a Voice in the Wind

I don't know the last time i read a book that made me tear up, or if that has *ever* happened to me, but it did last night. I am reading a series of books by Francine Rivers that Soph read and recommended to me, and as I finished reading "An Echo in the Darkness" I had to stop and take my glasses off to wipe my eyes so that I could see the pages. That's a new experience for me.

The story (fictional) and the characters are just unbelievably challenging on a personal level for me. Some characters represent me, and others who I wish I could be. I can't really explain it. But it moved me.

Pink elephants

I got an SMS from RD today saying something to the effect that he was "on vacation, and what do you use to catch pink elephants?".

I think the answer is obvious, and gave it to him.

To catch pink elephants you use pink elephant bait, without the bobber.

Is GMail the leader in Mail?

Um, no. People in Silicon Valley have a bit too much Google fever, sometimes.

According to comScore Media Metrix over 80 million people used Yahoo! Mail in May, vs. 15 million people using Gmail. Yahoo! Mail also accounts for almost half of all online duration spent in the Mail category, 10 times the amount of duration spent in Gmail.

Yahoo!'s the leader.

This burns me up

I haven't been following the blogging world closely for the last year since I joined mobile, so I just saw today that Google acquired Feedburner, probably last week. What completely drives me crazy is that I pushed for Yahoo! to buy this company two years ago, again and again, and we could just not get over the cost.

So does it matter? Maybe Yahoo! didn't need it... Well, no, I think we missed something. Feedburner fits into the "analytics tools" category that is so appealing to publishers. Yahoo! claims to care about publishers, and yet we do not do anything to engage with the blogging community other than purchasing a ping service, blo.gs.

[sigh]. I won't bother to go into detail about the why's and if's, but let's just say that it's frustrating b/c I feel like Y! missed on a really obvious opportunity.

What blogging system to use?

I've been using 360 now for a while, and it's ok, but I feel a bit cramped in terms of how the page looks, and all the extraneous social networking features that never really succeeded are sort of just in the way now. I've basically switched my social network to Linked In (professional) and Facebook (personal).

360 is now only my blog, but not a very good one at that. I've thought about switching to blogger, and have even gone so far as to cross-post the last few postings there, but haven't really committed yet.

Anyone got an opinion about the best service to use?

Transformers, Reviewed

Um, Optimus Prime. Need I say more? This movie kicked ass front start to finish. Awesome, especially if you loved Transformers as a kid.

Eyes on the Prize

I read a really interesting little book over vacation called "The Dip", by Seth Godin, that talks about when to quit at something and when not to. The basic premise is that anything worth doing will have a long hard stretch in the middle, but that all the rewards are at the end, after that hard stretch. If you're going to quit when you get to that part, you shouldn't ever really have started. If you're going to start, you should see it through. In order to live like this, you have to know what you're pursuing and why, and be intentional about it.

I also went for a run while on vacation this past week in a spot where a long, straight section of sidewalk had been creatively laid out with a number of undulating curves. I realized (because I am a lazy runner) that if I kept my eyes on the very end of the long stretch that I could actually run less distance by running a straight line without taking any of the curves. Anytime I found myself looking off to the side, or nearer than the far end, I ended up running the curves, and taking a longer route.

All of this made me reflect that I get unbelievably caught up in my work, to the point where it pushes everything else in life out. I end up running the curves, and not really focusing on the goal. Furthermore, I'm not always running after the right goals. While I'm a believer in the products I work on, and I love building them, I *know* that they in and of themselves are not my life's purpose. What am I really trying to achieve, and why?

I went to a wedding yesterday of a couple of friends, Melanie Chan and Greg Jimmerson, and it was a fantastic ceremony. It was a fairly non-standard ceremony in many respects, but one of the most meaningful I've been to in a while. One of the things that really struck me was how intentional both Melanie and Greg were not only in their relationship, but how intentional they both were and are in the *purpose* of their lives individually, and now together. They went so far as to write up a family mission statement that they printed in the bulletin. Their mission is:

To bring glory to God
By reflecting the love and truth
Of Jesus Christ
To each other and the world

Freakin' awesome. I want my life to reflect the glory of God, and to share with others what Jesus freely gave. *THAT* is what I want to be my life's goal.

But how does that fit with my day to day life, which is manic? I want to build great products. I want to "win" at whatever I'm doing in the corporate world. I want to be CEO of a major corporation someday. And I'm willing to work my ass off to accomplish those goals. But while I may have those as personal goals, those are not the goals that I want to dictate my life or what I do. I want them to fit into a bigger picture, not the other way around, and to be subject to change by God's hands. The prize I am going for is bigger and more important than any of those. It's a long term goal, and one I want to be pursuing intentionally.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." - Hebrews 12:1

"I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize." - Hebrews 9:23-24

I love the idea of having a life mission statement. A good mission statement in the corporate world is something that is both aspirational, but also something that you can measure or gauge any new efforts against, to see if they really line up with what you are working towards. If they don't line up, don't do them. Soph and I are going to come up with our own mission statement, and we'll probably use Melanie and Greg's as a starting point.

Like sand in a jar of water

Soph and I were on vacation all week this past week, and it was a great chance to really let everything go and just let things settle mentally. The best analogy I can come up with is that pre-vacation I was like a jar of water with some sand in it that had been vigorously shaken, so that the water was effectively opaque. Vacation let the sand settle so that the water in the jar was clear, and let me actually think some things through.

It was really good to take a step back from work, a step back from our house, a step back even from friendships, and just be still. The last 6 months, and really the last year have been all movement, all at a manic pace, and I just have not made sufficient space to rest. This past week was too short, in many ways, but it was soooo necessary. And I feel a *lot* better now than I did beforehand.

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." - Psalm 46:10

Soph and I are going to make sure going forward that we take at least a long weekend once every 3 months; we'll even plan the next break at the end of the current one. Our next one will be a weekend at Pismo beach sometime in September.

Coke Zero is the Real Thing

I really didn't understand what Coke Zero was supposed to be (I mean, there's already a "Diet Coke", right?) until this past week when my sister explained it to me. According to her, Diet Coke was supposed to taste like Coke but be zero calorie, but ended up tasting enough different to really be its own drink.

Enter Coke Zero. Coke Zero is *also* a zero-calorie version of Coke, but is supposed to actually taste like the original.

Soph and I tried it for the first time yesterday and much to our surprise, it DOES taste like the Real Thing, Coke Classic. Amazing. It tastes great!

I'm a fan.