I’ve had a few ideas bouncing around in my head for a while, and this past weekend I decided I’d try to do something about it. I was all jazzed to jump right in, but then I registered with my business and now must wait for verification. In retrospect, I probably should’ve just signed up as an individual just to get moving. I hope I don’t lose inspiration before I can download the tools.

Now that the kids are a little older and I’m (knock on wood) getting more sleep, I’d like to be able to spend a little more time polishing up my development skills outside of my normal daily UI responsibilities. And I’d like to see if my ideas are as interesting to other people as they are to the friends in my head .

It seems to be a chain, but still maintains some authenticity. The vast majority of customers are Hispanic and as a result the signage, menus, etc. are all Spanish as primary and English secondary. When gringos like myself show up, they add a side of English so the cook knows to yell out the number in English when it’s ready.

Now, I can get by well enough in Spanish if I need to, but I certainly lack confidence in it. I never have the nerve to order in Spanish in an attempt to get rid of the side, but maybe one day I’ll try. Until then I’ll take a side of Gringo, please.

I highly recommend the place if you ever get a chance. Everybody I’ve introduced to it has become a big fan.

Side of Free English

It turns out that perhaps I was just too early to the party and left before all the cool kids showed up. This was also before the iPhone showed up, providing easy access during “off” times. At some point, a colleague of mine clued me in on the real value of Twitter. Apparently, there are some people who use Twitter to spout out all kinds of actually interesting stuff. There’s still a bunch of useless blathering, but there’s enough interesting stuff that it makes the blathering (almost) tolerable.

I follow industry “luminaries” who surface all kinds of great information. Whether it’s a link to some ground-breaking article or just a couple of them bickering back and forth about a hot topic, they help me keep up on what’s going on in my industry. I no longer have to spend lots of time trying to find those articles or trends on my own – it just shows up!

Some of them are a little more chatty about their personal lives than I’d care for, but it does sort of help build the connection to them. I’ve come close to axing a couple of them, but then I think I may miss that one critical tweet or point of view and end up keeping them. It’s like an unhealthy dose of liberal guilt.

When I find myself waiting around, like for a meeting to start, standing in line somewhere, etc., the Twitter app on my phone is quite handy to fill the void.

Since a lot of value comes out of people sharing links, I’ve found that having another application like InstaPaper is key. InstaPaper lets you follow the link and “read it later” or email it to yourself. Then you can go back to reading the tweets and read the articles later.

Think about the people and organizations you like – authors, comedians, local municipalities, charities, politicians, etc. – and give it a shot if you haven’t already.

Over the years I’ve spent so much time building websites for others that I’ve never really spent much time building my own. A contributing factor to this has been working for the same large corporation for the vast majority of my career.  I’m working on my 14th year without really having to worry about interviewing or otherwise trying to convince anybody I know what I’m doing. I’ve moved across sister companies, but to work with people who know and trust my abilities. I haven’t even tucked away finished projects for a portfolio.

I find myself completely unprepared should the need arise for me to seek employment. So last week I finally decided to at least fill out some basic information on linkedin (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-holder/26/434/499) and start the beginnings of an official network. My next step is to dust the cobwebs off this place and develop a custom theme/design for WordPress.

So here I am, with a great deal of experience, and no decent record of it if you haven’t worked directly with me and know my abilities.

This is the year I make my own shoes for a future friendly me.

I spent nearly five years in the Air Force when I was younger. I was a young unattached single man who just wanted to explore the world and have as much fun along the way as possible.

I spent a year in South Korea and, for the most part, really enjoyed my time there. I utilized their incredible transit system to get out and see as much as I could. I went out and partied like a wild man all the time. And I also worked incredibly hard during very long days. There were only a few moments during my year that I was reminded of the real severity of the situation. There was the occasional anti-American rally that presented some very tense moments. Of course, visiting Panmunjom was very sobering. Then there was the 7:00 AM Saturday full-war recall with sirens and all that had everybody SCRAMBLING to get to their station, which turned out to just be a surprise drill (they ALWAYS planned drills far in advance with lots of warning). The scariest moment being during a war-games exercise, after a couple of days sitting in the snow guarding the perimeter, the radios lit up with all kinds of chatter and then they started handing out LIVE ammo to everybody. It turned out to be a very poorly communicated simulated “attack” by paratroopers – a bunch of people landed in the golf course and were assumed to be N. Koreans. Fortunately, they were A) American soldiers, and B) nobody was killed.

I also spent 4 months in Saudi Arabia, shortly after Khobar Towers was blown up. I had the sole responsibility of ensuring all of the paperwork was in order for anything being delivered to the base in downtown Riyadh – including lots of trucks similar to what blew up Khobar – all outside the gates before the bomb detection people/dogs were involved. You never knew who was friend or foe there. I spent a lot of time ensuring my head was always moving because I had a terrifying sense that I was in somebody’s crosshairs while standing outside the base “talking” to the truckers and inspecting their loads (lots of tall buildings with roof access all around). And all of this in a “friendly” country like Saudi Arabia.

Now when I reflect back on my time in the military, it all pales in comparison to what troops are enduring today. North Korea is threatening all-out war over the sinking of the South Korea military ship. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan can’t trust a single person outside of the people they deployed with. And they’re all doing year-long tours at a minimum, with often very little home time between deployments.

During my military time, I lacked perspective. Again, being young and single, I saw the world through a whole different set of eyes than a lot of the people I served with. I knew there were a lot of people who were very depressed on their remote tours, but it never really occurred to me the value of their pain until I became a father.

I worked with people who arrived in Korea during the final months of their wives pregnancy. Missing out on the entire first year of their children’s lives. Not there to provide support for their spouse. Just absent. Off in a distant land counting down days until they could be reunited with their family.

I see how much my daughter grows in just a week. I can’t imagine missing out on an entire year. Think about missing a year of a child who just turned two. Their first year of real memory building doesn’t include a parent because they’re not there. They’re overseas somewhere putting it all on the line. Also imagine that person who is missing out on their children growing up is wondering if today is the day his number comes up.

So I for one am unbelievably grateful for what the men and women of the armed forces provide for us every day.

I know the type… A person who truly believes that subtle little color differences are far superior and clean than more dramatic effects. The same type who think black text on a white background is a horrible choice – it must be all shades of gray, softly blending into each other. There’s no sense in making things usable; design trumps functionality always!

I work on a Mac almost all the time, but I do have a windows laptop for the occasional Excel document with lots of macros and other MS Office documents that just work better in their natural habitat. They just “upgraded” my Windows laptop and now I have Office 2007. I’ve been so incredibly frustrated ever since. I never know which window is active and am constantly clicking on background windows by accident. Yeah, I could work in full screen mode, but I don’t like to.

They give you only 3 color options out of the millions available – blue, gray or black and they’re all just different shades of the same color band. They completely ignored the Windows Theme for other windows – completely insane.

Anyway, so this is my frustration with Microsoft. Can you tell me which window is active? Yes, there are 4 windows stacked…

Microsoft Crap Design

After more than nine years of involvement with AutoTrader.com, this is my last day with the company. Anybody who knows me well knows that I’m not a big change kind of guy. heh. So this has taken some time to get used to the idea of leaving. I’ve met a lot of really great people at AutoTrader.com, and I’ll miss working with them on a daily basis. But at least I get to still attend all of the functions like the family picnic and Christmas party because I’ll be a spouse of the person who organizes those events .

I’m moving over to a “sister” company within the Cox family — a place called Online Vehicle Exchange. It’s still an automotive company, but more dealer-facing with a more specifically targeted audience. It’s really about the best scenario that could have come up. I’ll be working for one of my favorite people in the industry, and somebody I can learn a tremendous amount from. I’ll also be working with a good friend and software engineer I worked with previously. I’ll be doing basically the same thing over there, but in a much smaller organization. I know enough people over there that’s it’s not as distressing as taking a job not knowing anybody.

So June is a big month for me! June 1st, my last day at AutoTrader.com. June 2nd, my bachelor party. June 4th, my new job start. June 22nd, getting married. July, hopefully a little slower pace. heh.

Anyway, just wanted to give a quick update

Technorati Profile

At any rate, it’s quite evident that the vast majority of drivers just don’t “get it.” I don’t understand why almost nobody knows how to drive on the highway. It seems so incredibly simple to me – the left lane is for passing, and that’s it. And passing doesn’t take place on cruise control going .2 miles per hour faster than the car being “passed.” What exactly am I missing?

On this particular trip, something odd happened. I spent a couple of hours on a six lane highway – three lanes in each direction. I ended up passing almost exclusively in the far right lane, which was almost completely empty. Meanwhile, the left two lanes had bumper to bumper cars all pacing each other maybe going the speed limit. I’m not talking about passing one or two cars in the right lane, I was passing ten and twenty cars at a time in a completely clear right lane. I was looking over in disbelief as everybody was waiting for the car in front of them to go faster or move over (at least I can only assume). How did this happen? Did I miss the memo?

We got the majority of the house renovations complete. We have a brand new room off the back of the house, a completely renovated kitchen and dining room, and a much more open floorplan after removing a couple of load-bearing walls. There are still some small things to tidy up, but it looks great.

I got engaged, with a destination wedding already in the works. Guess I better practice up on my Spanish.

I guess that’s about it, in a small nutshell .