Learning is a lifelong passion

“To walk, we have to lean forward,” from the writings of Robin Skynner, “lose our balance, and begin to fall. We let go constantly of the previous stability, falling all the time, trusting that we will find a succession of new stabilities with each step. Our experience of the past, and of those dear to us, is not lost at all, but remains richly within us.”

Clone Wars

We went to see the latest production of the Lucasfilm franchise this evening – Clone Wars. Liam brought along a friend as well. The kids liked it and even Colm seemed to sit through it well. But from Mommy and Daddy’s perspective it was more of the same poorly written scripts that sadly we have come to expect these days from George Lucas. Take your kids to it, but don’t expect anything of note for the Moms and Dads of the world who also grew up with Star Wars.

Sean

A touch of humanity in a sensitive-geeky sort of way

I remember seeing the first video he did. He is a software engineer who got an idea to take time off from his job and travel the world. He started a website called “Where the hell is Matt?” to document his travels. He made a video doing his dance at unique locations around the world. It was so successful he did it again. This time he invited folks from the web to come out and join in the dance when he was in their area. You can see me dancing in the Seattle one in the upper left corner.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Ha, made you look. Regardless, it is touching (at least I think it is) and reflects how when it comes down to it, people are just people where ever you go and we can share a moment together. One world, many faces.

Sean

New School – Spring Picnic

We visited the kids new school today as they were having a spring picnic. The kids enjoyed themselves.

I am excited about this smaller private Catholic school for our boys. They have a rigorous approach to the arts, music, and Science. They teach French starting in preschool.

Sean

Chess

Lately, I have been teaching Liam how to play chess after having mastered checkers. I have discovered that I played by some sort of weird variant of en passant with my friends. My friend Nate and I used to allow capture en passant. This typically involved a move say from white to the fifth row of black (d4->d5). We used to allow black on the second row to capture en passant of white at d5 from either c7 or e7 – leveraging their one time two move of a pawn from the respective second rows. Did we just pull this out of the air or is it a variant others have used?

En passant is really an option to take a pawn who has opted for the initial two move but avoided capture by an enemy pawn in the fifth row had it made a single move. That enemy pawn, which would have been able to capture the moving pawn had it advanced only one square, is entitled to capture the moving pawn “in passing” as if it had advanced only one square.

I also remember that Nate’s chess set was Napolean themed and the Queen was particularly fetching. I promised Liam that I would get him the transformers chess set once he gets better at it.

Sean

Net usage and education among young adults

Is our cup half empty?
Or is it really half full? 

Cleaning out your mail box

Here I am talking about your regular mail box. Green Dimes is a service that helps stop spam from arriving in your physical mail box. It is now a one-time $16 payment, so it is worth considering.Sean

Personal productivity

I have always had a very good memory for things. In college I never had a calendar, pda or schedule beyond a simple drawing on engineering paper blocking out my class time. I did it more for art sake than anything else. If I wanted to plan my tasks for the next day I would just make a mental note to myself to remember them the next day. Like I said, I have a very good memory and can match patterns quite easily. It is a trick of mine. I think about the task once and then make a mental note to look it up when the time comes. I guess that is why I am an engineer.Interestingly enough, I take the same approach with finances. I have used Quicken from time to time in the past, but I would grow bored with spending time analyzing down to the nickel my checking account. I already could keep track of spending and funds as well as knowing in my head what goes out and what comes in.At work it is quite similar. I keep a notebook that I jot things down in and note them as AR (action required). But I don’t use tasks in outlook, PDAs or a personal planner. I just focus on what’s important and get the job done.If there is a theme to my approach it is called ‘focus’. I leave my schedule open to apply my time to things that need to be gotten done. But I don’t shedule time and block out units and rank/prioritize tasks in any formal way.It was quite refreshing to read in Marc Andreessen’s blog a similar pattern to mine.Sean