Esses & Jeeze

A weblog of stuff & nonsense from jstam.com.

The time has come

For quite some time I've thought about who will read these words. Who's my audience? Not long ago I realized it is you. I've just been hesitant to write it, or say it out loud. But it's been you all along. Not anymore. You're here. You've read this far so you must have a vested interest. So let me start with words I should say at the end all this: thank you!

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for making me a part of your day. I hope these visits of ours are often and meaningful. I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am to have this opportunity to be together, even if only for a few moments. I'm sure you've heard it before, but nothing ever comes easy. The best things in life are usually the hardest things to attain. A wise man once told me "if were it easy, everyone'd be doing it." He was right.

The time has come for me to practice what I preach. I can't sit here and look you in the eyes and feed you a line of BS. It's time to look inside. I've got to start being the man you believe me to be. I'm going to start living by these words that I know so well:

"When life knocks you down, get up.
When you fall behind, come back. When the world says you can't, what does your heart say?
You can.
Tomorrow starts right now...
What will you make of it?"

Because of you I now know what I want my tomorrow to be. -------
No matter what, win or lose...

A friend shared this with me today. Couldn't be better advice for parents in dealing with kids.

"Today's Parenting Tip: Treat a difficult child the way you would your boss at work. Praise his achievements, ignore his tantrums and resist the urge to sit him down and explain to him how his brain is not yet fully developed."

From http://www.robertbrault.com/. Funny stuff.

#tip-of-the-day "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle." - A. Lincoln

You can’t stroll to a goal, you must hustle; you must move quickly in order to gain the momentum necessary to break free from the gravitational pull of the commonplace. The best things in life come to those who hustle. Are you hustling?

From Dumb Little Man, via Lifehacker: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2010/05/7-must-read-life-lessons-from-abraham.html 

Today I nearly quit Facebook, but instead just removed all my data. You may want to consider it as well. Here's why...

Lord knows I'm always game for free, open-source applications and software. I love Google and almost everything they do. I put up with ads in my free iPhone apps. Doesn't bother me.

When I heard Facebook was making some questionable changes to their privacy policies I didn't flinch too much. After all, it's a free service that has helped me connect and keep up with many friends and family members. I've read a lot of opinions (like this one: gizmodo.com/5530178/top-ten-reasons-you-should-quit-facebook) and even agree with some of the points that are being made against Facebook. But the subject of account deletion never crossed my mind.

That is, until this morning when I watched this: eu.techcrunch.com/2010/05/05/video-major-facebook-security-hole-lets-you-view-your-friends-live-chats/

As a developer and system administrator, it's my job to do everything I can to maximize functionality without sacrificing security (of the system, user, data, etc.). This was a pretty massive security hole that Facebook seemingly completely missed or ignored.

Ever-changing business rules are one thing. Piss-poor application development and testing protocols are something else entirely:

The straw that broke the camel's back.

At least in my case.

Just made a really tough decision... to Prestige in MW2.

;-)

I've held out for months. Can't pass up the double XP.

Kyle Kuric is my hero. Helluva way to send Freedom Hall out!

Playing their best game in front of UofL basketball legends.

Go Cards!

The boys had fun out in the snow today with their friends

     
Click here to download:
The_boys_had_fun_out_in_the_sn.zip (1705 KB)

Amazed at the power of social media on the anniversary of my birth

There's nothing like your birthday to give you a reason to log into Facebook for the first time in months.

Seriously, I was blown away by the number of people who took a moment out of their day today to wish me well. They're either incredibly thoughtful or really, really bored. Either way, it makes a brutha feel good.

Vegas vacation

           
Click here to download:
vegas-vacation-EehhduyEnzBrcEeBfFuB.zip (3172 KB)