OK. So I was reading Jeff Schneider's reply to my post questioning his post about MS's Ron Jacob's... oh *!@&@^ it! Anyway, while thinking about services and autonomy, I happened across Jeff Sutherland's scrum log, and I was floored by these posts. They seem particularly relevant, but I don't know that I have the picture complete enough to explain anything at all.
Also, while reading Mr. Schneider's post, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by two childhood (or practically childhood) memories. The tamer of the two was of the first time I visited my high school friends John, Chip, and Von at UT Austin.
Chip and I were in the same class -- Chip was the Valedictorian of our class, a super-smart *and* amazingly nice guy, and (though he may not know it) also responsible for my interest and pursuit of a degree in physics. John and Von were a year younger than me. John was my best friend at the time, and is one of the funniest guys I have ever known. I owe both him and Ronnie a call (in case you're watching). Von is easily one of the most unique people I have ever known, and interestingly, though he, Chip, and I all started out pursing physics PhDs, he is the only one who finished. He studied lasers, and every time I think of that fact, it reminds me of a David Letterman show where there was a discussion of lasers in the context, I think, of cds. Dave said "Don't look at them, them's LAY-ZERS," which still makes me chuckle to this day. Von, wherever you are, you are a better man than me.
Back to the point. When I first visited them at the campus, they were in the dorms at Jester. Jester is a monster dorm on the campus -- I was told that it was so big, in fact, that it has its own zip code. We were heading out somewhere -- dinner, something -- and we walked by one of their neighbor's dorms. I think the guy's name was Travis. He must of been between 200-300 lbs, and he was standing in the open doorway of his dorm, in front of his mirror, performing a slow motion upper cut-to-body blow, while quoting Mike Tyson's Punch Out a little too slowly for comfort "Uuuuppppper ccuuut. Booodddy blooow." We lost it. I wasn't aware of anyone typing the sequence of characters "ROTFL" at that point in my life, but had it been fashionable at the time, and had a neighbor of their neighbor Travis been watching and usenetting at the same time, that is likely what would have described John and me at the time.
Now. As I mentioned, reading Jeff's post evoked two memories. The second is really a collection of memories, all related to [my fear of/involvement in] fighting. When I was a kid, I was smaller than the average person in my grade. When I graduated high school, for instance, I weighed a buck and a quarter, soaking wet. And *that* was after a recent "growth spurt." This was partly due to the fact that I started school early. Call me "eager." My sister was going, and I wanted to go, too. So my parents looked at their budgets, and figured out a way to afford getting me into the pre-school in the school where my sister was going to kindergarten at my ripe age of 3. I seemed to do ok, but I was always small. Because I was small, a wimp, and generally a pacifist, I tended to try to avoid fights. But this isn't about most of the time.
There were four [count them] times in particular where I didn't feel like I had a choice. One time, I got into an argument with a guy named Travis. I don't have a clue what it was about, but something relevant to a group of 10-somethings. Push came to shove, and I seem to recall having hit him, I think in the nose. It pretty much ended at that, which is good, because I think he really could have taken me -- he was an angry kid, and I was a scrawny wimp. Then again, it might not have ended in a punch, maybe just some shoves, but my memory of the time is really fuzzy. One thing I do remember well, though, is what happened just a little while later. We had all met to play soccer near Travis's house before the brouhaha ensued. Post-brouhaha, we kissed and made up, modulo the kissing, and proceeded to play soccer. Well, needless to say, Travis was on one team, and I, the other. At one point, he had the ball, and I was defending, and he reared back and kicked the ball *as* *hard* *as* *he* *could* right at me. And, though I wouldn't admit it at the time, it had hurt. Worse than that, I am pretty sure that I had closed my eyes, turned my head, held up my arms, and winced like a little girl at the oncoming cannon ball he had hammered at me. But the pain and disgrace soon faded as the ball deflected off my shin and into his neighbor's window, shattering it into a million pieces. It was pretty obvious that he had kicked it like he did out of pure spite, and he ended up being responsible for the repairs. His dad was actually seemed kind of a jerk about it, and I always felt sorry that he had such a mean seeming dad. Anyway, that day, I somehow came out on top.
The second fight of any consequence involved a kid shooting a b-b gun at me and my friend Josh. Long story short, the kid was younger and smaller than me, and so it wasn't difficult for me to, um, take him out. I ended up with him pinned on the ground, me straddling him, asking him to apologize, and then hitting him in the face when he wouldn't. The sad part is that I really couldn't bring myself to hit him that hard. I didn't really want to hurt him, but I didn't like the fact that he shot at Josh and me.
While I was "pummeling" this poor kid (who was a royal ass, and I still believe he deserved what he got), one of his friends ran off to get another of their friends. The friend he went to get turned out to be none other than the Travis kid from above. Several years and a number of karate classes had honed his skill and focused his anger, which he then proceeded to direct at me. I tried to persuade him that it wasn't his fight, and that the kid deserved it, but to be honest, I think he was still bitter after all those years. He threw a number of kicks at me, and he actually hit me with a roundhouse kick -- and it jammed my thumb. It hurt pretty bad, and I backed down (my usual response as a child to any sort of conflict -- I could fill this blog with *those* entries).
I later learned that Travis was afflicted with a terrible disease late in his high school years, and had to spend a lot of time in the hospital. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I remember that it involved a major organ and was life-threatening. I hear that he actually expressed considerable regret for being such a bully in his younger years and stuff. It made me feel awful for despising him so much as a kid.
There was another time that is worthy of it's own postThe short version: my friend Josh had moved into an apartment complex, befriended a speed and lsd dealer from Boston named Pat who claimed to have robbed banks before. While I visiting Josh, Pat somehow got the mistaken impression that I had made inappropriate suggestions to his girlfriend, and he decided that the best way to clear it up was to deck me. Hard. Like "knock me to the ground, big swollen black eye" hard. Again, though, that is worthy of its own post.
Oh, actually, maybe the appropriate number is five, no, six! I didn't actually get into a fight for one of them -- it did involve my friend John, Deep Ellum, A Cure concert, two *big* black guys, and me screaming somewhat like a girl. That also deserves its own post, so you will have to wait. The other involves the aforementioned Ronnie, a *late* night, and a long story. That one might not make it into a post, but it *is* at the same time funny and regretful.
The final "fight" I got into was when I was in college. As you can tell, I have lost the energy to type it all out. To sum, I kept getting threatened by this guy who was another person who wore his anger on his sleeve, we were playing sand volleyball, and he didn't like what I was saying, so he threatened to kick my ass. I kept backing down, and then kicking sand on him when he walked away or shooting my mouth off (I was considerably more arrogant/Stupid at whatever age that was -- 18-20?), and finally he came at me in such a way that I thought he actually meant it, and so I hit him. As hard as I could. Square in the nose. And it *bled.*
He stood there. I stood there.
Nothing else really happened.
He said something like "I don't want to get kicked out of the park for fighting. But mark my words..."
Ok. Maybe he didn't say "Mark my words." But it was something like that. To tell you the truth, I was scared poopless. But I didn't back down, and calmly went to the side of the court, dusted off the sand, got dressed, and left. In a strange coincidence, this guy ended up dating and I think eventually marrying a girl I knew fairly well from my first job out of college, which was about 75 miles away. Small world.
Speaking of small world, Jeff (may I call you Jeff?), I got an IM from Greg Vaughn mentioning you because of your post. Small world.
I am soooo glad that I am no longer < 25. It was all a lot of fun, even the scary stuff, but I am sooo glad...
I do think it is worth mentioning that not all Travises are bad. In fact, I have a wonderful nephew named Travis that is a really cool kid. He taught me how to play pokemon on his Gameboy oh so many years ago. Good times. Good times.
Now, when it comes to services, I will duke it out! Buhhhhh-ring it! Four Tenets are good if they are spot on. If we have to get to 100, then I think that something is wrong. Leave precision for the specs. Principles and prescriptions don't have to be precise to be effective guidance. For instance, "No business logic in servlets" is a useful prescription, even though the term "business logic" is far from precise. So, I still like the four tenets. Do we need to elaborate? Sure. But they are still, imnsho, spot on. So, in the new year, keep your boundaries explicit.
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