Monday, March 31, 2008

Video Conf

Gotta go right into a video conference with colleagues around the planet. So, not much to note today. Considering taking an afternoon off though.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Made You Look!

A grey sky here in the Canadian Capital today. Yes that's grey with an 'e' and capital with an 'a' as in most of the English-using world - at least geographically speaking. :) The neat thing about doing this blog is that it makes me at least take a second to look out at the sky at the start of the day. We glance out our office windows pretty typically anyway - but don't mentally register what we see so much.

If you were to even just put a checkmark on a piece of paper each time you did something small and normally un-notable, the novelty and outside-your-brain event is enough to give it extra weight and create an event in your memory files that would otherwise not be retained explicitly. Hmmm - maybe a good way to enhance one's happiness. Anytime you feel briefly happy or smile, make a checkmark, or a happy face on a sheet of paper. The result should be that you begin to feel more happy as the faces stack up. Then again, maybe you'll have a blank sheet and get depressed. But that in itself probably gives you pause to think about why it is. An, afterall, it's the examined life that is most worth living to bastardize a proverb.

Thinking while blogging - it can be so productive.

Starting my morning with a blog entry continues to be a challenge. The pull of the initial email read is too strong. But whereas I initially thought it was conditioning, and as sense of obligation, I'm beginning to wonder if it might actually be a desire for accomplishment. Accomplishing things is like a reward (at least for me) it creates, well, a sense of accomplishment (go figure!). So, scrubbing those first several unread emails off your list, and seeing your MS Outlook (if you are as unlucky as I am to be using it) change from "Inbox(23)" to a more happy, simple "Inbox" is a reward in itself.

If all your work tasks were resolved so quickly, a day in the office would be a more rewarding thing. It's the ones that drag on for weeks without resolution that saps your enthusiasm, motivation and job satisfaction. Out of your control or authority to fix, and unresolvable. Like the current impasse about my research organization's existence at the hands of a North Europe office-fascista. That's the tough stuff.

And so on to the tasks at hand. Objective setting for my legions of researchers. Ugh.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Afternoon is the Morning of the Evening

It's a bit of a stretch perhaps, but here are my ponderings on email jocularity lingo. The "heh" thing is a little strange for me - how is that pronounced? It sounds like a big fat guy with a turkey leg in his mouth... or maybe instead like Hank Hill.

I'm more of a "ha" guy. I used to like "lol" in the early 90's before it became LOL and people forgot that the lowercase version looked like two hands on either side of a mouth.

Maybe we need a new non-belly laugh indicator, like "snort" could be good to convey a bit of laughter, but not too much. "XRT" maybe?

-Researchinator

Thursday - Again with the Clear Skies

A pretty good drive in this morning, the old route, bailing on the expressway before the bottleneck. Gee - at a loss for words this morning. I could switch into complaining mode. My back is sore, I've got way to many chores to do and don't know when I'll ever make a dent in them, my job sucks.

Well, that's a rewarding way to start the day. Oh well, I accidentally got into my email there for half an hour. It's really tough to stop. Not much to note here anyway, except the blue skies, high cloud and pending meltable day (4C). I dreamt last night about being in my back yard looking at the garden, shocked that all the snow had disappeared in one night. As well I should have been - 'cause it didn't.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Just barely still Wednesday Morning

Well the morning didn't start here, but here I am. Started early today with a business community breakfast on Japan biz. Mildly interesting, and surprisingly relevant to my perspective, on the technologies that are big now.

Downtown around the congress centre is a mess - they have knocked down the parking garage I was headed for, and then getting out of the resulting garage into the building was a major challenge.

Drove to work afterward through a blinding rain and snow storm which gave way to sunshine as I approached the office, and I'm now parked in Hell's half acre Lot 1. Not sure where that term comes from HHA - probably a farming reference I picked up from my mom. Hmm - I think I'll google that to see if it's in common usage... Well 75k hits, but there are a couple of books and a band with that title, so it must be known somewhat.

Anyway, back onto my constant communications and positioning work. I direct a research group - but you'd never know it given my budgetless year, my resourceless team, and my constant fight for survival. What a crazy way to invest in the future.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Long Weekend Receeds in Rear View Mirror

Another one of the cold, clear blue sky mornings. I did the mental math this morning sitting in my chair for the first time in 4 days. Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar - man 5 months of winter hell. What a long season this is - I suspect the numbers of people relocating south will rise this year.

Oh well, on the bright side, I have a new box of tea to start. Actually it's only a Twinings English Breakfast. It's loose leaf, but hardly a quality package. Looking inside it's pretty much dust like they put into tea bags, so not a big benefit there. It's more the benefit of being able to gauge the amount I want to use that is a benefit.

Okay - I did peek at my email before starting my post for the day. "Old habits..." and all that. I wasn't sure if I had a dial up sr managers meeting, or not this morning - and I don't, though I've got an 11:00 client strategy dial in. There's probably a bunch of other stuff I should do if I were to let my mind go there just now, so I won't.

I've got a zip.ca envelope staring at me. We rented "Knocked Up" from them, and I need to return it. Verdict? Okay, I got it, him and his friends are crude jerks, and she's very different. I liked that the movie went a few places that were unpredictable (in the questions, asked, not the plot). It could have been a much better movie. So a bit disappointed that way. Not sure why some critics hailed it as a great movie.

The long weekend was nicely relaxing. I feel like I wasted it as I never got ANY exercise the whole time - it was all relaxing, eating and such. I feel like I didn't do much of anything, but I did build a bit of cat furniture, and bake bread, and pain au chocolat (and associated demipuff-pastry). I also got rid of some excess stuff at recycling places. So not a total loss.

I'm trying to get away from ending my posts with "Oh well" or "Anyways." Blogging is conversational, but that's too lazy and cliché. Thus I'll end it here, sans casual send-off.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Grey Entrèe into Long Weekend

I've got a long way to go to get into the long weekend - especially as I have an onerous event this afternoon defending my research project. Actually, it's not even my project, just the one I inherited when I arrived a year back or so. Still, I'm not wild about the dynamic of some self-appointed experts asking the 'tough questions'. Anyone can sit back and press you on a project - now if they were going to actually engage and contribute to the goals that would be one thing.

I guess the adversarial approach to 'innovation and creativity' is my core complaint. I better like the approach of having a good list of deliverables and updates that can be used to judge progress and focus. That includes presentations and demonstrations. If there are issues arising there, they can be raised and dealt with. If well, then proceed, if not then cancel.

The attack approach is detrimental to the research culture - but that might be a symptom of the greater problems with achievement in this research organization. It's been a while since there have been accomplishments that would be lauded by anyone other than the proponents of the work.

Well to email and tea.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Slush Day

These are the days that nobody wants to see when one thinks of winter. The streets and sidewalks and parking lots are all slush, and it's raining, after snowing earlier. I'm a little forgetful about getting on here to start my day. The intention was to preempt the days initial email perusal with a quick blog posting.

Once you see your email - you're screwed. So I missed a bit of activity here. Today I'm on a so far 2hour 12 minute call, which will probably go another 30min. A very loud and self-important bunch on that call. Not much chance to contribute between the egos, and not much motivation to try.

Anyway, the morning is about over, and there's a lot to do for tomorrow, so I'll bail here.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Monday, Blue Skies

A new week starts, and I realize, as I avoid taking my first look at my email, that this may be a short week. As usual, we have no plans, if it is a short week. But I need to check my corporate holiday chart to see if this Friday is a freebie. K gets monday off as well. I suppose I might do the same to maximize my freedom... unless it's already booked up with meetings. Ugh.

A bit chilly for my wool coat this morning, but I mistakenly put it on based on the high today - about 0°C.

...and my headphones go on already. The neighbouring group has a few 'performance talkers' that drive me nuts. You know the kind, that have loud conversations to perform for the people that they know will overhear them. "Use your indoor voice," their mothers should have been saying to them years ago, but they were failed parents, raising self-centered children who now annoy all their peers.

Speaking of self-centered - I am getting tired of CBC radio. But what's my option? I listen to CKCU sometimes, but that's even worse in that direction. All self-obsessed 19yr old kids. What is it with our talk radio that interviewers and hosts can't remove themselves from the equation and focus on the subject matter. NPR in the US is much better at that - or the bits that I listen to. BBC and Deutsche Welle are also good. I wish I could get internet radio on the fly as I drive in to work. And pod casting isn't quite the same - I want it to be live, local and professional. Sign. So much for finding that on the radio dial.

Anyway, my stomach is telling me to get something going. Need my morning tea and maybe some desk-drawer-porridge to start the day. And, so, onto the email...

Friday, March 14, 2008

A Cloudy Overcast Friday

The last day of March break - not that I'm on a break or it has anything to do with me. The impact though is that the traffic is very light during the break, which is a nice change.

Paper wrap up today - and I'm sure when I look at my email there will be another version from our grad stu author. I hope we can put it to bed without much more go around. I'm sure none of it matters in the long run.

My new computer still has no signs of showing up - a Lenovo of course. I hear that they are useless at delivery, even for their corporate clients. So I'm a month overdue on getting my new machine.

Not sure if anyone else on the internet has mentioned it but MSWindows sucks! Here, I'm simply using a browser to type some text into a text box on a blog site, and I can type about four words before everything freezes. The buffer at least loads up and about six or so words latter it spews in to catch up. Freezes are constantly happening. They seem to have no sense of prioritizing processes and have so many questionable background processes that they can't maintain a reasonable UI experience.

A new machine with a higher clock speed will address that somewhat, but the wrong way, through brute force more clock cycles. If they had crafted the OS properly it would work one might think.

Anyway, to a cup of tea and open Outlook to start the day. How I long for an MS free worklife. :|

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Thursday - Clear and Cold

Getting this blog set up and ready to go took a bit more time than I expect to spend each morning, but here it is post one. Well two if you count my mini-manifesto as well.

Today work on a paper for publication needs to be done, and I've got to get my student going on some productive activity, as his term is half over. Plus we want to do supper with L tonight, so better send her a note to see if she's available.

Clear and cold outside, but apparently more (yes more) snow on the way. We only have two bazillion centimetres already, what's another 3 or 4.

You've Seen THIS Before

How many blogs have you seen with one or two entries that start with something like "what is a blog" or "okay I'm going to do this" or "I'm writing a blog!"

Well, this is about my 20-something-th blog, and I've come to find this medium to be a good one for some specific applications. The formless "I'm writing about my life" only really comes off if you're a) a huge egoist or b)hugely disciplined. In both cases, the truth is that your life is boring to me, and mine is boring to you.

When Blogs work

"for me" I should hasten to add. I think the blogs that work best for me are:

a) Subject focussed: like the one I do anytime I'm on a trip or any time an election is looming, or when there is a political issue with some duration, and an evolving 'arc' through it's existance.

b) Blists: If a web log is a blog, a web list should be a blist. I have several. These work great, as there is only really one 'blog' entry, and I maintain it occasionally. SO I have a list of great movies, a list of perfect names, a list of cryptography museum exhibits on a particular subject etc...

c) Project Oriented: You launch into a project and want to track the progress. The blog works good not only so people can follow the progress, but so that you as author can sit and summarize and think of what to do next.

This Blog

This EachMorning.blogspot.com is probably going violate my 3 rules above, and do the boring "my life" thing. When I sit down each morning, just a note - kind of like twitter but not so limited. I might write a paragraph, or a sentence...

... or you might be viewing this post in 2011 and seeing only this entry. Anyway, it's more for me (I know, another blogger's cliché).

:)