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Makin' somthin'

by: doug | March 15th, 2010 | 4 comments »

Today (March 15th, 2010) is my Grandfather's 90th birthday. We celebrated with him this weekend in Pike County, IL.

I spent quite a bit a time growing up with Grandpa. On many weekends and for entire weeks of the summer, I'd join him on his farm in Perry, IL. By the time I came a long, grandpa had mostly retired. He rented out his farmland, but still kept some cows around, mostly so that he'd have something to feed every morning.

Grandpa dedicated his retirement to a variety of woodworking pursuits. He made scale models of local buildings, wooden carousels, clocks, toys, banks, and even the occasional joke piece. One of my favorites was a small base with a US quarter mounted to it. A tiny dowel rod mallet slid into a hole in the base. Hand stenciled on the base was the title of the piece: "Quarter Pounder." He refinished furniture, built us an elevated playhouse, and built a scale model of our house. He'd see plans for something in a magazine or pick something up on a trip, and go to work on it in his workshop. I would tag along for much of this activity.

When I was 7 or so, Grandpa did something that I think more than anything, shaped what I was to become and do in the future. He built me my own workbench. It was kid height with kid sized tools. I know that now you can buy playschool workbenches and tools for kids. But the tools on my workbench were no plastic toys from China. They were real: a real saw that was really sharp, a vise that could crush things, a hammer that could actually drive nails. He set it up in his workshop down at the end of the big workbench.

So the story goes like this: (This is how grandpa tells it anyway.) He had lost track of me in the workshop. He had gotten involved in something and I had gone quiet. When he found me, I was hunch over the blue workbench furiously working. Grandpa asked me what I was doing, and I responded "makin' somthin'" I guess grandpa got a real kick out of my response because it's one of those family stories that has been told over and over. Here is what I remember. I really didn't know what I was making. I just knew that I was consumed by the desire to make something. So I was cutting pieces of wood and nailing them together all because I wanted to make. It was part emulation. I admired Grandpa and wanted to be like him. But it was more that he had infected me with this bug. I had caught it. I wanted to be a maker.

I studied engineering in college, but ended up gravitating towards software. Fairly recently I've discovered just why it is that software appeals so much to me. It is because software is making. In engineering, we'd design something and send it out somewhere to be made, but in software, everyday I get to step into a the world of the maker and just build stuff. Every time I open my laptop, I'm 7 years old again and hunched over my workbench consumed by the desire to make. The tools are different, the raw materials are different, the end product is different, but that feeling and that drive to make is just the same.

Thank you, Grandpa, for putting tools in my hands and showing me how to use them, and letting me make something. Happy 90th!

The Hammock

by: doug | March 12th, 2010 | 0 comments »

The Hammock

Our secret is out. A recently published photo revealed it hanging lazily in the corner of our office: a hammock.

Why would an office of software development professionals have a hammock in it?

Well the short answer is that it's always been a dream of 8th Light co-founder Micah Martin to have a hammock in the office. For me, it's an indispensable part of my daily rhythm.

The Reboot

I remember when I started my first internship while in college just how hard it was to stay alert for an 8 hour day. I was reminded of this this summer when I watched the head of one of our interns start to bob and shake at around 2:00 every afternoon. My solution early in my career was caffeine. That sweet green bubbly nectar of the awake dropped out of the vending machine into my hand each afternoon.

I've since given up caffeine, and have learned to get adequate sleep. But there are still some afternoons when everything catches up with me and I just stop making progress. Maybe a particular problem just won't budge, or I have to read some dry documentation. Whatever it is, my brain just shuts down. I sometimes describe it as a fog. It's like that feeling just before getting a headache.

Enter the hammock. Instead of just pushing through and making no progress for an hour or more, I go lie down in the hammock. I lie there and focus on my breathing until I just barely fall asleep. When that first dream sequence starts to roll, I get up, shake out the weariness and start back to work more focused and more alert. I like to call it my personal reboot. Like a sluggish Windows box, I'll I need is to shut all the way down and then turn back on again.

I've heard a story about how Thomas Edison would do a similar thing to refocus himself when he was working. He didn't have a hammock, but he would sit in a comfortable chair with a pile of ball bearings in his hand. When he would reach that just barley asleep state, his hand would drop, the bearings would fall and wake him back up.

Step Back, Go Around

The hammock to me is also a reminder to slow down. As Bob Martin's popular mantra goes "The only way to go fast is to go well." It is also an aid in stepping back from a problem to find that area of minimum resistance. Richard Sennett talks about this idea in "The Craftsman." He says that one of the qualities of a craftsmen is finding the most forgiving approach to a problem. That skill requires stepping into and out of detail on a problem. That is, focussing on the point of tension, but them zooming out to see if going around might be better than going through. A little bit of time in the hammock is great for that. Many times, I've gone to the hammock frustrated with a problem, only to emerge with a completely tangential solution.

It's a Team Thing

Here is what some of the other craftsmen at 8th Light have to say about the hammock.

Short cat naps help reset my brain to keep me thinking clearer throughout a long day.
-- Paul Pagel

I often head there at around 3 (which is coffee time at the client office). In addition when I'm stuck on something I'll try and clear my head in the hammock, when juggling doesn't work.
-- Eric Smith

After a lunch that was a little too big. A 10 minute hammock-nap gets me back on my feet. In moments of coding frustration, a quick trip to the hammock helps me relax and clear my mind.
-- Micah Martin

These guys echo my feelings about the hammock and affirm how giving ourselves the permission to lie down in the middle of the day is beneficial not only to our own health, but also the health or our projects. It's one of our practices that helps to keep us delivering great code day after day, week after week, month after month.

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