Give to those less fortunate, today!

Walking from the parking garage to my office in the wee hours of the morning, I usually pass a couple homeless people, still asleep, on the sidewalk. I've felt a desire to make a positive impact in their lives, something big and personal, but haven't really known what I can do that is within my means and would make a lasting positive impact. When I brought the whole family to see downtown and my office on a bitter cold night, over dinner I explained that the people they saw were homeless and had to sleep outside. My five and seven year old kids, too young to be touched with any jade, immediately wanted to step in and do something. They suggested we bring them home, or let them sleep in our car. I wish I could.

With the impending tax changes, I will be most likely going from a situation where I can claim itemized deductions to one where I will claim a standard deduction. Since for every dollar I donate, I will have to pay about 30 cents less in tax, its effectively a 30% discount on any charitable contributions I make in 2017 that I won't get in 2018. You may be in a similar situation if you plan to itemize your deductions (which usually only makes sense if your state/local taxes, mortgage interest, and charitable donations exceed $6,350 if filing single or $12,700 if filing jointly).

Combining my desire to help with my strong compulsion to optimize, I just gave to a couple charities that I hope will make a difference in the lives of those I pass nearly every day downtown. I don't say this to brag, but because I think that giving is contagious. I hope that my giving encourages others to do the same. I'm also hoping the knowledge that this might be the last opportunity to take advantage of the current tax law will encourage others to give too, especially those that have been meaning to, but haven't gotten around to it. Hurry up and get that donation in before the year is over!

Writing Culture, Listening Commute

The other day at work, there was a meeting for all the hires in the past year. It included a panel of some experienced employees and the opportunity for us new hires to ask questions about the organization and company culture. The topic of our writing culture came up. The narrative documents we create were described as not only being key to informing the reader, but it was stressed that the process of creating the document ensures that the writer is fully thinking through and understanding the problem space. This really resonated with me, as I think it says something pretty similar to what I stated in my previous post:

"There is something about writing that ... makes reflection more deliberate and effectual."

To me, this validated my position. Its nice to know you're not crazy, and better yet, get a little confidence to help boost your motivation. Writing prompts and forces you to answer questions that are too easy to miss or ignore otherwise. That said, I haven't done any more reflective writing, but I will.

Since I have a rather long commute, I've been taking advantage of podcasts to educate and entertain myself. I though I'd share my list of favorites:

• Revisionist History by Malcom Gladwell
• Revisiting and understanding historical incidents
• Just listen, its great. if you don't like the first one you listen to, try another. Its a really amazing podcast.
• S-Town
• Amazing true story about a brilliant guy in a backwoods town. He contacts a reporter to investigate a murder that the town in covering up.
• Java Pub House by Freddy Guime
• The production quality isn't amazing, but I really appreciate the content and am using it to help kickstart my journey towards Java mastery.
• Mission to Zyxx
• Think improvised Star Wars parody. I've laughed out loud... alone in my car. I think people saw me.

A couple of these were recommended by a great guy I used to work with. He's a smart guy, you should check out his blog.

I'm planning a post that will refer to one of the episodes of Revision History, Miss Buchanan's Period Of Adjustment. Have a listen, and you'll have better context when I get around to posting about it.

I've also spent a bit of time lately playing PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS (PUBG) in addition to my old standby, Rocket League. For those not in the know, PUBG is a multiplayer online game that starts with about 99 players dropping out of an airplane onto a multi-kilometer island, scavenging for weapons and equipment, and fighting for their life as the playing area gets increasingly smaller. The goal: Be the last man standing. I've played games where I've gone 20 minutes without seeing anybody only to be picked off by a sniper rifle when I'm one of 14 people left. Other games involve running into somebody right at the beginning while you're both still weaponless. It's intense and fun. I've felt enough adrenaline from it that I don't play when I know I want to be asleep within an hour.

Cheers

And.... we're back!

I decided to try to resurrect this blog again. The biggest hurdle isn’t getting started, it's finishing a post; finally having it good enough. I’ve started several posts over the past few years, but never finished. Realizing this though, the knowledge I may never publish starts to becomes an impedance to starting. I’ll try to overcome that through high-level outlining and shorter posts, breaking things up if necessary.

On the way home from work yesterday, I decided I wanted to do more reflective writing. To me this means: Looking at my life, deciding what I want to do or change, coming up with a plan if possible, and documenting it. There is something about writing that I think makes reflection more deliberate and effectual. Without it, I think a train of thought can become interrupted and trail off without any resolution. I used to do this often in college but haven’t done much of in the past 15 years. This post serves as a public version of it.

I also decided I wanted to focus on trying to do three things on a regular basis: Learn, Do, and Write

I feel like I’ve done well with learning. I’ve completed a lot of MOOC courses (I recommend starting with Learning How To Learn on Coursera) and reading (currently reading Thinking, Fast and Slow) but I’d like to continue and increase this.

“Do” more or less means projects, mostly software, but it could be some sort of hobby building or community service. I’ve started but abandoned a few things. I will probably pick a couple of them back up, specifically an engine for the board game Sorry that I can develop AI / Machine Learning players to simulate against each other as well as a machine learning approach to playing Ultimate Tic Tac Toe. Ultimately, I’d like to do something that is more widely beneficial but this will be a start.

Lastly writing is a way to share what I learn and do, as well as accomplish my goal of more reflective writing. Again, this blog provides an avenue to do such.

Some things I might post about soon include:

• Things I like about my new house
• My new job and commute
• Plan and progress on my personal software projects

Thanks for reading

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