Lincoln/Coverdale » self-deprecation http://jessekirchner.com/blog Hope for the future Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:48:30 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Epic distraction http://jessekirchner.com/blog/2008/03/20/epic-distraction/ http://jessekirchner.com/blog/2008/03/20/epic-distraction/#comments Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:53:03 +0000 Jesse http://jessekirchner.com/blog/2008/03/20/epic-distraction/ I am somewhat obsessive about completing things (which is why I frequently just avoid starting them — see this post). This tendency extends to web pages such as Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About which I will probably spend the rest of the day reading.

]]> http://jessekirchner.com/blog/2008/03/20/epic-distraction/feed/ 0 Project status: stillborn http://jessekirchner.com/blog/2008/03/19/project-status-stillborn/ http://jessekirchner.com/blog/2008/03/19/project-status-stillborn/#comments Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:06:01 +0000 Jesse http://jessekirchner.com/blog/2008/03/19/project-status-stillborn/ I’ve been dinking around with blog software for a few days now. I started with Simple PHP Blog because it does not require a database backend (I’m a sucker for simplicity). Unfortunately, themes are short in supply and it’s templating system doesn’t seem mature enough for me to write my own in short order (I could take the time, but it’s bad enough that my days are spent developing web). The themes are also deficient in standards compliance. It bothered me enough that I knew I would spend hours rendering the code compliant and still be unhappy that the layout looks like crap. And then I found WordPress. I had heard of it before, but I didn’t know that the code could be freely downloaded for personal hosting. Not only is it rich in features, it boasts W3C compliance which calms my nerves enough to allow me to, you know, actually post stuff.

It seems to be a pattern in my life that I get excited about a project and spend lots of time reading up and preparing. I’ll buy materials and get advice from people and when I’m right at the point where I should be starting the project, I retreat. I make up all kinds of self-defeating excuses and avoid failure by avoiding effort. (I don’t know if it’s encouraging or sad that I am consciously aware of this.) Here’s a list of projects or ideas from the past few weeks that could go nowhere:

  • this blog
  • finishing my basement
  • taking the Patent Bar exam
  • learning how to program the iPhone
  • reading Canterbury Tales in Middle English

I’d call 3/5 between now and August a success.

Edit: I totally forgot to include “writing a Facbook application” in the list above.

]]> http://jessekirchner.com/blog/2008/03/19/project-status-stillborn/feed/ 0