Archive for March, 2007
So today for work, we had someone in to help us understand our products whom formerly used to work with us. Lots of good information, however, one of the things that I was surprised at (and this is me saying this), is how unfocused and arrogant the person was. Jumping all around on topics, never completing a thought and all the time their view was the correct one. At the end of it all, I had to step back and look at myself, because often I feel that I’m the same way and thought to myself, how to people deal with it?
March 30th, 2007
So, work today was frustrating — tried to do a first ever presentation to all staff, which makes one anxious to start with, but then due to technical issues had to cancel so we didn’t have 300-400 people wasting time while we try to sort out our powerpoint. On a more positive note, next time has to go smoother.
March 28th, 2007
The top shelf in our closet is what I would call layers of clothes sediment (varves for you geologists) deposited over the course of many years. Rarely do we delve into the bottom layers for something to wear, mostly we skim the top layer and replace it fresh as it is used. Today that all changed. Systematically looking at what we had and grouping into useable categories and parting with those items that might borderline fit (if we were still twenty), never really got worn (anyone want to support Pitbull Software) or were slightly outdated (Hypercolor still works after being in the dryer 30 times right?) We ended up with a much cleaner inventory of what we have that is more practical to wear and that notably expanded to take up all our clothes space even though six garbage bags of clothes got taken to goodwill. Something we should do once a year I think.
March 24th, 2007
Sara and I are at a metrics conference in Boston (where they called me "Addsen", which is too stereotypical Boston to believe). Learning lots about metrics, optimization and industry norms which hopefully will be useful in our work. One interesting thing is that we met some folks from CA there whom where trying to get their company processes and methodologies defined and metrics a fundamental part of their business. They are 10x our size… so that gives me hope that we’re ahead of the curve and getting to our problems before we are them. That said, there’s a company here called Line6 which is 60 people, and they are trying to address their problems before they become our size. Got called an entrepreneur by the guy whom runs the course because I contacted some folks he mentioned in his course material — I just thought it was problem solving).
March 21st, 2007
I love Irish things — Irish dance, Irish music, Irish countryside, Irish cities. Very fun, so hopefully everyone gets to relax and celebrate tonight. Me? I’m off to see the Greek movie 300. 
March 17th, 2007
I discovered a new thing that seems to be what everyone is talking about “facebook“. Seems to be a social networking thing with a better chance to be more than the current “orkut“.
March 16th, 2007
Bought new track lighting for the living room to replace the horrible brass 80’s standard-builder-install lighting. This kind of stuff always makes me nervous, but it will look good once we get them up.
March 10th, 2007
Every year we seem to do raises differently. It’s a massive amount of work and in the end, there are lots of dissatisfied people (took too long, wasn’t understandable whom got what, wasn’t sufficient, etc.) Not sure if that’s a systemic thing or something I can work to correct.
March 9th, 2007
Yay! It’s K’s birthday today — glad I’m home and not travelling.
March 8th, 2007
Ok, so Pete must be with me today… (for those of you don’t know, Peter Near has TERRIBLE travel karma). I go to the airport in a taxi, it’s early morning, the dude only takes cash. I don’t have any cash. I run inside to find an ATM. No ATMs. I try to find a currency exchange. I find one, it’s closed. Says go to the other terminal. I run to the other terminal. I find a currency exchange. They can’t use my debit or credit cards. Plane is leaving soon (I always tend to push my luck and sometimes it causes problems). They tell me to go back to other terminal and a different floor and talk to that currency exchange. I get money. I head back to car (it’s been like 45 minutes). Guy is still there and has been calling the office trying to get a hold of someone who can get a hold of me. I pay him and get my luggage. He leaves. I go to try to check in. Machine isn’t working properly. Issues me only half of my boarding passes (going through Heathrow). I try to find someone manning the machines to help me out. No one around. Really close to flight time. Find someone. They can’t make the machine work for my itinerary any more either. Say, I’ll just have to talk to the connection people at Heathrow. I get to Heathrow, manage to get checked through without issue. Go get a sandwich and no yellow mustard. Only English mustard. Dammit! (ok, so that’s not so much of a big deal).
March 7th, 2007
One of the places to eat at when you stay near the Grasbrunn office is Charlie’s Pizza. It’s actually really really good — friendly, nice food and fairly inexpensive. Odd thing however was that there was a dog in the restaurant (presumably the owner’s).
March 6th, 2007
Got together to hear the TCP team plans (bringing together two of our product lines into one offering). Was a very good meeting, the team is very interesting and seems quite technically sound. Had a nice walk around the late with torches and afterwards a campfire and beer. Makes meetings much more enjoyable.
March 6th, 2007
Norbert and his family took me on a hike up to a lake in the Alps. Very very scenic and beautiful (I love that kind of thing). It was really quite warm out, which was very nice even though we had trees and snow everywhere. Because Norbert’s daughters were with us, I did my usual goofy stuff to entertain — throwing myself into snowbanks, banging my head on trees and falling over logs.
March 4th, 2007
Left Bangalore in the wee hours (as usual) and flew to Zurich (for which I had to run to catch a connection). Zurich seems very nice as a city — think it might be nice to live here. Noticed a watch that K might like while waiting for the train. Off I went cross country to Kempten to see Norbert and meet the folks at the office. The Kempten office is really nice. The town of Kempten is REALLY nice. I loved the river running through it and the theatre up on a hill in the middle of the ruins of a fort. Gave me some ideas on what we might be able to do with Waterloo Park.
March 3rd, 2007
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