Enter Nerdy Fun Person

I wanted to provide a little background on myself, for perspective. Besides it’s my blog anyway. I recently did another MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) to help me better understand my personality preference and why I do some things the way I do. This was not some online personality thing, it was done by a certified MBTI instructor. My personality preference is ENFP (Extraversion-Intuition-Feeling-Percieving) with this short summary:

Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency. http://tinyurl.com/2ed46n

Continue reading “Enter Nerdy Fun Person”

Facebook Integration

Wow, it’s been a while (more on that later). I have found myself with a renewed interest in my own website, go figure, and decided to see what fancy things I could do with it. Other than getting most of it working again as it collected much dust and bugs I wanted to delve into the world of Facebook integration. For you non-programmers out there Facebook has this cool thing called the “Open Graph Protocol” that allows developers and other crazy coders like me to hook into Facebook with a website or mobile app, etc. Turns out this is really quite easy with a site like this. The only thing I really had to do was get an AppID from Facebook, install a plug-in from the WordPress community and viola, “Like” buttons everywhere. The coolest part is that once people (yes you) start using them it will generate recommendations in the side bar based on what people like. Very cool stuff.

For those that are curious I am using the Facebook Like Button and Facebook Comments for WordPress.

Edit (8/26/11): I have since quit using the comments plug-in, it just wasn’t for me. I would still recommend it if that is what you are looking for.

Programming

I was thinking today about stuff I’d like to actually blog about, and since this is what I do for a living right now, I thought I would start with something easy. Programming. Yeah, yeah, easy for me, right? Basically, I sit in front of a computer all day and make it do my bidding. Don’t worry, I only use my powers for good (right now anyway, muahahaa!).

The project I am on and have been on for the last several years runs north of half a million lines of code across 23 projects right now and I am one of two people that actively work on it. At this point, you could go over and browse through Dilbert strips (www.dilbert.com) and probably begin to understand about 90% of what I do on a day-to-day basis. Really, I’m not lying about the Dilbert thing. Continue reading “Programming”

a traffic story

I was driving down the 51 this past Sunday morning, on my way to church, with my dear girls & saw a cop car behind me. Now, that doesn’t make me nervous. I do a quick check of my speed & pay a bit more attention to when I am using my turn signals. I do not slow down to EXACTLY the speed limit (or below!), if a cop decides to pull me over only going 5 over the speed limit, then so be it. I am choosing to drive over the posted speed limit, so I have to own that. Usually the cars who suddenly recognize a cop car behind them do upset me (I don’t see the need to suddenly drive so stupidly), but most of the cars were already behind the cop. So, when I first saw the cop, I said “grr” in my head (just a little one), BUT then I was actually happy because for once, there was NOT that one or two cars going 90 mph on a 65 mph freeway! Those people really make me nervous! The death & destruction that can happen at those speeds! I have serious doubts as to whether there is an actual ‘NEED’ to drive at that speed at that time of day. (11 am or so on a Sunday morning). Continue reading “a traffic story”

bad days = lame

—Haven’t posted in awhile (actually slacking on my goal!), but I finally finished writing out this one I’ve been working on for a bit. :)—

I don’t like bad days. I think that someone who has battled depression has a more difficult time keeping a bad day confined to one day. {I battled depression for quite a few years. I used both counseling & meds to help me get to “my” normal. I am currently still on anti-depressant/anti-anxiety meds.} It takes effort to keep the bad day in it’s place. Sometimes it even takes force of will to get out of the mindset that turns the bad day into two or three, or even more bad days. Just like in relationships, you can get stuck in a rut. Stuck in a certain mindset, an attitude, a “bad day.” When you’ve reached the 2nd bad day in a row, then you have a problem. That’s when you realize that something else has to be done or changed. Now comes your moment of truth, do you take the energy, time & effort to get out of the rut? Or do you stay, mired in the muck of your bad couple of days? In my world, it’s a tough choice to make. The lazy choice is to stay in your mucky bad days. The healthier choice is to make the change to have a better day tomorrow. I choose a better day, chose the same and we can BOTH have a better day! Continue reading “bad days = lame”