I’m going to jump ahead of myself and say the Raid Games is easily the most awesome event I’ve ever been a part of. The huge environment surrounding the event is awesome. That there are so many folks who are able to see what CrossFitters do, is also pretty awesome.

Additionally, that I was able to hang out with my buddies from my gym, CrossFit Firebase, as well as great friends from CrossFit eXalted, CrossFit KingsPoint, CrossFit 407, and CrossFit Country was great.

I went into this event, with very little expectation of doing well. I’m glad about this. It’s my first competition in 18 months, and predictably, I did not do well. However, I was able to hang with some incredible athletes. I learned a whole lot from this. I intend to make the most of those learnings.

I’ve been training for a long time for something like this. The weaknesses in my training became immediately apparent during the event. Things like muscular leg endurance and pain threshold were clearly weaknesses of mine. I’ll adapt and train appropriately going forward.

• Wear a backpack with bricks in it.
• Perform various PT type exercises with a group of about 20-25 of your new best friends
• Ruck to somewhere far away
• Ruck back
• Expect various factors of suckage along the way

Summary

Overall I’d call the event one of the more difficult things I’ve ever done. I’ve hung out with a number of folks who have previously completed the challenge, and was adequately warned that it would amount to as much. The camaraderie is the only thing that overcomes the difficulty. I’d highly recommend this to all friends and colleagues that are in decent shape.

Cadre – Dave

Our Cadre (guide / leader / painmaster) for the event was Dave. Dave spent 18 years in active duty doing in various roles in Special Forces. Dave was a smaller guy than I had imagined we’d be lead by. Having said that however, Dave is a monster of a man: not in the physical sense, but you can’t escape the feeling that he’s got a vast amount more knowledge about the limitations of the human mind and body than most of us could ever know.

Review

The grossest part of the evening :/

Flags, Ducks, Sand ... Check.

When the fireman carry got to be too much, a two man carry was employed.

Inchworms. The worst thing you've ever wished you hadn't been through.

Because of this however, our journey back to our starting point didn’t entail any other PT. I was a bit disappointed. I had expected to be pushed farther than I ever have been before. That certainly was not the case however. I had a very difficult time, but not as much as I had been worried about.

Suggestions

If you’re planning on doing the GORUCK Challenge, I’d suggest a few things:

• Be in good physical shape. Crossfit is an excellent primer for the things you’ll encounter during the challenge. Having said that however, it’s not enough. I highly recommend practice rucks and extra running
• Bring good gear. A friend of mine let me borrow his GR-1 for the event. That thing is awesome. I’m saving my pennies to get one of my own.
• Hydrate heavily before the event. I had a gallon of water a day prior, and experienced no cramping at all
• Eat like a complete asshole the day of the event. You’re likely going to expend somewhere on the order of 10,000 to 20,000 calories during the challenge. Because of this you’re going to need every calorie you can consume. This isn’t the day feel guilty about pizza. Find food, and stuff yourself

Final Thoughts

I’d love to thank everyone who was a part of class 172. My friends Ben, Mirason, Brenna, and Ramon were great to have for the ride. I met a ton of awesome new friends that I can’t wait to join to complete another event. A huge thanks to Dave for being an amazing leader during the event. This was my first event. I can guarantee you it won’t be my last.

The truth of the matter is: not drinking for 6 weeks was significantly less challenging than I thought it would have been. The reason for this: I believe in God far more than I require anything the world has to offer. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’m surprised by this revelation.

I’m writing all of this, after having a nice share of Jack Daniels this evening. I didn’t give up alcohol forever. I gave it up for 6 weeks to recognize the sacrifice that my savior gave while still in human form upon the Earth. It sounds trivial to many of you. This gets me to the point of why I’m writing at all.

Faith requires courage.

Some of you will scoff at this statement. I challenge you, however, to deny it. Tell me that it takes courage to discredit the believer. Tell me that it takes more courage to find examples of inaccuracy of a statement of faith. Tell me that believing in nothing demands more than believing in something.

I believe in the LORD, Jesus Christ. He is the only son of God, who gave his on mortal life for all of us that we might have the opportunity to know eternal life. There is no other gateway to this path than recognition of who He is.

For those of you who discredit this notion, tell me; what *do* you believe in?

Recognizing the courage of this statement doesn’t take much intellectual investment. Any time you have believed anything to be true, you’ve undoubtedly encountered skeptics. You are aware that skepticism, by itself, is cowardice. Skepticism, with a counter-belief, is a belief.

That is, again, the point. Belief is Faith, and faith requires courage.

The scenario is typically something like this:

• Client wants 5 new pages, and a few revisions to existing pages.
• Developer creates pages and makes modifications on staging environment.
• Client requests revisions
• Developer revises staging environment as requested.
• Client approves
• Developer has to remember what he did, and repeat those steps in production.

Needless to say, this practice is fraught with potential for error. If this is 80% successful, I’d be surprised. That’s not going to cut it for most clients however. If your doctor was 80% successful, you’d be very upset. If traffic lights were 80% successful, you might be dead.

So, there needs to be a way to snapshot your staging environment, and push it to production. Unfortunately, there aren’t many tools that do this sort of thing directly. Even the ones that do, are often not done very well. A hand-written solution is possible however. It’s really not even that hard to do.

Enter bash, and ant.

I suspect many of you are rolling your eyes right now. “BASH? ANT? That’s for nerds!” You’re right about that. However, to get across this issue, it’ll help you to learn from some nerds.

For this tutorial, let’s assume you have the following folder structure for your wordpress site:

ROOT
 - public (wordpress content)
 - var
 - - log
 - - backups
 - tmp (sessions, cache, etc)
 - etc (configurations)
 - bin (scripts)

Here’s a bash script you can run, to dump your database into 3 different formats (dev, staging, and production):

#!/bin/bash

#dump the database to var/backups, replacing local information
mysqldump -u root -p database_name > var/backups/dev.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).sql
mysqldump -u root -p database_name | sed 's/dev\.site_name/staging.site_name/g' > var/backups/staging.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).sql
mysqldump -u root -p database_name | sed 's/dev\.site_name/www.site_name/g' > var/backups/production.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).sql

# navigate to the backups folder, and create the updated symlink
cd var/backups

# remove old symlinks
rm development.sql
rm staging.sql
rm production.sql

# create new symlinks
ln -s dev.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).sql development.sql
ln -s staging.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).sql staging.sql
ln -s production.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).sql production.sql

That will dump the contents of your development environment, replacing anything that says “dev.site_name” into the appropriate substitution for your other environments. I use a development, staging, and production environment for most of my work, but you might have different ones. Adjust these scripts as necessary to accomodate what you require.

One more note: That script will ask you for the root password three times. You’re more than welcome to change the user from root as well. I do this, because typically I run these scripts on my local machine. I don’t really care about username / password security of the dev sites on there. I’m not using those credentials anywhere else.

So, to import these changes into a staging, or production environment, I typically use ant. This automates most of the work for me. Here’s an example script:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE project>
<project name="sitename.com" default="build">

    <!-- build details left out for brevity -->

    <target name="backup-development">
        <exec dir="${basedir}" executable="bash" failonerror="true">
            <arg line="../bin/backup-development.sh" />
        </exec>
    </target>

    <target name="import-development">
        <exec dir="${basedir}" executable="mysql" failonerror="true">
            <arg line="-u mysql_user -pdatabase_password mysql_db_name -e 'source ${basedir}/../var/backups/development.sql'"/>
        </exec>
    </target>

    <target name="import-staging">
        <exec dir="${basedir}" executable="mysql" failonerror="true">
            <arg line="-u mysql_user -pdatabase_password mysql_db_name -e 'source ${basedir}/../var/backups/staging.sql'"/>
        </exec>
    </target>

    <target name="import-production">
        <exec dir="${basedir}" executable="mysql" failonerror="true">
            <arg line="-u mysql_user -pdatabase_password mysql_db_name -e 'source ${basedir}/../var/backups/production.sql'"/>
        </exec>
    </target>

    <target name="development" depends="clean,build,import-development" />
    <target name="staging" depends="clean,build,import-staging" />
    <target name="production" depends="clean,build,import-production" />
</project>

So, the process now goes like this:

• Client wants 5 new pages, and a few revisions to existing pages.
• Developer creates pages and makes modifications on staging environment.
• Client requests revisions
• Developer revises staging environment as requested.
• Client approves
• Developer runs backup scripts, and adds updates files to SCM.
• Developer runs update on production, which should also fire the import-production target

There’s plenty more to this than what I’ve written so far, but this is the generality I’ve been working with for a while. It’s served me pretty well.

Denise makes a long point to highlight the efforts she, and most women, put forth in a family relationship. She also points out that despite the faults of her husband, he does things that she appreciates. As a married man myself, I can’t emphasize how much that last part goes a long way.

While much smarter people than I have written plenty on this, it bears repeating: Men and Women are different. There is no escaping that women excel at things men statistically do not, and vice versa. Embracing this difference is key to a successful relationship.

This speaks to the nature of any successful relationship – Empathy. While my wife does a number of things that drive me crazy, I get nowhere with her if I don’t first recognize why she’s being the way she is. She feels the way she does for a reason. Making the effort to understand is like opening the door before entering the house.

I bring this up, because while Denise mentions how her husband is still good to have around, the bulk of comments on her page suggest otherwise. Most comments on her page are women ranting about the worthlessness of their husbands. One even offers divorce as motivation. I take offense to this. While plenty of men could use a lesson in gumption, the majority of men I know do not

I don’t recall seeing anything detailing a typical married man’s frustrations. So, here’s a few things I’d answer these women with.

I’m a man, so I don’t multi-task well (as well pointed out by other posts). My day however, consists of quite a lot of that. I have to do plenty of that at work. When I get home, I have to do even more.

Switching between the demands of employees and employers, and the demands of a wife and twin kids is difficult. Quite often it highlights the inadequacies that I’m terrified define who I am. Reading the comments of these women hits me between the eyes: I am not enough, I am never enough, I have never been enough.

There are so many indirect assaults on the fears of male inadequacies in American culture it’s difficult to even start to complain about it. Between jokes about male sexual failures, the lack of efforts put forth in family life, and jokes about a husbands mechanical abilities. All of these common jokes in society only tell men one thing: You are not enough.

The way men respond (typically) to these messages, is withdrawal. If you’re wondering why your husband doesn’t help with certain things around the house, it’s likely because he doesn’t feel he’s doing it right. Think of the last time you were told how badly you were doing something. It didn’t encourage you to try harder, did it?

I’m sure there are plenty of similar messages our culture sends women. I think there’s quite a lot more documentation of those complaints though.

Ladies: If you want more from your men, encourage him. Berating him will get you nowhere.

Basically, there’s 4 things that make a developer ready for the big leagues: design patterns, unit testing, versioning systems, and experience.

Design Patterns can’t be emphasized enough. Almost every situation a typical developer has encountered, someone else has already solved. While the solution was likely in a different language, the concepts are universal. If a candidate cannot answer questions about basic design patterns like Singleton and Factory, they’re ability to adequately handle the responsibilities of a large scale application is seriously in question.

Unit Testing is an equally critical skill for any developer to understand. 90% of developers I interview typically work alone on small projects. this scenario doesn’t reveal the necessity for unit testing. Imagine that you work with 50 other developers on a project that’s hundreds of thousands of lines (if not millions) of code that’s distributed across hundreds of servers over multiple continents. Your amazing class that handles some unique circumstance will be modified by someone else who didn’t know you’re awesome intentions. How will you ensure your code works as intended without automated testing? Unit testing ensures that the concepts that sparked the intent of some software are held for posterity

Versioning systems are another area of knowledge that are surprisingly deficient in PHP Developers. CVS, SVN, Perforce, Mercurial, and (preferably) Git are software packages that any software business relies on. Not knowing the concepts of distributed software versioning software is like not knowing how to push the brake pedal on your car. You might get pretty far without needing it, but eventually you’re going to get into a situation which will crush you.

Experience. Nothing substitutes this. The brilliant young developer can make an awesome idea for his own company. He cannot serve a large company with existing ideas any better than a mediocre developer that listens to what he’s told to do. Software development is still more of an art than a science. Actually, it might be better denoted as a trade. Experienced artisans are able to accomplish things that younger folks cannot.

To re-iterate the point. Know design patterns, know unit testing, know version control software, and keep doing it. If you’ve been developing for years and are short on some of these points, take the time to learn. These skills are paramount and no one skill makes up for another. They are all indispensable in separating junior developers from enterprise level developers.

CSS can be a major headache for unseasoned front-end developers. The intricacies of layout design and how different browsers interpret them is the bane of a designers existence. The most common problem we have is how IE has handled this.

With a few tools though, sanity can be restored to UI development.

First, always use a CSS reset stylesheet. This reduces the number of things to keep track of when doing styling by a ton. I’m personally fond of Eric Meyer’s CSS reset code.

Second, get the Modernizr javascript code on your site. There’s a number of things this will do for you, including adding css classes to the html tag indicating the browser’s capabilities, and modifying HTML5 markup to work in IE6. Trying to work in IE6 without javascript? Let it go. Somethings aren’t worth fighting for.

Third, I really recommend the HTML5 Boilerplate. Actually, just reading through that is a learning experience. Even if you d on’t use the templates, you’ll know much more about how to make a very accessible and cross-browser / cross-platform usable site.

So, with all of these tools in place, you can do a few things in your CSS that should work safely for any browser. I’m partial to Facebook-style transparent borders, so let’s start there. (Note: There is an excellent demonstration of this at CSS-Tricks that explains this very well)

HTML (5ish)
<section class="clear-borders">
<article>
<p>Lipsum, oh yeah</p>
</article>
</section>


CSS
.clear-borders {
/* the borders (older browsers will only read the first definition */
border: 10px solid #999;
border: 10px solid rgba(170,170,170,0.5);

/* again, older browsers won't understand these definitions, so they'll be skipped */
-moz-background-clip: border; /* Firefox 3.6 */
-webkit-background-clip: border; /* Safari 4? Chrome 6? */
background-clip: border-box; /* Firefox 4, Safari 5, Opera 10, IE 9 */

-moz-background-clip: padding; /* Firefox 3.6 */
-webkit-background-clip: padding; /* Safari 4? Chrome 6? */
background-clip: padding-box; /* Firefox 4, Safari 5, Opera 10, IE 9 */

-moz-background-clip: content; /* Firefox 3.6 */
-webkit-background-clip: content; /* Safari 4? Chrome 6? */
background-clip: content-box; /* Firefox 4, Safari 5, Opera 10, IE 9 */
}


The end result here is that older browsers will use the hex color border. So, when you create these colors, try to be pretty close to what your transparent color looks like in actuality. Newer browsers will pick up on the rgba and background-clip definitions.

So if you’re moving your production environment, or even just adding another server to your production environment, bash scripts will be of great help to you. The reason for scripting out your deployment is simple: reproducibility. Don’t take chances migrating a live environment manually. Deployment scripts are testable and version-able.

WARNING: This isn’t a tutorial on bash-scripting. I presume you already know at least some of the basics.

The strategy of this script is simple: Setup all of the variables up front, then execute the following:

1. Checkout all code into a holding folder (servername.hold)
2. Switch to the appropriate version of code (git checkout tags/release-0.1)
3. Create any necessary folders that are not versioned (like cache and log folders)
4. Apply any necessary ownership/permissions (apache, 0700)
5. Move the folder from the holding location, to the operating location

The strategy is simple enough in fact, that you could have multiple site deployment scripts that merely setup the variables for use with the same operational script. Anyways, here’s an example of how to get this done.

#!/bin/bash

#move the files from the holding area, to the actual area
echo `mv $HOLD_LOCATION $PROD_LOCATION`


As you can see, everything from the operational section down is basically plug and play. The variables are set, and it’s off to the races. Note that the library repository is just something that’s common for what I typically deal with. That may not apply to your situation. This script shouldn’t serve as the definition of what a production deployment script should be. Rather, this is just an example of one that’s been quite helpful to me.

There’s two ways to go about keeping the identity you require through multiple single-level-deep connections. That basically means, you can keep your SSH identity from one box to another. If you hop from one box to another and another, I can’t help you. There’s probably a way to do it. I don’t know it.

Anyways: TWO ways to do this. Both of these options assume you’ve got ssh-agent running on the machine you wish to transfer your identity from. To get this running, do the following:
eval `ssh-agent`
ssh-add

This ensures the ssh-agent daemon is running, to provide an identity when you request it to be forwarded. This also assumes you’ve created a public key to transfer your identity.

So, the ways to do this are:
1. Use the -A flag when you shell into a box.
This basically means whenever you shell into somewhere, you add -A to your ssh command. An example would be:
ssh -A username@awesome.server.com

2. Set the ForwardAgent flag to “yes” in your ~/.ssh/config file.
This is a synonym for the -A flag in an ssh command

Both of these options allow you to transfer the key you hold on one machine, to another. Don’t try to use ssh-agent on the machine you connect into though. If you do, you’ll lose your original identity.

So, all together now:

eval `ssh-agent`
ssh-add
ssh -A username@awesome.server.com

Questions are always welcome

What was weird though, was that when I went to the page and viewed source, there was nothing to indicate the issue. None of the links appeared at all. A coworker noted that it might only be occuring for bots, and not for regular users. After installing User-Agent Switcher for Firefox, I could confirm that this only happened when the user-agent was a known spider:

So I dumped the database to a flat file and started regex searching for script tags, base64_encode, or anything that seemed out of the ordinary for a Drupal 5 site. Nothing came up. Finally, I did an svn status on the site itself, and noted that one file was shown as modified, that should not have been:
includes/cache.inc

I did an svn diff on that file and noted the following:
+error_reporting(0);eval(base64_decode(

Basically, someone was able to modify the cache.inc file to run foreign code. I would have just done an svn revert on the file, but sometimes developers will make local modifications to core (bad, I know, but it’s uncommon). So, instead I merely deleted that line in the file with vim.

I would have left this up to google for folks to find an answer to, but apparently I’m the only one who’s posting the answer to this.

I should have said a lot of things:

I should have told them about the guitar you bought for me when I turned 16. I should have told them how you drove with me to stores all over Palm Beach County all day looking for the right guitar, and the place that wouldn’t rip us off for it. I should have told them how you told me you were proud of me for knowing what I wanted, and not settling to get it right.

I should have told them how terrified I was to hear that you were dying of liver failure when I was 18. I should have told them how I spent my 18th birthday sitting at a restaurant bar eating a sandwich contemplating my life without you around in it. I should have told them that after you got back, you gave me a necklace for my 18th birthday, that I still wear. I should have told them how my kids love to play with that necklace when I hold them, and how one day I’ll give that necklace to them.

I should have told them about the years I spent working for your block company. I should have told them how it’s the work I’m most proud of in my life. I should have told them how the people I met while doing that work, have changed my world view more profoundly than most folks will ever have the opportunity to understand.

I should have told them about the time I didn’t show up for work on Saturday. I should have told them how you broke in my house, yelling at me to get my ass to work. I should have told them about the number of times you were incredibly tough on me, and how it’s shaped so much of who I am today.

I should have told them about the time you sunk a Lull up to it’s wheels. I should have told them about the times you would put a lit cigarette in someone’s pocket, or put a rubber snake next to one of the masons working, and how we would all laugh. I should have told them that your since of humor was amazing, and how it will be carried on long past your departure in this world.

I should have told them about when I graduated community college, how you came up to me (during the ceremony), to tell me how proud you were of me. I should have told them how much it meant to me.

I should have told them how much you meant to my mom. I should have told them that the 10 years you were together were some of the hardest, and best times of her life. I should have told them how much it meant to me that for so long, you were such a good part of her life.

I should have said a lot of things to those people sitting there today. But when I got up there, the enormity of your absence hit me like a cube of block. I love you like a father. That’s not to the deteriment of my dad (who is awesome), but to the testament of who you are. I’ll always consider you my dad, and I’ll miss you as much as I’ll miss anyone in my life. You are one of the greatest people I’ve ever encountered, and that’s what I should have said today.

• The Slumber Bear: One of the few calming things for babies is white noise. It’s the shhh noise we all know so well. A tip: Do it loudly. When babies are in the womb, the sound of water running by their ear is akin to white noise, and it’s reportedly as loud as a leaf blower. Another Tip: We took the bear skin off, and just use the noise making guts.
• Boppies: When the kids are little, they can’t hold their own head up. When it’s feeding time, you’ll either have to hold them yourself, or have something to hold them for you. That’s the idea behind the Boppy. It may look like a neck pillow for Big Foot, but it’ll give you a spare hand for that beer of yours.
• Probiotics: Babies typically don’t digest food well early on. This is one of the causes of colic kids. So, just like a wastewater treatment plant, you can help get the pipes working by introducing bacteria in your child’s diet. Some of you might sound appalled, but you’ve still got billions of E-Coli in your belly right now.
• Bouncy Seats: I don’t know why, but a bouncing baby is usually a happy one. If baby has eaten, and has a clean diaper, and is still crying, the bouncy seat should be your next plan of attack.
• Swing: Another great way to chill your baby out is to set them in a swing. The bouncy seats are a great way to soothe babies quick, but it still requires you to sit there and bounce them (we’ve yet to find the automatic bouncy seat).
• The Happiest Baby On The Block: The doctor behind this DVD is a bit odd, but his methods work 100%. I knew nothing about raising kids before watching this (the day before Mason and Charlotte were born). Within a couple hours of using the methods described, I was better at calming the kids than anyone else was. This DVD is definitely a must.

I’m sure there’s some stuff out there that some of you have come to rely on a bunch. I’d love to hear what everyone else is using to get by the hardest times. These days, with the help of the previously mentioned tools, things are a lot of fun.

I did my first ‘Fran‘ on Monday with 135. Apparently that was too much weight. My time came in at a whopping 27 minutes. That’s far too long. So, I’ll drop it to 95 next Monday and give it another shot.

I’m thinking a ‘Helen‘ is in order for Friday.

The whole concept of Crossfit is to work out harder than you think possible, using big motions and total exertion. I’ve been trying all of this out on my own, but pretty soon I think I’m gonna need to get to the Firebase for some teamwork.

First off, Mason and Charlotte are awesome. I can’t begin to put into words how much emotion pours out of me when I get to hold them. I held judgement on whether I would like them or not. After 17 days, I can say I genuinely love them.

Mostly …

So, the one thing that still feels like a rattlesnake biting my cheek; is the sound of babies crying. I don’t know how to describe the agony of hearing them cry, but after 17 days, I can say it’s not much better when they’re your own.

That gets me to everyone else:

The one thing I notice about most folks who interact with the kids, is that crying is only a minor inconvenience to them. I hear people saying how cute it is, while baby-talking to the screaming baby. When I mention how much the sound of them crying bothers me, I’m usually treated like an oddity. It’s like folks think I’m gonna get over it.

Imagine if I were to pinch you in the nipple with pliers, while telling you: “It’s fine. Why are you so upset”.

Other than the crying, the lack of sleep that entails having twins is especially brutal. I’m a big dude, so sleep isn’t something to joke about for me. I’ve lost 40 lbs since last July. At this rate, I’m going to be the size of my kids by next year.

Don’t get me wrong: I love my kids. When they’re happy, nothing feels better than to hold them and hang out with them. Every now and then, I have to hold one of them on my pillow with me to sleep. You just can’t imagine what it’s like to wake up with your daughter’s forehead on yours.

I guess the point of all of this, is that for most guys, babies are mostly hell. The screaming and the lack of sleep make you completely crazy. I walk down the street these days waiting for someone to look at me the wrong way. I could use the chance to let out some built up frustration on someone wearing a popped collar.

:/

We’ve done a bunch to the house to prepare. We’ve had the carpets cleaned, moved rooms around, and got the nursery setup. It’s been an interesting process. Anyways, here’s some pics of everything.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corycollier/3870999911/in/set-72157622187046976/

Obviously, food should seem the larger priority. However, in recent times, when the world has seemed to stack the deck against me, beer seemed like the priority. Don’t get me wrong, beer is cool, and so are a number of other things that seemed like a priority before. However, if you’re against the ropes (metaphorically speaking), a beer isn’t going to help you: A hard right hook will.

I apologize for talking in seeming code here. The point is: when life seems impossible, creature comforts aren’t the answer to getting out of the situation, decisive action is. The problem with decisive action when life is tough, is it’s much harder to do. Moreover, action usually entails things that seem underneath you, or degrading. Make no mistake however, inaction degrades your circumstance more than digging ditches.

I’m a bit lucky about this realization. Melissa is pregnant, and my ability to provide for her is quite necessary. Many folks don’t find themselves in such a seemingly desperate, but overall enlightening situation.

I write this, because lately I’ve had the opportunity to realize that previous complacency was actually creating the situation I was unhappy with. It’s revealing, to say the least. But hopefully, someone will get something out of it.

There’s a huge catch in all of this though. Web developers are quite possibly the dumbest professionals on the earth. No other industry sees it’s standard salaries and income vary as much as the web development industry. Imagine trying to pick between one lawyer who charges $300 / hr, or one that charges $10 / hr. The cheaper one sounds enticing, but we all know you usually get what you pay for.

That’s the trouble with the web. Because so many developers are willing to provide services for next to nothing (for a variety of reasons), the entire industry suffers. There’s just not much consistency in what people expect to pay for professional web dev services.

And now, professional companies are starting to get into this mindset as well. As I’ve been trolling for steady jobs, I’ve seen tons of positions open for senior web developers that pay $15 to $20 / hr.

That’s an insultingly low rate to pay a senior web developer. The skillset and intelligence required to perform solid web development duties is typically on par with my own background in structural and civil engineering. This stuff is complicated, and $15  / hr isn’t reflective of the skill required to successfully create and implement a good web app.

So, what will likely happen, is good paying jobs will be more geo-centric to tech hubs throughout the country (New York, San Francisco, etc..), and the remaining web development work will be limited to implementations of the products that come out of those areas.

The variety that’s made the web so intriguing for years, will likely fade to a much more bland version of the web, filled with millions of cookie-cutter websites about uninteresting products and services.

It’s frustrating, because even some of my closest friends feel the need to undercut their services to get work. My own colleagues and buddies are helping to enforce the un-sustainability of our own careers.

We found out about Charlotte first. In technical terms, doctors are looking for Hamburgers and Hot-Dogs. So, the first thing was a hamburger.

The second was the Hot Dog.

So, I guess I’ll be playing with guns and barbies. It’s great news for Melissa and I.

When I was ten, I was institutionalized for insanity. It sounds more dramatic than it actually was. I claimed (falsely) that I’d tried to hang myself, and a psychiatrist responsibly decided to send me to an ‘South County’, an institution in the southern part of Palm Beach County.

The actual institutionalization was pretty educational. Most of the kids I was in there with, were really crazy folks. My roommate tried to kill his mother with a pair of scissors. When some of the long-term residents tried to bully me, one of the crazier residents beat most of them to near death. Within days, I was pleading to go home.

Luckily, I got my wish pretty quick. I spent a grand total of 3 days at ‘South County’. My parents came to visit me on the third day. After pleading to go home, I was released.

For years, I brushed the experience aside. I treated it as a footnote to the end of being in grammar school. But, lately, I wonder if perhaps I should consider it a little more …

Everyone in modernized society has likely felt some effect of the global economic recession of late. That recession has put people in difficult situations, some more than others.

Some folks, are quite able to handle the challenges they face. They perceive life with opportunity, and observe difficulties as mere alterations in their perception of reality. These people represent the best of what our societies have to offer. They are the standard, to which we should all strive.

Other folks, see the challenges they face, as a direct indictment of their character; the only possible result of their own failure. For these people, there are few solutions to the difficulties they face. Most of the solutions, involve a re-assessment of who they are. While this might seem obvious to the best of our societies, the not-so-best of our societies view the difficulties as improbable feats of futility. For those without the belief that they can successfully alter their behavioral patterns, change might sound enticing, but it doesn’t sound like something they can achieve on their own.

A smaller segment of the previously mentioned segment of society, will succumb to this pressure, and lose their sanity. It may sound dramatic, but for each one of us, there is some set of events that will stretch our capacity to absolve and cope, that we will lose our sense of reality. Some of us, will actually go insane from this recession.

I’ve said before, that I think this recession is being prolonged to further a national dependence on federal government. I still believe that the federal government should stay out of our lives, and not intervene in issues of personal despair. The question I still have though, is that for the rest of us: When do WE intervene?

It’s quite likely, if you’re reading this, you know someone who’s on the edge of their own sanity from the pressures they’re under right now. If you see this, and can recognize it, what can you do? Perhaps more importantly; what should you do?

The question is equivalent for the individual: If you know you’re going insane, what should you do to stop it? If your ability to decipher right from wrong, has some tangible decline, when should you stop waiting for someone to help you, and seek help for yourself?

I should make some footnote to the questions I’ve previously asked. Many of us will feel tremendous pressure, and be quite capable (and quite responsible) of finding a solution to their problems. This represents the largest portion of those feeling pressure in the current global recession.

But there are those who are not so capable …

The million dollar question is: Who is capable, and who is not?

I wish I knew.

I can only speak for myself. I can only make presumptions on what I feel, on what I’ve experienced, and what I believe.

Based on this: I believe, that I can fix what I see to be problems in my life. I believe, that I alone can resolve that which causes my family hardship. I believe, with all of my own conviction, that only I can create the reality that I live in. No one, even those with the greatest of intentions, can make my life what I want it to be. That is only my duty to myself, and to my family.

However, I was in the crazy house before …

I believe this argument, strikes at the foundation of what is considered to be left, and right wing philosophies of life. The most exteme  of these philosophies will argue for the justification of the state, vs. the justification of the individual.

The argument for the lack of personal repsonsibility is the argument for the strength of the state. The argument that opposes, argues for the strength of the individual. The de-facto result of these arguments, is the realization of the government we prescribe to.

Our cultures give us clues as to which way our societies lean. The argument for prosecuting people on the premise of what they might do to hurt people, indicates (quite clearly) which way the law will lean.

Keep in mind, I’m a conservative guy. I don’t believe in playing the role of victim. However, after a while of getting late notices on bills, overdraft notices from the bank, and  arguing at home about money, I almost couldn’t help but throw my hands up and pray for help.

That’s the catch.

I am not alone in this circumstance. Millions of Americans are going through the same problems right now. Actually, it’s probably millions more than were going through those issues just a year or two ago. Add to this equation a consistent message from nearly all national media outlets that these hardships are due to circumstances out of most folks control, and you have a recipe for national outrage at the injustice done upon it’s people.

This, is the recipe for Socialism.

A lot of you who know me, will undoubtedly roll your eyes right now. I’ve spoken about my concern of a larger federal government for a while now. However, look at the circumstances objectively. There are a few facts, that I dare anyone to rebut:

• More Americans are without work
• NBC, ABC, CBS, usually report stories about the greed of the wealthy, and it’s effect on people who ‘have less’
• The ‘Fed’ (a euphemism for the Federal Treasury) has begun printing paper dollars at a vastly increased rate, compared to two years ago (This is likely to lead to a high level of inflation – the increased value of goods, usually paired with a slower value of labor and wages)

These circumstances are likely to lead to more people doing with less, and more people believing that somehow our system of economics is flawed, and they should be compensated for their difficulties.

There will be a point when inflation reaches levels so high, that the vast majority of Americans will welcome national intervention to prevent further impoverishment of it’s citizens. This is similar, though not quite the same, as what happened in Russia in  1917, Germany in 1932, and China in 1949.

In all of these scenarios, people were presented with bogus options to solve their problems. Folks were told choose A or B, and usually B seemed completely out of the question. This forces people to embrace circumstances they usually would never tolerate.

Ask about the legitimacy of socialized medicine in 1998, and you’d likely get a lackluster response. Ask about it during the depth of a severe recession, and you’ll get a much more enthusiastic crowd.

So, here’s the real conspiracist in me: I think the hardships that people are going through right now, are being perpetuated to further an agenda that consolidates power to the federal government. Granted, DC doesn’t have the ability to outright create recessions, especially one like we’re in now. However, they do have the ability to hinder legitimate recovery from said recession.

By effectively nationalizing banks, nationalizing health care  (it’s on the way), and sending a lot of mixed messages to potential investors to business, the Federal government has created a sense of unease with the entrepreneurs and businesses that would have seen our economy back on it’s feet, much the same is they have for hundreds of years.

This prolonging of economic suffering, under the guise of helping, is no foolish trick. It is a way to entice the masses to believe the only hope they have for recovery is through the determination of a nationally strong central government. A government that will stop the corruption of the few, will save the dignity and prosperity of the many.

This is, by definition, a socialist argument.

But, I’d bet you didn’t think of that way, did you?