What’s up (down) with the job market

I keep hearing that the leading indicators are up, but still poor employment numbers keep coming in. The stock market stumbled a bit last week, and I’m not sure if it’s buying opportunity, or a signal that it’s time to move to the sidelines for a month or so.

I’ve seen a twitter post or two from very accomplished developers indicating that their contracts are expiring. I’m sure that the job market is soft in areas and fine in others. I wonder if sites like job philadelphia and careerbuilder are seeing this softness regionally or nationally?

Outliers – the Story of Success

I’d heard of Outliers a few months back in some of my geek feed reading. I’m sure the portions of the book that were cited were the portions about Bill Gates and Bill Joy. At least that’s what I remembered when I saw the book last Sunday at Barnes and Nobel.
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Bike maintenance

I’ll have to admit that I’m not the most diligent at bike maintenance. I’ve been known to let a chain go for a couple of months without cleaning, have grime on my wheels and frames from a rain storm a month ago.

After attending the Bike Maintenance 101 class at Cahaba Cycles my son and I cleaned every bike in the house. It felt really good to walk away from a row of clean bikes, knowing that I can jump on and ride anytime without worry of weird failures.

I figure that bikes are the best anti aging products around, both for the body and mind. Riding a dirty bike is fun, but riding a clean bike is even better.

Lenovo USB Keyboard

I spend a lot of time on my Thinkpad laptop. Coding, blogging, surfing, etc. I absolutely love the keyboard. The keys are just the right distance apart, well laid out, etc.

I have a couple of desktop machines that perform various services around the house. One is a Windows box, one is an old server that is used for experiments, etc. Using the random keyboards on those boxes was a PITA until I got my Lenovo USB Keyboard.

This keyboard has:

• UltraNav
• Keypad
• Great feel

If you’re going to use this keyboard on Windows XP, make sure you load the drivers from the Lenovo site. Linux seems to have everything built in.

I’m afraid this keyboard isn’t manufactured any more. I wish there was a vitamin I could take to make me like random keyboards, but I think I’ll always be partial to my laptop keyboard, and to this external replica.

Southern Winter

It’s wintertime in Alabama. That means that one week we barely make it above freezing, and the next week it’s 70 degrees. 70 degree days in January will put some teeth into those weight loss resolutions you made just a couple of weeks earlier.

This Saturday is shaping up to be one of the rare days where the temperature is high and there’s no rain. Bicycles will be dusted off and the roads will be teeming with cyclists. A string of warm temperature weekend rides is just what I’m itching for. I feel sorry for those people in the midwest digging out of snow.

Social Media Baggage

So, as my Facebook friend list grows, and my Twitter following list list grows, I realize there’s a reluctance to trim them back. Having more friends on facebook is good, right? If you unfollow someone on Twitter, they might unfollow you…

After a certain point, most of the “friends” and “followers” become baggage. Stuff you carry around because you might need it. Not because you do need it. Am I really willing to miss information from my son or daughter because some friend from 10 years ago is listing each muscle supplement he took while in college? No

I survived the last 10 years without knowing somewhat intimate details of people I can barely remember. I propose that major life events (college, marriage, divorce, another decade, etc) should be times when we do some serious cleaning out of our social media baggage. I’ll be doing some pruning in the next few weeks, don’t take it personally.

Insulin and weight gain

As many of you know, I’m a Type-II diabetic. Not only that, I’m an insulin dependent Type-II diabetic. Lately, my endocrinologist has had me cranking up my insulin (Lantus). Sugars are not becoming more predicable, but my waistline is growing.

What is it about insulin that makes you gain weight so?

Every time I get to this point, I cut back on the insulin (and eating, since I won’t be hungry), and lose the weight. This cycle is getting old. I think the pharmacy should issue diet pills with every vial of insulin sold.

Free Tech Support again

Looks like I’m the free tech support guy again. I’m sure it’s not the quality, it’s the price. I’m going to have a hard time feeding my family on the $0 I get from fixing other peoples computers.

It seems that it’s always Windows XP that shows up at my door. Two weeks ago, this laptop was eaten up with viruses. A quick Internet search (from my Linux box that has never had a virus) yielded the solution. A quick download later and the machine was clean enough to put back on the Internet.

This week, the same computer was going to blue screen before the login page. WTF? How does it get that bad. The product key doesn’t work (It’s a Dell OEM product key), and I’m not sure what was done before I got it. I was able to repair windows, but now XP wants to be activated again.

I’m tired of fooling with this one. I’m going to offer to load Ubuntu (heck, if I’m going to support something, it might as well be something I like using) or just give it back. There’s not much data on it, and all it’s used for is surfing and watching DVDs. Sounds like a great job for Ubuntu.

There’s also the issue of the thank you. Anything will do, thank you note, gift certificate to best eye cream, case of diet coke, anything.

Who is good with names?

I find myself struggling with remembering peoples names. I know the name is in there (my brain) somewhere, but it just won’t come to the top. It’s not just people I haven’t seen for a while, I can’t remember someone I met 5 minutes ago unless I resolve to repeat their name over and over for that 5 minutes.

Believe me, I’m not the one you want filling out a href=”http://www.invitationconsultants.com/”>wedding invitations. What’s more, I don’t know if this is a recent development, or I’ve always been that way. My spelling superpower is still intact after all these years, so I think I’ve always been poor at remembering names.

On the other hand, I seldom come up dry when implementing algorithms and writing code. I guess I’ll be toast if we start giving algorithms proper names….

Tour de Cure Just Around the Corner

The Birmingham Alabama Tour de Cure is just 19 weeks away. I’ve started my training mostly by commuting to work (15 mile round trip), but I’ll be doing longer rides as the weather permits. It’s been cold in Alabama lately, and riding outside takes a special kind of resolve.

More importantly, I’ve started my fundraising for this year’s TDC. The training for the ride is important, and serves as a great lead in for asking for donations. Doing time on the bike trainers and home gyms is not the most important part of Tour. The most important part is doing my part to cure this disease, and I can do that best by raising as much money as possible. My goal is $5000.

I’m the rider recruitment chair for the Birmingham Tour de Cure. Don’t be surprised if you get a note or call from me asking you to join the Tour. I’ll ask you first to be a rider. If you don’t feel comfortable being a rider, I’ll gladly accept a donation. If you want to track my progress, just head on over to http://main.diabetes.org/goto/david.wilkins