Gotta love watching the big game with some guy friends.  Something nice about hanging out and bonding without your spouses.  What’s funny is that even though I don’t care one bit about the game, I still find myself screaming at the screen.   Why is that?  Go Colts!  Ouch that looked like it hurt!   Holy crap!

Anyway… Pizza + Oreos + Dr. Pepper + guys + football = a good friggin time.   Don’t underestimate the value of that.

As a side note… the commercials suck, but are better than last year’s from what I remember.

A friend of mine who owns his own business says “Two can do more than three times what one can do.”

Read it again.   Two people can do more than three times the amount of work that one person can do in the same amount of time. It doesn’t make sense, but it does.

At the beginning of January, I pair programmed at a professional level for the first time in my life.   We got done in a week what would have taken me the whole month.  The code had a full test suite, was solid, had a great API, was relatively clean, and we had complete confidence behind it.

Why were we able to do with two people in a week what would have taken one person 4? I think it is ultimately a biblical principle, applied to business: We spurred one another on.

• Instead of getting distracted by the latest Google search, Facebook update or Blog entry (like I am at the moment), we kept programming.
• Instead of allowing ourselves to make bad coding choices and hope nobody was looking, we called each other on the carpet and said “that feels gross… let’s do it right.”
• Instead of skipping the tests, we took it upon ourselves to write hard tests that would be difficult to make pass, but ultimately got us closer to our goal.  As a result, we had better tests *and* better code.

All that to say, pair programming isn’t something you can do 40 hours a week.   I think it makes whatever hours you’re able to do it MUCH more productive, but it is draining and intense.  You certainly have to limit how much you pair program if you’re an introvert.   Do it 4 days a week in the mornings… getting things rolling… then move on and keep the momentum going on your own in the afternoons.   You’ll see your personal productivity go up then too, and you won’t feel like you’re ready to climb into a hole when you get home because you need some “alone” time.

That’s not a slam against my programming parter (the ever awesome Chris Johnson)–just a quality I noticed in myself.   Having quiet, code-free downtime is important for me to stay sane in the rest of my life, but going without pair-programming would reduce my productivity to levels that are way too low.   There simply has to be a balance.

The power of two is not to be underestimated.  Used properly, it will make a world of difference.

I was doing some math today and it is just weird how our our family is spacing out. Andrea and I are a little over 15 months apart. Timothy and Bethany are nearly 15 months apart. Rachel and the next baby will be right at 15 months apart. What is it about 15 months? Maybe we were meant to have these pairs of kids. The coincidence is humorous to me.

Yeah, I’m no Mr. Fix-It, but lately, I’ve been less scared to at least try. I fixed our toilet a few weeks back with a $10 part and a couple of weeks back I took an hour or two one evening to investigate why our front-loading washer wasn’t draining, determined from noises and some research on the internet that it was the pump, ordered the part and replaced it… PRESTO… works like new.

The other day, I had a guy stop by to buy our old Green Letter’s PA system and we trouble-shot a problem where the tweeter was blown. We looked up the replacement part and knocked it off the price of the system. I took home a little less, but it just made me resolve to be more diligent about TRYING to fix things–if you screw it up, you can always call in a professional. If you get it right, you’ve saved yourself a lot of money AND you learned something valuable in the process. If you “win” 3 times out of 4, it is probably worth it, even if on that 4th time you end up screwing the pooch so much that it ends up costing a little more. Better than never trying at all.

All in all, it feels good to fix something… to determine the problem and to deliver the solution. I’m sure when my programming knowledge is far out of date and I can’t get a job anywhere, being a fix-it guy would be a great job to have later in life. Maybe I’m wrong, but hey… right now I’m just excited that broken things aren’t so broken anymore.

It’s 2010!   And we’ve got some great expectations for this next year.  What’s a January without lots of looking forward in anticipation and looking back at mistakes that were made, fun times that were had and smiling at it all.

We’ve got some great expectations in every area of our life this year.   For our church, we’re leading a new small group from February through April and we’re excited for what God will do through it.   I’ve also got some great expectations for our church as a whole–I think there is great potential for a lot of lives to be changed as a result of what people are doing.

At work, I’ve got some awesome expectations for the product I’ve been working on and the team that is coming together.   I think the product I’ve been working on for the last year will begin to really make a difference in the company and in the sustainability of the people involved.  It is a neat opportunity to be able to improve people’s ability to work.   I’m also excited about working with Chris again–he is my favorite programmer to work with and now we’re officially employees of the same company    He’s the first programmer guy that I’ve worked with that is really on my level–we push each other and encourage each other and work together well.   It is definitely going to be a fun year at work.

And we’ve got some big expectations for our family.  Timothy will officially begin kindergarten in the fall, though Andrea began homeschooling both Timothy and Bethany this year already.  They’re doing great and I expect will continue to do so.   Rachel will go from being a baby, barely able to crawl and pull up to being a walking, talking machine in the next 12 months.   But our biggest expectation is the one due August 11th.  Our next (and final!) baby will be joining us in 2010 and we’re very excited about it.

What a crazy, amazing, fun year it will be.

Rachel started pulling up the day after Christmas. It is so awesome to watch little children learn how to operate in this world… so cute to see them discover new things.

She is talking up a storm and very clearly says “Mama” and “Num Num” (for food). Super smiley too. Oh, my goodness, what a cutie.

And now I get to have a whole week with her! Off all week… And Bethany will turn 4 this week! I *cannot* believe that. It is harder to believe she’s turning 4 than to believe Timothy is already 5. What a crazy few years it has been.

Rachel has been saying “Ma ma ma ma ma” whenever Andrea walks into the room and ignores her lately.   Andrea pointed out that this makes her our earliest talker–and we have early talkers!  It’s scary because this means we will most certainly have kids that are smarter than us VERY SOON.   I better be nice to them so we can use them to support us in our old age