Tech Crunch: “And that is the target market of the Apple Watch. Not “rich people†(though there’s a model specially for them), not “tech geeks†and not “Apple fanatics.†It’s people who want more time, and that is a very large target.”
Face it. If you can spend $349.00 on a watch, you are rich.

All of Kim’s roses are really happy.
This is a Cherry Plum tree in our backyard. I’ve been sitting next to it most of the afternoon. Yes, I’m coding.
The freesias are blooming. So fragrant.
All Day: “Detroit is now a ghost town with more than 70,000 buildings, 31,000 houses, and 90,000 lots empty or vacant. In 2010, a plan was proposed to bulldoze a fourth of the city in an attempt to concentrate the populated areas. Currently, homes sell at an average of $7,500, with some going for less than $500. “
I can’t convince my lovely wife to move to Detroit. Wonder why?
Bitwise Industries: “It’s tempting to think that what we’re doing at Bitwise Industries is about buildings or technology or companies. Those are incredible byproducts of what we’re trying to achieve, but that’s not our game. Bitwise is about humans. We’re about their stories, and empowering the next generation of ambitious people to do awesome stuff in Fresno.”
This is why I named Bitwise, Irma, and Jake as A few of my favorite things. Their undying love of people and community. They’ve built something special in Fresno.
Thank you, Irma and Jake.
IT World: “IBM is expected to go through a massive reorg next month that will reportedly see 26% of its 430,000-strong work force let go, or 111,800 people. If that figure holds true, that would make it far and away the largest corporate layoff event in history, “
Wow. Just, wow. That’s almost as many people as live in Visalia (the city I live in.) It’s so massive it’s hard to fathom.
Update: To put it another way.
IBM is laying off 110,000 people. For comparison, Apple employs just under 100k people (including both retail and corporate). That is crazy.
— your friend patrick (@importantshock) January 26, 2015
I don’t normally look back on the year, and 2014 is a year I’d like to forget, but instead of focusing on the bad I thought I’d share some of the great things of the year. Here they are, in no particular order.
Even though big tech companies could allow folks to work remotely, they don’t, or won’t. If you live in the San Joaquin Valley of California you’re in a definite no mans land of tech, or as I described it once before, a Technology Black Hole. That said a few wonderful folks, leaders all, decided they would do something about it and formed Bitwise Industries as an umbrella company to provide those of us that live in The Great Valley a place to gather, learn, and work. There are so many people to thank for making this happen, but Irma, Jake, Anna, and Rick are amazing. Thank you for giving Technologists in the Valley a hub.
Castro is my podcast app of choice. It has a unique user interface and works the way I’d like my podcast application to work. It’s simple, does a great job, and is beautiful. Not much more to say.
I’ve used Slack on a couple client projects and we use it at Agrian. It’s a great way to communicate and keep an eye on other parts of your business. E.G. You can integrate it into your build environment or be notified when a server or database is having issues. I know I’m only scratching the surface of its capability. It’s a great tool.
When I started Freelancing earlier in the year I worked with a couple companies using Basecamp to manage projects. If you need something simple to manage projects Basecamp is a great choice. It’s easy to use and reliable.
If you’d like a way to manage your Twitter Favorites, look no further. Tweetfave will deliver your favorites to your inbox. Pretty simple.
If you’re writing iOS or Mac client applications, that needs to communicate to a network service, you’ve probably heard of AFNetworking. This code makes communicating with REST/JSON based services a snap. You can, of course, use it for more than REST/JSON.
Simply Design is another Fresno based company. Tessa Williamson runs this great design shop. When I went back out on my own I wanted to transition Apple Core Labs to Hayseed. Tessa gave me a beautiful design and is so easy to work with. She’s the real deal. (No, Hayseed never came to be.)
Back in May we moved Haileigh, our oldest daughter, back to California. We turned it into a vacation. We hit New Orleans the evening of Tuesday, May 6, and I was instantly in love with the French Quarter. I’m sure this happens to most people that visit. It’s a magical place, and no, I’m not talking about Bourbon Street, New Orleans is so much more than that. We were able to spend one day in this beautiful city. I’d love to live there.
In late 1991 I was laid off from AgData. At that time there were even fewer tech companies in the San Joaquin Valley than there are now so I packed a bag and drove up to Seattle. Kim’s Dad lived there at the time so I had a place to stay while looking for a job.
I found a contract job a few days after I arrived. Amaze, !nc had just released the Windows and Mac versions of The Farside Calendar. It was mid-November, the test and development staff were burned out and they needed help testing the DOS release of the calendar.
All of that backstory just to say I remember driving home each night, pulling out of the Kirkland business park where Amaze was headquartered, driving past a time temperature sign on Interstate 405 that read 38 degrees. It was always raining, always.
I was reminded of that time when I took our pup out this evening to do her thing. It was 35-degrees, it felt nice. Strange how my brain works.
I’m happy to say I’ve landed a new full time iOS Development position with a great company; Agrian. They’re a smart and fun bunch focused on creating useful solutions for the Agricultural industry. We live in the great San Joaquin Valley of California, it’s the richest agricultural land in the world. At Agrian we’re “…dedicated to helping all participants in the agrifood industry to grow and harvest crops that are safe, profitable, and comply with a host of state and federal government regulations.” It’s all about making things better for farmers, which in turn, will benefit all of us.
Agrian understands web scale solutions and realizes it’s all about services. Mobile is one tiny cog in that machine and I’m happy to be a part of it.
On the technical side of things I’ll get to use all kinds of nifty stuff day-to-day. We are, of course, using a lot of Objective-C but there is a nice little mix of Swift in the code base, I’m sure that will increase as we move forward. We’re also using some very interesting frameworks. I hope to share more on those later.
The group of developers I’m working with are top notch, all of them. I hope I can live up to expectations.
Etsy News Blog: “Today, Etsy launches a solution for our sellers based in the US to accept credit and debit card payments in person and help manage their multi-channel sales more efficiently.”
My dear wife has a store on Etsy for her little crafting business, Ragamuffin Design. She’s been using Square at craft shows and has been evaluating other store solutions that offer tighter integration with her domain, but the introduction of this card reader connected to Etsy’s service to manage inventory and collect payments is hard to ignore.
At a recent craft show Kim used this new reader and the Etsy application to great effect. I’d say it’s a winner and may be a good option for others running small businesses. I didn’t get a chance to use the app or accept payments with it, but I would change one small thing in the iOS Application. I would allow it to rotate upside down. On an iPhone 5 the app is upside down if you want the card reader at the top.
I do find it interesting Square hasn’t created an SDK for others to hook into. With the advent of Apple Pay I would hope they’d open up a bit. Access to credit and debit cards is still necessary for little businesses like my wife’s crafting business. Collecting cash isn’t the only thing she needs to do. She also needs to manage inventory on her site.
Big Cartel is a small, tight-knit, company that provides a white-label storefront for indie artists, crafters, and whatever else you’d think to sale online. They have a small (500,000) set of very loyal customers that manage their day-to-day online sales using the platform. They also have a really nice iOS client application that is missing one small thing. The ability to support swiping credit cards on the go. They do provide a way to collect money by typing in credit card numbers, it works, but is less convenient and error prone. They could really benefit from a Square SDK. They need this kind of integration because, like Etsy, they can manage your product inventory as the transaction is completed. Doing that after the fact is a real pain, I know, I’ve seen my wife do that after shows, prior to using the Etsy card reader.
I’m also a bit surprised someone like Stripe hasn’t created a white label reader with an SDK. Couple that with an open platform from someone like Big Cartel and you suddenly open possibilities for third party developers to create all kinds of interesting solutions.
We’re now three years on. I’ve sat on this story for long enough. I’m finally over the sting of rejection. I am grateful to be a part of Agrian. I just passed my three year anniversary and I’ve had time to work on my own side projects; RxCalc and Arrgly to name a couple. In 2018 I hope to complete and ship a new Mac App. We’ll see how that goes.
The story below was written in November 2014 when I was still actively looking for a full time position. I have since found a job with a wonderful company and I’m quite happy. At the time I was under a tremendous amount of stress, for reasons beyond the stress of a job hunt. I’ve struggled with the idea of publishing this story. It will come across as whiny to some, that’s fair. Others, including myself, will believe I just wasn’t good enough for the job, also a fair point. The truth is, we’ll never know unless someone “in the know” reaches out. All signs point to that never happening.
Anywho. Here’s the story.
I’m back in the hunt for a full time job. I wrote about it over the weekend and would like to say thanks to everyone that took the time to read it and tell their friends about it. Thank you.
I am finding it more difficult than ever before to get folks to talk to me. The hip, up-and-coming companies, dismiss me out of hand. I’m not sure why, but they do. I know I’m not the smartest guy on the planet, but I’m also not the dumbest, and I know how to get product out the door. I’ve done it many times.
A little over a month ago I had an interview with a company I really wanted to work with. They have a very practical product, and they actually make money. Imagine that, a company that makes a profit to keep the doors open. Crazy talk, right?
Anywho. They flew me out for a couple days. They’re all wonderful folks. I was thrilled with their culture. They were tight knit and seemed really great together. I was thrilled. I haven’t wanted a job this bad in a very long time.
We talked tech and I feel like that went well. They asked why I wanted the job. Fair question. I wanted it because it was something my wife could use and has actually asked me to build, yes she asked me to build what these folks have already built. I was genuinely excited about this company.
On day two I was feeling good. The day before seemed to have gone well. I was still there and hopeful I would receive a job offer. This is where things get weird.
Around 11AM the Director I would have reported to asked me to join him in the conference room with the iOS Developer I would be working with. It was the moment of truth. He asked how I felt, I said “I feel great.” I did feel great. I thought I’d have an offer from the company, everything felt so right.
He sat down and said “We think you have great technical skills and are a good communicator, but we don’t think you are a good fit.” It was a real deer in the headlights moment. I felt instantly embarrassed. Why in the world was I here? I actually appreciate them telling me while I was there, but “not a good fit”, lame. I’ve been over that moment time and again in my head “great technically, good communication skills, not a good fit.” There are very few reason I can think of that fit the “not a good fit” reason. Someone just didn’t like me, or the reason they didn’t hire me is actually not legal to say. I’m definitely much older than most of the company. I’d imagine, on average, I’m 20-years older than most of them. Some are probably the same age as my daughters.
Last week I read they hired a new developer. He is definitely much, much, younger than I am. Of course I will never know if that was the reason, as much as I want to, but it sure seems like it.
I may be older, but I can still think, and I can still write software.