Today at work was much the same as yesterday; rewarding. I had an early meeting to demonstrate an application i built to help register participants for events, which is also connected to an NC State Credit Card processor called Nelnet (no need to take notes…no quiz on these terms). The clients really liked it, although we did have major problems using the application on one of the machines that has a locked-down system that’s still running Internet Explorer 6. For those non-techies, Internet Explorer was deprecated, old, useless, annoying, and down-right wrong back since ancient times. In fact i think if you look closely at the fine print on the stones the 10 commandments are written on, you’ll see the asterisk beside the one that says “thou shalt not use Internet Explorer 6.’ With that out of the way, they really liked it, and only had a few minor textual changes. Gotta love it. My guess is i’ll look back at this blog and think:

“wow….i wonder if ie6 has the problems that ie43 still has”

Today also brought a really good conversation with two of my work colleagues, as we chatted about a particular project or rather initiative that we think would benefit the web developers community at NC State. Rather than talk about the specifics of the discussion (that aren’t even specific right now), i’d rather draw attention to the willingness of some employees to not only come up with new ideas that could benefit a broad audience outside their normal realm of responsibility, but also be willing to work towards those goals. Anyone can come up with an idea about how to change things, make them better, stronger, faster than before. And many of those same ideas only really affect a small subset of people…those in the blast range, the immediate vicinity, the ones that need the least help. My experience in the short time i’ve been at NC State (which is extremely similar to the experience at Lees-McRae), is that the people who are less burdened by years of rejection and blocked attempts to make sweeping change…these people are more able to get new innovative, effective, efficient projects off the ground. My experience is also that these types of people are generally younger. I dont know if that’s at all accurate, or just a feeling on it, but younger employees are able to look past the roadblocks, the history of failures, and are willing to come up with something better, faster, stronger. I dont know why I think that, but i do. Now…the caveat to all of this is that the youthful enthusiasm and vigour needs to be channeled, managed effectively (even if that means don’t manage it at all), and helped along the way by those who have come before to try a similar plan. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it? How about those who learn from history are destined to improve on it?

Damn, this regular blogging makes it easy to get off topic and into a stream of consciousness rant. Sorry.

Anyway…summary == i love heading to work when i know the people around me are not only working hard at the things directly on their to-do list, but also on the wider issues of how we make things better for large groups of people…in this case…the NC State Community.

On a completely different, but delicious topic, Melody made vegetarian swedish meatballs, honeyed beans and carrots, and smashed potatoes for dinner. Holy crap they were good. We will be posting the recipe very soon to Meatless Marvels (http://www.meatlessmarvels.com). Insider tip: vegetarian gravy was from IKEA…yes THAT IKEA, and the meatballs were from Trader Joes.

Last, but definitely not least is a subject i rarely get tired talking about…and that’s Google. I love google, i hate Mac Fanboys, but i’m pretty much the same type of person, just for Google. Someone wrote an article that was passed around twitter about the Top 10 reasons why Google will fail in 2010, and all i could think while reading it was … “you’re an ass…you dont know what you’re talking about..google will never fail, well at least not this year.” Hearing myself think that, and now typing it may affect my disposition towards google in the future, but still…i can’t get enough of the products they develop, mainly because well, they work, they make my life easier, and they’re free.

So tonight i helped Melody make the leap into Google Voice, by setting up her account, and tying it to our home phone and her cell phone. She’ll configure it herself over the next few days, so if you’re one of our phone friends, look out for an email and txt message telling you to update your address book with a new number. This will also help us move from regular phone providers to new ones, as we’ll just keep the same number, the same voicemail etc without ever losing service, and without ever having to get our friends to update their address books again. I’ve had my google voice number for a while now (several months), and i’m gradually moving everything over to it.

I don’t have any more invites left, but when i do, i’ll be happy to share them. Also, if anyone needs a google wave invite i have about a bajillion of them….well maybe about 36 of them to give out. Send me an email or direct msg me on twitter.

All in all, a great day again.

Good friends, good work, good food, good google, good god it’s time for bed.