Craig Constantine

Sorry, no actually I’m not

May 13, 2015

(Part 19 of 72 in series, My Journey)

So this happened in Cartegena.

This is funny, but that’s not why I posted this. See the bottom.

Imagine if you will, a bus load of 45 tourists — a perfect stereotype bus tour from a cruise ship. We all walk up a hill/road to see the Castillo overlooking Cartegena. (Very nice by the way! Photos coming soon.) Then we walk all the way back down. We reach an intersection, near our bus in the home stretch, and across the street is a small park with one of those long railings meant to keep people from J-walking.

The cross-walk says “go”, so there’s no traffic. Without thinking, I J-walked straight across and vaulted the rail.

…and I hear 44 people do a group groan. They had all followed me across the intersection and everyone had to walk all the way around the railing. (My mom shouted out, “Brat!”)

SO? Well, I did it without thinking, but FORGET ME.

Imagine what YOUR LIFE would be like if you vaulted a little railing after a long walk AND THOUGHT IT WAS FUN. What, really, is your excuse?

(…and if you’re in shape, or under 20, or can already vault a rail. Kudos to you! …but I’m not talking to you.)

My oath

March 21, 2015

(Part 14 of 72 in series, My Journey)

I’ve been slowly collecting small thoughts so that I could begin writing something about my journey. Over a year ago, I found an oath on Nerd Fitness, but hesitated committing; There are bits in this oath that will demand 40+-years-big-ship-small-rudder sorts of changes of me. I’ve been revisiting it periodically to see how it felt each time I tried it on.

I love it. I’m committing to it.

My oath:

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I shall make no excuses and hold no grudges.
I care not where I came from, only where I am going.
I don’t compare myself to others, only to myself from yesterday.
I shall not brag about successes nor complain about my struggles, but share my experiences and help my fellows. I know I impact those around me with my actions, and so I must move forward, every day.
I acknowledge fear, doubt, and despair, but I do not let them defeat me.

slip:4b24

Flatiron #1

August 18, 2014

900 feet. 6.5 hours of climbing.

It is 6am and I’ve been napping in the front seat of Mike’s van since 3am. I’m pecking this out, stream of consciousness, on my phone, racing the dying charge, with a sore right pointer finger. Other than some apples and oranges, I’ve not eaten a ‘real’ meal in about 20 hours. What we managed to do last evening is the most amazing, most challenging, most focused thing I have ever accomplished. Nothing else I have ever done is even worth *mentioning*.

We started on a whim at about 6pm: spreading gear out of Mike’s van into the parking lot as the the regular mortals stared. “Look! Real climbers!” From the lot we power-hiked up what, I’m guessing, was at least 500 vertical feet of increasingly gnarly wooded trail.

To the base. Of the biggest inclined slab of rock imaginable. We spent a lot of time going over gear, call-n-response stuff, etc.

And on my first day on real rocks, Mike started up the first pitch, dragging the “sharp” end of the rope, and setting hardware for fall protection.

“CLIMBING!” Then I followed.

We did seven pitches, meaning Mike climbed away out of sight, and set up. a belay position as high as our 200ft rope allowed. Then I climbed, picking up gear as I passed it.

Seven pitches. Three before it got dark. Four in the dark. (We’d brought head lamps. ) Oddly, the dark was WAY easier: All I saw was this rock, my hands, my feet, and the infinite piece of rope I was following.

Up, down, around, over. Literally one. Inch. At a time. I covered something approaching 1400 feet along the rope, 3, 4, 5? false summits. Where you scale a thrust of rock – rock sticking up literally into the Milky Way hanging from the sky – an inconceivable puzzle of body and mind, to the top. Only to find a little down climb, over, and up yet again.

Six and one half hours of, “I’ll move my left foot up two inches to that nice looking spot. Now, I wonder what’s up to the right for my hand…”

We reached the summit at 12:30am.

Then rappelled literally down into the inky black off the back. From there we walked down an endless foot trail and back to the van.

At nearly 2am. Where I lay in middle of the parking lot, flat on my back, enjoying the sheer comfort and staring at the exact same stars.

It was transcendental. It was Herculean (for me anyway. )

Now, at 6:30, my legs are a bit tired, my finger tips are sore. I’ve not one bruise. The sun has just popped up on the other side of the world. Climbing is not “my thing.” I’m never going to want to sleep in a park, or live in a van, as Mike does now without a second thought.

But.

My god! It’s full of stars.

Visceral

July 8, 2014

(Part 8 of 72 in series, My Journey)

My suspicion is that, in our convenient society, we don’t need to be acutely aware of our balance and body positions vis a vis the ground because many of us don’t do much physical labor anymore, or play freely as kids outdoors now that we have so many enticing computer games to entertain us.
~ Wayne Muromoto from, http://classicbudoka.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/90-the-base-close-to-the-ground/

slip:4uwote2.

More than a year ago, I wrote that parkour is about freedom (and much more.) There is also a visceral component that I’m finding is playing a greater and greater role.

Visceral, adj. characterized by, or proceeding from, instinct rather than intellect: a visceral reaction; characterized by, or dealing with, coarse or base emotions.

When you treat your body like a Cadillac meat vehicle – that is, when it’s just a mode of conveyance from one creature-comfort to the next – you soon cease to be intimately aware of what your body is feeling. A large part of the allure of parkour is the immediate and clear, honesty and reality of the experience of training. It’s obvious that your body and mind are not readily separable, but in normal daily life, one mostly ignores the body. In parkour, the body and mind have to work in harmony.

I have a lot more to say about this harmony (my personal interpretation, and explanation, thereof.) But for the moment, I’m just going to start with the above.

A deep sense of malaise

June 14, 2014

(Part 6 of 72 in series, My Journey)

You can harness and channel these needs, but a man completely ignores them at his peril. Modern men are told there’s nothing real about manhood — that it’s all a silly, outdated cultural construct — and they sure work hard to believe it. And yet they cannot shake a deep sense of malaise, and they don’t know why.
~ Brett McKay from, http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/04/21/where-does-manhood-come-from/

slip:4uaowe1.

I consider myself very lucky. I’m expressing my mid-life crisis in some pretty healthy and productive ways. Instead of going on a more traditional bender, I’m shaking off shackles and bindings that I in fact put on.

One day I realized that there is no longer anyone left to tell me what to do. Certainly one has responsibilities, but there are precious few of those which are immutable bedrock. You look at your life and think, “Look at all these ideas I’ve accepted.” When you pick idly at some of the threads, the whole thing comes apart, and you find yourself in a row boat on the sea — or on a bicycle on the open road (choose your own metaphor). On the open sea in a good way; You realize you are free, that in fact you have NOT always been free, and that there’s an awful lot of life left to live now that you’re ready to start.

What does “honest” mean in Kinokawa Aikido

May 9, 2014

When we opened the new dojo in Allentown, I sat down to try to write a short description of what distinguishes Kinokawa Aikido. I wanted to avoid pretentiously explaining “what makes it better,” because starting down that path will instantly close off the minds of certain readers. Instead, I wanted to lay out the hallmarks of Kinokawa so that readers could get a sense of the style at a glance.

There is a bit more at Aikido on the dojo’s web site. But here is the part about honesty:

A second hallmark of Kinokawa Aikido is that is honest — in the sense of being interested in honestly exploring Aikido as a high intensity [physical and mental], combat effective, applicable to your daily life, sort of practice. In fairness, practitioners of hard type martial arts will generally not consider any sort of Aikido as combat effective or workable in a real world scenario. (Obviously, we disagree with such a prejudged assessment.) But setting aside the judgement (does Aikido work, or not, in real application?), it is the goal of honestly exploring those concepts, within the framework of Aikido, which is a critical feature of Kinokawa.

…and here are some similar thoughts from Tom Collings, from Responding to Aggression – Part 2:

… The rule of thumb in military and police training, established through exhaustive battlefield and police critical incident research is: “if it takes long to learn, it probably won’t work under stress.” Yet, as black belt martial artists we take great pride in the techniques that took us many years to master, and it would be unthinkable at the dojo to teach only what is easily learned. Who would that impress? The other rule is: “practice what you will need to perform.” That means our training must very closely match what we will confront.

Do those of us in the aiki arts really believe that assaults commonly occur by someone running up reaching for our wrist, or striking at us from above their head as if holding a sword? I guess we do because we devote most of our valuable training time to these scenarios. If it is obvious that modern day assaults are very different from these classical style attacks why do we not modify our curriculum more in line with what we will actually confront?

Hello App.net

April 15, 2014

App.net is WAY cool

What makes it cool, different and BETTER is:

They built the PLATFORM, (the heavy lifting behind-the-scenes that makes it all work)
They wrote the API, (the instructions for how to build things to USE the platform)

…and that’s all they wrote.

Aside: Yes, they did write sample applications. It’s hard enough to wrap your brain around it as it is, let alone if there were no apps to play with. So they built a web-based front end called “Alpha”, (for example.)

You, (dear reader) do not “look at” App.net, and you do not “use it”. You use APPLICATIONS which are built on the App.net platform/API.

App.net is different

App.net charges the developers: They’ve built a stable, powerful and feature-rich PLATFORM. They logically believe that developers will be willing to pay to use the platform.

Developers build applications: They pay App.net for access to connect their application to the platform. For example: Tapbot’s Netbot app is a superlative app using the platform. (App.net also maintains a directory of available apps.)

People use the applications: You, dear reader, choose your favorite application. You can use the free “Alpha”, (that’s it’s name) web front-end that App.net wrote. You can also download an app, (some are even free) from your favorite app store for your mobile device.

So, for example, how do you find me on App.net? Easy: Open your favorite App.net application and look for “cc1315”, my full name, or my email address. If you like to use the “Alpha” web-based application, then I’m /cc1315 . So there’s you using an App.net application! Another example is the application I wrote, (it required three mouse clicks) which enables this blog to push my posts into the App.net platform.

Wait. Wat?

The problem with all the big-name social networks is that they built, own and control the platform AND the application.

By “problem” I mean “things regular-users don’t like.” For example: Ads appearing; Weird algorithms that determine what I actually see and which strong-arm content-creators into paying money to boost viewership; Posts that look like posts but are really ads paid for by advertisers. And things that limit content creators, like: Not allowing posts at all into the platform; Weird rules that limit how posting is done because they don’t want the users leaving the platform to go read content directly.

This is exactly WHAT WE DESERVE. The companies that built the platforms get to create the rules because they own the platform, control the API and they control the applications. The people USING the social network are the product that gets monetized. So everyone shows up, for free, to socialize. But then the advertisers buy-in to get access to all the people. To the people socializing, it feels like the social club is letting weirdos into the club who roam around asking if we want to buy things.

Don’t believe me? Here are some search-result links:

“why Facebook sucks”
“why Twitter sucks”
“why Pinterest sucks”
“why Instagram sucks”

App.net fixes this how?

Let’s think through the “problem” scenarios…

First, you do still choose who to follow. So let’s assume for this discussion I’m following a couple hundred accounts. (My friends, some favorite businesses, etc)

I see a post from a business, but it’s actually an ad! …how do I make that go away? Current social networks? …you cannot.

Aside: Yes, some social networks let you kill that particular ad, but there are always more to follow. In reality, you’re just TUNING what ads they will show you, not blocking out ads.

With App.net it’s easy: Stop following that account. (Or maybe contact them and say, “yo, less ads please” if you really like their other posts.) App.net won’t let them send you further content, that would be a lousy platform that developers wouldn’t pay to use!

So maybe that ad you see is being shown by the application you’re using… it’s not really coming through the App.net platform… Easy: Don’t use that application. Or maybe pay them to turn the ads off. (Look! An application ecosystem where great apps win out.)

But, (you ask) what If someone tries to write an app to spam ads into the App.net platform? It turns out the platform doesn’t have that ability. (The current social networks have that ability BIG TIME — it’s how they make money.) But App.net makes money from the developers, so they don’t have a “spam everyone” feature in the platform. That’d be a lousy platform that developers would not pay to use.

content filtering

App.net delivers everything from all the accounts you’re following; That’s why developers want to pay to use the platform; It works well! So the applications might filter, or sort, or whatever. (Maybe, show me more posts from my friends whose posts I favorite.) But that’s a feature that you CHOOSE when you select what app to use. Don’t like how the app filters or sorts? …switch apps!

content posting into the platform

Current social networks want you to use their apps to post content. App.net simply moves the content through the platform. (Which is why it’s a great platform that developers want to pay to use.) So anyone can write any application to post content into the network.

Closing thought

The only thing more cool (in social networking) than App.net is Tent.io . With Tent.io, instead of having one centralized platform like current social networks and even App.net, you have one giant fabric which is composed of everyone’s PERSONAL data platform. So Craig’s posts are on Craig’s platform, etc. Then the Tent.io magic moves the messages around between the nodes, prevents anyone from impersonating anyone else, etc.

But that’s another post altogether… :*)

Why Doesn’t Barnes and Noble Just…

February 11, 2014

Barnes and Noble is the last man standing, right?

They tried the hardware/tablet/reader game. (Kudos for putting their money and effort where their hearts are.) But they flopped:

Barnes & Noble laid off its Nook hardware engineers, according to a source that tipped Business Insider. The engineers were let go last Thursday, according to our source. This follows Barnes & Noble dismissing the VP of Hardware, Bill Saperstein in January.
~ From http://www.businessinsider.com/barnes-and-noble-hardware-engineering-staff-2014-2

Go over and search the IOS app store for “Barnes and Noble”. Nadda.

Free consulting for B&N:

Develop a kick-ass (ie, hire experts) app which lets me “use” the bookstore on my IOS device. I want to browse the ENTIRE B&N catalog as if the whole thing is the world’s biggest bookstore; Every book available this instant in every physical store (you can do that today on their kiosks in the store), your second-hand “marketplace” books, special order, everything visible in one app.
Do NOT make the app into Am*zon. I want JUST a bookstore. Am*zon is HORRIBLE at being just a bookstore; They jam all those ads/also-viewed, in my face, etc etc. Make a bookstore. In an app.
Let me START reading in the app. (You’re big enough to go after the publishers to get the rights to start this with some books. Other publishers will follow when they realize you’re selling books for the other guys.) A few pages are free to get my feet wet. Maybe the first chapter is available for a small fee (50c? buy.), and the whole book as a digital read, (when that’s possible) for a significant discount off dead-tree book price.
Meanwhile, I can click to buy the actual book.
Over the rainbow: Ship me the book, with a B&N bookmark on the page where I stopped reading.
Shipping the book to me? I pay shipping. (Unless of course I’m one of those B&N members, then shipping is free.)
Or offer to ship-to-my-store for free. (You ship truckloads there already!). See what you just did there? PRE-sold a book, and got me into your store for some additional impulse shopping.

Nice. You just made it the best digital bookstore in the world, and made it easy for me to shift sideways to a physical book because people DO still read dead-tree books.

Extra credit:

Come up with a book recycling program so I can bring the dead-tree book back to the store — maybe I can only do this with books I bought from you. That book can then be donated to a library, resold in the marketplace second hand, or you write it off, whatever.

In exchange for me giving you the physical book, I get a wee bit of in-app credit that I can use buying those getting-started reading excerpts. Now you’ve created a cycle where I buy the book, give it back and use the “credit” to get my next hit of initial reading, to make me buy the next book . . .

You’re welcome.

Our federal government has failed

October 17, 2013

The problem is not the problem.
The problem is your attitude about the problem.
Do you understand?

~ Captain Jack Sparrow

I think we need to reframe the problem so more people understand.

Civics 101: Are we on the same page?

I’m not going to discuss political parties. I’m not trying to sneak in the idea of “republican” to later make a case for a particular political party.

A federation is a government composed of several independent states. Each of the 50 current members of The United States of America are sovereign states which, through the process of their joining the union, have agreed to pass certain of their powers to the federal government. We, the individual people, are not members of the federation; The states are members of the federation. (May I recommend Wikipedia’s article on Federation?)

The distinguishing principle of a “republic” is that the activities of the government are public. To be a republic, the government cannot be arranged below a monarch, dictator (benevolent or otherwise), or some other (for example, a secret inner circle of corporations) inscrutable font of authority. (May I recommend Wikipedia’s article on Republic?)

The distinguishing principle of “democracy” is self-determination of the governed. To be a democracy, we need features that derive the government’s power from the governed people and that foster equality of each participant’s contribution. (Again, may I recommend Wikipedia’s article on Democracy?)

A pure democracy is one where the governed people may be fully involved in all decisions. A pure democracy of 300+ million people is absurd. But from the absurdity of pure democracy springs the idea of “representative” democracy. In this form of democracy, representatives are empowered to participate in the democratic process on behalf of the governed people.

The United States of America is a federation.
The United States of America is a republic.
The United States of America is a democracy.

By the way, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”, is the original 1892 wording adopted by Congress.

The Federal Government Has Failed

Yes, exactly! Craig, I know what you’re going to say…
Our military is too big! (nope.)
The 1% is getting all the benefits! (nope.)
Too many people live in poverty? People can’t afford health care?! (nope and nope)
Look at the national monuments being closed!
…the IRS tax system?!
…immigration reform?!!
(nope nope and nope)

My definition of, “the government has failed” is: When I am expending increasing amounts of my time “on” the government. We, the governed people, are spending increasing amounts of our time on our federal government, and I put it to you that this is the ONLY thing on which every single American can immediately agree.

I want to be very clear: I’m not talking about spending more time interacting with the government. I’m not talking about time spent filing your federal taxes, or waiting in line at some federal agency. I am talking about time spent watching news about the federal government, reading posts, (including this one,) and debating federal policy, activities and programs with other people. Wouldn’t you rather spend your time doing, well, anything other than spending time on the federal government?

Some people have “tuned out” of the whole thing. This saves their time in the near future, but turns them into freight stored in the cargo hold of the ship; Their future remains coupled to the success, or failure, of the country.

As a democracy, a distinguishing feature of our government should be that it enables self-determination. If I’m spending increasing amounts of time on my self-determination, then I have decreasing amounts of time to enjoy the fruits of my self-determination.

Is this definition of failure useful?

If we can agree that the government has failed, then I think we can start a new discussion.

Instead of discussing any of the topics on which we’ve recently focused, we could instead discuss the very nature of our government. It would be a discussion which we – those of us alive today – have never actually had.

At some point, you were told where to register, and were told to “do your civic duty” by voting on certain days. But aside from a wee bit of civics required in high school, did you take the time to learn and care about the nature of our government? (I admit that I did not.)

If only we could agree on the nature of our government.

My hope…

My hope is that you’ll try to change the topic of discussion the next time some hot political topic comes up.

The current discussions are an endless train of political topics. Last year it was [this topic], before that it was [that topic], and next year it will be [this other thing.] You must know by now that in 5 minutes at the water cooler, you are not going to convince that other person to fundamentally change to your view of the current political topic. So you are clearly wasting your time “on” the government by participating in political discussion of the current topic.

Change the topic.

Talk about the nature of our government. Talk about why our government exists. Talk about the origin of its powers. Talk about what specifically are those powers.

…and if you don’t feel comfortable discussing the nature of our government, then why are you comfortable being governed by it?

It is done fast enough when it is done well.

June 15, 2013

(Part 3 of 72 in series, My Journey)

Getting done right does not mean getting done slow. Getting done right means getting done fast. You will go faster if you do things right. You will go faster if you come down off the “high” generated by the illusion that effort is speed. You will go faster if you calm down, follow your disciplines, and refuse to rush.
~ Bob Martin from, http://blog.8thlight.com/uncle-bob/2013/03/11/TheFrenziedPanicOfRushing.html

While he’s talking about software development in general, and test-driven development specifically, this is true for – I think – everything. My experience is that this is true for software development, and other technical work. But it is also true of martial arts practice, parkour, games, building model airplanes… you name it.

The pervasive admonishment should be “do it well,” rather than, “slow down.” Do it well and you’ve – by definition – done it as fast as possible. What’s the point of doing it poorly? What’s the point of rushing to completion; If you didn’t do it well, then it’s not done.

Law of sacrifice

May 10, 2013

Society today tries to deny the law of sacrifice at every turn, promising people that they can fulfill their desires without having to forsake anything at all. “Lose weight without giving up your favorite foods!” “Get ripped without long workouts!” “Get rich without having to work hard!” The denial of the law of sacrifice is at the heart of things like our soaring credit card debt (US citizens currently hold $886 billion of it), not to mention our national debt. The fantasy that you can have whatever you’d like without ever paying for it is an incredibly seductive fantasy.

But it is only a fantasy. There is always a price to pay.
~ Brett McKay from, http://www.artofmanliness.com/2011/07/17/the-law-of-sacrifice/

slip:4uaote3.

“What does it cost?”

Over the years, I have talked to hundreds of prospective students who have walked into the dojo and asked about Aikido. One quickly learns that anyone who walks in, has some level of interest. So these are not cold sales calls where you need fast paced, hard hitting, sales tactics. People simply have some specific questions that need answering before the conversation continues to more general topics.

Some people are concerned about the monetary cost. That is important, and money should be discussed. But they should be much more concerned about the time cost of the commitment.

My explanation usually goes like this…

The cost of committing

One class per week is not often enough, and few people can withstand training more than three. So let’s say you’d like to come to class twice per week.

How much time is that? For each class you need at least one hour of padding — pack your bag, drive to the dojo, change before/after class, drive home, unpack, etc. Then the actual class time is about 2 hours per class. So three hours per class, twice per week: We’re talking about, six hours every week.

Now think about your life, and tell me about the six hours every week when you are alone, doing absolutely nothing.

So the real question is: What are you willing to give up from your current life to create those six free hours?

There’s no going back

Once you realize that your time is the limiting resource in your life, you’ll look at everything differently.

How much time do you spend watching TV? Is that time entertainment, family bonding, or what? Do you value anything more than entertainment?

How much time do you spend commuting to work? You clearly value something more than your time. (2 hours a day? 14 hours a week? . . .) What is it that you value so highly you’re willing to commute? …is it your children’s school district? …the size of your paycheck? …your career path?

Do you mow your own lawn? Do you pay someone to mow your lawn? Might you spend time mowing your lawn if it was mentally relaxing? …or if you push-mowed (sans motor) your lawn, and it was a means of exercise?

Do you get enough sleep at night? If not, why not? …are you spending time in the evening/night doing — what? Why do you value that activity more than sleep?

The Cat’s Out of the Bag

April 12, 2013

(Part 2 of 72 in series, My Journey)

If you want to repeat that little jump at an angle to a moss covered wall all day until you can do it with your eyes closed… well my friend, you are not alone. I want to repeat that jump with you. But let’s do 50, just to be sure. And one more for the others who can’t join us. That’ll do us both more good than that big roof gap whilst you hold the camera.
~ Chris ‘Blane’ Rowat from, http://www.parkourgenerations.com/article/call-arms

By now, all of my friends know I practice parkour with Lehigh Valley Parkour. I’m pushing 42, with graying hair and the BMI calculator says 34.9, (which is “obesity.”) So when people first find out, they raise an eyebrow and say, “You’re a brave soul!” or “Huh? The jumping from roof-top to roof-top thing?!”. …my answer is ‘no’ to both of those.

Please do not go to TouYube and look up parkour; Total waste of your time. This is one of those Catch-22 things where the people who believe — quietly, to themselves — that they “get it”… well, those people aren’t posting spectacular videos on TouYube. So you don’t notice their point of view on the whole thing.

I am not saying, “those people over there have it wrong.” I am not saying, “parkour is the One True Path(tm)”. I am not saying, “these ideas are to be found only through parkour.”

I am saying parkour is…

…a journey composed of tiny steps so easy that failure is impossible.

…the grueling, deconstructing, work of self-improvement.

…that well-earned sense of accomplishment.

…the joie-de-vivre that I hadn’t noticed I let slip away.

Playfulness.

Freedom.

…and one more for the others who can’t join us. :*)

Splitting Firewood

April 8, 2013

Red Oak round. Part of a standing-dead tree felled by my father in 2009.

It’s a beautiful Spring day — perhaps a little too breezy for the 50-something temperature — in the cute little neighborhood where we live. Laid out in the ’50s, our lots are about 60 feet wide and organized into neat rows of little 2- and 3-bedroom homes. From the back patio, I can see directly into the yards of at least a dozen of my neighbors.

We have a wood stove. It’s a magnificently efficient, modern marvel that fills our living room with the distinct glow and flicker of a one hundred thousand year-old technology. The little stove remains cold on the back, gets inconceivably hot on the front, and can heat the entire 1,400 square feet of our little ranch in the dead of winter. It does all that while consuming one big-ass piece of firewood every 90 minutes or so.

In other words, I’m polluting the world. I’m also releasing carbon-dioxide and a host of other truly hazardous chemicals into the neighborhood. (For example, read this revelation of horrors.) In my defense, this is Pennsylvania, the slopes of a wooded mountain start a block from our house, and every house in our neighborhood heats with oil or wood because natural gas is not available.

I digress.

I grew up in a house on a wooded lot, where loss of electric power was not uncommon in the winter. Every Spring, my father, (and later, my father and I,) set about laying up firewood. When he was younger and I was indefatigable, we would cut our own trees, or cut and remove trees for neighbors. The cut rounds would then be laboriously split by hand with wedges and sledge, (no fancy-schmancy log splitters for my dad,) over the course of weeks and months until we had a season’s worth of firewood. Each year we’d burn the wood we’d layed-up two Springs back.

I possess a swirled mass of happy memories related to a deafening chain saw — a kick-ass early ’70s “Mac10” (yes I still have it, no it’s not for sale) — huge bow saws, splittin’ wedges, mauls, worn work gloves, wood chips in all your clothing and socks. I distinctly remember being deemed too young to be allowed to swing the sledge, and being relegated to wedge-starting duty working with a four pound maul. I also distinctly remember my dad wincing as I quickly wrecked the hickory handle of his sledge hammer once I was deemed old enough.

Split your own firewood; It will warm you twice.

They’ve stopped already??

See, I started writing this piece because “the young kids” two yards over were splitting firewood, and I just noticed they have already stopped some time ago. ha! Kids these days.

We’ve a section of shadow box fencing on the side of our yard, so I could only see them in glimpses through the slits. But I could hear the whootin’ and a-hollerin’, and the not-as-rhythmic-as-it-should-be banging and whacking, and also the missin’ and cussin’ and the sound of a sledge handle hitting things.

I could see they were swinging the sledge the way one would swing a tennis racket for an overhand serve. They were hurrying the swings, instead of making each strike count. They were excited when the wood split, rather than being excited by the process of producing firewood with their own hands.

You see, to split with a sledge, you draw the handle back by sliding it through your top hand until your hand nears the head of the sledge. Then you send the head straight up, pushing with your lower hand that is at the end of the handle and sliding your top hand down to meet your bottom hand. As your hands meet, the head of the sledge is up in the clouds. Then — all together — bend your knees slightly, lower your whole body, pull down your arms, and bring everything to focus on the top of that wedge. If you’ve done it correctly, the sledge strikes with a solid BAM! and stays on the wedge with a succinct “da-tink”-sounding hop. When a log splits clean, the wedge sings out, “PLING!”

Last spring I split firewood for hours on end. Carefully. Methodically. For the long haul. While thinking of my father.

BAM-da-tink. BAM-da-tink. PLING!

Splitting firewood as a metaphor for life

Choose the right work.

It’s not enough to choose to do the splitting. You have to split the right wood, at the right time of year. You need a place to do the splitting. You need a place to stack the wood so your labors are ultimately useful. You also need family or friends with which to share the warm glow of the fire as the fruits of your labor.

Use the right tools.

A mechanized log splitter is fine for commercial firewood sellers. But humans splitting their own firewood use hand tools. You need the correct tools; No more, no less. Your pride in your work shall show in the maintenance of your tools.

Strike decisively.

Aim. Strike. Strike correctly. Strike hard enough, but no harder. Strike so that you can strike again and again and again, until your work is well and truly done.

See, this here our fathers wrought for us.

Our profession has a long way to go

February 26, 2013

Here is the 2013 Super Bowl Dodge Commercial, “God Made a Farmer.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=GdR5TOhHJGM

Here is the recent spoof, “God Made a Sysadmin.”

There are important differences.

Obviously the ‘farmer’ video is a commercial. It intends to stir up empathy and appreciation for hard work, solid work ethics, traditional American values, (and perhaps some spirit of ‘rally around the under-dog,’) and then the corporation hopes everyone will associate those positive characteristics with their product. (This is also known as, ‘Intro to Marketing.’)

The ‘sysadmin’ video is a spoof. It engenders a healthy dose of pride, enables those who work in the profession to smile at the references, and to have a bit of winsome fun.

There are also important similarities.

Both professions entail difficult work, (the type of difficulty is of course different,) and have clear work ethics. Without the farmers, or without the sysadmins, life as everyone knows it would end rather quickly.

But, here’s the rub:

The average person will understand all of the things which the farmers are said to do, but will understand almost none of those things which the sysadmins are said to do.

Sysadmins like to think, and I’ve said this myself, that they are part of a profession with a “long” history. In reality, computers and the profession are in their infancy. We have just 70-ish years of history if we measure from Alan Turing’s ideas, and we have just three different generations of people who have worked in our profession.

If we want to be treated as professionals, if we want to be individually granted a measure of respect based on our chosen profession the way farmers, doctors, and (some) lawyers are, then we must continue to work hard as we have done for 70-ish years.

We also need to work hard to raise awareness of our profession. We need to work together more, as a community of people, rather than an archipelago of individuals. We need to take better care of ourselves; We must not sacrifice our own physical and mental health at the alter of short-term advancement. We need to work to solve the larger problems — the ones which aren’t even system administration problems, but which are organizational, societal and philosophical problems — which put many of our fellows into untenable situations.

Our profession has a long way to go.

No this. No that. No delay.

August 28, 2012

“As a 6th kyu, I have spent very little time, and have very little skill at sensing the timing of a coming attack. Though my teacher has worked on this with us, I find I am slow at learning to ‘read’ my attacker, and rely on knowing what is coming and the very slow attacks of training. Have you any specific techniques for this?”
~ name withheld

I do have specific things you can practice. But first, I’m going to wander very far afield…

An aside for those not well-versed on Aikido: ‘6th kyu’ is the first rank one reaches in Aikido. “A minimum of 40 hours” of practice time is commonly seen as a baseline requirement in the various styles of Aikido. A 6th kyu student is definitely a beginner, but also definitely someone dedicated enough to have stuck with their training through their first real test.

Martial arts are mentally and physically difficult. Everyone is their own worst critic. When students express frustration with something, (a technique, a principle, etc) I often say, “that is why it is called ‘practice’.” My best advice is to simply practice. I assert that such advice is not trite!

“If you want to go east, go east. If you want to go west, go west.”

This is a handed-down quote which Sensei Wirth attributes to Sensei Koichi Tohei. It is clearly echoed in one of Sensei Wirth’s phrases, immortalized on some of our t-shirts years ago: “No this. No that. No delay.” So whatever is being practiced, do that thing, the whole thing, and nothing but the thing. Do not entertain some mental storyline about how, “this is a great opportunity to work on sensing,” nor “this is particularly hard so I need to pay special attention here.”

Simply practice

Physically, do only what must be done. Do not flail, twitch, wind-up in preparation, shuffle before starting, speak, nor any other of countless things. Practice being physically calm; Act calm until you are calm. Simply move. Move simply. Go east. Go west. Practice this physical aspect always and everywhere.

Mentally do only what must be done. Don’t have a running mental commentary. Do not think, “I did that one wrong”, “I did that one better”, “that one was horrible”, “my partner does this so much better than I”, nor any other of countless thoughts. Observe your thoughts, but do not add one iota of energy to them. Thinking, “I am thinking useless thoughts”, is a useless thought! If you were handed a large bucket of sloshing and disturbed water and told to calm the water, you should simply set the bucket down and wait for the water to calm. You would definitely NOT shake the bucket in an attempt to convince the water to calm down. You cannot think your way to sensing an attack; You can only NOT think, whereupon you will discover your senses work rather well.

Things to practice

1) work on not “missing frames” of the movie.

If what you see of uke were actually a movie, would you be seeing all the frames of the movie? Does is seem, in hindsight, that they teleported from their starting position to somewhere mid-attack? Repeat the practice and pay attention to when (which frame?) you first notice they have attacked. Continue practicing, focusing your senses on noticing the gap in your observations. The gap will necessarily grow smaller the more you practice this.

2) stay “pressed against the glass”

A metaphor I probably lean on too often. Consider driving in a car at a break-neck speed. Don’t lean back in your seat cowering in fear of whatever it is you’re going to encounter. (And which, at break-neck speed you could not hope to avoid and would therefore crash into.) LEAN FORWARD. Press your face against the windshield as if somehow getting a few feet closer to the oncoming destruction would somehow buy you enough time to avert the collision. This is a metaphor! Don’t physically lean perilously forward. Move your attention and your curiosity forward. Strain to reach forward with your senses.

3) practice entering into a swinging-jo-staff

Have uke hold a staff by the very end and swing it menacingly through a full range of arc; so the staff goes from behind on the right, around the front to behind on the left. You should have a good “whoosh whoosh” going on with the swing. If you get hit with the end of the stick, you’ll need smelling salts or a cast. Stand safely outside the staff’s swinging range and move as close as is possible remaining perfectly safe. “whoosh whoosh whoosh”. When the time is right, move briskly right up to uke without getting whacked.

4) practice atemi

The atemi should be the “affect uke’s attention and balance” variety, not the “crush uke and end the interaction” variety. Begin by finding (no small task, ask your Sensei) the atemi options for whatever uke is doing. Then work on noticing — actually thinking, atemi there, atemi there, atemi over there — several (all?) of the possibilities in each attack. Then practice actually implementing one or two (or more!) of the atemis.

Pardon me?

February 7, 2012

I lobbied for a new idea: Let’s stop talking to each other from different rooms. Let’s take the time to find the other person, and to wait until they are ready to listen before we begin speaking. I hoped this would eliminate the hearing-related false starts. But to be fair, we agreed this should be a two-way street; We would both work to try this new idea.

Everyone who knows me, knows my hearing is failing. Recently, I realized just how much of the communication at our house was frought with false starts. If my attention wasn’t focused on the speaker, we started most conversations with, “Mumble mumble mumble?” “Pardon me?” “I said, …”

It turns out, that it’s amazing how much this changes. As the listener, you have time to finish your thoughts. Instead of the speaker demanding your instant attention, you shift your attention when you are ready to listen. As the speaker, you place increased value on the other’s time. You have to invest your time to locate them, and then you have to wait for them to be ready to listen.

People are dubious when I explain this idea. It sounds exactly like the sort of hair-brained, overly pedantic, arrangement people expect me to invent. After all, it is hair-brained and pedantic. And it is life-changing. Try it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.