Walt-O-Matic

I’m frequently the recipient of recruiter emails that are looking for C++ and Java programmers. And, while I know both of these languages very, very well, I tend to avoid offers that words things in terms of just programming languages.

Consider a help wanted sign that said: “Wanted English Writers”

In this context it’s more obvious what’s wrong: just because you write in a particular language doesn’t mean you’re a particularly good author. And, even if you are a master at words, you might be unable to convey complex ideas to the common man very well. And, even if you can communicate with technical precision, you might not be mentally engaging. And, even if you are able to keep a reader, you might not have an interesting topic to address the masses.

There’s a reason television shows have writers, there’s a reason comedians have joke writers, and there’s a reason why books that you really enjoy are done by a small circle of authors that resonate to your liking. Mastery of a written language doesn’t necessarily make you a writer.

And that’s the fallacy that many technical companies make: they assume that because you can write in C++ or Java, that you must be smart, and clearly smart means good. Right?

Problem is, learning a computer programming language isn’t all that difficult. Learning to program well, takes experience.

Consequently, when I perform an interview with someone for a position, I’m more interested in the problem solving skills and interpersonal communication than how well they know a particular language.

And when I say problem solving skills, I don’t mean the Microsoft “why are manhole covers round” brain teasers. No, I present real code and real problems that’s representative of how my team works together.

What I’ve found is that there are actually three types of candidates that make excellent programmers, regardless of language:

• Mathematicians - these are people who clearly have a solid grasp of data structures and algorithms.
• Philosophers - these are people who really, truly, and deeply grasp the intricate details of logic, notation, and language.
• Musicians - these are people who intuitively see patterns and are extremely creative.

Whenever I’ve hired from these three groups, and the person has solid communication skills, and the person had demonstrated a personal passion for software development, we’ve always had resounding success.

And the funny thing? Those talented people know other talented people.

October 31st, 2007 - the intersection of Ashburn Village Blvd. and Shell Horn Road. My buddy Chris and I are driving, and a van races up next to us in the left turn lane.

I start laughing out loud so hard I almost wet myself while reaching for the camera.

I don’t know what was funnier, the fact that she was totally oblivious to her surroundings until the very last minute and we had to kindly let her over the solid white line into our lane or the idiots in VDOT who put a stop sign in the middle of a left-hand turn lane.

I swear, this picture is not doctored!

So I’m at O’Faolain’s Irish Pub in Sterling, VA and have to hit the little boys room.

The urinals had to been designed by the Thornton Burgess Toiletry Company.

The Baby Bear urinal was at my ankles. The Moma Bear urinal was where you’d expect it. And the Papa Bear urinal was at my chest. Seriously.

Take a look at where would “it” would have to be and use the standard height of a stall’s handle as a reference point.

I guess Andre the Giant was Irish.

While at the Milwaukee Custard, just off Ashburn Village Blvd. in Ashburn, VA, I noticed a sign:

Midget Pickles?

Shouldn’t that be Little People Pickles?

Marcus and I are driving on Waxpool Rd. in Ashburn, VA and he notices his car indicates he’s got low tire pressure. We look up and see signs all from the main road that the Shell station has Free Air, so we pull in.

However, turns out the “free air” costs 75 cents every three minutes.

Only after you read the super fine print, do you discover that the air is free with a fill up. So we did that. And, $48 later, we got our free air.

Come on Shell, that’s a little deceptive.

There’s a fairly large chance that you’ve been to a Japanese Steakhouse before. You know the kind, where you sit down at a huge flat grill, the chef comes out and whips knives and spatulas around his fingers, throws food here and there, and you’ve got yourself a meal.

When it comes to the part with tricks using fire, I’ve often thought: “I could do that myself!”

And I’d be wrong.

Last night I had a chance to eat at a Japanese Steakhouse where the chef was brand spanking new, and it was his first day on the job. I figured I’d use his experience as the best-possible-scenario for what would happen if I disregarded the disclaimer from the experts and tried this at home myself.

Wheeling out the cart was the first sign something was amuck; because rather than smoothly docking it into position, this cart gave him as much trouble as a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel gives me.

His execution of the spinning spatula was acceptable, but nothing impressive. No speed. No flare. The knife he just waved around, it was clear he didn’t want to let go of it.

With smiles, he dumped a blob of rice at the top of the grill and went to do the “egg roll” trick, where one spins an egg real fast and picks it up on the blade of the spatula. First attempt and the egg was running all over the hot grill. Second attempt it leap of the spatula and into the rice. He was expecting it to go into his hat.

Things calmed down at that with the eggs. He tossed them, not as high, but they missed or bounced off the edge, and soon he was out of eggs.

Then he decided to do some fire. Normally you draw a smiley face with one bottle, squirt a bit from another, light it from afar, and the blaze lasts an instant.

I said normally.

No, this guy lit the stuff in the middle of the grill with a match. A match. And that made a fireball. Which, still with the container in his left hand, he proceeded to squirt more fuel into. It was lighting gasoline.

I know from back where I was sitting, the heat was over powering. His exposed hand was in the middle of it for a moment. He cooled it off with a moist towel.

Chopping up stuff, he did pretty well. The objects weren’t moving, and he further used the spatula as a guide to keep the knife straight. But simply slicing food - slowly - wasn’t entertaining us.

To recapture our attention, he build a volcano out of onion slices. Again, how this works is that you put a little of bottle A and a little of bottle B, and you get a flame near it. It produces a small flame, to which you sprinkle spices in, and it looks like sparks. Why they call out “Chinese Fireworks” in a Japanese Steakhouse, I’ll never know. But then the flame goes out, and with a small push, the trapped steam makes a tube of “smoke”, as the chef pushes it forward slowly while rapping the spatula like a train bell.

Again, normally this is what’s supposed to happen.

He pours in a lot of bottle A and a lot of bottle B, and strikes his match, holding it directly over the spout.

This reminds me of the old fashioned commercial from the gas company which showed a gas filled room with people sitting in it smoking and talking. The point was, gas is safe. In order for it to become explosive, the gas to air mixture has to be right. Too little, and nothing happens. Too much, and like the commercial, nothing happens.

Well, there was so much stuff the chef put in, that it extinguished the flame. And that sent him off looking for more matches.

In the short time he was doing that, the liquid in the volcano was boiling away. So when he struck the second match next to the volcano, there was an enormous hovering gas cloud that suddenly became visible as it burst into flame. It was like someone cast magic missile on the darkness.

The tiny volcano literally roared as a jet like flame came spewing from it, and it was at this moment I could see the worry in his eyes. It was so hot that his recoil sent his spatula flying, and when he picked it up and set it at the other side of the table, he slathered the handle in butter. Which he noticed the next time he went to move it.

When the flame finally went out, billows of steam poured forth. It too had a low rustling whistle, something else I didn’t think was possible.

After wiping off his spatula, he refocused on just getting the food to us. And, yes, it was delicious. No complaints there.

We thanked him kindly, as he banged into his cart and tried to wheel it away with just as much trouble as his arrival.

It was at that point I thought the better to myself: this guy is a professional, he’s been trained, and this is his first day infront of customers. Imagine what would have happened if I tried this on my own, which we all know I’d do without supervision.

I don’t know which would be worse, discovering that we didn’t have a halon fire extinguisher at my instant disposal, or that the door to the ice trays and medicine cabinets are hard to open when you slice off all your fingers.

Either way, now we’ll never know. He put the fear of God into me about accepting my own limitations.

Those who know me have come to terms that I’m interfaced into the Internet almost in real time. eMail is always the best way to reach me. When I’m sitting in front of a terminal, whether for work or pleasure, numerous chat clients are active in the background. Even away from a machine, my phones and automated scripts keep some kind of virtual presence active of one form or another. As a result, friends, family, and co-workers can see my status, location, and reach me with impressively short response times.

Today something interesting happened.

Last night, I was working on a fairly complicated piece of code and had set up a rather complex environment that I didn’t want to have to reinitialize in the morning. Rather than shutting down the machine, I took all my instant messaging clients off-line, and this morning I didn’t start them up, relying on the built-in chat facilities of Google’s GMail.

However, as I was researching, I accidentally closed the GMail window unknowingly, and to the Internet, I went dark.

I had not realized how connected I had become, using chat and emails as a primary means for others to reach me. Well, that was until a co-worker came rushing in to see if I was alright with genuine concern.

He was fairly certain I was in the next room, his email didn’t get a near instant reply, and there was no way to reach me interactively. For anyone else, this would have been no big deal. However, my heart was warmed by this sincere response.

Yes, folks. If my Borg-like collections goes down, please check on me. I might have died or be in need of immediate medical attention.

This morning as I was leaving the house to go to work, I gave the wife a hug and a kiss goodbye. And let me tell you, she smelled awesome.

So, I stuck around an extra minute.

“You smell fantastic! What are you wearing?” I asked, plowing my nose behind her ear.

She thought, “Uh, nothing. Maybe it’s the laundry?”

I smelled the fabric of her soft shirt. Instantly the scent of wild flowers, babbling brooks, and summer breezes sent me reeling into fond memories.

Without thinking, I replied “Yup. That’s it. You should wear clothes more often!”

She went red.

Apparently I like my women dressed. I didn’t know that about myself.

So some of our really cool friends who live in the neighborhood hold this amazing backyard party each year, in which they rent an enormous water slide that’s about as tall as their two story house.

The day after the party, their real friends head back over to help clean up. And that was what we were doing tonight.

As it started to rain outside, we all gathered the external lights, furniture, food, tables, and so forth. I made a run for a huge extension cord, feeling that electricity and water wouldn’t mix.

Their little girl decided to help me. And, while untangling the cord, she engages me in the most adult conversation that I’ve had with her in the past three years.

She begins, “So, how come you didn’t go down the water slide with me?”

“Well, we had some friends come over, and they wanted to talk.”

“I know. That’s all you do guys do is talk. It’s so boring.”

Remembering this feeling exactly while I was a kid, I thought I’d get her perspective. “Yeah, I know - what should we be doing?”

She paused, placing her finger on her chin. “I think you should do video games and play board games more.”

With a look that I had been given total enlightenment, I replied: “Oh my gosh, I feel like I’ve just been wasting my whole life away.”

“I know,” she agreed a little too quickly.

“Where’s you learn all this?”

She puffed out her six year old chest with pride. “I’m in the first grade.” And as I took in her achievement, she added “Yes, it’s true. I graduated from pre-school. I’m very, very smart.”

And together we wrapped up the rest of the cord, she carried it in, and I went down stairs to play video games with the adults. Honest to God, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.

True story.

I was standing at a urinal when my iPhone rings. Now, normally I don’t answer the phone while in a restroom, but I was curious as to who was calling me as I haven’t made the number widely public yet. A huge green banner said it was my wife.

It was at that moment I woke up.

Or, more accurately, half-way woke up.

It was the middle of the night, I was under the covers, and when I turned my head, I could clearly see my wife sound asleep, and beyond her, my iPhone sitting in the charger, dark.

Yet, still half asleep, I could still ‘hear’ my iPhone ringing in my dream. Curious now as to what would happen, I decided as an experiment to answer it. I closed my eyes and instantly I was back in the dream in front of the urinal holding the phone.

I touched the answer button, lifted the phone to my face, and crystal clear I heard my wife say, very annoyed at me: “Clearly, you aren’t getting the symbolism here.” And then she abruptly hung up on me.

So, I put the iPhone in my pocket, woke up, and made my way to the rest room.

[Is this the first recorded iDream?]