Category: Joel

I have not done much MySQL optimization before, but I have been diving into it deeper the last couple of days.  Previously, I have read “High Performance MySQL” by OReilly, but I had not had a chance to put it into practice. Now I am working on my live management feedback web application to improve query performance and schema optimization.… read more “MySQL Optimization”

I am super excited about my new web application about to launch that will import my team member’s time worked and allow me to provide feedback on each task!

I was sitting in my Acadia this morning at the left turn signal from Motor onto Venice when I felt a push from behind and looked in my rear view mirror and saw a big yellow truck. I pulled through the intersection and pulled over and the guy followed me. The guy spoke pretty poor English and said he was a delivery driver.… read more “Minor Accident Today”

One of the worst parts of running an agency is when you hear that a client wants to cancel. At that point, you need to call the client to find out why. Sometimes they don’t understand the results they’ve gotten, sometimes they have legitimate concerns, sometimes they have financial issues. But it always is one of the most stressful and least fun parts of running an agency.… read more “Save The Client Calls”

I spent 14 hours this weekend debugging an application built by someone else. I couldn’t even get it properly installed! Super frustrating, but I did learn a decent amount of system administration related stuff. Hopefully my pain will help me in the future.

One of the stocks I am shorting, Shake Shack (SHAK) is now in a short squeeze situation.  Let me explain what these terms mean:

When you short sell a stock, you borrow shares of that stock from your broker and sell them in the open market. In effect, you are betting that the stock will go down and you will make money.  … read more “SHAK Short Squeeze”

I have really been working hard lately on improving my development capabilities, and have been making significant progress. I am at work building 3 tools for my company that should help in a really big way:

• Recruiting
• Training
• Time Management

Each of these tools should automate and streamline some relatively inefficient processes. I am very excited about it!

I am incredibly grateful to Taylor Otwell for building Socialite for Laravel… it will make my programming so much easier this morning! Turn several hours of struggling with figuring oAuth2.0 and integrating it into my app into less than an hour of easy integration.

Sometimes it seems to me that sitting on the couch and watching television is a nice way to relax, but that is happening less often. I’ve realized that I actually feel better in general if I do something to improve myself. Here is a list of my favorite non-work activities at this point:

1. Programming
2. Outdoor rock climbing
3. Reading non-fiction books
4. Running
5. Reading hacker news articles on my phone
6. Eating healthy
7. Getting enough sleep (prereq for life)
8. Indoor climbing
9. Playing a game like BrainWars on my phone

Favorite work activities:

1. Programming
2. Building new systems / structures
3. Working with my team members / collaboration
4. Team meetings
5. Client calls / sales calls
6. Answering emails
7. Negotiating contracts

Today was a bad day. I had to listen to a lot of lies, exaggerations, and false accusations trying to portray me as something that I’m not. Extremely frustrating, especially since the person doing it benefited from my generosity for years. You think someone is not a bad person, then you find they have been plotting and carrying forward with an attempt to destroy you for months.… read more “False Accusations”