Tag Archive for 'team.building'

good news, bad news

Published on June 2, 2010 in Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , .

bad news: I didn’t qualify for the clinical research study that would’ve paid me to take the drugs that I’m already taking
good news: I didn’t qualify because I’m too healthy; A1C of 6.1, down ~50 lbs from a year ago, might even be able to reduce the meds that I’m taking, if I get more exercise and turn some fat into muscle.

bad news: A1C tests usually mean blood samples taken with a needle and a big bruising scar that lasts for days.
good news: today’s A1C came from the same finger prick they used to test my current blood sugar and was ready in 6 minutes.

bad news: I had to fast for this appontment today and hadn’t eaten since 8.30 last night.
good news: panera bread on the way to the red line (with free wifi)

bad news: I’m not done with the stats for work, yet
good news: I’m downtown for the study appointment, so I can swing by the office and get the stuff I’m missing, hopefully.

bad news: between major seasons, so not much work besides finishing the stats.
good news: picked up a few days at a couple other teams courses and met people and have heard from even more courses who want me to work for them.

bad news: it was raining this morning and I had at least one 10 minute walk on the schedule.
good news: the sun is out.

one less tooth

Published on April 30, 2010 in Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , .

After digging food out of my wisdom tooth with a toothpick after every meal for the past few months… the cavity became too bad and I was experiencing ridiculously unbearable pain every few days. I lined up an appointment at a Dentistry school, since the rumor was that they did good work and did it cheap. They checked me in, took an x-ray, told me that the tooth was definitely the culprit and told me they could pull it right there and then. It was a couple students who did the actual work, and they did hit my gums with their tools a couple times, but it wasn’t an overly painful experience and I didn’t have any ridiculous swelling or signs of infection. They prescribed me an antibiotic, and I took my final dose of that today. I still have a whole that little bits of food occasionally get stuck in, but I’ve gotten really good at using the mirror on my visor in my car and a toothpick to get it out.

In other news, I got on the list at a couple more teams courses and hopefully I’ll be picking up more work. Already lined up a few days in between the usual season and summer camp. Hooray!

Work AND play? or just more work…

Published on March 19, 2010 in Music and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

The long breaks between seasons make me nervous; When the new season begins, my confidence in my ability to do my job is completely deflated. Right now, we’re a few weeks into the season, and I not only KNOW that I am damn good at my job, but I’ve been doing it long enough that I should be teaching other people how to do it or running my own program or both. It reminds me of the time right after my Dad died, when I was nervous every day I had to go to work that I would just break down and not be able to focus enough to get through the day. I managed to get through every day, back then, and the only thing that I couldn’t keep up with was playing in bands. I’m not sure, now, if I just needed the time I was devoting to music to relax and decompress or if playing was actually more mentally demanding than working. Maybe it was both. I miss playing music, I want to play again… but when I feel so insecure at the beginning of each season of work, I wonder if I really have the focus to pull both off again. It’s just like all those classes, when I was in school. I feel like I can do one very well, but if I try to do all of it, I’ll end up doing them all half-assed… is this just pre-season jitters? Will I suddenly remember how good I am at being in a band a couple weeks in? Will my work or my music suffer from trying to do both at the same time? Sometimes I feel like taking some shitty office job that I don’t care about and wouldn’t have to try hard at, just so I can focus on the rest of my life. The money would certainly be more stable… but would I go crazy if I didn’t enjoy and believe in my job? I certainly felt crazy when I worked at TelecomNOW; I had to give up caffeine just to stay grounded. And I took on the Wormtown.org project while I was working there. Not only did it help me keep my sanity, by being something I believed was worth doing, but it kept me connected to the music scene, so that when The Overtones stopped playing, it wasn’t hard for me to find another band to play with. I don’t feel confident enough to try for any drastic changes… find or start an organization I believe in that I could work for full-time, all year or make a living with music by building up my chops and getting back to the point where I could sight-read and do studio work… I’d be happy, but they seem unrealistic or unattainable. I definitely feel pressure to do more, though. That is my point, I either need to do more of the work that I’m doing, that I love, or I need to do more of something else… music or something. I don’t think I’d ever feel this insecurity or lack of confidence if I didn’t have these huge breaks.

flights are booked… and I hate pdfs

Published on October 21, 2009 in Computers, Family & Friends and Work. Closed Tags: , , , .

So, I’ve had to create and send PDFs to coworkers this week. I hate PDFs. I believe that they are the devil’s file format. Why would I sink to such a level, you ask? Because my boss doesn’t have/can’t operate Excel (and doesn’t have the web savvy to use Google Docs). There’s lots of rumblings about our boss, but that’s really nothing new. I hate the feeling of instability it lends to my job, though. I’d totally go back to a tech job, if I could find one that was in a laid back environment and paid well… on the other hand, I’d really go for a position at a place with high ropes that had steady work for two or three seasons, even if it paid the same as I’m getting, now.

In other news, we’ll be back on the east coast, doing the family thing and trying to catch up with all the people who I’ve neglected to see on my last couple trips that way from the day after Christmas until about the 30th. Let me know if you have time in there and want to reserve a day or evening, now.

still don’t know

Published on September 12, 2009 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , , .

The Palm Pre is out of the running; I got to feel one at work and the keyboard is just too small. I’m a texter with big thumbs. So, it’s back to a waiting game… wait for that first android phone’s price and date to hit Verizon, the phone should be a Motorola with that spiffy new Motoblur UI slapped on top of Android … or wait for the Nuvifone, which isn’t Android and doesn’t have a release date or price yet (or carrier, officially),  but will almost certainly have the best GPS and probably handle gmail without any problems, at least. Or give in and get an iPhone; It’s so tempting.

In other news:

Work starts back up soon, one meeting next week and then officially back to a regular schedule the following week. I think we have Fridays off this season.

Got the annoying clicking noise the rear wheel(s) of my car were making fixed… it took three tries, but we got it done. Now I hear every click and creak the car makes when I hit bumps and stuff… still need to do whatever needs to be done about the little ding in the windshield.

And we’ve been using our game consoles a lot over the break… picked up the X-Men Origins: Wolverine for xBox 360 and Fat Princess for PS3 … and I might dig into our most recent purchase, Mini Ninjas during this last week off. Fall TV season be damned, we’re playing our video games!

busy summer, as usual

Published on July 12, 2009 in Computers, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Camp is going well. I’m taking lots of pictures, again, but we haven’t made any decisions about where to put them, yet. If any go online publicly, I’ll be sure to post a link. I bought a timbuk2 backpack to help alleviate some near-constant back pain. It’s a great bag and quite comfortable. I still love my big messenger bag, but I’ll save it for team-building programs.

I’m also back to trains and other public transportation for the summer and have been listening to a lot of music (and Half-Blood Prince, lately, in preparation for the movie). I like how the commute in the summertime gives me a chance to reconnect with my music collection. I’d still love to replace my phone (which still turns itself off quite a bit) and my iPod and the GPS with one device… but I don’t know if I should wait for the Garmin phones to come out or just cave in and get an iPhone. So I’m still nursing my phone along and carrying both.

The wedding and trip out to Maine  was fun. I haven’t really had a chance to go through those pictures and pick out the best ones yet, but again, I’ll post a link, when I do. I don’t think I have another day off until camp is over… though, I may take a Saturday, next week or the week after. I’m LOVING my Macbook pro. I haven’t completely set myself up on it and decided what programs I’m going to use for photo work and web work to replace my windows favorites (Paint Shop Pro and Homesite 5.5). It’s an awesome piece of hardware, and I’ve already used it to do some stats work for adventure ed. and it was almost a pleasant experience. I’ve definitely gotten used to the trackpad and the multi-touch-ness.

I’m also eating a little healthier. When I’m picking out meals, I constantly think of the Dead Milkmen song “nutrition,” which is fun to hum, but it’s kind of a silly song. I’ll get more into the reasons for this sudden health-consciousness when I’ve completely wrapped my head around it.

‘tween-season coming soon

Published on May 10, 2009 in Family & Friends and Photo. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

I am looking forward to sleeping in more than one day a week… and being able to take some mini-vacations. There’s still all the season wrap stuff to get through, first, though. It seems an impossible task, right now, as I’m feeling completely exhausted. I guess that’s to be expected after an overnight for work, followed immediately by the wedding of our friends Jessica and Jason. This week shouldn’t be too bad. At some point, though, I need to start helping mom with her quilting shop web site.

Right now, sitting at the desk at the Y, all I can really think about is seeing Star Trek. I’ve heard so many good things about it… sure, some classic trek fans have their issues, but it’s trying to reboot the Star Trek world, not continue it. With a bunch of the Fringe team behind the writing and production, it has to be good.
update: Star Trek didn’t happen tonight, but we did a lot of research into how to set up a clothesline for Patti for Mother’s Day. Hopefully we’ll fit Star Trek in, tomorrow.

Good things coming up: more days off, mini-vacations, new Fable II downloadable content, macbook

In the bummer zone: Garmin announced more delays for the Nuvifone. The android phones are looking more and more attractive, even though they don’t have turn-by-turn directions, yet. Unfortunately, the only android phone even rumored for Verizon has a crappy-looking keyboard. If I didn’t think I’d miss the real keyboard, I’d already have broken down and gone with the iPhone. In the meantime, my phone is surviving… only shutting itself off once or twice a day.

upgrade anticipation

Published on March 22, 2009 in Computers, Photo, Random Thoughts and Web. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I have a time frame for the macbook upgrade. If I haven’t done it by June 25th, it will happen that day. The fact that it is going to happen makes me hate the loud fans and uncomfortable weight of the Dell even more. I don’t actually hate the Dell, it’s had a bunch of good years, but it is time for the upgrade.

I don’t have a timeframe for the phone upgrade. I was waiting for the nuvifone, but there isn’t a release date for that yet, and the main reason I was leaning towards it was the GPS-centric nature of it. The word on the street is that the new iPhone OS will enable using the Google maps in other applications and allow turn-by-turn directions. I don’t know if I can go Apple in such a big way… but the iPhone does have great customer satisfaction ratings and such. My phone turned itself off three times, completely at random, on Thursday… it is definitely time for that upgrade, but it also might not happen until the summer.

I don’t know if it’s actually going to be an upgrade, but we’re supposed to switch from Dish to U-Verse next month. Our DSL is currently with AT&T, and it can’t even handle streaming Netflix movies… I don’t think we ordered any more speed, so it probably won’t change, but the girl who set up the install sure did try to convince us that it was a newer, better, more exclusive dsl line. As far as I’ve heard, U-Verse is just TV over DSL. It’s pretty likely that we’re actually trying to squeeze TV and the internet over the same pipe and actually downgrading. We shall see.

This site’s wordpress code is due for an upgrade, but I don’t have any desire to do that. All of my little plugins are working fine. Maybe, if I get a little more into tumblr/twitter/etc. after the phone/macbook upgrade, I’ll feel the need to tweak the code here to keep up with more mobile updates.

My car doesn’t need any upgrades… I guess Doug’s van is dead, though. We peeked at some craigslist ads for similar vehicles in our price range, but haven’t started actively looking at anything yet. I’ve been using the Sirius in my car much more often, lately. I got an eMail from Sirius and I was tempted to buy the latest portable radio while I can still “lock in” the current rates. Who knows if Sirius will survive? I’ve done my part to support them. I resisted the urge by telling myself that the radio I had put in my car works fine and I don’t need another portable music player… I like the idea of combining a couple devices, not adding one to carry around.

My camera also doesn’t need to be upgraded, but I haven’t used it much, lately. When I had time to be taking pictures, I was mostly playing video games. I’ll bring it along on the field trips for work and maybe that’ll respark my desire to shoot. Maybe a new toy would help… Or maybe I should get a Diana+ for myself, since it seems to be getting all the cool attachments and add-ons lately.

Upgrade fever is similar to Spring fever. All of our vacation planning is definitely keeping the typical spring fever symptoms at bay… unless vacation planning is a symptom of spring fever. Mom’s coming up during my spring break, we’ve got a family vacation planned for early June and a wedding back east in late June… and we’ve yet to pick out a show, but we plan to hit APT/Theater in the woods again this summer. I guess there are a few weeks between the team-building season and the camp season that I haven’t thought about, yet. There’s always video games…

browsing

Published on October 14, 2008 in Computers, Family & Friends and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Been trying to keep myself occupied while Sarah is off at her photo/web design/newsletter gig. I’ve done a lot of Mac shopping… not for the eventual replacement laptop(s) for our old limping ones, but to replace the G4 that’s been my trusty backup since sometime in 2001. It’s always been quirky, being a mac, but now it’s just plain unstable and Sarah and her mom and I all use it a fair amount. Sarah will probably end up doing most of her work it, since her laptop can’t really handle much. It’s crashing about once or twice daily. I don’t know what’s causing it, and it’s never actually crashed while I was using it, but I shouldn’t expect wonders from a machine with so many weird hardware upgrades. I’m not in a place where I can invest in a new Intel mac to replace it, so I’ve been browsing craigslist and ebay for decent G5s. It’ll be sad to retire the G4. Maybe it can be made stable and live on in some semi-retired state. It is kinda loud, though, might not be worth it. Maybe I can find a home for it.

In other news, Thursday, the Mazda is getting an oil change and the master window switch replaced, again. The first time it was because the Auto button wasn’t working. Then the replacement made the right rear window non-operational. It’s been a long process, and a learning experience, since I’m now on my extended warranty and have to pay money for repairs. I also have to pay a whole bunch of money to have my windshield replaced. I woke up, Sunday morning, to find a starburst and cracks branching off in multiple directions right at the top center of the glass. Illinois doesn’t have that nice separate glass policy that Massachusetts did… so I have to pay my full comprehensive deductible. I’d say that maybe I could get some cook pictures of the work in progress, but we’ve lined up sealcoating for the driveway for the same day, and that smell gives me an almost instant headache that lasts for a whole day.

Tomorrow, I think I get rained on during our first day trip of the season.

still hate homework

Published on October 2, 2008 in Family & Friends, Photo, Web and Work. Closed Tags: , , , .

I hate the paperwork related to the every day operation of the adventure ed. program. It’s just like homework, when I was in school. I did the work already. The team is progressing. Why do I have to write about it? Boo homework. I don’t mind doing the survey result statistics, because the whole reason we do the surveys is for comparative statistics… but the journals don’t help the team at all. Boo homework.

In exciting/fun news, one of Sarah’s polaroids from our trip back east is shot of the day on Polanoid … she even gets a gift card! Woot!

woot