It’s only somewhat mo-like at the moment, primarily because I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do with it.

Update: I discovered after three days that I no longer like having facial hair. After shaving pretty much every day for the last 9 or 10 months I’ve become accustomed to it. Whodathunkit?

After a year of working at my current job, I have received 15,000 emails. This doesn’t include any automated ones (which I delete), spam, etc. I don’t feel like I get a lot of email, so I worked it out:

365 - (2*52) - 10 = 251 working days per annum
15000 mails / 251 days =~ 60 per day
(8 * 60) minutes per day / 60 emails = 1 every 8 minutes


I wonder if that’s a lot? That doesn’t count personal e-mail, which is in a separate system. Anyone else get lots more? I remember getting a lot more in previous jobs, but it might have been a perception thing.

I re-read Zapp again tonight. I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with that book over the years. I love the observations made in it, but I hate the mirror it holds up to my own faults as a manager.

If you’ve never read it, Zapp tells the story of supervisor Joe Mode and his employee Ralph Rosco, both of whom work for Normal Inc. making parts for normalators. Ralph invents a device which allows him and Joe to see into the 12th dimension, and thus able to see the feelings and energy in their department and the departments in the company.

Behind this somewhat cringeworthy fable are a bunch of lessons for empowering employees. Each time I read it, it is easy to see situations where I’ve Zapped (empowered) or Sapped (disempowered) a colleague or a team.

I gave away my last copy of that book in 2005. It’s nice to be in a situation where it’s beneficial again. I’ve come to the (maybe obvious) conclusion that it’s impossible to have a truly Agile organisation without empowerment. Maybe this is the real reason so many Agile projects fail.

When those were dry we drove to Diefenbaker Park to roll them down the hill. Apparently, this is not a common practice in Canada as we were the only ones there. Still, we had fun Some even made it all the way to the bottom without smashing.

The quality of the meat _looks_ great, so I’m excited to try some over the weekend. I think we’ve got enough to last every day for at least the next 6-8 months.

Mmmm. Meat. *Homer-esque drooling*

I thought I’d post a photo of my “progress” along with a link for donations, for those of you who haven’t participated and agree that this is a worthwhile cause.

[Garak takes a drink of root beer]
Quark: What do you think?
Garak: It’s vile.
Quark: I know. It’s so bubbly and cloying and happy.
Garak: Just like the Federation.
Quark: And you know what’s really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it.
Garak: It’s insidious.
Quark: Just like the Federation.

- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Way of the Warrior (S4 E01) (and here’s the video)

For a long time, I’ve been quite anti-Google. I’m certain this comes from loyalty to Inktomi, where I used to work once upon a time. In time, it was strengthened due to my dislike of the number of people who joined the cult. Google released and/or acquired a lot of cool apps: maps, Earth, calendar, mail, gears … the list is virtually endless. It could be argued that this was for the benefit of the technology-using community as a whole, but to me it seemed like an incessant grab for geek mindshare.

Eventually, people started to catch on that Google are potentially a very scary organisation. After all, they know what you research on the internet, what you read online, who you send mails to, who you meet with and why. In fact, they probably know as much about you as any given organisation possibly could, and you gave them permission!

However, many months and years of bombardment with applications and the need to be a part of the software community has meant that it is now virtually impossible for me to function without using Google’s tools. They have started to suck the resistance out of me – I’m becoming accustomed to the root beer (or the Kool-Aid, to mix metaphors).

The scariest thing was when I tried out Google Reader, and people had already shared 51 news articles with me, assuming all along that I used it. Gah! I’ve made myself paranoid all over again, just by writing this post. Time to block google.com cookies again.