I have been watching x-files lately, I really miss that show.  During one episode I heard the closing numbers for the DOW: 3300 something.  Thought it was pretty funny.

Sunday afternoon, after a wonderful morning of riding around North Texas with my friends, I apparently made a mistake and fell off my bike. I don’t recall the accident itself. Luckily my gear mostly saved me. I have small scrapes on both knees, one on my left elbow (the one previously broken). I also hit my head hard enough to cause a concussion – which is why I don’t really remember Sunday too well.

My poor wife has been at my side the whole time, only going home when they boot her out. Both of my girls are taking it well enough, but they are ready for me to get home. My parents are not in the smallest bit pleased with me. Apparently mommy dearest dropped a few F bombs.

I’m done riding on the street, that is certain. I’m going to be getting rid of both bikes. Not out of animosity or anything, just practical calculations.

To be clear I still love motorcycles. They occupy a large part of me. But the risks involved need to be better managed. So street riding is out. No arguments. I don’t want to ever put my family through this bowl of suck again. We don’t need to talk about other stuff for now.

For the next two year I’m going to use my addictive/obsessive personality to go after technology, business and marketing. I’ll have fun doing that for while and pay off everything I owe.

Anyway, it has been a good ride but I’m done with riding on the street.

Read this today: Is effort a myth?

I really like the list at the end - 2 hours a day: get some exercise, read, learn.  Few other things but all pretty small investments in yourself and the people around you.  The effect of doing things like that are like compound interest.  You might only save a few dollars each week, but over time it adds up.

 

Instead of reading blogs about how the economy is going to collapse, instead of listening to CNN yammer on and on about the DOW going up and then down and then down some more,  instead of listening to the idiot politicians and 'business leaders' and their grand ideas - go get some exercise.  Talk to your spouse.  Learn Silverlight.  Do something else.

My current project is a bit of a pain.  I'm having to dance between 2 to 4 instance of Visual Studio while I'm testing and debugging!  I can merge three of the solutions in to one solution file to reduce it, but I don't really want to do that for a number of reasons I'm not going to go in to.  Suffice it to say I'm a bit stuck with the current situation.

However, with a bit of macro hacking I'm able to make my life a tad easier.  I can build the project I'm working on.  Launch its host, launch the client and then attach the debugger to both so that I can take control.

I had to search around to get the details, but nobody really had the whole thing put together.  Koen's blog has part of what you need - he shows how to attach the VS debugger to an already running process.  What nobody really mentions is how to go about getting the process running in the first place.

After searching the docs it seems VS doesn't really provide a way to launch a project's executable.  You have to do it yourself.  VB and C# project objects have properties that will tell you the output directory and the output assembly.  The output path is relative so you'll have to turn it in to a full path by getting the project's path and then navigating from there.

Once you have the full path to the executable just use System.Diagnstics.Process.Start to launch the program.  Once the program has been started attach the debugger.

In my case I have to start my service hosts (there are 3 of them) then start the client and then attach the debugger.

The Macro isn't exactly clean yet.  Once I have something cleaner I'll share, but the details above give you everything you need to know.

Resources:

http://weblogs.asp.net/koenv/archive/2008/02/14/quick-attach-and-detach-debugger.aspx

It’s pretty easy for me to get distracted by stuff around me.  I have really good hearing so I over hear everything.  Wearing headphones helps a little, but most of the music I like (heavy metal, some rap, etc) doesn’t exactly promote productivity.  I like house & dance, but have trouble finding really good stuff.  Trance is great too but same problem.  So if cranking up the volume on my Zune isn’t the answer what is?  Ear Plugs!

 

Same ear plugs I wear while riding work.  The only problem is that people have trouble getting my attention.  Actually, that is a feature not a bug.

 

If you have the same problem give it a try.  Lowes and most home improvement places sell them.  A big box with 100 costs about $10 and will last you forever if you take care of them.

Being a consultant can be a lot of fun.  You constantly get to work on new and exciting projects.  You have the opportunity to make a real contribution to your client’s business.  You even get a degree of control over you ultimate destiny.  It is not necessarily an easy road to walk but it definitely has its rewards.

 

Not everybody is cut out to play in this arena.  It is not really a question of talent.  The truth is; in most fields talent is not really the qualifier: just look at our political class.  The real qualifier is just showing up day after day and for some people that can be a real battle.  Internal dialog saying “I suck”, “I’m not good enough to be here”, “They’re going to find out that I suck and then fire me” and so on does nothing to help you and none of it is true.  The problem comes about when that internal dialog drives a person to action.

 

In one case it drove a person to quit a project just as things were getting interesting.  He told his client that he couldn’t handle it and quit.  Just like that.  He did complain a bit ahead of time, but nobody took it that seriously.  If developers aren’t whining about things they are either busy actually working or asleep.  So nobody took the whining seriously.  All the same he quit; gave the manager his two weeks notice and began wrapping up his affairs.

 

The head slapper here is two fold.  First he quit without having already arranged a new project and second he quit in middle of a project.  The second problem is the bigger of the two it just isn’t as immediate.  The first problem though is a bit dumb.  If you know that your project is wrapping up you start a search for the next one.  Six weeks is a lot of lead time and enough to ensure that you’ll have a gig well in hand when your current one wraps.  Recruiters will take care of this for you, but it takes a bit of management to get what you want out of them.

 

Quitting in middle of a project though is huge.  In very simple terms: Don’t ever do that!  It will eat at you like cancer.  By quitting in middle of a project you can pretty much write off that client forever.  They won’t trust you again for any reason.  Second, people in IT get around and so does your reputation.  The manager you just quit on in a year or two will be in a new company that you want to work for.  Guess what happens when you name comes up?  Your resume goes in the trash can.  You might be the hottest Silver Light developer in four states and it won’t matter.

 

The lesson is this: if you sign up for a gig you work it until it is done or the client cancels the project.  Your word, a signature on a contract, has to mean something.  Quitting in middle of a contract is an indication that your word can’t be trusted.  A consultant that can’t be trusted is an unemployable consultant.