Gratitude - 02/29/2008

What am I grateful for today?  Let’s see:

1. Leap Day.  It’s a reminder that we are, after all, only human.  Despite our wealth of knowledge and technology, our calendar is so fundamentally buggered that we need to cram in an extra day every four years to try and compensate.  And even then we haven’t got it quite right.
2. Electricity.  You laugh, but remember the chaos that ensued back in 2003 when the lights went out?  I recall being in my apartment with my cell phone on, using its eerie glow to grope my way between rooms.  I also recall that it was August, and it was hot, and I was 19 floors up in my building.  Heat rises.  I’ll let you do the math.
3. Guiness.  Few beers could be considered equals, and none truly comparable.

And now, a topic on which I have absolutely no authority

A friend of mine, who teaches high school, sent me a message a while ago about Professional Development days.

As it turns out, those PD days that we loved as kids, because they meant a day off, do not carry quite the same lustre for teachers.  No, instead the teachers use that opportunity to develop their professional skills.

So far, so good.  Self-improvement, continuing education, dedicated time devoted to development — I’m all for that.

Then I read the list of professional development activities that were available to choose from:

1. Having your dreams interpreted
2. Going for a run in the community
3. Playing co-ed Volleyball
4. Participating in a Yoga class
5. Fitness with an exercise ball
6, Scrapbooking (small fee required)
7. Card-making
8. Basketball tips and workout

I need to ask you to ponder that for just a minute.

Of all the skills imaginable that a professional teacher would want to or might need to hone… would dream interpretation be at the top of your list?  Proper exercise ball technique?  I have no problem with these things as hobbies, or interests, or electives — but this is what teachers are given as their professional development?

If I knew my high school teacher was spending a Friday afternoon boning up on card-making, one of two things would happen: I would become deeply afraid of him or her; or I would become completely unable to look them in the eye without wincing.  It might even be a combination of those two.

I feel for teachers.  I really do.  It would take a far braver person than I to face a high school class if I were armed with naught but mad yoga skills.

Gratitude - 02/28/2008

Today’s Gratitude List:

1. GPS.  I’m one of those people that can (and does) get lost in my own backyard.  I would be so hosed around here without sat nav.  We’ve been pretty pleased with the Garmin we got, though in retrospect we should have just spent a few extra bucks to get the one that reports on traffic.  Every time I’m stuck in traffic I curse myself for that decision.
2. High-def TV.  I’m a sucker for a pretty picture, and high-def content on a high-def TV just looks sweet.  Even really terrible shows are palatable in HD.
3. Pizza bagels.  Honestly, whoever came up with the idea of smearing tomato paste on a bagel, loading it with cheese and pepperoni, and jamming it in the oven for a few ticks really deserves an award.  Or free bagels.

The Team I’ve Never Met

There’s one aspect of teleworking that I’ve found a little bit hard to get my head around, and that’s working extensively with a team I’ve never met.

Let me clarify: there’s my immediate team, and I’ve flown to Houston on a couple of occasions to meet with them. So that’s covered.

But a lot of my work involves projects, and for one of the projects I’m leading, I have met exactly 1 of the 10 people on the team. And this is six weeks into the game. It’s not a bad thing, per se, but it definitely requires a different coping strategy. Given that I can’t just trot over to people’s desks to talk to them when I see they’re off the phone, I find myself calling and leaving a lot of voice messages, or trying to carve out time in our calendars to talk. It takes away from the spontaneous camaraderie of the team, but it’s not insurmountable.

It certainly hones your skills at distinguishing people by their voices. You really don’t want to be that guy who, six months into a project, is still asking “Who was just talking?”

It also makes for one of my favourite experiences: the first meeting with someone you already know very well. I’ve already created mental images of what all these people look like, and at least 95% of the time I am so way off that I spend the first few minutes of our physical acquaintance just rubbing my eyes and trying to adjust to the reality. However, I really enjoy the goodwill and enthusiasm that accompanies a first-time meeting with someone you’ve worked alongside for a while.

It’s one of the small pleasures in life, and I’ll take it.

Gratitude - 02/27/2008

It seems like the gratitude postings are about all I have time for these days.  When I started this blog, I really didn’t think those would be the dominant post, but then that’s the beauty of existence: you always end up miles from where you expected.

 Today’s list of things I’m grateful for:

1. Pain.  It lets you know when there’s something very wrong with your body.  For example, we have gone to an exercise class two nights in a row, and I now need to leverage myself against the coffee table in order to stand up.  That works fine when I’m near the coffee table; it’s less helpful when I’m in another room entirely.  This pain is telling me I should never, ever, do two of those classes back-to-back again.
2. Sunny days.  Perhaps that sounds corny, but I’m okay with it.  To me, it’s therapeutic to take a few minutes out of my day and walk along the waterfront while the sun ricochets off the waves.  I feel decidedly less stressed at the end of it.
3. Everyone who visits this blog.  It’s nice to write something that you know is being read, so thank you for visiting.

Gratitude - 02/26/2008

Tuesday evening, and it’s been a long but reasonably productive day.  That’s a good thing in and of itself.  Actually, I think I’ll make that item #1 on today’s gratitude list.

1. I’m grateful that today was a pretty productive day.  It’s back to square one in the morning, but it’s always nice to end the day feeling like you managed to accomplish something.
2. Tacos.  I realize that a lot of my gratitude postings center around the gastronomic arts, but I do find myself being very appreciative of food.  And no, I am not an enormous narwhal of a human, contrary to what I’m sure you’re imagining right now.
3. Exercise.  Yes, today we returned to the gym for another round of voluntary torture, and we paid for this privilege.  And in spite of the fact that the only class available today was Body Combat, and in spite of the fact that males were far and away in the minority, and in spite of the fact that I’m nowhere near fit or coordinated enough to repeatedly drop-kick the air about me in time with Beyonce without accidentally slugging one of the unfortunate souls in my vicinity– in spite of that, I’m glad we went, as it was good to get some exercise and feel a little less fat and sluggish.

Gratitude - 02/25/2008

Another long day today, so this solitary post will be somewhat brief.  But it an effort to maintain an optimistic outlook, I present today’s gratitude list.

1. Water.  I’m not trying to wax rhetorical here, but I think it’s easy to forget just how hard it is for much of the planet to come by clean water.  So as I sip it from an ice-filled glass, I think it’s worth being grateful for.
2. I’m grateful that neither I nor my wife have any interest in being on, or watching, The Moment of Truth.  That show is a train wreck wrapped up in a kryptonite-filled earthbound comet.
3. Wired.  One of the finest magazines in publication today, in my humble opinion.

Jumper, the Movie

I mentioned yesterday that we were watching Johnny Mnemonic, which I did not feel was a particularly strong film.  Following that, we went to the cinema to watch “Jumper“, a movie that definitely appealed more to my friend and I than to my wife.

This isn’t a review, so I won’t get into a great many details about it.  Suffice to say that, although there were plot holes you could drive Texas through, I enjoyed the show.  The critics who panned it are largely the same critics who trashed Transformers for being “just a move about robots fighting each other.”  And a movie about robots fighting each other is a bad thing because…?

What made me happiest in the whole film, though, was that during one scene I pricked up my ears and caught the strains of “Ahead by a Century” by The Tragically Hip – quite possibly the best Canadian band performing today.  It was the first time I’d heard them on a movie soundtrack, and it made me quite happy.  It’s not one of my favourite songs (for some of my favourites, check here or here or here), but it’s one of my favourite bands, and their presence in the movie made my day.

Update: for those interested in the full list of songs in the movie, you can check here.  I find it interesting that the soundtrack listed on Amazon seems to have a completely different selection of songs.

Beginning Blogging, revisited

Following on the heels of yesterday’s post, the editors of The Lamppost sent me a link to another blog posting about getting started, which draws its inspiration from the fable of the tortoise and the hare.

I like what Kaila Colbin has to say.  In some ways, I’m loathe to exercise the patience Kaila talks about, but the points in that post are very well taken.  After all, virtually everything that’s worth having in life comes as the result of considerable effort.  So if patience, time, commitment, and steady blogging are the hallmarks of a successful blog, I’m willing to puruse that.

I can certainly relate to the obsession over blog stats.  I, too, check my stats several times a day, and am delighted with each new (non-spam) comment.  After all, most of us write in order to be read.

There are still three things, in particular, that I struggle with as I work to build this blog.  One is finding my place in the blogosphere.  I’m writing this blog from the perspective of my experiences as a teleworker, though my thoughts and comments can wander far afield.  The question I keep asking myself is: am I adding any value?  Is this loosely focussed perspective on life something that people will enjoy returning to time and again?  The hare in me wants to know – now – what people will want to read.  The tortoise in me is trying to just focus on the pleasure of writing, and let things fall into place over time.

The second aspect of blogging that is a challenge for me is the linking aspect.  I like being able to link to other’s posts, to reflect on what people have said, to encourage my readers to explore the web and the blogging universe.  The challenge, for me, is finding blogs that I like to read.  Simply jumping to random blogs doesn’t seem the best approach, but how then do we discover new bloggers, with whom we can engage in discussion?  Certainly, there are a few that I visit regularly: Techdirt, engadget, Penny Arcade (warning - not suitable for young viewers), News.com, Tom’s Hardware, The Lamppost.  But you may have sensed a theme in most of those; they’re very tech-focussed, and while I’m deeply interested in tech, that’s not what this blog is all about, nor do I want all my comments to be in that paraticular area.  I’m curious to know, then, how other bloggers do it.

That, by the way, was a very thinly veiled request for comments.

The third challenge is time.  Blogging is a hobby for me.  It’s something I need to fit in at the end of my workday, in the midst of my responsibilities at work and my responsibilities at home.  Inspiration is sometimes at a minimum, but the real challenge to posting reguarly is time, I find.  The Gratitude Postings are a lifesaver, in one sense; they’re quick, they’re on a theme, and while they require some reflection, they save me from casting about for some topic on which to write.

I just try to keep in mind that I really started this blog to give myself a chance to write, and I need to make sure I don’t lose focus on that.  After all, if we’re doing what we enjoy, sooner or later that delight is going to show through, in one form or another.

Gratitude - 02/23/2008

Ahh — weekends.  I got to sleep in this time, which fills me with great joy.  And on that note, today’s list:

1. Red wine.  And the fact that it is so insanely cheap down here.  Today’s choice: Penfold’s.  It’s low cost, but surprisingly good.
2. Movies.  Right now, we’re watching the particularly bad Johnny Mnemonic, starring the astonishingly bad Keanu Reeves.  But it’s a passable diversion at this point in the day.
3. The “Q” when you play Scrabble.  Today, I was able to actually play it, and racked up some serious points doing so.  Of course, in the same hand, I also got the “J” and the “X”, which I am still cursing.  Oh, and I’m grateful my wife won, because otherwise today would have been unbearable.