I used to think I could sleep anytime, anyplace.  Give me 5 cups of coffee at midnight and watch me sleep.  But, lately, with my finally being caught up since 2 weeks ago, I find myself asking what the same thing I did 14 years ago?

Luke, what do you want to do?

Its a simple concept but often taken for granted–Free Time.   Its been 5 years since I’ve had it.  I’ve played 5 different games in the past week and ended up watching 2012 with Kris on Saturday night just because I could.  And, wow, what an awesome movie.  If anybody reads this and has a day to just throw away, watch 2012, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and The Core.  You will long to relive that day.  Here’s a hot glimpse of what you can expect from The Core.  Oh, and while I’m on  YouTube, to borrow a line from Justin:  This is how I code.  (50,000 watts of funkin’)  And yes, we just type 1’s and 0’s into a computer till the 3D model looks like how we want. 

Anywayz, sorry for the tangent, but having the power to do what I want gives me two options when bedtime rolls around:  to work/code/play to exhaustion, or go to bed and lie awake with my mind racing.  After the past few nights of a racing mind and the subsequent tossing-and-turning, I decided to try the whole work/code/play to the point of exhaustion. 

I think it’ll be much better when I get through the books I want to read and get well into Drupal.   I’m almost done with 2 of the books.  I need to see them through.

Will Jayden wake up at 6am instead of 5am due to the daylight savings change?  Find out later!

I’ve learned an awful lot about Wordpress the past 2 months.  More than I cared to.  Gee Shucks Willikers!  So, much I decided its easier to get this up as my default site and continue to stay sharp on it by adapting it to suit my wishes.  Its going to be a fun ride.  I really want to do a photo gallery thats rather simple.  The previous project almost matches what I wanted to do exactly.  I just need to readapt the uploading to be more en-mass.

Anywayz, Wordpress!  I know right? What is next? Facebook?  Could Krizell move to Wordpress as well?  Her code is only 5 years old.

I’m going to tinker with it throughout the week so bare with me as I try to keep the design to a minimum.  My ultimate goal is minimum design maximum code!

The fact this site is actually up is probably a shock to some. Its rather unannounced and out of the blue.

First, I want to start by saying everything I’m about to write is 100% my fault. I’m not shifting the blame. Lessons learned. Plot revealed. Let’s start in the beginning.

The Beginning

I moved to Virginia Beach in 2000 after college. Took an entry level data job. Got to do some programming on a trial basis. I performed well. I started coding a lot.

The internet evolved. Suddenly, it wasn’t acceptable to just post a form and output a query. There was DHTML and Javascript and Services and a huge increase in the requirements of functionality per page and per site and WOW! Where did all the simple sites gooooo, oooooo? (Or that song)

I continued to toil endlessly and sadly gave up most of my 20’s to this futility. It wasn’t until recently that I saw the folly in it. You see, the past 5 years I can think of 8 sites that consumed days and nights for a lonnggg period of time. At the bare minimum, 3 months+. One of them even went up to 9 months. Now, out of the 8, 5 of them don’t even have the domain registered anymore. Sooooo, whine more, you got paid right?

Yes I got paid, for 4 of them, but when I broke down the money vs the hours spent, it was disheartening. I lived in this fantasy world where I gave so much in features and functionality and quality code and deallssss, that I took away from me and family and friends, profit, and something I can never get back — time. Why overcode something you don’t have to, or worse, why overcode EVERYTHING when it was not asked or needed? More features take longer to train and introduce more bugs and more time to fix it. Why trim money off the quote to ‘help them out’ or — in the situations where you aren’t providing the quote — let ‘other inexperienced’ people make the deal while you do the work? A common term with business deals is ‘having skin in the game’. Those 8 sites didn’t have any real skin in the game. I only had skin in the game.

Code what people want, but educate them as to what they need, finalize a deal, get paid fairly, and deliver it well. Good business has to proceed good code.

The revelation(s)

This last week revealed a lot to me. A 26 month old son who I felt I barely knew. A phone call from my mom saying dad had a stroke and was in the hospital. Summer #5 gone by where I was the one who spent most of it indoors. Suddenly, life made sense in the fact I was 100% working it and 0% living it.

The rebirth of this site

I was in the shower pondering the lessons of the week and I realized that you don’t have to leave business at the office. Return On Investment has to be applied to every aspect of your life because that is the only way you can go through life and minimize regret. I’m not talking GRRRR I NEED TO TURN EVERY MINUTE INTO A MONEY DEAL. Money is a product of time. Time is the valuable commodity that everyone has and noone wants to lose. Everything I MUST DO is an investment of my time. What is my return on that? What is it that I truly WANT to do? and what keeps me from doing that? Minimize or eliminate those items.

I want to write and post pictures! Great, but I have to write the code first in ASP.NET MVC. (The reason the site wasn’t up in the first place.) Why? What awards are you going to win, Luke? Who is going to care that you wrote the code or not? Just download and install something and run with it.

I tried hard. But they all sucked. Too many features or just not appealing. So here I am, back at PHP, with an old design that is simple and plain, but efficient and allows me to do what I want with little time. My goal is to get the features I want implemented with as little code written as possible. Two things are funny. 1) I spent 30 minutes writing the minimal code to get this post up. and 2) I just kept deleting code I’d just written that was simple overkill and simplifying that little bit of code in that 30 minutes. The result: Simple and Efficient, oh and Happiness.

New Start, New Rules

1. Love — To not be the cat-in-the-cradle dad, or the late-for-every-dinner-husband, or the too-much-work-cant-talk friend (or family member).
2. Business — To work hard and make sure that all have ’skin in the game’ as to not waste time and mutual successes.
3. Me — To simply live life again and grow in some way every day.