Finding the perfect suitcase

About a year ago, I decided that the rolling suitcase I was using to travel was getting too cumbersome and I could make it through the airport easier with a small duffle bag. Last year I travelled 12 times (11 for work) and the bag worked well. However, the bag started hurting my shoulder and I started looking for a better solution.

Like most things I buy, I researched suitcases until I was blue in the face. I wanted one that would easily fit in an overhead bin and had 2 wheels. This turned out to be a huge challenge. First off, many manufacturers have switched to spinner type bags with 4 wheels. This type of bag makes a lot of sense for people going from house to car to airport to hotel and travel over smooth surfaces. This isn't always how I travel. When I've gone to San Francisco or Portland, I've taken public transportation and then walked a number of blocks over uneven sidewalks. The spinner bags would be harder to use, so I immediately ruled them out.

Finding a small bag also proved to be troublesome as different companies measure the bag dimensions differently. Some include the wheels and handles; others do not. I checked the websites of the airlines I've used in the last year (Alaska, Delta, and Southwest) to make sure the dimensions met the guidelines. I also found that some bags had a compartment for a laptop. This seems a bit ridiculous for business travelers (makes sense for airline crews) as most people that travel for business will drop off the luggage at a hotel or leave it in a car and take the laptop in a backpack or other bag into an office.

After much searching, I ended up getting a Travelpro Luggage Crew 9 20-Inch rolling bag as well as one from Costco. After evaluating the two (I could return the one I didn't like), I decided to keep the TravelPro. While it isn't perfect, it seems to work OK.

The TravelPro has the dumb laptop compartment which makes it fatter, but I have no use for it. If this was left off, it would be a better bag. However, the other aspects of the bag seem well thought out. It doesn't tip over and the handle and wheels work well. My Brenthaven MetroLite backpack has a way to easily slide the backpack on the handle of a rolling bag and that seemed to work well; however, it did a bit of extra weight on the arm that I was using to pull the suitcase. The suitcase easily fit in the overhead bin on my Southwest flights and rolled well through the airport.

Will this be the perfect bag for me? I have no idea; I just hope it lasts for awhile.

Proud of the award; not proud of the organization

Almost 20 years ago, I became an Eagle Scout. This took a lot of work and taught me leadership and many skills that help me all the time. I am extremely proud of my accomplishment and it is pretty apparent in my office where I have my Eagle Scout award hanging on the wall.

As most people are aware, the Boy Scouts of America has some facets to it that are extremely conservative especially when it comes to its views of gays and religion. The recent case of an Eagle Scout candidate being denied the award is deep rooted in religious views that seems to dominate some policies of the organization. Nowhere is it stated that gays can't be leaders and/or earn the rank of Eagle Scout. Some claim that being gay is not part of "to do my duty to god" or being "reverent". This brings religion into an organization that doesn't teach religion and should keep religious debate to adults and not bring Scouts into it.

This is discrimination and hatred pure and simple. It doesn't make the candidate any less deserving because of his views and really makes the organization look bad. While it will be too late for some Eagle Scout candidates, Randall L. Stephenson, the CEO of AT&T has vowed to end this discrimination when he heads the BSA in 2014; it can't come soon enough.

It is my belief that the concept of religion should be completely removed from Scouting as the only thing that religion seems to do is create controversy and hatred. However, as the organization doesn't specifically say what "god" is, it can be interpreted in many ways. I don't recall if the handbook talks about organized religion, but I also don't think that atheists should be excluded. Maybe their "god" is Mother Earth. Maybe it is family. Who knows, but to exclude people based on beliefs is teaching the wrong message.

The Boy Scouts should be ashamed of its practices; I, however, will not give up my Eagle Scout award and will continue to say that I am an Eagle Scout. I hope that things can change in the organization with the change in leadership.

Working for "the man", 2 years later

Three years ago this May, I quit my job and started being an independent software developer doing contract work. I decided that I was tired of my IT job and wanted to go back to writing code all the time (which was a change from a year and a half before that where I was tired of writing code). Working for my last company made me realize that I no longer wanted to work for anyone else and I wasn't going to work for a large company again (I worked for Qualcomm at the beginning of my career. I wanted to be in charge of my work and control my own destiny; I believed that I could only accomplish this being self employed.

About six months after that, I was offered a full time position with eBay and took the job. This, of course, went against me not working for someone else and not working for a large company. Many factors went into the decision, one being getting to work with a lot of really good people; something I hadn't done in years (I had worked with good people, but only a handful).

One of the keys to job happiness, I believe, is good management. Management has to balance overseeing employees with giving them the freedom to do their jobs. I've been quite lucky to have a manager that does this well. I've also been giving the opportunity to work on a number of projects and put my finely tuned skills to work. While I've had some difficulties on some projects, my manager has helped me through them and put me in a position that some say is enviable. At the moment, I control a lot of what I do; based on high level goals, I get to decide what to do on a day to day basis. This is what I believe I wanted when I told myself I wouldn't work for anyone else again.

As for the large company, I work in a group that is fairly small and almost acts like a small company so I don't feel like the big company is constraining me.

I've come to realize my flip flopping on not wanting to write code and then write code has to do with a good mix of work which I haven't had until now. I was either writing code all the time or not writing code at all; I'm now in a position that I get to write some code, but I also get to do other things such as think about high level application architecture. If I want to write code, I have the flexibility to do that.

So, while I'm not saying that this is the perfect job (there is no perfect job), I'm quite content and plan on sticking around for awhile despite the constant recruiters contacting me from companies whose products you use everyday.

Bluetooth Knowledge Followup - Apple Radar Filed

In my last article, I wrote about an issue I had with my Bluetooth heart rate monitor and my Bluetooth headset. After analyzing the issue and trying to reproduce the issue, I was unable to do so in my office and then on my next run, everything working perfectly. However, on my run this morning, the problems came back. When I got home, I turned off RunKeeper and ran my test app. My test app either disconnected or I heard an audio dropout every 6 seconds. The big difference between my initial tests and this test was that my heart rate was up and the contacts on the heart rate monitor were conducting quite well. This would indicate that the issue is not a RunKeeper issue, but either an iOS issue or an iPhone 5 issue.

I've gone ahead and reported it to Apple as radar://13004711. Based on my past history with Apple bug reports, I don't expect a resolution any time soon. This would be quite unfortunate as more and more Bluetooth devices come on the market.