I just don't fit sometimes

Even though blogs and Twitter are supposed to be the open forum where you should feel free to express your opinion, most of the time I hold back. Most of the time I don't say what I really think. Most of the time, I think of the funniest, or most controversial thing I can say- but I rarely ever say what I really think. Why? I don't say what I really think, because what I really think doesn't fit in most places. Here's a few examples;

1. I don't fit with liberal, educated white America. I never finished college, and I don't have a whole lot of guilt about being white, and I don't feel like I owe the world anything. My impression of liberal, educated white America is that they think they know better than everyone else. They think they know what is good for black people, Puerto Ricans and for Haitians. They go out of their way to be "inclusive" and accepting. They carry an air of enlightenment. They vote for Democrats, and give money to various causes around the world. They pride themselves on having a gay friend, and they name their kids "chase" and "jayden." They compose the majority of the Priuum. I don't get it, and they don't get me. Although I share much of the "idealistic" views at the core of this group, I also disagree on many points. I used to find fundamentalist Christians annoying- but liberal, educated white America has taken the fundie's place in my book of ire.

2. I grew up in proximity to the 'hood. I like to joke that we weren't poor, just everyone else in the neighborhood was. My dad provided for us, and worked hard all his life. He made a better life for me and my brother, and we eventually moved to better neighborhoods. A family trust fund enabled my brother and I to go to private school. This is why I can't say I grew up in the hood. I grew up adjacent to it. We rubbed up against it. We got it on us. By the time NWA came along in '87, and white america started identifying with the dissilusion and alienation, I had already been listening to rap music for 3-4 years. I was already listening to Run DMC, LL Cool J, BDKane, and KRS One. I didn't need NWA to tell me I was angry, I was already angry.
We got hassled by the police just for being where we were, and where we were was unavoidable. We were chased out of malls, and followed around in retail stores. We dated who we wanted, and our dating policy didn't include any form of discrimination. We were friends, and we rolled with whatever friend from whatever race showed up. Our lines were drawn around our group, our school, or our neighborhood- not around what color we all were, and I kind of resent the new way that race is portrayed these days. Its like we're supposed to ignore it now, and pretend like our hair, noses and fingernails are the same- and I'm sorry but they aren't. Go try to buy hair care products for yourself and get the one with a picture of the guy/ gal who is a different race than you.
I'm not saying I want to constantly point out that we're different. I just don't want to be in denial and PRETENT like we're the same. We can have the same political views, the same taste in music/sex/ cars/ etc. but there's still differences- and those differences are ok.

3. I don't fit in with the "Conservative" crowd either. I tried to roll with this group for 5-6 years in the 90s. I met most of the big leaders at the time. I participated in the vast, right wing conspiracy- but something about it ended up leaving me feeling empty and unfulfilled. I wanted to stand up for what was right. I wanted to believe. Somehow, I just couldn't do it. I believed in the "fundamentals" but I couldn't agree on the definitions. I couldn't play the game. I didn't fit in with this group either. This group was supposed to be my home, but I guess I just asked too many questions, or challeged the status quo too often. I dunno. When I get around too many people from the right i wanna burn something.

What does all this mean? I can define what I'm not- but what am I?

First, I am a Christian. This means that I believe that God became a man in the form of Jesus, and died for our sins. I believe that God, in the form of the Holy Spirit is active in our lives today. If you don't believe that Jesus died for your sins, then you will have a different paradigm- a different view of the world than I do, and ultimately, I don't expect you to do things, or see things the same way I do. This is a pretty vanilla definition- but through all my years and all my struggles this remains my constant.

It means that I already know I'm not a racist, so I don't feel obligated to go gaga over everything Barack Obama says. It means that I'm willing to say a few things that most white boys shouldn't say- like statistically speaking, there's a good chance that a black person is going to answer the door when I go to work in a section 8 neighborhood. I didn't say that this is right. I'm not afraid to say that. I want to see more black entrepeneurs, doctors, plumbers, HVAC mechanics.
I don't like the "N" word, no matter how you pronounce it. I think that when I listen to "black" radio and hear a commercial about how the census will help the government decide to which "neighborhoods to redirect federal resources" is an inherently racist thing for the government to say on black radio, and I think black people should be pissed that the people who wrote that commercial assumed that ALL black people need public assistance.

It means that I think poor people should have health care, but that small business shouldn't have to pay for it.

It means that I believe in a woman's right to chose, but I don't know any woman who's ever been proud or happy to have to make that choice. I think the argument is dead and that Christians need to move on- but I'd really like for Christians to start thinking about how to engage teens before it gets to that point.

I believe that hard work and determination should get you to where you need to go. I also believe that the morons running our county are making it harder and harder for hard work and determination to amount to anything. I think that there's a hard working young man/ woman in India, China, Flint Michican, South America who deserves it more than I do.

I think that America is a great country, but I've visited other countries I've liked too.

I think that most Muslims can suck it, but I think they have a better understanding of the nature of God than most Catholics. If they would stop blowing up shit, I may re-think my position. I can't stand fundamentalism in any religion (including my own). I think that a coin has two sides, and an edge.

I don't hate "the gays." I believe that you can poke, suck, eat, chew, lick, smell whatever you want- but I don't think that it should give you minority status. I believe that I should accept you, but I don't believe that I should have to "bless" you. Marriage is an instituion of the church, so if you want to be in a committed, monogamous, homosexual relationship- call it something else. I like "gay-rraige" but you don't have to go with my idea. I'm sorry but what and who you have sex with doesn't mean I should have to turn my world upside down to accommodate you. By all means have at it- do what you want, just quit trying to rub my nose in it.

I believe that the borders of our country should have walls around them, but that the walls should have gates, and we should do everything we can to allow as many people who are willing to live by our rules in. I also believe that we should do everything we can to keep our enemies out.

I believe that each nation has its own solidarity- but that nation gives up that right to solidarity when even one of it's citizens attack the citizens of another country. When I walk into your embassies here in Washington, I respect your traditions and culture. I remove my shoes, I take off my hat, or cover my head. I try to pronounce the names correctly.

I believe that law-abiding citizens should be allowed to keep and bear arms. I also believe that a town, city, or country has the right to place prohibitions on how those arms are kept and born. Density of population prevents you from getting a clear shot- so you shouldn't be able to take that shot. I also know that a sword, a machete, or a steak knife can be just as effective at close range. I believe that the MOAB can be fired in just warfare and in self-defense, and a fork can be used to commit murder- and that there is a difference.

I believe that a nation has the right to judge and terminate murderers, rapists, and violent criminals within its society- but that the individuals of that nation should practice grace and forgiveness wherever possible. This is the difference between corporate justice, and individual mercy.

Humanity should do everything it can to discover, create, build, explore and expand. This includes the depths of the sea, and the reaches of space.

It is our imperative and our responsibility to care for nature and to steward our resources accordingly, but I don't believe that the "chicken little" approach works. I think that we built our society on fossil fuel, and it will take time to wean ourselves from the teat of big oil. Until then, we'd better get used to the word "hybrid"

That's just some of it- call me what you will, but I think that I'm a conservative on the inside, and a liberal with everyone else. In other words, I hold my self to a relatively high standard, but I feel that there's room in this world for all people. I don't mind that people are different, and I can appreciate the differences that people from all walks bring. I just don't necessarily want to be like them- but I know there are large parts of the world who wish they could live more like I do, so as Americans with mostly Judeo-Christian values we must have been doing SOMETHING right all this time.

Gov Bob McDonnell is Roscoe P Coltrane

I'm not trying to start anything, I'm just saying.

Howe & Howe Tech

I watched "Howe and Howe Tech" on the Discovery Channel last night and thorougly enjoyed watching the guys banging together their latest prototype- the badger with limited resources, and a tight budget. I guess I was mostly encouraged by the fact that apparently, there are Americans out there still bootstrapping great builds.
I know- ANOTHER "fabber" show? Not to take anything away from Orange County Choppers, but they've reached some level of success, Paulie Jr is looking into branching out on his own- getting into art or whatever... lately it sort of lost the excitement of THE BUILD guys laying on the floor, welding crap, swilling coffee, bleary-eyed and overworked...
I've seen the previews of How and Howe for a few weeks (shocker- I watch Discovery Channel regularly) and I got the impression that I was going to like the show. It also turns out that I saw one of their machines at the Auto Show in DC back in 2001, and I've got a copy of Popular Mechanics with one of their rovers on the cover.
I guess the thing I like about these shows the most is that these are American boys actually doing some hard work, and actually producing something. Our country's attempted transition away from manufacturing into Toeffler's third wave or information society left us all feeling a little empty inside.
Maybe there's a reminder and a warning in here somewhere that even though we might be headed toward economic recovery, there's no need to simply just go back to status quo. Somewhere, somehow we've got to build some things into our economy that generate revenue inch-by-inch, slow and steady growth built on solid products, skills, and services- and maybe a little less on hype and "virtual" products.
Don't get me wrong- I love tech, the internets, gadgets and being connected as much as the next guy or gal, I just don't like the idea of being another cog in the machine. I can't sit back and buy into the idea that all our country needs is to free up capital so that we can get back to consumerism, consumption and shuffling data.
I want to build and design the machines of the future. I want to have my hands in something real and substantial- at the end of the day- data modelling, and 3D graphics no matter how accurate or realistic just doesn't cut it for me- I want to actually knock real stuff together and have it do real stuff and I'm definitely not ready to give up my oxy-acetylene rig.

5 years of blogging, the 10 years behind, and the 10 years ahead

I really don't want to do a complete retrospective of the last 10 years of my life- but its a little interesting to note that my first blog post was on January 1, 2005- and it's kinda funny to look back and see what I was ranting & raving about in previous years, how my life has changed, and the direction I have taken.

In 2005, We said goodbye to WHFS, the local "alternative" radio station in the DC area, We discovered who Deep throat was, I had a couple revelations about what it means to be "just johntindale" and I might have made a bigger deal about Howard Stern than I really needed to.

In 2006, I blogged about getting my Maryland master HVAC license, http://johntindale.blogspot.com/2006/07/new-job-and-master-license.html and I tried to define my faith and religious stance as a post-modern, post congregationalist. I think I'm probably more of a congregationalist at this point, but I'm still very post-modern.

My most popular blog came in 2007, and it was the one that got the most hits on Google was about Rhianna, http://johntindale.blogspot.com/2007/07/under-my-umbah-rella-ella-ella-eh-eh-oh.html and how I couldn't stand the umbuh- rella pronunciation. That same year, 2007- I only managed 10 posts. (Less than one a month.) I made some New Year's Declarations that year, I think I did ok with them. I did a little blacksmithing with my dad, and I'd like to do more of it in the years to come

In 2008, I discovered Ubuntu Linux. It's interesting to note that I dual boot Ubuntu Linux and Vista Pro on my Inspiron 1525 and I've been spending more time in Vista lately- Mostly because of our acceptance in BizSpark. Overall, 2008 was a good year, I'm still GTD'ing, I still use my Moleskine (every day) I've cooled off a bit from the whole 4HWW- mostly because I like to work. Finally, in 2008- "the biggie" we founded enercient as a controls/HVAC/ wireless integration company. http://johntindale.blogspot.com/2008/12/enercient-rollout.html

2009 was a tough year. We did a little traveling attending the AHR Expo in Chicago in January (brrr-cold!) and we managed a vacation (probably our last one for a while) to England, Northumbria, and the land of my Tindale ancestors . I definitely want to spend more time there, maybe own a summer home there at some point?

I whined a little bit http://johntindale.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-guess-it-gets-harder-closer-you-get.html and we completed the first phase of production on our prototype. Overall the year wasn't easy. Mel & I burned through most of our savings & cash reserves, and at times we wondered if we were gonna make it.

So, needless to say I'm looking forward to 2010. (A space odyssey?)

I'm not in the habit of making new year's resolutions- but I'm going to make a few more declarations for the coming year-nay even the coming decade.

1. I'm going to make money this year. We've spent the last two years doing some very important things laying some solid groundwork and foundation for Enercient- and this year I'm ready to focus on getting work and getting paid. We've built the right relationships, we have some really exciting products, and we have something that I've come to be very proud of- but this year, 2010 I'm going to get paid. No more looking for investors- we'll be beating them off with a stick by the end of the year.

2. Enercient will grow. I'm done with writing concepts, figuring out our market, and with trying to convince the wrong group into being our customer. I think I was mistaken thinking that my friends in the HVAC business would be able to move our product. We have come to discover that our customer is the end user. I'm no longer concerned with trying to convince other HVAC companies to follow us- we're just going to go for it and if they want to follow later, we'll make a place for them. I'm going after homeowners, property managers, and business owners. We have a great line of products, and I want to see them in place. I want to have 3-4 mechanics working for me by the end of the year, and I want to get to 500K in annual revenue for the company.

3. I'll be 39 this year, and I'm not going to fight it. I feel like I've allowed the last two years to be my "mid-life re-evaluation" I'm not calling it a crisis, because I believe that a man doesn't have to have a crisis if he feels that he is successful in his life. I'm just making a few mid-stream corrections. I'm not a "young man" any more, and I'm not ashamed to say it. When I was 23 years old, I looked at guys in their late 30's and thought they were old. I don't want 40 to be the new 30, When I hit 40, I want to be confident, experienced, and have a group of young guys coming up behind me to build the infrastructure of Enercient, and I want to be "the old man" by the time I'm 50.

To wrap it up, the last decade has been a serious time of rebuilding for me. I met and married my wife Melanie, http://momsmems.blogspot.com/ and started a new family with Jillian (she'll be 2 in a couple weeks) I've come into my own in my trade and in my industry, and I have come to terms with my faith and my life.

2010 will be a good year, and the next 10 years for me will be about building- Building a business, building a home & family, and building up the next generation coming up behind me in faith, in the trade,and in life in general. I guess that's my 2020 vision. I will measure my successes in the growth of our business, in the strength of our family, and our ability to give back to our community through our church and through other philanthropic efforts.

Adobe pdf crash errors.

My wife has had recurring problems with Adobe reader crashing on her Vista machine. Our fix a year ago was to roll back to version 7 after version 8 was released, and at the time an extensive web search didn't reveal any other reliable fixes.

So when version 9 upgraded, I finally decided to attempt a fix, since this would be the second upgrade we were skipping. I did another web search, and Adobe is claiming that an upgrade to 9.2 is fixing this problem. I don't know about everyone else, but it didn't.

My search was returning sysadmins who were saying that they just quit using adobe and started using some other 3rd party pdf reader because they couldn't resolve the problem.

So, after hitting a page about 7-8 links down, I finally found this fix about halfway down the page on http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404597.html from user ATATKD:

I changed the HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/UserShellFolders AppData key value from %USERPROFILE%\Application Data to %USERPROFILE%\AppData .

Seriously, a REGISTRY edit?

I tried changing all the folder permissions, and nothing worked. I tried deleting and performing a clean install, nothing worked.

I'm used to screwing around in the regsitry of my winmophos so, I figured, what the heck? I backed up the registry, changed the above mentioned key value, and !viola! it worked. So my question is- Why can't adobe fix this in their code?

Three points about leadership

I've been a fan of leadership and leaders ever since I discovered the role. I've always been that person in a room full of strangers to initiate the conversation, coordinate the activity, or move the discussion along. On the other hand, I've also learned that with experience comes a level of wisdom- a higher level of leadership that shows you have the confidence to stand back and allow someone else to lead from time-to-time. Here's three attributes of a confident leader:
1. A leader doesn't write themselves in as the star of the show. Just as a good writer doesn't have to make themselves the main character in every book they write, and a good director stays behind the camera, a good leader allows the people on their team to be their own star. If you are the pastor of an 80 member church, or if you are the owner of a one-person consulting firm, maybe you should take a step back and see if you are starring in your own production.
A leader can be a participant in someone else's thing without feeling threatened. In our connected, cooperative, collaborative society- no one can blaze their own independent trail 100% of the time. At some point, you'll be on someone else's team, you'll be a member of someone else's church, club, or group and if you are confident in your leadership abilities you'll leave them alone and let them lead it. If you find yourself meddling in someone else's thing, you'll probably find that something is lacking in areas where you are supposed to be focused- like on your own stuff.
2. A leader is big enough to have leaders under them. My friends in Australia call it the "tall poppy syndrome" and here in Maryland we call it crabs in the basket. Someone has the chance to rise to the occasion, and we sabotage their success because we are afraid they'll achieve higher successes than us. I want to leave a legacy of people who have succeeded as a result of my influence- not in spite of it. If your salespeople outsell you, or if your service manager handles their team better than you can, by all means let them- it will only benefit you in the end.
3. A leader understands it is about the mission, not the person. I know what it means to have something that you are completely passionate about (almost obsessed) but I also know people who value the success over the mission. In other words- if your company is selling widgets, the mission is to sell widgets not to BE SUCCESSFUL selling widgets. There is a subtlety here that some people just never get. As soon as you get over the knowledge or realization that you have created some great thing or concept, get out of the way and let it speak for itself.
I have known too many leaders who have to constantly have their hands in the activities of their team, and constantly fight the urge to micro-manage their activities, and I have known leaders who take it to the extreme, running their organizations like a cult, and always have to be the center of attention, the big Kahuna, the main man. Learn to be the servant, the support, and give your people the room and the flexibility to achieve great things on their own.
I will always admire a man or woman who can lead with quiet confidence, empowering the people around them to achieve in life, and have the ability to handle the burden and responsibility of leadership. These people have businesses, churches, and organizations that grow and prosper where others fail.

Enercient's top needs/ wants right now

I don't really know why I'm blogging this- but I think it might be therapeutic & help me keep things in perspective. As you know, I've been working on the Enercient Project for nearly two years now, and we've got quite a team together. Each stage of progress brings a whole new set of problems and needs, and this is just the latest. It might be something completely different next week or next month- but here's where we are.

1. Steady Stream of income for me personally. I have this wierd conflict right now, where I am attending more and more meetings/ appointments with prospects/ customers/ vendors so I have decreasing amounts of time every week to get out there and do work that puts money in my checking account. We're at the point where I've got to start DEPOSITING money.

2. A web developer. I have also reached the point where my webdev abilities are stretched beyond my capacity to continue being the one to do it. We have products, data, and relationships we need to get online, and I'm ok at creating static content, but static content isn't getting it any more. I need someone versed in LAMP, CMS, and in design- I know this will be difficult to find, but I haven't started looking.

3. An admin. I have also reached the point where I am missing appointments and opportunities, and I need someone on whom I can start dropping some of this workload. I need someone to start setting my appointments, ordering supplies, and some billing help would be great too.

4. An HVAC mechanic. I'm pretty close to being covered on this one, but I could start selling more if I didn't have to be the one doing the hands-on work at this point.

5. A full-size one ton van. I know I should start working on not being the one doing the hands-on, but now that blue is dead, I need somewhere to keep my tools and be able to do work when needed.

6. 52 thousand dollars- heck, I might as well make it 63K. The breakdown is simple:
a. 12k to fund our presentation and presence at the AHR expo
b. 10k to pay Photon Infotech to set up our web 2.0 web presence
c. 10K/ month for next three months to pay Enercient operating expenses
d. Enercient owes us more than 11K at this point, but we're carrying 4K in Enercient credit card debt and 7K in a personal loan from us.

7. Advertising, stationary & collateral material. We need some stuff to hand to potential clients. I've developed a few things, but it really helps to have it professionally printed.

8. A Systems admin with Linux experience. I'm tired of hosting 5 different wb sites with 4 different hosting providers, and I'm tired of tring to figure this stuff out myself. I see this person being someone who is looking to grow, and could expand "into the cloud" with us.

9. A fast commercial connection to the internet with a rack. Actually I don't care if it is just one hot machine with a massive hard drive running several vitual machines and a massive backup storage device- but you get the idea. Dedicated hosting would probably work too.

10. A technical writer. We have 20 vendors with hundreds (thousands?) of devices and we've got to create O&M, and installer instruction manuals for our installing contractors.

I know everyone starting a business has a lot of these same needs, but the tricky part is determining what comes first. At this point its starting to feel circular. I need "A" to get to "B" to get to "Z" to get to "A"

We've got a great team, some really great products, and some really good leads/ proposals out there. All we have to do is to remember to keep pushing, keep driving, and keep moving this thing forward one day, one week at a time. Anything you can do as a friend, associate, partner, or relative would help greatly.

I guess it gets harder the closer you get

Over the last 2 years, I've been working on the Enercient project, and I'll admit that there've been a few ups and downs- but overall we have been able to keep our eyes on the goal and to stay focused on where we need to be.

However, Lately, It's been exceptionally tough. I know that there are several things contributing to this, but the recent abrupt change with PCF didn't help. I really wasn't planning on going full-time into doing my own thing, and was counting on the part-time salary I was getting from them to pay the bills. Alas, I suppose there are more important buttercups in the fields.

August went quick, we stayed busy, and we paid (most of) the bills. We had a couple nice projects, and I actually had to hire in some supplemental help. September is a "whole nother" story. The phone ain't ringing for service work because its been relatively cool all month. The other ventures I'm working on will be very lucrative in short order, and the Enercient project overall is going along well. We have a new salesman coming on board, we are nearly complete with the prototype, and we are beginning to make some traction in potential sales.

It's just that right now, this week, this month we are slow, I'm outta cash and I'm praying for something good to happen soon.

Enercient Updates

I haven't blogged in a while, so I thought I'd hit a few highs and lows from the last couple months- so here's the update.
Last year, after reading GTD, and the 4HWW- I decided I needed to diversify my income portfolio. I took on a consulting gig last August that actually lasted for a year. Some of the things I learned from it are:
1. Set an end-date for the contract. My feeling is that the customer is going to want to set some pretty lofty goals for completion- and as a consultant you don't have much influence over how much work the customer is going to do, or what changes they will make based on your recommendations. So when you write a consulting agreement, write it with an end date. This way you can do what you promised, and leave it up to the customer to implement the changes and make the improvements you recommended.
2. Make the things that you are going to deliver very clear. You are there to help them improve something, change something, implement something, etc. So create a clear and definite list of your deliverables and deliver them.
3. Don't give away freebies just because you're excited to sign on a customer. It will be tempting to act like a member of the team when you are in a customer's office, and start picking up slack- just remember you don't actually work there. Give them what you promised, and don't pick up their problems. Let the phone ring. Let that person who comes in with questions ask someone else. Be polite, and don't let the building burn down- but remember you are there to accomplish a list of tasks related to an agreement. You're not there to be supplemental staffing for every crisis that comes along.
Enercient has had its highs and lows- The strides we've made in development have been amazing, and the list of vendors and trade agreements we've made is almost staggering, but I have to admit there are times when this thing feels like a very expensive, time consuming hobby.
I know that we are making progress, and I know that things are going to pick up soon, I'd just like to have a little money in my pocket at some point that isn't earmarked for something else.
We're trying to buy a house in Frederick, and we haven't been in business for 2 years, so that's been a real adventure in rejection...I keep telling myself the stupid Col. Sanders story.
Finally, on the positive side, We moved into our new office in Clarksville this week, and it feels good to be able to say "at my office" again. Since I left Amtek, a bunch of my "stuff" has been sitting in boxes in the basement, and it felt like a part of my life had a big unknown black hole- "Where's my...oh yeah- it's with my office stuff"
Enercient has it's bright moments, We still have a great opportunity with some investors in Baltimore, and we're going to get a blurb in the Baltimore Sun in a couple weeks. We have a few commercial contracts for the "local office" and our prototype is almost done. here's a peek

Things are going to get crazy as we approach the beginning of next year, because I've stacked the deck so I guess I should be grateful for the quiet right now.
More updates to follow...

back to reality

Well, we've been home from our trip over a week, now- and I'm beginning to get back into the swing of things.
One of the things I've realized is that I need to continue to push Enercient forward. I can't just sit back and expect it to happen organically. If it is going to succeed as a viable company, I need to keep the tenacity and excitement level up, and keep setting goals to move the project forward.
We've signed up with some pretty incredible vendors and partners to bring a really nice product to market, but if we don't work to make sure that we follow through with our plans- we are merely dreaming. It is not reality until we put our plans and visions to work.
I heard in a sermon one time that "Vision without work is deception" meaning that you can "visioncast" and plan and dream all you want, but until you actually put feet to your words, you haven't actually "done" anything.
So the next steps are to create a line card, get some business cards printed, and get out there and start beating the pavement to move some product.
Wish me luck...

Northumbria and north (er)

After being given a view from the roof of Langley Castle, We checked out, and Kevin (the same cab driver who dropped us off) took us back to the Hexham train station. We told him about our plans to drive north out of Newcastle, and he recommended that we stop in on Alnwick Castle, where several Harry Potter scenes were filmed, among other things.

We hired a car in Newcastle (actually it's a brand new Peugeot 308 hatchback that started with 8 miles on the odometer) and drove up the Northern Coast. We didn't know how far we'd get, or what we'd see- so the plan was to go as far north as we could go, while still getting back at a reasonable time.

We got onto the A1 and headed north. Getting behind the wheel of a car actually felt nice to me, sonce we've been all about the public transportation since we arrived here. Say what you want about energy conservation, the evils of the internal combustion engine, etc. One thing is quite clear to me once again- no matter how great the public transport system is- you still tend to spend a lot of time schlepping crap around. Anyway- luggage safely in the trunk (0r boot) of the car, we headed north.

We drove about 2 hours up the coast and saw a sign for the Bellhaven Brewery in Dunbar, and immediately headed for it. It turns out that you need to have a reservation for a tour, and the local pub wasn't open, so we headed down the coast, and soon found The Volunteer Arms, a proper Scottish pub overlooking the North Sea.

I got Haddock and Mel got Calamari- both were fabulous- and we both got a pint. I wouldn't call the locals friendly- but they weren't rude, and basically ignored us while we sat in the back of the pub and had our lunch.

The owners were nice, and asked several times if we liked the food, and gave us prompt service- but I suspect they'd pefer to serve the locals and leave the Yanks on the other side of the other ocean.

The Views of the north Sea were pretty neat, and the breaze off the coast gave the air a chill as we got back in the car and turned south. We took the A1 south, and stopped in at a few towns and roadside stops to take pictures of the beaches, various castle ruins and whatever highlights we could find. We realized that this could be a completely different trip over here, and another 1-2 weeks just visiting the coastal towns from Newcastle up.

Although the gardens and everything were closed at Alnwick, Mel did get a chance to hop out of the car and snap a few pics of the castle. It turns out that Anwick castle is quite the actor, having also been in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Elizabeth, and Black Adder.

For pictures of me laying on various hotel beds, more details and better photos overall, have a look at Mel's Blog. as well.

Tindale/ Tynedale Continued

Sunday, we spent the day in Hexham, the seat of the Tynedale local government. Apparently Tynedale is combining with several other local governments to found Northumberland county, but I don't think much will change for the region.

Hexham was a nice town, with a very old Abbey, shops, restaurants and pubs. One thing I noticed was that there is a local "building society" that seems to offer bonds on construction loans. I wonder what else we could screw up in America by doing that- at the same time, I wonder if it creates a better oversight for which construction projects are actually done since there are now bondholders watching these projects?

Yesterday we visisted Hadrain's wall and got a chance to see much of the northern countryside (from the bus). I found it interesting to see how that people seem to be proud of it- they don't view it as a hostile occupation, they view it as their link to classical history. The bus driver mentioned the "barbarians to the north" I wonder how the Scottish feel about it.

They mentioned the border reivers (raiding bandits who took advantage of various Scottish-English conflicts after the Roman Occupation) They were basically neighbors who stole from each other.

Last night we stayed in the Tindale room at Langley castle, which is a very cool 4-star hotel. We had an incredible full-course meal, and drinks in the seating room after. We had a chance to talk to (Colin?) on staff, who gave us a little history and recommended we take the castle tour this morning.

Langley belonged to a family that were "De Tindales" in the 100s but managed to change hands quite a few times. Apparently a Dr. Stewart Madnick- an American professor at MIT owns it now.

Today it's off to Newcastle, and possibly up the coast toward Scotland if we can figure out a way to hire a car and get going early.

In search of a past

Mel and I decided to go to North England to check out Tynedale and Northumberland, and have a look at the region that was most probably the origin of the Tindale name. Tynedale simly means "valley where the river forks" so it is difficult to find out if this is where my name comes from exactly but in all likelihood this is the place.

The Tindale-Tyndale Trail in Tynedale

We flew into London, met a friend (Jen Balwin) and had lunch at a pub in Picadilly circus, and then caught a train in King's cross.

So we visited Corbridge yesterday (a very nice, beautiful country village)

We stayed at the Dyvel's Inn

and attended the Tynedale beer festival, at the Tynedale Rugby Football Club. (we might have to stop back by and get ourselves some official logo gear- the shop was closed during the festival)

It was off to Hexham today. Hexham has the look of a more European town, with it's tight streets, stone buildings, back alleys and courtyards- and it is a very nice place. We plan to attend a musical worship service at Hexham Abbey tonight, Hadrian's wall tomorrow, and off to Langley castle to stay tomorrow night.
Watch for postings on Brightkite and Twitter as we are able to find network and mobile service in transit!

PCF Management

PCF Management is a property management, real estate and maintenance company in Ellicott City, MD. Over the last few months I've been helping them increase the capabilities of their maintenance department, and streamline some of their internal processes.

I believe that we will be seeing a small recovery this spring and summer, and that PCF is poised perfectly to benefit by providing both rental properties and single family home sales as people begin to gain confidence in the market, meaning that PCF is going to be busy this summer.

If you are thinking about buying or renting a home in Howard County, or having maintenance or HVAC work done in your home- I'd suggest you call PCF now, because once the recovery wheels start turning, deals will become increasingly difficult to find! So check out PCF Management and let me know what you think!

WordCamp Mid Atlantic 2009

Today I'm attending wordcamp Mid Atlantic Hosted by Aaron Brazell @technosailor. One of my early surprises is that the speakers have me thinking about why I blog.
I dunno, I guess I thought it would be more about the technical side of blogging. I was anticipating attending more technical types of "what and how" types of information, so I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm actually thinking about my message and how I say it.

I'm really glad that I came to this event, and I'm hoping to use this event as an opportunity to polish my blogging capabilities. I'm even entertaining the idea of merging my wordpress blog with johntindale.com
More to follow.

Ecobee continued

Today I installed two ecobee thermostats for a customer in Northern Virginia. Althought there are a few similarities with the Honeywell wireless product, the Ecobee is a completely different device in other respects.
The Ecobee connects with your wireless network, and communicates with the internet and the Ecobee site for remote access- yes, there's an annual subscription fee but the benefits are pretty cool.
I started by mounting the device to the ductwork near the furnace

then wired it up to the rest of the system. One weakness of the product that it uses its own power supply, which means you need an extra outlet near the furnace. I'd like to see a future device "steal" its power from the system it runs. I guess having a separate power supply means that the ecobee still runs when the system crashes, but an internal battery could do the same thing.

I installed two devices, and I was happy to see the Carrier 58MX high efficiency furnace, since this is a furnace with which I am completely familiar. I have a funny little side story about how Wayne and I installed the first one in the DC area while the other techs in our company were taking a class to learn to install it.
Me: (reading the installation manual by flashlight in an attic) connect small hose A to tab B on exhaust mainifold
Dad: Is that the one with the pink sticker, or the one with the green sticker
Me: I dunno, the picture is black and white...
It's hard to believe that was nearly 20 years ago!
Back to today...on the attic system I mounted the device to the side of the furnace which was installed horizontally.


Finally I got to program it, and put Enercient's information into the device. The owner knew his network ID, registered, and completed programming it after I left. I got a confirmation email on my way home, so I know it was right.

Enercient's first job

I'm going to go install an ecobee thermostat today, which is in fact Enercient's first paying gig involving a zigbee product. The customer bought their own thermostat, and it's in Mclean, Virginia- but none of that matters because it's a step forward.

Similar to the Honeywell wireless thermostat I installed in my house a few months back, it consists of a wireless remote that hangs on the wall, and a module that hard wires into the air handler or furnace in the basement. The wireless module communicates with the hard-wired section and controls the HVAC system.

However, the ecobee comes with a 1 year subscription to their service connecting the ecobee to a web portal, connecting the system to outside data (like weather, etc) I'm pretty good with wireless stuff so far, I hope I am able to connect these systems today without too much trouble.

I'll give an update after I install this one today.

Getting anxious

A year ago, I read Getting things Done by David Allen, and The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. Despite the fact that we've had a few drastic changes in the economy since then, I've still been trying to implement the strategies I discovered in these two books.
We've launched a new company, and we're getting ready to go to market with a product in a couple months. It hasn't been easy, and some people think we're crazy for doing this "now- in this economy?"
The truth is that this is the best time to be doing what we're doing. In a better economy bigger companies would squash us, but now they're willing to collaborate and share ideas.
We have a good concept, we're going to help people save money, and we have a good team. The problem for me is that the closer we get to completion of the project- the more I want everything NOW!!! I literally remember how it felt to be 5 yrs old stamping my feet and making unreasonable demands.
Like Queen says, I want it all- and I want it now.
I guess that Easter weekend is a good time for me to reflect, think about what it means to be patient, to make sacrifices, and to trust that it's all going to work out- and deep down inside, I know that it will.

FOSE, NMFT, & AHR Expo

Well, gang- I've been to three expos in the last month, and to be honest I'm a little burned out! FOSE is about tech, with a government spin, NMFT is a facilities and operations expo, and AHR was all heating & AC related.
I couldn't imagine doing this for a living, or standing in a booth in a different city every week, but I've seen some overlap and that must be what these people do.
"Hi, have you ever heard of our xyz widget?"
"No, I haven't"
"well, our widget can do ABC PDQ!"
"Wow, I never knew I needed to do ABC, and I certainly didn't know it needed to be PDQ"
I guess I sound cynical, but I get a sense that the nation is broke, and we're all just showing each other stuff that neither of us is going to buy.
I've made some pretty cool contacts, discovered some pretty cool technologies, but the wide-eyed wow factor has 'got up and went.'
I think it might be wise to continue down the path we're blazing, and just keep flying under the radar, and when things snap back, I can stand in the room and say "what, you didn't see me coming?"
I'm thinking I should hire someone to work the expos next year!

my little corner of the web

I've had my own dot com for 4-5 years now, and I've done everything with it from trying to run a "crap I like" site to featuring news feeds, and a bunch of other stuff.
In addition to my page I blog here, and I also have a blog dedicated to facilities maintenance called maintenance mastery and I've been doing amateur web development overall for more than 10 years. My first html doc was on aol back in the 90s, if you think real hard you can probably vaguely remember the members.aol.com/user web pages. Yup, I had one. It was basically a biz card online.
I shelled out $100 for microsoft frontpage, and I started down the path of the very bad habit of spending too much time relying on the old gui to create web pages.
I did a few for friends over the years, and got pretty good at remembering a little html so that I could tweak stuff when frontpage just "wouldn't work."
Recently we've been working on the enercient project and I'm proud to say that even though it is a very basic page, I wrote most of it in notepad and used an ftp client to upload it to the site. I know that sooner or later, one of the real geeks will take it over, and we'll get Jaime to create some flash for it, but for right now- I did it, and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks.
Our newest project will end up stretching us all, but I recently registered enerciently and I decided to host it with A2, and there will be more about the site to follow- but A2 is my first real foray into "big boy" hosting.
my personal dotcom is hosted with network solutions, and I've done several projects and sites with them. Enercient is hosted with godaddy, and so far I haven't been real excited about my experience with them. First it was supposed to be less expensive (it isn't) it was supposed to be easier to use (it isn't.)
My account with A2 is a reseller account, and I have my own dedicated Apache Server. I've only just started playing around with it, but basically I've got full control over the site, I can sell site registrations, I can create and edit subdomains, I can create and manage emails on the domains I create, and depending on how well I can learn to use the LAMP tools, I could theoretically do all of the work to put up our social site.
I really like their interfaces and control panels, and I still haven't figured everything out- but I think I'm really going to like managing my own little corner of the web. If everything goes right, by the end of the year, I'll actually be the owner of a full-blown tech company, and I'll finally be able to say that I'm doing it, rather than reading, blogging,researching it. Now, if I can only get my email to say "you've got mail" when I sign on. We can only dream.