Work

Desk Reconfiguration

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At work I have had 5 monitors on my desk.  Let’s not argue the necessity of five monitors. It is a bit excessive. That is why I’ve been thinking about downsizing for a while.  At the time the setup made sense, and I had the equipment on hand so I figured why not.  Recently however my desk is been slightly cramped, and I found myself using my third computer significantly less.  This set up started when I got a new 27 inch display for my laptop.  It was a great needed addition since the extra real-estate is used and I blow text up a lot.  With that addition I had the two 19″ monitors I was using for my Macbook Air free to move to my Mac Mini that I use.  I have that machine mainly to sit on the guest wifi network to do Skype video chats with far flung staff.  I can use Skype on the internal network but it never seems the same.  The 15″ monitors (2 of them) I was using for the Min went towards a Dell desktop I have that I run a specific work app on.  I can run it in a VM but on my older Macbook Air the VM was starved for memory.  Now i may revisit the need for that machine but i like having a dedicated Windows machine around even if I dont use it often.

Since I wasn’t using the windows machine a lot I gave away the 15″ monitors and just have the Dell desktop plugged into one of the Mini’s 19″ monitors.  They take DVI & VGI so I created  poor mans switcher for the monitor.  Longer term i will probably just RDP to that machine.  Surprisingly 3 monitors is not uncommon at work.  Some people even have 4 but i was a bit out there with the 5.

Now I have space on my desk that you can actually see my wedding & engagement photos.  Now isn’t that whats important?

Maybe Out From Under The Blockers

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This week it work has been stressful because I am under a deadline that is coming due next month to deliver some software and we had several items that have been blocking us from progressing most of our tasks. This is not uncommon but it’s a big deadline and things just have been progressing slowly so I have gotten concerned. Thankfully early this morning to the major issues seem to of been resolved and the third was clearing up. That means a lot of other items that have been kind of in limbo are now able to proceed.

We’re not out of the woods but I just feel better that we pushed some items aside that of been haunting me all week. I think I’ve mentioned that this deadline has been more stressful than most just because I’m going to most likely be away when MC has the baby right when it’s coming due. That means I need to make sure that everybody else’s up to speed and doing what’s needed and I have to be able to just walk away at a moments notice. My boss and I have a plan for my absence, but it still doesn’t make me any less uneasy with all that’s going on.

I’m glad I’m able to start wrapping up the week before holiday weekend on a positive note. Now just one more day until the weekend!

Monday August 27

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I am working towards a deadline for a big project at work. Were not late yet, but I have concerns about making our date. I generally am very sensitive to this sort of stuff but there is still a lot of work to be done, not a lot of time to do it, and I may have to run out any time have a baby. That last part about having to leave in a moments notice is probably what’s causing me to be the most concerned. Generally this kind of hectic work pace happens towards a deadline but as I said it is a little different this time because MC is due in two weeks.

Most of my day today involved making sure things were on track for the project that is due, and generally ensuring that we haven’t missed anything. The other half of the day was making sure everybody on the team knew what their priorities were.

I left work a little after 5 PM because MC and I have an appointment after work interviewing a perspective postpartum Doula.

Friday August 24th

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Today has been a long day at work. I got the office around 8 a.m. I treated myself to an omelette from the cafeteria and then started my calls from 9 a.m. Schedule call to up all morning and early afternoon, and then working out some issues with an ongoing project of the rest of the day. By 4:30 I was exhausted figured hey its Friday in the summer I was cutting out about 30 minutes early.

No major plans for the evening at home. M said she was leaving in a bit from work so she least won’t be home late. Hopefully we can just relax for the evening.

First Day in London

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I spent the morning getting from the airport to the hotel. And I unwound a little. I walked over to Canary wharf mall near where the office is. I need to get a SIM card for my Galaxy Nexus phone and iPad. I was impressed at how easy it was to get, and the price was not that bad either.  I wasn’t happy I couldn’t use my AT&T iPhone 4S because it was locked to AT&T, but I was glad I had an unlocked Galaxy Nexus that i could use.

I tried to have some breakfast at Starbucks but ended up just having a Danish because he did not have the sandwich I wanted.  After that i headed out to meet Colin by the London bridge station.  Well first it was at another station and i didn’t see my text until i was already at the location i was originally going to.  I then turned around and headed to the London bridge station.  It was only a 15 minute detour.  Once there Colin was running late.  I walked around a bit, then just goofed off on the internet and read a bit in the sun until he arrived.

We checked out an open air market.  had some food.  I got some fudge.  We then walked and had a drink at a pub.  After that we walked all the way down towards were we were going to eat dinner.  it was right near the London Eye.  We walked along the river.  it was fun.  We were early meeting his wife so we had a drink outside by the river.  i tried Pims for the first time.  Colin insisted.  it was good.  We then meet his wife and had dinner, and then they had to rush off to get a delivery.  We parted ways at the tube station.  I made my way back to the hotel.

It was a good finally meeting Colin.  I considered him a friend for a quite some time since I start working at Reuters, however other than Skype video chat’s we have never met in person.

Wednesday May 9th, 2012

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Today i was in the office at 3xsq.  Long day with several face to face meetings as well as calls.  I had lunch with Eamon and we did our 1on1 at lunch.  I also had an interview with a prospective candidate.

I sat at Abhinav’s desk.  Scott showed up for the interview so I couldn’t sit at his desk even though he sat somewhere else and Rajesh sat at his desk.

After work i went for a hair cut.  Leon cut the top of my hair shorter again for me but left the sides a bit longer, or shall i say he faded it in so the bottom was short and the upper sides were a bit longer.  Not sure if i like it but i am giving it a go.  Last month i had the top much longer to try that out.  i didn’t like it.

First Day Back at Work

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My 1st day back from a 3 day vacation I decided to work from home. Thankfully I did not have a ton of meetings so they would catch up on mail and my tasks. There was not a lot to report today. A pretty normal uneventful day. Sometimes that’s pretty nice, and sometimes  it’s kind of boring. Today after going to DC over weekend was nice to be it would get stuff done.

Last Day Before Vacation

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On my last work day before a week off I had to tie up all loose ends at work.  It was tough but i think i handed everything off ok.

After work M and I meet up with Luke and some other people for a few drinks at Windfall.

 

Almost All Mac, Well Sometimes…

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For over a year I have opted into a “bring your own equipment” pilot with my company.  It basically allows me to use a Mac at work.  There has been a great community helping with how too’s, what apps to use to replicate Windows apps, etc.  For the bulk of that time I have generally opted to continue to use a Windows machine.  It wasn’t because I wanted to, but it was because of limitations of email.  More specifically it was Entourage was a horrible app that came no were near its Outlook for Windows equivalent, and then it was that Outlook 2011 wasn’t compatible with the Exchange system I was using.  Last month that last part changed and I was able to use Outlook on the Mac.  It was the last major piece to my going all Mac again at work.

Over the past month I have been going days using all native Mac apps when working remotely and then days of using my Windows machine in the office.  For the most part I am able to work 80% or more on native apps on my mac when I try.  There are a few websites I need that require IE, plus doing certain things in Sharepoint is better looking or just easier to do in IE.  I can do a lot in Sharepoint on the mac but I do default back to IE a lot.

I also had a few issues with Webex on Lion.  I still have issues if logging in via one of the two Webex portals I use.  The other I found a work around for and it does work.  So half the Webex’s I need I have to goto my iPad or a VM.

As I mentioned earlier the big hold back was email.  Now that I can use outlook 2011, for a while I didn’t want to.  It is Outlook and much better than Entourage, however it is not as feature rich as Outlook 2010.  Plenty of reviews covered that.  But even with its limitations it is growing on me.  I am not yet ready to go all mac every day but I am getting closer.  Right now I am at 2-3 days a week.  Since I sit at a computer 8+ hours a day a change like this will take a while to get used to.  For now I hope to continue to be mostly Mac at work more days a week.