A Happy New Year

So here it is, the new year and the *LAST* year of the decade. So what will 2010 bring? Here's hoping that at some point many things will seem a whole lot clearer and / or go a little smoother.

Being realistic though, if some things are smoother or clearer, others become
murkier and rougher. It's just the way life is.

Given the changes at work in the last few months of 2009, I can't help but think the first few months of 2010 will be very, very interesting. With just two people on my team to start the year and four projects to design and estimate, the next few weeks are almost guaranteed to be busy as hell.

This will definitely bring the need for time management and figuring out ways to work smarter for the new year. How to do this and what will be the most efficient way to proceed, however, is what is still to be determined.

Enough about work though. I think it's time for the perennial list of new years resolutions. Why? Because it's my blog and I feel like it.

1. Spend less money on games.


2. Exercise in a consistent fashion


3. Eat at least a little healthier


4. Figure out what to do with my career

That's all for now. Happy New Year and Blessed Be.

Christmas Spirit

Just a random question / thought. At the time of year, when we are all supposed to be most caring, forgiving and understanding of one another, do people's attitudes go right to $#!@?

It's odd, going grocery shopping and a young boy with some special needs asking an older (60ish) "gentleman" if he would like to buy some chocolate, and the "man" ripping a strip off the poor boy.

Consequently, however, two women bought chocolate off the boy who might have otherwise just said no thank you and walked on by. Why did it even set the guy off though?

Why, when going into stores in the holidays is one more likely to be shoved and hit, than politely asked to move?

Just random thoughts on a random day.

To Aunt Phyl

I didn't have the privilege of knowing you for anywhere near long enough. The time I have known you, however, it was clear what a remarkable, strong, genuine and caring woman you were.

I don't think there was a time I saw you where you didn't favour me at least once with that smile that was so full of life.

I remember every visit and the stories you would tell of your family. Your pride in them was evident from our first meeting. It was also evident that you were the rock and the soul of that family.

You've just passed but you're missed dearly. In time we will find our own ways as you would have wanted. But for now there is a void left that I'd Aunt Phyl shaped but larger than life.

Thank you so much for having been a part of my family and allowing me the honour and privilege of being part of yours. I will never meet another woman like you but I will always remember you.

With love, joy at having known you, grief at your passing and happiness knowing the full life you lived,

Dan

A Day Of D&D

So today should prove to be interesting. I'm driving to London on a Sunday in order to participate in a D&D game being run by a team member from work.

The general background of my character is a dearven berserker who's on the run foul tempered and has changed his name to something that sticks out more than a sword through a Kender (yes I am a dork). My actual participation came about because Richard needed someone to stir the pot a little and liven up the group he's playing with.

It's been a long time since I've done this but lets see how it goes. It should be fun either way.

Rogers and the iPhone

It appears as though I may finally have my iPhone setup and working with Rogers and a proper plan setup.

Since most of my phone usage other than text messages is at home on my wireless connection it makes sense to have the 500am data plan for me. What this means is that the helpful Rogers person today saved me $20 a month thanks to being able to bundle the services I want better. Yay more money in my pocket.

If I had wanted to modify my base plan I could have gotten slightly more daytime minutes with the my5 long distance but that would mean that if anything happened in the next few years and I had to cancel my phone I'd be on the hook for $400 instead of $200 and have only the things I barely use to show for it.

What I've found during my decade if cell phone use is that I use it's talking capabilities rarely. Read: I've never used more than my 100 daytime minutes and I have unlimited after 6pm. Also I have free long distance on my home phone so if I need to make a long distance call I wait until I'm home, so there's no point in switching for me.

As for how I'm liking the iPhone it's been pretty good so far with just a couple of issues. It appears as though it is dropping signal a bit too regularly at times for my liking. Has anyone else noticed this or is it possible that it's my phone's antenna being buggered although to be fair this happens most in bad weather. On the sunny days it almost never happens, but I think I'll take it into Rogers tomorrow to have them run a check on it just to be safe.

I think my favourite thing about the iPhone so far is that I never have to leave the comfort of my couch again to figure things out. ;) I can lookup ps3 trophies and xbox 360 achievements easily, see what is on at the movies or even check my messengers and/or webmail accounts.

In conclusion, Chris I apologize or the ribbing I gave you over the phone. Once again you were a smarter man than I. ;)

Smiles when the pain comes...

Well tonight was the first game of the season and I can already tell that I'm going to be paying for two years of barely any physical activity.

On one hand I did far better than I expected but on the other hand I stunk up the joint in the field. Usually in lob ball I am lacking in the batting but I'm great inthe field. Today though I was 2/3 with a triple single and deep fly out but muffed two easy plays in the field.

The triple was my classic opposite field hit but surprisingly the single was a hot shot to left that the fielder just happened to be in the right spot for.

The fielding though was more annoying. Missed am easy ground ball and then threw the ball away when playing third on an easy out

Only the first game though so plenty of time to improve but I still dislike doing worse than I know I can even in my first game in two years.

Next game is next Thursday at the same time same place.

Btw for anyone who cares this was posted from my iPhone using blog writer lite.

Context Switching in Human Relations....

It's been an interesting dynamic changing from my old team at my work place to the new one. There are some marked differences between the two teams, some good and some bad on each side.

What I'm more interested in, however, is not the team dynamic but the dynamic of how I fit into both. I've never been one to sit back and quietly watch if I feel something is going drastically in the wrong direction, but I do try to offer either constructive criticism or find out what I'm missing that makes things seem like they're headed towards a cliff.

The challenge in doing either of those, for me it seems, has been in curbing my naturally aggressive communication style. The good news, in this aspect though, is that this is *not* a communication style I want, nor is it something I'm content to just leave be and hope it sorts itself out. Some problems that I'm having in rectifying this though is recognizing the effect certain speech patterns I use have on others and trying to break those habits, as well as taking a breath, pausing, and re-thinking ways to say certain things when in the middle of a disagreement.

One thing I do think I have going in my favour for this self improvement, however, is that even if I'm not able to read people completely, I do at least notice facial expression changes, body language changes and changes in stance. Unfortunately these changes are usually post-point when they would have been useful, however they indicate something which either worked well or poorly in my conversation and can be filed away for reference at a future point in time.

All in all though, I feel as though I've been making progress in this area. Perhaps not as much as I would like, but at least a small baby step. The things I'm really working on doing for 2009 in this area, though, are:

1) Toning down sarcasm;
2) Think, then speak;
3) Help others avoid my mistakes.

There are a lot of talented people on the new team I'm on. The one concern I have is that a lot of them have the same style of communication I've been told time and again is hampering me / giving a negative impression to certain people. If nothing else comes of 2009, I'm hoping that I'll in some way be able to help the other members of my team be able to avoid creating the perceptions of themselves that I've created for myself. Time will tell though.