Over the past two days most of my team in NY and I have been in training related to a project we are doing that involves implementing Kanban. The training was really good. I know the trainer and he is very energetic. He didn’t disappoint. The training was very interactive and got everyone thinking. I think it was really helpful and I hope to use a lot of what we learned and apply it to the real world. Its one thing to try something (I have been trying a Kanban implementation with my team for a few months) and it is another to get really in depth info from experts and be able to use it better. I already learned of several ways i can modify what we are doing to improve on it outside of the project we went to the training for.
Work
First Day Back in The Office
Today was the first day back in the office since before Sandy. I got up early since i was concerned about the commute as well as the fact that I had an early meeting. The trip in to work was fine. I even got a seat for part of the way. The guys I work with in NJ didnt fare as well. Some had 3 hour commutes.
Before I headed home I went to get a hair cut. That delayed my leaving Manhattan till after 6pm. I am not sure if that was the reason why the subways were packed, but I had to wait a while for the train and then it was super crowded. The train also moved a lot slower than normal. Due to the storm projected to happen tomorrow I am going to work from home tomorrow. My mom is supposed to come over and watch the baby while MC has a doctor apt. If she can’t get fuel I want to make sure MC can still go. Add the storm to the mix and I think its the smart choice to work remote.
Surprisingly Keeping Time Can be Difficult Sometimes
Recently there was some communication snafu of some kind at work. No damage was done but it highlighed the point that people don’t always take into account that we work on a global team. You can’t just say something happened today at 6. What day? 6AM or PM? What time zone are we talking about? Those are all the questions that come to mind when you make a generic statement like that. After that my boss suggested people set their computer clocks to UTC. If you don’t know UTC is basically the renamed version of GMT. Almost everyone dealing with global locations from the military to most major corporations keep time in UTC. Otherwise scheduling is a nightmare. Servers, and other devices are already keeping time in UTC, so my bosses suggestion was that we set our local computers time to UTC. He offered a way you could setup outlook to display two time zones as well so you could see your calendar in local time as well as keep UTC time. Both were good ideas. When I used Outlook on Windows I actually did use the two time zone option but apparently that isn’t available on the Mac version of Outlook.
I thought setting your computer clock to UTC was a good idea but would cause other issues when trying to keep time out of work. The idea did remind me that I had a clock app that i could run and keep in my menu bar that would list out multiple time zones. Not quite the same thing but it is very useful. What I ended up doing instead was set my watch to UTC. I forgot that I had the option to have two time zones on my watch. The dial hands can display normal local time and I can have the digital display show UTC time. That minor realization has already paid off a lot when coordinating calls this week durring the big storm.
I have apps on my iPhone and iPad that also help me with world clock calculations. I do use them often, but instead of having to do the time zone math, thinking in UTC is a big help. I have written a bit in the past about keeping time in a global team. I am writing again because of this minor adjustment to using UTC on my watch had a pretty big impact and I am always amazed at something so simple as keeping time actually can be very difficult sometimes.
UTC on my watch
Work using UTC for everything
Scheduling meeting and events accross time zones
My First Smile
Today was a first for me. Teagan gave me a smile, and it wasn’t gas! She has been giving smiles here and there to MC and her parents last week but I have not gotten any love till today. I was working from home and when Teagan was getting up from a nap I had some time so I went in and was the one to wake her. As she was stretching out after her nap (thats a thing she does) she was totally giving me smiles. MC thought it was so cute, and I was a happy father!
Other than that it was a normal day except for the fact that I worked from home since I was concerned about the subways conditions after the storm. MC’s parents left to head home today since they were working during at the election.
First Day Back at Work
Knowing that I can only take a week or so off we wanted to make sure that MC had helped when I went back to work. Her parents were eager to come and spend time with us and the baby. We scheduled it so they would come Tuesday and settle in so I can go back to work on Wednesday. I was very grateful to know that they were both here to help out.
Because I stopped writing for a while after the baby came most of these posts are backdated. I don’t like doing that because I end up forgetting specifics of what I want talk about. My first day back at work is a perfect example of that. I want to write about it, but I really don’t remember much about it other than to say I don’t remember much about it. I know I was tired, I know everyone asked about the baby, and I know I shut off lots of pictures. I did have a lot of email to catch up on. It took me probably two or three days to get up to speed on where everything was with my ongoing projects.
Naming Schemes
I am in the technology field. I think about stuff that not many other people might. Take for example naming schemes for your computers. Until recently most people only had one or two at home and probably had generic names for their stuff. I have worked in environments with hundreds of servers and other devices. Dealing with numbers like that you think about how to name things. For me that got me thinking about how I name all the deices at home.
At Partsearch in the beginning Gus twisted my arm to name stuff with some sort of meaning and avoid a utilitarian scheme. As a history major I opted for naming things for WWII naval ships. Our web servers were battleships. Our database servers were air craft carriers. Our production database servers were all US Carriers involved in Midway. you get the picture. That decision was universally disliked. I was almost pretty happy that everyone wasn’t happy since in the end Gus just gave up and let me name everything with a more formalized structure that I wanted all along.
Before the experience at Partsearch coming up with a standard like that I named my computers at home each as a planet in the solar system. My desktop was always Mars, my server was Saturn. Back then I only had two computers at home (typically) but if i had more i always followed that standard.
After dealing with thinking up a standard I read about how different people did it and I changed what I name stuff at home. I started using names of space shuttles and then generally any space capsule name NASA has used. My main laptop has been Endeavour for years. I have had Atlantis (still do) and Discovery for a while as servers or other extra boxes I have had sitting around. My main desktop was Odyssey for years, now it is Aurora.
I write about this topic now because after I got M a Macbook I have had to deviate from that structure a bit since she gets to name her own machine. It is funny to see how other tech people I know take great care in how they name their equipment and then how non tech people don’t think anything about it. To me this topic was funny to think about.
St Louis Day 3
I am on my way home from St. Louis now. I got a bit delayed getting out, but thankfully it wasn’t more than an hour. A bunch of us got a ride to the airport from the one person from NYC who had a rental car and was leaving today. I was on a different airline than everyone else so I couldn’t hang out with anyone else. They were in a different terminal. I hit the Chillis Too for dinner and then went to the American club before the flight. Flight Tracker and the FAA weather app’s on my iphone were invaluable for this trip. Both kept me better informed than the airline was.
Other eventful things today was we went out as a large group to Mongolian BBQ. I was skeptical about it but overall the food was pretty good and there was plenty for me to eat so I was happy.
St Louis Day 2
Day two of the conference was good. We got a lot done. I did my big presentation. I think it went well. After work I was going to avoid the team dinner since I was really tired, but I got strong armed by two guys on my team and another guy who we work with and I ended up going with them to the shooting range. One of the guys from NY really wanted to do that so 4 of us went.
It was a lot of fun. I got to shoot an AK-47 and an AR-15 for the first time. I also tried a really big revolver like the Dirty Harry gun. I didn’t like that. After that we went to dinner at this place that had fantastic burgers. Thankfully I was back at the hotel at a reasonable time. I was still glad I didn’t goto the other event since they were out much later.
Overall a really good day.
St Louis Day 1
The first day of the conference went well. I also got to spend some time with my team that is in St Louis. For dinner another team manager was in and most of her US staff with her so we ended up combining our team dinners and had one big get together. We work closely with each other so it was nice to get out of the office for a bit. We almost never do this so it was a lot of fun. One of our head architects was also in town so he came along. All in all it was like 9 people. We went to a decent steakhouse that several people have been to before. Compared to NY it was super cheap and tasty!
The night wasn’t too late since we all had to be at work at normal hours. Overall it was a great first day in St. Louis!
Off to St. Louis
I am on my way to St Louis for a few days. It is a work trip. There is two events going on there this week. My team is involved in both, but I personally am in a conference. A few other people from NY including another person on my team is going.
Thankfully getting out of NYC was uneventful. My other teammate picked me up at the airport. he got a rental car and i didn’t since i didn’t think it was worth the expense. We went to Friday’s for dinner and ended up meeting up with one other person who is in town for the week.