The Theology of Testing; Or, Why I Want to be Just an Engineer Again (Part 1)

The tests had been in progress all day, and the flustered look on the faces of the testers gathered around the test equipment indicated that things weren't going well. The Test Director, armed with his clipboard, approached.

"Gentlemen," the Test Director inquired, "how is it going?" The grimace upon his face revealed that he had no hope of good news.

He was not disappointed.

"It doesn't work," the Chief Feature Tester - who also happened to be the Chief Feature Developer - replied. "But it isn't our fault! The hardware isn't working properly, and the test equipment isn't adequate to our needs."

"And the Test Procedures are complicated and difficult to follow," complained the Assistant Feature Tester.

"But you wrote the Test Procedures," the Test Director pointed out.

The Assistant Feature Tester had the grace to blush.

"It doesn't matter!" cried the Chief Feature Tester. "We can't write good Test Procedures unless we have good equipment to work with, and good hardware to test with, and this setup doesn't have either one!"

The Test Director knew that this was true, but he also knew that it wasn't going to change anytime soon. "So what do you need?"

"More time. The right test equipment. Hardware that works."

The Test Director sighed. "Let me rephrase that. What do you need right now in order to test what you can with the hardware you've got?"

"More time."

"How much time?"

The Chief Feature Tester pondered a moment. "How much time have do we have?"

"We ship in two weeks."

"Okay. We need two weeks."

"But that won't give us enough time to fix any problems you find."

The Chief Feature Tester growled. "It's already too late to fix anything we find. It'll take us two weeks just to get the test procedures to the point where they're actually testing the software instead of the test procedures."

The Test Director thought for a moment.

"So, if I understand you correctly, you're telling me that it will take us two more weeks to get to the point where our test procedures are actually doing what they are designed to do, which is finding problems with the software."

"Yes."

The Test Director stifled a twitch.

"Even though we've been working on these test procedures now for something on the order of three months."

"Yes."

The Test Director blinked. The light was hurting his eyes all of a sudden.

"Very well. Carry on."

The Test Director turned and walked out of the laboratory, clutching his clipboard like a life ring. In an hour, he would be sitting in a conference room explaining to management why they were going to ship software that hadn't been adequately tested, and he was feeling a desperate urge to fill his bloodstream with analgesics.

Happy Birthday, Deb!

We've all been looking forward to this for a long time. It isn't every day that a girl turns ten years old, after all! And it's such a curious age, right on the cusp of all those wonderful physical/mental/emotional/hormonal changes. We've seen a bit of it now and then; she can be quite moody, and she's stubborn and oversensitive like her father (and mathematically inclined like her mother).

The kids had the day off due to Martin Luthor King, Jr. Day, but Dad didn't (because they're so mean at work) so Dad missed out on the trip to the mall and the wonderful experience that is ear-piercing. Then there was a trip to the coffee shop for cocoa, which he also missed. But Dad did get to see the beautiful earrings that Mom had gotten her grown-up daughter, and the crystal bowl for storing them, and the other presents which brought a smile to the happy birthday girl.

Later, after Dad got home, there was cupcakes and candles and singing and fun things like that. Some pictures were taken, and subsequently uploaded to Flickr for your amusement.

I try to imagine what she'll be like in a few short years when the boy-craze hits, and the body changes really kick in, and the urge to purchase a shotgun (for patrolling the front porch) begins. It is not something to which I look forward in anticipation. But there are other events which will be much more pleasant, and perhaps those will make up for it.

For now, she's still my little girl, and she still greets me every day by leaping (literally) into my arms. I'm really going to hate it when that comes to an end, and it won't be 'cool' to show such affection to Dear Old Dad. So I'm trying to soak it up as much as possible now.

In fact, I think I'll go give her a hug right now...

Dragon Cereal : The Movie

So if you've been keeping up, you know that James had a project to work on during the holidays, a book report in the form of a box of cereal. And he came up with this really cute idea called "Dragon Claws".

So he sat down at the computer and used Word to draw up the design, and then printed it out and showed it to us; and then we had him go back and make a few spelling corrections and little tweaks, so he did those and then he printed it out again and taped it to the cereal box. And then we all stood around and looked at it, and it looked really cool.

Nicely done, I thought. Looks great, I said.

Then, of course, he dropped The Bomb.

The cereal needs a "commercial". This is a fancy way of saying that the book report is actually an oral report, and the box is just a prop. But he'd spent the majority of his time designing and building the box, leaving very little time for the oral part of the presentation.

He wanted to make it a video commercial, one he could give to the teacher as a DVD. That sure beats standing up in front of the classroom with your knees knocking. Great for people who tend towards stage fright.

He turned in the "prop" on Friday, right on schedule. The report was due on Monday. Which left Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday to get it done.

Friday night was out. That was our church-sponsored AirSoft war, which kept him out until late.

So on Saturday, it was time for him to buckle down and write a script so we could start filming something.

Took quite awhile to get the message the way he wanted. By the time he finished, in fact, it was too late in the evening to start the project, so we put it off one more day. Til Sunday.

At this point, there was no more time. We had to get down to business. We cleared off the kitchen island, put the props in place, set up the camera, and started working.

Got the basic filming done, then took the raw footage downstairs to the video workstation and started editing. Didn't have quite enough time to get it done the way I'd hoped, but it was good enough for a first effort.

Here 'tis!



Addendum
He took the DVD in to school on Monday. The teacher was out. He took the video in again on Tuesday. She was still out. He took it in again on Wednesday - she was there! So he got to play it for everyone, and they all thought it was hilarious. {You know how 6th graders can be.} And the teacher asked for a copy!

Lazy Man's Birthday Wish

Hey, Jeanne!!!

Happy Birthday!!

What amazing feats are you going to perform Today?

(Don't give me too many details, I'll just feel old and tired...)

We hope you have a wonderful time, whatever it is that you end up doing.

Dragon Cereal

James had an assignment to do a book report as a Cereal Box. Very ... interesting. I took a few photos of it and uploaded them to the Flickr account.

He loves dragons, so the book he chose was "Eldest", one of the Eragon series. He wanted to film a commercial, too, but we haven't completed that yet.

Unwarranted Depression

I think we'd all agree that those of us living in the United States are, for the most part, blessed beyond belief.

After all, we have Costco. We have Home Depot. We have 7-Eleven's on nearly every corner, supermarkets on every other corner, with food overflowing the shelves and high-fructose corn syrup in practically everything so that no one has an excuse not to be obscenely obese.

We have Best Buy, where the walls are stuffed with big-screen HDTVs and you can purchase a cheap PC for under five hundred dollars.

We have cable television and DVDs and NetFlix and movie multiplexes with matinee prices so that no one need go un-entertained.

We have public television so that our children can watch Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer and even occasional historical documentaries.

We can book flights on our home computers, print out our own tickets, and drive down to the airport for a quick jaunt to just about anywhere in the world, if we so choose.

We can fill our houses with junk we don't need, food we will eventually throw out, toys that break five minutes after purchase.

We have hot water on tap, electricity that works nearly all the time (barring natural disasters or idiots who can't steer away from power poles), and automobiles which can carry us and our children and various number of possessions all over the country.

We are blessed beyond belief.

And when we get down to a personal level, we-the-Meyer-family are blessed far in excess of most of the world.

We have children who are healthy and (somewhat) well-adjusted. We have a nice house in a nice neighborhood. I have a job (so far). I have an awesome wife who still puts up with me. Mostly.

So why do I get depressed?

I read an article this morning about Brook Busey-Hunt, the girl who wrote the screenplay for "Juno", and it mentioned how she, a novice screenwriter, had written this marvelous masterpiece while sitting in a suburban Starbucks in a Target. Now the movie has become a popular hit. She's famous. What's more important, she is recognized as a talented, intelligent writer.

It reminded me J.K. Rowling, who is now the richest person in England thanks to Harry Potter. Of course, she worked very hard to get there. But she did it by writing.

I don't envy their fame. There are too many examples of how that can really mess up someone's life. But the fact that they are actually writing, and writing well, and being recognized for it - that gets to me.

There's something inside every person that needs some kind of acknowledgement that they are special, that they have something to offer outside of mere existence, that they are valued for more than just being a human being. We've all heard the platitudes about how "everyone is special", but that's a meaningless statement unless it is qualified with a non-generic adjective to explain the particular quality inherent in each particular person.

My children are special because I recognize in them specific qualities, and it is those qualities that makes them especially valuable to me. I could say that they are 'special' because they are human beings, or because they are in my family, or because they are my genetic offspring; but those are meaningless because it doesn't give them any credit for developing their talents (and likewise suppressing their baser instincts). I like to focus on their special abilities, like Adam's game designing or James' artistry or Deborah's servant heart or Mary's love of dance, because those are things in which they can take some pride in developing, in expanding, in perfecting. And these are the characteristics which are displayed to the world, the things for which they may be known as they become adults.

I, too, wish to be appreciated, but not because I live and breathe and work and am a member of and support my family; those are the things that just come with the territory. I would like others to see in me the desire to create, the ability to craft words and music and concepts into works of beauty or usefulness. And I'd like to create a few of those things before I die.

But I don't have time or energy.

Most of my day is taken up with work. And the people at work aren't interested in how creatively I can get my job done, they just want it done. And though we get a lot of lip service from The Company about Career Growth and Personal Growth, we all realize that The Company's goal is not to provide a springboard for each persons individual goals and aspirations, but to put people in a slot where they will be the most productive for The Company.

At the end of the day, and sometimes on the weekends, there is time for family, mostly a matter of re-acquainting myself with my wife and children (who wake up new and different every day) and trying to get a few things done around the house before it falls down around our ears.

There really isn't time to just sit and create, not outside the time-slotted, fitting activities into the daily schedule kind of thing. And I can't create when there's an alarm clock in the back of my head ready to remind me when that time is up, and the next task comes up.

So the net result is somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy-five to eighty stories sitting in a hard drive on my other computer which haven't been touched in years, and a multitude of half-finished songs which have been badly performed in a rush and then forgotten, and a website that doesn't get updated more often than a couple times a month.

And the hours pass into days, and the days pass into years, and suddenly this year I'm going to be forty-five, and I'm reading about these young people who managed to find the time to write their screenplays and now everyone recognizes that they are really something special...

And although I'm blessed beyond belief, and have absolutely nothing in the world to complain about, and have the most wonderful family in the whole world, and am married to the most beautiful woman in the whole world, I'm depressed.

Oh, well. As Mr. Bennett would say,

``You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.''

Ow My Head Hurts

I'm enjoying one of those All-Day headaches. Started out this morning with a bit of a dried-out, stuffed-up head, and proceeded apace. Got to the point of near-nausea right before lunch, but a bit of food kept it at bay for at least another hour or so, just in time for an important meeting.

Naturally, it was back with a vengeance afterward.

Thought it might've been due to dehydration, so spent a great deal of time hanging about the water fountain, but didn't notice any particularly beneficial effects from that. Tried not to over-medicate; a couple of migraine tablets was the only break in that fast. They kept things down to a dull roar. Mostly.

The rains came in and washed away the snow from all the yards in the neighborhood, and the streets are black with rain and rain-clouds. Might as well be Spring, for all that. The air is warm and wet and perfect for breathing, just like Seattle weather should be - except this is Michigan. And in a few day's time, the temperature will drop again and the snow will begin to fall, and we'll be back to the regular business of Winter.

I'll have to turn on my humidifier again then. The humidity drops down to twenty or twenty-five percent when the air is too cold to hold the moisture anymore; it falls to the ground and just sits there, helpless, while my sinuses ache from the dryness of it all. So my little humidifier sits under my desk at work and patiently pumps out wafts of misty air to try and keep me comfortable, and every so often I lean my head down and take a thick, deep breath to try and re-establish the equilibrium within.

Perhaps if I were to use a face-mask instead, it would be more efficient. It doesn't seem to work very well, with all the precious moisture billowing out from beneath my desk and disappearing into the ether. But it's better than nothing.

Feeling in a somber mood. I was just surfing a while ago and ran into a cute little video called "Best Friends", with a little girl and a pug (James wants a pug of his own), and they were using Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and it just wrecked me. He had such an amazing voice. I can't believe he's gone -- and I never heard of him until after he had gone.



The pug video is cute. James enjoyed it immensely. And I've sat here listening to that music over and over again for the last half-hour. (I didn't keep watching the same video, though. There's plenty of other videos on YouTube with Israel's song, some tributes, some gorgeous rainbow pictures.) Something about that voice, those dynamics ...

That's the kind of music that transcends time and space. It transports me to someplace I can't even begin to describe. It's the same thing that happened on Sunday during worship service. There was just something about the song we were singing, the dynamics of the room, the overwhelming sense of worship that was going on - and, to steal a line from Eric Liddel (in Chariots of Fire), "And when I sang, I felt his pleasure."

Good songs fill me up inside, make me want to sing loud and strong and forever. Except when other people are looking at me. Then I clam right up, struck dead by stage fright.

Well, so long as no one is looking at me, I'm going to sit here and sing along with Israel.

Cheerio!

Major Distraction

I adore great photography.

In high school, for a time, I worked for Will Schermerhorn's mother in her frame shop. She taught me to develop black-and-white film, and sent me out on assignments to take nature photos from which she would draw her artwork.

{Will is an awesome photographer and videographer. You oughta check out his website! }

One of the first major purchases I made after college was a Canon AE-1 SLR camera. I had hoping to pursue photography as a hobby, but never really developed the knack for it. Occasionally, I'd get a few nice-looking shots, but those were the exceptions and not the rule.

I still have the camera. Since the digital photo revolution, it's been gathering dust in my closet.

Whereas my friend, Andy, or rather Martin A. Olstad, who taught me not only about photography but also about music and art and boogie-boarding, has continued his work in the arts, now apparently focusing on sculpture. Talk about talent!

Then there's my brothers, Craig and Kelly. When they were little, I brought home a video camera so my folks would be able to record their growing-up years (because most of the rest of us were not going to be around -- I thought). They promptly commandeered the camera, making all sorts of hilarious videos. And they continue to do so, as you can see from their websites.

Sometimes I am wistful that there never seems to be enough time to pursue any of those artistic interests. Occasionally I'll put together a bit of music or a video or take an interesting picture to post on the web, but creating true artwork takes time and dedication and focus. And a certain lack of distractions.

And now there's this website that is proving to be a major distraction for me. I can't remember where the link first showed up, but ever since it came along, it's like an addiction. It posts some of the most beautiful pictures, the kind that make my heart ache to look at, and it makes me wish I could produce something as wonderful.

Lucky for me that the site is blocked by our filters at work, or there would be no way for me to get anything done.

It must be noted, as well, that since the site allows the general public to post any photo they want (and then the submissions get voted up or down by the viewers), there are occasions where the pictures are not suitable for children, so I do not visit this site when the children are looking over my shoulder. But those are the exceptions, not the rule.

Most of the pictures take my breath away, or make me laugh, or just leave me stunned. Some of them make me want to jump on a plane and fly to the location where the picture was taken, just to see it for myself. Some of them give me a new appreciation for the people who live in other countries, how much in common we are, and yet how different.

All of them make me wish I could take pictures like that.

Is it Friday yet?

I've been at work for only two days, and I'm ready for another holiday.

{Pardon me if I yap about work for a bit. It's tiresome, but since a majority of my time is spent there, it does tend to fill up my thoughts.}

There remains but six weeks to complete an incredible amount of work, and there is absolutely no way it can be done. Documents to finish, tests to run, reports to write, data to publish. On schedule. Under budget.

No pressure. Right.

I've had a few moments in the course of my career (if you can call it a 'career') where going to work was an absolute joy, looking forward to getting up in the morning. Usually in the beginning of a job, when it seems there is all the time in the world to learn, to plan, to get things done. But eventually - sometimes, unfortunately, not very far into it - the anxiety begins. The dread of having to deal with being behind schedule, over budget, overwhelmed with too many tasks and not enough bandwidth to deal with it all.

I'm just not suited for budgets and schedules and product deliveries. I'm a dreamer, a prototyper, a person who likes to sit back and think about things, imagining ways it might be done better or faster or more elegantly. Consequently, I spend far too much time thinking about work than actually doing work.

Go ahead. Ask Cheryl. She'll tell you it's true. It's true of all my home projects as well.

I ran across an interesting article the other day
which seemed to illuminate my predicament. The article speaks to the potential mis-categorization of students as "gifted" when they are, in fact, either high-achievers or creative learners. Thinking back to my junior high school days, when I was enrolled in the "Talented and Gifted" program, it always puzzled me that I should be considered "gifted" when it was so obvious that my peers were the ones with the "gifts" and I was merely the one with a great deal of luck to be accidentally included in the group. My peers were very smart. They could play instruments; they enjoyed playing mathematical games and putting puzzles together; they had artistic flair and could draw objects that actually looked something; they were (mostly) disciplined and could get their work done on time without procrastinating.

I was not exceptionally smart, but I could read and comprehend; and if you could read and comprehend the material, it really wasn't that difficult to do well in school.

I liked being in the TAG group, but always felt as though someone had made a mistake by putting me in there; and it was obvious that, sooner or later, they were going to find out that I didn't really belong there, and should be kicked out. And I'd have to go back to my old classroom and sit with the idiots who couldn't figure read or comprehend the simplest sentences in English.

The same thing happened in high school. I was placed in the advanced classes with all the bright, fun people, and had a wonderful time, making good grades, but ... there was always a sense that someday, someone was going to discover that I wasn't quite as smart as everyone else, and I'd have to go back to the "normal" group. But the people in those classes were so much fun! They actually took learning seriously! And understood my weird sense of humor!

College was where it all fell apart. You actually have to work hard in college, not just think about working hard, and I spent more time daydreaming about the things I was supposed to be doing instead of actually doing them - until the day before the project was due or the test was going to take place.

In college, you also have to deal with a multitude of complicated subjects all at once. Unlike high school, there isn't sufficient time to focus on one for a long period of time until it's done; you must be able to multi-task. In one night, you might need to read thirty pages of text and write a paper and complete a mathematics assignment and complete a take-home quiz. Lots of focus-shifting in a short amount of time. And that is something I've never been able to do.

In my latest job assignment, unfortunately, it's a requirement. As a Technical Lead, I'm responsible for estimating budgets and schedules and team assignments on a weekly basis, plus handling all the problems that come up, whether they be personal, technical, or otherwise. In addition, there are reports that must be filed every week, multiple meetings to attend every day, and occasionally even programming problems that must be addressed.

It is normally the case that the end of the day comes along and I have not yet completed a single task on my list. It is frustrating. And it makes me wonder why it is so difficult.

After reading the article, it became obvious. I'm not primarily a high-achiever nor a gifted learner, but a creative thinker.

Which means that the following apply: daydreaming, overflowing with ideas (many of which will never be developed); always asking, "What if..."; not particularly interested in mastery; improvising instead of mastering; not motivated by grades (or kudos or awards or any of the other stupid carrots offered by management); off-the-wall humor; likes to work alone.

This is not Tech Lead or Management material, in my opinion. This is R&D material. This is the kind of person that needs to be let loose in a laboratory to see what comes out.

But that doesn't fit in with the corporate culture. Typically the corporation wants everyone to be a high-achiever, and tolerates one or two of the gifted types to become the 'architects', the geniuses behind the designs. There isn't a place for people who just sit around thinking up new ideas because that isn't an activity that can be planned, scheduled or budgeted. And a corporation thrives on being able to predict with certainty when things will be done and how much they will cost.

It's going to get even worse in the coming year as The Company implements their new plan for turning us all into Systems Engineers (and out-sourcing all the 'grunt' work of software coding and testing to overseas suppliers). There won't be many positions available. Inevitably, there will be layoffs and transfers and downsizing, just the kind of thing that Michigan needs about now, with home prices declining and unemployment rising.

It's going to be a fun year!

Welcome to 2008!

Happy New Year!

And to give you an idea of what fun we had on the first day of the year, here's some little photos...

The girls played on their DSes. And played Barbies. And played outside in the four-to-six inches of snow that come down last night. And watched movies. But I only have this picture of them playing on the DS. Actually, Deb is playing while Mary watches. Mary is trying to pick up on some hints for a game she doesn't have yet. And she's pestering her sister to let her play it, too. Aren't sisters fun?

Dad worked on a corner of the basement. Took him nearly half a day to figure out how to properly reinforce the corner where the two walls meet so the drywall (which isn't purchased yet) will have something solid to hold onto. Then it was just a matter of cutting the foam insulation to fit between the studs.

(Notice Cheryl's old radio hanging from the wall. That's how Dad keeps himself entertained while he works!)

And here in another corner of the basement, the problem was to avoid all the wires. This corner is just a mess, but that's the way all the wiring came out, with the power and phone and network cables all sprouting from one central location. Dumb way to wire it, if you ask me. Plus the stud positioning was off due to the overhead pipes and ventilation. What a pain!

Finally, in this third corner, I put in some power drops for the inner wall between the bedroom and the den, one for each side. It's a thin wall - only 2x3 - so it won't be much of a noise abatement unless I decide to go back later and double it up, but for now it will serve the purpose of partitioning.

After all that work, we had a wonderful turkey dinner, provided by our lovely hostess Cheryl, and then we all sat around watching Indiana Jones (and the Last Crusade) and stuffing ourselves with cookies and chocolate treats.

Aren't you jealous???