I love running. Wait, that’s a lie. I love running after I’ve finished my run. I also love it during those periods where I get my runner’s high, usually around the 30 minute mark, but often it happens multiple times after that point. I don’t love running when I’m contemplating going for a run. There are rare occasions where I’m just itching to go for a run, but usually I’m only able start a run by forcibly suppressing the compelling rationalizations that my brain develops. My brain is really good at finding reasons not to run. One trick that seems to work is to tell my brain that I have the right to turn around when I get to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. Of course, once I’ve done the mechanics of getting my shoes and starting, I never turn around. My brain is so gullible.

I also don’t love my run during the first 10 to 15 minutes. Those are always a struggle. Always. Stretching beforehand makes it less of a struggle, but I hate stretching, so I rarely do that. I have a few techniques to get myself through the beginnings of my runs.

1. Count: Just count from 1 to 100. Once you get to a hundred, start over. This one works the best. That’s why it’s first!
2. Mantra: Repeat a mantra to yourself. My favorites are: Keep covering ground (inspired by my favorite running book, Once a Runner) and Just keep swimming
3. Food: Start thinking about what I’m going to eat after the run. OK, this rarely helps, but I can’t stop thinking about it.
4. Slow: If I’m really feeling sluggish, then I force myself to slow down. As I’ve mentioned before, running slow is probably the most important running technique I have. It’s counter-intuitive, but it always work. Running slower than I think I should always makes the run go faster than I thought it would.
5. Shorten: Shorten your stride. I aim to get 3 strides per second, which seems really quick to me. In order to do that I shorten my stride. I think most runners would benefit from a shorter stride. It automatically improves your form.

Basically, all of these are tricks to get your mind to focus on something else besides the pain of the run. One thing that also helps is to listen to music or podcasts. It works by the same principle of getting your mind off the pain, but I found that my best runs were always the ones where I left the iPod at home. It certainly makes the beginning of the run harder, but it frees my brain up to really listen to my body. I would otherwise find myself adjusting my pace to the beat of the music, rather than to the pace that my body naturally wanted to go. I also tend to have my deepest thoughts (don’t laugh!) when I’m running and having music pumped in would drown those out. I consider it my meditation practice, since I suck at real meditation. Finally, it’s a safety issue. When running in the woods, you never know what kind of creature will attack:

Deer Turtle

Take my advice for what it’s worth… running advice from a part-time runner who is slower than molasses. I’d love to hear any other running tricks you have!

Ever since my Dad brought home an Apple IIe back in 1980, I’ve been a huge Apple fan. The design of my website back in the mid 90’s was a ripoff of the Mac OS 9 System menu. (I found a later version on the Wayback Machine. I had swapped out the Apple icon for the icon of the startup I was working with at the time.) I loved OS X for a while, especially on my 12" Aluminum powerbook. But over time, I got more and more frustrated by it. I wanted to be able to configure more. When the hard drive on that Powerbook died, I decided to move to all linux.

trying to visualize life without a mac

— Vinod Kurup (@vkurup) February 13, 2009

I am happy and productive, but I am occasionally jealous of Mac OS X. I set up a Mac Airbook for my mother-in-law a few months ago and … can I just drool for a minute about that computer? But, I was able to set it up, wipe up my drool, and then return to my Ubuntu machines without too many pangs of jealousy. For the stuff that I do, Linux works perfectly.

The one pain point that I’ve been having over the past few years is video editing. I take a lot of movies of the kids and I like to do some very simple editing of them before uploading them to youtube. This was super easy in iMovie back in 2007. I haven’t found a similar experience on Linux. It’s reassured me a little to hear that iMovie has gotten weaker and weaker over the years, so I didn’t feel any need to go back to Mac for this one function.

I had been using Kino, but the developer stopped working on it and it had some minor bugs. It doesn’t play well with PulseAudio, the overarching audio system in linux. So I had to start it with the command padsp kino which allows kino to bypass PulseAudio. That then makes all other sound on the computer stop until I quit Kino. And with every OS update, there would be minor changes that would require me to fiddle with the audio settings again. Finally, I didn’t really understand the Export settings, so my videos were never as optimized as they could be. There were tabs for DVD and MPEG output, but there was also one for Other and there were MPEG options in there too. I was thoroughly confused and was hoping for something to come along that would be better. Mark Pilgrim mentioned OpenShot once and I looked at it back then, but I couldn’t figure it out. I tried valiantly for a day and then returned to hacking on Kino.

Fast forward about a year and after a little more frustration with how my videos looked on youtube, I gave OpenShot another try. Version 1.2 is packaged in Ubuntu 10.10, but 1.3 offered some other nice features, like exporting directly to Youtube, so I downloaded the PPA and installed 1.3.

Openshot Main Window

What a breath of fresh air! It was so easy to import clips. It was so easy to place clips on the timeline. It was easy to splice and add transitions. It was easy to add titles. Most importantly it was easy to export to HD video format so now the videos look better on Youtube.

I don’t use Linux for its video editing capabilities. I use it because I believe in the idea of free software and because for my purposes, emacs and a web browser are all that I really need. But I am pleasantly surprised when I see something like OpenShot evolve and improve to the point that it solves my problem exactly. I will be donating some dollars over there.

I was thinking the other day, on a run, of course, about the many ways that running is a metaphor for life. I’ve discussed some of this before with my cousins Dilu and Harish before.

… two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

While trail running, I have come to the realization that you never have to worry about the fork in the road, nor the decision associated with it. During my first trail run in the forest near our home, I was amazed by the number of single track trailheads that I saw. I didn’t take any of them that first day, content to just take the wide dirt path along the creek. After a few runs though, I started to take some of the single track trails and found myself amongst even more beautiful nature. I found more forks in the trails and I agonized a bit about taking the right one, mainly so I wouldn’t get lost. Now that I’ve run in the woods dozens of times, I don’t worry about the fork in the road. I know that I can take one fork today and the other fork tomorrow.

Life is like that too. Every decision point seems so important. Making the wrong decision seems like it will doom me forever. But, I’ve found so far that there are very few decisions that are not reversible. Certainly some are, but even the important ones like career and family don’t have to be set in stone. I wish I had come to this realization earlier. Every decision seems so final at the time that I’m making it, but when you look back it seems obvious that there are plenty of options available, no matter which path you chose. Even knowing that bias, it’s hard to remember that when a new decision has to be made.

Some of the single track trails have pathmarkers to help keep you on the right trail. They are little numbered plastic circles nailed to a tree. They are few and far between. Occasionally, you’ll come to a fork in the trail and there won’t be an obvious pathmarker around, so you have to make a decision. That can be somewhat stressful, so you keep your eyes peeled for pathmarkers as you’re running to see if you made the right decision. At some point, you’ve gone so far without seeing a marker that you’re almost certain that you’ve gone the wrong way. Either you keep the faith and keep going, or you turn around and try the other fork. There is no right answer.

Life is sometimes like that. We have signposts and decision trees that are easy to follow in many cases. But inevitably, there will be a point where we have to make a decision without all of the evidence or without all of the data or without a clear idea of where we’re going. Not until you take that leap of faith will you get the signal that you’ve made the right decision. And sometimes that signal won’t come for a long time. I’m not sure what the point of this is, but it seemed very profound at the time while I was running in the woods, about to give up, thinking that I had gone down the wrong path, when I suddenly saw the elusive pathmarker that confirmed that I was not lost. Trail running is like that… everything is not set in stone and predefined. You have to develop your faith and intuition, and if that fails, accept that maybe you’ll do better next time.

Ever since I was a boy, I have been singing a song called ‘Daivame Kaithozham’, which is pronounced ‘Dave-O-May Kie-Tho-Ram’. My parents taught it to me when I was about 5 years old, so I learned it by learning the syllables in the song. I know bits and pieces of Malayalam, but not enough to know what the words of the song mean. Whenever I’m feeling stressed, I sing it under my breath and it makes me feel better. Kavi wasn’t the best sleeper as a baby, so we spent a lot of time singing him back to sleep. Daivame Kaithozham was one of my standbys and he has heard it literally thousands of times. Even now, I sing it to him and Anika almost daily, though he has requested that I cut it down to weekly. (He likes Laurie Berkner’s “Moon, moon, moon” better. Oh well.) Both Anika and Kavi have heard it enough that they can mimic me singing it, though they don’t know the words… mostly just the rhythm. But, it’s the cutest thing in the world to see Anika pick up her doll, put it on the floor and start singing “Daivame…”

Anyway, I finally (after 30 something years) asked my parents what the song means, so here is the translation. I’m not the most religious person in the world, but if you replace God with whatever supernatural force you believe in, I think it’s a nice simple prayer.

Daivame Kaithozham

Daivame kaithozham kelkumarakanam
Pavamamenne nee kakkumarakanam
Ennullil bhaktiyundakumarakanam
Ninne jnanennume kanumarakanam

Nervazhikkenne nee kondupoyeedanam
Nervarum sankadam bhasmamayeedanam
Dushtasamsargam varatheyayeedanam
Shishtarayullavar thozharayeedanam

Nalla karyangalil premamundakanam
Nalla vakkothuvan thraniyundakanam
Kruthyangal cheyyuvan sradhayundakanam
Satyam paranjeedan saktiyundakana

Translated

O’Almighty God my humble salutation, may you kindly listen to my prayers
May you always protect this poor innocent one from all my sufferings.
May my devotion to you flourish in my heart without any interruptions
May I always visualize your eternal divine form within and without.

O’ God lead me through the right path
Annihilate all obstructions facing me
And protect me from evil interactions
Provide me with serene and sober friends.

May I always impart compassion and love to all
O’ Lord provide me courage to talk only good words
May I be provided with the right convictions to do my duties
And give me your blessed strength to tell always the truth alone.

I don’t know why I keep reading books about entrepreneurship. I like the idea of building a business, having passion for something, and most importantly, living life on your own terms. I just don’t think I’m cut out for it. But see if that will stop me from devouring Hacker News, startup podcasts and books like Derek Sivers' Anything You Want.

Derek was a musician who started selling his own CDs online in the days before Paypal. He agreed to help a friend by selling his friend’s CDs as well, and eventually CD Baby was born. He built it into a successful business and sold it for $22 million. This book is a set of stories of how that happened. An excellent bullet point summary of the book is available. This short book was filled with interesting advice and stories, but here’s my main takeaways.

Focus on helping people

It would seem like the way to build a successful business would be to focus on things like profits, or markets, or costs, but Derek says to ignore all that and focus on helping people. He started by helping out a fellow musician, and he made sure that every decision he made was in the name of helping independent musicians. If big labels asked to be added to CD Baby, he said no. If people recommended placing ads on his site, he said no. If a business offered some kind of big money partnership which required him to change the way he ran his business, he said no. Find someone you can help and provide enough value to that person to make them happy to pay you for the help and you will have a successful business.

Make something perfect, not big

So, I thought that by taking an unrealistically utopian approach, I could keep the business from growing too much. Instead of trying to make it big, I was going to make it small. It was the opposite of ambition, so I had to think in a way that was the opposite of ambitious.

The key point is that I wasn’t trying to make a big business. I was just daydreaming about how one little thing would look in a perfect world.

Derek actively tried to keep his business from growing. At some point, he was making enough money that he felt the growth of the business would only create more headaches for him. Instead of trying to get more business, he would try to make his current business perfect. Focus on ways to make the business run the way you want the world to work. Build your utopia. If you are always focused on growing the business, you eventually have to make compromises between what your current customers want and what “potential” customers want. But, if your current customers are the ones who you’re passionate about serving, then making their experience even better will paradoxically bring growth, while also making your life as a business owner more fulfilling.

This book is not about business

It’s important to know in advance, to make sure you’re staying focused on what’s honestly important to you, instead of doing what others think you should.

It’s really a book about life. Focus on helping people and good things will happen to you. Figure out what makes you tick, what makes you happy, and what drains you. Adjust your life to give you more time to do what makes you happy and stop doing the things that drain you. Derek’s rule about this is “HELL, YEAH!” or “no”. If someone offers you an opportunity and you don’t say “HELL, YEAH!”, then say “no”. Don’t go halfway. Do things that you love. (His actual rule is a little more ‘explicit’, as he describes in this podcast)

A few other quotes that I loved

Getting things done isn’t the only goal

[Other people] assume the only reason we do anything is to get it done, and doing it yourself is not the most efficient way. But that’s forgetting about the joy of learning and doing.

Know thyself

Just pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you. Pay close attention to when you’re being the real you and when you’re trying to impress the invisible jury.

Unexpected twist

So I considered firing everyone and hiring a whole new crew. … I never saw or spoke to my employees again. Never saw the office again.

Wasn’t expecting to read that. Thought that he would find a way to patch things up, but stuff like this happens in the real world.

How to do customer service

This wasn’t from the book, but was in a great Mixergy interview that I heard after finishing the book. He describes his customer service philosophy as the Mick Jagger philosophy. Pretend that every customer service request you get is from Mick Jagger. (Assuming your company is in the music business). If someone emails you a request about how they can’t access a PDF file on your site, that might seem like an annoying complaint. But if you pretend that it’s coming from Mick Jagger, you’d respond “Wow, thanks for emailing me. Here, let me just get that PDF for you and attach it to this email. Again, please let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you!” And if that is heartfelt, customers will love you.

Bottom line

I enjoyed this book. It’s a quick read, it’s cheap (I read the Kindle version on my Android tablet for $7.99) and it’s inspirational. I recommend it.

I’m sorry, but I just can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years since I left Boston. Mala had a meeting there and we love to take advantage of our employers' generosity ¹, so I TrippedIt ² back to Boston for some nostalgia with 2 kids in tow (Ages 4 and 2). Buildings and restaurants have come and gone ³, but it seems like so little has changed in 10+ years. I forgot how “unfriendly” the city was. The trip was a few weeks ago, so it’s not fresh in my mind anymore, but I remember thinking that vividly while I was there. You get the sense that everyone has their shields up (or their guns drawn, to mix metaphors) for whatever reason. None of the experiences were horrible, but it was little things… Bathrooms are “broken” in every fast food restaurant. Restaurants have arcane rules: “No, we only do takeout after 3PM” or “Cash Only - there’s an ATM over there”. Customer service people must be groomed to be rude. We’re members of the (AWESOME!) Durham Museum of Life and Science which gives us free entry to science museums around the country, so we walked up to the Members desk at Boston’s version (Museum of Science) and promptly got lectured about how we weren’t really members and next time we should go in the Nonmembers line. (Um, we’re visiting from North Carolina… there’s probably not going to be a next time anytime soon). I actually turned around and looked at all of the people behind me and apologized for our rudeness. Wait! There was no one else waiting! Just makes you feel small, which burns me up, because I know that was her objective. I know none of that seems all that bad, but that general attitude seemed prevalent and brought back memories of Boston that I had repressed. We all had a great time in Boston, but I am so glad that I’m living in North Carolina.

Wow, that little interlude took me from excited to depressed in no time flat. Enough of that. Let’s talk about the fun stuff we did. We always research on the web to get a sense of things Kavi and Anika might like. I had trouble finding good first-person stories about Boston trips with little kids, so here’s mine, in case someone has 2 kids exactly like ours. If this is useful, or if you have stuff to add, please leave a comment or point to your blog.

Things the kids loved:

• Being in Boston: “We’re in BOSTON!”
• Walking the streets and seeing all kinds of vehicles: Taxis, buses, trolleys, Ducks, police cars, and most excitingly, Minivans!.
• Mapparium at Mary Baker Eddy Library: Kavi talked about this a lot for the rest of the trip, but at the time didn’t seem all that impressed by it. He was intrigued by the fact that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside it. He also liked the Hall of Ideas and the computerized art programs upstairs.
• Boston Common Carousel: It’s a carousel. Of course they loved it!
• Swan boats: Definitely a must-do. It’s short and sweet.
• Ducklings in the Garden: Dressed in Bruins outfits while we were there. Those poor ducks were constantly surrounded by little ones.
• Boston Commons and Garden: There’s plenty of stuff for the kids to see and do here, but they’re not so big that you’ll get lost (think Central Park).
• Boston Commons Playground: Every parent on a trip knows that step one is finding all the local playgrounds. This is a nice one and was close to the hotel. That meets all the necessary requirements. By the way, while putting this post together, I found this nice listing of playgrounds in Boston.
• Playground on Tremont: We found a much smaller playground between the Hotel and NEMC that Kavi and Anika liked a little better, mostly because they had it all to themselves.
• Playgrounds on the Charles River: Take the bridge over to the Hatch shell, go left (west) and walk for about half a mile. Nestled between Storrow Drive and the Charles River, there’s plenty to watch and play with. Kavi and Anika really liked the little car. Oh, and if you happen to go right (east) instead of left, there’s a great playground near the tennis courts, which is on the way to the Museum of Science.
  
• Hatch shell: There was an AIDS race while we were there which meant lots of people and balloons to keep the kids occupied. I heard it gets crazy on July 4th :-)
• Museum of Science: Aside from the annoying registration employee, this was fun. The Discovery Center didn’t open for an hour, so we explored the regular museum first. Most of it was above Kavi and Anika’s age level, so they were getting bored/overwhelmed. The Discovery Center was better, though we didn’t find the best part (the upstairs level) until near the end of our stay. Kavi’s favorite thing was watching the pneumatic tube system. The volunteers up there were really engaging as well.
  
• Children’s Museum: The museum with the “rabbit sitting on top” and the big milk bottle on the side. Predictably loved by Kavi and Anika.
• New England Aquarium: The kids were underwhelmed. They liked the Vancouver and Atlanta ones more. We spent most of our time in the toddler area playing with toys that are normally found in doctors' waiting rooms. I think they’ll love this in a couple years.
  
• The T: We could have just ridden the T every day. It was loud, which freaks Kavi out a bit, but not as loud as New York. We rode on the blue line to get to the aquarium, and the Green line to come back to the Hotel. He especially liked the Green line because the “floor turns”.
  
• Park Plaza: A decent hotel. Living mostly on reputation and location. I guess we’ve been spoiled by modern hotels in other cities, so the Park Plaza seemed dingy and overpriced. But the location is awesome, work was paying for it, and our kids love any hotels, so I recommend it.

Dining:

• Vapiano (pseudo-italian restaurant where Bennigan’s used to be): The kids liked their pastas and like sitting at the little tables.
• Jae’s Cafe: Not really a kids thing, but we went early on a weeknight and had a really nice dinner. They have “training” chopsticks that the kids loved.
• Mike’s City Diner: (Ouch, Flashy website) Our first breakfast stop and we returned a few days later which is a huge endorsement. Avoid it on weekends though, because it’s packed. Cash only.
  
• Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe: Another great breakfast place. We went on Kavi’s birthday and were just about the only ones in the restaurant, so the entire staff sang Happy Birthday and put a candle on his pancake. He was so thrilled. Cash only.
• Legal Seafood: Quick dinner after arriving from the airport. Not the most kid friendly place, but aside from a long wait, it was fine.
• Dunkin Donuts: Nostalgic coffee and donuts, but NO BATHROOMS!
• Asian Garden: The best salt & pepper squid that I have ever had. Still as good as I remember it 15 years ago!
  
• Dim Sum at Hei La Moon: Mala was at her meeting, Anika was asleep and Kavi was sick, so only I got to enjoy this luxury.
• North End (Boston’s Little Italy): We went to visit Mala’s friends and had great take out. The walk from the Park Plaza was nice, since it crossed the Garden, the government center area and the North End, all of which had sights that the kids enjoyed
• Croissant Du Jour: Great breakfast food and sandwiches.
• Finale: We went here for Kavi’s birthday dessert. Nowhere near as good as I remember it being, but that might be because Mala is just an amazing cook, so my standards have risen.
  
• Parish Cafe: Sandwiches are awesome! We went there on Monday, which is the day that we eat only veggies, so I couldn’t try the Regis that I used to love. The bread, though, was enough to satisfy my cravings. Sit outside and the kids will be entertained by the constant traffic and activity on Boylston Street.

Useful Android Apps:

• Yelp: I downloaded a bunch of other ones including AAA Triptik, Tripadvisor, HopStop, but I ended up using Yelp and Google Maps predominantly.
• TripIt: Not specific to Boston, but this app makes traveling easier. Keeps track of all your flight info, hotel info and any other itinerary info you want to stick into it.

End result of the trip: Success!

I talked yesterday about how I didn’t like the Google Listen podcast client. I did a little Googling and found a nice solution (somewhat ironic, in an Alanis Morrissette kinda way): Doggcatcher. It costs $6.99 and I spent an extra $3.99 for Presto Sound Library which allows you to speed up the podcasts a little. Sorry Merlin! (He hates when people do this). Doggcatcher seems to do everything I mentioned as requirements in yesterday’s post. I also like that it doesn’t sync between clients, so I can have audio podcasts on my phone and video podcasts on my gtab tablet. It has a million configuration options, so you can set certain podcasts as higher priority than others and you can define how many episodes should be downloaded per podcast. I love having that kind of flexibility. Most importantly, the UI has been understandable and every time I launch it, I’m placed right back at the same place that I left off when I quit.

In the years I’ve been listening to podcasts, I’ve only found 2 podcast clients that I’ve really liked: iTunes (back around 2005-2007) and a bash script that I wrote which simply copied files downloaded by podget onto my iPod nano. Google Listen on my Droid X (Android 2.2) is tolerable, but only barely. I think my requirements are simple. I want to put in URLs and have the client get all the podcasts in that URL and stick them in a queue. I want the client to refresh every N hours and add new files to the queue. I want the client to automatically download each file in the queue. Once I listen to a file, I want the client to delete it from my device. I’d like a configurable option to be able to save a file, while I’m listening to it, so if I am listening to something that I want to hear again, I hit a save button and it won’t automatically be deleted. If I don’t like an episode, I’d like to hit ‘next’ to have that podcast deleted and the next one started. Finally, I want some statistics about which podcasts I’m listening to, which ones I’m skipping, and then some suggestions about which podcasts I might like. A product from Google should be able to do this. Unfortunately, I can’t reliably tell which podcasts I’m subscribed to. There is a ‘subscribe’ button in each one, and when I click it, it changes to ‘unsubscribe’, but then when I back out and come back, it says ‘subscribe’ again, so I’m not sure if I am subscribed or unsubscribed. When I subscribe, the podcasts show up in Google Reader, and I don’t want them there. I understand the idea of reusing Google Reader since it is a RSS/Atom reader, but I never listen to podcasts on my computer. I don’t know what happens if I mark something as read in Google Reader. Does that mean it won’t show up in Listen? I haven’t figured it out. Each time I start Listen, it seems that a different podcast starts, rather than starting where I left off. Well, it’s inconsistent. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Skipping a podcast doesn’t delete it, although there is a config option for that. Maybe I’m just doing it wrong. Most annoyingly, it doesn’t automatically download all the podcasts, so when one finishes, I have to wait for the next one to start buffering and if I’m driving and I happen to be in a poor 3G service area, that might take a while. Maybe this should be my first Android project?

My commute to work is 25 minutes each way, so I’m always looking for a podcast to listen to. I’ve been a fan of the 43folders website for years and Merlin Mann recently started a podcast called Back To Work with Dan Benjamin. Dan Benjamin, it turns out, is the founder of a network called 5by5, which he says has been called “NPR for geeks”. The shows I’ve listened to have all been sharp and entertaining so far. I especially like Latest in Paleo (despite the fact that I’m not eating anything near a Paleo diet) and the Pipeline (check out the interview with Philip Elmer-DeWitt). Looking through the list of shows, I can only believe that Dan Benjamin has to be the most productive person on the face of the earth.

I’m currently also listening to All About Android, This American Life and some UC-Berkeley CS lectures. Any other great podcasts I’m missing?

I found this great github project. It’s just a list of .gitignore files for various languages and platforms, but it’s nice to have them all in one place. The .gitignore file is, like it sounds, a list of files or directories that you don’t want to be included in version control. For Android, for example, the bin/ and gen/ directories are generated each time you compile, so you don’t want to include that. Especially, as I learned, because it will give you errors when you run a project created on one computer, on a different computer. The Android .gitignore from github unfortunately didn’t have bin/ or gen/ (or local.properties) in there, so I put them in and was about to send them a pull request, when I found someone else had made the same changes a few days ago already. Which makes me feel better that I was on the right path. Go Open Source!