I feel like some of the best conversation comes from just blabbering on with a good friend who doesn't mind when thoughts aren't fully formed and you're not telling a cohesive story. These are the conversations that are most raw and to the core of who we are and what we're thinking. I shared a conversation like this with my buddy John as we walked home from Cleveland Park just now.

Wendy kept coming up in conversation, probably because her coming into my life is the absolute best thing to ever happen to me, and I like to talk about us a lot. My analytical mind goes off on tangents trying to explain how we've gotten where we are, and justifying how quickly things have progressed for us. In the end, I feel pretty strongly that our faith and confidence in our relationship is something that "we just know." We're still growing together, but things are going insanely well and I can't imagine myself without Wendy. It's really great even to share ourselves with each other over 7000 miles away. So I'm chalking our relationship up as a success story. Hehe.

For a while I've wanted to relate to my single friends some truths about how to have things work out, since it was something I wondered about over the years. I'm not any kind of love guru or anything, but I have a few experiences that might be repeatable. I wish there was some kind of formula or guidelines that can help everyone who wants to, to find their Wendy. Maybe that's cheesy or hokey, but I wish everyone could share in this energy.

Relating that you'll just feel something different when "it's right" may not be terribly helpful advice for someone seeking love, so here's something a bit more substantial. Granted, these are mostly general truths about life that have many volumes dedicated to them, but this one is mine . I do want to pay some tribute to Beyond Your Best, an experiential leadership program I was part of in Indianapolis last year. That program helped me learn to love identifying and applying ideas like these to my life.

Know and love yourself first. You've heard this one before. Part of the reason I feel that nobody's really questioned how fast Wendy and I have moved (sometimes I expect it; we've progressed quickly!) is that we're both mature and adaptable, and we know that we're worthy of love and awesomeness. And not just that we're old enough and have had a variety of experiences. We've had experiences and loves and losses that have helped us shape what we know what want in a partner, and these mesh pretty much exactly with each other. We also have considered carefully which of the basic tenets of being with someone are most important (complete openness, mutual and intense attraction, overlapping interests, to name a few of what I'd say we share).

Be open to the path being different than you think. Wendy and I were friends for almost a year before we grew into something more. Once the moment was right for both of us, the energy shifted in an amazing way and one of my best friends became my greatest friend, most loving partner, and the most joyful and interesting match I could hope for. Part of why this happened is because we were both receptive to it, even though it may have looked differently than we both anticipated.

Put it all on the line. Don't be afraid of who you are, what you've done, or what you're thinking. I think great relationships are ones where you're accepted for who you are, even when it's difficult.

Anyhow, I hope it's possible to look past my gushing about the love of my life and get some value out of my blabbering. In the end, I know Wendy and I aren't uniquely equipped for being in love. Anyone can create this for themselves. And they'll just know, too.

The rationalist in me says to take it easy because we’ve not been together that long, and that the completely amazing conversation and ability to relate to one another transparently and completely might not last, and that her gorgeous smile, cute freckles, amazing eyes and sexy body are just. er, wait. that’s not the rationalist…!

Rationalist, schmationalist. I’m in love.

Every single cheesy love song applies, and has suddenly become more interesting to hear. All euphemisms and movie quotes about love apply. All the good stuff that “they” say about true love is all there. Delilah would have 1000’s of songs to dedicate to our love.

Since we grew from being good friends, I think there’s less of a risk of feeling blinded by these feelings and ignoring innate differences that would make being together challenging or impossible. But what’s cool is that Wendy and I like to talk about things. Hard things. Money. Living arrangements. Careers. Kids. The future. The past.

We’re both really analytical and have a strong need to think things through, so I’ve even bought a book of questions about relationships that we’ve started to discuss. We even have expressed some differences of opinion, which I think is good right!? Though, I forget what those were…

Apparently my serotonin levels are pretty low because I’m pretty much only thinking about Wendy. I want to spend every waking moment until she returns from Rwanda talking to her, texting, emailing, and blogging about her. And when she gets back I want to make her a dance song playlist on the Zune, cook her dinner, brush teeth with her, hold hands, watch movies, go on fun dates, hold and kiss her, and hang out with her. And whatever else comes up. I don’t care. It just needs to be with her.

In addition to the totally awesome puppy love type stuff in my heart, there are some solid foundation type things that we share that I think may be rare, which just adds to the excitement.

We haven’t had much conflict but we’ve had a few challenges. Her being about 7,000 miles away right now and for much of this year is straining on our ability to relate, and the physical separation can be really tough. Reconciling a few past experiences was a difficult but powerful experience to share and to continue to occasionally deal with together.

Wendy’s an amazing friend. Even when she’s frustrated or upset at something (for instance, both of the times I’ve screwed up, hehe), I know what’s coming up. What comes up is a really caring, empathetic and respectful conversation. We both really care about each other and our relationship, and it comes through in how we relate.

For my part, I’ve been doing a lot of talking, which doesn’t fit my historical profile (I’m the guy who got referred to the counselor because I wasn’t talking much in elementary school). Even conflict. I don’t shy away from disagreeing or making my desires known with Wendy because I know how important (and sometimes interesting) it is for us to work things out. I feel so incredibly comfortable sharing with Wendy that I think that when we talk, there’s a direct line between my heart and my mouth, skipping my brain. And my heart has a lot to say.

So we nail the communication piece. We’re really attracted to each other, we have lots in common, have oodles of fun and we share well. What’s not to love? Nothing, I say!

It's 6:08AM and I just spent 30 minutes categorizing and tracking my finances on Mint.com and logged into WoW to knock out my 4% to level 73. This is a screenshot of what I had on my two monitors just now. Apparently I like pie graphs a lot. Haha.

The top graph is analysis of the healing I did on my priest in the instance dungeon I ran last night (Prayer of Mending on top in red and renew in green) and on the bottom, green is my Africa ticket which cost just about the same as my rent (in orange).

I've gone into great lengths on this blog to be transparent about my wavering decision to play World of Warcraft. It's interesting, provides some virtual accomplishments, is the ultimate escape from struggles of life, and is something I feel better-than-average at.

Today I took a day-long series of training classes presented by other Microsoft consultants in the DC area. They're passionate people, doing things they enjoy and extending their technology interests into their hobbies and sharing the outcome of those outside projects with others.

This got me thinking. One element to the life equation that I've learned to ignore, or maybe just hadn't thought of deeply enough just yet, is that I should probably focus most of my time on the things that I'm most passionate about. My family and friends probably deserve more of the slice than I give them, but that's a topic for another day.

In relation to my interests, playing video games isn't my #1 passion. They're fun, and WoW is a really good one. However, tinkering with software, creating widgets and making computers do things would definitely come out on top. I have a great opportunity with Hands on DC to create some powerful software to help a group that I feel is important, and I haven't done much to take advantage of it. Thankfully my coworker has stepped up and is pumping out a nice application that meets the group's needs, but still, where have I been?

I have been playing WoW. In the past 11 days (since my girlfriend left for a work trip to Africa), I transferred Bleurgh, my dwarf rogue, to the Fizzcrank server, leveled him from 61 to 66, upped his fishing skill from 287 to 345, leveled mining from 1-315, cooking to 358, and got caught up with the max (325) on lockpicking. I also made about 500 gold and completed several achievements in fishing, exploration, and quests. I learned some nice cooking recipes and created a Zapthrottle Mote Extractor with my engineering skill so that I can get motes from gas clouds in Outlands. The short-term goal is to burn through quests in Outlands so I can see the new zone, Northrend, to quest and do instance dungeons there. Ultimately, I'd like to be 80 and get back into running instances with a good group. I joined a guild with my buddy Josh from Indiana, and we've been having fun keeping tabs on each other and occasionally working on the same things.

I've been playing a lot even though some key people in my life don't like it. And they have reason not to. I become more focused on those tasks than my relationships, I lose time that could be spent more productively, and my health suffers.

Oddly, all those negatives would also be the case if more accurately allocated my time to my passions. As a coder, I'll be just as antisocial, I'll just have "something to show for it"...maybe.

There's an opportunity to see if I can be passionate about WoW, however wasteful that might seem. I'm considering writing more about my adventures and participating more in the community.

It's all kind of jumbled in my head, as it is every time I think about leaving. Maybe my passion lies in resisting the draw and temptation of the game, and writing about my struggles.

There has been a trend among a few friends to use social media to propagate generally negative thoughts and ideas. These are typically well-received and followed by a circle of virtual hugs.

There is therapeutic value in airing grievances to the world. I've been there. I've done it. Heck, maybe I'm doing it now. In fact, I'm a proponent of using whatever mental and social tools work for people. Expressing shame, paranoia, anger or irritation is a coping tool, and an important one.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." -Aristotle

When this becomes the status quo, I become annoyed. I don't casually accept when others lay down their power and become victims of circumstance. Negativity is lauded by negative people, and attracts like-minded others. It's exclusive.

I've taken steps to avoid the circle of commiseration, mostly because it's uninteresting to me, but I feel like I want to dig back in and call people on it. As a caring person, I feel it's my duty to encourage others to see that there is a choice to be empowered by decisions to move on and to look forward at possibility.

Is it my place? Positivity, religious choices and value systems can also be exclusive. My preaching the value of living an upbeat life filled with hope and promise for future success may be analogous to someone telling me that Jesus is the answer. Maybe they're right. I've seen others have some success with religion, but I've decided that it's not for me. So I can listen to the arguments, but they just go out the other ear.

Regardless, I find it impossible to believe that anyone has made a conscious choice to not be a positive force in his or her own life! To that end, I urge you to refute the practice of introducing negativity into each others' lives, and keep a keen eye out for ways to encourage each other in upbeat ways.

I've been sloppy with my money. I haven't paid much attention to my cash flow unless my accounts get low, and I don't do much to try to save money on purchases and eliminate unnecessary fees. I intend to pay attention this year.

Here is how I intend to become fiscally disciplined in 2009:

• I will negotiate lower interest rates on my credit cards by working with a debt counselor or relief agency. [Consolidated my credit cards on Jan 14th into a loan with a fixed interest rate. Making payments to eliminate debt in 48 months]
• I will reduce my car insurance payments by negotiating with Allstate or switching providers if they will not reduce my premium*. [completed 1/2/2009]
• I will set up a new ING savings account* [Completed 1/16/2009] and maintain a minimum balance of $2,500** so that I don't have to use credit cards for minor emergencies.
• I will establish a new monthly IRA investment of 3%*. [Rescinded. This doesn't make sense with my credit card debt.]
• I will continue to contribute to my 401(k) in order to maximize my employer's match.
• I will pay all of my bills on time in order to avoid late fees. [I screwed up already, but I learned my lesson. $179 for late rent is not ever going to happen again.]
• I will actively maintain a monthly budget and make spending decisions based on it.
• I will only withdraw cash from ATM machines when I have money in my USAA account (which refunds ATM fees).
• I will cut down food expenses by using one restaurant coupon per week and by limiting the number of expensive (>$30) meals to four each month.
• I will not buy new electronic hardware for personal use in 2009.

*by February 1st, 2009 **by April 1st, 2009

I'm slightly less emotionally stupid after this year. I know myself a little better, I know how to express myself with a wee bit more empathy and consideration (I'm a work in progress). I discovered, appreciated, and learned to love the fact that I'm an emotionally intense guy, and I realized that coping with my emotions can lead me to want to compromise my values (something to be careful about in the future).

I've decided that love, joy and hope are the emotions that I developed the most this year. Here is a snapshot of what I did, learned and felt this year around each:

Love

I loved, was loved, and learned some things that I thought expressed love but don't necessariliy (like sharing secrets). I learned about the inextricable link between love and pain, and how easy it is for loving people to hurt and disappoint one another. I learned that love defies analysis, is scary, and is magnificent. I learned that I have a lot of love in my life, even though I sometimes it doesn't look like I think it should. I learned to love and let go.

Joy

Whee! I jumped, traveled, sang, cuddled, danced, spoke Spanish, held hands, skiied, played softball, appreciated, listened, partied in the streets, moved to a wonderful city, kissed, met some amazingly diverse and cool people, and victoriously confronted my grievances with the world. I took a job with a great company and mingled with powerful and influential people. I worked on projects that I enjoyed which supported goals that are important to me. I made some personal decisions that helped me better define what I believe and who I support. I meshed my interests, my passions, and my vision for the world. I was reminded that serving others is the greatest joy. Also, my kitties are pure joy.

Hope

Hope and I go back to my childhood, when it manifested itself as prayer. I'm an advocate for the power of positivity, and with much of what I do I assume it will work out for the best, even when it might not look like I want. I hoped that Barack Obama would become President and hope that he will bring about a more tolerant and accepting culture to America. I hoped that I would have deeper, more meaningful relationships, and hope that ultimately of my friendships turn into a lifelong commitment. I hoped that my choices would lead me to have a meaningful job that helps others, and hope that that continues. I hope that everything I do and say sets a positive and empowering example for others.

In 2009, I'm looking forward to sharing more of my love, joy and hope with others. I have plenty to go around. In particular, I am committed to leading with the good side of my heart and not calculating what I say and do in order to get what I want.

Getting to know someone new usually involves stripping off some layers of defense and taking risks with one another's feelings. In BYB I decided to shed all of my layers so completely that I was entirely vulnerable. But it was somewhat contrived. It was a "safe" place to do so.

I am learning how to integrate this idea into my life in ways that I think fit better with the reality that some things aren't necessary to discuss in order to be free with thoughts and feelings with someone.

Specifically, I have a new slightly-unlabelable relationship (with Allison in Indy) in which we've done a good job of communicating. Specifically, our DTR-to-date ratio is 2:1.

There have been a couple of instances in which I've bitten my tongue and not really delved into recent past relationships or other details of my current social life here in DC. I think I've been pretty clear about my apprehension, and I appreciate that she doesn't prod me for more details even though she might want to.

If you know me well, you know that integrity is my most important value. I'm not anywhere close to perfect in maintaining it, but I try really hard to fix it when I screw up. Of course, it'd be easier to not screw up in the first place.

So it tugs at me a little that I haven't told Allison everything. She knows the bulk of my personal "secrets" because I'm pretty free with them in normal conversation with people I'd like to develop relationships with. She appreciates me despite the closet skeletons that I've shared, and thinks some of my quirks are cute. So I know she wouldn't judge me.

Yet I've drawn a very specific line when it comes to other people and my relationships with them, when talking with Allison. I guess I'm trying to protect her feelings and respect others' privacy. And she recently asked me to suppress some of the things I might (or might not) do with other girls unless it comes to the point where I am serious about someone else. I can respect that.

But I'm still conflicted about it. My other relationships help define where I've come from and who I am. I'd like to share more to let us be a source of continuity for one another.

On the other hand, that might be a rather serious commitment/burden for someone I'm just getting to know. And not everything needs to be shared; I know old married couples who are quite happy and didn't have to share every detail to get there. And then there's the idea that mystery can be interesting.

What do you think? How much sharing is desirable for a new relationship? Does authenticity with less-than-complete transparency take away from its power?

Here are some things that make me happy:

• Snow skiing fast down the easy slopes
• Kitty kisses
• Picnics
• Living in the city
• Being stubborn (about silly things)
• The first full-body stretch in the morning under a warm blanket in a cold room
• Having the answer
• Playing footsies
• My happy place
• When friends come to me with problems
• Wandering
• Justice
• Pretending like I know where I'm going
• Making a new friend
• The two weeks before moving or changing jobs
• Discovering music
• "Me" time
• Accomplishment
• Burning things with others
• Eating
• Driving on the highway
• Saying something witty
• Sitting next to someone who makes my heart beat faster

This is a response to gRegor's blog post, Happiness.

This song and video is an essay that points out that man's possibility is limitless, and how recognition of this fact can lead to dramatically divergent paths given different approaches.

For the power monger, freedom means influence and growing power. Curing diseases and splitting atoms, using brainpower to 'make the world better' while seemingly neglecting real people (I can do anything with no assistance (or is it resistance?, either way...)), and being mostly oblivious of the horrors that were to come under his reign. "My cause is noble," he says.

Maybe so. Then again maybe it's inevitable that someone who solely focuses on helping the world in an introverted, self-righteous way naturally comes to the point where they are so out of touch with the reality of people that they can only do harm (even though it might feel right and just).

Which path have I chosen? The musician is portrayed as the one really caring and standing up for people and their freedoms, whereby the politician is working to do things 'on behalf of' others, without seeming to really have a pulse on what people want or need.

I guess most people with a civic conscience get most of their power from actually talking and working and helping real people. For me, I have accepted in the past decade or so that my sweet spot, the way in which I can make the most contribution, is by spending my time focused on ideas and technical pursuits. I still feel this is efficient use of my time, but I wonder if at some point I'll lose touch with how the work I do is really helping...or not helping at all.

A decade ago, I joined the Army with the expectation that I would do something with computers, get some money for college, get to travel, satisfy my want to serve, and make it so others didn't have to.

The gist of what I did in the Army as a Signals Intelligence Analyst was use brains (mine and others') and computers to piece together puzzles, make educated guesses about what would happen in the future, and pass the knowledge on succinctly and clearly to commanders who could act on it. It was mostly one-way communication so I have little knowledge of the impact of the work I did, but I feel a great pride knowing that I was in a position to pay attention, study, document, and collaborate with others. Maybe the work I did helped save lives, or maybe I happened to have not had the right nuggets to make that happen. Either way, I was working for that goal, and I am proud to have done it.

One of the most agonizing decisions I've made is to leave the Army. I felt useful, I think I was pretty good at my job and the Army games, and it was satisfying work. My passion for computers and writing software drove me to pursue a college degree with the hope that somehow I would get back into doing work that made me feel this prideful again. I looked at a programming job for a defense contractor in Texas, and had actually committed but backed out because the circumstances weren't quite right.

Some influential people in my life tried to convince me that I can make valuable contributions regardless of my vocation (by way of volunteering and civic involvement), but I refused to accept that I shouldn't be able to marry the two. I need meaningful work.

In a calculated but emotional leap of faith, I left a decent job with no clear prospects. I interviewed for and found another job, and did the same thing shortly thereafter. It just wasn't working. It didn't fit. I didn't know exactly why, but I knew I had to make some changes.

I decided to "drop out" and go into business for myself, though I didn't pour all of my energy into growing a business. That's not what I wanted either. I had learned a few things in the process.

I took about 3 months off of full-time work, working part time on a project for IHSAA, playing a lot of World of Warcraft, finishing school, and doing BYB. I amassed substantial credit card debt due to school bills, BYB, my mortgage and utility bills, and not changing my lifestyle to match my diminished income.

After a while, my credit cards could no longer sustain my lifestyle. I thought about the Army again. It'd get me back in shape. I'd go to Warrant Officer Candidate School and become a technical leader like CW3 Murphy. It would be my shift from a doer to an enabler, and this represented my desires well. Even so, I was concerned that I was chasing a dream that might no longer be there for me in the Army. Since I've added a few years, maybe I wouldn't be able to play the Army game well, or maybe I would become more cynical of the real impact I was making on the world. I was lucky to have my friend Sheryl to discuss this with, and she helped me realize there might be other ways for me to get what I want.

Around that time, I got an unsolicited email from Microsoft. It was for a consulting position in a small section of the U.S. Federal Services division based in Philadelphia. I interviewed well over the phone and it sounded like something I would be up for pursuing. The recruiter mentioned other opportunities in the DC area, but said they were more competitive so she thought with my qualifications I might fit better into the Philadelphia job. I decided that I wanted to pursue the DC opportunities, and things fell into place for me. The Philly section needed someone with different experiences, but they were impressed by me and passed me off to the DC folks.

Although I had considered moving to the DC area in the past, I hadn't been looking there. I probably wouldn't have taken, or even noticed, a job working for any other company.

I got hired in what was a leap of faith by someone high up in the management chain. I had made a great impression in Philadelphia with regards to my technical knowledge and want to be doing useful work, and this energy carried forward and got me the job that I have today. I was the first of an experimental hiring strategy where I didn't qualify 100% for the positions for which they were hiring. The company and my local leadership committed to sending me to training to fill in the gaps.

Now I work for Microsoft. I'm a consultant with a focus on software development with SharePoint. I'm assigned to the civilian side of the U.S. federal government, and do work related to law enforcement. In my current project, which seems like it might be finishing soon, I've done some work in SharePoint and InfoPath that will free up investigators' time so they can focus on the important work that they do.

I just returned from a 2-week trip to Seattle. In the first week, I attended TechReady, a week-long internal training conference.

The second week, I learned about an application that Microsoft created for collaboration and analysis in the law enforcement field. I'm excited that it looks like I'll be participating with this mission in some capacity. The instructor of the class told a deeply emotional, personal story about the impact that the application had on one person's life. It was a genuine, tangible example of software helping make the world better.

I work for a company that shares my civic conscience. The role that I fill is one of an enabler. Through my own work, my leadership, and my willingness to push forward with new challenges, I create the circumstances that allow others to do important work in a more effective way. My work has a verified impact, requires me to be a strong leader and technician, and provides jaw-dropping potential for learning and growing my abilities so that I can continue to expand my impact. This is why I am where I am, and why I do what I do.

While I was trying to make something work in a particular way that I figured it should, I was doing some other things, and some of them were actually pretty great. Here's a list of some of the awesome, fun, cool, or otherwise more upbeat things I've created or done this year:

1. Moved to a new city
2. Sold a house
3. Watched Lord of the Rings with a live orchestra
4. Bought a bunch of socks
5. Ate great food
6. Made my apartment cooler with a new couch and rug
7. Traveled
8. Shared myself completely with someone
9. Passed four Microsoft certification exams
10. Sat on the edge of Puget Sound, watching boats go by
11. Soaked in a beautiful sunset
12. Fell in love
13. Created software to help make the world a better place
14. Confidently started a new job
15. Appreciated good music
16. Continued not drinking caffeine
17. Learned to appreciate vegetarianism
18. Got plenty of sleep
19. Stopped the bleeding on my credit cards
20. Got great customer feedback about the work I've done
21. Made a bunch of new friends
22. Reconnected with old friends
23. Completed Beyond Your Best's "Vision in Action" training
24. Looked fear in the face, and laughed at it
25. Learned that rejection is OK
26. Experienced something for the first time
27. Contributed to an open source software project
28. Appreciated a friend
29. Wore sunscreen
30. Joined a softball team
31. Kicked butt on said softball team
32. Shared something intensely personal with a bunch of people
33. Showed a friend around town
34. Discovered raw oysters
35. Got involved in politics for the first time
36. Documented my life in pictures, twitter, friendfeed and my blog
37. Deleted a bunch of old emails and chat logs
38. Walked overnight as part of a walk-a-thon
39. Raised over $200 for a food shelter
40. Delivered groceries for 8 needy families
41. Magically turned a matchbox into a tambourine
42. Became less prejudiced
43. Realized how powerful I can be
44. Painted some rooms in a high school
45. Volunteered to be an officer in a non-profit organization
46. Inspired someone to be open with me
47. Learned how to dress a bit spiffier
48. Found a regular hairdresser
49. Avoided doing something I probably shouldn't have been doing
50. Learned to appreciate the good in my life

I see her message in my inbox, and my stomach grumbles the way it does when I’m late for something important. Fucking finally… something, at least. I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing or if I should've hit "send" at all. I wonder which 10% of my message she’s responded to, and which of the pieces that were most important to me she’s chosen to blow off completely. I wonder what lies within: unsolicited feedback of how I should behave? what I shouldn’t do? a veiled insult about my choices? I try to predict which form of smug or dismissive tone it’ll contain. I wonder if I should delete it without reading it, though I know I could never do that. I return to questioning why I sent her a message in the first place. Am I being needy? Am I letting her see that I spend way too long drafting something simple? Does she know the agony that goes into the intricate crafting of my deleted words? Does she know what I don’t want her to remember, that my tenuous hold on living without her suffers with every successful exchange? Are her crass and cold responses her way of telling me to get lost? Why would I need someone in my life who treats me and makes me feel like I’m not worthy of a cordial, complete or timely response? Well, it's something, at least...

Now that TechReady (an internal Microsoft training week) is over, I'm spending the weekend in Seattle, effectively by myself. I decided to attend a class here next week so I'm sticking around until then. The class will be extremely valuable to my career, will enable me to provide an important service to one of my clients, and fits exactly with my vision for the world (one in which technology eliminates crime and terrorism).

I had intended to spend the weekend helping at a BYB function with my friend Sheryl in Indianapolis. There were a couple of draws to helping there. BYB was an intense experience, and Sheryl shared in my experience. As a volunteer I was looking forward to sharing something new with her and mooching off of the experiences of the group attending the event. I was hoping this would give Sheryl and me a new experience to draw from, and potentially change the way we've been behaving towards each other lately.

My choice about this weekend got me thinking about the choices I have had to make between my past or present, and my future.

Sometimes I have to decide between experiences that build continuity with people I know, and new experiences. More often than not, I choose new experiences.

Many would describe moving forward confidently into an unknown situation as courageous. In my case, however, maybe this is the status quo. It doesn't scare me to change. What is a stretch for me, and what might require my courage, is doing things that strengthen, improve, and sometimes repair, my existing relationships and situations. I recognized this in my own BYB experience. I had decided to focus on connection, and after working on it some, realized that I'm not terrible at upping my connection numbers; it's depth of connection that I have struggled to maintain.

I have had plenty of experiences. I've traveled, trained, worked, walked, run and partied in various parts of the world. I've shared these experiences with many different people, and I think there's power in that. I've created connection with people, and shared myself with them. Many of them have become my friends. I've affected most of their lives in some small but powerful way, and I appreciate that I have the power to do that. They've all helped shape who I am and who I will be.

I know that my disjointed life, one in which I'm bouncing around and refusing to accept comfort, makes it more difficult to share many experiences with the same people. I make the choice to live this way, and will continue to do so. This ability to push into unknown territory to pursue lofty goals and visions is my biggest strength. But it conflicts with my want to create deep connections, and precludes me from remembering and learning from my past experiences.

To put it dryly, in Army terms, love and continuity are a force multiplier; they enable people to be more effective.

I've always expected that among my deep, loving relationships, I'll find someone who will share my commitment and longing for continuity. We'd offer continuous insight into each other's lives based on our shared history of stories and frequent shared experiences.

My mother has been my most important source of this continuity, and I appreciate that she provides this for me. Sharing with her is like a mirror for me that I can use to check the sanity of my decisions and recognize unintended consequences for my actions. Our conversations also give me often-needed perspective. There are, of course, facets of my life that I won't share with my mother and she's not always available. So there are gaps in the transparency of my life (as is probably the case for everyone), and my experiences get shared across disjoint groups and lead to the situation where I feel nobody really knows me, and I forget a lot of what I've been through.

It's a self-promotion problem more than anything, I suspect. I'm the one who knows me best, so the continuity comes from my ability to share with others.

It takes a long time and a lot of love to build mutual understanding of who we are and how we live our lives, so I've expected for a while now that I would have one "most important" relationship in my life, someone who I love and who loves me, and who wants to commit to sharing the majority of each other's experiences, stories and ideas. And I've always suspected this type of intimacy would be associated with romance. For whatever reasons, it's been hard for me to separate the two; maybe they're intertwined as part of a biological or divine plan for the advancement of humanity.

My friend Shelly forwarded me this email recently, and I "replied all" with a note that I give no credibility to these types of messages. My contention is that email messages like this, though they may have some basis on facts, are sensationalist and intended to skew popular opinion in a way that is subversive and manipulative. Also, I feel that it's irresponsible to forward these types of messages; they reflect poorly on the sender regardless of intention and whether or not the list of recipients includes people that have an ability to analyze their contents. The message lists no sources and its language is clearly extremely biased. I didn't feel that this opinion was up for debate, but apparently it can be considered a valuable part of the election process. Feel free to discuss in comments below.

My level of tolerance of others' behavior is generally aligned with liberal social norms, which means that I'm pretty much OK with most things that are legal and (occasionally "or") generally acceptable as a personal choice. There are, of course, some behaviors that I don't support.

The largest facet of human beavior that doesn't jive with my sensibilities is intolerance itself. That presents a little bit of an odd challenge. The challenge comes down to defining my role when presented with someone's behavior that I don't like or is in conflict with behaviors with which I want to be associated.

For a while, I've allowed this to depend on my status with that person:

• Among friends, I think it's within my mandate to make my opposition clear, to set or present a counter-example, and generally try to influence the behavior away.
• Among acquaintenances and strangers, I simply try to maintain my own integrity of thought and distance myself when possible.

At some point, I have to consider the impact of my association with the behavior on myself. Am I strong enough to resist adopting the behavior with which I disagree as my own behavior? Is my commitment to my friends (and to humanity) more important than taking the easy way out (avoidance)? Finally, what doors am I closing for myself by being guilty by association?

It's a leadership challenge. Recognizing it as such, maybe I can apply my thoughts about leading by getting out of the way to it. Perhaps I can accept that my insistence and belligerence about somebody's behavior (even among friends) has the same effect as making demands of a subordinate. They might go along, but they won't "own" the decision and internalize it. Maybe my role is again to set an example, educate them on my point of view, and give my love and support despite the conflict.

Alternately, standing up for somebody sometimes involves going against the grain and being the person who points out what they refuse to accept for themselves, that they're wrong. For me, this is always the case with intolerance.

I want to share this video slide show that I made shortly after I was in Bosnia in 2000 (it all its auto-play, auto-repeat glory). I have some very strong memories from my trip there, and I'll follow up with another post sharing a lot more of my experience. This is the closest I've come to the horrors of war (I was a mere spectator to the aftermath), and it haunts me, yet I'm inspired by the regrowth. This city was under siege for nearly 4 years, and some of the terrorist-generals in charge are still being harbored, like this assbag, Ratko Mladić (though Wikipedia cites rumors of his possible death in 2006, which would be a shame, for justice's sake).

The video shows the contrast between the tragedy of the city and its inhabitants, and the way that our group was able to make the best out of the situation (40 of us stuck on top of a hill) and let our hair down a bit.

I like to be self-critical, to analyze the crap out of my lot in life and how I choose to spend my efforts. I'm fortunate enough to have an amazing friend, Sheryl, who likes to do the same, so we feed off of each other. What's even more powerful is that I can slap some thoughts on this here page, and somebody else might benefit from it.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. -Benjamin Franklin

I remember this quote whenever I sit down to blog. How is this worth reading? What benefit could others get from this?

What I've decided is that those questions aren't mine to answer. This, my personal blog, is an outlet for me to create a conversation with the world that may or may not be well-received (or received at all).

I have faith that some people are receptive to hearing others' points of view, or being cued into where others spend their energy. In that light, here's where I've put some of my thoughts lately.

1. Fading attraction and its relationship to commitment
   
   I think it's possible to stay attracted to someone forever, but in the event that physical attraction isn't there anymore, people can make the choice to stay committed to the person they love for purely emotional reasons. I guess I would expect that to be the case in a potential partner, but the idea of being in an attraction-less committed relationship (or having someone feel obligated to me in that way) makes me a little sad.
   


2. Volunteering my time means more, but is less economical
   
   It's more rewarding for me to give of my time than to give my money and ask others for money. It seems more genuine and outwardly focused of me. I do, however, recognize that groups need money as well, in order to keep up their good works. So I'll also donate when I can... and, economically speaking, if I have the choice between earning money and giving, and doing work I'm not well-suited for, I'm theoretically doing a group more good by giving. In related news, I've been volunteering quite a bit. In fact, last week was the first of four consecutive weekends where I'm donating one of the two days to helping others.
   


3. Regurgitated technobabble
   
   There are a lot of powerful technology leaders on my twitter and in my RSS feed reader. Most of them do an amazing job of disseminating new, or at least interesting, information. For my part, I tend to focus on things that I do (like code that I write) when I post on my MSDN blog. But as a connected person, I understand I may be more in tune with happenings in the tech world than others who read my articles. So I've decided to focus at least some of my attention on highlighting awesomeness around the community, even if it becomes blasé to me.
   


4. Motivation to restart my running regimen
   
   I'm being a bit of a wuss when it comes to my running routine. I have had some time where I could've run a few times this week, and I just think back to what a struggle it was when I tried to get started last time, and find some way to rationalize it away. I did learn last time, however, that my lungs depend on muscles and need rest, so when I had days where I felt short on breath, that was why. This time around, I might be able to avoid getting hurt by cross-training with my bike. With the longer days, I'm running out of excuses.
   


5. You are a gift to me
   
   Having this outlet is very empowering. I don't really know who you might be, but you give me a great gift by reading. I feel strength from (and am humbled by) knowing that you might have some interest in what I have to say. Thank you.

So, I'm a "green" (13-12-7-4 actually). And I'm trying to change the fact that I don't have a girlfriend by analyzing how I'm showing up, seeing how I can make tweaks to the way I present myself, and learning things about myself that help me choose relationships to pursue that might work well. In a particular personal relationship of mine (with a certain social nucleus), I don't show up as the dominant one, and that's something she would want in a potential mate. I'm not looking to "fix" this fact, but I want to understand why it is, and if it's something I can (or would want to) tweak. Since I'm a decent feedback acceptor now (thanks to Beyond Your Best), I can internalize that if I'm not showing up in a powerful way, I'm just not being powerful. At least in this relationship, I don't come across as confident, assertive, and independent. I believe I've allowed these ways of being to take a back seat to me being easy-going, loving, and simply being content with whatever circumstances arise. It's not that I don't care enough about myself to make a hard line, it's just that I don't really mind anything. I think this shows up as me being weak. This has come up a few times in my life. I feel full confidence when I'm with someone, and feel like I'm contributing, making decisions, and taking the lead... and it just doesn't come across that way. A recurring theme in my discussions about relationships (over the past 15 years or so) is that "most" girls want a "take-charge kinda guy". That's all fine and dandy, but it's at a real conflict with how I think I've shown up to pretty much everybody I've met, including in my professional relationships when I lead by getting out of the way. So that brings up two questions. 1) Should I seek out relationships that I am strong enough to clearly dominate, or are there stronger girls who are OK with sharing "the responsibility" or being the dominate one? I know there are dominant girls who like to abuse guys. I don't think that's what I'm looking for :), but a shared responsibility thing would seem to be ideal. 2) Should I lower he bar (in the limbo sense)? It's a fact. I like playing the less-dominant role in some of my relationships. It allows me to balance being dominant in other areas, and gives me a bit of a reprieve, I think, from being "on point" all the time, which can be stressful. How this has manifested itself is I'm strong at work and weak in personal relationships. This is an assumption that I've made, that this is how I am. I think I can throw some energy at showing up in a stronger way, and maybe that could get me what I want. A risk for this might be that this might not be sustainable, and I'll lose the momentum and the relationship will go sour because she is not experiencing me in the way that she needs to in the long term. I also don't want to compromise who I am. There's a similar conversation going on for me that happened after I read Party of One: A Loner's Manifesto. This book was a scathing justification for the "loner way of life", and I interpreted this as I'm OK to not do work on myself to show up better for others. Since then, I've learned that I had aspirations greater than myself that depended on me being more outwardly focused in some areas. Maybe something similar could happen with my being the dominant force in relationships. I know I can't be everything to everyone, nor should I try. And I also know that I should "be myself". I just want to be the best "me" I can be, and I'm wondering if that involves me asserting myself in new ways. What do you think? Have you had similar conversations?

Groups work well when they don't feel like they're being told what to do. I've been in a few small groups here at MSSU (Microsoft Services University), and I have typically bubbled to a leadership position, either by default or by choice. Sometimes it was pretty clear that I was "playing the part" of a leader--I was the spokesperson, the scribe, or just talked a lot. These groups went pretty well, but I found myself getting in a routine that I felt was dry and in some ways sapping the group's energy by being too directive and too focused. So I made it my intention to bring "fun" to the group and made some subtle changes to my delivery. There wasn't much to it... I just decided I was going to work more to bring out others' thought processes and be more energetic. And smile once in a while . What happened in the next group was pretty neat for me. It was very clear to me that I was pulling the strings, and the group achieved its objectives. Yet somebody else got recognized for leadership in the group. Ha! On one hand, I was a little bummed because I like to be recognized for my contributions as much as the next guy, but on the other hand, it was pretty neat! The group was effective, I'm pretty sure the group had confidence in me, and I think I was able to keep things light and upbeat by not dragging the group down with a command-like hierarchy. Plus, somebody else had an experience of being a leader as well. We were a group of peers, and we were pretty powerful.

My opinion matters. Your opinion matters. Having an opinion matters. Through too much of my life, I’ve been trying to stay under the radar, not wanting to stick my neck out for fear of offending, fear of being rejected by those I love, and fear of alienating others. I also have carried the fear of ridicule from lack of knowledge on a subject on which I carry an opinion, and for my opinions being uninteresting. I’m done being paralyzed by fear. It’s important to me to share some of my beliefs so that we can all better relate to one another on a franker, more open plane.

I don’t believe in God.

I appreciate much of religion, and understand why it’s such a powerful force for many people. The church provides support and community, answers to difficult questions, and a source of inspiration and power. For my part, compassion and love supersede the necessity of an organization of shared beliefs. Those with disparate beliefs can share community, inspiration, and power. As far as answers are concerned, I am fine with some questions being unanswerable. I don’t need to fill gaps in with stories that are difficult to prove and vague, as the church seems to do.


I am a human first, and an American second.

Being an American for me has historically surrounded service to my government, service to the ideals that my government upholds because I felt that they translated well to the ideals on which America was founded. Nowadays, I feel that disagreeing with my government leads to an un-American label, and that’s bullshit. Believing in peace, working towards tolerance and being committed to creating opportunity for others is a human thing. If it seems to contradict being a good American (It doesn’t!!), then that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I continue to take a lot of pride in knowing that I do work that benefits people (by way of my government), but I don’t blindly subscribe to the ideals pushed forward by a sometimes corrupt political system committed to nationalism at whatever cost.

That wasn’t so hard, was it? Knowing these things about me… does it change who I am to you? It shouldn’t, because I’m the same as before you read it. Tolerance and love are stronger forces than differences in opinions, and I know that my fears in posting this kind of intensely personal discourse on a blog are unwarranted. People want to connect and be real with each other, so there it goes. Pass it on.

What serves as a wakeup call?

For some, it seems like a medical diagnosis, the death of someone close, or a close call has to take place to prompt an adjustment of priorities, a change in time allocation, or a shift in focus from career to relationships.

I have had some awesome success in my professional career, and am at a place in my life where I'm embracing the choices I've made (I'm freakin' excited!).

Now what?

Recently a buddy was diagnosed with a medical problem and he cut down his WoW playing time. It seems like he decided if he was going to die early or live a rough life he wanted to spend more time with his family, because that was more important to him than the virtual accomplishments we all had been treasuring.

From my end, I recently accepted my dream job as a consultant with Microsoft working in the Federal Services division in Washington, D.C. This is the pinnacle of everything I've worked towards for the past 15 years of my life: government service, software development, leadership, high pay, travel. This is very much a dream come true.

I appreciate that I've created what I have, and that I am the one to bring all the personal and professional opportunity that I want in my new position. I have begun to really understand the importance of my relationships in progressing as a professional, and my desire to add depth to my personal life. It's not what you know, it's who you know, as momma always said. This doesn't discount having a strong body of knowledge, but in order to take myself to the next level I need very strong relationships.

When my interviewer asked me where I wanted to be in 5 years, I got stuck. Stuck because I had accomplished everything I had set out to do. That's a pretty awesome place to be! I've been passionate about Microsoft technologies and in just a short few years I've earned a position that rewards this passion and gives me a chance to share it with others. But there's more to do!

I've made a contract with myself that reflects some areas of my life that had been lacking: commitment, love and happiness. These are three things that are extremely important to me that are the centerpiece of my commitment to have deeper relationships with friends, family and co-workers, bosses, random people in the Metro, the sales clerk at the sandwich place... everyone. Focusing on these three ways of being is what's going to have me thrive in a strange and hectic new place, and what's going to put me in a position to meet an awesome woman that I know is looking to share these things with me.

Essentially, my success has taught me that I can achieve what I set out to achieve, and that I owe it to myself and to society to keep pushing and to share myself with others.

I just got back from the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest in Indianapolis. Dave Bost from Microsoft was on hand with some awesome prizes from the source. I won a IndyTechFest polo shirt. There was Xbox360 to be had, awesome catered food (lasagna, salad, cake!), and some good networking.

There were also open-mic style code demos. Topics included:

- Syndication services
- Unit testing
- Javascript debugger in VS2008
- Code metrics
- System.HashSet
- System.AddIns

I twittered from the event and took some pictures with SnapFoo.



We collected Toys for the WRTV6 toy drive. I brought one of those things that you stick your hand or whatever on and it makes a 3d "image" out of the impression in pins. I have one and love it, hopefully some kid gets as excited about it as I do. Haha.

Because sometimes you have something you need to say but you can’t because the words won’t come out or you get scared or feel stupid. So, if you could write a song and sing it, then you could say what you need to say. And it would be beautiful. And people would listen. And you wouldn’t make a complete idiot out of yourself, but all of us can’t be songwriters, so some of us will never be able to say what we’re thinking or what we want other people to know that we’re thinking, so we’ll never get the chance to make things right again. Ever.

Or you can just get over yourself and accept the risk of being a complete idiot... and not miss out on a potential opportunity. That works too.

"You're good. Don't make being miserable ruin it." This is a quote from last night's episode of House.

The whole exchange between Dr. House and his fellowship candidate resonated with me. House seems to have a negative world view (or so he wants everyone to think), but in this case I think this is a veiled attempt at some words of encouragement.

Trying to read into this a little deeper, I can apply to my life that my skills and talents suffer when I'm miserable (which is obvious), but that also my decision to be miserable is the root cause of my loss of focus, motivation and productivity, not the conditions themselves. So as I have recently left two jobs that I haven't felt were right for me (I have no regrets about either), if I take a new job and get to the point of misery, I understand that I will likely make the same decision.

I lose ground in skill and career progression being in a state of flux. So in order to demonstrate and enjoy some more continuity, I have decided to try to stave off misery early. How am I going to do that? I'm not totally sure, or that it's even possible (I hope it is!). One logical step to take is being more vocal when something's not in tune. Another step is to not actually take a job just to have a job. Yes--I want to work in order to be able to support my lifestyle choices. But I don't need to limit myself geographically or monetarily (i.e. the perfect job might pay less than I'm used to). The big limiting factor is time. Job hunting is a full-time job in itself, and in my case I have a hard deadline approaching quickly, in which I need to make a career path decision. So... I'll make decisions based on limited information. And I'll have to compromise to get where I want. In the past I've opted towards jumping on the best thing in my field of vision, so that's probably what I'll continue to do. I feel it's dangerous for me to accept what seems like a pretty good job, when I don't know what else is out there. But as I'm not omniscient, I just pick and choose as things come along. And that brings me to my current state of affairs...

Being an independent contractor (Read: WoW player and occasional coder) has given me ample time to be receptive to what could be a neat opportunity. I wasn't actively searching for a full-time job, but a company contacted me after seeing my resume online, and I'm moving along in their interview process for a consulting job in Philadelphia. The company is Microsoft, and I'd be working as a software consultant in the defense industry. This is a culmination of a few of my ideas for what could be cool to do. As I stated previously, I have an eye towards consulting, and a position at Microsoft with this type of work would be a major leap forward in my progression along this career path. Additionally, a door is closing related to my Army time (my security clearance is expiring). By taking this position, it would remain open for another two years.

That said, I'm still struggling with trying not to idealize the work I'd be doing. I don't feel that I can safely assume that the job requirements (the clearance) will mean I will be doing interesting or seemingly important work. Nevertheless, at this point if you were to ask me what my ideal job would be, it would be very close to this position. So.... if I'm good enough to do what they need (I really think I am), I shouldn't screw it up by letting myself become miserable.

I started TechSeed, LLC, today. As a company, it's sole product is my own software development handiwork. I'm not intending to pour oodles of time into building the infrastructure for a business; this will mostly just be a nice way to organize and focus my personal development efforts across various projects I intend to do, while at the same time affording me the protections that are inherent to having an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation).

I'm currently looking for some projects to buy me some time until I'm ready to settle down at a new place of employment. How exciting!

A few things I've learned recently:

- I prefer projects to products. Start, middle, end, maybe a rehash or two, real end. Move on to something new. Perfect.
- I want to interact with the user of my product, or at least not be totally removed from them should a question arise.
- I need to know why I'm doing what I'm doing. Sell me on the why, get me on board with the vision, and I can make awesome things.

My technology area of interest includes .NET 2.0 (C#) -- both web and windows apps.

I've got a few projects lined up (one of them personal--my Facebook app), but if ya know of some more, check out my LinkedIn page, it's better than a resume.

CW3 Andrew Murphy was the ultimate geek. He spoke Perl, databases, and whatever else he needed and enforced grammar with such attention to detail that I now sometimes cringe at the use of passive voice in technical documentation. He was a strict leader, an exacting analyst, and a devout follower of high standards of military and professional courtesy and workmanship.

From him I learned to form my dates in file names as YYYYMMDD, that technical documentation should be simple to follow and maintain, and that I'm not always as smart as I think I am (the "LAYER" tag is, in fact, nonstandard, despite my insistence to the contrary--"but I use it all the time" doesn't make it so).

More importantly, though, I learned more about who I want to be. I want to be the implementor and devoted displayer of high standards.

I'm pretty much awesome.

I mostly reserve talking about my awesomeness for when something comes up in conversation that I can relate to one of my experiences. Bad thing is, some of the things I've done or can do are unusual or unique, so they just don't come up. Here are a few of those:

7. I've won a bunch of awards. 2nd in Indiana on the National Spanish Exam in High School, Top 10 student at IUPUI (twice), and a Joint Service Achievement Medal for doing some pretty badass analytical process work in Bosnia are a few that I rarely talk about. Maybe 30 or 40 more on top of that.

6. I think in Spanish. When I speak in Spanish, I don't translate from English... an important step to becoming fluent in a language. With a little refresher, I could live comfortably in some Spanish-speaking part of the world, or hold a job as a translator.

5. I'm an artist. I've done some drawings, written some poetry, done some cool stuff in Photoshop.

4. I'm a geek.

3. I know how to maintain myself. In the Army I was a squad leader and fitness trainer. I ran two marathons and scored a 290 out of 300 on the Army's physical training (PT) test. My latest fitness passion is biking on the Monon Trail.

2. I've dodged a few bullets:

-When I was very young, I tripped on a drainage hole in a bridge near my house, and tumbled over the side. My Mom caught me by my ankle just before I would've dove headfirst into the shallow creek below.
-I almost joined a "gang" in junior high school, and almost started smoking (and not just cigarettes).
-I "dated" a girl at 14 who got pregnant very shortly after we broke up. We had discussed sex and she told me about her parent's condoms which she said we could use. They were made of lambskin and, seeing that that type of condom apparently isn't the greatest, I am wholly convinced had we had sex I would have a kid right now.
- I had pneumonia as a baby, and a partially collapsed lung as an adult. And a punctured eardrum.

1. I'm not ashamed of making a fool out of myself. I'd do Karaoke, dancing, sumo wrestling, mechanical bull riding, vlogging, whatever sounds fun. I probably look like a doofus doing it. And I don't care.

Written with inspiration from half-drunk bar conversations and Chris Brogan, responding to the "I Want to Brag A Minute" topic prompt.

I cried a little on the way home, after seeing the guys with the flags (see picture).

I wasn't sad for the lives lost that day. I've mourned for them, and since I didn't know any of them I guess I've gotten over their deaths. I cried because I remembered the fear, the helplessness, the violation of the acts (how dare they!).

Driving home from school that day a lone American flag flew from a bridge along 465. The guys out in Fishers today reminded me of that flag, the absence of planes in the sky, the uncertainty.

I remember the pride I had knowing that our President would make this right.