Sleep And Water

I just got back from Lake Rawlings, VA, where I earned my Open Water Diver certification in scuba diving. I signed up for the whole thing on a whim, but it turned out to be a pretty substantial investment of time, energy, and money. My basic motivation for doing it isn’t so much to go check out reefs in the Caribbean, as it is empowerment to be able to travel through a pretty fundamental part of the planet.

I have a feeling I’ll dive again, but regardless of whether I put that power to use much in my life, I really pushed my comfort zone at being natural and athletic in the water, and at taking some serious personal responsibility for my own survival in a foreign environment. Not to mention I got to meet some interesting people, and spent quality time with a couple of good friends who dove as well. Plus I saw my first shooting star ever!

The all-consuming nature of it – two consecutive weekends, and more than several hours of reading and test prep ahead of it all – made the rest of life a bit more stressful for the time, but it was well worth it. My instructor, Scott Kane, is leading another class in September and another in October, and I can definitely recommend it.

Google and Verizon issued a joint proposal on net neutrality this week. It’s terrible. The EFF breaks down why it’s mostly bad (with surprising fair-mindedness). Ars Technica breaks down how Google is going back on everything it’s said (and said strongly) from 2007 up until as recently as this last April.

The proposal is important because, despite the fact that it’s just a proposal with no authority, it’s the most serious attempt anyone has made to bridge the gap between net neutrality advocates (like Google….has been), and the telco industry. Well, actually, no, the FCC had issued some pretty awesome guidelines right after the awesome chairman Julius Genachowski came into office, over at OpenInternet.gov. But then the DC Circuit Court stripped the FCC of its authority to do anything with it.

You should probably listen to the EFF or other more thoughtful breakdowns, but I have two main issues with the proposal. It introduces the concept of “the public Internet”, and then whatever other services ISPs want to offer on the side. Perhaps a “more secure” online banking service, or a “better Hulu” with faster connections and more content.

The second way is that even though it does introduce a ban on traffic interference and prioritization for wired networks, it leaves wireless networks completely untouched. It states, correctly, that there’s more competition in the wireless sphere and that it’s a “nascent” technology – and then says it deserves re-evaluation later.

Of course, it’s the world of wireless Internet that, for all its competition, is currently the least open, and managed heavily by mobile carriers like Verizon, and companies like Apple, HP, and soon Microsoft (who all control their app markets top-down). Even the regulation of wired networks leaves wide open exceptions for “network management”, and removes direct rulemaking authority from the FCC to enforce any of it.

The fact that there’s a traffic prioritization ban on wired networks almost makes the whole thing worse, for setting a precedent at exactly how steep a cost that concession should come at – which is to say, it comes at the cost of everything else. Google has put up another post defending themselves, but it doesn’t appear to be changing anyone’s minds, mine included.

But unlike a lot of people sounding off around the Internet, I do not believe Google has “sold out” or is “evil” or never really cared about net neutrality to begin with. I think those are all pretty naive, and ignore Occam’s razor besides. What seems far more likely to me is a combination of two things:

• Google saw the FCC and its beautiful OpenInternet.gov get murdered by the courts, and have observed, as have we all, that Congress doesn’t get it, and probably won’t for another generation. With Obama’s clout waning, and Democrats about to lose seats, I think we can probably all agree that the chance for an underdog netroots-powered victory over the evil telcos gets slimmer every year. Google decided the best thing they could do was compromise.

• Google has a good business relationship with Verizon and figured that they stood a shot at demonstrating the ability for the industry to self-regulate, to fend off Congress from some sort of egregious intervention. Again, I think we can probably all agree that Congress’ idea of net neutrality would be little better. Similar to how oil regulators got real tight with the employees of the oil companies they were supposed to regulate, Google’s great relationship with Verizon made it difficult for them to stay as fiery about the issue as they had been in the past.

I honestly think Google believes that this proposal is the best hope for net neutrality that we have.

They are wrong.

Health care, financial reform – maybe those are worth the sausagemaking. But the global network for communications, publishing, and innovation that “interprets censorship as damage and routs around it”? No, we can’t compromise on that. Not a compromise as steep as this. Our future as a civilization rides on this issue.

With the political and industrial climate we have, I don’t have a great answer for how net neutrality can avoid losing, but it definitely involves at least two things. First, we need to tell Google that this isn’t acceptable, and to go back to the negotiating table and try again.

And secondly, all the progressives I’ve met in DC who campaign for Democrats and work their asses off for health care and climate change, but who give me blank uninterested stares when I mention net neutrality, need to grow up and learn about the technology issues around them. It’s embarrassing, and if this issue doesn’t spread outside the technocrats, there’s nothing we can do to stop the same old forces of greed and apathy from destroying what we built with our ideals.

Damn. These long year-in-retrospect posts take forever to write, so I’ve been afraid to come here and post. I’ll continue that series this weekend on the bus and train, and post regularly in the meantime.

In other news, I’ve moved into a very nice 1-bedroom in Dupont Circle, which has been very good to me. I like my new space a lot, and I’m taking a lot of care with it. Allie seemed a little penned in for the first week or two, and I think she’s been eating a bit less than she used to, but overall she seems to have adjusted to being in less space pretty well.

I’m taking the feeling of change around the move to embark on a number of extremely boring long-time priorities of mine, such as: digitizing the contents of my filing cabinet, replacing and expanding my wardrobe, implementing a backup solution for my computer’s hard drives, and organizing many, many files. I’ve actually been making solid progress on this and with every weekend I look forward to chipping away further at it.

These are heady days.

Best gentle electro-rap about the many troubling facets of being thirsty, 2010.

I was happy with how my last post about being 21 came out, so I’ll keep going. This blog is just about feelings, anyway. This one is a lot happier (and so probably more boring!).

22

I made Ruby and Rails a priority in my job hunt, though in mid-2006 Ruby was still very niche. I got a couple of offers pretty quickly – the first doing PHP somewhere for some small unmemorable outfit, and one at a fluffy-looking consultancy that offered lots of hours for a pay cut, with Ruby held out as a maybe-if-you’re-lucky carrot. I was unhappy and felt unemployable, and went through more agonizing indecision than I should’ve before saying no.

Thankfully, holding out led me to thoughtbot. thoughtbot is now a consulting giant in the Rails world, and deservedly so, but at the time they were a tiny and rather poor operation in a beat-up old office above a mattress store in East Cambridge – and they were betting their future on Ruby and Rails. It meant a substantial pay cut, but I liked the people and they had the same faith in Ruby that I did, so I took it.

After that, things took many rapid turns for the better. I moved into a nicer apartment in a better location for cheaper rent, and my new roommate Mario and I became excellent friends for the years since. I held parties, rode my bike, and woke up every morning looking forward to going to work. For the first time since my senior year of college, once real life was on deck, I was able to truly relax and stop thinking of the future.

I made my room an open space and filled it with light, and had my first home environment where I truly enjoyed working on projects in my spare time. I built a small music review/download site for beloved game songs called Klondike Audio. I couldn’t keep it up for more than a year, but it was a good experience – the thing I remember most is how immensely satisfying it was to be so motivated as to work on something for 12 hours in a row on a Saturday.

thoughtbot’s bet on Rails paid off slowly but surely, and we continued hiring awesome people. The culture allowed for everyone to be themselves, and I’m still friends with everyone I worked with there. Some are very close friends. Our weekly poker nights remain some of my favorite memories of Boston. We soon moved into a lovely, brightly lit office in Downtown Crossing, and we could all afford to go to RailsConf in Portland, my first professional conference and my introduction to the Extra Action Marching Band.

The Tribe collapsed, but I soon got involved with ImprovBoston and made it into an ex-Tribe video improv troupe, Neutrino Boston. With Neutrino I got lucky again, as it had a group of extremely talented people. I performed with a couple other groups too as the year went on, and for the first time ever I was doing improv work that I was proud of.

I had a pretty serious (and obvious) crush on my friend MaryBeth, but she was well and taken by a mutual friend, and so I pined in silence. At the same time, I was starting to feel like my time in Boston was coming to a close. I didn’t have a good reason; I had made many awesome friends, loved thoughtbot’s Boston office, had a great apartment. But I’d always known I’d only be in Boston for a couple years or so. It was time to go.

And I was thinking New York City. It was romantic, would be a bigger challenge, still reasonably close by. Since thoughtbot had ties in NYC and someone there already, I hoped they’d let me continue working from there. But come May four months before I’d supposedly live there, I had still never stepped foot in the place. I figured I should visit to make sure.

The train arrives underground and connects directly to the subway, and I remember being irrationally afraid to emerge from the subway station for my first glimpse at the city at 11pm to walk to my hotel – in the Upper East Side. But of course, it was bustling, gorgeous, and filled with yellow taxis with angry people inside. I finished my re-read of the Chronicles of Amber in the window of a cafe, and slept in a tiny hotel room on a plain white mattress resting on some wood.

I commuted into dense lower Manhattan for a couple days, and tried to visit every borough possible, logging each one with a new service I was trying out from my phone, called “Twitter”. It was beautiful and like nowhere I’d ever been before. By the time I got home, it was clear I’d be moving to New York City.

I did get to return to NYC one more time before moving there. I had a few mancrushes on people in Neutrino that I somehow transmuted into persuading them to do a unicycle improv show called Uniprov with me – and to let me submit it to the Del Close Marathon that year. When the DCM made the questionable decision to accept us, we swung into 2 months of intensive unicycle and improv rehearsal that resulted in a degrading and physically dangerous mixture of two ancient respected art forms.

Actually attempting to be creative and funny while riding a unicycle on stage proved nearly impossible, but failing at it on the UCB main stage in New York City was an immense honor. We did have a couple good improv moments, and Jack McBrayer complimented us on our unicycles backstage. It was the last big improv show I ever did, and Uniprov remains one of the most awesome and pure things I’ve ever been a part of.

Somewhere in the last few weeks I turned 26 – after years of denying it could happen, I can’t run away from my late twenties. But somehow, in the last few weeks before it happened, I started looking forward to it. Or maybe I just started accepting it with pride.

I think I’m a lot better now than I was 5 years ago, or so’s my mantra anyway. But I’m going to make myself go back over these precious young twenties in more detail. I’m not getting them back; I want to know that I spent them well. I hope I did.

21

Living with my recently-become-ex-girlfriend and working my first post-college job at a Worcester convenience store, my 21st birthday was by far the most miserable one I’ve ever had. We got dinner I don’t remember where and fought afterwards, I think.

But within a few days of it, I’d found my first “real” job in Boston, as a software developer at Tenebril, whose website at the time looked more like this. If you couldn’t tell, Tenebril was really silly. I worked as a “junior researcher” to support a mediocre product, and half of my work was barely skilled: observing the effects of software and following instructions. The other half was coding on internal projects without any strong oversight.

They paid me $48K, good for a new CS grad in pre-2nd-bubble 2005, and with it I afforded a too-expensive $725/month carpeted room in a 2BR near Davis Square, in an apartment complex. The halls were dim and my roommate quiet.

I moved my things from Worcester via Zipcar in an SUV, in two drama-filled trips featuring terrible fights and the hospitalization of a close friend. Both also ended with me making the final drive at 3am, nearly falling asleep at the wheel, to lay my possessions out alone in the parking lot of my building and carry them up one at a time until I could sleep.

Finally away from WPI, I tried to recover from the wreckage of what had eventually become a brutal relationship. During it, I’d discovered all sorts of terrible things about myself and other people. For example: one who loves me might still drag my ego over dead glass with intent to kill. Another: I am capable of seriously losing my temper even with one I love – at the worst of it, I broke my hand while punching a closet door, and then ripped another door off its hinges with that broken hand. That was 20, and at 21 I was left with a lot of self-doubt.

To fill the void, I joined up with The Tribe, a renegade improv theater whose website miraculously still exists. The Tribe was awesome, and some of the best young talent in Boston joined it. And then there was me – improv never felt like my strong suit in college, but I could use my basic survival instincts to get by. I barely made the cut at auditions, being initially cast in a bit role in a group called Sea Mission, and evolving from there into a regular player on the team.

I had a great time with Sea Mission, but my relations with other people in the Tribe were troubled. I got caught up in cool-kid syndrome and tried to hang out with the popular crowd, but they tolerated me at best. I got sick drinking twice that year, and my dominant memory of 21 is being in dark bar halls with loud music, thinking tipsy thoughts near intimidating people and trying to stand out. I wasn’t at my best.

The lowest point was a trip to Ireland in February of 2006, which even now fills me with a terrible resentment. I went with a few close friends and a couple less close friends, who I thought were all pretty cool. Unfortunately, they didn’t think I was very cool, and the initial minor friction that we felt at first, through my desperation and their immaturity, spiraled into something more serious, and the trip went very poorly.

A few days after we got back, one of my close friends relayed everyone’s collective judgment that they thought I had Asperger’s syndrome. They thought I wasn’t picking up their signals to leave them alone; perhaps they forgot that we were on a trip together in a foreign country, and that that wasn’t an option. I laughed at the idea of Asperger’s, but was deeply hurt nonetheless, and that was pretty much the end of my respect for everyone involved.

But since I was already low and vulnerable, I despaired and tried seeing a therapist a few times (not about Asperger’s, just insecurity). The therapist was pretty passive and I was bored, so I stopped. When the two less close friends approached me a few months later to see if things were okay, I foolishly and falsely laughed off the hurt and anger, and made nice. My cowardly refusal to call them out has left me with no closure, only a burning.

Eventually Tenebril went from a mediocre place to work to actually terrible, and so I spent the rest of 21 hunting for a way out. In one of my last weeks at that job and that apartment, I made a promise to myself that by 26, I wouldn’t be a full time software developer anymore.

“Labour without joy is base.
Labour without sorrow is base.
Sorrow without labour is base.
Joy without labour is base.”

John Ruskin

First and primary goal for next year: slow down time.