Bill Watt’s Blog

But you lost me in New York and I doubt I’ll ever even consider Atlanta (Sorry J Scot and Carol).

But seriously… is Bravo going with the CSI approach to syndication and soon we’ll have a Real Housewives of Canton, Ohio?

I know many folks has already talked about this and a friend (who controls his online footprint so I’ll leave it at that) at work keeps asking me when I’ll watch. For me… things like this are for the weekend but just in case any of you haven’t seen it, here is the email my friend sent me:

In case you never heard about the “last lecture” project- it was a series of lecture about what would you talk about if you had only one last lecture to do.
Many interesting lectures came out of it but Randy Pausch’s lecture became a must hear for everyone out there.

“On September 18, 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch stepped in front of an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University to deliver a last lecture called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” With slides of his CT scans beaming out to the audience, Randy told his audience about the cancer that is devouring his pancreas and that will claim his life in a matter of months. On the stage that day, Randy was youthful, energetic, handsome, often cheerfully, darkly funny. He seemed invincible. But this was a brief moment, as he himself acknowledged.”

Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities. And now, in his book based on the now-famous lecture, Randy goes even deeper to inspire us all.
http://www.thelastlecture.com/
http://www.cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.html

Watch the lecture:
Short version (11min) : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8577255250907450469
Full lecture (1:16 hr): http://youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Randy just passed away after a long fight with cancer. We wish his family the best in this tough time and hope they can take some comfort in how he lived and inspired people.

Ok… I think the job might kill me but in a good way.

When I worked for FairMarket and for eBay I was pretty removed from users. I got to do tech support (and I loved it) and I worked directly for the customers who paid us (big companies) but there was a real separation from the end user. That’s ok… our business was different and we built cool tools that the people paying us wanted to let them better work with their end users. It was just a layer removed is all.

At Current I’m not exactly close to the users… but it won’t be long. I’m talking to the community team, using the site, and working my way to the point where we’ll have a product management voice out there too. The delay is that I’m still trying to get a handle on the day to day PM duties, working on better PRD’s, getting in front of deals, and generally trying to make all the internal stakeholders happy. But I can see the day when we have that stuff firing on all cylinders and I can get out there an work with the community directly.

Anyway- what prompted this? A community member posted the item, “what happened to current.com” and generated a good amount of discussion. My assumption is that by the time I wake up tomorrow the thread will be much longer.

I want to post a thread right now asking people for feedback but until I can be prepared (time wise) to actually address the expected flurry I’d better hold off. It won’t be long… and it will be good.

I was watching American Idol tonight and I love love love that Randy and Simon took Jason to task for butchering the Bob Marley song “I shot the sheriff” because it was bad bad bad. Simon got really annoyed and tried to tell Jason that some songs are touchable. You do it as the artist did because that is a part of the song. I have to agree, if Jason wasn’t up to the task then he should have picked another song.

Yes! Teach these kids it isn’t all about getting up and winging it.

They posted the pics here.

I spent yesterday skiing Bear Valley with a group of folks from eBay including most of the FAIM and ROW development and QA.

The bad. Getting up at 4 to be at eBay by 4:45 and on the bus at 5AM for the 3.5 hour drive.

The good. It was an amazing weather day and was maybe even a little too warm out. It was awesome to see the old team and get to hang out for the day on the ski slope.

All in all it was a pretty funny day. Rishi had apparently never seen snow so it was my pleasure to impart a little big brother wisdom on him (”Avoid the yellow snow!”) and it was amazing how many folks from the 2 buses were new skiers. The woman from the ski resort said it was 70% first timers and she was amazed because people started and kept going all day.

I spent my time on the slopes trying to keep up with two friends who were much better than me. It was a good challenge and they were willing to give me pointers as they saw areas to improve and encouragement with every stop. I only fell once and my left side is still feeling it today. I have finally realized that the last 10 years of inactivity really are taking a toll.  Maybe this will be the thing that drives me to the gym? We’ll see.

The ride home started around 5:30, included a stop to pick up pizza, and then we were back at campus by 9. I put in a couple calls on the 10 min drive home and was asleep by 10:30.

I had no idea this existed but I was behind someone on the road today that had one of these “Pearl Harbor Survivor” license plates.  A quick Google search and I found the PDF (see it here) that enables you to apply for license plates for the following reasons:

• Pearl Harbor survivor (these are the eligibility requirements: The applicant was on station at Pearl Harbor, the Island of Oahu, or offshore within a distance of three miles, on December 7, 1941, during the hours of 7:55 a.m. to 9:45 a.m., Hawaii time, as certified by a California chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.)
• Amateur Radio License
• Purple Heart Recipient
• Antique Motorcycle
• Horseless Carriage
• Press Photographer
• Congressional Medal of Honor
• Honorary Consul
• Historical Vehicle

Interesting list to be on the same form.

So, one problem we’ve had with where we live is the growing number of dogs in the development. Don’t get me wrong… I love dogs. What I don’t love are dogs that bark all day or all night. In most cases I feel for the dogs because they’re clearly barking for attention. There was one puppy across the walk from us who was hoarse from barking all day but was really quiet when her owners were there. I left a note and then spoke to her owner who was happy to know what was going on while she wasn’t there. In fact, they’d already started on some training for the puppy and it has been much much better.

But there is this other dog down the street from us who is left on the  deck for hours at a time and goes nuts when people walk past to hit the mailbox. Now that I’m home during the day and mostly not napping (mostly) I hear it barking like Timmy was down the well again. Being a person who likes to address issues, I walked down to leave them a note with my phone number (if you’re going to leave a note, you have to put your name on it otherwise it is just passive aggressive and that’s no way to be a neighbor) and it turns out the owner was there. He was sitting in the living room while the dog was on the deck barking at him.

I actually saw this owner walking the dog yesterday and having watched a few episodes of the Dog Whisperer I could have guessed the problems this guy is having. The dog was walking him. The dog must be all of 5 pounds and was pulling against the leash as if his life depended on it. The sad thing is that it probably would take like a week and then some consistent behavior onthe owner’s part and everone would be happier.
So, the same thing I say about bad parents I’ll say about dog owners… if you don’t want them why do you have them? It is your responsibility, it takes time and it isn’t something you can turn off.

Ok, I’m tired now. Nap time!

In an almost 100% different direction from the previous post, I was watching a news article tonight about a young girl who just got a new heart. The expected story was that the family was grateful for their daughter’s life and everyone was understanding Thanksgiving a bit more this year.

The real story was of a young girl who was deeply saddened by the loss of another girl her own age in a car accident that was the source of her new heart. It was touching to see the girl’s sadness for the parents of the other girl.

I caught myself thinking something like, “Don’t be silly… it isn’t your fault and at the very least only one family had to suffer that fate” but then to think how a 12 year old girl views the world made it seem not silly at all. This isn’t the original video I saw that talked about the sadness but if you watch the video from ABC then you see the other side… the kindness of the parents who lost so much and still reached out the the girl who had just been saved.

Man, I’d like to think if I were in that situation I would be as good a person.

Well, we all know that I’m not as current on other people’s behavior as I could be but it makes me sad when I see things like this collection of video clips from a documentary. The topic is “the most hated family in America” and from the short bits I’ve seen I can imagine that is an accurate summary.

I just (1) don’t understand this much hatred, (2) don’t understand how they got to the point of hating the entire US, (3) wonder what these people do for a living and (4) wonder how / where these kids will be in 10 years.

Note: Fay- if you’re reading this then the clip is not suitable for Chris to watch. Other parents the same goes for you but I only know that Fay and Chris sometimes read my blog so I wanted to call it out specifically for them.