The Break Up

What started off as a pretty great day ended up as a bigger downer than I've had in quite a while. Interestingly (or maybe not), my opinion of how I feel about being single corresponded almost exactly with how I felt over the course of this particular day.

Woke up at about 8:30 this morning with a nice girl in the bed next to me. We had a good time waking each other up - or perhaps I was doing more of the waking, as she's not used to being up quite so early.

After departing the bed, I finished the laudry from the night before, got sheets washed, bed made, and the bathroom cleaned. Ok, so my female companion cleaned the bathroom - which was extremely nice of her (let's just say that my bathroom hasn't been this clean in a VERY long time). Having my room so much cleaner in one day boosted my hope of progressing even more with cleaning the place... At that moment, more so than any other in the last 6 months, I felt that I was beginning to understand why people often claim it's good to be single. Previous to that moment, I've always thought that was just what people said who:

• a) are comforting someone who isn't in a relationship,
• b) aren't in a relationship, but are avoiding being sad about it,
• c) are currently in a relationship, but are putting a grass is greener, devil's advocate spin on their current situation.

To continue with the story of today... I taught the kids at 2pm and had a nice class. I always enjoy teaching them, but today was the first day I had an audience. The observer was another girl I've been dating who requested to watch a class (different from the bathroom cleaning girl). Ok, so some readers may detect a problem here. Or maybe they won't? I don't know what the current prevailing societal views on dating multiple people similtaneously are. Apparently lesbianisn is super trendy, but I'm not sure if that loosening of traditional rules has any impact on other aspects of relationships. Anyway, I think she enjoyed meeting Vic and the kids and had a nice time.

After the class, we went to Marshalls, bought some clothes and trinkets, had a light dinner at Panera Bread, and hung out there until they closed. So far so good... Pretty much all I could ask for from a Sunday - in fact, I'd say it was far above average.

After returning home, the conversation ended up in a bit of a sad place - we were joking around and she ended up hurt over the fact that I wasn't willing to be exclusive with her. It's not like she was being at all unreasonable, all she wanted from me was one very simple request... pretty much the basic requirement for any romantic relationship: to say that I wouldn't date other people at the same time. Although, I'm fairly certain she would have settled for affirmation that it was possible I would be exclusive with her someday. She is a great person: smart, sexy, nurturing, and understanding - she totally deserves to have that simple request and so much more honored. It even would have made me temporarily happy to acquiese. The irony, and perhaps this is the central irony of all "amicable" break-ups is that I didn't want to string her along by being dishonest - so I didn't say it. She, to her credit, decided that it was time for her to go...

Now I'm left to myself, to contemplate that this is the closest I've come to actually breaking up with someone... It doesn't feel good at all, at this moment it seems like I should have just lied. I've always thought it was a positive character trait that I'm not the kind to break up casually. Isn't that the whole point of being commited? But perhaps there is another side to this as well? If you are the type that never breaks up, is that really just pushing 100% of the decision as to whether you are in a good relationship to the other person?

After I walked her to her car, the last thing she said was "I love you Stan"... I wanted to reciprocate, because I really do love her, but I couldn't imagine how that would make her feel any better, and I was silent. As she drove away, I had an eerie feeling - similar to the times in the past when girls have broken up with me. But that's not what just happened here... Then why am I crying? it's pretty good be single huh?

Expectations, insomnia, and defeat

It's 4am, and I'm in bed but not yet asleep...
Some days this happens to me - it's possible it could have to do with the concentrated Vietnamese iced coffee I had at lunch, but as that was well over 12 hours ago, it's definitely not the only reason I'm awake. I'm more than physically able to fall asleep at the moment but my mind won't let go of consciousness. The best way I can describe my current mood / predicament is by referencing the most memorable, recurring situation I encounter in my dreams. It's a situation where I'm in a hurry or trying to get somewhere for some important reason and I'm running. More accurately, I'm attempting to run, because I'm barely moving. It feels like I'm stuck in some type of thick gel and the faster I try to move, the slower I actually move. However, due to the importance of rapid movement, despite the fact that logic would dictate a different course of action, I'm still putting 110% effort into flexing my muscles in an attempt to run.

So, I've been up all night coding, chatting, reading, or doing other random crap on my laptop. Looking back or forward in time tells me that there's nothing significant that I can accomplish in however many minutes I have available tonight. And even if I did accomplish some significant task, it would cost me nearly all my productivity and motivation tomorrow. But somehow, these are the times when that type of logic doesn't prevent the frustration of running at 110% in an unknown direction, where trying harder only makes me go slower, and yet trying harder seems to be the only answer left. Is this what others are experiencing when they say they have insomnia? Being someone who falls asleep easily (usually even if I'm trying to stay awake), I don't have too much of an understanding of what insomnia is.

Perhaps the trigger for my current insomnia is from an encounter with a friend's 10 year old nephew earlier today who commented on the asteroid game I was working on in support of the class I'm teaching. He commented on a concurrency bug I was fixing and showed me the BREW game he was playing on his phone. Somehow the comparison of the asteroids game I was working on to the sophistication of the game on the tiny handheld device hit me hard. The game he's playing is an insignificant piece of code, and yet it's sophistication makes the asteroids game look completely pointless - like a toddler's scribbles vs a highly detailed painting of a master.
Occasionally, at moments such as that, I am astounded by the fact that there is good software out there. Self doubt rears it's ugly head and makes me question my own software ability... When I think about it, the facts are in my favor: I am highly productive at work, always have been in every job I've had. It's extremely rare to find someone who's significantly faster than me at any individual task. My focus over the longer term is on process, management, organization, cooperation, etc This agrees with the prevailing opinion of software literature, for example: The Mythical 5%

Having reached some type of plateau at my current job, I have been thinking lately about what my next step is on the path towards running an insanely successful software company is. It's possible that it's just to taste a bit more success on a few larger projects, so that self-doubt is less capable of bothering me. Or perhaps even just observe the development of some software that turns out with such a more visually stunning product than the enterprise middleware I've worked with for most of my career.

I really have enjoyed teaching the kids the asteroids game, and yet I can't get a small saying out of my head: Those who can't do teach. It seems to have some veracity to it.... but, I've often thought that teaching allows one to understand their subject matter at an even deeper level and should help to improve productivity. Beyond teaching coworkers, kids, etc, I spend a high percentage of my free time on the computer coding, reading, planning, etc, so there really isn't much more muscle flexing I can put into becoming a more successful software developer.

I do believe the saying that one can only realize defeat if they admit to that defeat... Perhaps the currently non-functioning answer to the effort dilemma is to realize: I am where I am, I'll eventually get where I'm going, and I will never admit defeat.

Although that bit of wisdom sounds nice, there's nothing there which my mind hadn't already realized or just isn't listening too; however, it seems that writing this entry did the trick. I can feel the blackness of sleep, with it's promise of starting over fresh in the morning, beginning to drift over me...

I wonder if I'll be running in place in my dreams...

Millionaire Matchmaker on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

I've gotten hooked on Donny Deutsch's show "The Big Idea" lately. It's cool to see people in various states of elevated financial success. It's like a dose of "It's possible!" once a week =)

Saw the Millionaire Matchmaker on there tonight. I think she's mainly focused on chicas snaring rich dudes, but Donny said "don't be sexist" and they discussed a guy finding a rich girl too. I know when I saw a girl at the mall on Sunday, picking up her Jaguar XK-R from the valet car wash, I was intrigued... And when I see a girl in a SL600 or Maserati Coupe or Lambo Gallardo (all sighted within 5 miles of my place) it definitely catches my attention. I don't think I am so shallow that I would be happy pursuing someone just for money, but there is something exciting about thinking about matching up with someone like that. I suppose it would be a total validation of my own worth to have someone like that interested in me. Plus, I have aspirations of starting multiple businesses and need to start associating with other successful people in order to get mentorship, ideas, etc.
Google found Wiki How / Find a Rich Woman To Date - LOL

I've often thought that one of my gf's responsibilities is to counter balance my natural frugal tendencies and convince me it's ok to spend a little money on myself. Somehow, I have some guilt about spending money on myself... Perhaps it's the midwest upbringing, or the fact that some of my family isn't exactly rolling or just habit - not sure. Certainly some chick driving a 100k plus car would have a counterbalancing effect without even saying a word.

I've gotta get a haircut... and clean/fixup my condo =) and start making more money - LOL

I love being a Teacher

I'm on a teaching high the last couple days. I've always thought I'd make a good teacher, and over the years I've done a lot of unofficial teaching of classmates and coworkers; but since I started volunteering at Wintriss Technical School, I really am officially a teacher. (@see previous entry).
I've been teaching the same class for about 5 months now. It's tons of fun, very rewarding and definitely an ideal way for me to "give back".
I had an idea of having the school do some tutoring for intro programming classes for college students too, and a little over a week ago, got the first bite from a extension student. On Friday, met up with her at Chili's for the 5th-7th hours of tutoring on her final project. Initially she was struggling with the basic syntax a little and didn't really know where to start with creating her final project. What kind of introductory Java class says "build whatever program you want" for the final project? LOL - Deciding what to build is often the hardest part of coding!
I was questioning the decision to do tutoring for the first few hours, as the last thing I want is to get caught up in additional stress trying to get someone's project done on time. There's even an ethical dilemma since there could be situations where it's easiest to just feed answers/code - but that's totally not what I want to do - I want to actually have the student do their own work and just help them understand the concepts. In this case, for the rate that I was charging, I didn't feel obligated to achieve anything if the student can't create the code themselves. Ahh - the advantages of undercharging =P
After Friday's session, drinking at happy hour with coworkers while tutoring, which ended with getting her project (A TicTacToe game) done and seeing her happiness and sense of accomplishment; tutoring seemed like a good idea again. I think I also saw her improve somewhat in her coding confidence.

On Saturday, I taught my normal WTS class and learned that a scheme I came up with to get them coding at home worked even better/faster than anticipated. Two weeks ago, I gave them a code challenge to inspire them to get their home computer setup with the IDE, java, subversion, etc. I figured it would take a few challenges before they got hooked, but the first week one of the kids solved the problem and the next week he and his brother started working on making improvements to their Asteroids Game (the current in class project) at home. So rewarding to have that kind of response! I can see why people become teachers now =)

And then tonight, we had a teacher's meeting at the school. That was cool too. I've been involved in a number of startup business ventures, but this one is coming totally out of the blue. My motivation didn't have anything to do with money or even making the business succeed - I'm not even getting paid at the moment. Right now we just have one 4 pupil classroom, but Vic has a vision of expanding the business to 4 more San Diego locations and then from there creating 5 cluster branches throughout the US. I'm not going to worry too much about all that expansion, cause I'm totally happy just to teach a class or two a week - expand the curriculum, help Vic with programming concepts, etc. Would be ideal to find some contract work for about $125/hour where I can work in between 20-40 flexible hours / week depending on my availability... I am totally worth at least that much for a software development organization looking to improve their quality & development process, a software architect, or even just looking for a coder who will have a positive impact on the overall codebase, group dynamics, etc. If I had a position like that, then I could spend more time on WTS and other ventures/activities.