21st Century Digital Boy

We went hiking on the trail at Bull Run Park in Manassas to see the bluebells and took pictures.

The first ~20 pics were taken with by me with my camera, inadvertently set to “suck ass”. I hate that goddamn thing, but at least it was free.

So we’re hiring a salesman. (I don’t want to speak too soon, but in theory he’ll be officially on board today.)

This is a pretty big step for the company, and most interesting for me: at Barefoot we specifically resisted getting a salesperson.

The logic to this was, in part, “growing too fast will kill the company”. And no matter how much you want to argue it, you know it’s true: growth and stagnation/decline are embody mirror images of almost identical challenges (explosive growth versus not having enough money for infrastructure, for example).

In the BFSW case it wasn’t the horrible margins and infrastructure issues of hosting, it was more along these lines, we feared 1)having to bring on a dozen people of highly variable quality that we then had to manage, etc and 2)how long can we keep that up, keep everyone busy, etc etc.

We talked and talked and talked, and went on endlessly about growth vs stagnation, the challenges of growth, the very real risk that too much growth could burn things out, and so on. We finally decided to do it: it’s better to die winning the fight than running from it.

Of course, there’s so many variables at play here, I can’t even count them. If nothing else, the New Guy could suck as a salesman, or $PRODUCT will be far harder to sell than he thought, or he’ll find some other greener pasture, or he just won’t like it; and we’ll do another round of interviews and keep playing this game.

Still; it’s an exciting but scary challenge, one that I never got to face at BFSW or subsequent tech positions that shall go forever unnamed.

Roscoe.

Mexico is composed entirely of:

• tequila y cerveza
• Iguanas, geckos, grackles
• tourism
• poverty

Pics (almost 200!) and narrative forthcoming. Tomorrow, Roscoe.

Club Quarters DC was an excellent hotel, although somewhat overpriced. Small, clean, and neat, and in a fantastic location; but you’re paying a premium.

And lots of homeless people sleeping in the park across the street. I love our nation’s capital.

Butterfield 9 was fantastic (we were seated at the right-hand column in the home page picture). I noted that there was a fair amount of negative reviews of the place (esp. at washingtonpost.com, which seems almost impossible, given how good it was. Further proof of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, with a side helping of YouTube Asshole Syndrome?

Eye Bar was … I dunno, hilarious? Massively pretentious; the club and the scene the singer is complaining about in “Paralyzer” (figuratively, not literally). Still, despite over-priced drinks and a DJ who was clearly a moron, it was some fan-fucking-tastic people-watching. But hey, they let us in at all, so clearly we’re young, attractive, and stylish, right?

“Planet Terror” was far more awesome than “Death Proof”.

Right now work is severely hit-and-miss. A particular customer is causing a series of problems.

Generally, they’re demanding more of me than I feel is right. Put another way, I am held to be their bitch.

There is a long, dreary backstory that I will omit. Suffice it to say, we cannot truly rein them in without becoming aggressively hostile; which we’ve already started planning, but these things take time.

This comes down to ego, though. They are crossing a line, to be sure; but that line is created and maintained entirely by my planet-sized ego. I know it unfair (foolish, immature, stupid, whatever) to bitch about moan about being forced, at times, to do things generally held to be beneath you, at your job; but at the same time, there’s a fuckin’ limit.

They are a very large customer upon whose monthly income we depend, so it’s hard to say “GFY” (where by “hard” I mean “impossible in a practical sense, and stupid in any sense”). We have customers we would fire, save for our own laziness; we can’t afford to let these guys go.

So I continue to be treated like a fucking intern, on call to serve my master. The daily laundry-list of menial intern jobs grows. (It should be noted: they had us hire them an intern, who they then ‘fired’ - by which I mean, broke their contractual obligation - so that I would be responsible for these tasks).

Most annoying is we just don’t know how to effectively cope. We’re a small company; putting my kneepads on daily for these guys is bad in the sense it only helps today and not next year, which is how small companies stay small.

Set here. Trout Pond makes Bull Run Regional Park look like the back-country. The bathrooms are immaculate; the sites are immaculate; the trails are wide open, clean, and easily navigable. I cannot recommend this enough for those looking to have a camping experience that also has nice flush toilets.

We’re probably going on one more trip, assuming our lovely global-warming fall stays as nice as it is.

It was enlightening, as well, to ascend through the mountain road to the park/campground and see what parts of West Virginia are becoming. You’ll have a plot of land with a dilapidated, crumbling house, someone clearly in the grip of stereotypical WV poverty. Up the road a quarter mile is someone’s weekend get-away house, immaculately manicured property, just-detailed SUV in the paved driveway, $1000 grill out front, satellite dish, freshly scrubbed Mom and Dad and Susie and Billy having breakfast on the porch.

Along the trail we found expended shotgun shells; I’m guessing there’s enough poverty that in the lean times, people hunt along these public trails (esp. when the parks/campgrounds are closed to the public).

Did a PFT this morning; scored 149, which puts me in tier 3, the lowest, by one fucking point. One more sit-up, one more pull-up, a few seconds off the run, and I’d be in tier 2; low, but tier 2 nonetheless. A bit of a recent personal best, doing 3 miles in 26:30. Previous 3-mile was 26:55 a week or so ago, so I’m making pretty good progress.

On the plus side, though, it means in a week I’ll be in tier 2. I joke that I’m physically 19 again; not entirely true, but I can at least hold my own against those fucking kids. (Calculate your score here.)

A little more time, and I’ll be at or under my age group’s probability for lung cancer, and it’s likely greater than 85% of lung volume lost to smoking will be recovered. Then 2 years or so after that, I’ll be at or under my age group’s probability for heart disease.

I worked out the other day after looking at this, that I have about 15k days left in my life; all things being equal, I’ll die at age 76, in 2049. The more I think about that, the more I think, it’s worth all this. I can push that number higher.