The woe of burnout...

I agree with the friends (wonderful that they are) who have indicated that I am exhibiting various stages of advanced burnout. They are right, of course. I don't think I ever completely got out of the burnout that I had as a result of working at the giant cesspit.

I have a ton of great things kicking off to, hopefully, address this and get me back into the manner to which I am known. My buddy Matt and I are training with a fight trainer to cut tons of fat and get us on a good diet and exercise regimen. I'm really excited about that. Matt is a fighter. I want to train as a fighter. Win/win ;-). I'm headed to Wilmington for what I hope is the first of a series of visits aimed at 'getting some ink done'. I'm excited about that too.

Carlota wants me to visit in California (How can I say no to her? I can't, that's how. ;-)). This has many benefits. 1) I miss the Carlota. 2) Lots of friends live in the SF/SJ area and I miss them too. 3) Jono lives in SF and I need to meet Mrs. Bacon. 4) This is a perfect opportunity to scout for the Graner invasion that Jono and I need to plan. 5) I miss the Carlota... :-P So I guess you could say that, just on those items alone, I really need to get out there. (Tedo, get ready!)

My buddy Mike is brewing beer in Philly. He wants me to head up and partake, and I miss him and James and their wives and families. I've been very slack in my travel to see folks, and I hope to correct that. I'd also really like to head back to Dadeville, AL and visit my family.

I hope all of those trips become possible. I vow to do everything in my power to see that they do! (or Carlota will spork me :-/)

UDS is in Budapest, and I love the planning and sessions as well as the party on Friday night. I always look forward to these big events with all of my friends and acquaintances and this one looks to be just as awesome as all of the others have been. As an aside, I am thinking of standing up a site to crowdsource the DJ setlists I build for these events. I may not get it done this UDS, but I'd love to get it going fro the next one. :-) More on that later.

In summary, there are too many good things happening for me to remain in this funk. I have a lot of things to get on track and an equal portion of items to kick off. I don't have time to be down! To those who should be in the areas I plan to be in, I look forward to seeing you! If you will be at UDS, look me up. I'll be one of the long-haired fellas running around with musical instruments.

~JFo

It has been a quiet few months...

Welcome to my first post of the year. I must say, it has been a rough time. I have been doing a critical review of my life lately, and I am not impressed with the results of my investigation. This is nothing new, though there are some new aspects of my life that have made me less than happy, but this has only cemented the need for me to make several changes that I have been putting off.
I discovered during this personal inventory that I have been keeping myself in a state of limbo. I'm not sure how long I have been here, but I can say that it seems to have been quite some time. A number of the things I took as burnout, while also being burnout, were symptoms of my general lack of action. I failed to act in a number of circumstances and acted incorrectly in several others. I used to be so decisive. I used to live life if not to the fullest then at least to the 80th percentile. When did that drop so precipitously? Why didn't I notice?

I have noticeably neglected my championing of Open Source Software. I have neglected this blog. I don't spend as much time as I did on things I enjoy. I haven't spent time outside in a while. Could I be affected by whatever it is the winter does to us? Am I depressed? Am I just drowning in work and allowing myself to care less about the things I used to? I think it is a mixture of these. In the last few months I have gone out a bit more than usual. I have been dealing with IRS issues, so that hasn't helped my mood, but the most annoying aspect of my life lately has been the poor decisions I have made in several key areas. Decisions that should have been simple and obvious were suddenly difficult and unclear or undesirable. One big error still haunts me a bit. I am not going to describe it (as I said to Carlota), but suffice to say, it has made me doubt my personal idea of myself. I used to think I was a fundamentally decent person, now I am not so sure. I have meanness in me apparently and I am not certain when or where it came from. I'm thankful to Carlota for talking to me even though I didn't give her details, but the sum of our conversation, while comforting, hasn't changed my overall concern. I MUST determine where this came from. I MUST determine if I can fix it. I WILL change this if possible. I hate to think of my life if this is a defining moment in it. What will it mean in the future if I can expect more of these bad decisions?
To those of you, my friends, concerned by this dialog I say, fear not. You should all know that I don't hurt me for any reason. (Yes, I know that is a bad sentence. No, I don't care. :) ) I am simply trying to jot down some of the reasons I have been so silent here recently. It was pompous of me to think that I had any advice on bettering a life. I am clearly doing a number on mine recently, but I have a basic plan. At one point in time I had several, long-term plans in my life. I regularly had a 1 a 2 and a half and a 5 year plan for my life. They were the reason I achieved what I did in life until my divorce. Since then I have been rudderless, planning nothing but the spur of the moment. I have been reasonably successful. I just haven't been successful for the right reasons nor for the result of some plan as I used to. My goal is simple, have my plans in place by the end of this month without becoming like Charlie Sheen. :-) I think I can do it (plus I don't use drugs so that should be easier).

By the end of this month I will have in place a 1 and 2 year plan. Much of the work for this has already been done, I simply need to get it in the right place and format. I have all of the tools. I have the motivation, and the anger from my latest failures, to get me going. I know I have the friends who care if this is successful or not, but my habit (as you are all aware) is to not rely on you. It is important to me that I do this myself. This is my mess, let me clean it up. Otherwise how will I ever learn?

Enough about that. I have begun writing again on a regular basis. This is part of the above mentioned plan. It has been tough, but I am writing 'something' every day. If I have trouble thinking of a story, or if I don't have the passion for working on one of my existing projects, I write observations of my life. They are sometimes caustic and critical, but at least I am writing again. This weekend I am planning to cook out, work on my car and begin work on my yard again. All of these activities force me to be outdoors (weather permitting) so I am interested in how they affect my mood. Sunday is the Day of the Dude and I plan to go bowling, watch The Big Lebowski and generally flourish under my chosen 'religion' for the day. I am The Very Reverend JFo after all. :-D I am hopeful that these activities will be the kick-start to me returning to be the JFo that you are all familiar with. I'm actually thankful that I work from home so that you can't see me as I am now. I'd also lke to mention that a number of people who have known of my current return to writing regularly have asked why I have not been updating the blog. Interesting fact: I have written 22 blog posts for this blog since my last holiday post. None of them were fit to publish because of the state of mind I have been in. All of them had some tilt of darkness to them and I am using some of them as blog posts in my main project book, so you will likely never see them here. :)

Anyway...

For more info on The Day of the Dude, see www.dudeism.com. If you are nearby, come out and visit me. I'll be the longhaired, goateed gentleman drinking the white russians.

Take 'er easy if you can.
~JFo

Tis the season...

For long lines at any department store, short tempers, great food and relatives that remind us why we only ever see each other once a year. :)

This is also the season for ridiculous sales on the things we "want" rather than need, food that we should avoid that gets eaten anyway, and the search for that perfect gift for the person or people you cherish most. In short, this season is a mix of the most vivid emotions ranging from Love to hate and all possible variance in between, and all of it gets packed into a few weeks of the year.

In speaking with a dear friend the other day, who just so happens to be a psychiatrist (and no, I wasn't paying him for his time :) ), we fell into a conversation about the season and how it affects us, and can affect the outlook and our inter-familial conversations for years to come. I consider him a wise man, but we disagree often on some things. In this case, we disagreed that it was a healthy overall experience for a person to 'put up with' certain behaviors from family members during this time of celebration and reflection. His perspective is that it helps the individual grow mentally, while I believe it teaches a dangerous method of allowing bad behavior to continue to exist in otherwise sane (loosely translated) family members.

As is our custom around this time of year, we argued (more of a friendly debate) about the differences in our experience and, therefore, our perception of how these events affect an individual. As a child, there was nothing I loved more in my life than going to visit my grandparents on their farm in Alabama for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The trips were the highlight of my year. As a result, I argue that my foundation in solid family environments has allowed me to see both proper and improper interaction between members of the family, and I vividly remember my grandmother and her correction of bad behavior during this time.

My friend's family had much the same, but with a slightly different result. There were members of his extended family that regularly engaged in disruptive and disrespectful behavior during the gatherings, and their contribution went uncorrected. He was confident that seeing this behavior allowed him to see what not to do around family and, while I agree on principle, I think it was his upbringing around individuals that acted properly that allowed him to know the difference. :)

The moral of this story, if there is one, is that you can disagree on behavior, belief, style of dress... but enacted bad behavior that goes uncorrected only allows that person to believe that the behavior is accepted by those around them. On this we both agree.

So, when I am out during this season of mostly selfless giving and I see someone behaving badly within my realm of influence, I make it a point to correct them as gently as possible. After all, I am no expert in relations. I simply know what I am willing to allow myself to encounter as well as in what way I personally expect to be treated. There is a threshold for the way I allow myself to be addressed, treated or respected below which I allow none to pass without some form of intervention on my part. In the past, some people saw this to be some sort of unnatural requirement on my part. I see it as not allowing yourself to receive less respect than you deserve. I wish for the same for all of you.

With that, we come to my real reason for this post. :)

Jono Bacon has created something that I think is long overdue: http://openrespect.org/.

It is a site that should help us understand that respect is not just something you give another, it is something you can earn and set for yourself. Now Jono's site is meant and geared more for software development, but I think this should be the model for mortals the world over regardless of your particular job, race, belief structure or affiliation. It is a great thing to see the self worth of an individual increase when they are shown proper respect. It is something I think has been sorely lacking in this world for too long.

Have a look there, take for yourself those ideals and set your threshold for what you are willing to accept. Be true to yourselves. Let none take advantage of your self worth. Love your family, but let them know that there are limits to what you will allow. In this, each of us has an opportunity to grow. Be as respectful to others as you want them to respect you. To each of you, my friends, I offer a hug. To those who don't hug, a hearty handshake is my gift, and to those who don't like to shake hands, have some pie! :-)

Happy Holidays!

~JFo

Advice, and the people who give/take it.

I realized today that, while I was giving advice to a friend, the advice I was giving was something that I myself needed to heed. Thinking back on all of the times I have provided my opinion or some piece of, hopefully useful, advice; I realized that, in many of those occasions, the advice I gave wasn't something that I adhered to in my own life. In those cases where I did abide my own, in almost all of those case I was now not keeping to that standard. It actually made me quite sad.

They say the hardest lessons are the ones you visit on yourself. Well, this was a tough pill to swallow for me. I like to think I have given good advice, but given my past history of not following through on it myself, I begin to wonder. A big moment for me was while listening to the clip from Cool Hand Luke that I am using in a jingle for the podcast that Amber Graner and I are discussing the resurrection of. "What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach." Clearly, in this case, I was the person who couldn't be reached even though the teacher was the same person.

It brought into sharp relief those times that people tell us they understand something and then continue life in the same manner as before. Understanding does not indicate acceptance of a set of circumstances, nor does it indicate a willingness to work toward whatever goal is a result of the idea or advice. It seems I will have to pay closer attention to myself before I am comfortable giving advice to anyone else. How can I consider it sound if I am not willing to take it?

~JFo

The Box... I haz it!!

Folks who know me are quite aware that I am an odd thinker. It should, then, come as no surprise to you that I like thinking 'outside the box'. I've never liked boxes. I remember making a maze in my middle school lunchroom for Halloween lamenting the fact that I didn't have sturdier construction material to make the maze the way I wanted to. I didn't like them then, I don't like them now. Even as a child I despised the boxes that things I bought came in. Now as an adult, I feel like the boxes are wasteful and take up too much space.

I am a believer in not only thinking outside the box but in destroying the box and using its pieces to build a better box to think outside of. My thinking is akin to sitting on a porch in the south on a summer day smoking a cigar. Surprisingly enjoyable in and of itself, but also able to be improved by the qualities of the porch I am sitting on. If it has a roof, I am shielded from the sun. By the same token, if it is enclosed with screen, I don't have to worry about bugs.

If I own this porch I can do anything I want with it to include completely enclosing it and using it in the winter. The details aren't important. What is important is that it becomes more esthetically pleasing the more work I put into it and more people are likely going to be interested in visiting and sitting on my porch.

I think the same is true of thought processes. A person who has a proven ability to create unexpected ideas from a bit of conversation will have more people interested in discussing their ideas with them. This person, for lack of a better term, is constantly refining their box. After all, who doesn't want to go outside their home every now and again and see what needs sprucing up or changing. If you can interest people in your box, you can show them the beauty that lies outside of your box. This is what makes disruptive technology so interesting to us. We see proven leaders in their fields and we then see them creating such unique and new ideas that we want to work with them. We want to be a part of and learn how to improve out thinking in such a way as to develop ourselves more fully into free thinkers. It is definitely one of the main reasons I wanted to work at Canonical. Nothing could be more beautiful than learning and growing every day. This is my wish for all of you in the next years. Continue to grow your minds. Don't let your box fall apart without first having a plan to rebuild bigger and better. Above all, get out there in the sunshine and create!

:-)

~JFo

Fish, Barrel... Loud Bangs...

I had an odd experience yesterday. It is one that I have ever only just read about or saw in movies.

I was a target for Social Engineering. Yes, I feel dirty too. Fortunately my suspicious nature precluded me from following through, but I was alarmed at how easy and natural it would have been for me to provide the information that was requested.

The setup was simple, I received a call from an unknown number (this was the first clue that something wasn't right). The person on the line stated that she was 'Carolyn' from payroll (this was the second indication for me) and that there had been a 'glitch'. First off, I know of no one at my company named Carolyn. Add to that the fact that I am not the manager of our team. I'm not even the next lower rung. She followed up by saying that she was trying to get a hold of several people in dealing with the glitch. She named 2 people that she was interested in getting phone information for. Normally this request wouldn't raise too many eyebrows, however, my company maintains an internal directory for just such a thing. Now that my spider sense is riding the bellrope of WTF?! into a 9 star fire alarm of frenzy, I had a moment of clarity. I realized just how dangerous this scenario is. My natural predilection is to help in any way I can. After all, it is what I do on a daily basis. For someone unfamiliar with their company's personnel, it would be so simple to provide this information and think nothing more of it, but this simple request can do so much more. A telephone number can tell the requester where in the country the person lives. It also used to have the added benefit of narrowing to a specific region in that zone further reducing the possibilities of finding a location of that particular person. Sounds like a relatively harmless thing right? Well sure until you start looking at the huge list of missing persons all over the country.

In this case, I am pretty certain that the fisherman was a recruiter so the information could have been used for something relatively harmless. The fact is, there is no way of knowing. Sadly, I was so floored by my thought process at the time that I didn't do anything more than try to sound like a person who knew nothing and didn't have the information at hand, but I would have preferred to spar a bit, if you will, with the person on the line. I think it would have been entirely possible to blow over the house of cards they had built with their opening statements.

My final thoughts on the subject are these: Isn't it illegal to do something like this? If so, what are the ways I can combat this type of information gathering? And finally, If I find out who the person or persons are doing this, where do I go with this information? I don't have the answers, but I do have a question for you. Do you think you would be able to cut through the BS and determine that you were being scammed?

Stay vigilant with your information!
Knowledge is power.

~JFo

My stream of consciousness born of a lack of sleep ☺

{This probably won’t be as short as my normal posts, so those of you who actually do read this (all 8 of you ;-)) may want to take a moment to get comfortable.}

My Job

I love what I do. I love the people I work with. Our times go from easy street and partying at UDS wrap parties to fist and jaw clenching emergencies in the blink of an eye immediately before we release. Never have I worked with a smarter and more capable group of individuals than this one. I am part of one of the most intelligent teams I’ve ever worked or dealt with, and I am thankful for them every day. They give me something to work toward; something most of you know I haven’t had in quite some time. ☺

Our Project

In my opinion, Ubuntu stands to be one of the wonders of the world. I’m not saying that as an employee of canonical. It is the result of having worked with one of the most widely used and developed OS on the market today. Without the vast community we have, none of our goals would be met, none of our validation would occur and none of our growth would have happened. This project has the potential to be (and already is in my opinion) the standard for crowd-sourced projects for the ages. I am thankful for the absolute army of individuals we have thinking, breathing and living the open source and free software philosophy. Without their differences of opinion and ability to clearly state their individual and group opinions there would not be a third of the coverage this OS has in users and developers. You should all be proud.

My Life

I have a great job that requires me to travel on occasion, a nice car, ☺ a great place to live and a lot of new friends that I have met along the way. These are the things that make a success of one’s life. The reality is, it isn’t who you know or the things you have that make one feel complete. It is the memories and experiences that one has that make for a complete life. After all, “You can’t take it with you.” As with all things, there is also the bad. I have many times where I can’t sleep. Many of you are aware that I write on occasion, but I am by no means an author. Authors are published, and I have made it a point not to attempt to publish anything yet. The reasons for this are many, but the main one is that these are stories that I want to write for the sheer joy of the experience right now. I love that the plot doesn’t always develop the way I see it in my head. I love that the characters take on their own personalities and force me into writing them a certain way. The bit that I don’t love about it is the amount of sleep that I lose when great encounters or lines of dialog refuse to allow me to rest. ☺ I estimate that I have lost about 100 pages of really good material because I refused to get out of the bed and fire up the computer.

Add to that my love of music and my newfound desire to write some original electronic and mashup pieces and you have a recipe that won’t see me sleeping until I die. ☺ This is good though. It is a different thing for me to be interested in something that could keep me up at night by a desire to continue working on it. The friends I have had throughout my life would probably all agree that I love my sleep. They would be correct. Sadly, these things seem to have taken precedence over my beloved slumber. I’m happy in some ways that this has happened. After my divorce I went through 5 years of listlessness. I didn’t care what I did or where I did it. I joined the Army again. I moved all over the southeast US. I didn’t keep track of my finances and was overdrawn on many occasions. I simply didn’t care. To have some of that back in my life is a good thing I think.

During that time, I worked across the spectrum of jobs, from carpentry, to Systems and Network Administration to HVAC to Electrical to Plumbing at the Physical Plant of Anderson College to Campus Safety officer to Team Lead of a global enterprise support organization at HP to the Bug master for the Kernel Team of the Ubuntu project. All of that was in the 5 years I spent carelessly trying to find my place again in society. I haven’t found it, but I do care to look some more. ☺ I wonder where that will see me.

My friends

I have the most awesome collection of friends and acquaintances in the world. I mean that, they are, literally, all over the world. Some friends of note who have helped me move upward out of the sludge of lifelessness over the past several years:
Amber and Pete Graner and kids: I became an honorary uncle and I think that helped kick start the process quite a bit. ☺ Their house recently burned down proving yet again that bad things happen to good people. If you weren’t aware and you want to help them out, have a look here: There are still 7 more days that you can contribute. ☺ I love you guys. I’m just sayin’.

Carlota Sage: She is the penultimate pinup and she has a wicked and dirty sense of humor. It was in large part her refusal to put up with noncommittal crap from me that kick started my funny bone back up. I’m sure she isn’t aware, but I have so much more funny now and yet, not as much as I used to have. Still working on that though. ☺ Love ya Carlota.

There are so many others that gave a part of their lives to me by either allowing me into their homes to corrupt their brains/children/pets/parents. Too many to name, but I am thankful for you all, even though at least 3 sets of you had kids after I moved away… You guys need hobbies :-P
So many of you gave your philosophy, long-held beliefs or just a comfortable place to chat that I can’t imagine where my mind would be now without you. To you, the intelligential individuals, I am eternally grateful.

So I suppose you gathered that this post is geared more toward things I am thankful for. I thought that was appropriate, given this time of the year. You know, the time of year when I refuse to listen to normal radio due to their penchant for playing certain seasonal songs a month before they should be played. ☺

So there you go. These are the thoughts that are banging around in my head as I try to get to sleep tonight. :-/ Hopefully getting them out of my head will help me actually rest… but I doubt it. :-D

Now aren’t you glad you read all of that? ☺
~JFo