Irving

2011 starts with a new family member, Irving. 6 month old Beagle - Blue Heeler Mix.

Icicles and gravity

Over the last few days, it has been sunny and in the upper twenties, so some of the snow has melted. This morning I went out side and found these warped icicles on a bush in the back yard. It looks like, as the snow melts and drips down on the icicle, it freezes, but as the icicle grows, its weight alter the shape of the limb, and so what is down, relative to the branch is changing slowly over time.

All I can say is nature is amazing.

Resolutions for 2010

Well it is that time of year again, time to make resolutions for the coming year.  One method to keep a resolution is to make it public and therefor fear failing in public.  So in order to motivate me, here are my resolutions, in no particular order, so far.

Be transparent at work

I work in an a geographically dispersed company, and that leads to silos of knowledge and infighting.  One way to fight this is to make everything you do available for review by my boss, coworkers, and those at other sites.  There are limits, based on security, but still most of what someone does in a company is open to all.  

I thought about suggesting this to management, but I think being a living example will sell it better then any sales pitch.

For now, I am thinking of tracking my status and projects on a wiki, and then some on-line project planning tool.  For the office, if they implement Office 2010 with its web sported interface, they may work better.

Keep up the diet and exercise

Last fall my wife and I started eating light and exercising.  I have lost 25 pounds plus got off one of the meds my doctor put me on.  To stay off the med (and avoid its side-effects) the weight has to stay off and I need to lose even more.

I would suggest SparkPeople as a website to help anyone working to lose weight.  For me, the daily emails remind me to think about my health and track what eat.

Learn how to sell an idea

I have some ideas, ideas which could help me and my company, but I have a hard time selling these to management.  I need to learn how to do this, otherwise 2010 will be as frustrating as 2009.

Improve my own organization

I have made attempts before but have fallen off the organization wagon, so here we go again.  I am moving more of my information into the cloud, mainly into Evernote, allowing me to access information from anywhere I have an net connection.  My todo list is being organized in toodledo, again to allow me access and reminders from home, the office, and my iPhone.

There are a few more, but are private.  I want to be transparent, but still somethings should be held close to the vest.  Being transparent is one thing, making others transparent is something different. 

working for a living

For now this is a bit of place holder, while I try and tie all these thoughts together, but here is a great talk on the value of work.  Just plain work

http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html

Fuzzy Data

Viewing post on one of my favorite websites, Flowing Data, I came across an interesting post. 

The first is a ranking of food recipes being searched on the day before Thanksgivings.  It contains a set of 50 maps of the US, and each shows a trinary representation of frequency (below, average, above) of search.  What is interesting is how closely it relates to my expectations of what will be served on Thanksgiving.  I guess my family in mid-America (Missouri) is just normal, and for that I am thankful.

Healthy pain

Started working out a couple weeks of ago, walking every day. Yesterday, I started with trainer, and well, now I am must be getting healthier because boy do arms hurt. Walking, bike riding, and weights, are all parts of my daily life.

So for 7 continuous days making it to the gym, and 6 days without caffeine, also not part of the new me.

Finally Google

Thank you Google for a few things,
(1) I now have google voice
(2) Latitude is on my iphone
(3) The moon is on Google Earth
(4) and hopefully I'll be a beta tester for Google Wave