Photo: visualpanic

The first time I sat down to do development on an ASP.NET project, it was clear that it was designed primarily for people who came to it from Windows Forms programming/Visual Basic kind of environment. That was decidedly not my background. Most of my web experience had been in PHP, Perl and Java. On the .NET side, I actually did quite a bit of work on systems-level stuff in C# before ever touching ASP.NET: data migration and munging, Windows services, Web Services, data access layers for reporting services, lots of console apps that did specific back-end stuff, etc.

As a result, the way that viewstate and postbacks work together never felt "natural" to me. I "grew up" with the web being stateless and developed patterns for building applications in that environment. When you suddenly get ASP.NET masking that stateless nature, many of those techniques have to be completely changed.

I have learned to work within that structure, but always wanted something in the ASP.NET ecosystem that was more "webby". I got interested when MonoRail showed up, but for whatever reason, it didn't stick.

Then, earlier this year, I heard about Microsoft's own (horribly clunkily named) project: ASP.NET MVC. After one of the presentations I saw online about it mentioned that it was ASP.NET without viewstate and postback, I was intrigued. That it also implemented (or approximated, depending on your level of pattern religiosity) the MVC pattern closed the deal and I gave it a shot.
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Today at lunch someone brought up the rules of the lunchroom fridge. The fridge in question is a surprising exception among workplace refrigerators because it's a remarkably law-abiding place. If you've spent any amount of time in the average American white-collar workplaces and stored any food in the icebox in that workplace, you've undoubtedly had your food stolen.

You know the feeling. You head to the lunchroom in anticipation of your sandwich or yogurt or homemade lasagna leftovers. You're looking forward to it and even took precautions by tattooing your name onto all of the flat surfaces with a Sharpie. Yet, when you open the brown paper bag or just look through the refrigerator, your quarry is nowhere to be found.

As your stomach sinks and your ears turn a bit red, you take an unsettling glance into the garbage can only to see the empty husk of your lunch. Or worse, that dude from the other side of the building with a spoon buried in your Yoplait.

Many of the thieves, if caught will feign ignorance. "What, this is *your* lasagna? I had no idea." However, I personally have been greeted with little more than a shrug and an "I was hungry."

That shrug comes from an attitude that I see nearly everywhere I go and nearly every day. It's a subtext to all kinds of irritating behavior. Basically, it's clear that the offender hears a voice in their head that expresses a huge sense of entitlement, "…but…I'm special!".

• No parking right in front of the store.
  
  That doesn't mean me and my minivan because…I'm special.

• No deployments of code on Friday afternoons.
  But *my* situation is different because…I'm special.

• Starting salary is $XX,XXX.
  I need twice that, right out of college because…I'm special

• I don't care if no one else gets a private office, I deserve one because…I'm special

The thing is, once you start translating people's rude behavior, you see just how common this subtext is. It's everywhere. And, I'm doing everything in my power to make sure that I'm not doing it myself. If you catch me, you have my full permission to give me a sarcastic "But I'm special" to get the point across.

Photo: TheLizardQueen

We're inside the 2 week runup to our trip to Ireland. This is a trip that we originally wanted to take 10 years ago when we got married. At that time, we didn't have the money, so we told ourselves we'd go 5 years later. Of course, by that time, we were busy and, while we could have charged the trip and paid it off, we couldn't afford to pay for it outright, so we postponed it 5 more years.

A little over a year ago, we set up a savings plan and started siphoning money off for this trip. After a significant amount had piled up a few months ago, we started booking portions of the trip and paying for them from that account. The flights ($2500 total), hotels (another $1400), car rental (more than a rental car should cost), etc. were all checked off the list with absolutely no debt incurred.

We're going to be doing the kind of travel that we've come to realize really matches how we like to do things. We book hotels smack in the middle of relatively large cities and then see and do things nearby, working out for day trips as it makes sense.

For this trip, we're actually going to spend time headquartered in 3 different cities: Cork, Limerick and Dublin.

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In the early days of the internal combustion engine, there were lots of fairly simple vehicles powered by the new motors. One of the first was also fairly cheap. Bicycle shops all over the place took small gasoline engines and regular bikes, creating hybrids (human/gasoline) long before Prius fever swept the nation.

1902 Motorbike Advertisement

As Henry Ford's Model T came on to the scene, the attention shifted to vehicles that could transport the whole family, more cargo, etc. World War II vets brought interest back to 2 wheeled motorized transportation. However, by then, the engines got much bigger and eventually led to the Harley, Honda, and other full-sized motorcycles that you see (and hear) heading down the road.

Today, there's lots of interest in getting from Point A to Point B with as little of the liquified dinosaurs as possible. Heck, if you're looking for a new drinking game that will get you drunk by noon, just take a swig every time someone starts a paragraph with the following phrase:

With gas at $4.00…

There are reports at dealerships selling mopeds, scooters and motorcycles that sales are up by as much as 40% over this time last year. The appeal of vehicles that get 75, 100 or even 150 miles per gallon is obvious if you've ever seen the gas pump fly past $70 as you fill the tank.

Personally, I've been interested in alternative forms of transportation for a while. Heck, I distinctly remember sitting on the riding lawn mower at the age of 10 daydreaming about whether I could take the mower into town. I dreamed up a way of putting a sort of tent over it so I could ride in the rain.

More recently, I've tinkered with an electric bike. That project is sitting in the garage, taunting me. I would love to tackle it again and have that option available in my transportation arsenal. However, the pragmatist in me realizes if I wait for that day to come, I'll just keep driving my truck.

So, last fall, I began thinking about a way to expand my options for getting around without using a gallon of gas for every 20 miles I drive. Shelly's new job has provided one option and we're now carpooling several days per week. However, I wanted something that makes the short trips to the store, library, etc. better as well as the commute.

Since Minnesota requires an extra endorsement on one's driver's license to ride a motorcycle (and the time to take the class/test is in short supply), I did a bunch of digging into the gas-powered options with engines smaller than 50cc's. That size avoids the motorcycle endorsement and slides into a fairly unregulated category.

I looked at the "normal" mopeds a bit, but they didn't really catch my interest. Then I ran across a company called Spookytooth Cycles. They build motorized bicycles in the style of the original motorcycles from 1902. With several models under $500, they are providing cheap transportation to lots of people.

I was intrigued and made a note to look into getting one this spring. About a month or so ago, I finally took action and ordered one of their bikes, called The Dresser.

Spookytooth Dresser (what I bought)

I ordered it and have spent the last month waiting for the build and shipment process to finish up (that's their normal lead time FYI). Today, FedEx delivered a couple of boxes containing my new motorized bicycle. While I ordered it "fully assembled", there is some assembly that needs to happen in order to cut down on shipping costs.

So, I still have a minor project to finish before I can ride it (plus the rain has to stop before I'd want to). However, the shiny new vehicle is sitting in the garage right now and I'm looking forward to taking it for a spin when I get a chance.

With mileage in the 150 mpg range, it's definitely an option worth looking at if you're trying to cut down on transportation costs or just want to cruise down the street with the wind in your hair.

Photo: Ed Tarwinski

This web site has been poorly tended to for the past couple of months. Part of the problem was the de-listing by Google. That took more wind out of my sails than I believed it would. Apparently, I am more of an attention whore than my self-image had reflected previously.

In my head, the original reasons for starting this site still held. I had a thought or an idea or something I wanted to share or remember for later, so I'd write it up and put it here, regardless if anyone ever read it. However, somehow over the last several years, it seems that it matters to me in some way that there is someone out there to read it.

Regardless, that's something I either just need to change my thinking on or something I need to come to grips with and is only one of the reasons for the relative silence over the last couple of months. In fact, that's probably one of the lesser factors.

The biggest factor by far is a paralysis brought on by overcommitment. I can clearly point to this element being the leader of the pack because of a common situation that has come up at some point during every post I've started to write (and there are currently 23 drafts for this site).

See, I have WAY too many things going on where people are counting on me. Some are paid projects; some are just things people have asked me to do. I ended up committed to each as a gradual process. They stacked up, in some cases, by lying dormant while additional commitments were stacked on top.

At this point, there are at least a dozen people who are more than a little concerned with how I'm spending my time. They are all likely to ask me at some point in the next few days whether I'm done with the object of their concern and if not, how much longer it will take. Unfortunately, keeping all of those project moving forward pretty much means that none of them move very far.

And so, I've been frantically attempting to keep juggling all of the balls without dropping any. However, I won't pretend that there haven't been a few close calls.

Knowing that the crowd of people waiting on me is out there dominates my thoughts every time I sit down to write for this site. That knowledge fills my head every time I do something other than work on the list or sleep. I think about it every time I so much as glance at my own list of projects.

This past week, I crossed a line when I felt bad for taking the time to make dinner. I fully realize that 99% of the people I'm beholden to wouldn't begrudge me that task, but the fact that my own guilt kicked in says that something needs to change.

So, I started looking for those things that I'm juggling that bounce or can be set down. I'm handing off one of my projects to another web guy as a subcontractor, and with the others, I'm having frank conversations about my capacity and how it relates to their need.

In those conversations I've had so far, the real people were far more understanding than my imaginary projections of them (I apologize for not thinking of you as highly as I clearly should). In at least one case, they weren't nearly in as big of a hurry as I thought they were.

Things are starting to loosen, which is important. It's not because I want more time to write (though I do) or because I've got a list of personal projects a mile long (though I do). Rather, it's actually because of the very things that people hire me for. People hire me because I solve problems in unique and practical ways. However, when I'm working beyond capacity, I don't do that nearly as well as when I am keeping things in balance.

Here's to getting things back in balance. Cheers.