Where I spend my weekdays


I work therefore I am... for better or for worse, part of
Healtheon/WebMD, formerly Kinetra, formerly Integrated Medical Systems..
Healtheon is an aggregate of all of its former competitors and many of its competitors competitors.


Hobbies may say something important about a person
Heres a few of mine:


 Motorcycling

Juggling

Annoying

And if that isn't enough. Try:
Boomerangs. Flying and constructing.
Disc Golf. Aka Frisbee Golf
and a few more esoteric things.


I won't bore you with the "Under Construction" icons. There will be more content here, later.

A few of my favorite links

Some other links to personal pages

I may be reached at:

Ian Frechette (frechett@houseofthud.com)


Note: All spelling mistakes are intentional, and are left as an exercise for the astute reader.



Motorcycling


So there I was contemplating the creation of my first home page and I figured I might as well make up a few of my own graphics, so I drew a picture. I figured a nice image of my motorcycle would be in order. After 6 hours of drawing with the, oh so painful, Win95 paint program.. voileaux! What do I get for my trouble? 4 out of 5 of my co-workers don't think I drew the picture below. I guess I should be flattered.

The bike This is a 1992 Yamaha TDM 850 twin. It's still produced and is all the rage in Europe, but was only imported to the U.S. for '92 and '93. It's tall, comfortable, smooth (for a twin), torquy and only goes 135mph. It's almost as happy on a gravel road as it is on the pavement, twisting through the mountains at well above the legal limit. It suits me well.
I've been riding motorcycles since I was about 10. I ride the bike every day there isn't snow on the ground and it's warm enough to start the bike (about 30 degrees F). To me it's both a mode of transportation and a way to enjoy the drive so many people take for granted. The only thing that really detracts from the experience is the knowledge that for most other drivers, motorcycles simply don't exist. We're invisible to them and must always ride knowing that someone might run over us as easily as they blink their eyes. People ask then, why I do it, so I point them here.
And here's my own tedium page.

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Juggling


Juggling balls Juggling is something new for me. I'd never even tried it until fall of 1994. Since then, I've gone from 3 balls to 4, to 5, am now working on 7 (should take another year or so,) and am picking up some elementary club passing. It's a pure artform. Whether I'm learning the very visually appealing "Mills Mess" or the more esoteric "4-5-0", otherwise known as "A complete waste of a 5 ball juggler", I enjoy what I'm doing not because I yearn to be a performer, but because it provides me with very clear goals, milestones, and accomplishments. One week, I can barely follow the motion of the balls as I watch someone else juggle. The next week, I'm attempting the same pattern, and in another week or two, I may be teaching it to someone else. But there's always more to learn. Some patterns and tricks takes days to learn, some months, and some years, and no one can "know it all".
For those interested in juggling, check out the JIS site. What helped me the most was to find a local juggling club. Ours, here in the Mile High City, is called Jugglers with an Altitude. I found, after I'd picked up the basics of juggling 3 balls, that I really couldn't think of anything more to do. At this stage many, maybe even most, people give up juggling, sometimes forever. The juggling club presents an atmosphere where one can teach their old tricks to the new arrivals and gawk at the old timers for inspiration. They provide the incentive, you provide the sweat. I suppose, this is true of most clubs. I just haven't belonged to many before.

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How to win friends and influence people


Not that it'll probably make any difference to the most people in the universe, but I figured, if I'm going to make a personal home page, I might as well explain a little about my person. I'll start with the most technical approach, and say I'm an INTJ or INTP as per the Keirsey temperament indicator which is based on the Meyers Briggs test. For those of you who don't believe there is anything to be learned from such tests, I'll explain a little.
To say I'm Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging is not enough. So what does it all mean to normal people? Well fundamentally, I'm what you call a scientist, and an engineer on the side. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the jobs I take, but more the way I think about the world. I have to know how things work, how people work, and how thoughts are thought. I'll take something apart with my hands if I can, or rip it apart with my mind or my words if that's what it takes. I rarely state the obvious and hate to repeat myself. This applies to personal as well as technical subjects which, to many people, makes me appear remote. If people don't read anything more into my silence, then everyone is usually much happier.
So what turns me on? Competence. I tend to form my opinions of people based, not on who they say they are, but how they present their ideas. If someone can form a rational argument then my respect for them grows. I am rarely persuaded by, or even care to listen to, emotional pleas for support. It's not that I don't care. It's just that I can't relate. I do realize that not all people work this way, and I'm willing to compromise as long as people recognize that there are other ways of thinking.
And what turns me off? Well.. I'd say incompetence, but I have to qualify that. There's really only one type of person in the universe that bothers me, and that is the one who seeks answers without wanting to learn anything. True ignorance is a transient thing, and those truly incapable of learning may not excite me, but neither do they usually impose on my world for long. But if a person is actively unwilling to learn, then they receive little respect from me. Silence is my first line of defense, and sarcasm may be my eventual mode of attack. But sarcasm is a subtle sword, and some people simply live in self imposed ignorance forever. But all in all, I very rarely actually form a "like" or "dislike" for casual acquaintances. Some people will say "Obviously, you don't like me... blah blah blah", and what they don't realize, is that liking them or not, simply isn't an issue to me.

Anyway, that's more than enough about my psyche.


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Have a Day.