I discovered how low most of my coworkers are. In total lack of integrity they cannot admit that they falsely accused one of the guys, not to mention about defending him, right Mr. Integrity Man?
Don't worry I feel the shame for you. Enjoy standing tall and being right, because you are standing alone and more alone you will be unless you realize this.

The poor guy is a programmer, yet he is blamed for a company mail server running out of hard drive which is entirely network's administrator's fault.

Next thing, I guess, will be to blame my Web Designer for future, misconfigured firewall for our WebSite server at the hosting facility. After all, a firewall configuration "is an essential component for the it to run and if we are using you should know how it works!" (as my boss is saying) In another words my Web Designer is surely incompetent.

Any advise for the staff?
Sure: Know it all, from accounting, thru customer service, be a superior programmer in at least 5 languages, configure Web servers, email exchange servers, network administration and security, fax, ftp, all the possible services and their effect and everything else, know all the Microsoft bugs and fixes and then and only then, maybe my boss will consider keeping you.

Today I worked on Apple's WebObjects 5, trying to understand it's architecture. I bounced agaist a lot of problems, I think the server works nicely, but I am afraid that it is trying to be so simplistic that will limit us in the future. There is only one way to know, learn it. I hate to work without a goal, and learning is NOT a goal for me. I need to get something DONE. This is the secret of my failure in school. Some people learn just to learn (and sometimes never use it), I learn ONLY if I can use it.
Ann's birthday, happy 24!

The day of 02/20/2002 -- what a date! I guess I will never forget it.
The whole deal was not much of a deal, but who cares, we don't do it for others, but for ourselves. Some things are important only between the people, not beside them.

Happy birthday Maya!
Happy birthday Kareem!
Happy birthday Ann!

February - a good month to be born in. Uki, my mother, Jacek, Maya, Kareem and Ann. If I was in Poland, I would also celebrate my name's day, second biggest celebration after birthdays, but this is not a custom here.
Ji ate bigos for breakfast, I knew she will be sick, but at this moment I let her eat anything she wants. I guess I have to organize my own schedule this afternoon.

I am not sure if there is a point to think about taking vacation this year. I really miss the freedom of wild outdoors, mountains. I want to see spring flowers among the patches of still not melted snow, I want to listen to the mountain streams, and birds in the trees. I want to drive thru the open desert and high ranges. I love this country, I love freedom. I feel homesick. I was born in the mountains and it is there where I belong. I suffer here in the city. In the mountains, on the trail everybody says "Hello, there how are you doing?" here nobody cares, I hate big cities.

Yesterday, I watched Men's Super G, in Salt Lake City Olimpics. If really does not look like much to outside observer, there are faster sports ("skeleton"), and more flashy ("free style jumps"), but if you know what does it mean to race 55mph down uneven, steep hill, you get the chills. In my opinion, it is an ultimate challenge, daring. Drive your car on the uneven country road at 55mph, put your head outside the window, take a ski-pole and try to jab it in the ground, at the same time make 45 degree turns. If your truck survives the exercise you will have just a slim idea what does it take. It is a person, speed and gravity. The G stands for Giant, but for me it is G-force, your mucles are burning on each turn you take, unlike the tires, the razor-sharp edges of your skis cut the snow and ice, wrong edge catches at wrong angle you are gone. It is trully on-the-edge sport. Every mistake, every bump can be a fatal mistake, you fly 90 feet per second, misjudged turn by couple of degrees makes you miss the gate, you are so efficient with space that you bump and slide agaist each gate, no room to spare, no millisecound to procrastinate.
I miss skiing so much.

Wandering
"Lovers think they're looking for each other,
but there's only one search: wandering
this world is wandering that, both inside one
transparent sky. In here
there is no dogma and no heresy.

Stretch your arms and take hold the cloth of your clothes
with both hands. The cure for pains is in the pain.
Good and bad are mixed. If you don't have both,
you don't belong with us."


I don't think I am cynical when it comes to the subject of love, or the friendships in general. Should I be?
My whole life has been like an outline of Rocky Mountains right before the dawn. The steep rising peaks and sharply falling valleys contrasting against bright horizon of the sky.
My whole life I felt deprived of love. There are not too many things I can complain about my childhood; I am thankful to my parents for the way I was raised and to God the way my life played out until now. Truly, I cannot complain about my life. Yet, at the same time ever since I can remember I was in constant search of love from others, my hopes have risen so many times and I got disappointed just as many. People, who, I hoped, would see me, the real me, inside did not, and people who should have stayed went away. Friends proved false and selfish. People that I hoped would love forever broke my heart so many times that I practically lost belief in love.
How many times did I promise love forever, how many times was I promised one? Didn't I keep that promise for years after my heart was broken? And if I did, what does it change? After all, I broke them and there is no more love in my heart for those I promised it previously. It is reality of life, but nevertheless, my word, I feel, is worthless. Hypocrisy I have spoken, sin I have committed time and time again.
So what are the friendship and the love? Is it more than a temporary alliance between couple of people as the life is trying to teach us?
I still have hopes; I would like to be young again, na�ve and full of boundless love, I don�t want to break peoples� hearts the way mine was broken, I would not want to speak hypocrisy again. I would want my few friends to see me beyond the way I look, beyond my career, ambitions, sex, religious preferences, and most of all beyond layers and layers of baggage we carry, the complexes we are having. When we strip the onion of cultural baggage we accumulated, there is the loving and caring me, full of feelings, open to others and to God.
All my life my deepest desire was to be embraced with presence of my soul mate, a friend who I could be open to my deepest feelings, and who would open likewise. My search was never sexual; it was a search for ultimate intimacy between two human beings. It hurts and bothers me when people joke and bring me to the level of primal sex; this is so much not I! I�ve been never interested in the prostitutes, or the strippers, intimacy between people should not be mistaken with sex. My search took me to a lot of people and hence the misunderstandings.

Here I stand, a disillusioned betrayer, on the beginning of new road hand-in-hand with a loving person by my side.

I ask myself what is love? Wandering?
Am I worth this test of time? Definitely not!
Will you be happy with me? Yes.

Maybe it was a sin when I promised love before and I broke that promise. A sin of lie, but I feel it would also be a greater sin to turn your back to a chance of being proven wrong.

I feel no guilt; I would not forgo anything I experienced in the past. I am grateful and humbled. I feel the weight of layers of accumulated baggage like I never felt before, my soul screams tonight and hopes that I rip my clothes off my body, go to the desert, alone, wandering, preparing to face my Beloved in the ultimate intimacy.

God in revelation to Moses by Rumi

"Did you come as a Prophet to unite, or to sever?

I have given each being
a separate and unique way
of seeing and knowing
and saying that knowledge.

What seems wrong to you
is right for him.
What is poison to one
is honey to someone else.

[...]

I am apart from all that.
Ways of worshipping
are not to be ranked as better
or worse than one another.

Hindus do Hindu things.
The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do.
It's praise, and it's all right.

It's not me that's glorified in acts of worship.
It's the worshipers!
I don't hear the words they say.
I look inside at the humility."

- God in revelation to Moses (by Rumi)

Monday was another late night, maybe 11:30PM. We took a little break at 4:30PM, I went home to JI had patato-pancake dinner she cooked, slept for 40 min. and back again to work. Today we released Live02 Software and Web site, good deal. Not too many things left, no complaints heard, really good deal. Maya has 40 item list of changes, I got 10 functionality issues, but stuff looks good by now.

Work:
On Sunday I got to work before 11AM, stayed until about 3PM, took a break, went shopping with Ji to Old Navy and then to the gym, by the time we were getting out Maya called to pick here up on the way to work. We arrived about 7PM and stayed until 3:30AM. On the positive note Atul and Dan (whether thuthfully, or not) were very happy in the morning with the amount of work we did, that was so much different form the tone of the nasty emails Atul was sending on Sunday and argument we had on Saturday. He totally does not know how to keep his people motivated. He streeses me to the point that sometime I cannot keep my mouth shot and explode, nobody else has such a strong effect on me. This is probably because that people that I feel are inferior mentally I tend to excuse, but in case of Atul who is very smart, my expectations are very high for both technology knowledge as well as management skills.

Philosophies: war and religion

Philosophies: War and Religion

I realized that it is quite possible that I am really confused about the subject of war. As a former U.S. Marine I would not hesitate to go, fight, or even die for my country's principles. Yet as a spiritual person the resolution is not as simplistic. Being brought up in Judeo-Christin culture, the Roman-Catholic "Holly" Church, experiencing Buddhism in Asia and Hinduism in my previous job at the Yoga Temple, also learning about Poland's many millenia of war with Islam (Ottoman Empire) and current struggles against fanatical Muslim terrorist groups, they all shine different and quite contradictory lights on the subject.

Let me break it down into separate believes.

Christianity: No war. Very clear position. If you are a true follower of Jesus you should never engage in war. Jesus repeatingly preached that we are here not to judge others, he refused to defend himself, and willingly went to death. This philosophy has it's obvious merits, if everyone was like him life would be full of love and without violence. As an utopian idea, I can put it on the shelf together with communism. No Christian nation lives up to their religion. Crusades in the name of God against Muslim world are some of the most shameful moments in history. What's worse they are not that remote in the past, currently there is a multitude of Christians that trully believe that the only righteous way to live is their own way.

Judaism: War is permittable. Stresses justice, Torrah is full of wisdom of how people (a tribe) should look after God's law and their own survial. Being righteous, peaceful, yet punishing your enemies. A good reality four thousand years ago, works wonders in current times in "us vs. them" (US vs. Al Qaeda) scenarios. All good unless you are on the other side of the fence (Palestinians?).

Islam: War is permittable. As any other mentioned religions, if interpreted correctly, works wonders. It is probably one of the religions clossest to Allah's true ways of good living and justice. Being not as twisted as Christianty became, it still has its fundamental flow of being too judgmental; if you are not Muslim you are wrong. Again, if you are "on the other side of the fence" you are in the lost position from the get-go. Loose-loose situation? A follower of the Bible (Torah) and follower of the Qur'am both believe in the same God ( Allah ), they share same tradition of God creating Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and many others that were true followers and proffets of the God. Yet all of them think about other religions as wrong. Objectively, one, or both must be wrong. Personally, I thing both (all three actually) are wrong. Being a spiritual person and respecting other spiritual people, as equally right, is the only solution.

So far if I was to follow any of the fore-mentioned faiths, I would choose to become a Muslim mystic, a Sufi. Open-minded, yet spiritual, full of love of God and people.

    "It's not always a blind man
who falls into a pit. Sometimes it's one who can see.

A holy one does sometimes fall,
but by that tribulation, he or she ascends,
escapes many illusions, escapes
conventional religion, escapes
being so bound to phenomena."

     by Rumi (Sufi mystic and a poet, sometime around year 1220 AD)



Hinduism: All in one. Full of philosophies and good lessons to follow. As a whole it failed miserably in the context of history. (Persecutions of both Buddhist and Muslim, internal troubles.)

Buddhism: Not a conventional religion. Being not a religion, but rather a philosophy, it can be adopted by any faith. Stresses that all in life is relative, and therefore there is no ultimate good, or wrong, in this life. Yet, most importantly, whatever you do will have a never ending effect on everything else, therefore you should be always mindful of what you do to be the best what can be expected of you. Karma is a philosophy of cause-and-effect. A buddhist, in his mindfulness, will be full of love and compation, will not kill (even animals), will not waste, will work and study hard -- that would be a everyday life of a buddhist, but on the other side of the same coin, there will not be a sin in waging a war by a buddhist, yet no buddhist will wage a war if there is another resolution to the problem, as there usually are.

Personal Note
Finally I got some sleep. Ji picked me up at 4 PM to go to the gym, but by the time we got in front of the gym's building I realized how weak I feel, so we went home. I slept until 11 PM and feel decent now. Tomorrow, Saturday, is another day of work for me, I hope to wake up early.

Finished work at 2:45 AM, came back after 9 AM not so bad, at least the MSDSonline.com Subscription process is almost finished.

Came home from work after midnight, back at work at 7:20 AM -- like in good o' times. Re-working Subscription/Registration process that had been previously proclaimed as fixed. Three days and a weekend left.

What went wrong in this start up? Part 1

I am convinced that I have no future in this company. I happen to have couple of superiors with characteristics that make any such future impossible.
My CEO as good as is in VC business is not very interested in getting to know technology, how things work, and what does it take to build new stuff, all fine but the problem is that he is heading technology startup company and he does make decisions...
My CTO is obssessed with the delivery of the new products (good thing, most would guess), there are 7 projects, 8 people, and all due to go live within 2 weeks, no chance for anything to go wrong, right!

And so on; my current project is to change look and feel of our Web site. The site has been build in ASP without much of OO components (Java), the philosophy of serving different content to different users influenced whole site. The sign-in process has changed, which influenced registration and subscription, the subscription had to be updated with better flow anyway.
Today with my marketing manager we decided that the flow of the registration does not make sense anymore (effect of different user types functionality) and had to be fixed which triggered adding two pages, and changing few others. The decision was sound from the customer's perspective and from the technology stand point. Trouble is that my boss does not approve of any changes that treaten his deadlines.
Constantly, I struggle with the fact that I am suppose to improve functionality, change look of all pages, yet I should not change the code. We (programmers) find it impposible, but boss do not care. He just wants in the end to stand up to CEO and say "I delivered". Good thing, again, to deliver on time.

What are my options? I already know that all good credits will be taken away from me and my developers (proven many times over last 2 years), I know if I don't deliver on time I may loose my job, I also know that if I deliver stuff does not work perfectly, I may loose my job as well. Delivery of inferior products are not an option, so I have to make decision that certain stuff has to be fixed. As in case of today, and usually, I have to make best decisions, and program fast hoping that it will work and I will finish on time. Bosses have no clue how much work is getting done, they will take the credit for job well done, they will blame me and my departament for any failures. This is our life.

Living with Our Genes

"[...] contrary to pupular belief, the most important enviromental factors are not rearing, education, or social status. Rather they are random and uncontrollable experiences such as the precise concentration of particular chemical in the brain, or something apparently minor like a childhood case of the measles.[...]
We spend billions of dollars -- and hours of sweaty agony -- trying to mold our bodies into the current cultural ideal, only to watch them sag back to their natural shapes.[...] We will eat the way we've always eaten, and we'll have the same activity level we had as children, or even earlier in the womb.[...]
The evidence that IQ is largely inherited is overwhelming.[...]
Encouraging news is that genes don't always play their strongest role until adulthood. Intelligence in children can be very strongly influenced by sdults because infants and youngsters are not capable of simulating themselves intellectually;[...]"

At work in MSDSonline

2/5/02 4:15 PM

Another decent day of work.

The new website is on a staging server; the time is ticking, and it is closer to the deadline of February 15th.

I moved to Kareem's mega-cube, this way, hopefully there will be more thought exchange that will benefit us all, also I should have more clue what is going on in the team.

On Personal Note:
Last night I came home totally pooped, did not even have energy to eat, since Ji was tired and fell asleep I slowly drifted away in front of TV.

On Personal Note:
I feel depressed today. I guess too many things have happened recently. My father being upset last night is on my mind, the uncertain situation in the company does not help either. It does really not matter how hard I try, how good I become in my job, I feel I can never succeed in this company.
During the technology meeting we planned for release of 7 new projects within 2 weeks, it is going to be interesting time. Maya is stressed out. We are releasing new Web site on Feb. 14th, the Valenitine's day, good planning, I guess nobody here has a life, definitely nobody around here is in hurry to see their wives/girlfriends.

Planning to go to the gym with Kareem, in need to run some of the worries out.

Book Notes:
I finished "Genome" by Matt Ridley, I think it is an excellent reading for almost anybody. In his own words: "The literature of genetics and molecular biology is gargantuan and out of date. As it is published, each book, article or scientific paper requires updating or revising, so fast is new knowledge being minted (the same applies to my book)." Nevertheless, one should read this book as it breaks multiple stereotypes that bias our daily lives. The book is comforting and well as alarming, but if anything, it is eye-opening and a good introduction to genetic science.

I, in particular, started to subscribe to chaos and deterministics theories. Oversimplifying grossly, everything in life is determined by some cause-effect fenomena, for most things in life the web of cause-effects are so complicated that are impossible to determine. There is very little of what we could call "free will"; we do what we are. We are shaped somewhere in vicinity of 50% by our heritage (genes), 10% by parent/family/home, the rest is peers. The older we get the closer we are to our original, independent, genetic selves. We can attempt to shape ourselves, and we can condition many things, but like an artist starting a scoupture, the better material we start with, the better chance for final outcome.

Not unlike as leaves floating in the stream, with the wind of external influances trying to blow us back on the shore and cataracts trying to stop us in the progress, we will either end up in the sea, our destination, or rotten on the way.

Personal Notes:
Tonight we had a dinner at my father's place. Dinner was splendid. Mira served deer veals and gulash, tenderloin veals, marinated mushrooms, Polish salads, patatoes, and fine tableware, candles made for good athmosphere among Ji, Kareem, my father, Mira, Maja, Kinga and Jacek (Konrad was watching Super-Bowl at friend's).
We anonunced our engagement which was welcomed, the chat at the table was generally good until it came down to the fact that I changed my name. That upset my father a lot, which was expected of him, I am so sorry it upset him, he does not deserve this, I still believe that my decision was right to change the name, but nevertheless I feel sorry he was hurt. I wish that he will remember what I said that the blood is more important than the name. I know this does not help much.

I want to start my new family in the new country with my new citizenship. I want my name to serve as a name that people can pronounce, not butcher every single time. I want my name not to be as unreadable as a bar-code. I want to give myself, my wife, and my children a better chance without an immediate stigma associated to them because of having a foreign, strange and uncomprehensible name. I knew that it will come at the prize of hurt family, but I think my greater responsibility is to the future, then to the past generations.

Eventualy, conversation by the table turned around and father seemed happy again, but I know it will hunt him for years.

Later, we decided with Ji that if we have a boy we will give him the middle name Grzeszkowiak to memorate the family roots.

Personal Notes:
This morning we watched film "Hope Floats". There is no question that I am a lost-case of romantic. The movie makes me see even stronger how much I want to move to the country-side, close to the nature, and how much I want to live in a small community/town where people know each other, where people's lives unfold and intertwine. I hate the fact that in Chicago, the neighbours, the store-owners do not know my name, that a street that I have been leaving on for 3 years is as foreign and cold as the first time I moved in here. People have innate need for human contact and that will not change in next 5 million years.

Ji and Kareem

This morning we went out with Kareem and Ji to the gym, it is good to have such a good company, I feel fortunate, I hope I deserved it this time.

OK, so today is my 29th birthday, but by no means this is the most important thing on my mind. Let me reflect on life shaping events of the past week.
Most of all I got engaged with Ji. As I wrote it in the email:

"Last night (Thursday, January 31, 2002) we went out with Ji, played in the snow on the beach, had a lot of fun, then I proposed to her in beautiful surroundings of the snow-covered park, I gave her a nice platinum three-diamond ring and now we are engaged to be married."

Today we watched "Forces of Nature," a very appropriate movie for the occasion. I mostly doubted myself if I will ever be a good partner to such a good girl as Ji is, I hope I will, people do change, contrary to what my sister said, and I think I changed a lot.
I have no reservations to whether I made a right choice, if ever, anybody, Ji is the best that could happen to me, a real treasure.

Also, after the ten years in the country, of which four I served in U.S. Marines, I finally got my US citizenship, which is very good news, for me and for Ji.
With the citizenship I changed my legal name to Uki Dominque Lucas, boy, I still have to communicate that to my father....

Late-Commer to this blog thing, happy birthday!

Hello World from Uki.
( I just could not resist doing this, I would otherwise feel like I am failling my fellow geek friends.)

OK, Ann, Kareem, I am a late commer to this whole Blog thing, but got to like it's idea and I hope to use it frequently. So here I am probably because I sometimes feel like the life is just passing in front of my eyes without the single note, memory, or retrospect. Important things are happening that maybe in the future will in interesting, or even fun to read, alone, with my wife, or kids.
I don't assume anybody will go thru the pains of actually reading what I wrote, but in case people do, indeed, read this stuff, I will try to thread lightly as I am known for having very strong opinions and upsetting my peers.
I will treat this as my daily diary and depository of my thoughts, kind of self-conversation that will hopefully help me understand things better and remember what is important as my own memory is terribly discriminating. I am not sure how soon will I start working on look and feel of this particular site, but eventually I shell.
Let me then start this journey and say today is Uki's birthday -- happy birthday Uki!