System Administrator Appreciation Day

From one sysadmin to all the others. Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day! Keep on rockin' in the tech world.

One Minute Of A Thunderstorm

I love thunderstorms. They allow you to witness the power of nature while being entertained with a light show, all from your front porch. One amazing benefit of living in North Carolina is that we get a lot of thunderstorms.

Last night we had a very strong storm. Lots of lightening and rolling thunder, for almost an hour. The following clip was taken from my side porch at approx. 9pm using my Android phone (Nexus One). About2 minutes later lightening struck near our house and knocked out power in the neighbourhood for 13 hours.

To give you a rough idea of strength of this storm: Bailey the wonder puppy, who has never shown any fear of storms in the past, was absolutely petrified. She hid in bathrooms and under beds, and behind couches. Places she never goes on her own (she's not allowed in the bedrooms and bathrooms). It added much amusement to the proceedings.

Without further ado, I present to you "One Minute Of A Thunderstorm" by Dave, and Mother Nature, who I call "Mommy Naturepants"

National Lampoons Northern Vacation

I have just returned home from a 3 week trip across New England and parts of Canada. We got to explore areas we've never been to before, and catch up with friends and family. I finally got all my pictures from the trip geo-located and uploaded, so its time to share some interesting facts about observations about the trip:

• Round trip was just over 33oo Miles.
• We were in 13 states (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, West Virginia), and two provinces (Ontario and Quebec).
• Despite my best attempts to avoid it, I have now driven in downtown Manhattan... and survived.
• The worst place to drive was not Manhattan, but Montreal. I am pretty sure the Montreal city planners were all high when they designed their highway system.
• Geocaching is a great way to explore new areas. I found 53 caches on this trip, including ones at lighthouses in Rhode Island and Ontario, on the end of water breaks in Plymouth Rock Mass., the Bruce Trail in Ontario, and many interesting churches, graveyards, and waterways.
• Travelling with an 8 month old isn't as hard as it sounds. It also has the advantage of forcing us to slow down and take more frequent stops, which allows us to not be as tired at the end of the day, and more opportunities to take in local colour and culture.
• The french are pansies. I knew this before, but having experienced Montreal its confirmed. They are, however, very nice pansies.
• I have finally seen the Queen - twice. Neither was planned. It was like she followed me around Ontario.
• Canadians can congregate and celebrate a major event (Canada Day in Ottawa including a visit by Queen Elizabeth II - 300,00 people rocked the nations capital) without becoming completely security paranoid. It makes me proud to not have to go into lockdown mode whenever more than 200 of us get together in a major city to party it up.
• The farther north one gets (until hitting the border), the less social people become. In North Carolina waving to someone you pass on a sidewalk will almost always be met with a wave in return. In New York you may, if you are lucky, just make eye contact. They are, however, just as nice once you get to know them.

2010_north_east

The above pictures outline our trip. It was definitely well worth the time and money spent on hotels and gas. Good times. Now I must get some sleep. Work starts again tomorrow.

Beer, Diaper Bags and Church Keys

So I am in a hotel with a bottle of Spaten Premium lager imported from Munich (Munchen has great beer) and annoyingly, like a lot of beer purchased in the US, it is not a twist off cap. I don't have a bottle opener handy... what to do? Luckily I adopted a puppy...

... wait, what?

So 4 months ago we adopted Snoopy, a cocker spaniel mix. Snoopy is a pretty good hound, but in his early days in my house he chewed off all of the zipper pulls from my sons diaper bag. Not the worst thing he could have done, but it is annoying to deal with those little zippers on the bag... Luckily I went on vacation...

... OK, now you're just babbling. Start making sense!

So as souvenirs during our New England tour we have been buying key chains from various locations and using them as replacement zipper pulls. So far we have a Statue Of Liberty bear keychain from Manhattan, a Cape Cod Potato Chip keychain from Cape Cod, and a Mystic Pizza church key keychain from Mystic CT... Aha! Solution!

So: vacation + chewy puppy + baby bag = deliciousness for the bear man. Ain't life's little coincidences grand?

As an aside: I just opened a beer bottle with my sons diaper bag... am I redneck enough for Lenoir yet?

Anniversary The Third

So three years ago I got married. I still think its crazy, and my wife is completely nuts to have shown up then (My first words to her after we said the vows was "ha ha sucker!"), but I am glad she did. I think she's nuts to stay with me all this time (I expected her to run away 2.5 years ago - after all, who would want to live with me? have you met me? Yeah, so you know what I am talking about.), but I'm glad she has.

I was worried about how to celebrate this year because we started out celebrating anniversaries on a pretty high scale. Our first anniversary we happened to be starting a 4 month work trip to Europe so we ended up celebrating it in Dublin. Our second anniversary was a weekend trip to Myrtle Beach SC. How is one supposed to top that? Luckily I married a practical woman (hint: go for the Dutch farmers daughters! Horrible spellers but very practical.) so our third will be a dinner and a movie, and my wife is completely happy about it.

Based on this trend our fourth anniversary will probably be celebrated by going for a walk, and our 50th will be celebrated with a wink. Oh well, I get to spend the years in between anniversaries sharing my life with my wife, which is the best celebration I could ask for.

A lot has changed in our lives. We've moved to a different country, bought a house, adopted two dogs, and spawned a new human . Throughout all of that one thing never changed... I still believe I married the best woman in the world. I love you sweetheart. Happy 3rd!

Penny Arcade speaks my exact thoughts on Jello

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/4/7/

Meat deserts are the best.

Lessons learned

I have learned recently that its very important to match tactics with your goals, or you may end up spinning your wheels and getting nowhere. First a bit of background:

I frequently bike to work for a variety of reasons. Mostly because its fun, and one of the few ways I enjoy getting exercise. My company also has a program where they donate money to a charity of my choice when I "self power commute", which biking qualifies for (I am up to >$150 for the year so far - not bad for something I would do anyway), so there is an incentive there as well. I am also lazy by nature, so when I set my Q2 goals at work (See: Goal Setting At Google for more info on how we set our goals), I added a personal goal to log 350 miles by biking or walking.

So most days (weather permitting), I biked to work, and since I am a GPS geek, I kept track of distance traveled, travel time, and speed (both average and maximum) using a GPS unit mounted to my bike. Notice that I keep track of distance, time, and speed, but my goal only deals with distance. This is where I went astray.

I started to focus on my speed more than distance, and I started pushing myself harder and harder to get faster average speeds. As a result I pushed myself to my absolute limits (which granted is not that hard to do) and I wore out my legs faster, and as a result couldn't bike every day. My legs simply couldn't take it. The end result is that I was not putting miles on my bike, and my goals started to slip. I also wasn't having as much fun.

To fix this I have simply stopped using my GPS on routes where I know the distances already, and stopped keeping track of the time. I have found that I enjoy it a lot more, and I am not killing my legs every time I get on the bike.

The life lesson I learned here is that it is very important to align short term tactics with long term goals. It can be very easy to hinder the ability to reach your goals by taking the wrong path along the way.

Another tangential lesson is be careful of the metrics you use to determine your actions. I only really care about distance, but the metric I followed the most was speed. This caused me to make bad decisions. The metrics being followed need to lead towards hitting the goals. Either the metrics or the goal has to change if one is to see success.

I am not saying one should never explore the alternate path, or try new things. I firmly believe that exploration and risk taking is an important part of growth both as a species and as an individual. However when the goals are set, and you have no intention of changing them, you need to be careful to make sure the steps you take don't lead you to a place where the goal becomes impossible.

Important life lesson there. Glad I learned it.