Haggis Chili

My wife asked me to write her a Haiku for their annual chili cookoff. Seems that someone thought it would be funny to have Haggis chili.

I started with a Limerick and added a Haiku for good measure.

There once was a Scot from Mexicali
Whose culinary arts were quite silly
He seasoned his haggis
With hot habaneros
And called it his wee scotch bonnet chili

Hot pepper haggis
Simmering in its juices
An offal chili

Where do the dead animals go?

I don't really know where the dead animals go.

If I was a Buddhist, I would have to say that the good doggies come back to earth as better doggies; they do this repeatedly until they reach a state of Doggie Nirvana. Bad doggies on the other hand return to earth as bad little cats so that the good doggies can torment them endlessly.

Of course I am not a Buddhist, nor am I a Christian, a Jew or a Muslim. Although I sometime use Buddhism to help me with difficult problems, I have also looked at the concepts in the Tao Te Ching (The power and the Way), and have reflected on the masters of Tai Chi. And it might be argued that the Western Gods of the Bible, the Torah and the Koran, have had an influence on me, I still do not believe in Doggie Heaven nor do I really believe in a state of enlightenment that transcends the earthly bounds of our mortal coils.

I would say that the humanist in me believes that good doggies go to the crematorium and the bad doggies (a.k.a. the spoiled ones) go to the pet cemetery!

Lost in the utopian suburbia

Well, I haven't spent muchtime posting lately, but partially it has to do with the great adventure of raising three small boys.

Why is it we in the great utopian suburbia want our children to experience life so deeply that we push them in 10,000 directions to the point where they cannot stay focused, cannot find their inner peace or the centered-ness. Rather they find their self-centered-ness. It is after all, "All About Me". If only it weren't so.

The are so overprogrammed that become to believe that we are here to provide for them. Which we undoubtedly are, but we also need to provide for them a sense of self. A self-sufficiency that will bouy them through their adult lives. I am currently at a loss. I do not have the knowledge to determine how to influence your child to become more self sufficient.

Lost in the utopian suburbia of my own mind, I cannot find the key to let my true son out of the trap I have set for him.

Negotiate or not?

The negotiation process can be stifling and it can be invigorating at the same time. I sometimes find I am negotiating with the people that work for me. It's not that they don't take direction well, but rather that they need to be "pulled" into the process rather than "pushed". I want to have them feel like it is a win/win.

Unfortunately, when it is something that they do not really have a choice in doing, such as the current SAS 70 audit we are participating in, then negotiating isn't the best process. (SAS 70 is the services industry process comparable to SOX. I believe it comes from SOX 404.) We have a few legacy systems for which I am responsible. These systems were developed long ago and are still maintained by the programmers. Even the controlling database tables that enable the system to function properly are updateable by the programmers. As with a lot of legacy systems, this kind of "tinkering" by the programmer was an acceptable practice. We moved away from the days when the programmers were not able to have access to production systems.

With this audit we now have to change the way in which we support the system. The process will require additional work from the teams and will also add a degree of complexity that they have never had to deal with in the support of these applications.

While it is my wish to have them want to willingly engage in doing the necessary tasks, they feel it is a cumbersome process and that it will now take them double the time to complete the simplest tasks. It behooves me to explain to them that the process is there to protect ourselves from ourselves. That we are doing this to alleviate the problems that Enron and MCI's leaders foisted upon the entire business community. I tell them it makes us accountable. It makes us "compliant". They agree with me, but there is seemingly no win in it for them.

I tell them the bottom line is that we need to document the access to the production systems. I lose this negotiation, because first it may not have been wise for me to take that tact and secondly, it simply was not a negotiable item. There was no best case scenario. There was no settlement range. No negotiable targets that could be hit.

I simply had to explain the "position" as best I could and tell them that this was non-negotiable. As I say, all too often these days, It is what it is. Meaning that we must come to terms with the reality of this problem and deal with it as best we can. We cannot ignore it. We cannot avoid it. Rather we need to own the problem (or it symptoms) and find the right solution to the root problem.

In our case, we need to change the applications so that the system does not require the programmers to have update access to "fix" the things that the business should be able to do themselves.

I am always right

My sister and I agree on one thing. I am always right and she is always wrong. I hear my mom differently than she does. I just never heard her until the other day. And boy does it make it difficult. My sister is constantly being put down. While I am constantly being raised higher.

Until, that is my Cousin, who is on the mount everest of pedestal's became my foil. Then I too heard that I am wrong. I am inadequate. I just never heard it until this past weekend.

Its funny, because I am always right. I will fight and argue until I have either lost the battle or your respect, only to prove that I am always right. I am always right unless someone shows me that I am wrong; then I admit it, so I can always be right.

How can my sister and I be so different. Why is it so? Is it not strange that two adults with so much in common can be so different at their core? The one thing that makes me go - to prove to you that I am right; is the same that stops my sister from advancing up the hill.

It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

Political struggles from the front lines

This project is rife with political posturing, acquiescing (on our part), stone walling, and even a dash of litigious fortitude. What do you do when a "partner" in a project is not really a partner but an adversary? How does the relationship, an amicable one at that, help to maintain an atmosphere of cooperation when there is a feeling of distrust and deceit. Not that anyone was lying to the other party, but in that the fear of distrust and possibly the loathsome thought that "they are trying to pull one over on us", we acquiesce to their wishes, simply because we have no leverage to move the project forward.

It is a struggle to be sure. The project finally ended, my adversarial partner is now gone from the company. She left with little fanfare. But I still feel that we could have handled the project from the beginning without the posturing and the hidden agenda's we all had.

Money was at the heart of the project. Everyone stood to gain or loose depending on wether the project moved forward or was delayed. Money set us up to fail. And politics was its bedfellow. I see now what I could not see before. Get the money on the table so everyone knows what's at stake and we can deal with what ever measures are needed to make the project workable for both parties.

Meeting the new BOSS

I am thinking we have a lot to do and no time to wait for her. The swivel chairs were anxiously swinging back and forth. I am looking at my watch; others are looking rather frustrated.

She comes into the room 10 minutes late. There are 11 of us sitting around the long wooden table. She apologizes for being late. We were at her mercy, it did not matter what we thought. Collectively, we smiled.

Now I know how it feels to have an entire room of people with more important things to do than hear a message from the new boss of the business unit we support. It made me mad, when she did not show us the respect for our time. She is from the business side of the house. We are the systems side. The business demands that we meet their time frames, their budgets and apparently to wait for them when necessary.

We are under a great deal of pressure to accomplish a great deal of work in a very short time. Our new boss, on the systems side, told us in his all-hands meeting that he wanted to do more, faster; not the cliché more with less; but more, faster. Here we had a situation, where we were doing nothing.

Bad Start. She should have hit the reset button; rewound the tape; stopped the TIVO and started over when we were ready for her.

Funny thing, though, she did not only show us a lack of respect, but she proceeded to tell us that our systems are deficient, not just insufficient, but deficient. Why would you tell the systems people supporting your systems that their work is deficient? Was it to motivate us? Or did she not know that we were the systems personnel? Or was there a secret way getting the systems personnel to feel good about themselves? I don't know, it made sit and think about how I should present myself to her.

She wanted to hear from each of us. Sort of round table what we do. I hesitated for a while. I did not know what to say to her. I was angry, but I wanted her to understand that we were the systems folks with the deficient systems.

I am also the most gregarious of the group and could not stop my self from explaining the hardships of the project we are on. Probably a bad idea, but I was very careful about how I spoke of the other teams and organizations.

I gave dates of implementation and spoke of our plans. She was kind enough to say what a large responsibility it was. I tried to deflect saying that the entire team was responsible and that it was not only I but my entire team. I am sure I came off sounding self-serving and that was not my intention.

I spoke with one of the programmers after the meeting and he said exactly what I was thinking. So clearly her message got across to the programming team.

Moral: Know your audience or they will not get to know you or your message

Mine is just a job

Mine is just a job
that's the problem
no higher purpose, no calling
card-games at lunch
my day revolves around a card game - we invented
keeps me going back to work - it's exciting
the social aspects of playing a game - are compelling
but what are games for - a pasttime
to pass the time
games are diversions to avoid the demanding responsibilities of life
a diversion to pass the time
mine is just a job that revolves around a clock marked by a noon time
diversion

stuck in a rut not in a groove

the pendulum keeps coming back to the diversion
is it time for a change? can I stop the pendulum?
make a call and find a call

Mine should be just
Mine should be higher
Mine should be worthy

Mine should not be just a job

Rules for Sparts

Objective: Take the most number of points.

Setup:

1. For three players, deal all cards. Each player will have 17 cards.
There will be a one card blind.
2. For four or more players, use the entire deck. Deal all cards. Each
player will have 13 cards.
3. For five or more players, deal a blind of the remaining cards.

Play:

1. For 3 to 5 players, Pass 3 cards left, right, across, skip left, skip
right, etc. as applicable.
2. For 6 players, pass only 2 cards left, right, across, skip left, skip
right, etc. as applicable.
3. Each player, starting from the left of the dealer bids on the number
of tricks he will take.
4. The total of the bids cannot equal the total number of tricks.
5. The first lead of the game is from the player with the lowest club.
6. Hearts cannot be lead, until a heart is played.
7. Spades cannot be lead, until a spade is played.
8. If neither hearts nor spades have been played and the player with the
lead has only hearts and/or spades, he may lead either hearts or spades.
9. Play proceeds in a clockwise direction.
10. Each player must follow suit.
11. If a player is void of the suit lead, he may play any other suit.
12. Spades are trump. Highest spade played on any trick, wins the trick.
13. The Queen of Spades is both a heart and a spade and can be played on
any trick as a trump card.
14. The blind is "awarded" to the winner of the first trick with a heart.
15. While hands may be traded prior to the bid, there will be no partial
trades, at any time!


Scoring:

IT Management Proverbs

1.1 Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers.

1.2 Don't let programmers test their own code, they'll fix the data. (I am a programmer, too)

1.3 There is a natural conflict between Productive People and Efficient Process. Too much process will restrict productivity; too little will derail it.

1.4 Leadership is adapting to change. Management is controlling complexity. Leadership and Management are at odds with one another.