Project Madness

So much for my resolution to get out here and post more!  I picked a bad time to return to trying and posting regularly. Things at work are extremely busy (even at this moment I am way behind the curve).  I've been working sixty plus hour weeks and it is taking it's toll.  I did manage to get some recovery done over the weekend by taking a pair of long naps (three or four hours) each day and making the effort to just simply relax.

It helped, but Monday is always a trying day and I ran out of motivation about six hours into the day. I've got about sixteen interrelated projects running right now, all in support of a much larger project.  No project in and of itself is that vexing, it is just the sheer volume.  One of the challenges we face is trying to hit a constantly moving target - as an organization we struggle to get requirements locked down and have to constantly redesign as we move.  It makes for agility, but as a company we're not appropriately staffed or managed for that level of agility.  It is primarily the fault of upper management, who is rather clueless on what is required to integrate software platforms.

Well, I must have needed that little vent.  Outside of work everything is going well enough - granted it is because there isn't a lot of "outside of work" right now. Each day I make some small headway in personal things, so it counts.

All of this has me contemplating retirement sooner rather than later.  I was just daydreaming of sitting on a porch somewhere in South Dakota and sipping a cold beer.  It would be nice to have control of my days again.  Of course, the way it works, once I get through the project madness and things fall back into some semblance of normality that urge to retire will recede somewhat.  Realistically speaking I'd like to keep working for a year or two more to build up my cash cushion for unexpected events.  Income wise, I could go now, and I do have a cash cushion. I'd just like for it to be a little more cushiony!

I keep thinking about starting a new blog, a little more focused then this one.  It's an idea that I have been toying with for a while.  I reckon I will keep toying with it.

An Evening Watching The Bastards Battle

It was a very lazy Sunday which was appreciated after the busy Saturday. I met Tyrone for breakfast, then we swung by Fry's Electronics so he could pick up some DVDs. After that we drop the coffee table off at the donation center. I circled home from there and just pretty much spent a lazy day relaxing.

I watched the latest episode of Penny Dreadful, napped, read a bit, popped out to Stevens Creek Surplus and picked up a couple pairs of pants. Then Tom and I got take out chicken and watched the most recent episode of Game of Thrones – Battle of the Bastards. It is just such an awesome show.

The rest of the evening is going to be simple and I'm going to wind it down quietly.

Simplicity on Saturday

You would think, given how long I've been at it, that I don't have much left to do in terms of simplicity. You would be wrong. I swear to God that there must be some kind of quantum vortex in my apartment. The more stuff I get rid of the more stuff appears.

I met Bob for breakfast (Blackstone Eggs Benedict) and the circled home looking forward to a simple day. Then, I made a fateful mistake. Since my nephew Tom was out for the day I thought I'd go into the spare bedroom where he stays and open the windows all the way to get a good breeze blowing through the whole apartment. It was like an episode of "Destination Unknown".

Now, to be fair, it wasn't all his stuff - part of it was mine, because I'd used the spare room for storage and as kind of a junk catcher. Twelve 30 gallon trash bags later and I'd pretty ruthlessly purged a whole lot of stuff. There was some stuff I did keep, mostly piled on the couch right now, small things of assorted value. The rest of its gone now.

One of the things that dawned on me as I was tackling the formidable task was this. Since Tom moved in with me I've really only gone into the spare bedroom a couple of times, usually to retrieve a specific item or two. Almost everything in there has completely failed the six month test. Almost everything in there can and should go, destined for the trash bin or the donation bin. Most of it (except the books) are not even worthy of the donation bin.

Fortunately I like cleaning. I find it to be very zen. The path to simplicity is also very zen. So you can chalk today up as a very zen day. Twelve bags of zen.

Friday's Quick Note

It has been a very busy week at work. I'm in the middle of user acceptance testing on a block release and planning a very major project. That has resulted in some long days. I'm hoping today is quiet and productive.

Other than that things are going fairly well. We had a couple of very cool days, which was very nice. Got a little bit of heat coming back in over the weekend but it will be perfect summer weather. I definitely need to get out and do something. There are a set of exhibits up at the Cantor Art Museum in Stanford. I think I'll head up there over the weekend and check them out.

A Good Solid Day

Today was a productive unproductive day at work. What do I mean by that? I didn't really get anything accomplished but I did manage to move some things forward. I've been trying to focus this week on getting my arms around everything that needs to be done. To that and I've been diving into the details and figuring out or making sure that we have everything that needs to be down on the table. What bites you in project management generally tend to be the things you don't know about. They tend to be small details I just got rolled over as the bigger picture was painted.

On the personal side it was a pretty good day. Nothing exciting. Nothing fantastic. Just a good solid day.

Some Forward Movement

I'm almost finished with figuring out and documenting one of the critical path processes on a project at work so I thought I'd take a breather and write an entry here. It doesn't pull me out of the woods, but it is a good step forward.  I am focused on trying to get out of the woods this week - and if not out of the woods then at least to a place where I can see the end of the woods. All in all the day hasn't been the most productive, but it has been productive enough that I really don't have anything to complain about.

Other than that, it has been a very nice day here.  The weather is warm, but only into the low eighties, so I have no space to complain there.  The air conditioner is doing a great job of keeping the living room nice and cool and the bedroom is only slightly muggy.  The new fan I've got does a great job of keeping the air circulating, so good in fact that I might scrap my old fan and get a new one of the type.

Tom made a run to pick up lunch, so that was nice, though I may question his choice of places to go. (Tom is my adult nephew who lives with me due to medical issues.)

It is a little later in the day then I thought it was, so I'm going to pivot back over and finish up the item I am working on in a few minutes and then, once that is finished and sent off, I am going to call it an end to the working day.  I also made some progress in cleaning and minimizing the living room this morning, while on teleconferences.

I was used to living alone for a long time, which is really nice since the only messes are your own.  Since Tom moved in it's been a bit of a struggle to find a new happy medium.  Adding people to any living space isn't simple addition, it is more along the lines of multiplication, at least when it comes to the incidental things that get left laying about and new to be picked up or put away if you're trying to keep a clean flat surface run in place.

A Better Sunday

Today was a better day than yesterday. Yesterday was a rough one. I had a good enough time but that heat was kind of brutal. It was hotter on Friday but Saturday was far more muggy. Sleep was almost impossible. I tossed and turned through the whole night and probably only got about 4 or 5 hours of real sleep.

I did have a nice lunch on Saturday. I met Don at Molly Maguire's over in Santana Row. I had a chorizo omelette which was excellent. All in all it was a very pleasant lunch. But, the heat descended, and the rest of the day was just unpleasant.

Today's heat only climbed up into the mid 80s. The air conditioner was able to fend it off. I had breakfast with Bob at the Hickory pit, then ran my morning errands and got my grocery shopping done and was home by noon. I spent the rest of the day inside, in the air conditioning, just relaxing and enjoying the day.

I got my bills paid. I had picked up a new fan at Orchard Supply Hardware and I got that set up. With two fans running I'm able to get better circulation through the apartment and I'm hoping he pulls the evening temperature down enough for a comfortable night sleep. It is cooling off rapidly now.

I've got a lot of work ahead of me this week and I really need to get focused and knock things off. I've been struggling in that area in part due to many interruptions. One of the things that happens at work that vexes me all the time is we have a tendency to set up the project schedule at a level that's doable and then pour other projects on top of it which eat up the time and pull the focus away. If there was one change I could make in the work environment with a magic wand I would grant us the ability to lock the schedule. Then I would jump on my flying pig and zoom around the room. Both are about as likely to happen.

So, here's hoping for a good night sleep and a good week ahead.

A Little Too Work Busy

Work has been very busy and when it gets like that it causes me to shave the edges off my personal life.  I don't always like that, but I do the benefits that come from work (income, etc.).  I can't complain in that arena, so I work.

It has been hot here this week, so in the evenings I've been binge watching Penny Dreadful and am now officially caught up with this season.

Other than that, life is moving smoothly and easily.

The Water Diviner

Okay, I've got a good recommendation for a movie I passed on in the theatres because the marketing campaign just wasn't compelling enough for me to put it on my list. Then, I recorded it on the DVR, but didn't watch it for a couple of weeks because I was curious, but not curious enough to make some dedicated time for it.

The movie is "The Water Diviner" with Russell Crowe and Olga Kurylenko.  It is a great little movie.  An excellent and understated performance by Russell Crowe and of course, Ms. Kurylenko is as beautiful and charming as ever.  The basic plot is a man travels to Turkey in the aftermath of WWI to find the remains of his three sons who were killed at Gallipolli.

I'm not going to tell you much more because it would give away too much of the plot and too much of what happens during the course of the movie - but I will tell you that it is definitely worth watching.  It is tender and heartfelt through and through.

Another Brick In The Wall

I'm still working on getting back into the habit of writing a little something here every day.  It's been busy at work, very busy, and we're in what amounts to be a very insane cycle and I'm worried about whether or not two of my projects are going to get configured in time.  One's my fault and the other one is just, I think, a bit too much work for the configuration specialist with all that is going on.  Otherwise though, my work mood is good and I'm actually going to pivot back over to my work computer and put another couple of bricks in the wall.

I went out to Holder's for dinner tonight - corned beef hash, two eggs over easy, hash browns and Swedish pancakes.  Very simple, very tasty.  Tonight, I think I am going to settle in and watch a movie and try to get to sleep early because I've got a meeting at the crack of dawn.  I am also going to make a call to the folks to check up on them.  My sister told me today that my step-dad took a tumble but that he was not injured, so I thought it would be a good idea to check up on them.  I tried calling them earlier in the day but there was no answer - but that appears to be because I call them while they were out for lunch.