Recently in self-indulgence

When I put myself on a diet two years ago this month, I had no idea I'd still be on it today. In fact, the only thing I cared about was making it to the weekend. It's all I've cared about ever since. The place where I was working had bowls full of chocolates everywhere I turned. Each time I passed by them, I felt obliged to stuff my face with at least one. No willpower.

So, I made up a rule for myself: No eating sweets, Monday through Thursday. On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays I could eat whatever I wanted. And I did. And I do. Surprisingly, though, I don't eat any more junk food on the weekends than I did pre-diet.

Admittedly, it's not much of a diet, and it's not about losing weight, which is a good thing, because I haven't lost any. It's not even about willpower, though. Maybe it was in the beginning, but now it's more about something else.

Did I mention I have a sweet tooth?

This little non-diet is ultimately about having one less decision to occupy my mind four days of the week. Before two years ago, the mere sight of candy would spark an internal battle. And I'd usually lose. Or win, depending on how you look at it. But however I looked at it, I ate the stupid candy.

Now there is no struggle because there is no decision to be made. Every Monday through Thursday the decision has already been made. And it's a huge relief. The other relief comes each Friday when I can eat whatever I want without perseverating over it or feeling guilty about it. If I didn't have the eat-free weekends, I wouldn't have made it past week two.

Sure, I've "cheated" a few times, but it doesn't matter, because I'm not a slave to it and I can still count the number of times I've "cheated" on my fingers. Also, holidays (the ones I celebrate) and vacations are exempt from the M-Th rule, as they should be. Otherwise, it's four days on, three days off. Rinse and repeat.

Something there is inside me that doesn't love a variable, which is why at least 200 out of the 365 days of the year I eat the same Clif Bar for breakfast, the same mix of nuts and raisins for snack, and the same turkey sandwich for lunch. And it's why my brain feels just a little less cluttered when sweets are out of the equation.

Who knows how much longer this will last? I don't. But I don't feel the need to stop any time soon.

When I got home from work this evening, a package was waiting for me on my desk. I sat down, tore off one end of the padded envelope, and pulled out a book written in Korean. Of course I can't read a word of Korean, and the cover is a little beaten up, but I was absolutely thrilled, nonetheless, to receive it. It's a translation of Learning jQuery, the book I wrote last year with my friend Jonathan Chaffer.

Crazy.

As many of my friends and relatives know, I spent the first half of 2007 writing a book with my friend Jonathan Chaffer. The book turned into two books, and they were both published last summer. Since a couple people have recently asked me about how it all turned out in the end, I thought I'd post a quick progress report here, in case anyone else is interested, as well.

The process of writing the books was an arduous one—stressful and time-consuming, to be sure, but also enjoyable. I learned more while writing than I ever could have otherwise. In a way, it reminded me of my first years of teaching, when I spent a whole lot of time flying by the seat of my pants, learning new things that I'd have to teach hours later.

The first book, Learning jQuery, was published in June; the second, jQuery Reference Guide, followed a month or so later. By the end of 2007, Packt had sold 3,333 copies of the first book and 887 of the second—many more than I had expected. They also managed to license its translation into Korean to another publisher, and, I think, they struck a deal with someone else to have it translated into Portuguese.

The reviews from blogs and amazon.com users have been (almost) unanimously favorable. Here is a sampling:

As with jQuery itself, there's a lot to like about the book (which shares its title with a great website dedicated to the library). The authors cover all sorts of real-world UI issues - progressive enhancement of input forms, client-side validation, visual transitions during Ajax calls, manipulation of tabular data - and show how to code them in jQuery.

Personally I appreciated this as you could watch a simple css/html page become an enchanced interface with real world implications.…

My point is that there is something in this book for every level of javascript developer, from beginner to expert. I highly recommend it!

If you're already using jQuery or getting started with it, both of these books would be a great addition to your desk.

I found this an extremely easy and interesting read, with the example based approach keeping me engaged in how each situation could be enhanced with use of jQuery.

The book can be read from start to finish, as it is interesting, keeps you engaged, and gives information in a logical order. It contains many useful tips and functions, a lot of which I never knew about until reading the book.

After every chapter, I found myself reflecting on how thorough and well done the examples were. Each one starts out with a simple piece of code (probably the way you or I would accomplish some task). Then, it adds something. Then, it factors something out. Then, it encapsulates something. Then, it adds some more functionality. At each step, I kept thinking, "Brilliant! I can't believe I never thought of doing it that way."

Karl was an English teacher in a previous life, and keeps a semi-regular blog called English Rules. I mention that simply to say that his literary wit shines through in this book. For a code related book, it is quite entertaining. From the readability of his writing, to the quotations he uses in code examples, it all flows together very nicely. The code examples are top-notch, which is surely a reflection of the authors' proficiency, Jonathan being a CTO at his day job.

That last one makes me blush every time I read it, but for the record, any wit that appears in the book, literary or otherwise, comes not from me but from Jonathan. He's a brilliant guy. And funny. And a great writer.

Also, in the interest of fairness, I should cite another reviewer, who described Learning jQuery as "a little dry in tone, not to the extent that it is unreadable. But I did find that it was best studied from in limited periods." Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

Incidentally, The New York Times recently posted this article about blogs leading to book deals. That's basically what happened to me, with the Learning jQuery blog. The only difference was that I was offered less than 1/100 the advance that the guy in the article got. If I had to give one piece of advice for others who are considering writing a computer manual, it would be this: Do it because you love to write or because you love the subject matter or because you love stress and mental anguish, but not because you want to get filthy stinking rich. There are no computer book author equivalents to J. K. Rowling (or even Dav Pilkey).

This week I'm at a conference in Boston called The Ajax Experience. No, it's not four days of learning how to use cleaning products. It's all about technologies that allow for cool user interactions with content on web pages (see more on Wikipedia, if you're interested). I'm here as part of the fairly large jQuery contingent.

So far it has been a lot of fun meeting many people whom I have only known online for the past year or so. A bunch of the people who have worked on or with jQuery went out to dinner last night at a local bar and grill. We had a good time debating about arcane topics and sharing anecdotes about our wacky misadventures with various technologies.

The conference presentations have been pretty good, for the most part. My favorites so far have been the ones led by jQuery creator (and cult leader) John Resig. I'm looking forward to "Learning to Love Forms" tonight and getting to know more about JSON tomorrow.

Here is a photo of the Boston skyline from the bridge connecting our hotel to the conference center:

I've lost track of how long the English Rules website has been running, but its transformation from a simple online reference for my students to a multifaceted weblog occurred in August 2003, when I installed the Movable Type Publishing Platform and posted my very first entry, The Economist Steven Levitt and Other Heroes, which was based on a New York times article I had just read.

Since then I have posted 220 blog entries, 435 words of the day, 56 writing-guide articles, and 258 photos. Add to that the over 1,200 comments from others, and it starts to look like there is a substantial amount of content in this place. For me this site has been a labor of love, a learning tool, a playground, and a meeting place.

I regret having to say this, but I am in need of a break. There are too many other projects and responsibilities competing for my time. The next six months or so are set to be some of the busiest of my entire life. The only way to keep myself sane during this time is to pare down the number of things I feel I have to do. I may post an entry here and there, and I'll try to get a few more photos of the kids on the site, but the updates are going to be a lot less frequent for a while.

Thanks to all of you who read my ramblings. Thanks to those who comment, to those who send emails, to those who keep in touch in other ways. Thanks to all the "lurkers" out there, too. It's nice to know that there are people out there who care enough to read what I have to write, even when it starts to lose any sense of coherence, as it is doing now.

So that's my message. I'll touch base again in June—and I hope a few times between now and then.

When it comes to food, my main concern is almost always efficiency. Efficiency and convenience. Don't get me wrong—I think flavor is important, too, and I appreciate good-tasting foods as much as the next guy (though apparently not as much as my wife and her friends, who geek out on recipes and related culinary matters as much as I do on computers). But in the end, taste is only secondary for me.

That's why I prefer seedless grapes over strawberries (no little green leafy things to dispose of) and pre-mixed yogurt over the kind with fruit at the bottom. I love the taste of corn, but I almost never eat in on the cob, because it's too messy to hold (when it's salted and buttered), too inefficient to eat, and too annoying to get out from between my teeth. In grad school, I ate a lot more salads, with prep time at about 30 seconds, than macaroni & cheese, which can take up to 15 minutes to prepare if you include the time for the water to boil.

So, you can probably imagine my excitement when I came across the Back to Basics Egg & Muffin 2-Slice Toaster and Egg Poacher in a Maximum PC magazine holiday gift guide a few days ago. This little appliance will synchronize the toasting of an English muffin with the poaching of an egg for a hot, delicious "egg sandwich" in just four minutes. It even has a little meat warmer for a sausage or ham patty.

The timing of my discovery couldn't have been better. Our family had been toasterless for the past few weeks. But when I showed this one to my wife, she just sort of chuckled. Two days later, we had a brand-new, conventional toaster in our kitchen. Oh well. There is something a little gimmicky about the "Back to Basics," I suppose. Besides, I'm not even sure I'd use it much, since it would take about four minutes longer than I currently spend preparing breakfast—by tearing the wrapper off of a Clif Bar.

A few months ago I received a large manila envelope in the mail. It came from my mother, and it contained an award certificate that I had apparently received. In the 7th grade. My mother, bless her heart, is somewhat of a packrat. And I mean that in the best, most positive sense of the word.

In a way, I'm glad she kept it for so long. You never know when a 20-year-old, partially signed, dubiously worded award certificate will be needed—maybe for a smart-alec blog entry. Or, maybe, if I need another job some day, I can add it to my résumé: contributed to the physical well being of the youth of our nation. Impressive.

Come to think of it, my physical fitness level has been in a long, steady decline ever since I received that "award." Could it be that Alfie Kohn was right when he wrote the controversial book, Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes?

The entire day yesterday consisted of long, fitful sleep punctuated by bleary wakefulness. The culprit: strep throat. For some strange reason that nobody can figure out yet, our family has been especially susceptible to the bacteria, especially this year. Since February all four of us have been bitten by the bug four times. This time, my fifth, I'm so far struggling with it alone—only four days after ending my last round of antibiotics. My kids meanwhile have been put on a "maintenance dose" of penicillin that they will need to take until April 2006.

A few friends have asked if we're going to have our tonsils removed, but our doctors don't think that the procedure would have much if any effect. We have disinfected the house numerous times and replaced our toothbrushes. We're just not sure what else we can do.

The whole situation has gotten rather comical, and it would be even more so if it weren't also unpleasant and inconvenient. The good news is that by now we are well attuned to the symptoms, so we can have our doctors call in the prescriptions right away when we feel another case of strep coming on. This time my doctor didn't even bother bringing me in to gag me with a q-tip. Ah, progress!

I've read a few books in my life, and I hope to read a few more. But there are many that I'll never be able to get through, even if I'd really like to. The big irony of recent years is that while book sales are going up, reading is going down. At least, that's what I've read.

So, here is my list of books—some I've already bought, some I haven't—that I probably will never read. They are books I would read if only I were…

More Patient

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. 976 pages. Even Oprah can't motivate me enough to get through this one.
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. 824 pages, small type. Already tried and failed.
• The Brothers K by David James Duncan. 656 pages. Pathetic, I know.
• Anything by Charles Dickens. Didn't he get paid by the word?

Smarter

• God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga. Too philosophically erudite for me.
• Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Utterly incomprehensible to me of little brain.
• Ecrits: A Selection by Jacques Lacan. Okay, maybe I wouldn't read this, even if I were smarter. But I tried to read some of it in grad school and understood—oh, I don't know—maybe two or three words.
• Too many more to mention.

Cooler

• Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg. Too visceral, or "emo," as the kids say.
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. Too laid back.
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Too hip for words.

15 Again

• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The smart-aleck kid narrator would have amused the teenage me; sadly, the little brat just irritates me now
• The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. Well, maybe not even as a 15-year-old.
• The Giver by Lois Lowry. I might get to this one yet.

Anybody else out there have books you would like to read, if only? Go on, make a list.

The time seemed right to change the site, so that is what I'm doing.

I'm taking it slow, though, beginning with the home page and adapting other pages to the new design as I find the time. So let's just call this a work in progress.

In keeping with my "process" attitude, I'd love to hear from anyone who has a comment or suggestion for the new look, and I'll try to incorporate all the good advice, which doesn't mean, of course, that any advice I don't incorporate isn't good advice, but merely that I may not be competent enough or energetic enough to implement it, but, as I said, I'll try.

The lines are open. Operators are standing by. Leave a comment and let me know how I can improve the home page. As soon I feel good enough about that one, I'll move on to the other pages, for which you are more than welcome to offer suggestions as well.

In what is widely considered a stunning fulfillment of expectations, the English Rules blog—along with its companion blogs Photography, Word of the Day, and Writing Guide—did not win any of 2005's prestigious Bloggies™. In fact, the collection of blogs at englishrules.com was not even nominated for an award.

Early this morning, site owner and editor Karl Swedberg released a prepared statement (34KB PDF) to the press, denying any hard feelings:

To receive a Bloggy—or is it Bloggie?—is to reach the pinnacle of blog-success, the apex of blog-stardom, the top of the blops. It is, therefore, perfectly reasonable that my blog should be overlooked.

And overlooked, it was. A few of the many categories in which the English Rules blog failed to register a single vote include:

• Best American Weblog – Weblogs from the United States (Winner: Dooce)
• Best New Weblog – Weblogs that began during the year 2004 (Winner: Defamer)
• Best Photography of a Weblog – Photoblogs and other weblogs that regularly feature photography (Winner: Daily Dose of Imagery)
• Best Meme – A replicating idea that spread about weblogs. [see my definition of meme] (Winner: Flickr)
• Best-Kept-Secret Weblog – The best underrepresented weblogs (Winner: Teaching the Indie Kids to Dance Again)

When asked to respond to the news, Karl's mom, Ginny, said, What? What did you say? Bloggie? What's that? Never heard of it. Hold on a second, let me turn down the TV… Is that you, Karl?

No further comment was recorded, due to an apparent problem with the phone line.

Tainted Category

Reports of the snubbing come amid charges that one of the Bloggies™ categories is unfairly judged. Critics of the contest contend that the policy of presenting the "Best-Kept-Secret Weblog" award to a site with the most votes rather than the least constitutes an "egregious disregard of logic." Meanwhile, others are taking a more philosophical view, wondering how the winner of a popularity contest for "best kept secret" can be a well kept secret at all.

Contest officials categorically denied allegations of wrongdoing, while representatives of the 2005 Bloggies™ refused to respond to requests for information about their hand soap preferences.

Since nothing else has worked, I've decided to publicly shame myself into doing a litany of things that I have put off for too long. So here is my list, in no particular order, of things left undone. Next to each item is the approximate time that it has been on my "to do" list.

• Print a few photos in the darkroom (10 months)
• Play the guitar for my kids (2 years)
• Fix the leaky faucet in the kitchen sink or hire a plumber (7 months)
• Play the violin enough to make a song sound nice again (5+ years)
• Fix the photo printer (8 months)
• Digitize a bunch of Harrod & Funck songs from tapes of concerts and demos, and then return the tapes to their rightful owners (4+ years)

Okay, call me "misery" if you want, but I'd sure love some company. Do any of you have items rotting away on your "to do" lists? If so, let the world (or at least 3 or 4 people) know by posting a comment to this entry!

Sometimes I feel as if these lines from T.S. Eliot's 1934 poem "Choruses from The Rock," while pretty much summing up the 21st century, are an especially apt description of my situation:

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Other times I feel a little more hopeful.

In a speech she gave last summer in Vienna, Mena Trott, co-founder of the Movable Type Publishing Platform (which powers this blog), divided bloggers into three distinct groups:

the pundits, the diarists and the egoists.… I'd venture to guess that unless you password protect your weblog or publish a weblog local to your own hard drive, you will most likely fall into one of these categories. [read the full transcript]

Reading the speech got me wondering which category I fall into. I'm certainly not a pundit. Not knowledgeable—or opinionated—enough about anything. And a diarist, I imagine, would have to be more personally revealing than I am. So that leaves the egoist.

I've never thought of myself as someone with excessive concern for oneself, with or without exaggerated feelings of self-importance, as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the egoist. But if that's what Mena says I am, maybe I should embrace it and report some satisfying information about this site.

In the past thirteen months, englishrules.com has gone from an average of about 45 visits per day to nearly 650. The graph represents the trend of visits over that time period by month. Also, my referrer log shows that a lot of people are coming to the site to find information on "English grammer." So, in an effort to pander to these folks, I'll be opening up a new section of the site dedicated to answering questions about the English language—grammar, punctuation, spelling, anything people want to know. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I do pretend to have a lot of books that will give me some good leads, and a lot of smart friends who will be able to help in a pinch.

Maybe, though, there's another category of blogger, one that Mena forgot: the correspondent. As those who know me are already too aware, I'm a lousy correspondent through more traditional means such as letter, phone, or even email. But this blog thing somehow feels different to me. It seems practical, productive, and just geeky enough to hold my attention. I'm able to keep in touch pretty regularly with friends and family and anyone else who wanders into the site. So, I'll keep blogging for a while, and I'll leave the comments open, and I'll count on whoever reads my entries to post a comment, if only to keep my ego in check.

This morning I went to the oral surgeon to have my four wisdom teeth pulled. The procedure was painless because they knocked me out with some general anaesthesia. The last time I had general anaesthesia, 15 years ago for a knee injury, I woke up crying and mumbling, "I don't want to die, I don't want to die." I felt as if I was being pulled out of a black hole. So, you can probably imagine my relief this time when I gently awoke to the nurse's soft voice asking me to sit up. No death fear, no black hole. Just some swelling, a little woozy feeling, and a pain in the back of my mouth—nothing that a vicoden and another nap won't take care of. Sweet dreams.

Technology is not my friend today. While taking pictures of a friend's baby, the battery in my Nikon digital camera ran out. No problem, I thought, I'll just switch to my 35mm camera while I recharge the digital camera's battery. But when I tried to turn on the Nikon N80, its batteries were dead, too. I ran to the closet where Sara keeps a huge stash of extra batteries in case one of our kids' 5,328 toys that require batteries is in need of a new set, put the new batteries in the camera, and attached the flash. Guess what. The flash's batteries were dead. By this time, the digital camera's battery was recharged enough to use for the 15 or so pictures I had to take, so I switched back. Baby Sidney started to get a little cranky during this comedy of errors, but we managed to grab a few good shots of her.

Relieved that the embarrassing photo shoot was over, I went upstairs to download the digital pictures to my laptop, but when I grabbed the wireless mouse and moved it around a bit, nothing happened on screen. Need I say it? The mouse's batteries were dead. I may be a little slow, but I'm starting to get the feeling that Someone is trying to give me a big hint.

For the past six months or so I've been roasting my own coffee in earnest, using green coffee beans that I buy from sweetmarias.com and a popcorn popper that I bought from eBay for $15. There are small, personal machines on the market for genuiune home coffee roasting, but they're mostly in the triple-digit range, and I wasn't sure if I would take a shine to this thing when I started it, so I went the cheap route to minimize my potential losses. My friend Steve, who lives around the corner, got me started with this business. He started with a popcorn popper, too, but since has rigged up a little rotisserie thing on his gas grill so he can roast five pounds at a time. The guy is an animal!

As it turns out, I'm actually saving bundles of money. When I buy the green beans in 20 lb. increments, I can get some of the best-tasting espresso I've ever had for just $4 per pound. Compare that to the typical $10 to $12 cost for a premium espresso roast, and it's not too hard to see the advantage. Compare it to the $45 or so I'd have to spend to buy the equivalent number of lattes from a coffeehouse, and I'd be crazy not to roast my own.

Admittedly, roasting coffee does take time, and with the small West Bend Poppery II as my roaster, I have to process five or six batches for a week's worth of lattes. With each batch taking between 10 and 14 minutes, we're looking at a total of at least one hour of roasting per week.

But it's not as bad as it sounds. I haul everything out to the garage in a basket and get to work right away, just by dumping a couple scoops of coffee in the popper and plugging it in. I pull down the chair that's hanging on the garage wall and sit and read while the Poppery II does its magic.

Of course, when the smoke starts billowing out of the garage and the smell turns mildly sweet and I'm all hunched over, sniffing and stirring and shaking things, the scene must look, if not illicit, at least grotesque. I'm surprised none of the neighbors have called the police yet.

A friend of mine recently challenged me to limit my time on the computer, outside of work, to one hour or less each day. He didn't think I could do it for a month. So I've accepted the challenge, which means that I'll probably be posting fewer entries on this site and I'll definitely be reading fewer online magazines and newspapers.

Maybe that's okay, though. I have a bunch of New Yorkers that have piled up on my nightstand, unread. And it seems the more time I spend online, the less able I am to read anything longer than a feature article.

Every time I post something on the site, Sara asks me how in the world I find the time to do it. I tell her, "When you're asleep." And it's true: I stay up far too late for my health, and when I'm awake at 11 or midnight or one in the morning, I'm usually reading, usually online. Maybe I have a computer addiction.

So my month of self-imposed computer restraint has begun. Wish me luck?

After much consideration and biting of nails, I've decided to decline the generous offer to attend the University of Michigan MSI program in Human Computer Interaction. It's a top-rate program at a fantastic school in a hip locale. So why not go?

With a three-year-old and a one-year-old, I'm afraid the transition would be too traumatic, not just for the kids, but for me, too, and especially for Sara. I'd be uprooting the family for two years, only to uproot them again when I get the degree.

And they would be two payless years. That would be tough to take. Not to mention that I really enjoy the job I have now.

When I began researching graduate programs and discovered the one at U of M, I was ending a seven-year teaching career and had few prospects in sight. I must confess that grad school sounded a lot more appealing when I was unemployed. I didn't expect to land a job that would have me doing some of the things that I hoped to go to school to learn how to do. Funny how that worked out.

So now the only nagging question I have is if I'm playing it too safe, taking the well-worn path instead of the trail of adventure. But I'm not even sure that matters, at least not as much as it might have 15 years ago. Maybe at this point in my life the well-worn path is the best path. Maybe someday I'll know.

The School of Information at the University of Michigan has accepted my application for their Human-Computer Interaction program this fall. They are very kind.