Performed Well

When I wrote Code for Teens , I set out to teach programming concepts in a way that was accessible to anyone, regardless of religion. Those of you who have read it know there aren't any religious messages in the book.  Still, I was recently turned down by a group of educators known as Secular, Eclectic, Academic Homeschoolers (SEAH) solely for having two paragraphs that reference a church. SEAH was excited to promote my book on their website until they found two short paragraphs that mention a church (no reference to the faith of this church in the book at all--just a mention of it).  SEAH asked me to rewrite this portion. I told them that I did not control the published book anymore (the publishers do), but I could make an insert that replaces the "church" with "summer camp".  So I rewrote those two paragraphs and submitted them as an addendum that they could distribute with the book or use any other way they wanted. Apparently, this wasn't enough. 

 A close friend of mine was recently wronged in a terrible way by a scoundrel of a man and then afterward by our own legal system. I'll speak with vagaries to protect the identities, but here's the gist.  My friend was taken advantage of by a pathological liar.  In order to seek justice, my friend took him to court.  The liar was caught committing perjury over a dozen times (literally) while on the stand , and was forced to admit many of his lies in open court, along with having broken contracts and lied to cover his tracks. It seemed like an obvious, cut-and-dried case to prove and vote in favor of my friend.  But to everyone's astonishment, the jury sided with the liar.  And now my friend is stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of legal fees (including paying for the shyster's legal fees). It is such a blatant miscarriage of justice, that it almost makes me sick.  How did 8 members of a jury come to such a conclusion?  Did any one of them have

Around this time last month, I was kind of excited about the prospect of writing the 2nd volume of Code for Teens.  Then I received the sales report from my publishing company.  Sales are so low, they are almost non-existent.  They tell me that things should pick up, and they are confident that we will do many more sales this year.  But I can't help but think to myself "Did they actually anticipate sales numbers that were really this low in the first three months?"  Surely not.  I'm not sure what to make of it all.  I expected that people reading and enjoying the book would cause increased exposure and attention, but it seems like the book is only dropping rapidly in the Amazon ranking despite having an average of 5 stars basically 100% positive feedback from all of the readers. It's an interesting age we live in where it's surprisingly easy to write a book and get it available for sale, but it's so hard for the book to receive any attention--likely be

I started working on Volume 2 of my Code for Teens series!  This time, I'm making it a point to write at least half a page every time I get on the bus to or from work and also write several pages every weekend. At times I wonder if all of this will be worth the time and effort.  I very well may end up losing money on this book.  I hope to sell enough copies to at least get my financial investment back, but there are no guarantees.  Volume 1 has been extremely well-received among people who've read it, but it's been a real challenge to get noticed.  Volume 2 adds some additional time pressure with it as I'm trying to have everything completed in time to take both books to the two large education conventions this year. One of the things that keeps me going, however, is knowing that my life is composed of all the things I do with it.  I may lose money on the book.  I may have been financially better off not writing a book at all.  But at the end of my life, will I be m

I've been a software engineer for about 13 years or so.  For the last 4 years, I've been at a senior level at the companies where I've worked.  But I came to realize something over the last few months: I have a tendency to seek out the easiest ways to learn new things.  Case in point: when it came to learning new technologies, many of my colleagues tended to read many pages of official documentation while I tended to ignore the documentation and look for videos or targeted googling to learn.  This works fine much of the time, so I still learn it.  But the point is that I was almost unable to learn from the actual documentation.  I recognized that there was a bit of a hole in my skillset as a senior developer, and it was up to me to fill it. So over the last couple weeks, i challenged myself to dig deep in the official documentation for the technologies I used at work.  When something challenged me, I tried going first to the official docs to see if I could find the answ

My sister Mindy has a knack for making and retaining friendships.  Not only is she very friendly, but she puts a lot of time, thought and effort into keeping those friendships vibrant and active. I, on the other hand, tend to be much more task-oriented than relationship-oriented.  At any given time, I am keenly aware of a myriad of tasks that I intend to accomplish.  I appreciate the value of friends, but if left to my own devices, I will rarely seek out times to enrich friendships as these don't help me to check off items on my immediate to-do list. My wife Christine has even more of an appreciation for good friendships than I do, but she is similarly unlikely to organize get-togethers or plan lunches with friends.  She is, however, a great cook and very willing to have people over to our house.  This opens up a unique opportunity for us to invite people over on a regular basis. A few years ago, we started inviting a couple we like to come over to our house for dinner and bo

Last August, I started writing this book, and Christine agreed to be my illustrator.  Well just last month, we got our first shipment of the books, and they look fantastic! www.CodeForTeens.com The last two weekends, Christine and I attended the Midwest Parent Educators Homeschool Conference and the Teaching Parents Association Homeschool Convention as exhibitors peddling our new book Code for Teens .  It's so exciting to me that people are reading this book, enjoying it, and learning how to code! Selling books at the homeschool conventions was a new experience for both Christine and me.  I do not consider myself to be much of a salesman, but these books sold very well, and it was a lot of fun to see how well people responded to it.  We sold way more than our goal of book copies, and there are many more opportunities coming up on the horizon. Technically, the book isn't available for sale yet.  Our publisher is still looking to make a concerted marketing push for i

About two years ago (February 7, 2016), on the day of the Super Bowl, my brother Davey (who lives in Iowa) and I decided on a whim to meet up together, watch the Super Bowl and play some board games.  We chose a city that was halfway between the two of us, and we went to a comfortable motel for all of our gaming.  It was such a fun day.  One of the most enjoyable Super Bowl days I've ever experienced. On most of the way home, he and I talked on the phone and brainstormed about how we might improve on this experience and spread it to many of our other friends.  That's when we developed the idea of a Guys' Board Game Retreat. We invited many guys in our circle of influence to drive down to Bethany and hang out for a day and a half of board games.  Everyone pays a small fee, and we use that to cover bedrooms, game room, meals, gas, and lots of delicious snacks.  We have done 4 of these board game retreats (with a 5th one coming up next month), and they are so much fun.  We