Misc

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMmwCMmgmkQ[/youtube]

I decided to take a little tour of the Commodore stuff I currently have. Audio quality is a result of TheFlip’s compression (grrrrr)

As a 30 something, I remember back in college in the 1994-95 age when the Internet was fun.   I mean, REALLY fun.   One minute we had the same old small “web pages” that used form elements to link pages – which was a step up from the old gopher system, and somehow related to hypercard…   then bam!   All of a sudden we have this new way to put images onto web sites, then we could have background images… then our own domain name.   And it grew and grew.  There was always something exciting emerging, and it was fun to be a part of it.

From 1995-2001 I helped form the Internet.   I can say that with confidence and a bit of humility, but I know that somehow I had an effect on how the Internet grew – and then broke.   You see, during that time I made web pages and web sites because they were FUN.   Remember fun?

You like a certain band – put up a fan site for it.  A certain actor or actress?  I’ll do a page on them too.   TV show?  Movie?   I’ll do a web site for that too.   Hundreds of thousands of hours I spent making web sites just because I liked a particular subject.   And it was fun.

Then the dot com crash.  Suddenly, the web wasn’t fun anymore.  Oh sure, I had created web sites for the #1 online entertainment destination Warner Bros. such as Babylon 5, Third Watch, Drew Carey, Friends, Lois & Clark, La Femme Nikita, Rosie O’Donnell, and others.   But suddenly the landscape changed, and I lost that spark.

Until recently.

A few months ago I put up a fan site for a music group, well more of a show, and it currently ranks in Google higher than their official site so i get a good number of visitors a day without even doing anything.  A month or so ago I dared to put a few Google ads on it, and my earnings sky-rocketed.

It was something I enjoyed, and was a fun distraction from the sites I “have” to work on.

I resurrected a site I had started back in 1996, recoded it to css (it used tables at the time!) and it is again an OK site traffic wise, and I sprinkled a few ads in there which bring in a couple of dollars a day.

Over the past several years I have been reading ebooks after ebooks trying to find the right “pattern” for making money on the Internet via adsense.   Some say “write what you know” and some say “write what’s profitable” and some say “write a little about everything.”   After years of trying everything under the sun, I believe I have finally decided on the definitive answer:

You HAVE to write about what you enjoy or have an interest in.

Credit card consolidation or cancer lawsuits may have high click-through revenue, but you will never gain the trust of your visitors if you don’t have a sincere interest in the subject.

Now all I need is for my hero, Joel Comm, to suggest a real-live mentor for me to continue my adsense learning.   If I don’t hear from him soon, a singing gorilla telegram may just show up at his door.

From this moment on I will continue to do web sites that I need to do, but also will try and do more web sites that I “WANT” to do and that I will have fun doing.   Perhaps that is the magic I have been looking for.

Being an avid Cold Case viewer, I replay the familiar scene of a detetective removing a box of evidence from “unsolved” and carrying it out of the room over and over when I heard the news that the Adam Walsh case was finally considered closed in Hollywood, Florida.

Adam was abducted and killed in 1981, and was only a year younger than me at the time.  The following year, paperboy Johnny Gosch was upducted in Des Moines, and then in 1984 another paperboy, Eugene Martin disappeared.

Needless to say, it was a very stressful time to be a paper carrier in the the Des Moines area.   The only thing the Des Moines register could do at the time, however, was issue danger letters to its carriers letting them know what to do case they were approached, as well as issue metal whistles to each carrier to use in case they felt threatened or were approached.

As far as I know, nobody ever used the whistles for the situation they were designed for.

The abduction of Adam Walsh has led his father, John on a crusade that has captured hundreds of fugitives through the television show America’s Most Wanted.  In addition it has created numerous organizations and legislation to help find missing and explooited children around the world.   John Walsh definitely turned his familie’s personal tragedy into a better world.

I met John Walsh when he was a guest on the TV game show Pictionary that I was a writer on.  He was friendly and curteous and signed a photo that you see above.

Unfortunately, the accused murderer of Adam died in prison so the case can never be 100% proven against the man they say murdered the boy, but the evidence they do have, as well as several confessions, are enough for the Hollywood, Florida police department to definitively put the case to rest.

Although I don’t think John will ever rest from tracking down the people who prety in the innocent.

Technorati Tags: Adam Walsh, John Walsh, kidnapping, Johnny Gosch

I got the idea to finally start painting from two places.   First, I had been obsessing over the Bob Ross Master Art Set at hobby lobby for a while and the b) I saw that Colin Devroe (of Viddler) was blogging about his watercolor projects, most lately his owl painting.

That’s when it hit me.

I could blog about painting, even live-stream it.

So I bought over $100 in supplies and went to work.  I started the live stream, but forgot the audio.  So, you may have to wait a few minutes (about 3 minutes in) before the painting is even started.

Free TV : Ustream

So what did I learn from this process?  Several things.

1) Brush Cleaning Fluid is NOT paint thinner
2) To do the Bob Ross method you need at least two brushes of the same kind to even start
3) Oil paint smell takes me back to the old “paint by numbers” days
4) oil paint takes forever to dry
5) You have to watch the videos over and over to learn the right techniques
6) If you try to do too much cover-up, you will get a nice brown mud (trees on the left)
7) the wet-on-wet method is fun, but may not be for everyone Bob Ross really is an alien.  A nice alien, but an alien nonetheless
9) Painting is hard to do under any kind of time restraints… whether 1 hour or 10, you never have enough time
10) It really is fun!

im going to try the example painting one more time and then perhaps try something on my own… just some imaginary landscape.   I really like the Bob Ross style as used in wildlife too, so maybe I will try those someday.

What do you think?  Should I keep livestreaming these things?

The day started easy enough, with me getting to the polls at around 6:45AM, and getting in a line of about 20 already there before me.   The line moved quickly, and I filled out my ballot, got my “I Voted” sticker and left without incident.   For once, I beat the rush!  yeah!

I decided I needed a treat that morning, so even though I didn’t need gas I drove to Char’s gas station and got 2 slices of breakfast pizza.  I then got on highway 30 and finally Interstate 35 towards Des Moines – on my way to work listening to Mancow’s final pleas for people to vote Libertarian.

I-35 merged into 235 and I took a left turn on MLK to go towards Ingersoll.  Little did I know what was in store.

MLK is a major through route in Des Moines, and the posted signs say 35.  When I go 35, most cars are passing me.  What irritates me is that there are stoplights at very short intervals, making it almost impossible and dangerous to even get up to that speed.

I started down the hill past the Woodland Cemetary where I came to a stop behind another car. WE were stopped for a good 5-10 seconds when I glanced up in my rear view mirror and saw a Jeep Cherokee coming down the road at a good speed.  I remember seeing her glance elsewhere and I knew she wasn’t going to stop, but I was pinned in with no place to go.  So, I tensed up and braced for the impact.

And an impact it was.

The driver didn’t even hit the brakes until she hit me, causing me to hit the person in front.

I stayed in the car, dazed.  I couldn’t believe this was happening.  I felt a pain in my neck, but it seemed to go away.  I felt my heart pounding in my chest so I just stayed there in the seat for a few seconds.  (I had not taken my blood pressure meds since they had run out, I was actually on my way to get a refill before work).   Suddenly there was a pounding on my door as the driver of the Jeep was asking if I was ok.   I opened the door and sat there for a couple seconds, and the guy in front of me said he was calling an ambulance.

After I got out and took some photos with my phone, we decided to go into the adjacent parking lot to wait for the police and ambulance.   I drove around the corner and parked, and then tried to call my mom, but dialed a combination of her current number, and my childhood telephone number first, then used the directory to call her the second time.   She then called my brother who came out to the scene.

The ambulance came and I managed to get inside, my legs shaking, and they took my blood pressure.  180 over 120.  They asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, but I declined, saying I think I was ok.   They told me that sometimes adrenaline makes you feel like you are ok temporarily, but the pain could come back.  I said I would go to the doctor if things got worse and they went on their way.

The police show up and takes the report, and the woman clearly identifies herself as the one at fault.  She claims she only looked up at the sky for a second and then we were stopped.   I can’t remember if she looked up or down, but I had time to see her barreling down the hill.

I take some more pictures with my phone, and drive the few blocks to work and check things over again.   I catch my boss int he hallway and promptly tell him Im going home.

Unfortunately, as a result of the force of being thrown frontwords and then back into the seat, the seat broke to an entirely reclining position, so it was very awkward to drive it like that the rest of the way home.  Plus I was in constant fear that something would explode or fall off the car on the way back home.

I got inside my apartment just as the phone was ringing.  It was the driver’s security company.  Remember, this is literally about an hour or less after the event happened.  He tells me they will take care of everything and tells me of 3 body shops they can notify immediately.  Don & Sons, Schaefers and Wayne Larson.  I choose Schaefers.   He then tells me that if I feel hurt or anything, to try hot compresses and ibuprofen.  Im thinking, if I feel anything, Im going to the doctor.  He also says they will pay for a rental car from Enterprise when I need one.

I manage to get my personal belongings out of the trunk by folding the seats down, and I drive to Schaefers, where they tell me the car is undrivable and may be unrepairable since they hit me in just the right spot.  I call Enterprise and they want me to put a credit card on the car since they don’t have a claim number.  I give them the number of the insurance guy, and he calls me back at Schaefers asking why I want a car already.  I tell him to talk to the auto body guy, who tells him my car is not driveable, plus they can start on it relatively soon.  Reluctantly, the insurance guy agrees to pay for the rental car starting that day.

I get to Enterprise, and they tell me the insurance wouldnt pay $2 extra a day for a normal size car, only a compact.  I really don’t care at this point, so I get the rental car, get some ibuprofen, some ginger ale since Im feeling kind of dizzy, and then I go home.

All night, I just kept visioning the green jeep coming down the hill and knowing it won’t stop.

The next day (wednesday) I wake up with a stiff neck where it even hurts to eat.   I go to the doctor and he says its normal, but if it gets worse to let him know right away.  He tells me to take 3 Ibuprofen instead of just one … 3 times a day.  I took the rest of the day off, still exhausted from everything that has happened.

So while the car can be repaired, currently I am out 2 days of work, a doctors visit, and 2 bottles of ibuprofen.

They say the car will be ready by the 14th.

And that’s how I spent election day.

First, I would like to thank Chris Brogan for directing people towards one of my recent posts regarding a label printer, and all that it represented.   I have received  emails, comments and tweets about how my story of the label printer resounded in their own lives – that many of us have rationalized that a single, truly insignificant “thing” could somehow be the difference between success and failure.

But there is another feeling that can be equally as troubling – imposter syndrome.

I may be naive, but I first learned of imposter syndrome about a month ago when a co-worker brought it to my attention after one of my tweets.   I googled the phrase and came u p with a definition that really made sense:

From wikipedia:

The Impostor Syndrome, sometimes called Impostor Phenomenon or Fraud Syndrome, is a syndrome where sufferers are unable to internalize their accomplishments. It is not an officially recognized psychological disorder but has been the subject of numerous books and articles by psychologists and educators.

Regardless of what level of success they may have achieved in their chosen field of work or study or what external proof they may have of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced internally they do not deserve the success they have achieved and are actually frauds. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they were more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be.

For the past couple of years, despite my success as a programmer at the web site company I work for, I have been plagued by a feeling of being a fake.  That sure, I do the high-profile projects and complicated things, but I’m just faking it.  After all, PHP and mySQL programming is always “a lot of the same” and code is reused here and there.  Anybody can do it.   If I’m ever found out, I’ll be fired.

This fear caused ups and downs in my mood, resulting in a lack of self-confidence, even in the midst of extreme accomplishments.

It is also a part of baggage I have been carrying since being laid off as a result of the AOL Time-Warner merger in 2001.  Up until the layoff, I had left jobs on my own terms, now suddenly I was told to go.  The dot com bubble had burst, and I limped back to Iowa where I got a job doing tech support at an ISP, answering phone calls.

I’ve also come to realize, thanks to reading an article on The New York Times Web Site that people exhibiting imposter syndrome:

adopt self-deprecation as a social strategy, consciously or not, and are secretly more confident than they let on.

“Particularly when people think that they might not be able to live up to others’ views of them, they may maintain that they are not as good as other people think,” Dr. Mark Leary, the lead author, wrote in an e-mail message. “In this way, they lower others’ expectations — and get credit for being humble.”

Not taking credit for my accomplishments now makes sense.  I can now fully realize that yes, this is exactly what I have been battling the last few years.   Overcoming this is will be difficult and it won’t happen overnight, I just need to realize what I have accomplished in my short career:

• Got a job at Warner Bros. studios while still a senior in college at Iowa State
• Worked on some of my favorite TV shows like Babylon 5, Friends, Third Watch, Drew Carey, 7th Heaven, and others
• Worked my way up the ladder at Warner Bros. and eventually started and managed the community division of the company.
• Worked on the original Harry Potter web site
• Was a senior programmer for the Warner portal Entertaindom
• Attended several movie premieres, walking the red carpet
• Worked with several young actors, actresses and musicians who are now adults and in their prime
• Earned my Screen Actor’s Guild card
• Went back to college while working full time and finished my degree
• Wrote and published a book on helping kids get started in the TV/Film industry
• Became 1st Vice President of a community theater and directed 2 productions
• Worked my way up the ladder again at a web development company, going from tech support to lead programmer
• Became known in podcasting circles due to a “Troy Needs an iPod” publicity stunt
• Helped build the Des Moines Renaissance Faire into a great festival
• Programmed the back end of two high-profile web sites for the company

Overcoming imposter syndrome will take some time, and although I recognize it, it is still affecting me, even making me question myself more about my label printer.   But knowing this about myself can only help me to realize that I really CAN be a leader in my industry again.   I get hard on myself because of all the “notoriety” I lost.

Being a leader in your field has to start with yourself, you a) have to WANT to be a leader and b) have to think that you ARE a leader.  If you think for one moment you can’t do something, you’ve already lost.

So to you, my new friends with shiny label printers…  I say let’s do this.   Take something that you have been terrified to start and do it.   Buy your label printer, unpack it, set it on your desk and get to work printing out the best damn labels you can.  It can get sticky, but let’s do it together.

Technorati Tags: importer syndrome, AOL, Time Warner, Warner Bros. label printers, self-confidence

I’m usually not big on costumes for Halloween, however at the office we have a costume contest and the last few years I have made my own.

The first year I made a homemade “Cobra Kai” Gi – which spawned a completely separate web site cobrakaidojo.com.

The next year I went as Adam Curry, from MTV and podcasting fame.

Earlier this year I decided to dress up for the Can’t Stop the Serenity event.  I had seen a post at Costume Girl about how easy it was to make, so I decided to give it a try.

Initially I spent a lot of time and effort making the medical symbols by scratch in Photoshop, but then I wimped out and bought a patch set on eBay.  Still,  in the spirit of sharing, I thought I would put up my source files here for you to enjoy/download/print in case you want to make your own Firefly Ariel EMT costume.

I don’t have a picture of me IN my costume, yet, but I’m told one exists someplace.  In the meantime, here are the different files I used to create the medical badge seen on the show, and even the big back patch.

click on any of the Ariel EMT costume graphics above to view/download the larger version.

Ever entered the Interstate or Freeway and got behind a gravel truck?   Where I live, the entrance ramp is close to the quarry where tons and tons (literally) of gravel is transported to cities some 30 miles away.  The majority of these trucks  do not have any kind of a tarp on them.   Plus, they are loaded high (probably over capacity) and the pile goes higher than the truck walls.

Guess what happens to the cars immediately behind them and even to the side at 65-70 miles per hour?

Ding ding ding.   That’s not the sound of a bell, thats the sound of pebbles ruining your new car’s paint job.

Can anything be done?  Apparently these companies think they are immune to lawsuits simply by saying “the gravel fell off, hit the pavement and then bounced back up.”  Unless you actually tell them you saw the rocks fall directly off the truck and hit your vehicle, they won’t even talk to you.

So, I emailed the #1 gravel hauler on the route from Ames to Des Moines, Des Moines Paving and Asphalt, and asked that they add tarps or other containment methods to their vehicles.   Here is what I wrote:

Hello,

I live in Ames and use the 13th street on ramp to get to my place of business in Des Moines.  Over the past several years I have witnessed trucks from your company carrying huge amounts of rocks and stones from the Ames quarry and delivering them to your location(s) in Des Moines.   Every time I get behind one of your trucks, it is evident they are a) overflowing and b) losing rocks from the top of the pile ranging in size from pebbles to golf ball size.

As the purchaser of a new car recently, the situation has become even more infuriating, since rocks from your vehicles bounce and hit my vehicle, leaving  dents and chipped paint on my new car.  These are not rocks that fall off, hit the road, and bounce back up (although that has happened as well) – these are rocks that fall off the top of the overloaded cargo and directly hit my vehicle.

I am writing today to implore you to begin using tarps or otherwise securing your cargo while on the Interstate traveling at high speeds.   In today’s society, it wouldn’t take much to create a public outcry that would accomplish this through state law, but I am hoping your company will merely “do the right thing” and respect and appreciate that in doing your day-to-day business, you are at the very least damaging public property, and at the extreme creating a recipe for disaster should a stone from your trucks break a window and cause a severe accident and possibly death.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Troy Rutter

We’ll see how they respond.  Are you upset at this complete disregard for personal property?   Comment here and tell me your experiences with gravel companies and damage to your vehicle.  Better yet, leave a comment, then write a letter to a gravel company, representative, city council, whomever.

We pay a lot of money for our vehicles – its time we tell companies like this how we feel.

Technorati Tags: gravel, trucking, personal property

Here is a video I put together showing how to install both Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 so they run together at the same time on a Windows box. Mac users should be able to follow roughly the same procedures.

This was only my second time using screencasting software, so the audio is almost that of a telephone line, but due to YouTube size guidelines, I had to make it small.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vo80b1CtWA[/youtube]

For written instructions, just scroll down, or click here for a written tutorial on running Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 at the same time.

Technorati Tags: firefox 3, firefox 2, video tutorial

Im not a cook.   To even remotely call me a cook would be insulting to cooks everywhere.

So Im not sure why, after I agreed to buy store-bought salsa to an office party tomorrow, I came up with the crazy notion of making deviled eggs.  Im not a egg eater per se, and to be honest Ive never hard boiled an egg.   Ever.  Ive never liked eating them THAT much.  Egg salad yes, just plain hard boiled eggs, no.

So I slaved over a stove tonight and learned just how hard it is to make deviled eggs – or rather how time consuming it is.   I faithfully followed the instructions at http://www.deviledeggs.com and here is the result!

24 deviled egg halves ready for the office party.

Mission… accomplished!