...to whom?

It's fun when people send emails with Priority: Urgent or Importance: High headers. I also love that Gmail ignores them. Like I do.

The Warehouse

A man came to the 15 acre tire warehouse and asked the clerk "Do you have any tires?" The clerk dutifully went into the back, and spent 10 days counting them all by hand. When he came back to the counter to reply "yes", he found that the prospective customer had left and gone somewhere else.

"Are there any?" is a very different question than "How many are there?"

Use SELECT EXISTS, not SELECT COUNT(*), for chrissakes.

*

I just got to work, and I only have a few minutes to capture this.

I was walking to work just now, in the -20°C Ottawa morning sunshine, and the sun hit the side of a building just right, and I felt really happy. It's strange how quickly it hits you, and how quickly it goes away again.

I distinctly remembering feeling the same way once when I lived in New Edinburgh, not long after I moved to Ottawa. It was a Saturday morning, and I was on Beechwood Ave just east of Vanier Parkway, walking down to the market. Suddenly I felt really happy and optimistic. Out of nowhere. It lasted a few minutes, then subsided.

What causes this? Where does it come from?

I'm confused enough already

It's funny. While I generally like to capitalize properly when writing, I rarely do in instant messages. I'm not sure why — it's almost like IMs don't deserve it. However, I'm pretty good about using punctuation. I think punctuation is important, but I'm sure there's lots you can get away without there as well.

However, if you're going to forgo punctuation in IMs, I beg you to keep one: the question mark. No piece of punctuation changes the meaning of a phrase or sentence more dramatically.

For example:

• you reviewed the document.
• you reviewed the document?

It matters. Come on, help me out here — I'm confused enough already!

What went wrong? Redux

My "What Went Wrong" experiment has been interesting. As usual, I haven't been fastidious about logging items, but I did document some situations. I'm glad I've done this: reviewing the file makes me feel as though this exercise is helpful.

At the bottom of each entry, I try to include a sentence or two about the lesson to take away. Just for fun, the current lessons are below:

• Start simple; don't complicate things unless you know you have to.
• Ask people when they need stuff done by; stay calm.
• Make sure the boss know what we're doing in R+D.
• Don't capitulate into other peoples' pressures that you should be doing a certain thing (except the boss's).
• Just because someone invites you to a meeting, doesn't mean you have to go.
• Don't automate everything until you know the value of automating it.
• A purist approach is no match for a pragmatic approach when you're trying to get something done.
• Take the time to write very clear specs, especially when they'll be going to outside vendors.
• Know your tools!
• Don't assume you did the right thing. Be careful when cleaning up your drive.
• Mac OS X is not impervious to viruses. You should not be a moron.
• Be very careful what you say when you're criticizing something. Think about the impact it will have on the entire situation.
• Know the problem. Know why you're doing what you're doing.
• When you feel like you're doing something wrong, you are.

What are the recurring themes in all of this? Focus. Thoughtfulness. Purposefulness. Competence. Simplicity. That sounds about right.

I'll continue with the WWW file into the new year, but I think now it's also time to start with the What Went Right file.

What went wrong?

Now, when I type M-x www into Emacs (apologies to that ~100% of the world that aren't Emacs nerds) it automatically sets me up with a date-stamped entry in a file called "what-went-wrong.txt".

Wait, let me back up.

I make mistakes. A lot of mistakes. They're mostly small ones, since generally I only do small things. But they get me down. Becoming older and less patient with myself hasn't helped.

They say it's okay to make mistakes, and I buy that. But they also say it's good to learn from one's mistakes. I think that's easily done for big ones. Touching a hot stove element, perhaps, or losing a bunch of work due to a tiny mistake on the command line. But for screwups that seem to occur directly as a result of my particular personality type, it's much harder, since these problems occur due to habits so ingrained in my being that they're part of my DNA. How do I learn from those mistakes, enough that I actually start committing them less frequently?

I thought about it a bit, and then thought: write them down. When something, big or small, goes wrong, I write it down right away in a simple, date-stamped file. After each entry of what the problem is, I write what I think might be the lesson to take away from problem to prevent it from happening again. I write the same lesson down over and over again if I have to. It's low-ceremony, and takes seconds. Then I review this file once in a while.

This isn't dwelling on the negative. It's just a very simple way of measuring where I should be focusing. If I screw up the same thing over and over again, maybe reviewing this file will shame me into actually changing my behaviour enough to minimize how often these problems occur.

When I start seeing some value come of tracking these mistakes and remaking them less often, it will be time to create a M-x wwr command. That will be a good day.

Brainworm

I can't help smiling between 2:18 and 2:25 of this tune, even when I'm up to my elbows in nasty MOSS viscera, which normally just causes pain, suffering and self-doubt.

Rheostatics moments

Robin's Rheostatics moments inspired me to write down my own. They are retold as truly as I can remember them.

[1]

1992 or 1993: I was at my girlfriend's apartment in a highrise on Richmond in London, near Western. The place where my car got broken into -- twice. We were getting ready to go somewhere, and while I was brushing my teeth or something, this weird video came on the TV, which happened to be on "Video Hits" or "Muchmusic" or whatever you call it. I never paid that much attention to it, but I noticed this strange video with a skinny guy on a frozen pond (licking the ice?) and this weird, jagged song sung by the strangest voice. Rheostatics? Hm... I filed that away for later. Of course, it was "Record Body Count", and to this day I've never seen the video again.

[2]

Maybe a week after moment #1. During my usual Saturday downtown jaunt I bought cheese curds and Guatemalan coffee at the market as always, but this time I also stopped into Dr. Disc on Clarence, and remembered this weird "Rheostatics" band. In the bin I found a Rheostatics tape with a big fish on it called "Melville", which I believe was the only one they had.

I probably stopped into Novacks for a few minutes on my way back to the market parking lot, and then hiked up back to my car that was parked there. (Not sure why I drove -- I must have lived at Adelaide and Huron then. The horror, the horror...)

Anyway, I unwrapped the tape and put it in the stereo of my '82 Civic (RIP -- sniff). I remember two things. Bink! That chord! "Joey pulled himself..." That voice! And then the bonkiest snare I'd ever heard. We didn't hear too many snares like that in those days.

I think I listened to most of the record in the car, and it only took a couple of tunes before I had this strange feeling: "This is the music. I knew it was out there, and I've found it! This music was made for me." It sounds stupid now, but I distinctly remember a feeling of... what? Connection? Timeliness? I mean, it sounded great, but I recognised something in there. It made a deep and lasting impression.

I listened to that tape a lot.

[3]

[This isn't really a moment, but more of a time span.]

Got the rest of the albums as they happened. Became huge fan. Went to all the shows at Call the Office, and wherever else. After seeing a few shows, learned that this band was to be responsible for some of the best and worst shows I've ever seen.

There were a couple of times when they seemed disinterested, almost sullen. The music was never bad, but there were one or two shows where it seemed like they were at a basement rehearsal that they didn't want to be at. They weren't even aware of the audience and didn't respond to or engage us at all. Those shows were bummers.

And a couple of shows that were just transcendental.

[4]

A minor one, but they were playing at Althouse College in London. If I remember right, Dinner is Ruined opened for them, which was pretty cool. I can't remember the show much, but I remember getting there a bit early and sitting down in the lobby with a friend, and Bidini came and sat beside us, and was writing in his notebook. As the cliche goes, I remember wanting to have something to say, but I really didn't, and so no words were exchanged. That was probably best anyway.

[5]

I'm too lazy to look up when it happened exactly, but this is the show at the Bathurst Street Theatre -- probably mid-nineties where Ron Sexsmith opened for them, solo. This was the first time I'd heard Ron, and he was awesome. I remember thinking a couple times, in both his singing and his guitar playing: "oh no, he's not going to make it!" But he always did; that beautiful, lazy voice fluttered up to the note he was going for, and the crowd loved it. He sounded fabulous.

Rheos were great that night too. That was one of the transcendental shows. Martin was in fine form that night; playing and singing like there was a fight to the death in his gut between an army of angels and one of devils. If I remember right, he might have affixed some black tape to his shirt to form a crude exclamation sign. Hm... that sounds made up. Maybe it didn't happen like that.

Awesome show, anyway. I think the CBC recorded that one.

[6]

October 20, 1994: this might well have been before moment #5, but whatever. This was a stressful night, since I finished up work in London, drove to Toronto, and broke up with my girlfriend. (As it happened, the same one whose apartment I'd first heard this band.) It wasn't a particular awesome breakup, and nobody left it feeling that great. But for some reason it was a warmish night, and I distinctly remember putting "Introducing Happiness" in the tape deck of the Prelude (again, RIP, sniff -- that car was awesome) and just cranking it. Speeding down the 401 back to London, leaky sunroof open, stars above me, singing along with Vesely one of the happiest Rheos tunes ever written.

As an aside, I haven't read a lot of reviews of Rheostatics albums, but I get the feeling that Introducing Happiness isn't viewed as one of their better ones. It sure is ambitious, and a bit wanky in places, but I think there are some gems on there.

Anyway, I won't forget the feeling of relief and optimism I had listening to that record speeding back to London on a warm October night.

[7a]

[Yes, these are hopelessly out of sequence.]

Bought Whale Music. Blown away by Self-Serve Gas Station and California Dreamline. These songs are still magical to me all these years later.

But -- I would get to Shaved Head and fast forward the tape, as we did in those days. I would skip Shaved Head. I would listen to the first few bars, and not get it: this is a boring, slow, two-chorder.

[7b]

I really heard Shaved Head for the first time, and cried.

[8]

Saw Rheos in the UW Humanities Theatre with Inika and Eric, which to me is worth mentioning only because I think it's the only time I've ever seen a show with my brother. It's also remarkable that we actually made it to Waterloo and found the theatre. No more details available; those two know why.

Also, Paul McLeod opened that show, and blew me away. He makes a lot of music up there for being just one guy.

[bunch of years pass, I get old, etc]

[9]

March 29, 2007: Horseshoe Tavern. It's the Night Before The Big Night: some penultimate rock before the last show at Massey Hall. There with a friend (who a couple years earlier had turned into a rabid Rheos fan; I like to think I helped.) Good show, but I thought I noticed something. Hmmm.. Martin's struggling a bit...

[10]

March 30, 2007: Massey Hall. The Last Rheostatics Show. It was great. There was so much love in that room for that band. I can't imagine what it must have been like to be up there. Martin sang his guts out, but his voice had largely deserted him. A bummer, but he fought it out every step of the way. Clarkie came up and played on Northern Wish, which was a highlight for me. It felt like a homecoming. The fake snow that fell during When Winter Comes. The jam in the middle aisle after the house lights went up, with kids running around, waiting for their parents to wrap up their last show.

I was there.