December 31, 2009

bullets: 12/31/09

Just a few quick bullet-pointed updates:

That's all for now. As I recall, my resolution for 2009 was to keep on doing more or less what I was doing, and I think I stayed true to that goal, at least for the first three-quarters of the year. 2010 is going to be about new horizons and new opportunities, about working both hard and smart towards careful strategic goals, and to bringing new innovations to market. If '09 was about being on cruise control down the straightaway, '10 is about getting into the curves and standing on the accelerator.

So hang on for the ride!

Happy New Year!

Posted by Mark at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2009

stories, travel, career

Just a quick update, I have been writing, just not publishing here much. I sent a couple of short fiction pieces out for publication in the last few weeks, of which one has already been rejected--I'm actually not too surprised, as it didn't have a strong horror element (it's a "serious" sci-fi piece) and the magazine, Apex, is a horror sci-fi magazine. The other, a more humorous sci-fi piece, is out to another magazine, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and I think it might be a better fit. Who knows. I'll resend the first piece later this week, once the luggage is all put away and the laundry is done.

I had a great opportunity to do some travel in the Eastern Mediterranean with Kara and friends MJP and Stephanie, and we just came back yesterday. I think the trips would lend themselves to list-type articles. Maybe I'll even bang one out this afternoon.

Also, if you haven't heard, I am out of a full-time job as of the beginning of this month. However, a very intriguing opportunity to do some contract consulting work has emerged, which ought to be kicking off in a week or two. So, I won't be idle very long. I'm also working on a handful of startup opportunities with some other folks from BU, which might bear fruit, and will be very interesting to be a part of, if nothing else.

I've recently come to the conclusion that the "web development" arena has changed significantly over the last 10 years, and it's put me in a bit of a bind. The fact is, there used to be two very distinct jobs:

I started out in the biz as a guy who knew Photoshop and general principles of information design. I saw the potential of the web as a place where cool new ideas could get done; from the beginning, I had an entrepreneurial mindset (although I didn't realize it at the time). I didn't (and don't) care much about the details of how things got done--which language, which architecture, which database, etc.--just that they got done and were available for people to use. If you needed more speed, throw hardware at the problem, or hire a consultant.

In retrospect, I probably should have taken a post-college job offer I got from Modem Media, which would have gotten me into the process of interactive media development (and probably would have had me unemployed by 2002 as well). But, I took the money and the webmaster job in Maryland, and started down the road of implementing applications that were designed by other people. Soon, the question was "Can you do database-enabled applications?" which seemed like an awful lot more programmy than I wanted to get, but that's where the money was, so I followed. And then it was "Can you do some shell scripting?" and "Can you do some Java?" and on and on, and before I knew it, I was working as a programmer.

And I wasn't bad at it. But I wasn't great at it either, and not because I couldn't have been, but just because I didn't have the passion for the nitpicky little details that true programmers have to care about. Discussions about how to structure functions and how much abstraction was appropriate were, to me, religious arguments, a distraction from the problem of getting the work done. I still maintain that position: a lot of programmers waste a lot of expensive hours crafting unnecessarily elegant solutions that may be beautiful to them, but which are wasteful to their employers. Somewhere, there's a balance.

So, web development gradually became programming; programmers implemented business solutions for the web using languages increasingly indistinguishable from those used in shrink-wrapped software. Don't believe me? Somebody just wrote a version of Wolfenstein 3D that runs in Javascript. Looks like Javascript isn't just some "scripting" language anymore.

There was a point when I really wanted to get good at programming, to be an amazing coder. But at the same time, I saw that my input into the what of the business was being required less and less--not just my input, but the input of my peers. So I decided to go for an MBA, to learn about the business side of operations. In some ways, that was career suicide: I don't think I have ever had a conversation with a programmer who didn't look at me with at least initial disdain when I revealed my interest in business. I found myself having to actually defend wanting a graduate degree.

I can understand the perspective; I too once mocked "suits" who "didn't have a clue what was going on." Turns out that they didn't have a clue about the actual inner workings of the code, because they were usually too busy trying to make sure we made money and could get paid. This isn't to say that there probably wasn't some real discrimination on the business side for the "code monkeys" as well. But any programmer would welcome a businessperson trying to learn more about technology, and I thought it unfair to look down upon a technical person wanting to get a better understanding of how technology translates into paychecks.

So, here I am. I'm not exactly sure what the future holds for me, just that I have to be a lot more careful in my career path than I've been in the last 10 years. Consulting is an option. Working in industry is another. I'm looking for a way to leverage what I know about technology, without spending my days in a closet, face down in a text editor. I don't want to settle for a job that doesn't utilize my public speaking and writing abilities, for example, or all the knowledge I've gained in the business sector. I'm exhausted and frustrated by jobs where I'm told not to worry about the details of what we're doing, strategically and tactically, but just to worry about the how.

Don't get me wrong: I still love technology. But to use the architectural metaphor, I love the shape of the building, the functionality of the rooms and hallways, the location in relation to the traffic flows of the city. There are other, better, bricklayers and steelworkers, and I'm happy to let them do their jobs.

So, we'll see where things go from here. I'm 31, I have a handful of classes left before I get that MBA, and it's time for a career change. I don't regret the experiences I've gained, working in the trenches for the past ten years, but I'm ready to get up on the battlefield and do something I'm passionate about--and can be really exceptional at.

Posted by Mark at 09:16 AM | Comments (2)

August 19, 2009

on vacation

markdalius.com is on vacation until next week. Hopefully I'll have some good stories to tell from Napa and Sonoma.

See you then!

--Mark

Posted by Mark at 11:36 AM | Comments (1)

August 03, 2009

old content, blog ads

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I'm experimenting with the blog. You may have noticed a few Google ads over on the right-hand column; I'm trying out Google AdSense to see if it's worthwhile. At best, it will be useful; I hope that at least, it will be unobtrusive. It should pick up keywords from the articles and attempt to show relevant ads.

Right now it's showing something for a Salvador Dali art supplier in New York. I'm not sure what that has to do with Cici's Pizza or Andy Rooney, but that's the state of the art in online advertising technology, I guess.

I've also unpublished a lot of the old content. I'd like to set things up so that I can make some of the old stuff password protected or something along those lines for close friends/family, but I don't think I can do that with my current blogging software. There's nothing published on here that I'm not comfortable discussing on the Today Show, but the story of the last five years of my life isn't the focus of what I'm writing about. So, for now, it's not available, to keep more personal stuff a little more private.

I did leave up two articles in particular: the one where I wrote about my engagement to Kara, which garnered some random comments from other women on the Internet named Kara, and from one of her old high school friends. The other is an article on "cool sword names" which is inexplicably the #3 link on Google if you search for "cool sword names" and has gotten some random internet comments as well.

I'll probably have to follow it up with an updated article to capture the popular "fans of swords" demographic. Write what your audience wants to hear, I always say!

More real and entertaining (?) content coming soon.

Posted by Mark at 02:13 PM | Comments (1)

July 29, 2009

more content on the way...

I was pretty good about sticking to the MWF schedule for a week, but spending the weekend in PA threw me a bit. Plus, got a work project that I'm wrapping up...rest assured, new content is on the way.
--Mark

Posted by Mark at 01:10 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2009

upcoming blog changes

I'm considering making some changes to the format of the blog. Facebook has largely replaced the trivial "here are pictures of my cat and we're going to the Vermont house this weekend" type of life updates...the personal stuff. LinkedIn has replaced the professional "here is my resume and some work samples" part, which, frankly, hasn't been up on this site since I changed it from a job hunting site to a blog.

So what I'm thinking about doing is attempting to write more articles that people might want to read and enjoy. I have some ideas for categories, structure, and schedule, and while I'm doubt that I'm going to end up being a HuffingtonPost or BoingBoing or Slashdot, I would like to at least present content that appeals to a wider audience.

What sorts of articles? Well, nothing far out of the realm of what I write about now. Food, cooking, beer, travel, news, thoughts about life, how-to's...basically, I want to learn everything about everything worth knowing, and pass it along to people who like being well-rounded, in a style that's entertaining and accessible. Or something like that. I'm still working out the details.

At various times, I've considered starting up a sort of side-blog project to do something like this, but never really got around to it. Given how infrequently I update this blog, I think adding another blog to the list is a recipe for just not getting anything done.

And, I don't think I need to go register another website and come up with a brand that represents the type of writing about everything that I want to do...I think that markdalius.com, as an extension of me, is also an extension of what I perceive my personal brand to be. I'm curious, I'm obsessed with learning, and I like to teach other people what I know. I'm not planning to build this as a magazine with a staff or anything like that; I'm taking my own hobbies and trying to spend some time writing about them. Basically monetizing my hobby of dabbling.

My motivation behind all this is certainly not to make tons of money...I did a quick analysis of the online magazine/blog space and determined that it's a shockingly lousy industry to be in, with trivial barriers to entry for competitors, lots of buyer and seller power, plenty of substitutes, and a ton of competition. It is not a replacement for my day job. It's just me thinking that I should be writing more and needing a place to do it, and figuring that I might as well try to get people to read what I write, do some self-marketing, and if I can pay for the web hosting with some ads, that's a plus.

So what does this all boil down to? Well, probably these changes:

I'm not sure if this is overly ambitious, but at the very least, I think I can devote an hour a week to banging out a screen of text that is intended to have a point. If I'm honest with myself about, again, my personal brand, and my strengths, I think that I've got some writing skills that could be coupled with that innate curiousity and might result in some good content being generated. It's nice in one sense that the startup costs are nothing...I don't have to deal with editors or shopping my stuff around, or losing ownership rights. It's my stuff, it's up there, and I can do pretty much whatever I want to do, and the market will tell me if it's working or not.

So, let's see how this goes. I'll write up some sample articles over the next few weeks to prime the pump, before I make any changes to the site or do any ads or anything, and we'll take it from there.

Posted by Mark at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2006

steps to an engagement

So today I'll tell the extended version of my engagement to Kara.

I initially planned to propose around Memorial Day of this year, as that would mark our 2-year anniversary of when we started dating. But, losing my job put the kibosh on that plan (and our plans to buy a condo, but that's another story). Was Kara going to say "no, I'm not marrying an unemployed loser?" Of course not. But it remained a point of--pride? responsibility?--for me to say "I need to have all my ducks in a row before I can commit to partnering with someone else."

I almost said "take care of" there, but that's just not true. Kara and I are partners and equals, first and foremost. And frankly, I'd be overjoyed if she were bringing home the bulk of the bacon. But just as a corporation has to prepare its books internally before a merger, I had to do the same with my job situation.

The groundwork, however, was laid. There were three primary tasks that had to be completed for the proposal. First, I needed permission from the parents. Second, I needed a ring. Third, I needed a proposal plan.

The ring, ironically, was both the first and last thing to come together. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, I had my grandmother Rose's ring, and my intention for some time had been to get the center stone reset in a new mounting that would both fit Kara's hand and be a design that she really liked. Not that she didn't like the original, but she was interested in a silver-finish ring, either white gold or platinum, and we had gone back and forth on whether she wanted a solitaire setting or some side stones.

We wanted to have a setting that would accentuate the center stone, not make it look smaller by having similarly-sized diamonds on either side. Also, she initially wanted platinum, but after some discussions with friends and a jeweler, she chose white gold. Mainly, this was because gold maintains a shine more readily than platinum, which develops a dull patina that makes the metal look aged, thus requiring more frequent polishing. Also, platinum is heavier than gold, which can be noticable after awhile. And of course, platinum is considerably more expensive, and although she and I didn't talk quite as much about cost-of-ring matters, I knew I would rather spend money on some nice shiny side stones and a good design than on the metal.

So I had some designs in mind, and I would revisit this some time later.

In the meantime, I had to figure out how to get myself to the appropriate place at an appropriate time when I'd have Kara's mum or dad to myself so I could ask for permission. I took care of mum first. I was picking up my motorcycle in June, I think it was, and Kara had left for work. I was riding back from Rockport down to Brookline. Before I left, I suggested that mum and I relax on the deck and chat...legitimate, as I had had a heck of a time extricating the bike from the soft stones below the deck, and did need to catch my breath.

So I said, "I have a serious question for you," and she smiled and said, "Yes?" and I said, "I have to get a job first, but once I have my life together, I would like permission to marry your daughter," and she got tears in her eyes and said it would be just fine with her. So she was the first one in her family to know that I was definitely moving forward with things.

I believe that, in chronological order, the next thing we did was go to Long's Jewelers to look at rings, but I'm not sure. At any rate, we looked at a bunch of rings, I got some info, and she decided on the basic design of what she liked, which eventually was realized in the ring design I bought.

I had the chance to ask her dad when he asked me for help waxing his boat, which had just come out of the marine center or dry dock or whatever where it had gone through some refitting. Early in the waxing process he said, "So, by the way, what are you guys doing exactly?" meaning "are you on the same page as far as marriage plans are concerned?" I said, "Well, actually, funny you should say that. Can I marry your daughter?" He said "Yes, I would be happy to have you as my son-in-law," shook my hand, and said "Ok, now we got that taken care of. Let's talk about fishing" or something to that effect. So he didn't throw me in off the dock, for which I am eternally grateful.

The original idea for the proposal had been in my head for literally years. There is a particular rocky outcropping that looks over the two beaches where Kara spent a lot of her childhood, and where we often spend weekends during the summer. We had gone out there years ago, when I first visited Rockport, and sat on the rocks looking out at the ocean, so it was of course a very special spot to me. And because it looked over the beach where Kara spent most of her childhood, I felt it was a special spot to her too. So I planned to somehow get her up there, take a knee, give some sort of proposal speech, and show her a ring.

Of course, I also considered some other options. One that I looked into was proposing at the Pearl Jam concert we went to over the summer; I actually did send an email to the band, but rather obviously didn't hear anything back. At least I gave it a shot.

I also considered a more elaborate plan, letting her friends and relatives know the date and time of the proposal, so they could afterwards meet us on the beach and we could have a toast together. I decided that that would be overly complex and even harder to pull off.

So I went with the simple proposal. In addition, I decided that, since I am very long-winded and Kara would likely expect a lengthy speech, I would be extra nice and give a very short and sweet speech. At one point it was just going to be "I love you, will you marry me?" but I ended up going just a few sentences longer than that.

Also, on the recommendation of MJP, I picked up some champagne and some champagne flutes so we could celebrate on the rocks afterwards. I wanted to keep it simple, but not too too simple.

Ok. So, fast-forward a bit. Beginning of this month, I get a job. I decide that I'm going to go forward with things. I decide that I want to propose on Saturday, August 12th. I had considered waiting until Labor Day, to sort of bookend the summer, but decided that I would rather just give her the ring and let her have those extra weeks of enjoying being engaged.

We are supposed to meet with some of Kara's mum's friends that afternoon. The plan is that I will either propose before we meet with them, or after we meet with them. My personal preference is sunset, but we will see. Sunday would be easier, but I don't want our engagement anniversary to be on the 13th.

I decide to look at rings. The weekend before, Jody mentions Descenza again, where she and Brock got their wedding rings. I look at their website and see that they have a location in Framingham, not far from work.

Thursday. I tell my boss that I'm taking a long lunch. I grab my grandmother's ring and a picture of the ring that Kara had liked from Long's, which I had found on their website. I go into Descenza, put them down on the counter, and tell the guy, "I would like this stone, in a ring that looks like this picture. Whatcha got?" He finds a few designs. He says that there is one design that he really likes and thinks that I will like, has a bit of trouble finding it, but eventually does. It is perfect. It is the last one they have in stock. He holds up my stone next to the setting and it looks like it will match wonderfully in both size and the quality of the stones. I ask him to hold it for me until Saturday.

Thursday night, Kara calls me while I am hanging out at Corrib. "I was thinking I would come over Friday night and then we would head up to Rockport on Saturday." Now, I have NEVER told her before that I didn't want her company, for any reason. But I have to this time, because I obviously can't have her with me when I go to pick up the ring. I make up some stupid excuse about hanging out with friends...friends I had already seen earlier in the week, and it would be very unusual for me to spend two evenings with them in the same week. She suspects shenanigans, and will later accuse me of being "shady," which is absolutely true. I am shady, and I know she is wondering if I'm planning on breaking up with her or something, which is how it looks. I feel really bad, but these are the sacrifices that must be made. It will be made up to her on Saturday.

Saturday morning rolls around. I have some champagne flutes and a bottle of champagne that I had bought on Friday after work. I get to Descenza, where events transpire that I have cronicled in the entry partially written in their parking lot; to sum up, the mounting is going to take longer that I wanted. I was getting nervous around now that Kara's mum's friends might hang around too late, and I wouldn't be able to get her to the beach at sunset, so I figured I would propose earlier, when she was already at the beach (she was spending the morning at the beach, and leaving around 1 to head back to the house). At one point, when I wasn't sure how late I would be, I was going to call her mum and specifically enlist her help in keeping Kara at the beach until I had time to get there, but I then determined that there was no way I was going to be able to propose until later.

I hadn't called her all day, which was also very unusual for me. I finally called while I was on the road, running late, and she told me that there were no worries, to just take my time and not crash into a ditch. She greeted me at the door when I got to her mum's house. "Are we alright?" she said. I laughed inside, thinking, "You don't know just how alright we are." "You're being shady," she said.

We had lobster on the deck and I tried to be sociable and overcome the nervousness I felt inside. At one point, I managed to put the bottle of champagne in the crisper, where I figured it would be less likely to be discovered. Mum did notice it, at which point she knew exactly what was up, but was very stealthy and didn't mention it at all. In fact, I had no idea she knew what I was up to until she mentioned it sometime later.

At one point during the afternoon I nonchalantly suggested to Kara that we perhaps go out to the rocks and just enjoy the sunset later in the evening, which she seemed fine with. I pretended that I was just tired from adjusting to the new job, and that I wanted to spend some time with her, as I hadn't seen her very much in the previous few weeks.

So Kara's mum's friends left, we cleaned up the dishes a bit, and I managed to get the bottle of champagne into my backpack, which contained the flutes. The ring was intially going to go into my pocket, but the big square box was fairly obvious, so that went into the backpack too. I had no idea mum observed me moving the champagne from the crisper to my backpack to the car, but apparently she did.

Kara, however, had no clue. I learned later that, while she expected me to propose, she figured I would do it later, perhaps closer to Christmas, and that she was genuinely concerned over why I was acting weird. Robin had asked Kara if I was acting "proposal shady, or shady shady," and Kara said she wasn't sure, but leaned more towards the latter. The "sunset on the rocks" thing didn't tip her off either, which was really my most major concern: how do I get her to a really romantic spot at sunset after I've been acting weird without her suspecting exactly what is going on? Turns out she just figured we would hang out and spend some quiet time together.

She saw the backpack in the car and wondered what was up with that, too. "Did you bring some booze?" she asked, thinking that I had brought along a couple of beers. "Yeah," I said. "Did you bring cups?" she said. At this point, her major concern was getting busted for having open containers. I assured her that I did have drinking receptacles, which turned out not to be party cups, but actually crystal flutes, but she didn't know that.

So we got up to the rocks, and I searched for a flattish spot where I could kneel down. Having found a good location, I put the bag down, turned to her and said, "Ok..."

I bent over and opened up the pocket of the bag, took out the ring box, and got down on one knee. At this point, she was completely surprised, and said something to the effect of, "Is this real? Are you really proposing right now?" to which I replied "Yes." She was rather overwhelmed and confused and actually started to bend over as if she was going to get down on a knee as well; I had to say "No no, you stand up, I kneel down" or something like that.

So neither one of us remembers exactly what I said. I believe it was something like this:

"I always have a lot to say, but this is one time what I want to say can be summed up pretty quickly. You are my partner, you are my soulmate, you are my best friend, you are my better half. I love you. Kara Elizabeth DeMarco, will you marry me?"

And I opened up the ring box, and she said "Yes Mark," and the rest is history.

She loved the ring, and she loved the proposal. We sat there on the rocks and drank champagne and watched the sunset, and I told her this story, about all that went into the proposal. A few hours later, after my cheek stopped twitching (I had a nervous tic while I was proposing, but at least I wasn't sweaty and my voice didn't crack, so there's that) and we were both feeling mellow, we headed back to the house to start telling people.

So that is the story of how Mark William Dalius proposed to Kara Elizabeth DeMarco on the rocks by Saratoga Creek, between Long Beach and Cape Hedge, in the town of Rockport, Massachusetts, sometime around sunset on August 12th, 2006. And they lived happily ever after.

Posted by Mark at 10:30 AM | Comments (6)

July 19, 2005

cool sword names

Two really cool names for swords are: Oblivion's Nail and Grimsliver.

Actually, wait, strike that second one. It sounds cool if you say "Grim sliver" but if you look at it, you could misread it as "Grims liver." And while a grim sliver is cool, there is nothing cool about grim liver. Or liver belonging to Grim.

But Oblivion's Nail is still really awesome.

I am cooking dinner on Wednesday and trying out some new marinades. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to make chicken or steak; the steak I bought was fairly inexpensive, so if is to be edible at all it must be marinaded at least overnight. I'm kind of excited about cooking something, since I haven't really done any actual cooking in awhile. Kara and I spent quite a while in the grocery store last night, and I picked up a bunch of stuff. Hopefully it turns out well.

I have a few new tasks at work that I'm half foot dragging on, and half just letting them work themselves out in my brain before I get hardcore into trying to solve them. Guess I should go start working on them now.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this was first published back in 2005, it has become the #2 result on Google for "cool sword names." I should start a custom sword-naming business or something.

In honor of this, here are some more cool sword names for the list:

EDITOR'S NOTE 2: For some reason, this entry persists in being the #2 Google result for "cool sword names." The rest of it is my personal blog...if you've come here via Google, feel free to browse other entries, which are random articles I've written, usually based on my interests, recent activities, or random thoughts. Hope you enjoy!

Posted by Mark at 11:19 AM | Comments (8)