So, I read in the Independent this morning that Bill Clinton is a vegan now. I think he won an award from PETA for it. I couldn’t believe it. I remember in 96 when David Letterman said in a monologue (and I’m paraphrasing) “Today Bob Dole challenged Bill Clinton to three debates. Clinton instead challenged Dole to a pie eating contest.”  Now, he’s a vegan?

I shook Bill Clinton’s hand once.

It was in 93 or 94 at Hickam Air Field while President Clinton was taking a vacation in Hawaii. Air Force One was on an air strip about a mile away from where we lived. When word came that he was flying out, I went to see what was going on. There was a huge crowd at the airstrip already when I arrived and the Secret Service had corralled everyone into a little fenced off area.  One agent (I assume that’s what he was) told us that the president probably would just get straight on the plane from his car and not greet the crowd. However, Clinton is very good about pleasing voters and, when the motorcade showed up, he did approach the rope line and shook everyone’s hand and talk to the people for about 20 minutes before boarding the plane. Hillary did too. I was eager to see him in person.  He was the President of the United States and had been my Commander in Chief for two of my four years in the Army.

When he got close to where I was standing in the rope-line, I could hear what he was saying to everyone else as he shook hands. It was polite stuff – “Hi, where you from? That’s great, that’s great.” It was hard not to like him. He’s a very likeable guy. He shook my hand and looked me in the eye and said hello. It was pretty cool. The entire time, a Secret Service agent stood behind him whispering stuff in his ear like “Theres a curb right behind you, watch your step.”

It was a nice experience, but I hated seeing how everyone in the crowd gushed and how he put on that politician smile and he spoke to everyone.  He wasn’t royalty, after all.

I’ve never been a Bill Clinton fan. After moving to England in 98, I found out how popular he was overseas. So many people over here absolutely loved him in England. I came out here just before the impeachment, so there was a lot of discussions about how up-tight Americans are to impeach him for something so personal. I explained that he was being impeached for perjury, but you can’t disuade fans that easily.

Clinton did a lot of good, don’t get me wrong. In retrospect, he wasn’t all that bad. George W. Bush made him look like a genius. But, like all former presidents, he looks a lot better giving a 5-minute speech at a party convention than he did giving a press conference as president.

What really bothered me most about him was the phoniness. I hated when he told voters at a town hall meeting “I feel your pain.” I hated it when he bit his lip and got all misty-eyed during the national anthem.  He never seemed genuine to me, and he still doesn’t.

When I think about Clinton, I think about the phoniness and the career politician. I find Obama to much more authentic and genuinely believe he is doing his best. When I hear pundits say that he can learn from Clinton the politician, I cringe.

But he’s a vegan now, and it’s big news. I wonder if it wasn’t big news, if he would have bothered at all.

We had about 3 or 4 inches of snow on Saturday.  This is very exciting in England.  It causes chaos all over the place.  On Monday, the airports were still closed.  If you listen to the radio, you’d think there was a natural disaster outside –don’t go out unless you absolutely need to.

It seems silly when you think of places where they really get snow, but England doesn’t have the infrastructure for this type of weather. 

On Saturday morning, we woke up to a Winter Wonderland outside.  I was going to do a 10-mile run as I’ve done the last few Saturdays.  Instead, I ran about a half a mile until I came to a road with cars trying to drive up a snowy road and getting nowhere.  So, I spent a while helping people by pushing their cars uphill.  Then, I ran the short distance back home and got into a snowball fight with my kids.

Every night since Saturday, the news has had one story—“Why can’t England handle snow?”  Why is there such chaos on the roads?  Why is transportation so affected?  We got the same story last year when we had a surprising amount of snow—and the year before that.

Actually, I think England is perfect for snowy weather.  Although I grew up in San Diego, where we never got snow, I have lived for a few years in Missouri where it snowed a lot.  On the first snowfall day, I made a snowman (I was like 24, but it was a novelty to me), but then the snow stayed for months.  Toward the end, you get so sick of snow and ice and cold.  In England, you have to take advantage and enjoy it because it will be gone in a few days.

I’m sitting here in the early morning getting ready for my last day of work for the year an it’s snowing again outside.  That means more weather warnings and traffic chaos.  But all in all, I love these snowy days.

The past few weeks have been real bliss.  I’m really enjoying my new contract.

One of my goals in finding a contract this time was to stay out of London.  I’ve had enough of the London commute with its delayed trains and crowded tubes.  So, in my new job I commute three days a week (working from home two days) on my motorbike.  I’m working in two different locations about an hour away—but on country roads.  Each morning, I pack up my laptop, strap it to my back, and ride to one of the client offices.

My work has been all Silverlight so far.  I love getting stuck in a new language.  I’m having flashes of insight as to how to do cool things while I’m out running or taking a shower.  It’s a novelty and heavy on the brain. 

I still wake up early, but my morning time is spent with meditation and running (and surfing around reading up on technology). 

Life is going well.

Well, after 16 months of trying to get Overpass up and running as an outsourcing company, I’m going back to contracting.

It’s been fun.  I’ve met a lot of great developers, been to China a few times to meet with software companies, and have worked on projects for small companies here and there.  But my skills as a salesman are terrible—and I hate cold-calling more than anything.  So, it’s time to change direction and get back to doing what I do well.

Even while trying to run my own software business, I’ve continued to code—learning technologies like Silverlight and NHibernate.  The nice thing about taking time off from contracting is that you get to build the skills you want to have, instead of the skills people will hire you for.  I’m my own DIY project and I can never stop learning the new skills.

Getting back to contracting is a big relief to me.  Selling myself (as a developer) has never been difficult, but selling the skills of other developers is tough.

On Monday I start a new contract in Basingstoke.  I’m very excited about it.  My main goal while looking for a contract was to stay out of London.  London’s a great place but I want to get familiar with more of England.  If I can stay away from the crowded trains and tubes, all the better.  I’m starting a four-month contract with a company that looks like it will be a lot of fun.  It also gives me the chance to work from home a few days a week.

It’s a good solid coding job—no offshoring at all.  Also, no mentoring, no team leading, and no budgeting.  It’s going to be great.

Overpass will continue to be a company, but it will be a company of one.

Is this a failure?  Um. . . not yet.

I’m thirty-eight—I probably haven’t even reached this life’s half-way point.  I’m looking forward to the future and am very optimistic about it.  Seven years ago, I was a permanent employee for a tiny company in Reading.  Thirteen years ago, I was a substitute teacher in Missouri and became a qualified to teach high school.  Twenty years ago, I was a soldier learning to speak Chinese.  Who knows what the future will bring?

Have you seen this video on Google privacy?  It’s creepy!

Apparently, it’s showing in Time’s Square.

It’s posted on InsideGoogle.com here: http://insidegoogle.com/2010/08/do-not-track-me/

I’ve been with the same ISP for 12 years.  I joined Freeserve in 1998 on a dial-up and went to broadband when they offered it shortly after.  Freeserve became Wannado and Wannado was bought by Orange.

For the most part, I have been happy with the service. I get the top package (Up to 8Mb but my area only gets 6). 

But last summer I got an email saying I was using too much internet in the evenings, so they started throttling our usage.  This really sucked.  I couldn’t want live baseball games anymore and services like the iPlayer were unusable.  I suspect the iPlayer and MLB.com were the culprits for the large net use anyway, and I didn’t like feeling like a criminal because I used too much of the “unlimited broadband” I was paying for.  I was paying about £30/month.

So I finally signed up for the 50mb cable broadband from Virgin Media.  I’m paying only slightly more than I was on Orange and the performance is sooooo much better.  I can watch Youtube in the evenings again and I’m actually able to watch the MLB services I pay for.  I’ve had it a few days only and can’t believe the difference it has made.

I cancelled the Orange account on the same day as the Virgin Media broadband was installed.  They said it would take 14 days which I was fine with.  But then, four days later I get a call (on a Saturday morning) from someone telling me I have to pay a £30 disconnection fee because I was cancelling my service and not just transferring it.  I complained but it got me nowhere.  I asked what the fee covers (like, does someone have to do anything to cancel it?) and the guy couldn’t give me an answer.  I’ll just take the hit and pay them and be glad to have them out of my hair forever.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting a lot of help with cancellation anyway.  But I did have good things to say about Orange before.  If they were quicker about increasing the speeds in my area, I would have definitely stayed with them.  But then they screw me at the end.  To hell with them. 

I would never subscribe with Orange broadband again—nor would I ever recommend them.  I’ll also probably leave their mobile network when my contract is up.  I went from a satisfied customer (mostly) to an unsatisfied customer.  All they get out of it is £30.