The National Debt isn’t a golf score — the lower it goes, the worse off we are. Neither is it a charge card with an unlimited balance. And while a $300 check would be nice, I’d rather earn it though the fruits of my labor rather than borrow it at interest from the coffers of the Chinese.

You have absolutely no idea how to balance a budget, do you? You can’t spend like a fiend and not have some plan for where the money’s going to come from. And accumulating debt isn’t a sound source of revenue — it’s a good way to hamstring the next generation at the very LEAST. If I were to budget the way the federal government does, I’d be on the welfare that you so vehemently abhor.

You want to fix things? Fine. Balance out the tax structure so that the top 40% of earners pay more taxes than the bottom 40%. Roll back the Bush tax cuts. Increase the capital gains tax. Fix the healthcare system so that at the very least I don’t have to pay $300 a month for my medication. If nothing else, end that fucking war.

Consider this a final notice: anyone who votes for that “stimulus” package will automatically lose my vote in the next election, even if it means I have to write in ‘Mickey Mouse’ on the ballot. I’d rather have a government that works, even if it’s imaginary.

Get the hell back to work,
Grant Dobbe

It doesn’t matter what it is, either. I look for the center line and midpoint of bananas, candles, throw rugs, tables, remote controls — you name it, I just do it. Everything. Even the internet. It’s something I’m in nearly constant contact with; I make my living on it, and it is a relatively large part of how I live my life. That’s why when I think about the internet, I think of example.com as its center.

It’s not a shiny or fancy site by any means. It’s not even a functional thing; its sole purpose is to be a URL that can be used in documentation and teaching. But it pops up everywhere in documentation, in default configuration files, all over the place in the bowels of the internet. If you look long enough, all of those links and references and pointers all lead back to that one simple address.

Just like the spokes of a wheel leading to the hub. And it makes me really happy.

It’s brutal, it’s cruel, and the Government of the United States
thinks it’s a good way to make people talk. I don’t. And my new goal is to spread the word and educate as many people as I possibly can so that we don’t treat the term “waterboarding” like we would the term “parallel parking”.

If you need a website built or designed, and you want to hire a freelancer, you’re gonna need to trust us. I look at postings all the time that say stuff like “must be local”, or “must work from my office for this project”, and I don’t really see a good explanation as to WHY you want this.

I want to work with you. I want to help you make your ideas and products come across to your clients. You most likely want to reach clients across the country, or even the world, regardless of their location.

So, if you’re willing to take money from a client who’s not in your office, why aren’t you willing to work with someone who isn’t?

Not in that I don’t want to work, or in that I cut corners. I’m talking about the kind of laziness that breeds efficiency. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever ordered take-out while moving into a home or apartment, or worked as part of a study group — it just makes sense to do it that way.

It turns out that it’s not all that uncommon a trait in programmers, developers, sysadmins, and geeks in general. It’s the reason why services such as SSH and VNC were written (why walk across the building or drive across town every time you wanted to modify a server setting?). It’s why we have modern object-oriented programming languages, and why every modern language used in software development has a shared library of common functions and data structures: C++ has the Standard Template Library, Perl has CPAN, PHP has PEAR, and so on. It’s common sense, really — there’s really no sense in building your own wheel if you already have one available to you.

The geek-minded laziness I refer to above also does another interesting thing: it inspires community. Hence, open-source software. If I want to put up a website with good, secure, well-written code that I can build on and maintain easily, chances are that I’m not the only person who wants to do the same thing. And if, instead of building our own content-management system or blogging software from scratch for every website that we ever create, we pool our resources and build some software for all of us to use, it becomes incredibly easy to set up, customize, and maintain our websites. When we contribute our changes and fixes and methods back to the community of people that want this software, the entire process becomes even easier.

We reap mutual benefit from not trying to reinvent the wheel (CMS software, in this case) over and over again, so we work together to build and mass-produce a bunch of really nice, really well-built wheels. And by making the plans for the wheels available (source code), we make it easy to modify, customize, and improve those wheels. It’s not just limited to wheels, either — it turns out you can build a lot of tools this way.

That’s why you see software like WordPress and Drupal used all over the place, and more modular add-ons for both of those than anyone could have ever imagined. That’s why I balk at building a custom PHP-driven online storefront when I know that Drupal and its e-commerce module can do the job better, if not just as well. And it’s the reason that when I find a bug in a Drupal module or a Wordpress plugin, I always try to fix it and post the patch on the appropriate forum: so that when I encounter the problem again, I don’t have to retrace the steps, and neither does anyone else.

It actually turns out to work pretty well for everybody this way. Imagine that you’re my client. Would you rather have me build you a site entirely from scratch for $5,000 and have to come back to me every time you wanted to add a feature or fix a broken page, or have me build a site using one of the software suites above for $1,200 and go to whomever you want when it come time to upgrade or fix something (or even better, do it yourself for free!)?

It means that I have to work much more to make a decent living, but it makes life much simpler for everyone else in the long run — myself included. Every website, server, desktop, handheld device, cell phone, and toaster that’s built on open-source software is simply easier to work with and maintain, which means that it costs less to work with and maintain.

Which means I can keep being lazy.

It may seem counterintuitive for someone who loves technology as much as I do, but I really enjoy shaving this way. It’s a surprisingly refreshing process that makes me feel clean, relaxed, confident and… well, masculine. It’s not just another part of the routine anymore: it’s something that I look forward to, and take pride in.

The equipment is pretty simple. Most of it is stuff I have researched via ShaveBlog and LeisureGuy’s fantastic guide to wet-shaving. Right now, I use:

• musk-scented glycerin-based shaving soap (obtained from my local barber’s shop)
• a badgerhair brush with a stainless steel handle (obtained from Target)
• my great-grandfather’s silver and nickel-plated Gillete Travel Safety Razor
• Wilkinson Sword Classic razor blades (these are leftovers that came with the razor. I’m going to run out soon, which means experimentation time!)
• Loreal For Men alcohol-free facial lotion
• A styptic pencil (it’s a chemical coagulant for stopping a bleeding nick or cut; beats the hell out of toilet paper)

I also use a Norelco Bodygroom for trimming my goatee and mustache.

You can get really expensive equipment, and I experiment with various parts of the equation as I run out of the consumables, but right now, this is working pretty well for me.

The procedure (for me) is as follows:

1. Shower.  Get a good hot steam going, get your face nice and wet, and shampoo your beard. The steam opens up the pores, and the shampoo helps to soften up your facial hair and get it nice and wet. I also use conditioner on my goatee and mustache, and I find that using a little conditioner on your face helps to lubricate the beard.
2. Dry off, but leave your face wet. Get your brush nice and wet with the hottest water you can get out of the tap (steam should be rising).
3. Gently shake water out of the brush until it’s dripping every few seconds. Swirl the brush around in your lather cup until the brush is saturated with a thick, soapy lather.
4. Rewet your face with a couple of handfuls of water from the sink, and then start applying lather in a circular motion. The idea here is to get lather all around the hair on your face so that it stands off of the face, and using an up-and-down “paintbrush” stroke won’t do that. Once your face is covered in lather, set the brush down (either in the cup or so that it stands bristles up) and let the lather stand on your face for about 1-2 minutes.
5. Fill the sink to about a quarter- or third-full with the hottest water you can get from the tap (again, steam should be rising from the sink). While the sink is filling, assemble your razor and put in a good, sharp blade. I shave every other day, but I have a thick beard, so a blade usually lasts 2-3 weeks for me. As with anything, your mileage may vary. Once your razor is assembled, dunk the head in the water for about 3 or 4 seconds.
6. Apply the razor to your face so that it stands perpendicular to your face, and then turn it slightly toward your face. The head of your razor should be curved slightly so that it sits this way naturally. Using short strokes and no more pressure than it takes to hold the razor upright, pull the razor across your face. The key here is no pressure. The blade is really, really sharp, and the idea with the angle and the whole deal is to allow it to do the work. If you press down on the blade, you’re going to irritate the hell out of your face and end up with the nastiest razor burn of your life (trust me, I learned this one the hard way). This is the coolest part for me; if the room is really quiet, you can hear the blade cutting through the hair on your face.
7. Depending on how thick your beard is and how sharp the blade is, you’re going to repeat step 6 about 2-4 times. Each time is going to be a different direction, and you relather your face each time; pass 1 goes with the grain (nap) of your beard, pass 2 goes against. Feel your face before passes 3 and 4, so that you cover anything you missed. I usually go with the nap on pass 3, and go against on pass 4, but with the line of my jaw.
8. Once your face feels smooth and clean, pull the drain stop and rinse out your brush. Use hot water until all of the soap is out of the brush, then switch to cold. Shake as much water as you can get out of the brush, and then leave it sit bristle-side down to dry.
9. Rinse off your face with cold water. You’ve just opened up your pores to make cutting the hair out of them easy, so you now want to close them up to prevent infection and to clear away any dead skin. Towel off with a nice soft towel, and let your face dry for at least 10 minutes.
10. If you need it, apply some aftershave lotion. I use an alcohol-free lotion because it’s not going to irritate my skin and (more importantly) dry it out. I use one with an SPF 15 sunscreen built-in, but you may have a different preference.

It takes a while to get used to, but once you’ve done it for a while, you’ll never want to go back to anything else. Your face will feel clean, you’ll feel good, and you’ll actually look forward to shaving!

i’m on a boat, in a marina just off of puget sound. i have a belly full of sushi. i have steady work as a developer, and the peace corps called me with a potential duty assignment. today, i saw no shortage of attractive women in seattle. tomorrow, i’ll sit in a coffee shop and work, no doubt surrounded by some of those very same attractive women. on saturday, we leave for vancouver.

i am so damn lucky it’s insane.

it is a rare day because i’ve never wanted to destroy someone’s career before today.

but it’s probably because i’ve never met someone so grossly incompetent and arrogant that they don’t even bother to do any research or ask any questions before starting something in which they have absolutely no experience.

what a fucking idiot.

service
noun:  1.h.  An act of assistance or benefit.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

 ”St. Olaf College…stimulates students’ critical thinking and heightens their moral sensitivity; it encourages them to be seekers of truth, leading lives of unselfish
service to others; and it challenges them to be responsible and knowledgeable
citizens of the world.”

excerpted from the St. Olaf College Mission Statement

i’m not going to lie. my job has stressed me out over the past few months, and a lot of days i don’t really get a great sense of personal worth and fulfillment from helping people put together websites to sell trinkets and t-shirts.

once a week, for the last four weeks, i’ve helped an 80 year old woman figure out how to use her computer. i take my cup of coffee and spend an hour or so answering her questions. occasionally, i’ll change a setting or install a program for her, but for the most part i just sit next to her and answer her questions while she sits in front of her computer. it might not seem like much, but when i leave her apartment, i feel like i’ve accomplished something.

the same is true for the last website i launched. i really enjoyed working with the northfield youth choirs to help them use their website effectively. i helped them set up a calendar, sign up for a Flickr account, and publish their newsletter in blog form. when the site went live, i felt very proud to have worked with an organization that encourages children to sing.

now, granted, both things were paid jobs. the 80 year old woman and the northfield youth choirs both wrote checks to my employer for the time i spent with them. but it wasn’t just work for me. i helped to serve people in a way that makes other people’s lives easier and more complete. because of me, the northfield youth choirs will be able to use their website as an effective tool for communicating with members and the community at large. because of my time, an 80 year old woman can now communicate with her friends and family more easily. i did something that made me feel good, and that gave my skills with technology a positive outlet.

i’ve always felt most confident and sure of myself when i’m helping others. whether it be helping a college radio station set up a streaming feed on the internet, or spending six weeks in the summer working with kids to help them learn technology and show them that being a nerd and a geek is ok, i find that i feel best employed in the service of other people.

that’s why i’ve decided that, in addition to graduate schools, i’m going to apply to volunteer for the peace corps and several americorps programs, like AmeriCorps*NCCC and AmeriCorps*National. god knows that there are people who can use help with technology, and perhaps this will give me a way use my powers for awesome.

anyway, enough of this deep shit. i’m going to go clean some more.