Isilon is hiring. In fact, we're doubling the size of our test teams alone this year, not to mention the hiring of developers, writers, and PMs. And you want to work for us for several reasons.

• We're working on cool technology. Petabytes of data ("big data" in today's marketing lingo) meet distributed computing. Don't buy more storage than you need right now. Need more space? Need more performance? Just add more nodes -- our filesystem grows seamlessly with you.
• Our products enable cool things. Isilon gear is used to make movies, help genomic researchers, serve and process news content, and power the company ultimately behind your Google and Bing maps, among others. Our gear is so vital to some of our customers that I can't even mention their name for fear of tipping their hand to their competitors.
• Isilon is full of smart people. From developers to testers, doc folks to sales engineers, PMs to hardware designers - our folks are crazy smart. Every day they solve hard problems with creativity, not brute force. It's not your average joe that can double the write throughout of your hardware with a software update!
• We work hard. People here are passionate about what they're doing. We take initiative, aren't micromanaged, and motivated by the challenge and our peers. That said...
• We have fun. Our game room has a keg and a ping-pong table. We have free soft drinks and coffee (some of you laugh that this is a perk and not an industry standard -- you've obviously not worked at IBM). We have grass-roots ordering of Isilon-branded beer steins, shot glasses, bamboo laptop covers, and even snuggies. Yes, I said snuggies. We have an unofficial Isilon Drinking Team that meets for a pint and often karaoke.

We have all the fun and hard work of a startup but with a big-company paycheck and job security. Come join us!

I spent way too much time tonight updating the design of my blog. I'm never satisfied with a pre-packaged theme -- I always have to tweak it. I'm mostly happy with the end result although it's possible it may get a few minor updates over the weekend.

It appears that some pages are being served with the old theme. I hope this is transitory as its entirely on LJ's side of things.

Last night I did some dev work for DP. Mostly some code cleanup (heaven knows we need it) but also rolling out some committed code to production. I've made a concerted effort to get committed-but-not-released code deployed -- some of which has been waiting for, literally, years.

Even worse, we have reams of code updates sitting uncommitted (and slowly suffering from bitrot) in volunteers' sandboxes waiting for code review. In the case of Amy's new quizzes, for almost 5(!!!!) years. In other cases volunteers have done a crazy amount of legwork to address architectural issues that remain unimplemented due to no solid commitment that if they did the work it would be reviewed, committed, and deployed -- like Laurent's site localization effort.

These are clear systematic failures by development leadership, ie: me. It's obvious why even when the project attracts developers, we can't retain them.

The first step is to get through the backlog of outstanding work. I have Laurent's localization work almost finished. This will allow the site to be translated into other languages -- I think Portuguese and French are already done. Next up is getting Amy's new quizzes pushed out. She's done a marvelous job of keeping her code up to date with HEAD based on my initial work last night. Now to get them committed and rolled out. Then a site-wide change on our include()s required to get full site localization implemented.

After all that, we need to address how to better keep code committed and rolled out. I think we as a team suffer from "don't commit until it's perfect, then wait until it's simmered before rolling it out". Where "simmered" means "sitting in CVS with no active testing done on it". We need to move to a more flexible check-in criteria or a more liberal roll-out. There's no good reason why the bar is so crazy high on both ends of that.

But first - the backlog.

This morning I somewhat intentionally outed myself at the gym. Chris was curious what a day guest pass costs at Rain, so on my way out of the gym today I asked the front desk attendant who was out on the floor. She asked if I had someone I wanted to join me and, after a brief hesitation¹, I replied "my boyfriend" -- within earshot of some of the regulars.²

I'm totally out everywhere else in my life, but for some reason I'm always hesitant to be out at the gym. I can't quantify exactly why that is³, although it's likely due to not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable in the locker room. Don't misunderstand, I'm there to work out, get cleaned up, and leave, not hit on, or leer at, anyone. Still, there's no point giving a homophobe a target.

Then again, it's entirely possible that everyone at the gym knew I was gay already.


¹ The fact that I hesitated, even briefly, bothers me more than anything. I need to puzzle out exactly why that is (both the hesitation and why it bothers me).

² I think she was relieved to figure out which team I bat for. I think she's been flirting with me for the past few months. I'm terrible recognizing when gay men are flirting with me, much less straight women, so I could be totally off here.

³ In some gyms (Golds on Cap Hill or 24 downtown) being out is more likely to get you hit on, rather than hit. Even at Rain it's not like I'm afraid of being beaten up.

Yesterday Microsoft publicly declared their backing of the two WA marriage equality bills (SB 6239 and HB 2516). Their reasoning:

As other states recognize marriage equality, Washington’s employers are at a disadvantage if we cannot offer a similar, inclusive environment to our talented employees, our top recruits and their families. Employers in the technology sector face an unprecedented national and global competition for top talent. Despite progress made in recent years with domestic partnership rights, same-sex couples in Washington still hold a different status from their neighbors. Marriage equality in Washington would put employers here on an equal footing with employers in the six other states that already recognize the committed relationships of same-sex couples – Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. This in turn will help us continue to compete for talent.

In short: it's good business sense.

I was recently asked by my mother if I would ever move back to Texas. The answer was a resounding no. I made a promise to myself years ago that I would never move to a state where I had fewer rights than I did where I was currently located¹. Colorado was a step up from Texas. Washington was an even bigger step up from Colorado. Top talent has a choice on who they work for, and what state that is in.

Which makes me say: hey EMC Isilon - where's your voice? EMC is based in Massachusetts, so you should be well familiar with marriage equality. This is a perfect time for Isilon to get more visibility that we're a WA company who values our employees and supports equality. Because after all, it just makes good business sense.


¹ Texas' rabid conservativeism being a close second.

The code name for the next version of OneFS is Maverick and everyone in my office is heads down to move that mountain. I also can't stop hearing Sarah Palin in my head every time someone says it.¹

Like everyone else in my office - I'm swamped. So mentally swamped that I've started emailing myself at random times of the day with things I need to do. Like just now on the bus ride home. I'm mere days away from cascading lists complete with full dependency chains.

I gotta get the reigns on this horse before it runs all over me. There's no way I'll survive 6 more months of this with any semblance of sanity. Otherwise I'll be as Mavericky as Sarah Palin!

¹ Well, technically I can't stop hearing Shaun mimicking Tina Fay mimicking Sarah Plain.

The Religious Right, specifically the Evangelicals, are in a tizzy. Their worst fear is that Romney will get the Republican nomination and they'll be left with two unpalatable choices: a Democrat who is a Christian¹ or a Republican who is a cultist².

Lest you think I'm joking, let me reassure you that I know from first-hand experience. I was raised in a small town in the Texas panhandle. I attended church in that town from when I was born until I left for college at 16. About 12 years or so of that was at the Methodist church and the other half was at the First Baptist church (part of the Southern Baptist Convention). And despite the greater Methodist church being more accepting and liberal - Methodist churches in small towns are as conservative as you can get. So I can speak with authority what conservative small town evangelicals are taught and, presumably, believe.

Both churches taught that Mormons³ weren't Christians but were, in fact, a cult. These churches only begrudgingly conceded that Catholics are Christian if pressed⁴. But Mormons? They're in the same bucket as Jehovah Witnesses, wiccans, and satan worshipers.

So that brings us back to Romney. A group of evangelical leaders met this past weekend to decide which non-Romney candidate they'll support. Note that it wasn't which Republican candidate, but which non-Romney candidate. Their choice? Rick Santorum. Keep in mind that Santorum is Catholic, not Protestant. They're that desperate to keep Romney out of the White House. Their only non-Mormon, non-Catholic choices were Rick Perry and Ron Paul, neither of which are serious competitors to Romney. So why Santorum instead of Gingrich, who is also Catholic? My guess is that the twice-divorced, cheated-on-two-wives Gingrich isn't the "family values" candidate they were looking for.

What does this mean for those of us not falling off the right side of sanity? Grab some popcorn, throw a couple of bucks Romney's way before the primary, and watch the evangelicals squirm from now through November.

Update: And just in case you don't believe me.

¹ Assuming they really believe he's a Christian as he professes to be. Many of them still believe he's a Muslim. Sadly I'm not joking.

² I don't believe this. Or rather I believe that most all religious groups are cults. Either way, I hold that Mormons are no worse off than anyone else.

³ Anyone seen the new Mormon ad campaign? The buses around here have large, 3-panel ads with a person in each panel with the phrase "I'm a Mormon" in them. Sadly. Every time I see one my mind parses it as "I'm a moron". Mormons aren't morons, and I don't think they are. But pure #FAIL on the ad campaign.

⁴ If cornered they usually say something like "As long as [the Catholic] accepted Jesus as their savior, then they're a Christian. If they haven't and are just listening to the pope, they're not".

My primary Love Language is words of affirmation.¹ In short, I feel most valued and affirmed when people communicate that to me verbally as compared to giving me gifts or spending quality time with me. This is an exceptionally good love language to have in a corporate setting compared to some others like physical touch (can you imagine? HR would have a conniption!).

What this means for my management team is simple: tell me and others when I've done a good job. That alone is a better retention device and incentive than most other tools at your disposal.² And this isn't a secret either. After a few months working at Isilon I explicitly told my manager about this.

Yesterday I got another good dose of verbal affirmation. Leah, one of the project managers, took me out to lunch to thank me for my assistance with the HDFS project at the end of last year. In particular she was most appreciative of a meeting we had with Greenplumb where I ended up doing a "this is how we do it" brain dump to the GP team. To me it was a simple exchange of information about our HDFS implementation. To GP this was a much needed peek into the HDFS black box which, according to Leah, helped assuage GP's concerns about the integration effort. This apparently made project management very happy. Based on what Leah said, my involvement in the call got communicated up to Sujal, the Isilon President.

While I very much appreciated the lunch, knowing that my work was recognized and communicated upward was more valuable to me. I just hope she passed that onto my immediate management team, not just the President :)

¹ The Love Languages book by Gary Chapman is focused on romantic relationships, although I find the concept generally applicable to other social situations and environments. This post is written with the wider applicability in mind.

² That isn't to say I don't value financial recognition of my accomplishments and work. I'm capable of translating "here's more money" into "here's more money, we like you and think you do great work, please stay".

I started doing pot again last night. I'd forgotten how much I missed the high.

Did I say pot? I meant pottery. (Yeah, a terrible pottery joke. They don't get much better either!) This is not my first throwing class - that was about 8 or more years ago at a wonderful teaching studio in Austin: ClayWays. This time last year I took a class at Pottery Northwest but didn't get a whole lot out of it, either in skill or product. Not for lack of a wonderful facility and teachers, but because of my divorce. I wasn't motivated to attend class some weeks - much less go in during open studio time.

This time however, I'm motivated and excited. I'm focusing on more functional pieces - yes, more serving bowls but also spoon rests, salsa bowls, and maybe even some little ramekins. My focus in skill will be on glazing so I need to churn out some pieces early to get started on that ASAP.

Last night I made 2 jumbo spoon rests (ladle rests?) and a large salsa bowl. I need to get in on Friday to trim my pieces and let them dry with hopes of getting them in the Tuesday bisque firing. Yes, that's a crazy aggressive schedule and I realize the clay is not likely to cooperate with that speed, but that's the goal.

This class is a beginner class and as Jonobie pointed out, I'm far from a beginner. While I can always improve my skill in various areas fundamental, I'm firmly in the intermediate category. Really what I need is just more practice and enrolling in the beginning class allows me to do that. Every class at Pottery Northwest comes with open studio time. After you're enrolled you can go in whenever they're open (which is effectively 24/7) and work as long as there's an open wheel. I'm going to try and block out some time on my calendar to get into the studio outside of class to help move things along.

Chris and I have gone climbing at Vertical World the past two Tuesdays. The new "Vertical World 4.0" opened just blocks from their prior location right before Christmas and it's amazing. More space and higher (55') ropes than before. Here's a picture -- cool, no?

Chris has been climbing longer than I have and it's obvious that he's worked at it. I'm doing harder climbs (I did two 5.10a's last night and was thwarted by a 5.10b) but he has much better form and climbing skills. He's by far the better climber.

After thinking about it this morning at the gym¹ I believe I know why the 5.10b was so difficult and a previous 5.9 I completed seemed harder than a subsequent 5.10a: I'm manhandling the routes, not finessing them. I have enough upper body strength in relation to my weight that as long as I have one good grip, I can hover to swap feet or stretch to another hand-hold without good footing. The 5.9 and 5.10b didn't have great grips, forcing me to do better footwork and planning - something I need to work on if the 5.10b is any indication.

Beyond me needing to practice my footwork, the other lesson learned is that just because I can do something doesn't mean I'm good at it. I tend to equate ability with skill when they are related but distinct. [Makes me reconsider how much skill vs ability I have in things like throwing pottery, writing, and programming.]

After Chris finished one climb last night I was giving him a hard time about him being slower than I was on the same route. He replied that he was focusing on accuracy and precision. In jest I replied something along the lines of "I'm here to have fun, not to be precise and accurate -- I do that all day at the office". While that was off-the-cuff I think it really is true: I enjoy climbing and while I know I can improve my skills I'll do so to the extent that I'm enjoying it. My objective in climbing is to have fun, not to necessarily become a great climber.

¹ Notice a trend? I tend to think a lot at the gym. I'm not entirely certain it's a good thing.