Joel Spolsky had a great series of articles last week on how to attract (and keep) great developers. Worth a read if you are in the field.
Unfortunately for those of us that don’t work at companies whose primary goal is to sell software most of these concepts and ideas will never be given a second thought since they don’t follow the old school MBA curriculum that most managers and CEO’s came up under.
And then might as well throw in an oldie but a goodie that I have linked to before: Hitting the High Notes
The things that stand out to me that I would love.
Casual Dress – I swear these Khakis are decreasing my IQ by the day
Natural Lighting (aka Windows) – Is it daytime, nightime, who knows, I can’t see any windows
Private Offices with Doors That Close – Cubes are great for informal communication and social interaction to build teams, but really bad for hard core heads down concentration. I think I will end up going deaf from having to crank my headphones up so loud to drown out the outside noise.
Dual Monitors – Would it make me more productive? Don’t know, never tried, but studies say yes.
Course this programming stuff is really just to hold me over till I sign my record deal 🙂
As many of you may know, you are entitled by law to a copy of your credit report from each of the 3 credit bureaus once per year. It is a good idea to spread these out and request one report every 4 months. This lets you keep an eye on your credit report throughout the year and makes it more likely that you will quickly notice any inaccuracies or problems with the report.
I just retrieved my credit report from TransUnion and all is well. Another 4 months and I’ll check with Experian and then this cycle will be complete and ready to begin anew next year.
The credit report is free, but the credit bureaus try and convince you to pay for additional services (credit score, credit monitoring, etc). So be sure to say No to any of these items if you want a truely free credit report.
Now go ahead and pull yours and make sure everyting looks ok. It is a sad fact of life that your credit history is extremely important and can open or close many doors based on what information it contains.
Continuing the series of concert posts, I bring you one of the most amazing shows I have ever seen. The one, the only, the theatrical, GWAR.
Thursday July 20, 2006, the gang ventured out once again to the Soul Kitchen to take in the amazing GWAR. I had never listened to any of their music, so prior to the show, I borrowed some discs so I would be well versed in their catalog. As far as heavy music goes, they are pretty good. Their lyrics are hilarious (very politically incorrect) and musically they have some very interesting things going on. After listening I was very stoked to see them live.
After the issues with tickets last time we went to a show at Soul Kitchen, we decided to buy well in advance. With our tickets in hand we headed down to the venue to begin the adventure.
Upon entering the venue it was apparent there is a subculture here in Mobile that is normally unseen. The room was filled with long hair, tattoos, black fingernails, pale skin, and lots and lots of leather and studs. I had wanted to blend in and create a mohawk out of my hair with some super-holding hair gel, but Casey nixed that pretty quickly. Thus I felt a bit underdressed compared to all of the goth kids.
In attendance we had BJD, Brian, Matt, Casey, Wisconsin Katie and her coworker (can’t remember his name, but he was a fun guy to hang out with), and the Bicycle Shop crew (Carson, Dewitt, the Dungans).
The opening band was Horse, The Band. They sounded ok, but it was hard to pay attention to their sound when they had Napoleon Dynamite rocking out shirtless on the keyboards front and center. No kidding. Don’t believe me? Check out this guy’s review of the show.
Once they finished up, we waited anxiously for GWAR to hit the stage. Their entrance to the stage was shocking to say the least. With their full costumes on, they appear absolutely huge, so you are taken aback at first. Of course what heavy metal costumed band would be complete without their very own gimp. GWAR did not disappoint. They had their very own gimp wearing a leather thong and black leather full head mask. Not something you see everyday around these parts 🙂
Musically, they didn’t sound all that great, but it was really the show that we were there for. And put on a show they did. First, it is absolutely amazing that these guys are able to play their instruments while wearing their elaborate costumes. They rock out, and rock out hard. Then throughout the show various characters (the pope, the president, and some weird looking monster) make appearances and are summarily sliced to bits with fake swords and knives. With each slice into a character, a concoction of blood erupts from the wound. And when I say erupt, I mean up to 30 foot sprays of fake blood. I stayed in the back, so I didn’t get sprayed down, but anyone remotely close to the stage came back looking like there had been some kind of terrible accident.
After they ran out of characters to assault, the gimp brought out a blood cannon that he used to soak any of the crowd that missed out on having their clothes covered with red, blue, and black liquids.
All in all the concert ran for a full hour and was well worth seeing. In sharp contrast to Sister Hazel and the boring hour of my life I will never get back, these guys put on an amazing show. They had the crowd in a frenzy the entire show. I can see why these guys have been able to keep doing this for years. It was similar to seeing Tool live. It was not so much a concert as it was an experience. Definitely go check them out if you ever get the chance (don’t wear your nice clothes though).
Now on to the pictures (unfortunately I was in so much awe of these guys, I forgot to try and take some video). They aren’t the greatest since I was a bit afraid to brave the moshpit to get some closer pics.
First, check out the preppy lady in the dress at the GWAR show. Nice to see someone that looked more out of place than me.
Blood Cannon Anyone?
The President I believe
Goth Girls standing up on the counter behind the sound boards
The Pope? (Or maybe just a bishop or cardinal)
Anyone 30 feet or less from the stage looked like this guy.
And since I didn’t get any video, here is one from YouTube that shows them in all of their glory:
So one week after seeing an amazing 2.5 hour rock extravaganza with Blues Traveler, we ventured back out to see Sister Hazel at Soul Kitchen on Thursday, June 22, 2006. The concert experience with them can be summed up in a couple of words:
Boo, Hiss, Snarl, Yell.
While Blues Traveler came to put on a show, Sister Hazel came only to play their instruments. But before I get ahead of myself, let me tell you how the evening began. We did not get tickets in advance thinking that if Blues Traveler wasn’t fully sold out, surely Sister Hazel would not have a sellout…….wrong.
So we got to wait outside while they decided how many tickets that were distributed to outside sources weren’t going to show up. Twenty minutes later, we were able to purchase four tickets (Me, Brian, Kacey, and Vicki). I asked for four tickets, gave the good man a wad of cash, and proceeded to receive change. What I didn’t realize until after I walked in the door was that super-math-man-door-guy shorted us $10. Thus we all got to pay a $2.50 additional premium thanks to the pathetic schools in this city. Note to self, regardless of big angry line of people in hurry behind you, count your change right there before moving on.
So we get inside, Sister Hazel begins to play, and play well they do. Sounded just like the albums. This is a great thing. I love a band that can perform well live. The only problem is that that was all they were doing. The did not interact with the crowd, no witty banter between songs, they just played one song after the other until out of nowhere I heard their big radio hit “All for You”. This signalled to me that the show had officially finished. Seemed like they had just began playing a short while before. A glance at my watch showed that they had performed for a big whopping 1 hour start to finish.
Short work to earn my $17 $19.50. So needless to say I was not impressed. $20 for 2.5 hours from Blues Traveler, $19.50 (adjusted for math man) for 1 hour from Sister Hazel.
Here are some pics I snapped of the band in case you are curious.
So after getting bored with the lack of interaction from the band. I was left to ponder a strange phenomena that I have seen crop up over the past few years…
Why would you wear sandles or flip-flops to a bar? There is broken glass from bottles on the floor, the bathrooms are always absolutely disgusting, people can step on your precious little piggies….. Forsaking common sense in the sake of fashion and cool, I give you the future of our country:
So now I am officially caught up on blogging and will be ready to write about the concert we are about to go see tonight……..GWAR. Stay tuned.
A bit late posting (as usual, I know…) but Brian and I had the pleasure of seeing Blues Traveler (Wikipedia Page) perform at Soul Kitchen on Wednesday, June 14, 2006. I have seen Blues Traveler twice previously at festival shows (Bayfest in Mobile and Music Midtown in Atlanta which unfortunately is no more), and they have always put on an amazing show. This show continued that precedence and then some. By the way, you can check out some live Blues Traveler at their Live Music Archive page
The new location Soul Kitchen moved into is much larger than their previous venue. Not sure how many people fit in there, but I would say easily 200-300 (maybe more, I’m a terrible judge of these things). It was a packed house and the crowd was a very diverse mix of people. We missed the opening act of Joe Purdy but got to seem him later in the night when he came up to help out on a couple of songs with Blues Traveler.
The band had amazing energy throughout their entire performance and played exteremely tight. They covered their big hits (Hook, Runaround, Mountains Win Again, etc) along with a broad spectrum of songs from most of their other albums. They even threw in a colleciton of covers too. Now normally you would expect the headline act to give you maybe an hour of entertainment for your dollar, but these guys came to play. They played for almost 2 1/2 hours (that includes a 40 minute encore set). You definitely left feeling like you got your money’s worth.
The musical talents of these individuals was amazing. The singer, John Popper, looked great having had gastric bypass surgery back in 2000. His skills on the harmonica are unbelievable. I think he definitely changed my generation’s impression of what the harmonica is capable of when Blues Traveler first hit the airwaves. He also has a perfect voice to sing blues and blues/rock music. The vocal range he has is very impressive as well.
The guitar player, Chandler Kinchla, was great backup to Popper’s harmonica solos along with being able to rock out the solo himself. He may be in a blues/rock band, but he is still all rock and roll hitting the stage with fully painted black fingernails. Oh yeah, rock will never die.
The bassist, Tad Kinchla, was somemthing else. He played a 6 string bass for much of the show, rocked the upright bass for the latter half, and then played acoustic 6 string for part of the encore. Definitely a versatile fellow.
The drummer and keyboard player, Brendan Hill and Ben Wilson respectively, held their own with this group of talented musicians. I’m amazed the drummer didn’t pass out, he was the only member that didn’t get a break the entire show, but he kept on going.
I would definitely recommend checking these guys out if they come your way. I took some pictures and videos of the performance that turned out pretty good considering the lighting and my ability with the camera.
Here are some pictures of the band rocking….
….wait a minute, not quite what I was expecting. That’s what I get for borrowing Casey’s camera for these pictures. The aforeseen cat belongs to Casey and is named Sophie. What a little angel, making sure the fish are ok. Now some pictures of the band doing their thing.
This one is not a picture of the girl in the foreground, if you can believe that. I actually took it to show Casey that I wasn’t the most preppy dressing person in attendance. This guy had me beat with the long sleeve shirt with the rolled sleeves.
More of the band rocking out…
Dig that upright bass that Tad is playing now. This guy was awesome.
More upright bass goodness.
6-string electric bass anyone??
And the to cap off the photos, check out this artsy shot. Didn’t know I had this latent photo-expressive side in me, but I think this shot is pure gold. I will accept offers from any magazines that would like to use this photo in their layouts 🙂
I also shot some short 30 second video clips so that those that did not attend could enjoy a sample of the rock and roll goodness, the embedded versions don’t get pulled down in the feed, so you’ll just have to click the links or visit the actual blog page to see them.
Here is a clip of one of their big hits Hook. You Tube Link
One of the covers they played was Charlie Daniels’ Devil Went Down to Georgia. Just awesome. You Tube Link
Can’t remember which one, but here is a big finish to end one of their songs. You Tube Link
Doug Porter - Sun Certified Java Programmer Certified PowerBuilder Developer Mobile, AL, United States
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those
of my current employer(s), friends, family, or people I have
never met. Any resemblance to actual events or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
