I’m Up To No Good

Okay, I'm not really… But it seemed like time to add a post about what I'm doing with my life, rather than just venting or dispelling information of high value. J

The last year or so has been full of changes in both my personal and professional life. Fortunately it has pretty much all been for the better.

A little over a year ago I received a phone call inviting me to do some contract programming work for an engineering firm in Houston. My friend Brian had referred me to one of his customers, and they were pretty excited to have me come down and do some work for them. So Brian flew up to Utah and we drove back to Houston so I could begin working on the project. It turns out they wanted an easy way to track the projects they were working on and coordinate between employees. A pretty simple idea, really, and the resulting program is actually pretty slick. They're very happy, so they've had me come back down for followup and an additional project since then. I'll be heading back down for yet another followup visit shortly. They treat me pretty well, and each time I go to Houston I get to visit Brian and my sister Suzanne. It works out really well for everyone involved.

In August my brother Brent was asked by his former boss Jared to help out with a Point-of-Sale application that would end up in pizza retailers. Before long it became obvious that the project requirements were outside his realm of expertise, so Jared asked me to take on the project. The catch? It needed to be ready to use in a Little Caesars store opening in just four weeks. (Has a decent point-of-sale system ever been written in four weeks? Somehow I doubt it.) Anyway, I got the basics done in time, and it has actually been a really fun project to work on. Learning how to interface with fingerprint readers and design touch-screen friendly interfaces has been enjoyable and a nice deviation from the sort of software I usually create. Plus we've been able to come up with some really innovative stuff in it, like very accurate sales predictions and intra-company email messaging. The package has a lot of potential and could really shake up the industry if we can market it properly. I say "we" but really I mean Jared and Rob; I'm not much of a marketing guy. It's still keeping me busy with new development. The last week or so I've been trying to tackle staffing needs based on predicted sales, with limited success. I'll get it, though. After that I'll target pizza delivery and begin working on the training video.

As part of the sale of the Pizza POS (we'll call it "PPOS" for short) I was invited to go to Washington state to help install it in five stores. And the locations just happened to be within my mission boundaries, one of which was in my greenie area. So for the first time in 13 years I got to go back and tour my mission. We didn't have a lot of time to play or visit, but it was nice to see a few of the people that I lost contact with a long time ago, and amazing to see just how quickly we were able to reconnect.

I was also asked to go to Tulsa, OK to install our system in a Little Caesars store opening there. That's where my parents now live (as of one year ago), so I'll spend about a week there visiting the folks and working in the store. I don't know an exact date as to when that will happen, but it should be in the next 3-4 weeks or so.

In October and November I taught an introductory photography class in my home and streamed it out live to the internet. The videos for the five classes are now available on Google Video: Class 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (my favorite). And the backdrop I used for that is still hanging in the living room… it is so much more attractive than the inside-of-a-1970s-sleeping-bag wallpaper!

Speaking of photography, in August I had my first out-of-state job. It was a wedding I shot was in Portland. And the couple was very happy with the results, and I was glad to go to a city I'd never seen before. But it didn't increase my "I've been to 45 states" number; I had been to Oregon before. When am I going to get a job in Alaska, Hawaii, Minnesota, Michigan, or Wisconsin?

For Christmas I spent two weeks in my parents' home, much of the time was spent doing projects around the house: wiring the house for a network, hooking up TVs to the satellite dish, building a workbench, and doing other electrical work. I love doing that kind of stuff, and it's fun to work on that stuff with my dad and other family members. I'm sure we'll find more projects to work on during my upcoming visit.

It kind of sounds like I've done a lot of travelling, doesn't it! I guess I have… Several months in 2007 I spent as much time out of Utah as I did in Utah. Crazy. 2008 will likely be the same. April looks like it's going to be one of those months.

Let's see… as far as other projects I've worked on recently…

• I'm currently working on software to allow you to play real music using Guitar Hero and Rock Band controllers. It's working really well now. But before I release it "out in the wild" I'll have to write a synthesizer engine so people without MIDI pianos/keyboards can use it. Not totally sure when I'm gonna get it done, but it's coming along. I'll post it on my web site and do some viral marketing using YouTube when it's ready to go.
  
• Over the last couple of days I've been writing a game (at least that's what I guess you'd call it) for my new Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC. It's a game where you navigate a ball through a maze using the accelerometer in the computer – you tilt the computer to make the ball roll. Not something I intend to do anything with professionally, just a "can I do it?" kind of thing.
  
• I finally wrote the software to allow me to do video switching with a touch-screen monitor about a year ago. In addition to controlling all of the video switching and routing hardware, it also controls multiple DVD players to synchronize video playback with the video transitions. The project is kind of in limbo right now, but it's a fun one that impresses everyone who sees it, even non-techies. With the Tablet PC I just got, setting up the system will be a lot easier.
  
• Six weeks ago Brad and I created a two minute video on how to make an apple pie for one of his classes.
  
• Within the last year my first two (1, 2) real television commercials have aired, both for car dealerships in Idaho. I also created one for the Utah Flash, but that project fell through and it never aired.
  
• One of these days I'm going to create my car computer. Kind of hard to describe, but essentially it will be a music player and navigation system with a lot of unique and innovative capabilities. I've already figured out how to do some of the neatest things about it, like door-to-door driving directions, real-time weather maps, XM radio. It will also have real-time email notifications, and WiFi internet sharing for anyone in the vehicle. I'm still trying to figure out how to do two separate video feeds, one for the passenger, one for the back seat. I'm sure I'll figure it out, but I'm still in the very early design stages of the software. The hardware installation is going to be a big deal, too, because it will require rewiring a significant portion of my audio system, and building a new center console to hold some of the equipment.
  
• Lots of new toys in the last year (as always)… two new high definition video cameras and three new laptops, just to name a few.
  
• Brian and I attempted to start a podcast a few months ago, but we've found that we're too busy to coordinate schedules long enough to do regular recordings. Oh well… the idea had promise and it was fun while it lasted. Though I haven' totally given up on the idea.
  
• As part of my calling in my stake, I was asked to figure out how to send video between multiple church buildings back in August. We installed the equipment in January for a stake conference a few days later. I think I'm still coughing up insulation. But the idea worked. Sometime before this coming June though we're gonna do the first equipment upgrade so it works even better, so I get to spend even more time in the attics of the local church buildings. I sure do spend more time in attics than I like. And it is fun to setup my video equipment. This last time we had four cameras going.
  
• Since I started the PPOS project, I haven't had as much time to dedicate to FileBack PC or my eClipse presentation software. I still have big plans for both, just no time to work on them.
  
• About a year ago I started attending the family ward that I live in. The ward itself is fine, but I feel like a fish out of water, being one of just a couple unmarried adults.
  
• Speaking of being an adult, I recently had my 35^th birthday and yet I still don't feel like I'm a grown-up. Does anyone ever really get over that? Maybe after you have kids? The one thing that makes it feel more like reality is that my "little" brother is 28 and my "baby" sister (14 years younger) is almost 21.
  
• The last several months have been filled with really late nights working on PPOS and working with Jared and Brad on various projects. We like to get together late at night, flip down the projection screen in the living room for one of the world's largest computer monitors, and work on various programming projects into the wee hours of the morning.
  
• I haven't had a ton of professional video jobs lately, but when I have had them my customers are more than thrilled with the results. I just need to figure out how to advertise my services a little more. But not a lot more, I like the balance I have between different types of projects now, and I think I'd get burned out on video if I were to start doing it a lot more often.
  
• Since I'm no longer involved with any singles wards, the occasions to get out my professional audio equipment have been cut back greatly. It's kind of a shame that I have some of the nicest equipment in Utah Valley, and care more about the way things sound than most sound guys, yet the equipment and I sit idle most of the time. Of all of my hobbies, this is the one I wish I could do more.
  
• Along the lines of "sound" and "idle…" I've been watching American Idol this season again, and am very glad that there are two strong LDS contestants. They're not the first, but they both seem to have a better shot at winning it all than in previous contestants did.
  
• A lot of people ask me about the iPhone. It's cool for what it is, but way too simplistic for my needs. There are several core features they'll have to add before I can even consider one. But if you're considering one, hold off until this summer when the new model ships.
  

Overall I love my life. I've got the best situation with my "job" if you can even call it that. I get to do all of the things I love doing. It's the best.