Category: Uncategorized

Somebody’s lying.

and Amanda Tapping should play Jessica Fletcher.

Why else would you specifically mention your plane and that it’s specifically a 767 in a comment publicly dissing another rapper?

In my efforts to get more steps in each day, I’ve been looking for ways to work walking into things that I am already doing.

I take my dog Waffles out several times each day.

Recently, I realized that I was usually just standing still, watching her.

I started this new thing where I just walk the entire time that we are outside. 10 mins of nonstop walking here and there throughout the day has made a dramatic difference.

If so, just pick the Safe Mode option that’s given to you when you start the game the next time. It hasn’t crashed for me since.

Apparently, if you aren’t available to receive a package, UPS now will “helpfully” pick a random store near your house to leave the package at, and then you have to go there to pick it up.

The last time this happened, they left it at the Walgreens around the corner from my house. Then I had to get in line behind a family of 5 for 5-10 minutes while they argued about which photos they wanted to print, because the package pickup point in Walgreens was also the photo department counter.

This time, they left the package at a nearby auto parts store. I’m sitting here asking myself… how is this better than having them leave the package at the UPS store near my house (which is easier to get to than either the Walgreens or the auto parts store), like they used to? How is this better for the customer?

And then I realized that I’m not the customer. The sender of the package is UPS’s customer. I am the sender’s customer. UPS promised the sender that they would get someone to sign for the package, and Walgreens/the auto parts store are middlemen who are trying to increase their foot traffic.

Now it all makes sense.

Forget normal parallel parking, I want a car that can crabwalk like this Hyundai concept!

I grew up poor. So poor, in fact that at one point during my childhood we ended up having to move in with my mom’s mom: Mary Noel LaGrange. That ended up workng out great for me, because I got to spend a lot of time with my grandmother.

She loved to feed me and watch me eat. Looking back through old photos, I was such a fat baby! A lot of it was her doing.

What I remember most, though, are the quiet mornings that we spent in the kitchen, when she’d make me eggs and cheese.

4 eggs. Cast iron pot. Butter. 2 slices of American cheese.

The pot she used was well seasoned, and I remember that she’d somehow get the eggs and cheese to brown in such a way that they became one delicious entity.

I was by her bedside when she passed away. I was still too young to learn how to cook, so she didn’t get to teach me how to make them.

A few years later Cheryl, the older neighbor girl who lived next door came over and taught me how to make scrambled eggs. She also passed away way too soon, in a horrific car accident.

I have made at least 8,000 scrambled eggs in my life, but I have never been able to replicate my grandmother’s eggs. There’s just something about them that I have yet to figure out.

Every time I make scrambled eggs, I think of my grandmother and Cheryl, and every now and then I throw in some American cheese and try to make those eggs.

One day I’ll get them right.

If you have a UniFi setup with a Chamberlain MyQ Home Bridge, sometimes it can be flaky under HomeKit. Specifically, the issue that I was seeing was that the garage door opener could be seen and controlled by the MyQ app, but in the iOS home app, both the MyQ Home Bridge and the garage door opener showed the dreaded “No Response” message. It turns out that the issue is that HomeKit WiFi devices tend to use the 2.4GHz band, but your computers and other devices are probably on the 5GHz band. The UniFi router/WiFi access points will silently create 2 networks with the same SSID… one that’s 2.4GHz and one that’s 5GHz.

Normally that’s not a problem, but due to the way that HomeKit discovers devices, it becomes a quite annoying issue. Basically, HomeKit/Bonjour devices advertise themselves using something called Multicast DNS. In some cases, the UniFi software won’t send the Multicast traffic between the 2 networks, so your HomeKit bridge can’t find the MyQ Home Bridge.

The way that I fixed it was to open the UniFi Controller interface and turn on the setting named “Enable multicast enhancement (IGMPv3)”. I found it under Settings > Wireless Networks. I clicked Edit on my wireless network, and then I clicked Advanced Options to reveal the setting. Once I applied that setting, my Home Bridge showed up immediately.

I’ve been entrepreneurial since I was young. I started my own business when I was 15, and although I’ve had more than a few years of working for someone else, my goal has always been to work for myself. Over the years, that feeling got stronger and stronger. I was tired of being asked for my opinion about something, taking the time to give a well-reasoned answer and having my advice be completely ignored. I was tired of working on things that never shipped. I was tired of working on things that had no reason other than “because I said so”. I’ve always done my best work when I can see the reason behind the work that I’m doing. Around February of 2013, the startup that I was working for ran out of money and after panicing for a few months, I realized that I’d built up enough of my own business over the years that I didn’t have to find another job. I figured out that if I just focused on growing the apps that I was already working on, I’d be fine.

It’s been a great ride so far. My business has grown and is continuing to grow. By December of last year, I was making as much revenue in 5 days as I did in the entire month of April.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about why I prefer running my own business. I’ve come to the conclusion that I feel that running your own business is like driving your own car, while working for someone else is like taking the bus.

When you ride in the bus: You can make suggestions to the bus driver, but they don’t have to take them (and they probably won’t). If the bus gets in a wreck, you (and everyone else in the bus) might see it coming, but the only one who can decide to avoid the accident is the person behind the wheel. The bus driver can also decide to kick you off of the bus at any time, for any reason. Conversely, if the bus is consistently the best bus on the road and never gets in any wrecks, it might get upgraded over time, or traded out for a new bus. Everyone in the bus benefits from things like heated seats, free meals, video screens, free wifi, etc (health insurance, stock options, bonuses). You can focus on just the job that you’re getting paid to do. As long as you’re getting that job done within the organization, you’ll probably get paid.

If you drive your own car: You have to be alert all of the time, because your business depends on you being able to see issues coming, and avoiding them. You’re responsible for all of the decisions, so your failure or success depends on you. However, you can take your foot off of the gas at any time. You can take a shortcut, or a more scenic route.  You can buy a sports car if you want (which may accelerate your success or failure, depending on how you drive), you can drive a reliable, dependable car, and you can even drive a minivan if you want (doesn’t go as fast as the rest, but it holds your whole family!), depending on what’s most important to you. Your mistakes and successes are your own.

In my experience, it feels pretty good to be the one driving the car, instead of riding the bus with everyone else. It’s great not to be tied to the same destiny as everyone else, with no real control over how things end up. It’s not the best choice for everyone (some people prefer the illusion of security that employment brings), but it’s definitely the best choice for me.

Maybe you shouldn’t be riding in the bus either.