Monthly Archives: March 2010

They’ve Ruined Wikipedia

Posted by on March 23, 2010 No comments

For quite a while I’ve felt like there were two types of people writing about history (or well anything).  The first type, wrote from passion.  They wanted to share with everyone something they enjoyed and what they had learned.  The second type were writing to prove they knew something.  The first type I considered a teacher.  The second type I considered an academic.  Well, the academics have invaded Wikipedia and ruined it.  In an attempt to look up something obscure this morning, I turned to wikipedia and found this at the head of my article:

wikipedia

Now, I don’t mind that someone finds the quality of information not quite up to snuff, but the alarmist box at the very top of the article is nearly longer than the article is.  What was great about Wikipedia was the idea that it was a community voice.  I can go ask my friend a question about something and he can share with me what he knows.  I don’t need citations, or protection from commercialism.  I just want to know about something and it seems to me there should be a little more appreciation for the people that take their time to share this information and a lot less shouting from the people looking for proof.

Can you imagine if we treated everyone we talked to like this?  Every scrap of information from your Doctor, to your best friend, to your government – come to think of that why can’t we get text books that are as accurate as Wikipedia?  Or is that too much to ask?  Probably is because then what we would have is books full of these types of screaming banners and we’d teach kids more about nit picking than life learning.  So in the mean time, why not tone down the alarmism Wikipedia and relegate these warnings to a few tags out of the way.  In other words, get out of the way and get back to what you were good at, allowing people to share information – even if it isn’t perfect. 

Time Travel

Posted by on March 18, 2010 No comments

One of the amazing things that has happened since I started GameTruck is the amazing people that have joined me in this business.  Four years ago in my garage I had this crazy idea to create the ideal environment to play games with your friends.  We’d pull it up to your house.  I built a prototype in my garage, we research trailers, and trucks, and portable generators.  I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew I needed to do it.  My brother Chris joined me on my crusade and my cause became his.

It was up and down.  I remember buying a copy of the secret in Florida while I was going there to open a Studio for the Walt Disney Company.  I didn’t know what was going to happen.  I didn’t know if GameTruck would survive, but after reading that book I realized I spent a lot of time focusing on things I didn’t want and not things I did.  So I spent more time focusing on the future I wanted.  I wanted orders.  I wanted bookings.  We wanted people to experience our parties.  And when I got home, they called.   Bookings went up.

I wrote an email to all our family and closest friends and I told them about my dream and I asked for prayers.  And they prayed.  And people called.  By the summer a miracle had happened.  Disney had a change in strategy and Florida was no longer in the cards.  But more miraculously GameTruck business had exploded.  Even more amazing a fantastic partner materialized out of thin air and David Wachtel joined me on my quest to build a brand new business, heck and industry.

It felt like yesterday but that was already three years ago.  And yesterday the most amazing thing happened.  I flew to Atlanta to meet a group of brand new Franchise Owners.  They had their GameTrucks pulled into a circle in a giant parking lot – a pack of bright green elephants glowing in the soft spring rain.  I was in awe.  Here was an idea, that had started in my garage, a dream I had not only of making kids happy, of bringing people together with the best of video gaming but also teaching them how to be great gamers.  Giving GTAtlantathem a role model.  But I also was helping people realize their own dreams of owning their own business, of establishing their own true asset, one that could generate more income than it could consume.  From California to Georgia, from Portland to New Jersey, all across the country people – great people, were joining me, joining us the GameTruck team on our mission to change the way people play.

I was in awe.  Richard Bach wrote that the law of the universe is Magnetism.  The Secret says the same thing.  The Bible tells us that we can do miracles if we can believe.  So many people have said it much better than I but I stand as a witness to the power of a dream.  Yet, the most motivational quote I read this past year came from Zig Ziglar, and it is this, “You can have everything you want in life.  Just as soon as you help enough other people get what they want.’”  I love that quote because it puts focus and vision on everything we do.

We help people play together.  We help people get into business.  We help people be successful in play, in business, and perhaps someday even in life.  I am amazed and honored to be part of such a great group of people.  I think I’m finally learning what it means to be living the dream.

– Scott

Adobe AIR

Posted by on March 15, 2010 No comments

Adobe AIR Getting your Application Version

I couldn’t believe how hard this was to find. If you are programming with Javascript and HTML in Adobe AIR you might want to know what version your application is (the runtime has it’s own version). If you want to get it out of the XML application descriptor then you need to parse the XML file.

Personally I hate XML. Mostly because they made the brain dead decision to allow white space BETWEEN TAGS to count as a node. I don’t know who thought that was a good idea but it makes processing XML files REALLY hard and it encourages creating unreadable files that have no formatting.

But, here’s a simple function modified to allow you to pull the application version:

/**
 * getAppVersion
 * gets the application version from the application descriptor
 * Just for the record, I hate XML.
 * @returns ver {string}    The application version as a string
 */
function getAppVersion() {
    var xmlString = air.NativeApplication.nativeApplication.applicationDescriptor;
    var appXml = new DOMParser();
    var xmlobject = appXml.parseFromString(xmlString, "text/xml");
    var root = xmlobject.getElementsByTagName('application')[0];
    var appId = root.getElementsByTagName("id")[0].firstChild.data;
    var appVersion = root.getElementsByTagName("version")[0].firstChild.data;
    var appName = root.getElementsByTagName("filename")[0].firstChild.data;
    air.trace("appId: " + appId);
    air.trace("version: " + appVersion);
    air.trace("filename: " + appName);
    return appVersion;
}

Why I like AIR

I have become enamored with Adobe AIR (http://www.adobe.com/products/air/) because it lets me leverage my web programming for the desktop.  In college a classmate of mine once postulated his theory for the “Conservation of Stupidity”.  It goes like this, there is a finite amount of ignorance we all must carry around with us for our entire lives.  In order maintain that level every time we learn something new, we have to jettison something old.  The trouble is the brain doesn’t consult with us before it dumps the old to make room for the new.

For me, that theory manifests itself when I’m learning a new programming language.  I just love my children too much to run the risk of forgetting their names so I can learn a new programming language.  In reality, the real issue is that it takes time to get good at a programming language.  And it is really annoying to have to learn a new programming tool change, process, framework just so I can apply it in a new arena (e.g. the desktop).  Enter AIR.  With AIR (in theory) I don’t need to learn anything new.  At least as far as programming languages go.

I’ve started to have some fun with WordPress plugins and my new favorite Javascript API JQuery.  I know Microsoft has some fantastic free tools, but I work on a Mac and all my websites are Linux based so no C-Sharp for me.

As for Apple, while I love my Mac, the overhead of learning CoaCoa doesn’t translate well into the web.  Of course there’s flash, but well… it’s Flash, and that too has it’s features.  But the real reason I like web programming is that modern browsers are so powerful, you can make some really sophisticated user interfaces and skin them with a few lines of Javascript, HTML and CSS.  And AIR lets me do that, but being Adobe they have a heavy preference for all things Flash and Flex.  Me, I like Javascript and PHP.  While they are supported there seems to be more examples of F/F than J/P.

So if I find something useful, I’m hoping the web crawling spider bots pick it up and share it.

– Scott

So Tweet

Posted by on March 15, 2010 No comments

So I’ve integrated Twitter into my blog.  Why I’m not sure but I did.

Facebookers appology

Posted by on March 13, 2010 No comments

I forgot that I connected my blog to Facebook.  So when I had to repost 3 years worth of articles to get my new wordpress site up and running the entire flood of articles appeared on my wall… and apparently a lot of other peoples.

Neat.

-Scott

Wow that didn’t turn out the way I expected

Posted by on March 13, 2010 No comments

I tried to upgrade my wordpress site and in the process lost all of my posts.  Not a lot, but still, stuff I’ve been using for a while.  Turns out 1and1 – my hosting company doesn’t allow you to give WordPress enough memory to reimport all your old posts.  So I backed them up, and switched over and PHLABT.  Nothing.

AppIcon128.png

So I found a work around (that I wish I had used before).  Download all the posts into MacJournal and then have THAT software re-upload them one at a time.  Now the dates are all wacked and I don’t know if the pictures made it but my stuff is back…  mostly.

The biggest pain has been the formatting. Adding an image has been hugely problematic. But I think the basic functionality is now working the way it should.

–Scott

Please be patient

Posted by on March 13, 2010 No comments

I am in the process of upgrading my site to the latest wordpress… only 1 and 1 hosed me.

I hope to have this fixed shortly.

–Scott

Knowing where you are…

Posted by on March 12, 2010 No comments

I really try to be a disciple of David Allen.  In principle I like the Getting Things Done approach.  For me there are a few key aspects of it I like.

First, I really like to “process” stuff.  When my office get’s overwhelmingly messy, or my desk gets snowed under, I always know I can go back to square one and clean it.  I have never been able to clean and organize stuff like I can with his system.  In a very focused blast I can ask, “What is this?” and either throw it out, decide on a next action and add it to my todo’s, file it, or put it where it belongs.  In no time I can clean almost any room.

The other part of his system that (in principle) I really like, is writing down everything, getting it all out of your head, and then recording it as projects – BUT you also sort it by context.  Like tasks tend to be more productively completed if you do them together.  In other words, if you are in phone mode, then be in phone mode.  Get as many calls out of the way as possible.  If you are running errands, find out how many of them you can lump together.  Batching up tasks in a way that makes sense by your ability to do them makes all kinds of sense to me.

There are other aspects of his system that are attractive too but I don’t adhere to them nearly as much such as the weekly review and the tickler file.  But the one thing I have noticed is that at times I get… stuck.  I hav all my projects and todo’s in one place in one application that syncs across all my computers and even my iPhone.  But then I will just sit there and stare at it and think… I don’t know what to do.  I can’t help but feel that I haven’t captured everything – or worse, I have captured it all and I don’t know where to start.

Unfortunately whenever I feel like that the Internet is only a few clicks away to keep my mind busy.  Honestly, I’d be more productive if I played a game instead.

Believe

Posted by on March 2, 2010 No comments

Normally, this time of night I would sit down and start to code, or maybe play a game, or catch an episode of Fringe streamed off my PS3. But tonight, after a great baseball practice I felt the need to share one of my favorite all time baseball stories.

The Beginning

believe_pitcher.jpgI guess it all started about 18 months ago, in the fall of 2008. We got together with some friends and decided to put together a winter baseball team. All our boys were moving from Farm to Minors – from machine pitch to kid pitch and I knew two things. First, kids that played some winter ball and then went into little league were a lot better prepared than kids that only started up a month before the season began. Second, I knew that the jump to kid pitch was a big jump. I lied, there was a third thing I knew. On my farm team were 4 or 5 kids who didn’t get drafted into the minors. Getting drafted was tough.

Early Goals

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So we pulled together some friends and we said, “hey look, we all want to play minors next year and there’s no guarantee any of them will get drafted.” So we figured if we put together a team for winter ball, played up against better competition and focused on pitching, we could:

  1. Teach the kids how to pitch
  2. Get them ready for showcase improving their chances of getting drafted
  3. Get them ready to face live kid pitching

What I also had in mind is that I wanted to learn how to teach pitching. I often saw a lot of kids that wanted to pitch, but no one knew how to teach them. I figured if everyone bought into the idea that our focus was to teach pitching and get drafted, who cared if we won any games or not? That was a good idea, because it turns out we only won a single game – but all the kids improved. They all learned to pitch. And most importantly, every single one got drafted into minors.

Now The Fun Begins

believe_catcher.jpg
The one drag about playing in Tempe South minors was that we did draft. I couldn’t just pick my whole team. I could only get a few of the players that I’d invested months in teaching. Sometimes that was a good thing. Some kids just need a change of scenery and I’d helped them as much as I could. With other kids it was hard for me, the kid, and parents. We wanted to play together, to keep going but I just couldn’t pick everyone. However, this I didn’t expect. It was awesome knowing someone on every team in the league. We had friends everywhere. So my team, my Red Sox, started practicing, and drilling, and learning and my God was it fun. I love teaching baseball.

This was my first year managing in the minors, so I was a little nervous. I was going up against legendary local coaches like Griffin Merkel, John Briscoe and Mark McGinnis. Virtually everyone in the league had coached and managed more than I had. I was lucky to be selected as a manager. Some of these guys managed a real club team, a team that had gone 17-0 in fall baseball. What did I know? But I gave it my all and most importantly so did my beloved Red Sox.

Scrimmage

baseball_scoop.jpg
After three weeks of practice, we scrimmaged the Cubs. We had a plan. I was ready. The boys were ready. We got shelled. It was a humbling experience, but like winter ball, we weren’t really playing to win. We were playing to learn specific things about our team. Who could pitch, who could play here, and who could catch? And after that, we spent two practices covering lessons we learned during the game.

The Season

Finally it was time for the season. And here’s my real story. Surprisingly, we came out of the gate and won our first game. It was a close contest, but we prevailed. Putting our players in positions of strength they did really, really well and it was fun. Then we won our second game. It was a little less of a nail biter, but we pulled it out. After the third win, it started to feel like something special. I remember our third contest. We faced Jay Bauerle’s Indians. It was a close game. We lead the whole time. But when my starter began to get tired, the Indians came roaring back. They pulled within one run in the bottom of the sixth. And we put in Bandit. (One thing you should know about my teams. I always give the kids nicknames). With the tying run on third and two outs, Bandit struck out the last batter to seal the win. My best friend and assistant Coach Ed looks at me says, “I think we found our closer.”

baseball_fielder.jpg
Suddenly, it felt like this was a special team with a special group of kids. We were undefeated. But we weren’t the only ones. The Astros – coached by Kevin Costigan and John Bistany, were right there matching us win for win. And suddenly Astros V Red Sox started to look like a showdown. And it was. The Astros were a great team. And yet, we prevailed. We started the season 7-0. We eventually went on to finish in first place with a record of 10-1-3. Three Ties! We were a tough team to beat.

redsox_at_bob.jpg

RedSox at Diamondbacks Day 2009

The best part of the entire season was that the kids really liked each other. They liked hanging out together, they liked going to D-Backs games together. The loved playing baseball together. I really enjoyed managing them. It was the highlight of my week.

The Playoffs

We were heavily favored to win. But this is little league. Suddenly those teams that seemed so easy to beat in the begging of the season were hitting and fielding. Easy ground balls in game 3 that lead to hits and runs were suddenly outs. Three of the first four minors playoff games were decided by 2 runs or less. Tempe South has something special. We play at a local field where all 4 diamonds back up together – and it feels like the whole community comes out to watch. Two elementary schools in particular feed our league and on Saturday nights all the minors and majors play – it seems like the whole neighborhood turns out to watch. People will walk, or ride their bikes down to the ball park to see 150 kids play baseball for two hours. There’s nothing quite like it. And as you can imagine, at playoff time, we really draw a crowd.

Losing

While we won our first game, it was a our second that tripped us up. Heavily favored to win the entire tournament we didn’t expect to get into a dog fight. Nor did we expect to drop our second playoff game by a score of 4-3. Four to Three! In a league where scoring 13 runs was common.

I remember being personally devastated. I remember feeling the tension rise as the kids went from discussing what they would do after they won, to realizing the game was slipping away from them. My best hitters started to press. They were swinging at garbage. I had two kids who’d hit 700 all year long – seriously, 3 out of 4 times they came to the plate they hit – both strike out back to back with the tying run on third. We had two excellent chances to tie the game but just couldn’t get the runner home from third. We were shell shocked. All of us.

The Believe Rock

Believe-rock.jpgEd and I didn’t know what to do. Then Ed’s wife Beth suggested Ed loan me their “believe rock”. It was a simple rock, a souvenir, from the Boston Red Sox 2004 World Series win. As the story goes, the Sox had made a similar rock with the word believe on it. And the luck of the rock had helped them win the series. Ed was a little embarrassed to tell me about it. To him it sounded kind of hokey, but something about it struck me just right. We needed to get our minds off the loss and move forward. We needed to get our swagger back – to shift our thinking and the rock seemed like just the thing.

So at the next game – we got to the field early, and because it was hotter than sin out in late May, we all put ice towels on our heads, and we stood in a circle around home plate. I held the stone out and said, “I am Coach Scott, and I believe today everyone will do their best. And win or lose, the Red Sox will play their best game ever. I then passed the stone to the player on my right. Then in sequence the stone made its way around the circle, each and every player stated their name and something positive they believed about the team. Finally the stone reached Ed who said my favorite thing. He said simply, “My name is Coach Ed, and I believe in the Red Sox, and I believe in each one of you.” Then we all came into the middle, put our hands on the stone and chanted, “I believe.”

Beware the Man Who Has Hope

I was going to say that I don’t know if it was the stone or not, but that would be a lie. It was the stone. Granted, the rock can’t play second base, or swing a bat, but it did focus us. It did bring us together. The ritual of sharing our hopes and dreams I believe was a powerful thing and it showed up that day against the Cubs. We found ourselves in the losers bracket, and if we wanted to win a championship we would have to climb up the losers ladder and beat the team from the winning bracket twice. Not only that, but the way the days fell we would have to be very careful and very lucky with our pitching. Little league has strict pitch counts and if players throw too many pitches in one game they are ineligible for the next. Winners get more days to rest. We definitely didn’t take the easy road.

I found out later, that one of the cubs players not knowing who they would play that day, ran up to the field and when they saw our banner shouted, “Oh Crap, it’s the Red Sox!” We won in convincing fashion 13-6. Our boys came out swinging from the first pitch and kept it up to the last. Near the end of the game, I remember looking at Showtime (our best player) and telling him, “You have 14 pitches to end this game.” The meaning was clear. If we went over 14 pitches we would be unable to use him in the next game. He threw only 13. And ended the game with a diving catch near third. The Red Sox definitely believed.

On a Mission

For our next game it was the same. We’d show up early, perform our pregame ritual of sharing our beliefs about the game and each other, and then we would go play. Win or lose, I believed everyone would do their best. Again, we scored 14 runs and gave up less than 10. We stayed alive to play another day. We joked we were playing Maximum Baseball. If we won it all we would play 7 games. The regular season was only 14. We’d play another half season – if we could get there.

And finally, we faced our nemesis, the team that had knocked us into the losers bracket – and that was the most intense hard fought game I can ever remember playing in. But we prevailed. Both teams played an excellent game, but in the end, we were able to pull it out. We were going to the championship against the A’s. We had made it.

A Championship to Remember

baseball_ground_ball.jpg
The first game of the championship was quite dully actually. We had all our pitchers so we threw our ace. Big Sarge. He threw a complete game and The Red Sox won in dominating fashion. However… the rain started to fall. A second game would have to be postponed. 6 days later – Game 2 of the Minors championship was on.

It didn’t start well for the Red Sox. The A’s threw their crafty left handed pitcher and our batters hungry for hits just couldn’t hold back. We played a strategy where our B-Pitchers would start the game (hopefully chewing up innings) so that we could finish with our Ace. That strategy didn’t work out quite like we planned. We were the visiting team and after 2 innings we found ourselves down 7 to 0. That was hard, but… our catcher – we called him Mad Dog – caught a runner missing home plate when he ‘scored’ a run. The player ran up to the plate but never touched it and went into the dug out. Mad Dog turned to the Umpire and said, “he missed the plate.” The ump said, “I can’t help you but your coach can.” Mad Dog came to me and I told him what to do. “Go stand on home plate. Throw the pitcher the ball. Now have the pitcher throw you the ball. Step on the plate. Now look a the umpire.” (this is called an appeal) The ump called the runner out. I couldn’t believe it. Our stands erupted in cheers and so did our boys. It was a silly play – the other side just didn’t realize he’d missed home. But we needed the lift and at the start of the next inning it showed.

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I will never forget standing at third base, in my coaches box, rocking back and forth waiting for something to happen. And it did. My son got a lead off double. Then right behind him Showtime blasted a home run to the fence. He absolutely crushed the ball and with the speed of those two kids there was no way anyone was going to get the ball in before they crossed home plate. Suddenly it was 7-2 and I thought, “here we come”. A couple more hits, some aggressive base running and we were able to scratch out 2 more runs. Suddenly it was 7-4. A much closer game. Finally we were able to bring in our ace. And the battle was on. We held them scoreless, and took the lead. 8-7 the next inning. Then they took it back, 9-8. The last batter in our lineup tied the game with a home run. 9-9. Our defense held in the bottom of the 6th inning to send the game into extra innings. It was a crazy, a minor league second game championship that went into extra innings.

For what ever reason, we came out swinging. We scored 5 runs in the top of the 7th and held the A’s scoreless. I’ll never forget the look on Rocket’s face (my son) when the batter hit the last out of the game, a pop up to first. Everyone rushed in on Sarge but gave him the room to make the catch. I could see that Matt so badly wanted to get to that ball but he believed in his teammate, gave him space and watched anxiously as he caught it cleanly and the game was over. We had done the impossible. We had climbed up from the losers bracket and won a championship. We had believed and we were rewarded for our belief.

redsox2009champs.jpg

Legacy

I have no idea what will happen this season. But I do know that I now carry a believe rock with me where ever I go. It was a gift. A pocket size river rock with the word “Believe” inscribed in gold letters. A special souvenir for a season I’ll never forget. Whenever I get down, whenever I feel like the world has turned against me, I remember those boys and the purity and strength of their belief, and I have faith. Confidence makes all the difference. You just have to believe.

Sometimes winning it all simply means that you kept the faith when life threw you a curve.