Things that make me happy

I've been really feeling busy the last couple of years, and it's easy to lose sense of who you are when all you are doing is living a to-do list.  A while back I decided to write down all the things I can think of that make me happy.  By happy I mean truly happy, not something I'm doing for the sake of looking happy.

Hiking in a scenic place.  Looking out over the snowy mountains with a cool breeze in my face.  The breeze cooled by the wind flowing over the snow reminds me of how real the world is, and it's one of my favorite feelings in the world.

Camping. It reminds me that I can still live without all the modern conveniences, although I really like campgrounds that have nice bathrooms.

Skiing/Snowboarding.  I’ve had some difficulty with this lately, because it’s easy to get caught up in the technical stuff like equipment and tricks.  I really like tricks, but I’m afraid it’s just a means of showing off and not as fun for me on a fundamental level.  Exploring around the slope with friends on a snowy day is fantastic fun.  One of my best times on the slope was when I got stuck in a snow drift up to my chest (cascade concrete); it took me 30 minutes to get myself out.

Music.  I love listening to music, and if the song is right it can make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight.

Technology.  I think it appears to my tinkering nature, but I also like a dose of reality mixed in.  I'm a huge fan of applying new technology to things that really make life better.  A fridge with a computer in the door is not making life better, but a video baby monitor with night vision is making life better.

Hanging out with friends.  I miss college parties, and I’m not sure I would have outgrown them if it wasn’t for not wanting to be the oldest one there.  Lots of people to talk to, and the conversation could get surprisingly deep if you allow it.

Water.  For some reason I love water: swimming, water skiing, and other water sports are really fun for me.  I don’t like lap swimming as much because it gets kind of boring.  However lap swimming is the best I can do for now.


Traveling.  The planning is kind of annoying, and I’m not too hot on flying either, but I love getting into the everyday of some other place I’ve never been to.  I think it pushes me out of my comfort zone and it’s a great feeling once I realize I’m going to be ok.


Kids.  At some point I came to the realization that I wasn’t going to be any kind of person remembered for generations to come.  At that point I started reflecting inward on what I was here for, because simply existing wasn't good enough for me.  After peeling off layer by layer, I decided the best thing I could do for society was to have kids that grew up with well-balanced stable parents.  Parents who leave their kids in the car while they are at the bar might make the nightly news, but it's the parents who keep a steady ship that make all the difference in the world.

Open Source Lent - Software List

I forgot to post my list of software projects I donated to for Lent in 2011.  Anyway, here is the list (albeit a little late):

3/09 Launchy 
3/10 ssms tools pack
3/11 TWiT Leo Laporte
3/12 TortoiseSVN
3/13 NUnit
3/14 Notepad++
3/15 irfanview
3/16 AstroGrep
3/17 Mantis
3/18 Angry IP Scanner
3/19 Subversion (Apache foundation)
3/20 Wikipedia
3/21 FileZilla
3/22 Firefox
3/23 PDF Creator
3/24 Gimp for Windows (http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net)
3/25 OpenOffice.org
3/26 VLCQui
3/27 Audacity
3/28 FSF
3/29 jQuery 
3/30 sharpdevelop 
3/31 Eclipse
4/01 dosbox 
4/02 thunderbird
4/03 apache http server
4/04 python
4/05 EFF
4/06 Creative Commons
4/07 lightbox
4/08 Eraser
4/09 TuxPaint
4/10 LibreOffice
4/11 OpenStreetMap
4/12 aspell
4/13 GTK+
4/14 Spybot - Search & Destroy
4/15 Truecrypt
4/16 VirtualDub
4/17 Rockbox
4/18 portableapps.com
4/19 WinDirStat
4/20 Project Gutenberg
4/21 Greenshot
4/22 gnucash
4/23 Cinemetropolis by the Blue Scholars
4/24 (Easter!) Twuffer

Open Source Lent

I’ve found that most casually religious people I know who grew up with a religion in their family, usually pay attention to at least one holiday or religious rule.  I have Jewish friends who will do nothing except try their best to not eat bread on Passover, or won’t do any work for one Sabbath a year (i.e. turn on a light).  I’m a textbook Cafeteria Catholic who happens to pay close attention to Lent. 

I use the holiday to try to better myself and show that I can give something up for 40 days.  In the past I’ve given up: meat, coffee, cookies, sugar, French fries (I LOVE French fries), beer, and a few other things.  I look at it as an excuse to try something different – I may not be a vegetarian, but I have a taste of what it’s like (no pun intended).  I would argue that Odysseus did the same thing when he ordered his crew to plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast of his ship, so that he could hear the songs of the Sirens as they sailed by.

A few years ago, a friend of mine (Nicole) suggested that I could give something away instead of giving something up.  I thought this was a brilliant idea, so that year I donated something to charity/goodwill for every day of lent.  It started with a couple things I had lying around the house, and eventually I was de-cluttering my home of stuff I had stored away for years.  I was amazed how positive it was: I was refocusing what many people feel as an internal religious experience into an external one.

I struggled quite a bit with what I wanted to do this year, and decided I wanted to help the industry I’m involved in.  I will be donating to a free or open source project for every day of lent.  I use quite a bit of open source tools every day, and I’m admittedly too lazy to bother to donate.  The truth is, I would probably buy an app on my iPhone without even thinking about it, but some of these developers of open source projects would love $3 dollars.  Even if it only buys a beer, at least they get some recognition for their time.

I also thought it would be a cool way of promoting certain tools I use every day.  I’m always curious as to the tools other people use for certain tasks, so maybe my list will help someone else find the tool they have always been searching for.  I plan to post each donation on twitter (http://twitter.com/jjerome).   I don’t have a lot of followers on Twitter, but it makes a nice way to keep an active list.

I already have a list of ideas, but not quite 40 of them.  Let me know if you have any suggestions!

You can see my progress on my twitter account: http://twitter.com/jjerome