My Gift

It's been a fast month. I had a lot of preparing to do last week for a Dungeons and Dragons session on Jan 17th. The session itself was a mixture of awesome and odd. The important thing is that everyone had fun even though I wasn't fully prepped. The plot is starting to unfold and the next few sessions are all about "discovery". In terms of a movie, it's that middle section where you start to learn some facts but not everything is fully revelaed yet.

Work is just work, I haven't been giving it much thought recently. Next few weeks will be interesting as we get through review time, and I let my higher ups know that I will be taking the 4 weeks off in May/June. So far only one person I trust knows about the coming baby.

In the meantime, I'm trying to survive the cold weather with as much indoor running as I can handle. It's tough, so far the longest distance I've been able to manage is 12 miles, on Jan 1st. I haven't been able to do that again. That long on a treadmill just drives you nuts.

So on to the real reason for this post. Sometimes in life, you come across something you just have to share. This is one of those times. Not gonna say what it is, but just listen to the whole thing. Then, imagine Megan dancing around in a circle singing along. My gift to you is hopefully a smile.

Cold

Simply cold. On the radio this morning, they said it hadn't been this cold since 2004. In 2004, Andrea was working the late shift at Target collections, coming home at 11pm at night. I remember it because her car ended up breaking down somewhere right off the highway, and I had to pick her up in my Mom's truck. Now I know why she hated that commute so much... I think I might have been a bit insensitive about it at the time, seeing as how I wasn't even working...

Aside from the cold, this week is going well, I heard that my Mom and sister-in-law survived lay offs, so that's got to count for something. Watching unemployment rise, more companies disapearing, and the economy generally sucking is just a great way to stay positive. At some point you just have to shut your brain off to all of it, try to "do your best job" and just try to be ready for when the shit hits the fan. Nothing lasts forever.

I recently started thinking again about a topic that comes back to me every now and then, and that being my choice of worker drone status in life. I'm positive I've mentioned this quote before, but I can't find it in a quick search. It's from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here's the short version:

The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss.

In the limited 10+ years I've been working, I've always been in the role of the man who knows how. I know how the system works, I know how to make improvments, and I know how to build it, maintain it, or fix it. I can start to see the importance of the why, the value in the why, but I still can't seem to make that leap to caring about the why.

Who gives a rats ass why some company is willing to pay some other company millions of dollars for services, technologies, or software products? Is the "why" important when the "business" asks for certian features? When a boss comes and asks you to do something, do you ask him "why"? No... so why ask why?

I think the answer lies in the full quote from Mr. Emerson, that being ambition. Do I have ambitions to be something other than a worker drone? Maybe... but figuring out what that means is the hard part. Maybe for me, it simply means having a goal of one day being my own boss?

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

Silly Resolutioners, Go Home

It's not that I'm against new years resolutions. I have a slew of them this year. Probably more this year than any previous year. This year they are a set of very specific things for very specific people for very specific reasons. Yes, I'm being vague because everyone of them is not for sharing.

But every year, it's the same damn thing at the gym. Jan 1st starts and all of a sudden, no parking spots at the gym. Lines for the treadmills. A slew of people walking... on my treadmills. Yeah, MY treadmills damnit. I'll come right out and admit it, I get straight up pissed off when I see 12 people all just walking on a treadmill. I'm happy you are trying to get healthy, but go walk around the mall or something.

Sigh... I'm falling over to the dark side I think.

I'm supposed to have a Dungeons and Dragons session next Saturday, and I haven't even started preparing. The holidays and all that really distracted. I was afraid when I added WoW back into the mix last month that it might cut into my D&D time, and sure enough, it has. I knew all along that if I wanted to do both hobbies, I'd have to prioritize my free time to split between the two. Time to hit the books and come up with some story lines... Go go creativity!

In the meantime, sounds like the end of this week is just going to dump tons of snow on us. That will be tons of fun for my commute. I think I'll just have to go in at like 5am on Friday so that I can leave at 3pm. Sounds like a good plan...

New Blarg Year

I made the mistake of reading the newspaper this morning. If there was anymore doom and gloom in there, you'd think I wrote some of the articles. From layoffs to bad economies and all the rest. What a way to ring in the new year!

Andrea and I were slated to do a dinner at the Palomino downtown on New Years Eve, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, were unable to go. Those same circumstances prevented my Mom from even being able to attend Christmas day with her family, but she is on the way to recovery now so that is good news.

Instead, I entered 2009 with a nasty cold. Seriously. 5 days of vacation, and I'm sick for more then half of it. I wasn't sick all year, and now this? Screw you karma, what the F#@* did I do to deserve that? I ended the year with 17 hours of unused sick time, that's how not-sick I was this year. Blarg.

There has got to be something positive to talk about, but it's hard to come up with anything the Sunday before going back to work, and the start of remainder of the winter grind. Those first months of the year are the longest, with no sunlight, crappy driving, and no days off until Easter.

Oh hey, wait. I just remembered the positive thing I was supposed to post about. Thankfully, the memory of it just erased all the above negativity. Sweet how that works.

WE ARE HAVING ANOTHER GIRL!!! (90% rule applies).

I'll be straight up honest and say I'm excited to have another girl. From already having all girl stuff to the pure fact that hey, I've done all my learning so far as a parent with a girl, so maybe a small percentage of it will apply the second time around. We haven't talked names yet, and I'm not sure if we will go straight back to the final "cut" list before, or if we will start fresh. I know personally, I will want to go back through and make a few new lists, but I already know that a some of my favorites from before are still going to be back.

So that's all for now, here's to making it through 2009 with positive results. Positive attitudes... maybe?