Just received this from a coworker. Since awards season just kicked off (People's Choice Awards, SAG awards, Oscars), I'm nominating this as the best gift in 2007. Everyone needs one.
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When releasing new functionality or a new site, there are certain things that should never be said.
"It's not working. Oh, wait, I'm on a PC. Let me reboot."
[toilet flush]
"Here Kitty Kitty"
"Oops, I didn't mean to do that."
Any swear word unless it's in the context of congratulating the team at the end of a successful launch. ("You guys kick BLEEP!")
I've heard all of these said on launch calls.
In addition, something I never want to hear myself say again" "It's not working for you now? Did you clear your cache and cookies?"
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With the exception of old school super mario brothers, I don't even really like video games. (I wonder where my power pad went.) In the past few years, I've tried a game here and there on the various playstations, xboxes, etc. The Nintendo Wii is totally different. Ridiculously easy to use. Stupid fun. The controller, which is called a remote in Wii speak, acts as a tennis racket in the tennis game, both a bat and ball in baseball, and my personal favorite, a bowling ball. The remote even vibrates when you hit the baseball. I can completely understand how someone could go nuts and send their remote flying. Speaking of nuts, check out my friend Jon playing tennis.
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I had to have a mole removed from my hand. It wasn't planned.
Me: "Hey, can you check this mole?"
Doctor: "We're going to take that out and do a biopsy on that."
Me: "Um, now?"
Doctor: "Yeah. Lay back. I'm going to numb your hand."
[numbs my hand]
Doctor: "While we're letting that kick in, I have to get these forms filled out for the lab work."
I then had to watch the doctor fill out not one, not two, but three different pieces of paper. At times, she asked me for some of my personal info, which already must be in their database. Where is the technology to aid her? Why was it super easy for them to schedule my follow up appointment with what seemed like two clicks.... and yet they are back to paper for lab work?
It was more painful for me to wait for the paperwork that it was to get the mole cut out. (It was kind of cool... it looked like someone took a mini melon baller to my hand.)
I can't wait until doctors' offices have patient status. I had to wait for a call for the results of the biopsy (mole was benign). How great would it have been to get the status via my own personal patient page. Oh well, at least they appear to have patient scheduling down.
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I've been tagged by Skrocki, one of my favorite bloggers. I agree with her that this blog needs a sign of life. I am supposed to tell you five things you may not know about me, so here it goes:
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Are you planning a project? Working on a project that needs some (or a lot of) improvement? A great sanity check when planning a project is to list out the complete wrong ways run the project. For example: No communication plan, no overall schedule, too many meetings, executives not engaged, unclear vendor management. Then, keep all of these examples in mind when forming your project team. Make sure you don't do the wrong things. It's a really simple technique that often goes overlooked.
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A guy who sits down the hall from me has a bottle of ketchup on his desk. I saw it a few weeks ago and thought it was odd. I noticed today that it's still there.
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A couple of Saturdays ago, the other half and I decide to try a new gym. Our current gym has apparently decided to not use the air conditioning this year. I mean, I don't go to the gym to chill out but when I walk in and immediately start sweating, there is a problem.
Side note: The Sun office I work in most of the time has a great gym. Problem is that I prefer to slap on my headphones and not speak to anyone for the hour or so I'm there. Some may think it's rude and I wouldn't want to impose that on my coworkers. I have enough problems ignoring the random kid I went to high school with who thinks the best time to "catch up" is when I'm running on the treadmill. The fact that I just smile and don't remove my headphones isn't enough of a hint for him to go away.
So back to that Saturday. We walk into a local gym that is close to both of our offices. We smile, say hi, and tell the girl working at the front desk that we're thinking of joining and would like to try the place out. She stares at us for a second, mildly annoyed because we interrupted the conversation she was having with some guy standing on the other side of the desk. She then tells us sure, that will be $15 each. Other half and I both stare back for a sec, confused.
Me: "Oh, we don't just want to use the place, we're thinking of joining."
Her: "Yeah, it's still $15 each."
Other half: "Is [insert owners name here] here?" (His uncle happens to be friends with the owner he figures maybe this guy has a brain.
Her: Nope, he's not here.
I turn to other half and mumble some words I can't share here. We say alrighty then, cya, and leave. As we're walking out, I'm shocked. If that's how they treat potential customers, I don't even want to know how they treat their current customers. I mean, you can freakin try a server for free before you buy it but we can't try this gym? I guess I'm going to have to used to the hot & sweaty gym. It's going to be an interesting summer.
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It's not as far away as you may have thought. Read on.
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To the person who thought it was a good idea to cook some type of cheese product for a long time in the office microwave: Please don't do that again. The office now stinks of foul mac and cheese. Thanks.
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The other day, I received an email that included the audio recording of a conference call that I wasn't able to attend. (If I spend every working hour in meetings, how am I supposed to get any actual work done?!) At that time, I was in email delete mode. My was mouse hovering over my mail delete button and my finger was cocked and ready to click. Although I did want to listen to the conference call (it was an update on a project I will soon be working on), I am a realist and realized that I likely wouldn't find free time before they hold the same meeting again. Then I felt guilt. I thought, well, the recording is in MP3 format and I guess I could download it to my MP3 player and listen at the gym.... but then I'd miss the relaxing part of my day when I don't have to actually speak or talk about work. (Plus, I'm selfish and normally use the FM tuner on my MP3 player to listen to one of my favorite shows.)
It then hit me. I knew I'd be spending 12ish hours on flights to and from Boston and downloaded it to my laptop. Genius. Ok, not really b/c I'm sure many people do this but hey, it was genius in my little world. I'm actually on a plane right now (well, when I wrote this blog entry) and just listened to the audio recording. I also followed along with the slides that were presented. Except for not being able to ask questions (the other passengers would probably think I was weird), it was like being at the meeting last week.
Going forward, I'm probably going to keep a folder on my desktop and download the audio recordings of conference calls I miss. Maybe I will even start to ask that particular calls be recorded if I know I cannot attend.
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My grandmother, Lorraine, passed away about a month ago. I was in Florida visiting my parents and grandparents (they live down the street from each other) when it happened. Although there are some moments of that trip I'd like to wipe from my memory, I was lucky enough to be able to spend my Nana's final days with her. Her and my grandfather were married for 63 years. She lived to be 87 years old. While that is certainly amazing in itself, her father lived to be almost 101 years old so I expected it out of her. ;-) Up until a couple of years ago, my grandparents were walking a few miles a day for exercise.
Two days before she died, my Dad had received a package in the mail from my aunt. She had sent CDs that she thought my Nana would like to listen to. One of the CDs contained the song, "Sweet Lorraine." In Frosty format, here are some of the lyrics:
She's got a pair of eyes
That are bluer than the summer skies
When you see them you will realise,
Why I love my sweet Lorraine
I could have easily copied and pasted the eulogy that I mostly wrote and one of my sisters read at the funeral but I think this is a more fitting tribute to my Nana. Short, sweet, and to the point.
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I've been using Gmail for my personal email for about 8 months now and am still getting used to their whole idea of search rather than sort. I'm fairly organized - when I can keep up with it, my work email gets filed into the appropriate folder.
Gmail's philosophy is a little different:
1. "Search, don't sort" - This means don't file things in a folder and then go searching your folders for that old email. Instead, you should just use their outstanding search functionality. I like this aspect.
2. "Don't throw anything away" - Using Gmail, you archive emails instead of deleting them. Now, this part I just don't get. While there is a spam folder that allows you to delete spam "forever," there is also "trash" on the left side of the browser. There is never anything in the trash and I don't know how I'd even put anything in there. I'm sure there is an answer for this discrepancy in their FAQs but who has the time to read those. I'm not a moron. I know how to send mail. ;-)
3. "Keep it all in context" - With this functionality, all email is organized by threads in your inbox. I don't normally have my work inbox organized this way (instead I will sort by subject) but I do somewhat like it with Gmail. The catch is it can get confusing. For example, if I have one email discussion going, when I forward it to someone else and they respond, all the threads still appear in the same view. At this point, it takes an extra couple seconds to check who's email response you are actually reading.
Even though I'm still getting used to gmail, I do like it. I think I just need to use it more. Sounds like it's time for me spend a couple minutes looking at the FAQ.
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(Everyone responds: Hi DiTucci.)
The first step is admitting you have a problem, right? I admit that I do have what I call "flare ups" now and then where I want everything in the house neat and tidy. I used to actually call these OCD flare ups but someone pointed out that since I don't actually have OCD, I may offend someone who actually does have OCD. Heck, if I'm going to make fun of myself, I should do it in a politically correct way. About two years ago, I realized the effect my neatfreak behavior was having on my friends. It was the morning after my bachelorette party. Well, I had two of them and no, I won't be blogging about those. Bachelorette party #1 ended with me hydrated and tucked into bed. The next morning, I woke up with no hangover (amazing) and found one of my friends sleeping on the couch.
"Morning!" I yell at her to wake her up and be annoying as I walk past her into the kitchen. I've known her for a long time and we've each earned the right to be annoying to each other.
"Yup." She said (I think). It was kind of a leave-me-alone-groan-type-response.
"Want some water?" I ask.
"I already have some." I walk into the room and she sits up. She rubs her eyes and tries to wake up.
"Do you know what a good friend I am?" She asks me. Eek, now I'm worried that I caused some type of problem last night. My sister already told me that I was a happy drunk and the van driver we had (of course none of us drove, we're responsible folk here) carried me from the van b/c I decided it was time to go to sleep a bit early. (That was after the van driver took out someone's side view mirror as we drove down a narrow road in Boston. Don't worry, he stopped and took care of it.) She didn't mention anything else though.
"Uh, oh. What did I do last night?"
She laughs and says, "You didn't do anything. Last night when we got to your house, I was so tired and all I wanted to do was sleep. I went into the kitchen and got some water. I put it on the coffee table and flopped onto the couch. Then, in my pissed state, I felt wrong. I realized that I didn't put a coaster under the glass of water and remembered that I was in your house. Fear came over me. So, I got back up and fumbled around in the dark until I found the coasters in your drawer. Then I went to sleep."
"That's why I love you." I told her.
"You've got issues."
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New inventions are cool but this freaks me out a little:
New York pans skyscraper escape pods
As I started to read this article, I kept thinking of the Titanic (which I found actually mentioned at the end) and who/how/what decides who gets to go in these things in the event of an emergency.
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