Am I crazy?

Am I crazy to want to try to teach myself how to program for the iPhone and iPad? Probably.

I first became interested in computers when I was a tot. My brother put me behind a big cardboard box (a refrigerator box or two) that he had decorated with various doohickeys and lights and such. He then took old used computer cards (used for programming computers at one point) and would ask a question of the "computer" by writing on the card. He shoved the card in a slot - I wrote the answer on the card while making a lot of noises and shoved the card back out. Yay us!

There was a "computer" lab at the colleges here near where I lived. My best friend at the time, Chris Crenner, who I still love and miss, no he's not dead, he just lives in Kansas and we don't communicate much, used to go in and play with them a bit. It was awesome! Punch cards, punch tape. Lots of fun. I learned a teeny bit of fortran back then. I don't think I even managed to achieve "hello world" but it was cool.

Played with the computer at my high school a bit - but not too much because the truly nerdy/geeky kids really spent all of their time there. I worked on a BASIC game that was an aerial dogfight between two biplanes for a while. Never got very far.

Next up, I fell in love with the Macintosh computer. Ended up doing some system administration, some light scripting in various applications, played with Hypercard (what an awesome app that was), played with databases etc, at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory for 5 years or so. After that, I worked at Macromedia during its heyday. First as a tech support person and lastly as a Sales Engineer (still one of my favorite jobs of all time). In the middle there, I played with scripting with Director and created a nifty little app that stripped all of the text out of a Director file - put it in a spreadsheet - after it was translated, the app put the now translated text back into the director file. Worked decently. I think that was probably my most ambitious programming effort to date. Sigh. Oh, forgot to mention playing with HTML since it was first created.

So, the long and the short of it - I understand programming concepts and am not afraid of coding. I am not looking at an impossible task, just an unlikely one. We shall see. The first project is going to be a beer related game. I was even thinking of asking Jessica Frech (though she is getting too well known already) to take part by singing for the project. It could happen.

Defriended!

Yippee! One of the people I really wanted to defriend, defriended me! And I didn't even have to write to them. Ok, so only two people I have written to have defriended me rather than write me back. At least three have preemptively defriended me (the one above being one of them). Woo hoo! I am so excited.

Anyway, I am 1/4th of the way through the project. And there are still a few days - ok a week, left in January. That bodes well for finishing by April. Especially if more people defriend me before I have to write to them.

The project is proving rewarding in several ways. One, my letter writing skills are being honed. They have always been decent, but they are getting better and better. Yippee! Two, I am reaching out to people and they are responding - it is about a 67 percent response rate. Without that much prodding. (I will do some prodding eventually.) Three, the defriending mentioned above. That makes me so happy! Four, I get a sense of accomplishment for every letter I write. One of my FB/DC friends wrote and said that she hoped my writing wasn't all about getting responses. Of course it isn't. I do want people to know how I am and what is up in my life and that is the primary reason for writing these letters. Then again, why have friends if they aren't interested in my life, or interested enough in our relationship to respond and let me know what is going on in their lives? Hmm?

20% with a 50% return rate

Not too shoddy! Here it is, January 14, 2011 and I have written 20% of my Facebook friends individually crafted notes. It is taking a long time, but it is fun and interesting for me. I get to figure out how I know the person, what they may or may not know about me, when we last communicated, how much I can share, what sorts of things to share, etc. I am not doing as much cutting and pasting as I thought I would. Sure, lots of stuff is repeated, because there is only one of me and I don't change much between compositions. And I get to write a lot! Practice, practice, practice! :)

And a 50% return rate isn't too bad. Not great, but not bad. Some people I thought would never respond, responded quickly and pithily (I still owe one respondent a return response). Others who I thought would at least respond have yet to do so. I will bug them eventually. Right now, I can't be bothered. And still others have defriended me. So far, two people have opted to not have me be their FB friends. I am crushed. Ok, not really. One was a bartender who put on a good front of valuing me as a human being, but I guess she was good at faking it. So, good riddance. Another is the daughter of a friend - she had asked me to be her friend, so I don't know what her defriending me is about. Again, not heartbroken. She is a college kid and she and her life are not really all that interesting to me. Not that I don't like to hear about and from her, but not a huge loss.

My friend Adam suggested a useful utility called Social Fixer - it is a browser add-on that makes some interesting and helpful tweaks to Facebook. One of the main reasons I got it was because of a "friend tracker" option. It shows changes in friendship statuses. It was from that I learned about the defriending. And also that a couple of people have disappeared. Apparently that happens now and again. One of them has reappeared - maybe the other will as well, one day.

So, if I were to post some of the projects I have lying around and their percentage of completion, would I get any feedback on which one I ought to pursue to closure?

Spreadsheets and Databases

You may ask, what the heck do spreadsheets and databases have to do with writing? Well, for me, they can be an integral and fun part of a writing project.

I love technology. Always have. When I was a tot, my mom taught (ooh, those are very close to homophones) a science fiction/literature class at Eisenhower College. I don't think that was a frequent occurrence on college campus up until that time. Anyway, she had a whole shelf of those books - and by shelf, I mean shelves - probably 160 books or so - which I proceeded to work my way through. Classic stuff it is called now - Asimov, Heinlein, Dune (Herbert) CS Lewis, Bradbury, etc. Loved it! I am still a Science Fiction and Fantasy Fan - though I don't read except in spurts just now. Moving on, I just loved the possibilities that science and science fiction provided and provides. If I weren't in the humanities, I would be in the sciences. So, I love computers - being one manifestation of technology.

And on computers you have spreadsheets and databases! I just think the power of these two applications are awesome! I believe that it was Lotus 1-2-3 that really helped make the computer a useful item and not just a geeks plaything. That first Spreadsheet paved the way or Excel and all other spreadsheets - and despite all the fancy bells and whistles that have been added since, most spreadsheets still owe their basic functionality to Lotus. As for databases, they are just way too cool for school. But more on those when I am actually using one for  a project.

Right now, for the FB friend letter project, I am using two applications - Pages (a word processing program) into which I paste each of the letters that I write. And Numbers - a spreadsheet application wherein I track who I wrote, when. I actually have 11 columns: Number, Name, Where written (because I plan to do my Daily Challenge Peeps too - and maybe others who I just have email addresses for - like Diane and Peter and Daniel...) Date Written, Date Responded (lots of blank spaces here, sadly), Where do they live, how known, met in person (this is either blank or "not met"), Percentage Done, Total Number of Friends, and Response Percentage. Percentage Done and Response Percentage are calculated fields - I like seeing calculated fields. Yippee!

Ok, back to the letter writing campaign!

10%

One tenth of the way done. Yippee! I wrote a lot of letters yesterday. That is a good thing. I didn't get a lot of responses, that is a less good thing. Less than half the people I have written to have taken the time to write back - so far - more could sneak in. One never knows, does one?

It doesn't really matter - I am not doing this project for them - I am doing this for me. I get satisfaction from composing so many similar yet different notes - I mean, each of my "friends" is different, so they deserve different notes. And I am doing it so I can see who these 408 people on my friend list are.

Yup, I have added two friends so far during the process. Sigh. I was supposed to lower the number of friends through this project, not gain friends. Oh well. the actual culling/cutting/defriending process won't begin, I have decided, until I finish mailing everyone. I will give everyone I am tempted to cut a month before letting them go. That seems reasonable doesn't it? And if they post updates at all during that time and don't bother to respond to my wonderful, thoughtful, pithy message, well, then, they might just could maybe be gone from my Facebook life - and they will be out of sight and hopefully out of mind...

Letter writing Campaign so far

And so far, so good. I have written at least 30 notes. They average around 200 words per missive. Mostly written fresh without much in the way of copying and pasting at this point.

My brain gets tired from writing so much. I don't know how professionals (er, other professionals) write thousands of words a day.

And on top of that, some people are actually responding. With pithy, well thought out notes. How awesome is that? There are some who are definitely going to be defriended though. The ones who can't even bother to reply with a note saying - really busy, thank you for writing - more later (knowing full well that later will never ever come) - they are going to be going away. When? I don't know. I am leaning towards doing the chopping all in one fell swoop. Or perhaps in a few swoops. I don't know. I have never been good at letting go. Much better at not grasping in the first place...

Now, I get to (have to) answer the responses! Sigh. Having friendships, no matter the depth, is hard (yet gratifying) work!

5 down, 399 to go

So I did a lot of writing yesterday, with a little cutting and pasting. Way more than 200 words. I wrote six letters yesterday. Five on Facebook and one snail mail letter. One of my friends in NC, Emily, (yes, sleight inappropriate crush) asked me to write her an actual letter. So I did. It was a bit challenging as it was "performing on command" and not written from inspiration. And I typed it, of course. I say "of course" because anyone who knows me well, knows that my handwritten communications are more than a bit challenging to decipher on the best of days. That is one reason. The second is because I like to keep a record of things I have written - even notes and letters. I think that is a pretty impressive first day.

None of the letters was scintillating. All were ok. I did put a soft sell in the ones that hadn't bought a copy of either book - fact is, most of my "friends" haven't bought copies of my books. Still don't understand that - but ya'll know that already. Anywho, each was certainly personalized. I am actually looking forward to getting to some of the more difficult letters, the ones where I basically tell them that I don't understand why we are friends on Facebook. I figure, if they want to be friends, they need to make an effort - if not, they can defriend me or I will defriend them - but after they get their letter.

I plan to get a few more done today - but many more done over the weekend and next week.

Oh, I was surprised to find that two copies of Bar Dreams had been sold in the past week at the Beautiful Beef and Brew! Yay!

Letter Writing

Letter writing is a lost art. Back in times gone past, people could only communciate through hand written letters that took a long time to be delivered. So they would write pithy, well thought out missives, full of life observations and interesting tidbits. Now we tweet. Or send texts. Being a hoarder at heart, most electronic messaging doesn't thrill me too much. Nothing tangible and tactile there.

Sure, with electronic messaging, it is easy to include a picture or a video. And writing is easier since you don't have to look for a stamp and an envelope. But how will my posthumous epistles be published if they are only electrons scattered on the solar wind? Hmm?

So, my plan is to write to each and every one of my Facebook friends in the next couple of weeks. I do understand that some of my FB friends aren't active on Facebook. And that some aren't friends. So I don't expect 100% reply. I would like 100% reply. But I don't expect it. I expect about 25% reply. And, being me, I plan on making a spreadsheet to track the whole process. I want to be sure that I touch everyone and I would like to see what the tangible results are.

Also, I plan to do some culling - get rid of people who I don't really need as Facebook friends. I do so hate giving up on people, but sometimes that is the best course of action.

After that, I might go through my email address book and write to people there - though that is a more daunting prospect - mainly because I don't know how many people there are on that list.

I do plan on doing a little bit of copying an pasting. Part of the reason for this reaching out is to soft sell Diary of a Plate Addict (and Bar Dreams). That part, I will probably cut and paste. And I might cut and paste a bit about what has happened in the past year. Mostly, though, I want to write personal notes. We shall see how this all works out. It is already 11:22 am here in Geneva and I haven't written one note yet. But I have written this blog post about writing the notes, so that's a start!

200 Words

That is my plan - write two hundred words a day for the next year. Too bad that taking one picture doesn't count worth five days...

Long ago, I found or was introduced to, I can't recall which, a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. She has gone on to write lots of other books about the same subject, but the first was the most helpful, in my humble opinion. In it are two core concepts that I have tried to continue doing since I read about them - morning pages and artist's dates.

Morning pages are basically a way to get the juices flowing everyday. Writing down at least three pages - which I think is more like 600 words - of stuff - doesn't matter if it makes any sense, if it is just random words - if it is pithy, correct, exciting, fresh - none of that matters. Just write three pages. For me, writing my blog is that - even though I think that most of my posts are in the 200-400 range. Darn blogger for not having word count! :) What this does for me is it gives me a sense of accomplishment - that I have at least achieved something creative on any given day. And that is the least it does for me. Sometimes my posts are cathartic - for me or for others or both - or they are to help me laugh at life - or just plain silly.

True, I do need to work on my other writing projects, and I will. Knowing that I have already written something makes it a little easier, and less fear provoking, when it comes to the notion of working on something else...

Oh, I almost forgot to talk about Artist's Dates. Julia's notion is to take yourself on at least one soul refilling outing a week - at the least. More on Artist's Dates in another post.