench is 1 tank, 2 ranged dps, 2 healers, and 1 melee dps and the bench rotates in to stay current with gear). No more. Friends, family, alts, etc...put them in a separate guild and manage it loosely with few rules. Make a big chat channel so people can talk to each other.

The point is to make it CRYSTAL clear that this guild is setup to raid. Period.

Anyway...this post is in response to a bunch of drama in my raiding guild about 10 mans, heroics, and pvp. All ancillary stuff that should really have no bearing into our core 25-man mission, but it has to be dealt with because the guild is trying to be all things to all people...a recipe for disaster.

I have personally committed to sticking with this raiding guild through Icecrown. We all want to kill Arthas, and personally, I want to finish what I started in wotlk with the people I started it with. I feel like I owe it to them. Also, I'm doing a lot of the raid leading with them, and I don't want to leave them in a lurch.

I do think though that the Arthas kill will signify my last act with Satellite (well, I'll stay to farm the instance through the expansion of course). I don't think I will carry it through to another expansion with them.

I have a few problems with the guild. Like, currently our only measure in the guild is performance. If you perform well, but are terrible to other people, your actions are tolerated. If you do not perform well, but you are a nice guy, you are publicly and privately lambasted.

In sports, if you aren't performing well, you may be benched. This is cool and acceptable to me.

You may even earn the criticism of your teammates if you perform poorly. Also fine. But in sports, there are spots for mediocre players who are great in the locker room. Everybody on the team doesn't have to be Barry Sanders. The good players are your core, and the great players rise to the top and shine.

In sports, and in guilds, I really hate the players who are great on the field but terrible in the locker room. Terrell Owens comes to mind. And we have a pair of Terrell's in our guild right now.

In my future guild that may or may not ever happen, there are two measuring sticks: Performance and Personality. You must have high scores in both. BOTH.

If I do start this guild, it will be run like a sports team. Head Coach calls the plays (raid/guild leader). Probably have an offensive coordinator (dps class leader) and defensive coordinator (healing/tank class leader).

Not much of any other leadership required. Maybe a loot council that consists of one person from each class + the raid leader. I dunno. The details are still a bit fuzzy.

My point? Yeah, I forgot it a while ago in this post. I guess it could be summed up in 'I hate stupid guild drama', and I'm tired of seeing it crop up wherever I go. Maybe it is me...

PAX 2009

This weekend was the Penny Arcade Expo, and I had been looking forward to it for some time. It was the first 'Con' I have ever gone to, and it was all about gaming. For those that don't know, I'm a gamer. Have been for pretty much my entire life.

Most people toss me into the category of 'geek', and that is the title I run with. While it is in fact quite true...I am a geek, the engineer in me looks for the root cause, and the root cause of my geekdom is gaming.

Story time! Back when I was probably 6 years old, my mom purchased our first computer, an Atari 800. As part of that system, we got a few games with it (or soon thereafter)...Dig Dug, Star Raiders, Caverns Of Mars, and of course, Pac-Man.

God I loved Star Raiders...but that is another story.

Anyway...what we also got was a tape storage device (yes, cassette tape) and a BASIC programming cartridge. She also had a subscription to a magazine that contained, in the centerfold, a computer program, written in BASIC.

The first program I ever 'wrote' was copied meticulously, line by line, from that centerfold insert in my Mom's programming magazine (my first in a long career of cut & paste coding). Why did I do it? Because the program was a racing game I wanted to play. After I played the game I found I could 'tweak' the program and get different results. I could make the car go faster. I could put more obstacles in the road. In short...I could make the game do whatever I wanted it to do.

I was hooked.

Later, my mom got a computer from a mail-order computer class she was taking. A Kaypro 8086. It wasn't state of the art. The tech was a year old even when she bought it. But I fell in love with that computer, eventually using it far more than she did and I'm telling you, I made that computer sing. It ran successfully from the time I was 11-12 years old all the way through high school. I hosted a BBS on it. I programmed it to call every number in my local calling area trying to find computer modems.

If there was a game out that I couldn't play on my machine, I tinkered with that computer until it could. "System Requirements" just didn't apply to me.

This of course set me up for what I do today. Today I write programs and administer systems that deal in large transactions and boring financial reports. But the principles I learned in trying to tune that tiny little system for the games I was trying to play still completely apply.

If you manage the memory an application uses, it is a far more efficient application. If you throw away all the crap stuff you don't need on a system, the program you are trying to run doesn't have to compete for resources. These are all concepts that apply to absolutely everything I do today in my job, and I learned it because I was trying to make a video game work when it wasn't supposed to.

I said all that so you understand that PAX was my kind of convention. It is all about catering to the gamer, and I is a gamer. My wife, the kind soul that she is, politely allowed herself to be dragged along. She was pretty lost.

She is a gamer, in that she plays video games, but only to a point. She does play video games quite a bit...don't let her fool you with her protestations to the contrary.

But, she doesn't focus in too much on it. She doesn't get too excited about upcoming games. She will get excited about a new Zelda title, or some Harvest Moon something or other, but that is about the depth she gives it. But... despite all that she stood in line with me for 2 hours to watch a presentation about Star Wars: The Old Republic. An MMO that Shana cares nothing about. So she is a hell of a trooper and I've got to give her props.

Anyway, on to the games:
Aion:
Played it for a few minutes....combat system is annoying. The GCD is weird, and not at all like WoW...it will take some getting used to. But the most glaring thing I found is that it seems on a caster, you are constantly interrupted by EVERYTHING. Annoying, frustrating, and MADDENING are the only words I can thing of to describe it. I'm definitely passing on this game for a while.

Champions Online:
Played it for a few minutes, watched it for a while afterward. Really fun. Moreso than I thought it would be. The graphics look straight out of a comic book, and it certainly has a style all it's own. I had a guy with Rocket Boots that shot lasers out of his eyes. I'd swoop out of the sky on my rocket boots, fire lasers at the bad guys, and land and slash them with my sword. It was campy and it was like it was right out of some silly cartoon. But it was FUN. I think I'm going to give it a few months (it just launched recently), but I'm going to give this MMO a look.

Star Wars: The Old Republic
The demo we stood in line for was pretty disappointing, particularly if you had been watching this game's development on the internet. They ran through a few areas that we had seen before, on classes we had seen before, doing missions that...we had seen before. Oh, and they announced Coruscant would be a playable area. Which would have been sorta cool if they had shown anything about the planet in the demo. But no...just a couple screenshots. /yawn

That being said, I'm still probably looking forward to this game more than any other at the con. I played a very bad Star Wars MMO for 1.5 years. An MMO that is actually GOOD, will probably wind up sucking me in so much that I will need to be extracted from my computer via the jaws of life.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm / Diablo 3 / Starcraft 2
I got a chance to play the new WoW expansion and D3. Not too much to say about them since with Blizzcon being only a week or two earlier, it was kind of moot. There was nothing new there. I played the Worgen, which had a pretty awesome animation for switching between human/wolf forms...so that was cool. Diablo 3 was fun, and was very Diablo-esque. I really loved the original Diablo and D2, so D3 will definitely be purchased.

I didn't get a chance to play Starcraft 2 actually, but I'll probably pick it up as well. It looked interesting. I'm not generally an RTS kind of guy, but I did play the original Starcraft through the single player campaign and I had a ton of fun with it. And a few years ago, I even got some multiplayer action in with a Carpool buddy during our Ferry commute each day.

DeathSpank
I had never heard of this game before PAX. You can see the trailer here. This game looks WICKED. It has an art style that is unmistakably....DeathSpank. It is described as 'Diablo meets Monkey Island', and I have to say...I really want to play it. Here is the website. If you haven't seen it, check it out. (Side note, as an example of the humor in the game, there is an ability called 'Flock of Chickens' that you apparently get by killing enough chickens that the chickens perceive you as their god).

Some others
I also saw a little bit of some other games, but didn't get anything too deep with them, so I'll just do one liners:

Star Trek Online
Didn't get to play, but saw a demo somebody was playing; graphics looked awesome.

Brutal Legend
Looked neat, but didn't get to play.

Hello Kitty Online
Got a free disk to play this. Really. Janel will be happy.

Lord of the Rings Online
Got a free full copy of Mines of Moria. I think I may load it up and do a month's subscription just to check it out.

Warhammer Online
Tried to find them. Failed. Seriously, they must have been hiding somewhere.

TruBlood
They had an energy drink at the con. Seriously. Looked like the bottles on the show.

Totally Rad Show
Not a game. It's a show. Went to their panel. Met the dudes briefly. I'm a big fan of the show, so I was in nerd heaven.

Pirates of the Burning Sea
Still haven't tried this MMO, but walked by their booth briefly. I really might check it out with a demo or something. Who doesn't want to be a Pirate?

Anti Social

I'm not, generally speaking, a social person. A fact my wife, who is a social person, chides me about a lot.

The thing is, I don't hate people. Well, some people I do...but not all of them. I don't even particularly hate crowds. I used to do plays and things when I was younger and I was alright on stage...it didn't really bug me.

What I hate is being in a room where multiple conversations are going on at once. My brain, fickle beast that it is, tries to follow every conversation that happens. All of them. At once. The more conversations that are going on, the more information overload I get. I start to get headaches. This is why many times at family gatherings or parties with friends you will find me sitting in the corner on some couch trying my best to not to listen to anybody while Shana wanders around being all friendly-like and the kids go play.

It isn't that I don't like the people, I just don't care for the setting.

Some people (Shana) call me anti-social for this, and I can't really blame them, though I think it is a misnomer. "Anti-social" implies that I'm unable or unwilling to associate with people in a friendly manner. I don't think that is the case at all. In another environment, I think I'm pretty friendly (well okay, "friendly" might be overstating it a bit...).

For example, I do not have an issue at a card table. I have a game to focus on, and I can start excluding things that don't pertain to the game or the people I'm playing with. No more headaches. This is why when somebody mentions cards at a family gathering I'm the first one to the table (when I'm down in California, I'm usually the guy trying to get everyone playing a game. :P).

I also don't have a problem while playing video games with people, watching a movie, watching sports, or even while eating. If there is an activity involved that I can concentrate on, I'm totally cool. But sitting around a living room with more than 2-3 people doing nothing but small talk...even the thought gives me a headache.

Also, as an aside, I can never really get into "small talk". I do fumble around and try it sometimes just to be polite, but I freely admit I'm a fish out of water. I think the "small talk deficiency" is the reason I've rarely had a phone conversation last more than 10 minutes.

I come by it honestly though. I'll call my mom, who I haven't seen in 6 months, and we will only have maybe a 10 minute conversation, max. It's not that I don't love her or care or vice versa. We just get to the point. Greetings, noteworthy events in the life of me and the family, noteworthy events in her life, Travel plans, dates/times if necessary, and BAM... done.

I inherited this trait directly from her though I think. We are on the same page about the phone thing.

On the flip side, Shana can do small talk really well. 10 minutes on the phone with her mom would be a record (for shortest conversation), and she probably talks with her at least once a week (probably more). I have no idea how she does that.

Of course, I've trained her well, so she doesn't generally try to do small talk with me, especially over the phone. Our phone conversations usually go for under a minute because after 11 years of marriage, she knows that she better get to the damn point already.

It's not to say we don't talk to each other. We do blather on quite a bit actually. It is just that when we talk, the conversations generally are more substantive, though they are mostly about boobs. (At least the conversations I don't tune out. :P)

Dragon Slaying

I wrote this story this weekend, and it is unfortunately, a fanfic. I don't particularly like writing fan fiction. It feels weird writing in somebody else's universe, which is based around a game where the "story" is centered around gameplay elements and can get very forced, at best.

However...I'm happy to write anything without ninja babies in it at this point, so I'm going with it.

The "Real life" story behind the story is that I finally took Onyxia down solo this weekend on my Paladin, and this is a celebration of that feat, of sorts. Since Blizzard is re-releasing Onyxia as a new 10/25 man raid instance in the next patch, this is very likely the last time I will be able to pull it off solo like that, so I'm actually quite proud I was able to get it done.

The young Paladin wiped the blood of the dragonkin he had just slain off his sword and walked around the corner of the cave. He was deep below the surface now. He could feel the heat of Azeroth's core surrounding him. The stench of sulfur assaulted his nostrils. As he walked down the small cave he saw it open up ahead into a gigantic cavern. And in the center of that cavern was Onyxia herself. He had found her at last. She hasn't noticed his presence yet. Good.

Gaston eyed the dragon critically. For a time, she had infiltrated the highest courts in Stormwind. In her human guise as the Lady Prestor, she had gained the confidence of the young Anduin Wrynn, erstwhile King of Stormwind. Her "advice" had nearly brought down a kingdom. At last the Paladin would test his strength against Onyxia the treacherous, daughter of the cursed Deathwing, sister of Nefarian, broodmother of the Black Dragonflight.

Gaston smiled wryly. Aiding the great Marshall Windsor, they had uncovered her masquerade and driven her from Stormwind Keep forever. After the events of that day, he had but one quest...kill the Dragon. It had taken him years to track her down this far and find her lair, deep beneath the swamps of Duskwallow Marsh. Now it was up to him to deal the justice of the Light to this conniving dragon at last, and avenge the death of Windsor.

Quickly and quietly, he checked over his gear. The plate he wore still shone brightly from the polish he had given it at the camp this morning, with the exception of the blotchy stains of dragon blood drained from the watchers Onyxia had left to guard the mouth of her cave. Dragon blood is a stain that would not polish out easily. Gaston grimaced at the thought. All his armor would be colored red by this night's end. The only question was would it be his blood or the dragon's? Time to find out.

He checked the sharpness of his sword and the strength of his shield. He prayed they would hold through the battle. "Nothing more to do but kill the bitch" he muttered under his breath. There was no shadow in the cave, nor cover to be had, so it was only a matter of time before she noticed the Paladin. There would be no surprise or easy stealth kill here.

So be it. Gaston raised his sword and charged.

He was halfway to her when the dragon lifted her head slowly and saw him coming. Angrily she arose to face the challenge. When he reached her, she struck out with her giant claw, but Gaston blocked it easily with his shield and cut at the skin on her forearm with his sword. His sword found her skin, but it didn't cut the flesh...her hide was just too thick. Ducking under another blow from her, he cut down her belly, but he still was unable to pierce the the skin. Behind her now, he tried cutting her hind leg, but the hide held together there as well.

Gaston swore. She had to have a weakness.

Suddenly felt a mighty gust of wind as her tail swung at him. Gaston tried to dodge, but it just came in too fast. He barely got his shield up in time, but the impact knocked him back against the far wall. Onyxia turned and charged after him, but Gaston quickly rose to his feet and stood his ground. He blocked several blows from her claws, and attacked her face, looking for a weakness. Any weakness.

Furiously, the dragon attacked him, but Gaston was able to block, dodge or otherwise avoid every blow. Roaring in frustration, she breathed fire at him, but Gaston shrugged off the assault and blocked the fire with his shield. Putting all the power of the light behind every blow, he attacked furiously to a single point above her left nostril. Perhaps if he focused on a single point, it would wear her down and the skin would eventually succumb to his assault and break.

For what seemed like hours, but could just as easily been minutes, Gaston hacked and slashed at the single spot on her head, trying to make the brood mother bleed at last. Suddenly, when he was about to give up on it and try another tactic, his sword broke through the skin, and he could tell he hurt her.

Roaring in pain, the dragon flapped her wings violently and took to the sky. Flying around the enormous cavern, she looked to rain fire down on Gaston and stay out of the reach of his sword. For any other mere warrior, it would have worked too.

Fortunately, Gaston was a Paladin of the Hand of Vargus and had other tools at his disposal. He focused the light of judgment on the spot he had weakened earlier with his sword and let loose with all the power of the Light at his command. Her screams echoed throughout the cavern and he knew he had hurt her again.

Unbeknownst to the Paladin, the screams had served another purpose though and had awakened a small army of dragon whelps and they came streaming out of the hatching caves on both sides of the cavern.

Just in time, Gaston saw them coming, and had to take his focus off of Onyxia to consecrate the ground beneath him, hoping it would keep the whelplings at bay. Apparently the brood mother's hold on her whelps was fierce, since they ignored the pain caused by the Holy ground beneath them and attacked with suicidal abandon.

Gaston blocked and slashed for all he was worth and was able to defeat the whelps, but almost too late he noticed the giant dragon had taken in a deep breath and breathed down fire at him so intense that if he had not surrounded himself with a shield of Light at the last second, it would have burned him to a crisp.

Angry now, Gaston refocused his efforts with the Light and attacked the dragon with renewed force to the weak spot on her face. In frustration, Onyxia abandoned her flying attacks and dropped back down from the sky to attack him with her claws faster than Gaston would have thought possible for such a giant creature. Blocking and parrying her attacks, her blows still struck with such force that he had to continually back up until he was once again with his back to the rear wall of the cavern.

Strangely, the more powerfully the dragon attacked, the more strength the Light gave to him. Gaston could feel the Light flow through his veins like never before and it gave him a surge of strength and speed that he would have thought impossible just a day before.

Instead of weakening, with every blow the dragon struck, Gaston grew even more powerful. Finally his sword was moving so fast and with such force, that it slashed through the thick hide of the dragon's face cleanly. Roaring with pain, the dragon reared up and Gaston saw his opening. Without thinking, he leapt up in the air, slicing his sword across her neck. As he dropped back to his feet he could hear the dragon collapse behind him with two thuds. A big thud for her body that made the earth shake and a smaller one for the head that rolled away from it's former owner.

He grabbed the head of Onyxia, throwing it over his Shoulder and turned to exit the cave. It would make a fine gift for a King.

Baby Ninjas

Well, I intended to post something on Monday, but every time I have sat down to write over the last few days, I've either been interrupted by work or I experience complete blockage.

For the record, I'm not talking about writer's block. I've never actually had that before. What I'm referring to is baby ninja reincarnation.

What is baby ninja reincarnation? It is an idea I had about Ninja's that are killed heroicly sometime in the distant past (probably feudal Japan or something) that wind up reincarnated, but keep all of their old memories.

So they are babies. That are ninjas.

I immediately dismissed the idea as completely dumb. I will not be writing a story about this. It is retarded. I will not sink so low.

BUT I CAN'T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD. Right now if I sit down to write ANYTHING, I'm mentioning reincarnated baby ninjas!!! The more I try to stop myself from thinking about it, the more I CAN'T STOP.

Even when I'm typing up technical documentation at work. I have inserted an error code in a program that is literally "ERROR: Could not open socket. Please seek help from baby ninjas."

I have a story about these baby ninja's. They find each other in a nursery, train together, escape and plan to write a wrong by stopping an evil scheme to take over the world perpetrated by the ancestors of the feudal lord's that executed them.

For the record, I will not write this story. I refuse.

I can't get it out of my head though!! I have a sickness. Please help.

RAID mumbo jumbo

Ok, this blog post will be filled with technical jargon and is quite engineer friendly, and not particularly reader friendly. Sorry about that. I'll do something campy and silly on Monday to compensate.

I'm sure when I put RAID mumbo jumbo as the title, you prolly thought I was going to talk about raiding in WoW. Ha! fooled you!

I just came out of a meeting with some salespeople from a consulting company that is trying to sell us some storage. Their Sales Engineer made the statement that "The proprietary version of RAID-6 that [company name withheld] is offering is EQUAL to the performance of RAID 1+0".

I am flabbergasted by the statement. So much so that I asked him to repeat it twice.

I need to explain how very wrong this statement is, so to do that I have a quick overview of RAID terminology:

RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. RAID is used because, quite frankly, in any given computer system the Hard Drive is absolutely the item most likely to fail. The reason? It has moving parts that are constantly moving while the system is in use. Any item with moving parts will fail, it is only a matter of time. You can extend that time by days, weeks, even years with good engineering, but it will fail, guaranteed.

So, you have a ticking time bomb on your hands that is guaranteed to blow up eventually, you just don't know when. On a PC, it isn't usually too big a deal when it fails. Unless of course you aren't backing up your data. You are backing up your data, right?

In the world of Enterprise IT applications though, backups aren't really enough because even though you have a backup, you have to repair the hardware and restore that backup, right? This could take hours or even days in some cases. In applications that people are relying on to do their jobs, their jobs can't be put on hold every time a drive fails while they wait for an IT guy to fix the hardware and do a restore.

This is where RAID comes in. You package the disks all together, and you add in the capability to restore the data should you lose a disk (or multiple disks, depending on the RAID method you choose).

Speaking of that, here are the methods you have to choose from (well, many more besides this, but these are probably the most common).

RAID 1+0: Mirrored and striped. Mirroring (also referred to as RAID 1 by itself) means that whatever data you have to store on the disk, you also store on an identical disk. That way if you lose a single disk, you don't lose the data. That part is pretty easy to understand. Striping (RAID 0, referred to by itself) is a breaking out the data into smalle chunks (or stripes) and putting it across all of the disks. This increases the performance of the disk.

Let me illustrate that because it is important. Lets say, I need five non-sequential 8kb chunks of data off a disk. If I go to a single disk for that data, that single disk has a seek time of (for the sake of this example) 10ms. I have to do this 5 times on the single disk, so that means I have a total of 50ms to service that request.

In the case of a striped system, I could make the request, and that data could actually exist 1, 2, 3, 4, or if I was extremely lucky, 5 disks in total. Each disk still has a 10ms seek time, so unless I'm extremely unlucky and all of the data chunks I want all exists on a single disk, then I stand to gain performance. If it exists on 5 disks, then all 5 requests would be serviced in 10ms, not 50ms.

In the RAID 1+0 configuration in fact, because the same data exists on more than one disk, I am always doing concurrent seeks, further increasing the overall performance.

Of course, this great performance comes at a price. Essentially, all of your storage costs double. For 100gb of usable storage, you have to buy 200gb of usable disk.

Enter RAID-4 (or RAID 5...the concepts between the two technologies are similar enough for our purposes).

RAID-4 solves the problem of doubling your storage costs by the use of parity. The easiest way I can explain parity is this: Let us say you have 4 disks in total, each of them are striped.

The chunks of data in this example are going to be expressed by numbers.
Disk 1: 1
Disk 2: 3
Disk 3: 29
Disk 4: 19

Lets say the numbers represent your data. In a standard stripe, if you lose Disk 3, you lose the number 29. Period. The system has no way of knowing what the number was....your data is now corrupt, you are completely screwed.

What RAID-4 does is add another disk into the equation. This disk contains the 'parity information'. What the parity is (basically) is the sum of the stripes on disks 1-4. So, to calculate that out, 1+3+29+19 = 52.

Now you lose Disk 3. You can replace the disk and it can figure out what the data was from parity: 52 - 19 - 3 - 1 = 29....congratulations, you have no data loss.

The PROBLEM with this approach is a performance loss. To calculate the parity, you have to use CPU time every time a piece of data changes on the disk. In the case of my example, the CPU has to calculate the sum...this takes precious time. Lets say that just the write itself takes 10ms. In a mirrored configuration, you are done after that 10ms. But if you have to calculate parity, and that takes 1ms...your total time to service that disk request is now 11ms.

RAID 6 is a little addition to RAID 4 that is a little difficult to explain, but basically it doubles the parity. Where RAID 4 does horizontal parity (pretty much the process I describe above), RAID 6 adds on diagonal parity, which is more difficult to describe without the use of a chart. The point is, that it also has to calculate parity (twice in fact, so whatever CPU overhead there was for RAID 4 is effectively doubled).

My point in all of this is that to say that any implementation that uses parity is at all equivalent (performance wise) to an implementation that does NOT use parity, is ridiculous and I can't believe a storage 'engineer' would repeat such crap. Parity requires overhead, plain and simple. It may be not be COST EFFECTIVE, but RAID 1+0 will always be faster. Always!

I hate Salespeople (and I can pretty much guarantee they hate me at this point. :P)

G.I. Joe Review

Last weekend the family and I went to the Kingston Firehouse theater and saw the new G.I. Joe movie. First, I'd like to talk about the theater experience.

The firehouse is actually just that, it used to be the location of the headquarters of Kitsap Fire and Rescue that served the Kingston Community for many years. Now rebuilt, it is the newest building in Kingston. It has a video store, movie theater, and breakfast cafe all in one. It has two screens, the 'Main Stage', a 140 seat large screen and and the 'Back Stage' a smaller, 48 seat stage. The family and I went to see Transformers 2 on the smaller screen, and honestly, the experience wasn't really worth it. The screen is a little bigger than my big screen. It isn't really the theater that you want to experience a 'popcorn' movie like Transformers on.

That being said, the Main Stage is quite nice, and the moviegoing experience is a quite unlike what you may be used to. Before the show Craig Smith, the operator of the Theater, came out to chat with everybody who came out. He talked about the movie, and the upcoming films coming to the theater. You could tell that this guy was a movie buff from the second he opened his mouth, and his little presentation definitely gave a different 'small town/community' feel to going to the movies. A little different, but I liked it.

I can definitely see going to this theater to see movies that are a little less "mainstream" than something like G.I. Joe. My wife and I are both huge movie buffs ourselves, and we are always out to support community efforts like this. I will definitely be back.

Anyway, enough about the Theater... I'm going to review G.I. Joe now, and it probably won't be the review anybody expected, but let me start with the summary:

It lived up to my expectations.

For better or for worse, the movie is what it is. If you went to go watch this movie, you weren't expecting a genius cinematic masterpiece with a great plot and story. You were expecting a cartoon-y movie designed to sell action figures in which a lot of stuff blows up. And whatever you might think of the genre as a whole, this movie delivers on what it is expected to.

The plot is just about what you'd expect. Some weapon salesman multinational corporate dude who just so happens to be a bad guy (Shocking!) invents a weapon that through "nano-technology" has billions of tiny green robots that eat through anything and will keep going until the world is destroyed or until you push a button and all the tiny little robots stop eating and disappear. Or something.

In reality of course, the little robots could 'eat', but the stuff they eat would have to actually...you know...go somewhere. Not disappear as soon as it is eaten. But this is the movies I guess, so I can only guess that the little robots have inter-dimensional portals as mouths and they are transporting the matter that they eat to another parallel universe.

What if some of these magical "eating" nano-robots were out of range of the signal and didn't get the message to stop eating? Ever drop a call on your cell phone? How about a dropped call that wipes out human existence? What if the antennae on the nano-robot gets accidentally 'eaten' by another nano-robot or otherwise damaged and it has no way to receive the signal from the remote control device? Can you hear me now? NO, BECAUSE YOU ARE DEAD!

But, lets not let a little scientific impossibility stop our good time, plenty of time for that later. Our heroes Duke and some dude (yeah, I don't remember his name, but honestly...does it even matter?) are assigned to transport the little warheads of scientific impossibility to some other location via HumVee convoy or something and they get ambushed by the bad guys. But, surprise! An elite super-force of good guys come to save the day, and our heroes are recruited to join the good guys and due to the fact that they happen to be there, they are recruited to join the good guy super-force.

Campy training montage follows, then the bad guys attack, steal the weapons, the good guys track them down to a major city that hasn't been blown up this year by Hollywood (took some hunting). The bad guys succeed in destroying a major landmark that didn't look at ALL like CGI...not one bit. And then the good guys chase them down to some exotic arctic locale and save the bad guys from blowing up major cities and eventually (spoiler alert!) the good guys win. Odd, in a movie like this I did not see that coming.

Anyway, like I said above...G.I. Joe is everything I expected it to be. And of course, the kiddos loved it.

News influences in a Social age

Ever since joining the facebook/twitter bandwagon I've been fascinated by the colored commentary on the 'news'.

10 years ago, I would have never imagined I'd be getting a lot of my news updates the way I am today. Not just the fact that it is coming from the 'internet' (which I actually did anticipate 10 years ago), but that the news is originating from sources that are within my 'social circle' that are delivered to me nearly instantaneously.

Not to mention the fact that 'Social Circle' actually needs a broader definition now. People I know in 'Real Life', people I played WoW with once, family members who I see a few times a year (or less), people I haven't seen since I was 5, or random c-list celebrities I follow on twitter because I find their updates funny. All of these people are broadly defined as 'friends' on social media outlets.

Bizzaro.

As an example of this Social media 'news coverage', I found out about Michael Jackson's death via an IM from a co-worker, which was confirmed in the next 30 seconds by a twitter update from a cable-TV 'minor' celebrity that I happen to follow. Following the news, I heard color commentary from a lot of the people I follow on Twitter, which were mixed with tributes, jokes, and rants about how much media coverage it was getting.

I then went to cnn.com and caught up with the 'official' story, where they were reporting that an ambulance had made it to the Jackson residence and that he had been taken to a hospital. About 30 minutes later they finally confirmed it...MJ was worm food.

Throughout the next week, more commentary followed including news on the memorial service, rants about the cost of funeral arrangements, a few tributes, and more than a few sarcastic jokes (this is the internet after all).

Of course, I also heard about Jeff Goldblum's death on twitter (and later the argument that in fact, he was not dead), so I'm not going out on a limb as to the 'accuracy' of the reports heard through this virtual 'grave-vine' of up-to-date information, but accuracy aside, it is still an interesting phenomena.

The company I work for just published a report about how to market via social networking sites, arguing that brand definition is, in many ways, out of the hands of "Corporate America" and their top-down marketing strategies and into the hands of commenters on these social networking sites.

It is an interesting proposition, and probably very true. After all, a product recommendation, restaurant review, or thoughts on the level of service received from a septic pumping establishment from a friend on Facebook is definitely worth more to me than a commercial I saw on Television or any radio or print ad in the world.

Interestingly, I think the same applies to news coverage. All journalism, be it from CNN, Fox News, ABC, or your local sports anchor all comes with a certain bias. No one network or individual is completely impartial. Not that it is a bad thing. Racism for example, is painted as evil by almost all media in the US. I certainly do not consider that a BAD thing, even though it is technically not 'impartial' to paint it that way.

That being said, the people I follow online all have biased opinions about the news, which they are more than happy to share (or less likely to hide...depending on how you look at it), and I take those opinions pretty seriously. In effect, it is much the same way I take a brand endorsement. I may not always agree with the opinion, but if the people I'm following are putting it out there, I'm going to read it.

I wonder how this 'social' news coverage will start to cloud my opinions on issues. My views on many issues tend to swing liberal for the most part. Generally during a presidential election, I watch the debates, and decide who to vote for based on the issues at hand. More often than not, that swings to a more liberal standing, but I have been known to go the other way on some issues as well.

To be honest though, I'm not really seeking out much in the way of political commentary. It tends to get boring (to me). The Rush Limbaugh's, Al Franken's, and Bill O'Reilly's of the world just aren't going to be something I'm ever in to.

But...a lot of my family and friends are fairly conservative, and will be posting, tweeting, and updating with the news seen from their perspective. Will that cloud my view to the point where in a couple years I'm marching in a 2nd amendment gun rights parade and supporting the rights of Americans to a home-based nuclear arsenal? (For sport-nuking purposes only of course)

Somehow I doubt it, but it is the thought that hit me today. I can't think of any issue thus far where my opinion has been swayed due to opinions read in social media, but I have really only participated for a few months in the trend, so it is still early.

Coping

Well, it has been a week now since I last logged into World of Warcraft.

The shakes kicked in the other day. I'd walk around upstairs and sit at my computer and stare at the WoW icon. I could just renew my account and play for....just a couple hours.

NO!!

Must...resist....temptation.

I do like WoW, and I most definitely will be going back to it, but not in the month of July, and probably not August either. The kids are out of school for the summer and I have...well, stuff to do with them. I used to raid after they had gone to bed, which was fine, but I can't do that anymore...they stay up too late.

Maybe I'll go back for Icecrown Citadel. Assuming I can get back on the raiding team that I just quit. /sigh. I liked that raiding team.

In the meantime, I'm catching up on other things that I had been putting off for a while now. I'm going back to the novel I have been writing for....years now. I caught up on Battlestar Galactica. I'm fairly hooked on that show now. Just waiting for Season 4.5 to be released and I'll be done with that.

I'm playing more Rock Band. Just about finished with everything in the game, and I'm almost ready to step up to Medium on Drums. Maybe. I wish I had better Rhythm. Or, you know, talent. Shana is ready to step up to Hard on drums. Did I mention I hate her? HAAAAAATE!!

I should probably pick up Guitar Hero World Tour. Just checked out the song list and me likes. Doubt Shana will go for buying yet another game though. Might have to Gamefly it.

Mostly I'm just...having a good time. The hardest part of quitting WoW is when I get bored around the house. I used to jump on WoW when I got really bored and just tool around and hope for a heroic. Now...I dunno. I just got a new book so maybe I'll just read that.

LOTRO is having a free weekend this week for returning people. Maybe I'll jump on that for a little bit. I remember having fun with that game, though it wasn't nearly as addicting as WoW. Of course, it might just make me miss WoW. /sigh

Quitting the game really isn't as bad as I'm making out, I'm exaggerating a lot. But I am going to miss the people. I still keep in touch with a few via forums, email, and IM, but not very many. Very sad.

In the end, the gameplay of WoW was great, but the people are what kept me playing for so long.

Showdown at the crack house

This is a honest-to-god, true story. Well, true-ish. Some names and facts have been changed because my memory sucks.

WARNING: This story involves drugs. In fact kids, this is why we say no to drugs.

Back when I first got out of the Army, life was rough. I was struggling to find work, and the jobs were pretty few and far between. I had really no idea what I wanted to do, so as a result, I just started responding to any newspaper ad or wanted listing in the ACAP Database (Army Career and Alumni Program) that sounded interesting.

I bounced around a little bit at first. My first job out of the Army was selling cell phones to businesses. Of course, I should say that I really only tried to sell cell phones to businesses, since I didn't actually, technically, sell any. None. Not one. I liked the job description that was advertised because it was something I could do 'out of my house' (hidden meaning: There was no actual office building for this 'fly by night' operation), and it had 'unlimited income potential' (hidden meaning: You don't get paid unless you sell something). Honestly, all the businesses that I talked to all thought it was a scam. And I had a hard time convincing them otherwise because...I kinda knew it probably was a scam.

This is the first, and so far only, job that I ever quit simply by never showing up to work again. Well, that and disconnecting my phone.

Later, I answered an ad in the paper that said something like this:
Managers wanted!
Large international business expanding to the Pacific Northwest. We need Managers for our stores that we are opening in the area. No experience required!

Now, if I knew then what I know now, I'd have been suspicious of this Ad. It has all the tell-tale signs of a scam. After all, if you were a 'large international business' expanding to a new area and were putting in new stores, would you really hire a 20 year old kid with 'No experience' to manage your new store? Of course not.

But...I was young. And dumb.

Anyway, I called the number and asked how to apply and was immediately granted an interview!

Yes...just like that. I had an interview scheduled, and they hadn't seen a resume, an application, or knew anything more about me than the name I gave them over the phone. I may have been young and dumb, but even I was suspicious at that point.

But I was living off top ramen and whatever I could mooch off my girlfriend, so I was desperate. I went to the interview.

Immediately following that less than 10 minute interview, I was hired into their 'management training program'. When I was hired, I didn't have to give a Social Security number or any other information. This also set off some warning bells in my head, but maybe they would just do the paperwork later...

I wouldn't get paid of course, in their 'management training program' (I was told this is 'Standard'), but there was UNLIMITED EARNING POTENTIAL if I passed their program.

So I took the job. And for about 3 weeks, I tried to sell...perfume. That was, of course, their 'management training'. I would go the the office for about an hour for motivational speeches, and then walk for miles trying to sell perfume to people on the street.

I got to keep a 'portion' of the profits from the perfume I sold, but that was barely enough to cover the gas to commute to work and the cigarettes I was smoking at the time. Meanwhile I had to sell plasma and mooch off of my girlfriend in order to afford to actually, you know, eat.

The people that I met who were doing this job were not particularly...bright. One of the 'trainers' I found out, was a crack addict with no car.

I didn't know that of course (the crack addict part anyway), up until the time where I was giving him a ride home from work and he asked me if we could stop at a friend's house real quick to pick something up. It was right on the way, so I said 'sure, no problem'.

Well, we went inside, and it was a crowded place...the living room was maybe 50 square feet, and it was packed with 8-10 people. And as I looked around, I could tell they were all smoking. And I don't mean cigarettes. I don't even mean weed.

I knew immediately that I didn't need to be here. In fact, if I went down the list of places I would like be at that moment, I could probably list several million before I got down to 'crack house'.

My 'trainer', found his friend, who happened to be an extremely skinny black woman (who quite possibly could have actually been a black man...it was really hard to tell, if you know what I mean) and made a 'transaction', but before the deal could be made, I was encouraged to sit down and have a smoke off of his 'friend's' pipe. As politely as I could, I declined, and attempted to walk casually to the front door. (At this point I was attempting to decide in my head if I was walk or run to my car once I got outside. Run was definitely pulling ahead)

This is where the 'friend' pulled out his pistol and made it clear that his (or her) hospitality was not optional. You see, apparently, he/she believed that my 'trainer' had brought a cop (me) with them. Of course, I was not a cop. But apparently, to them, I looked like a cop. And of course, since cops can't smoke crack, their litmus test for whether I was a cop, was whether I would smoke crack.

Let me tell you friends, up until that day I had a rule about smoking crack. That rule went something along the lines of 'There is no way in hell I will ever smoke crack". I did find out on that day that there is actually an addendum to that rule that I had never considered. After that day, I have a new, amended, rule. That is "I will never smoke crack unless there is literally a gun pointed at my head."

Yes, ladies and gentleman, I did put the pipe to my lips that day. I did not, of course, inhale (no, really..I didn't.). But....I put the pipe to my lips and went through the motions which seemed to satisfy the observers present. At least he/she put the gun away. Afterward, I was allowed to leave the building (and I did so as fast as I could), and of course, told that 'trainer' that he would have to find another way home. I believe I may have used some colorful metaphors describing exactly how often he would ever get me to take him anywhere ever again.

I quit the perfume job the next day. A few weeks later, I got a job doing tech support for Windows 95, and have not had occasion to frequent any crack houses since.

Some of you may be asking yourself, 'did he soil his shorts'. I'm happy to report that I did not, but I don't think it was out of bravery as much as I didn't want to offend he/she with the smell. I was actually too scared to soil myself.

The adrenaline was still pumping for hours afterward. It was, to this day, the most frightened I have ever been in my life.

Training my replacement

So today at work, I'm putting together training materials for somebody who will 'be my backup for when I go on vacation'.

This has me worried somewhat.

Well, I should say that the economy has me worried. So far, every quarter this year, there have been substantial layoffs in my company. Last week we just went through one that cut deeper than any of the previous ones. We have lost all of the contractors in my department as well as two full time employees.

For those that don't know, my company is a medium-sized company that has now spun off to a wholly-owned subsidiary of a much larger company. (A...giant company that will remain nameless on my blog, but everybody reading knows who it is.)

The larger company is pushing a particular margin on my company, in an effort (in my opinion) to make it look attractive to potential buyers. In order to make the margins in a declining economic landscape, you have to cut overhead. IT is 100% overhead.

So, they've slashed. Projects, headcount, upgrade budgets, HR, travel, training, and anything else they can cut, they've snipped.

So it is with this backstory that I'm sitting down with my Manager for my 1 on 1, and she tells me that I need to train a 'backup'. Now, I'm 100% sure that she doesn't have any ulterior motives with this training. I'm 100% sure, that from her perspective, this is just creating some redundancy in the team so that I can take vacations without being called every 10 minutes.

I'm sure of that at least.

The problem is that I do not trust the people up the chain to be of the same mindset. I don't think that the VP necessarily has my vacation plans in mind when he suggested that someone on his old team could play 'backup' for me (he just got promoted to VP...previously he was a director in that department). I think there is a strong possibility that they are making this move so that when the next quarter comes around, he has another option, should they need to make another cut.

In the end, I trust him to do what is best for the bottom line to make the margin goals set for the company at that time, and I'm pretty sure that means cutting me next quarter, if they wind up having to make further cuts.

So I'm faced with this dilemma: Train the person well, and hope for the best? Train them poorly, watch them make mistakes, and make myself seem irreplaceable? Or, train them well and look for another job.

Yeah, I'm a professional, so I can't do #2, so I'll do my best while training (obviously). #2 still crosses my mind of course... :P. It is still a pretty crappy situation overall. Really have to make sure the old resume is updated and start putting it out there. ugh.

I guess I'd feel more comfortable if I were learning somebody else's job as well, so as to provide THEM with backup, that way I could feel like it was something happening around the company to everyone, but alas...I think it is just me.

I feel like I'm playing musical chairs in my job. This quarter the music stopped and I still had a seat. Next quarter I may be out of luck. Guess we will find out in August.

In the meantime, I'm going job hunting. In this economy, it isn't a great time for it, but don't have a lot of choice at the moment. /sigh...I hate job hunting.

Little League.

So this year Chris played little league again, and had a less than stellar season. He did well, but I was fairly disappointed. Not in the kids, but the coaching.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not one of 'those' parents. I understand fully that the coach is a volunteer position, and I really have no right to complain if I'm not willing to put forth the time and effort to coach myself. And, I just don't have the time. Practices happen at times that I just can't be there for. And I wind up missing 2-3 games a season due to work and the giant body of water that exists between work and home. So I'm not complaining. Well, maybe a tad. A smidgen. A scotch.

I'm pretty disappointed. Not because the team hasn't won a game. Not at all in fact, I could really care less about the outcome of an individual game. I'm more concerned with the fact that over the course of the year, I haven't seen the kids get better. In fact, they have developed some bad habits, and those bad habits aren't being corrected.

I do not like to coach from the stands. I'm really the quietest guy in on the bench for the most part. I do the customary cheers and encouragements, but I don't like to correct kids, and I hate parents who do. This year, I had to break that rule a few times.

A pet peeve of mine is watching a kid go to the plate and have their bat on their shoulder. I've seen it time and time again this season...and it isn't being corrected. Kids aren't taking practice swings. The kid playing catcher for most of the season closes his eyes on almost every pitch (and surprise surprise, the ball gets by him a lot..) The kids on the bench are not encouraging their teammates like they should be...they aren't really involved in the game. Occasionally I hear them in the dugout arguing over whose fault the last mistake was. The coach of the team at least twice a game doesn't know how many outs there are. I don't think he is very involved in the game either, which I'm sure is why the kids aren't involved in the game.

The second baseman plays out of position, and has the entire season...he is almost playing in front of the center fielder. The first baseman is over so far that he might as well be playing second base sometimes. When Chris played first base, for two games he was in the wrong spot, and was doing the wrong thing on every single pitch. After every pitch, before the ball was hit, he would put his head down and run to first base (not watching the ball at all). I waited two games for the coach to correct it, before I finally had enough and snuck over to the first base line and started coaching Chris from the other side of the fence. I hated myself for doing it too, but now Chris doesn't do it anymore. I'm happier now.

Shana thinks the Coach just wants the kids to like him, so he isn't overly critical. I understand the approach. (Time to do the inevitable WoW reference...standby...). When I first started raid leading, I was not critical of people at all. If I saw someone make a mistake, I just hoped that person saw the mistake as well, and I hoped he didn't do it again. It sometimes worked, and it sometimes didn't. I didn't want to be disliked, or lose somebody off the team, so I let it go.

Lately I don't do that as much. I play now on a progression team. In short, a progression team is one that wants to get better, everytime we go out. Kind of like a sports team in that way. If somebody makes a mistake, I have to point it out. Not to tear them down...not at all. I want them to be better. I want them avoid making that same mistake again.

In many ways, the same can be applied to little league. Obviously you can't mention it in EXACTLY the same fashion as I mention it to ADULTS... you do have to handle it gently and in an encouraging fashion, but in the end you have to show them that they are making a mistake, and show them how to do correct that mistake. Find the flaws, and show them how to eliminate that flaw and get better. That, to me, is the very definition of coaching.

Anyway, I'm just kind of disappointed. I'm not mad, angry, bitter, or resentful. I know the coach tried hard. He didn't have a lot of help with assistant coaches and the parental involvement with the team was very spotty at best. My wife did the scorekeeper spot, and as far as I know, she was the only mom who participated in the team at all. Not even a team mom to help organize things.

So it is definitely not his fault completely. Though I do have to say I'm going to work on... "creatively avoiding" Chris going to his team next year. Nothing personal, heh.