Saturday, April 03, 2004 - Posts
Taken out today: Busy, Busy, Busy
The counts: Blogging: 3; Development: 1; Other: 1; SQL: 0;
WILY: 2
Line of the day: What you -do- need to pay attention to, is how 'Longhorn' will evolve the users concept of exactly what a Windows application is all about, and what features and functionality it should be providing them with.
Post of the day: The Art of Creating the Roast Beef Sandwich
Honorable fortune cookie say: 1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's the law!.
What is Take Outs? Check out the FAQ here.
[Spinning: Mood Indigo - Jungle Band]
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I've had the good fortune of getting to know Tejas Patel a bit. If it were possible for two people be more geographically separated, I'd be hard pressed to say how. What we talked most about is how some Americans really do see Australia through our 1980s eyes.
You know, Australia from the 1980s? Right?
Men at Work.
Midnight Oil.
Paul "Dundee" Hogan.
Vegemite.
Fosters in Oil Cans.
Yeah, that Australia.
It doesn't help that when you suggest having a "proper tucker" or a "walkabout" folks just seem to assume you mean... what's at the left.
Ugh. The whole Down Under reduced to an overpriced, gaudily clad crystalized echo of a time gone by. Don't get me wrong, the folks that work there just work there. Boomerangs, Roos and ugh, Fosters brewed in Canada but served with a "G'Day mate."
Chunder me with a spoon. Totally.
I'd so love to plop about myself and Janell down in camp out in the Never Never for a weekend so we they could see The Southern Sky in the dead still of the night.
Hooroo.
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HDR has a set of annual awards recognizing outstanding achievements in productivity, leadership, creativity, community and teamwork. These awards are known as the Pathfinder Awards. The awards start off at the local level and progress to national awards. Three additional levels of recognition are also awarded: Gold, Crystal and "with distinction" (the last being the highest).
Corporate Information Services usually does pretty well when it comes to winning our share of these, but this we really cleaned up. And for the first time that I can recall, we had a Gold award winner. Not just in IS, but in my section: Larry Steinle, Gold Award, creativity. Larry's exceptional, tireless and often ingenious efforts to make our cost recovery systems more efficient finally got him some of the credit he deserves.
Angelo Privetera, HDR's CIO (left) congratulates Larry.
Frankly, this probably couldn't have happened to a better person at a better time for a better reason. While I proud I can call Larry my teammate, I'm happier that I can call him my friend. Granted, we don't always see eye to eye, but he's always somebody I can respect for doing his job well and taking the initiative to do learn new ways to do it better. I kind of got Larry a bit into writing (we both worked on this book) and I'm hoping I can get him going again. He's got a lot to offer us.
In the past, I've been blessed to win the local, Corporate division awards for creativity and have been a member of two teamwork award winners. This year, the software development team for HDR's Strategic Planning Information Management Systems (SPIMS, in retrospect, an awful name) won the local corporate award. While the project was -- at times -- very stressful on all of us, I think it did really show that our customers, our talented designers and our development staff really can work together for the better of all.
But I do need to get Angelo drinking better beer...
I've never met a pastry I didn't like.
And, yes, please don't worry, thats for two of us and it'll last a while.
...is give people chocolate.
Wednesday was a very frustrating day. I didn't feel like I was making much progress on my own work, I didn't feel like I contributed much in the meetings and I was just pretty much mentally exhusted.
Christina popped into my cube. She was off to a meeting with a person she likes but finds very draining.
I gave her a Dark Chocolate Hershey Kiss. She went off to do her chore with a giggle and smile on her face, at least.
Morale of the story: sometimes when you're feeling your worst, its a small, simple act of compasion and kindness that makes it worth going on. When you surround yourself with people like that, you can help but reflect it back to them.
This pretty much sums up what I think comes out of this whole deal.
Sun: Your products still suck, you're evil and Open Source Rules.
Microsoft: Whatever.
Sun: Java is still the best
Microsoft: ECMA-334.
Sun: Give us money and we'll go away.
Microsoft: Fine.
Sun: And, and...
Microsoft: Next!