Author Archives: Jeff

Forgiveness

This is a long time coming. I have thought about writing this for as long as I have thought about having a blog. I have tried writing it in stories, lyrics and poems. All have fallen short somehow and I have similar expectations for this, but I need it. I need to find a way to reach myself and let myself know it is okay.

When I was a kid, I was confident. I was funny. I was naive. I was sensitive. I believed that people were kind and forgiving and that the world was safe…not such terrible things and perhaps a starting point for every child. I wasn't perfect, obviously. I was mean sometimes, I talked too much. I was snarky and loud. To those that know me, this may sound familiar. I'm still that person. Turns out you can't much help being who you are and that is just how it should be. You should be you. As Alan H. Stevens said at KalamazooX, "you don't need anyone's permission to be you". As a kid I inherently seemed to know this, but as I grew older I began desperately needing someone's permission to just be me, so much so that I lost sight of who I was because I so desperately just wanted to be liked. No, to be loved.

It all changed because I was bullied. I was beaten, called names, and ostracised by my peers and others. I was even made to think that my suffering was not worthy of help because others suffered worse than me. I don't know when it started but I have distinct and painful memories that are as strong now as they have ever been. Like when painting at nursery school and being very publicly derided by a supervisor for painting the wrong part. I am sure I messed up and I was probably not being at all graceful about it, but I was three or four, I had things to learn. And then there was the time at primary school when, after a particularly vicious break where even my friend had been participating in the name calling, he approached me and said something like, "I'm sorry, but I have to join in or they'll start on me. You understand, right?" I dutifully agreed, grateful to have a friend at all and feeling my friend's dilemma. And then there was high school, the church choir and my first job at the local pub where I was gay, smelly or the reason my sister wouldn't date someone^[1]; I was bullied in many ways by many people for a long time, so many incidents that I could write more than just a single blog about them. Still, I do not want you to think that I am removing myself from any responsibility here. There are things I could have done to not be such an easy target (oh how I hated that phrase, "don't be such an easy target!"). I was a fat kid with a smart mouth; quick witted, cutting, but too damn slow to run away. I was certainly not street smart enough to realise the correlation and keep my mouth shut. Yet just because I perhaps did some things that enticed bullying, because I liked being the centre of attention, does not mean I am responsible for the actions of others.

I doubt my experience is unique. Many kids are bullied. Like me, they may not look for help for fear of being passed off with advice like "avoid them", "don't be an easy target", and "fight back", or because of threatened retribution by their abusers. Seeking help can be incredibly daunting, but reaching out will help and it will get better (there are links below where you can find numbers to call or email addresses) ^[2]. Eventually, we get to leave behind the petty-mindedness and surround ourselves with those who value us for who we are.

For me, that started at university. I had been there for two years and had made some good friends, but I was still lacking confidence or a sense of who I was when I decided to take a year out to get some work experience. There, I met some new people and got a chance to “reset” who I was. By the time I got back to university, I found the confidence to join a band, get on stage and sing. It was amazing and before long I had my first proper girlfriend where I didn't flinch at every moment of physical contact. I wasn't fixed, but I felt more myself than I ever had before.

You are worthy of being loved. You are worthy of being you. You are not responsible for the actions of others.

Repeat that to yourself as often as you can. I still need to repeat it to myself because even though I know it to be true, I still struggle with accepting it. I still feel responsible. I had a smart mouth. I talked back. I used words where others used fists (and still do). I was fat. I challenged. I made myself an “easy target” and I struggle to let that go. I am a victim and yet I blame myself for how I was treated more than I blame those who abused me. It makes no sense, but that's their legacy and the only way I can get past it is to face it and forgive them, and you must find a way to do the same.

For most of my life, I did not understand forgiveness. I was too angry. Too angry at myself and the world to realise what it really meant. “How can I forgive them? Look what they did to me. Look what they've done to me!” I was so wrapped up in being a victim, fighting to get my confidence back and fighting to be loved that I couldn't focus on anything else. It was making me bitter, arrogant and nasty. It was making me hate myself. It was making me a bully. In struggling to deal with my own experiences, I let it infect me to the point where I bullied others because I felt worthless and unloved. How could I forgive anyone that had made me feel this way or do these things? But I had forgiveness all wrong. Just a few years ago I learned forgiveness is not about accepting what happened as being justified or okay, forgiveness is about letting go. As I sat with my wife watching Madea Goes To Jail ^[3], forgiveness finally made sense to me:

Forgiveness is not for the other person. It's for you.

The longer you hold on to it, the longer you hold onto the pain and the past and the hurt, the longer you hold yourself back from being free.

- Madea

Forgiveness is hard. I don't know if I am there yet, but I finally understand where I need to be. I refuse to justify my actions because of something someone did when I was kid, when they were hurting, trying to gain control of their own lives. These painful memories will always be a part of me — they are anecdotes when I want to relate, they are lessons when I want to help, and they are inspiration when I want to write, but it is time to stop letting them be shackles that hold me back.

I cried eight or nine times while writing this. If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said it was because I was bullied, but I suspect the real reason is that I am empathetic. It is just a part of who I am. I am also a funny bastard. A funny bastard with one imaginary kid, two cats (one with opposable thumbs and a smoker's voice) and an amazing wife who sees me as I always was.

—

If you are struggling with abuse of any kind, reach out. There are people who know what you're going through, there are people who love you and there are people who can help you.

National Bullying Hotline (UK): http://nationalbullyinghelpline.co.uk/

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

Footnotes (↵ returns to text)

The real reason was that she had some level of taste.↵
Unfortunately, for some kids, it is too much and they give up, an all too familiar and unnecessary story.↵
Seriously. In fact, being in an interracial couple means I have to watch Tyler Perry movies or they revoke our marriage license.↵

To A Friend

Making a Grow Light Stand

1 Reply

Last night was the quarterly hackathon at work, the day where we get to work on something fun and new until 4am and then demo to the team. Beers were drunk, Thai food was eaten and the sports tournaments were played out (darts and ping pong, or table tennis, if you prefer). It was a great time and although my work wasn't as brilliant as some of my colleagues, I felt accomplished by the time we crawled off for breakfast sometime around 7am.

That was 6 hours ago. I'm still awake. I've been awake since sometime between 7am and 9am yesterday.

I don't know why, really. I ran an errand for the wife this morning and one thing led to another. Before I knew it, I had not only completed the errand (returning some plants and a grow light stand to Growing Hope after Chrissy did some seed starting for them), I had also completed our own grow light stand (a project we purchased the pieces for back when I made the raised bed) and cleaned the cat litter boxes. Luckily for you, I didn't take pictures of the latter task; I'm keeping those precious memories of being watched by a cat while I dug around in his feces (mostly) to myself, but I digress.

Often, when you garden, you have to start some seeds. When the weather is inclement prior to the growing season, as it often is in these parts, you need to start those seeds indoors and, much like this winter in Michigan, there's no Sun indoors (I'm thankful for that, I like my stuff unsinged), so an artificial source of equivalent light is required. That's where the grow light stand comes in.

Unlike the one we had borrowed from Growing Hope, which was a simple wood construction with two A-frames at each end joined by two planks from which the 4' long fluorescent grow lamps were suspended, our grow light stand was to be made out of PVC. As mentioned earlier, we had purchased the pieces for it some time ago, which explains why some of the pieces were wrong. Thankfully, Home Depot awesomely gave me store credit for those incorrect pieces despite a lack of receipt. That's customer service for you.

The parts required for this little project were:

120" of 2" PVC pipe
4x end caps
2x three-way connectors
2x elbow connectors
2x ¼" eye bolts with 4 nuts
2x S hooks
1x shop light
2x fluorescent grow lamp tubes

Barry inspecting the parts and tools

In addition, the following tools were used:

Safety Gloves and Glasses
Drill
¼" drill bit
Permanent marker (I used the one Chrissy got from John Mayer's fan club)
Hacksaw
Pliers
Wrench/Spanner (for tightening the nuts)

The assembly was really quite easy and probably would have taken about an hour at most if I hadn't needed to go to Home Depot twice (once for the shop light and again to get the correct size elbows).

First, the PVC pipe was marked (with the John Mayer fan club marker) and cut (with the hacksaw) to the following lengths:

4x 5"
2x 24"
1x 52"

Then, using the connectors and end caps, join them all together to create the stand.

All the pipe fittings and lengths ready for assembly

End caps fitted to 5" pipe (QA manager, Barry checking craftsmanship on the left)End caps fitted to 5" pipe

End caps, 5" lengths and three way connector combined

Light stand legs and cross bar assembled

Completely assembled stand without light fixture

See, that was easy, right? No glue, just push it all together. It's a little disappointing that it did not include power tools, but don't worry, because this is where I whipped out my trusty drill after marking where I wanted the eye bolts to go. The shop light fixture hangs from these, so I measured where the chains would go in the shop light and chose eye bolt locations accordingly.

Chains, S hooks, etc. for attaching the light fixture

Position of eye bolt for one side of light fixture mounting

If you attempt this, be sure to wear your safety gear as I did; PVC pipe can be slippy and drills can make easily eye bolt holes in your hand if you're not careful (I recommend having some sleep too).

Safety gear on and ready to go

Once the holes were drilled in the pipe (though a little skewed), I fitted the eye bolts. In order to get a sturdy fixture, I first screwed a nut onto the eye bolt, then pushed the remainder through the pipe and applied a lock nut to the other side (though a regular nut would have done, I think). I then tightened the nuts on each side of the pipe so that the eye bolt was secure.

Eye bolt installed (note the two nuts on either side of the pipe)

Chains showing S hook before being attached and after

The shop light fixture came with its own chains for suspending it, however, only one end of these chains had a hook, so I carefully crimped S hooks onto the other ends of the chains. I then hooked one end into the corresponding eye bolt and the other into the light fixture and that was job done.

The assembled and working light stand (with QA manager doing final inspection)

The height is even adjustable by threading the hook through the eye and hooking back into the chain.

With the assembly complete, I placed the new stand over Chrissy's seedlings and plugged it into our timer ready for her to be surprised when she gets home or reads this (whichever is first).

Chrissy's seedlings enjoying their new light stand

Now, I've been awake for far too long so I'm off to play video games and eat snacks before a well-earned nap.

KalamazooX 2013

2 Replies

I struggle to put into words the Kalamazoo X Conference, more commonly known as KalamazooX, a single day, single track non-tech conference for techies. The difficulty is not in describing the talks, the speakers, the venue or the overall experience, describing the conference in such terms is easy; the talks were insightful and inspirational, the speakers were passionate and informative, the venue was accessible and appropriate, and the overall experience was emotionally demanding and entirely worthwhile. To describe what KalamazooX was to me, specifically, to reach deep inside and expose the raw emotions, to be open and honest about me, that is difficult.

It was the simple mantras:

It's not about you.
- Jim Holmes (@aJimHolmes)

Move the elephant. Direct the rider. Shape the path.
- Todd Kaufman (@toddkaufman)

It was the inspirational stories behind Todd Kaufman's talk on enacting change or Mike Wood's (@mikewo) talk on choices of doing the right thing, saving and changing lives, and becoming a better person.

It was the tears that welled in my eyes during Layla Driscoll's (@layladriscoll) talk on being happy, after she encouraged us to sit with our eyes closed and think about who we are. I wrote, "I am sensitive, funny, creative."

It was the encouragement from Leon Gersing (@rubybuddha) and Alan Stevens (@alanstevens) to take time out from time and reality, to meditate, and to find our inner voice.

It was the relief I felt in hearing Alan Stevens say, "you do not require approval from any external source," or Elizabeth Naramore (@ElizabethN) say, "It's okay for it not to be okay."

It was the moment I wrote in my notebook, "I feel less special than others. Is that true? Am I? Or do I need to redress my self image?" I think we both know the answer to that (though some have known a lot longer than others).

It was connecting with others in unexpected, overwhelming and assuring ways.

I do not believe for an instant that I was the only one in attendance that was deeply moved and I suspect that those who were returning attendees already knew about the impact this event can have. What a secret they have kept, hiding the true value of this event behind such dismissive phrases as "My favourite conference of the year!" and "It's a non-tech conference for techies. It's all about soft skills." Such pedestrian phrases pay no due to the experience at all. A more accurate and yet still inadequate phrase was tweeted to me by Michael Letterle (@mletterle) during this years event:

. @jefftunes Other confs are for the head, #kalx13 is for the heart.

— Michael Letterle (@mletterle) April 13, 2013

Now, you may think I'm being overly dramatic or reverent and you might be right. I have a tendency toward such things, but rather than assume that be the case, I encourage you to attend next year's KalamazooX and experience it for yourself (or at least look through the #kalx13 tweets). If, having done so, you still feel I have been exaggerating, I will concede and leave you and your cold, black heart to //Build, PyCon or whatever it is that floats your ghost ship (just playing, I'll still love you really).

To close, I thank Michael Eaton (@mjeaton), his team and all the speakers^[1] for putting on an event so cathartic that even writing about it overwhelms me a little. To uncover a part of oneself is enlightenment, to see that reflected in others is KalamazooX.

Footnotes (↵ returns to text)

Besides those mentioned above Suzan Bond (@suzanbond), Jen Myers (@antiheroine), Brian H Prince (@brianhprince), Jeff Blankenburg (@jeffblankenburg) and Justin Searls (@searls) all gave amazing talks.↵

jQuery validation of select elements where multiple="multiple"

Validating with minlength

It just so happens that the jQuery validation plug-in has another rule, minlength that appears to be exactly what we want. Thinking this, I naively wrote some code to require at least two items. I also included some string formatting for the error message so that the number of things in the message matched the number required by the rule.

$(function () {
    $("#mySuperCoolForm").validate({
        rules: {
            things: {
                minlength: 2
            }
        },
        messages: {
            things: {
                minlength: $.format("Please select at least {0} things.")
            }
        }
    });
});

Now, if we select two things, we can submit just fine, but if we select just one thing, we get told we need at least two. So far so good. However, if we select nothing, the form passes validation and submits fine! What? We stated a minimum of two and yet zero passes. That makes no sense. It made even less sense when I set my minlength to 1 and it didn't appear to do any validation at all. Everything was feeling so intuitive, what happened? By looking at the code, it becomes clearer.

The minlength rule looks like this:

minlength: function( value, element, param ) {
			var length = $.isArray( value ) ? value.length : this.getLength($.trim(value), element);
			return this.optional(element) || length >= param;
		}

If you put a breakpoint here, you'll discover that when nothing is selected, value is null, but that's okay because length becomes 0 in that circumstance anyway. The problem is on the second line of the function, which I have highlighted. It checks to see if the element is optional or not and if it is optional, the element passes validation regardless. A quick look at the optional function shows that it calls the required rule and returns the inverse of its result. When we have no items selected, required returns false which optional turns to true which incorrectly says our data is valid. However, when only one item is selected, required returns true which means the length >= param check occurs and our validation fails as we would like. While this behaviour is probably intuitive for say, string input fields where no value and values of a certain minimum length make sense, this is confusing when using minlength with select fields.

To get our validation working as we would like, we have to apply both the required and minlength rules as follows:

$(function () {
    $("#mySuperCoolForm").validate({
        rules: {
            things: {
                required: true,
                minlength: 2
            }
        },
        messages: {
            things: {
                required: "Please select at least 2 things."
                minlength: $.format("Please select at least {0} things.")
            }
        }
    });
});

Unfortunately, now we've lost the nice dynamic nature of our error messages. If we change the minlength rule to 3, we have to remember to edit the message for required. It seems we have gone from "feels hacky" to "feels hackier".

What I really want is for required to behave differently when I have the minlength rule applied to a select element. When using minlength on a select element, I want required to default to true but my error message to come from the minlength message format. This would feel far more intuitive for this use case than the current behaviour does. So, given that the plug-in does not do this, what can we do to fix it?

Implementing an intuitive minlength

The jQuery Validation plug-in provides the ability to add custom validation methods. Not only does this allow the addition of new methods, but it also allows for the replacement of existing methods. This gives us two options:

Create a new minlengthofselection or similar that follows the rules we want.
Override the existing minlength that does things the way we want.

While the first option is probably safest for those already familiar with the behaviour as it stands, option two is more fun. Guess which one I did^[3].

$(function () {
    $.validator.addMethod("minlength", function (value, element, param) {
        var length = $.isArray(value) ? value.length : this.getLength($.trim(value), element);

        if (element.nodeName.toLowerCase() === "select" && this.settings.rules[$(element).attr("name")].required !== false) {
            // could be an array for select-multiple or a string, both are fine this way
            return length >= param;
        }

        return this.optional(element) || length >= param;
    }, $.format("Please select at least {0} things."));

    $("#mySuperCoolForm").validate({
        rules: {
            things: {
                minlength: 2
            }
        },
        messages: {
            things: {
                minlength: $.format("Please select at least {0} things.")
            }
        }
    });
});

In this final update to the code, I provided a new implementation to the validator for minlength. This new version is almost identical to the default except that when checking a select element, it looks to see if the field is explicitly not required, thereby assuming that we want something to be selected. Finally, we have a minlength validation check that works intuitively for our scenario as well as the more common scenarios surround string lengths and we don't have to hard code numbers into the error message.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I ran into what is probably a corner case when it comes to using jQuery Validation where things were not as intuitive as I had hoped. In doing so, I was able to learn more about the plug-in and eventually, resolve my specific issue.

Have you had a similar problem?
Do you have improvements to suggest?
Should I submit this minor change for inclusion in the jQuery Validation plug-in?

Please, comment and let me know.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank, alen, the author of this tutorial which gave me a foundation to work from when investigating and resolving this issue.

Footnotes (↵ returns to text)

Turns out the real reason was my expectations of what should work and the reality of what did work did not match, making the documentation hard to interpret.↵
Not in that way!↵
Hint: It's not the first one.↵

somewhat abstract

but mostly…

Author Archives: Jeff

Forgiveness

To A Friend

Making a Grow Light Stand

KalamazooX 2013

jQuery validation of select elements where multiple="multiple"

Validating with minlength

Implementing an intuitive minlength

Conclusion

Acknowledgements