ah... back to the grind

First day back after 2.5 weeks of vacation. Lots to do and have to hit the ground running. Eight hours of phone calls is a rough way to start back from vacation!

On the plus side got further with my iphone application. After trying to do some debugging realized that I had not associate the text entries in the nib/xib file with the Application Delegate. Once I got that straightened out it worked just great. Now that I have some basics working I want to fiddle with the app a bit more. I'm writing a basic financial calculator. There are a few things I always keep checking and it would be nice to have a quick calculator to do the work for me. Planning out some other ideas of things I would like to try.

Did a little more basement cleanup this evening. Still have more to do, but I do think it is shaping up now. Going to try and get some pushups in before bed.

new toy

Got a new laptop from work today. In a change from my normal linux laptops I'm piloting a MacBook Pro. I am still learning the ins and outs of it. Trying to get used to the keyboard and the feel of it. So far, I'm liking it. I got used to the multitouch trackpad faster than I thought I would. While I still miss the thinkpad eraser mouse, I do like the multitouch for scrolling. The placement of the keyboard really helps me avoid the accidental smacking of the touchpad that I get on most other laptops.

Am I converted to the cult of mac yet? Dunno. Day 1 has gone well, but I need to see what I like and what annoys me. I still have to install have my apps and I need to figure out what I want to keep on the dock. I know that there are lots of good mac apps out there that are interesting, so I need to search for them and get them started. Also want to get started with Virtualization on the Mac. Probably going with VMWare since most of my other images are VMWare, but I may try parallels for a little while. Biggest roadblock -- replacing visio. I do too much chartwork in Visio, now I need to find a good alternative.

Been spending some cycles on Facebook. Connecting to more and more friends there. A few surprises have shown up. Old friends I hadn't expected to see there, but Facebook is starting to be like New York City, stay in one place long enough and everyone shows up.

back and forth...

So read a really great book the other day "The Dynamic Path" by Jim Citrin. It was a present from some friends of our as part of a Mother's Day package. VERY interesting book. It helps shed some light on career growth and development. Essentially Citrin captures a very interesting path: From Champion, to Leader to a Legacy. Citing examples in sports, business and public service Citrin identifies people who made the transitions from Champion individual contributers to leaders and from leaders of a circle of people to leaders who leave a legacy. I can see how these ideas apply in the technical field. Within IBM there are many technical champions, and then there are technical leaders (STSMs, DEs) but at the top of the career chain are those who have left a legacy in technology. These are the IBM Fellows. They have changed the course of the industry by leaving a legacy. I am sure other companies have similar traits and paths.

I think I have found my way thru to be recognized as an individual contributor, but now I need to think and grow as a leader. It is a segement of my role that I'm still learning in. I confess I still like doing the things that got me recognized as a Champion, but I think I need to keep growing myself. That means working harder as a leader and building those skills.

That said, there are other things in my life that I want to focus on. I've been really horrible at my social life for the past few years. I'm starting to connect to people again, on places like Facebook. I'm slowing trying to grow my social circle again. Still needs work.

I'd like to work on that a bit more. I need to get in shape. I saw some pictures of me and realized -- Wow, I'm still really out of shape! I've made some great improvements, but I still have a good ways to go. My healthy weight is about 20 lbs lighter than where I am now. I can fix this. It just took a bit more realization.

Most important to me right now is spending time with Zoe and Amy. She is growing up much faster than I'm ready for. 9 months have gone by SO FAST! Soon other milestones will be blown by. I don't want to miss any of them. The past few days I found a groove that I was happy with. I think I can continue on that track and make progress. Will I continue to hone my leadership skills and career plans... probably, there is some intersection with my goals there. But I think I need to make sure I keep the rest of my life going as well. And look for opportunities to build my skills in other spaces.

in the office

After a week of travel and face to face meetings, I must admit it was a bit of a bummer to be in the office on calls again. Feeling the pain of not cleanly sharing my vision as a bunch of things hit the fan that shouldn't have. Apparently I was not clear enough with the team about what I wanted, so Monday will be a fun exercise in cleaning house.

Almost done with the lab, hope to finish this weekend. I need to put some hours in my presentation, which is also due soon. If I can get them both behind me I can spend more time on building the fun stuff. Looking forward to building fun apps as opposed to all the work related stuff. Talking to T on Project B, I'm not there officially but I am trying to lend a hand where I can. We'll see how that goes.

I want to get back to Market Driven Development soon. I'd like to post that on my website to measure my current projects. The MDD app and my Plugins. I haven't started working on my Firefox entry yet, but I need to start on that soon. Also want to start playing more with Project Zero. So many interesting things to tackle...

... I was going to say 'not enough time', but I'm thinking about that subject a little more these days. I make assumptions against my time and habits that consume my time, but I think I need to start revisiting all of those habits and assumptions. Just as the cleaning/decluttering of the house is giving me new insite about what I have and what my stuff means to me, I think I need to work out how to declutter my time. Something to explore and write about.

back in the RTP...

Back in RTP again. Traveling for work and staying at the Wyndham again. Flight out was a little late a little bumpy, but manageable.

The flight out had me thinking about legislating technology. For the best reasons legislation was created to make airtravel safe. The down side to this legislation is that the Air companies are slow to adopt innovations. Our planes are old and unable to take advantage of all the advances that technology has put forward into other areas of transportation. Think how far our cars have come forward in the last few decades. I'm sure the issues is more complex than I lay out but I still that the current round of American air companies have become dependent on the outlays of the government and aviation rules which have led to a decaying infrastructure that is unable to cope with rapidly changing environments and requirements. I do enjoy travel but I really want to avoid American air companies as much as possible, whenever possible, at least until I see some changes.

The lab is coming along slowly. Built the first image for VMWare. Next step is going to be deploying to ESX. I'm a step behind in Xen, need to do a little more work to get that going. Also need to upload all this stuff tomorrow so that Cathy can test it.

Started reading "A Not So Small Life" not very far with it, but it is giving me some perspective. It is pulling me in the direction of additional introspection. The question I have next is whether I want do exhibit my introspection. On the one hand I think I can benefit from the feedback of my friends and family. On the other hand, it is a fairly public website connected to google. There is a limit to how much I need to share that wide :) Is there a penalty to how much I share? Probably. There are limits to what I should say. But at the same time I think there is something worthwhile to thinking about what I can say and putting more out there.

I should disclaim up front that these are my opinions and not those of my employers. Hmm. Something to update in the template I think.

Work, Writing and other foibles.

Last few days I've noticed I've been hitting the posts rather long. I'm remembering how to write and remembering that I kinda enjoy it. I used to try and journal more, but that fell by the wayside. Too many things to work thru or think thru and time just shriveled up. Not that I have much more time now, but I will see if I can do more writing. Writing as self discovery is always a fun form of cheap therapy. It is a lot easier to know oneself on a couple of lines than sitting around pondering. Not that sitting about pondering doesn't have its place but writing it out give it a sense of grounding and permanence. Of course I'd really like to keep it from degenerating into sophmoric, whiny, emo crap. There is too much to be excited about, to be angry about, to be sad about, to be happy about, that I really shouldn't spend all my time woe-is-me-ing.

I decided yesterday to pull back a little at work. I've been a bit obsessed with work lately, between PBCs and the new project, and meeting with Execs, I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to really cave into the work. Since our final sprint of the last iteration I've been putting in a ton of hours, with very little relief. I need to stop. Part of the key to Agile is working at a sustainable pace. As one of the managers pointed out to me, if I'm violating the principal of Agile, how can I get my team to follow along with me as well? Do as I say not as I do, doesn't fly much with adults either.

I've been trying to focus my efforts on doing things that my management and team want, which in some ways is the right thing to do, but I've been neglecting my own personal drives and goal. My career plan is a pretty vague affair. I've been looking at the band ladder and saying --yeah, I should be scaling this. I need to really think about what I want to do. I will say I do enjoy working with a team and building something bigger than what I could do on my own. Leadership is hard but still a good challenge. I still enjoy doing individual development -- MDD while currently under wraps due to time constraints, is a good bit of fun.

One of the struggles I have with work has been that I've got a good insight into what will be useful for our team and for our company -- technologies like Object Grid or PHP or Virtualization, and while I've been right, I haven't been able to show the value to my management or grow the skills enough on my own to make them worthwhile. What hit me the other day is that understanding the need and the value of these skills and growing them either personally or within the team is really what technical leadership means. I should be exploring this stuff, and even if my management doesn't care or see value, I should take it as far as I can.
I've been focused a little too much on bands and certification, and not really enough on leadership. If I want to get better at it, I need to practice it more. So while I'm not going to stop listening to the needs of my management or the teams I'm working with, I still feel I need to be responsive to both, I need to trust my instincts a little more and be able to follow thru with what I think it is important and right.

I may not have all the opportunities to deploy all of these cutting edge technologies like some of the leads in ISSW, but I can take the opportunities to play and grow in things that interest me. I can write this stuff and blog it with the best of them. Exploration is cool, but the important part is bring back what you discovered. I was challenged by my manager that no one gets paid to sit around and work with the cool toys and dreaming about what is important. I think I realized that to challenge back -- that is exactly what we're paying our leaders for --creating a vision of how we can deliver value back to our customers, and then executing on it. If I can transform a vision to a reality faster with PHP or Project Zero, then I am doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

For promising to shrink back from work, this has been alot of words about work :) But it has proven cathartic. I've put the career thing in perspective rather than blowing it out of proportion. I have validated and focused on what I want to be important to me, solving difficult challenges with cool technology. I want to grow and lead technical direction, rather than being a n empty consumer driven by management whimsy. I can get back to reality a bit more and work on the rest of my life. I can work to those goals that are not covered in a PBC or a IDP, but rather my own goal list. Sucker that I am, I really like the " Say" Video from John Mayer for the Movie "The Bucket List". I may get around to seeing the film, but for now the video and wikipedia spoilers were good enough. It's good to have goals 43 or otherwise. My birthday is coming up so expect to see a few more goal related posts as I ponder last year and plan the years ahead.

Can't get my brain in gear. Got a spare laptop today to work on my lab this weekend. Hope to get it 2/3s wrapped by Tuesday. Flying to RTP on Monday. Not looking forward to the trip. Not that the work is hard or bad, just long and potentially useless. Made a mistake with my lab selection for this year. It is very hard to do a good job with a lab if you don't have some sort of passion for the topic. Struggling to find some passion this year. So many other ideas feel more interesting right now. I still think Virtualization is critical. It is the win. But I think the Cloud computing model provides a much better reflection of virtualization's potential. Running multiple images on one machine -- nice, saves energy and effort; Running many images on multiple pieces of hardware smoothly transitioning from failed hw -- priceless! Of course nothing comes without cost and overhead but still.

I'm falling behind on the year of IC. At the end of March now. If I can finish up my lab, I'll have a piece for Jan/Feb and a piece for April. I may count this blog as a piece for March. I have a few ideas that I want to try and publish. As either a patent or as a piece to publish. I need to write faster. Both code and the other stuff.

On the otherhand I think I need to think about work a little bit less. I focus on work and Z, but I think I should be spreading my brain to other areas. My brain needs a change. Less development and work and more variety. Been reading a few different books lately, which help. "In Defense of Food" By Michael Pollen was pretty good. At first I didn't understand the title, but Pollan points out correctly that a lot of the products that we see at the grocery store are not really food. The cult of nutritionism has convinced us that it's not the food that it is important but the component parts. While I've followed nutrient guidelines for a long time I never gave this much thought. But at the heart of this is the idea that foods are simply components that can be well understood reduced to parts rather than pieces of a complex whole that is more than the sum it's parts. A fairly good read with decent advice on eating. Eat Food, not too much, mostly plants. Simple and to the point. I'm finding different ways to simplify my life right now, and this was right up my alley.

At some point I think I need to talk this out a bit more. But not tonight.

Out and about

Went out for a walk with Z this evening. Had a great walk. We went down to the park, strolled for a bit and came back. Out for around 40 minutes. I enjoyed getting out of the house, and I think she did too. I suspect if I walk with her anywhere she wouldn't care, so long as I didn't pause during the walk.

A few of the DeveloperWorks Editors spoke at our dept meeting to talk about opportunities to write for DW. As this year is the year of IC, I definitely want to take advantage of the opportunity. Fortunately it sounds like there could be some good opportunities for me.

career plan says what?

So it is that time of the year again to start thinking about career moves. Management has started asking to make a plan for the year. What are we doing today, what do we think we can do this year, how does this year impact your career plan? Tough questions, ok maybe I supplied about half but I hate think of the future in such little chunks. So much to accomplish, so little time!

In other news reading up on Portal 6.1. The beta is running and the new docs are out for Beta 3!

Post Early, Post often

With the near misses and tons of shame the last few posts, I've decided to try and get my posts done in the morning. I may also start drafting additional posts as backups and then just post them when I've polished them enough.

The danger of that is my post list may end up like my draft folder -- full of unfinished items. I'll play with this over time and see how it works. All this blogging is getting me thinking about blogging more for work. I'm going to suggest if we can create a blog for Project A. Since this is a customer centric service, it may be worthwhile to have some of these discussions in public forums. Either internally blogged, so others within IBM can understand our pain^H^H^H^H path, or preferably externally so our customers can contribute to the discussion.

If it worked for the TSA, it's gotta work for us.

a few threads...

Family is dealing with illness, Z got us started, then Amy and I might be getting hit as well. Tried to take a nap this afternoon while Z slept. Mostly worked, had a few thoughts I wanted to try and follow up on. Budding them here, to drive further later.

- Managing requirements for a project is a lot like managing clutter. Few ever say "I want to have 36 McDonald's Souvenir Cups with Grimmace." Much the same way no one asks for a project to come in over budget and late. But scope creep is just like clutter, it starts by reacting to a desire, rather than working towards a vision. Just because you want something doesn't mean it has a place in your life(for clutter)/project.

Now there is something to be said for the vision changing and growing, but at key points when you're starting to grow you vision statement, then you need to stop and reevaluate your project. Is it the right place to grow, or is it better to start a separate project. Sometimes the right thing is to grow the project. Some times not. Growth is a natural process that works within the process of Supply and Demand. Growth that is uncontrolled tends to be bad. Cancer is unrestrained growth of bad ideas.
There is something to be said for dealing with the principles of simplicity and good architectural practice. There is something slightly disturbing about parallels between projects at work and episodes of Clean Sweep. :)

- In starting a project, I am increasingly seeing the need to capture a vision statement. It sounds all hokey and typical management bs, but at the end of the day, if you can't explain a simple vision of what you're trying to do, that probably means, you don't know what you want to to do. Once you have a vision you need to look at Strategies and Tactics. Strategies are the steps you need to take to meet your vision. Tactics are the actions you take to implement your strategy.

- The care and feeding of a project are not hard rules to figure out. It kinda goes along with keeping healthy. The rules are simple -- eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly. Screw with either of those options and the risk of bad things happening grows. Compare with a project-- you want to make sure you're getting the right inputs -- requirements, funding, approvals, and the right actions -- clearing technical debt, quality control, doable benchmarks and voila -- project success.

- Often projects come in like the patient who comes in with a gunshot wound and finds out they have a heart condition. If you don't deal with the gunshot wound, the patient dies. If you fix the gunshot would, and neglect the long term care necessary to treat the heart condition, well, the odds to not stack up in their favor. In a crisis, triage is important, and getting the biggest wound out of the way is critical, but unless the long term behavior of the project changes, the project is doomed anyway.

-- Perhaps that last example would work better thinking about a patient with a heart attack or stroke. You have the immediate crisis, but long term care and change are necessary to improve.

-- The hardest job as an architect is figuring out what the problem the customer needs to solve is. Finding out what their problem is, when most of the time they can't express the nature of the problems, only a glimpse of the ideas they had. Started reading "The Not So Big Life" by Sarah Susanka. I suspect there is a good bit of learning I can do as a software architect from reading from construction architects.

As an aside, we're in the process of de-cluttering our house. With Z soon to be on the move we want to give her a safe and friendly place to move through. In examining my own relationships to my stuff and my space, I'm learning a lot about my stuff and myself. Highly recommend reading "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh. Very useful if you're wondering why things get so messy.

speed saves

So thinking about web projects, I'm curious what people actually do with their hardware. From a development point of view, most developers kinda throw it over the wall to the operations folks to make it go fast. Most of the architects I know give some basic consideration to making a solution scalable, but few rarely look at it as carving more cycles out of the existing hardware vs throwing more money and hardware at the situation. Is this endemic of all large companies? By comparison reading about different Web companies, who have grown out of very, very cheap servers with some great strategies for increasing capacity, decreasing latency and keeping costs down. Google's tech talk on Dapper, their RPC monitoring unit shined a light on how their site has grown over time. From a set of borrowed machines in 1997 to warehouses of servers today.

At work our standard is a sub-6 second response time for most apps. Google would not discuss what their threshold was for response time, but the impression is that data needed to leave the datacenter in a sub 1 second response time, and all of their development was geared towards that goal.

I think I need to spend a bit more time figuring out guidelines for better performance. I should restate that. I need to study the existing performance guidelines and learn to apply them better to my work.

deadlines deadlines deadlines!

I have a lot to do in a little time. Project A from work is eating a ton of time at this point. Way more hours that I was hoping to work. I have a WSTC Lab 1st draft due by the 21st, my Firefox plugin has to be updated by the 18th, and I have a WSTC presentation due in early April.

Of course it doesn't help that my lack of time is making me look at other projects as well. I want to try and build that market driven development engine using Project Zero. I also want to wrangle a bit with Google Gears. After hearing about the App Server that runs javascript on the server and client, I wonder if that's a better solution for Gears like functionality. Of course gears has the requirement to work on all browsers. For my curiosity I could build a Firefox plugin only version to run my own apps both from a server or in a connected -less mode. Perhaps Python might be an other accessible choice... there was code samples available for compling python into a plugin. ..or perhaps not, this note from Brandon Eich suggests this might not be a great idea.

last minute save!

Almost forgot to post! Fortunately I have not blown the contest within the first week. :)

Spending a good part of my working through the testing of Project A for a Monday deployment. Deadline is dropping faster, but the team is good and we're making solid progress. A lot to think about for the next milestone.

Thinking through another set of projects. Some for work some for fun. Looking at earning another Mozilla t-shirt by updating my Firefox plugin to Firefox 3. Also starting to pull together some ideas for a plugin entry for Extend Firefox 3.

Also need to starting pulling my Lab together for WSTC -- 21 days to pull it all together!!