Inspiration Leaves Me Floundering

It may already be apparent to you, but I’ve recently realized that the best blogs, tweets and podcasts are the ones that actually do something for me. Seems obvious, right? By “do”, I mean they do at least one of the following:

• Enrich my life
• Inspire me
• Teach me something

Enrichment makes me glad to be human, and quite often makes me feel human once-again. The good stuff makes me laugh, smirk at some bit of unexpected cleverness, or gain a fresh perspective. The best sources of my enrichment are often non-tech, almost always come from unexpected places, especially when I’m not looking for it.

Inspirational content helps me turn my ideas into reality. It helps me zoom past “should I”, turn the corner at “when will I”, and head straight for “I’m doing it NOW.” Paul Graham was big for me a few years ago when I realized how difficult it is for me to feel excited about others’ goals (aka my employer’s). I fancied starting a company of my own as a playground for my self-motivation. Paul’s essays helped me get over the “can I even make it as a small software company?” fear.

Eventually I found a product idea that I wanted to act on, and by this time I’d been inspired enough that I wasn’t crippled by fear. I began building the product, started a company with a friend, and made a run for it. However, that fish has been floundering from the start. It feels like I’m running on the fumes of a vague notion that I once had a fucking clue. Inspiration does nothing for you at this stage. It’s fluffy and airy all the time, which is not the reality that I’m experiencing. This is where the teaching content comes in handy.

Bring it on. I need it.

On the Road – June 23

You might as well look at these and these while you read.

Nebraska started getting hilly, rocky and very pretty near the end. The first 3/4 was pretty boring. As we neared Wyoming the rocks and cliffs started getting higher. The sparse clouds were low and scattered the low flat land, and some of the hillsides, with pronounced patches of shade.

We pulled off at the rest area near Pine Bluffs to wait out a rainstorm that was moving across the interstate 20 miles away. It looked like a bad storm too, so we didn’t want to chance it. We hadn’t hit anything heavier than sprinkles up to this point (and actually never did). After feeling comfortable that we would miss the storm we started driving again, anxious to see what the La Quinta in Cheyenne, WY had in store for us.

Cheyenne isn’t a ghost town, but it’s as close as I ever want to come to one. There were signs of life, but none that I’d like to test for vital signs. A biker bar or two, a 6 foot boot sculpture in front of a local bank, a collapsed two-story building, a creepy-as-fuck “meth makes your mouth look like shit” billboard; those were some of the many things that greeted us when we drove around to take pictures. Then another storm rolled in and the whole place got dark. Time to go back to the hotel.

Our food choices were: Village Inn. Yep, that’s all we saw. It was late and this felt like one of those towns where restaurants close at or before dinner time. Though, come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing any other restaurants. Either way, we were tired of driving and Village Inn was next to the La Quinta.

Might I mention this was the last time we stayed at a La Quinta? It wasn’t horrible, but when compared to a Holiday Inn Express you notice the difference. Sure, you can say it. We’re spoiled. But it’s so much better when your continental breakfast has fruit as an option, when you don’t have to wait for the internet, when your showerhead isn’t clogged, when the towels are soft, and when the coffee is strong(er). Yep, spoiled.

On the Road – June 22

You might as well view these and these while you read.

The drive to Omaha from St. Louis was pretty uneventful, as one might imagine floating through a sea of crops would be. The last few miles had no towering arch surprise. There was no “holy crap that’s a big body of water” bridge over the Mississippi. Nonetheless, Omaha was nice. We arrived around 4:45pm. For some reason I didn’t reserve a hotel ahead of time, which cost me an extra $10, but luckily they still had rooms left. The rooms hadn’t yet been taken by the soccer players that were in town. I knew of their presence from the sign that said, “Please, no cleats in the lobby.”

Before we left for dinner I found out that Saddle Creek opened a new venue called The Slowdown. Why didn’t I know of it sooner? Would it make a difference if I did? Either way, Cursive was out of town on tour, on their way to Portland no less. We really didn’t have the energy, nor the time to see any shows at Slowdown that evening, but I checked the calendar anyway to make sure we weren’t going to kick ourselves later. Turned out we would be driving right by Slowdown on our way to Downtown for dinner. The entrance was on the other side of the building, not the side we drove past on, so it wasn’t impressive. There’s an Urban Outfitters in the same building/plaza? Strange.

Downtown Omaha’s Old Market area is charming. Some people love the look of brick, others try to improve it with paint. Even though the buildings were unpainted, with their upstairs seemingly in disrepair, I thought they looked great. Quite a few have been renovated on the lower floors for storefronts and apartment space. Quite nice. We didn’t venture outside of the Old Market area because, frankly, we didn’t have the energy. And something makes me doubt the rest of downtown would have been as enjoyable. We ate at a place called Michael’s, which turned out to be mediocre Mexican, but what did we expect?

We parked in a parking garage that closed it’s doors before sundown. And by closed, I mean closed. Rolled down and locked up tight. I double-checked with Kristen, “when we entered it said 24 hour parking, right?” Yep, she saw it too. It turns out we were supposed to keep our parking stub with us so we could get in the garage after they stopped letting new cars in (after 7pm?). We were NOT supposed to put the stub on our dash like we assumed. Always read your parking stub. Always. Always. But no worries. We circled the building and found a city worker entering the garage on her way home. She believed our story. She had heard it before.

On the Road – June 21 part 2

(View these while you read.)

We were surprised to find that they basically converted the old Union Station train station into a mall, complete with Food Court, fountains, planters and stores. Luckily, the architecture is a great redeeming quality. The outside of the building is beautiful, as are the inside rafters and other support structures. If you’d like to take a leisurely stroll in the A/C in St. Louis, check it out. And while you’re at it you can eat at Houlihans like we did.

The fountain across the street is a great way to beat the heat if you don’t mind being misted with water that is no doubt old and moldy. It features some great water-spewing sculptures of mythical-looking creatures with great expressions. While walking back to the car we ambushed a kid (he was my age) with a drivers cap and asked him what else we should do in the area. He told us tales of a place to climb around in old school buses atop building. “Where is it,” we asked wisely. “It’s over there,” he said as he pointed over that way.

Our GPS lady lost her voice (Mute button disease, I suppose), so we had to read the directions out loud to ourselves in a British accent. Kidding. We found “City Museum” in the “nearby shit to do” category, and figured that must be it. Yep, it was. And it looked awesome from the outside.

(View these while you read.)

As our flickr photos attest, we spent the next 3 or so hours climbing around in the dark, through caves, metal forests, felled logs, and stairwells. The St. Louis City Museum is now the number one destination I’d want to take children, if I ever borrowed any for the day. It also helped to calm the desire I’ve had to be “a little bit taller.” If I were any taller I wouldn’t have been able to crouch and crawl through much of the museum … this would have severely ruined my fun time. Sorry, Andy. We wish you could have come with us. Hope you enjoyed staying in the car.

Our City Museum flickr photos probably make the place look smaller than it really is. The building is 10 stories. Not all of it is devoted to crawl spaces, but plenty of it is. I imagine it would take at least 5 trips to the museum to give you a good idea of where the passage you’re about to climb through will take you. Many of the passages are dark. Water drips down in the cave regions. You’d have to be a toddler to see it all, but still, you manage to see plenty of parents and their children braving the darkness together. Kristen and I held hands the whole way. However, I teared up a bit when they wouldn’t let both of us slide down the 10-story spiral slide together. I thought I was going to die. Kristen was glad to be out of the clutches of my clammy hands.

One thing that is particularly frightening is hearing loud clanging, falling, breaking sounds while you’re climbing around in an airplane perched on the edge of a three-story structure made to look like a castle tower. We had no clue what the sound was. While walking back to the car we figured out what it was. Bricks on the 4th story of an old building nearby had come loose and fell onto a doorway overhang just below the 2nd floor. The force ripped one of the overhang support beams from the building and a whole mess of bricks landed on someone’s car. Whew. So glad we parked away from any old buildings.

On the Road – June 21 part 1

The Gateway Arch is a great attraction. The sun was intense, and the heat wave still with us, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. Luckily the park around the Arch had walkways shaded by trees. We broke off and walked by some of the ponds, only to retreat quickly because we must have smelled great to the mosquitos.

Yesterday, when we arrived, we talked about going up into the Arch and weren’t sure whether we wanted to. We didn’t really know the size of the structure, or how the trip up would be. I’m not really afraid of heights, but I’m not a fool either. The elevator/tram thingie has to be robust enough.

We walked up to the Arch and didn’t know what to do next. Then we saw a security guard doing bag checks near a ramp that went below ground. Had no clue what it was. Thought maybe it was the entrance to the tram ride to the top, so we checked it out. Holy cow, there was a museum down there, some movie screens (Lewis and Clark, and Arch Construction), and tons of people. We had no idea.

The tram ride was exciting, but to most it’d probably be a little scary. You’re in this round pod thing (think “Dr. Evil’s escape egg from Austin Powers”), and there are two vertical slit windows out which you can see the internals of the arch, along with some stairways that follow you on your ride to the top. The pod keeps rotating abruptly as it rises, so as to keep you more of less seated vertically. We only had the two of us on our way to the top. The five seats were filled when we came down.

At the top was a carpeted walkway, and the walls met the floor diagonally. The underside of the top of the Arch is V-shaped, so these carpeted walls probably weren’t far from the actual exterior walls of the arch. You could lean on the slanted walls and look out the 2.5 foot wide X 8 inch tall windows. There were about 10 of them on each side of the walkway. If you boosted yourself up high enough you could look straight down out the windows. Amazing! From here you can see views of the Mississippi on one side, and Downtown St. Louis on the other. The sun was intense, so the colors might have been washed out a bit, but I wanted to relive every minute of it so I took tons of pictures.

You could stay at the top of the Arch as long as you wanted. I think 15 minutes was enough for us. My mouth got dry from the jaw dropping views. We got in line to board the South Tram down. The other three ladies that accompanied us seemed quite ready to get on stable ground.

More later …

On the Road – June 20

Everything is starting to feel like a blur. We made it to St. Louis, Missouri on day two of our journey. When you look at the distance on the map it’s impressive. We’ll be staying here for two nights so we can check out the Arch tomorrow, and Union Station if all goes well. Should be pretty kickass.

Driving through Atlanta around 10am on a Saturday was great. There weren’t very many cars on the road at all. We ignored the beltway and went straight in to the East on I-20, and then took I-75 North. If you ever get a chance to take I-75 North early on a Saturday morning, do it. It’s fun. I doubt a weekday trip on the same route would be as stimulating.

The Mountain roads around Chattanooga were awesome! Even though they might make some people uneasy, I loved driving them. I’m so glad we didn’t bypass them and head to Birmingham instead. Alabama doesn’t interest me at all. We went through Chattanooga just before lunch time on a Saturday, which was a breeze. Really not too many cars on the road. Kristen made a comment that it feels like Cruisin’ USA. It really did feel like we were racing around tight corners, up and down mountains, through valleys, all while seeing impossible landscapes.

Kentucky was the second part of our journey that I grew bored of pretty quickly. The heat wave followed us, so the 97 degree weather didn’t help. Later parts of Tennessee along I-24 were much the same. Illinois brought on a new kind of farm country and some different terrain. Even though it started to look the same, it was still beautiful.

In total we did 9 hours, 18 minutes on the road today. 8 hours is a lot of time to spend behind a desk, and 9 hours is a TON of time to spend driving. Definitely not a pace we can sustain all the way out west.

Anatomy of a Great Time

Four friends went to Tom Brown Park in Tallahassee. They walked, talked and one even took some pictures. The things you’d expect. The back stretch along the railroad tracks was longer than they expected, but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. For some reason one of them started running. I think it started to drizzle. Soon all four were running and screaming a bit. Four awesome 20-somethings were running and screaming through the woods. They didn’t really care about the light rain. Shortness of breathe was reached. Some walking for a bit. Weak attempts to run again. They pressed on. Full release. Blissful memories.

Tremendous Reads

Not sure why, but I’ve stumbled across some amazing essays this week. Of course, they’re written by people involved in technology and design, but I’m pretty sure you’ll find the advice sound.

I’ve read many essays about the “top ten things I’ve learned in my lifetime”, but this one is the best.

I always thought not taking compliments too strongly to heart was a side-effect of being humble, and a sure way to avoid having too large of an ego. But yeah, that hasn’t worked out so well. This one’s on optimism.

And the future gets brighter

I’m happy to see things like the Better Place company. Using electricity to power our cars is like using XML for a data interchange format: it’s just a damn good idea. Electricity is the easiest format for energy storage, transfer, and use. It may not be the best, but I’m pretty sure it’s the best we have right now. Battery technology seems to be advancing faster than other forms, so it just makes sense.

Apple computer also deserves mention. Though they provide, more or less, a luxury line of computer systems, I’m just happy there’s a company that isn’t only committed to making things cost less. Cheapness is a false sense of value. Apple is concerned with making things better. Their MacBook Pro notebooks are impressive: better battery life, recyclable aluminum and glass construction, mercury-free display. Now if only there were a software company focused on making software even more efficient…

On Writing

I have great difficulty finishing and publishing blog entries. The longer an entry sits, the less substantial it ends up feeling, which means there’s a good change it’ll get deleted before it sees an audience. This might be a good thing, acting as an editors cutting room of sorts, or it may mean there are too many topics I’ve only half-explored.

Either way, it’s Sunday, so I can’t bring myself to do much of anything today.