I just got back from New York. I saw Chethan, Tomas, Brandon, Stephanie and Sumil, and Chethan’s friend Sandeep (sp?).
I took the train up and got in three and a half hours late. Dad says that’s par for the course. I took the bus back, and (even with two transfers) got back on time.
We went to a few bars, a Vegan restaurant, and a Japanese restaurant. I saw the Museum of Modern Art and the Natural History museum. It was fun!
At work, I’ve spent a lot of time learning about effective processes.
For example, my first “wiki” that I tried to introduce was based on Twiki. Twiki is OK and everything, but the wiki never took off. I was the only person adding content. Everyone else kept using the old Word document with all our documentation in it–at least they could rely on that to solve their problems in an emergency.
Well, the next time I implemented a wiki, I spent a full work day moving all the old Word document content. I then hid the Word document so that no one could get to it, and I trained the principal person who wrote in the Word document on how the new wiki works. Surprise, surprise–that wiki took off.
Implementing “Getting Things Done” in my life has been my biggest process implementation. Besides organizing my life, I learned quite a bit about cost:benefit analysis for whether to make my process more complex.
In short, I think I’ve spent a lot of time subconsciously training myself about how to implement effective processes that I can rely on. I’m hoping that this skill might help if we ever implement ITIL!
In July, Lauren and I are going with my dad to Ambergris Caye in Belize. It’ll be our first vacation this year. Sure, we will have done some fun stuff–I’m going to NYC next week to see Chethan, and Lauren’s going to New Orleans for the ALA conference. However, all our trips are pretty time-intensive and rushed, because we don’t have much time to spare.
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Well, they’re about a year and a half late, but I put up our pictures from Amsterdam, Paris, and Barcelona, when I went to SANE 2004.
I’m reading Service Delivery, one of the two core ITIL core books. It describes Service Level Management, IT Financial Management, Capacity Management, IT Service Continuity Management, and Availability Management. Work bought the book.
So far in this book the capacity management section appeals the most to me. We do very little historical monitoring, so capacity management might be one of the first areas to mention to others. We don’t have good capacity growth plans, and an annual or quarterly Capacity Plan would help us with our capital planning.
I’ve ordered The Visible Ops Handbook, which I think I saw at LISA 2005.
I’ve also asked LOPSA about whether ITIL is all it’s cracked up to be. Two people wrote in about their horrible experiences, where either management forced a “strict” implementation of ITIL where they created 17 “managers” for each management area, or where the operational folks were forced to use counterproductive tools. The one or two people who spoke in favor of ITIL underscored that you must adapt ITIL’s processes to make them fit your needs.
The tween-centered meat lobby mouthpiece, cool-2b-real, is still going strong. IMHO they’ve increased their emphasis on “be healthy: eat a lot of meat.”
Friday I watched Papillon, a 2hr15m reality-based movie about the prisons of French Guiana starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.
My favorite quote of the movie is when Papillon is explaining to his wealthy fellow inmate that his fellow’s dependence on outside forces to help him get out of prison is misplaced, and in fact his willingness to defer–hoping that he will be freed–only plays into the guards’ hands. Papillon says, “Me, they can kill–you, they own.”
The other quote I like is from the “making of” special feature, when the real “Papillon” who actually went through the fourteen year ordeal says “society does not want free men; they want conditoned men–men who march in step.”
Dang!
Here are some funny links I found over the last week, thanks to del.icio.us/tag/funny:
Last weekend (May 27-28), Lauren went to Raleigh and I had the weekend to myself. I wanted to do two things: read (H. P. Lovecraft), and walk.
I walked from our apartment to Salem Lake, around Salem Lake, and back. The total walk was between 15-16 miles, and I walked it in five hours. I did a very similar walk eight years ago when I graduated from high school: I walked from Marketplace Mall to Salem Lake, around the lake, and back.
The last two or three miles of the walk were really difficult. I had to stop often. The last mile I sat down on a bench and really forgot that I was walking; I must have sat there for ten minutes. My heart rate got up to around 180, I believe. I do very little exercise, but I was surprised that I could get such a workout from walking. I drank a little over half a gallon of water during the event.
I saw a few animals: a tiny snake going into the water, a baby squirrel, a bird with a worm in its mouth, and a rabbit. I saw several people on horseback; one grandfather saw me sitting on a bench and said “don’t give up!”
