Unthinkability

I was talking with a very good friend about the harsh words we have spoken to others, and he asked “What is the worst thing you’ve said to anyone and did not regret afterwards.”  I thought about it for a few moments and recalled a phrase that I never regretted saying though it sticks with me to this day:

“Your lack of trust no longer suprises me, but it never fails to disappoint me.“

Those few words describe a moment in which I realized that I still want to be appreciated by everyone, but have come to understand that it is not my burden to change that other person’s negative perception of me or my abilities.  I let my actions and accomplishments speak for me, and then I trust those who see me for who I am.

Chameleons are more interested in revisionist history and self-preservation than embracing the wind and letting the thousand flowers bloom. 

Sometimes you come across these people who, for whatever personal reasons, seek to find villainy or incompetence where there simply is none.  Sometimes, you just have to trust your instincts, shrug off the chaff, perform your work with art and passion, and defer to the opinions of history.

You might know that I was a weatherman in Billings, Montana for a number of years (1989-1994?) at the NBC affiliate.  I was just a dumb college kid with a good voice and a decent on-screen presence, and I certainly didn’t know anything about weather (or “climatology” as the elitists would call it).  I did know how to wear a sport coat and tie, and to rip paper off of the printer and draw pretty pictures on the “Amiga Weather Graphics System” that we used to create and display the TV maps.  (Special thanks to the world-famous Mark Peterson for showing me the ropes.) 

I remember showing up 2 hours before the news cast to prepare the information for my 4 minutes of on-air time.  I ripped the forecasts off of the AP printer, filled out a XEROX form, drew some maps on the Amiga, and typed some text into the CG machine.  Oh, and we did not have radar so much of my “current conditions” information was hopelessly out of date.  I knew the temperature, and I knew the cloud cover percentage, but I couldn’t tell you where it was going to rain if it wasn’t already raining when the AP printer spat out the ‘current conditions’ sheet for the major cities.

It was standard protocol for the weathermen at our station to step outside and look at the sky right before the weather segment.  Even though we could see 5-15 miles of sky from the front door, it was not a fool-proof method of assessing the current weather conditions.  I remember saying on the air that “It’s a nice night with no rain in sight” while a violent rain and hail storm was raging 5 miles from the TV studio.  It was a glorious moment for my reputation. 

Now, almost 20 years later, I don’t even watch the local weather on TV.  I visit one of three web sites with weather information:

Accuweather, Weather Underground, or The Weather Channel.

Recently, I stumbled upon Weather Underground’s new WunderMap.  Based on Google’s map service API, the WunderMap is brilliant.  It displays the current radar imaging for the entire U.S. in amazing detail, animated, and includes storm watch and warning zones, and current temps and wind speed/vectors.  Zoom in and out, pan, and click any weather monitoring station for historical observations.  Brilliant. 

So, I have found my new weather tool.  Even though I couldn’t have shown the web page images on TV without paying a license fee to the website owners, I could have used and redisseminated the information collected from a variety of weather webstes.  I could have been “that guy who said that it is hailing in Lockwood right now” instead of being “that jerk who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”  It’s definitely a different world than it was 18 years ago.

My wife and I share the bedtime responsibilities in the house.  Every alternating evening, I read stories to my kids, turn off the lights, and have some quiet/quality time with them before they go to sleep.  This is my chance to recap the day, resolve the day’s happenings, and answer the “daddy questions” like “who made up all of the languages on the Earth?”

So tonight, I described linguistic divergence (i.e. romance languages), and other forms of linguistic speciation to my 7 year-old.  It took all of 20 seconds, and my daughter totally grok’d it.  Then, she asked me what “history” was.

I told her:

“History is tonight.  History is 20 years from now when you’ll be telling your friends about June 12th, 2008, the night you asked your dad ‘who made up all of the languages on the Earth?’”

“You are making history just by being here.  Imagine what kind of history you could make if you tried.”

Now that I am settling into a rhythm with the comic, Wednesdays are the official “new comic” days. I like posting/scheduling the new comics on Wednesdays because it lets me have the weekend with the kids and it gives me Monday night and Tuesday night to sit in front of the TV with the Wacom tablet.  I’m trying to stay a week or two ahead of my self-imposed schedule, and that has made it easier.  The minute this darn thing starts to feel like a burden, I’m going to shelve it until I lighten up.  That’s my promise to myself.  Will I break it?

Line Rider is a groovy little ‘flash-based’ game that has become a groovy little ‘Silverlight-based’ game. 

Similar to Mike Ormand’s experience, it’s funny that I was just talking with a fellow programmer about how deep these Expression toolsets have become, and why developers haven’t embraced them as quickly as I expected they would.

For young developers, it’s as much about “cool” as it is “capabilities.”  This new Line Rider platform switcheroo adds several metric tons of street cred to the Silverlight technologies.