Thought of the Day 2010 #9 - Projects

I'm not a project manager. In fact, I HATE project management. I like to tackle projects that can be done in a day. Longer than a day and I just feel overwhelmed and suddenly a relatively simple project seems impossible or at least improbable that a deadline could possibly be met.

I know, I know...a large project is typically just a series of smaller projects. Maybe this is why I hate project management so much...I can't see the edge of the forest clearly. No, I see every stinkin' tree and I can't see any way through to the end. Put all of the trees in a spreadsheet and it just seems even more overwhelming. The trees never disappear on the spreadsheet...they just get greyed out which means they're still there...calling me to cut them down....

I think the bottom line is that I wasn't meant to be a lumberjack.

Thought of the Day #227 - Too Much Work

All work and no play makes Cat a bad blogger.

Thought of the Day #226 - Monday

Really, is there anything more that I need to say? That pretty much
covers it all.

Thought of the Day #110 - Slow Down

If I could bottle the feeling of being trapped in training that moves too slow...where time seems to drag, and drag, I would make a trillion dollars. Imagine that as you got older, you could take a sip of "TrainBrain" and decades would move soooo slowly. You could (hopefully) enjoy all of the nuances that life offers without the panic that time is passing too quickly. Ahhhh....the beauty of it.

Moonlighting

I feel like a jack of all trades these days. First, I'm up late tonight moonlighting for a non-profit legal association. Just working on a few brochures for them in InDesign. I'm no Adobe InDesign expert, but I do find it fun to work in. It makes me think of all the fun brochure-sy things I could do if I ran my own company or organization. It's also another dandy skill to have if I lose my day job.

Secondly, I've been getting quite a few orders on Etsy. I've sold 31 jars so far. Yahooo! I haven't received my Crippy Crafts back from Minneapolis, yet, but I have high hopes that they will sell ~ok~ on there too. There's one Estsian who sells similar goods for ~$130/a pop. I don't have plans to charge nearly that much, so hopefully my wee papery art will move on there.

Finally, it's a beeeyatch to pay taxes on contracting gigs...especially if they're digitally based. I did a significant amount of graphic design work for a company in Oregon last year. I have VERY little I can "write-off" as business expenses. My software and internet connection is all paid for by my day job. My office isn't solely an office for work, so no go on that write-off. I ended up writing off some blank CDs, paper and mailing supplies. WooF'ingHoo. Here Governement, have some more money. I know we've got a war to pay for, so why can't I chip in a bit more? What? Bend over? Oh, ok...sure I can help....

Things I Learned on My Autumnal Vacation

The first thing? Photo booths at wedding receptions are AWESOME. At Kim & Chester's wedding (Congrats by the way!!), they had the booth by PartyBooths.com, a parcel of silly props, and several hours of booth availability to take fun shots. It was a great diversion for guests and it kept wee ones very busy. Not only that, but the typical party favor of a few Hershey's kisses on a stick is now a very personalized remembrance photo(s) instantly printed out for guests who participate. OH and another brilliant idea? The bride did a "dollar photo session" -- similar to the "dollar dance" where you get one-on-one attention with the bride/groom on the dance floor -- only with this, you pay (ahem...DONATE) to get a photo taken with the bride. FUN stuff! For their money, the bride and groom also get a CD with all of the photos taken at their reception ...and all of the photos are also availble online for all of the guests to see, too. I really can't recommend this idea enough.

Next item -- Minnesota can be WARM in October. I was thinking it would be oh, I dunno, 60ish for highs. Au contraire. 80s! So, there I sat with a huge suitcase full of cool weather clothing and only one short sleeve shirt. Yeah, poor planning on my part.

Next item -- Working in the office...no matter how hard I try...ends up being a LONNNNNG week with very long hours. I worked for half of my time in Minnesota and I was ever so grateful that I planned a week off after HELL week which was filled with training, meetings and many more meetings.

Next item -- Attending a meeting in person became very important due to the unique announcement that started it off. If I had been on the phone listening in, I'm quite sure I would have been saying, "What? What did she say? I really misheard something. Please tell me what she really said..." I know some people from work read this, so I won't be divulging the particular surprise publicly. Trust me when I say it's an amazingly unique announcement. I really feel a lot of sympathy for the couple involved as it's a very complex situation. I hope all turns out well for them.

Next item -- My coffee obsession had me traveling all over small northern and central Minnesota towns in search of a good mocha..."Is there a Starbucks here? A Caribou? A Dunn Brothers? Anyone??" Sadly, in towns under 15,000, trustworthy coffee chains are VERY hard to find.

What was NOT hard to find -- BIG stuff (http://www.biggirlbigstuff.com). Which reminds me I really need to update that site! I've got several entries from the summer contest, several from Kimmy and now several happen-upons from my autumnal tour of small town Minnesota. I "captured" a fish, Robin Hood, a bowling muffler mand as Paul Bunyan and his trusty Babe with bowling pins in its mouth, a deer and a sea serpent --- all without even trying to find 'em. I did see a giant hot dog on a roof, too, but it was raining and we were cranky. That will need to be "captured" another time.

Finally, my hubby can be pretty brave. While traveling into a small town, we noticed that a house was just starting to catch fire and that no one was stopping to even investigate the situation. He turned the car around and parked out front. At this point, he jumped out of the car and was going to make sure no one was stuck inside. I told him to NOT open the front door as that's where most of the smoke was coming out. By the time he got to the front of the house, a cop car pulled up...and immediately following him...a distressed homeowner. She had just gone into town a scant few minutes before this. She shouted out that no one was inside except for her cat. So, Ivan came back to the car unscathed and we watched the firetrucks pull up. It took them quite a while to even get water to the hoses, and by that time, it was looking REALLY bad for the house. The photo shown here is my hubby to the right and the homeowner getting consoled by the police prior to the firetrucks arriving.

Just one of those weeks...

I had a week from hell at work. The OT that I did last weekend, suddenly turned into a project from hell. Somehow the MSDE SQL server instance that I installed to coincide with a software package suddenly pulled data from an old SQL server install. Not consistently...oh, no, that would have been easy to fix. It pulled half of the databases from the new install and half from the old install. I nearly lost my mind! Databases were pulling up information all over the place. As if that wasn't spooky enough, when I called our enduser helpline in Minneapolis, I got an unfamiliar voice. I ask for one of the network guys that has been with us for 9 years or so. "Ummm...WHO?" I repeat his name. I then say, he's the network guy. "Oh, ummm, okk.... lemme transfer you to his extension." He transfers me to the woman who is in charge of the phones. GAH! I really started to wonder if I was in the same Universe as I was the night before. Then I tried calling my boss. He's on vacation the rest of the week. I call the second in command, no answer. Page him. No answer. I call technical support at the company that created the application causing the problems. 15 minutes on hold, then told to leave a message. I call back. 15 more minutes on hold then told to leave a message. GAH! We pay for support 'cuz why??! While I do work from home now, I REALLY felt abandoned on this problem. I ended up getting everyone out of the application. Restoring a handful of completely necessary databases to get those individuals back up. After everyone was gone for the evening, I deleted everything, reinstalled MSDE, and then restored all 130 or so databases. I spent the remaineder of the week fretting that suddenly the SQL server vapor pleasantly known as MSDE was going to find more database files hidden elsewhere. Just craziness. Thank gawd for the weekend!!

Workin' hard for the money...

Just like my Photo Selection of the Week suggests, I've been workin' hard for it, Honey. 15 hours yesterday, almost 9 today. Too much work for a long holiday weekend! I hope you're all out havin' fun!!

News and What Not

I’ve got lots of tidbits that I’ve been meaning to post, but haven’t had time to do so:

 

v                    While flying back from Minnesota last week, I fell asleep. I awoke to a two year old staring at my over the chair in front of me. We had a little face-off where we would make faces back and forth. Good stuff. Then he started telling me about his family and his dad’s deer, etc. Pretty verbal for a two year old. He went back to his family for most of the remainder of the flight. After the plane landed, he looked at me again and said, “Pop-pop and gamma are picking me up. Wanna come?” How cute was that?! I told him I was getting picked up by someone too, but thanks for the offer. Yeah, I’m a hit with the two year olds.

v                    I was flown into Minnesota for a service awards program put on by my work. I’ve been with ‘em for 10 years! Aaaack! Time flies. But ya’ll knew that, right?

v                    The week before last, I was diagnosed as being “hypothyroid”. So now I’m the fat chick with a thyroid condition. In the old days, didn’t all fat people say, “I have a thyroid condition. That’s’ why I’m fat?” It kind of struck me as funny and also struck me as, “DUH, I bet I’ve had this for quite a while.” I have lots of reasons to think that after looking at the list of symptoms for low thyroid production online. As far as I can remember, I’ve never been tested for it. I’m hoping that the Synthroid (read ground up piggy thyroid) is a miraculous energy producer. We’ll see. It’s supposed to take several weeks to “build up” in my system.

v                    Happy Cinco de Mayo! We’re doing a little party here tonight with a wide variety of Mexican and Amero-Mexi food offerings. Gotta love it!

v                    Oh, a funny thing at the doctor. The intake nurse asks, “How tall are you?” I said, “I’m 5’5”. “How much do you weigh?” To which I replied, “150, give or take.” Her head whipped around so fast, I thought her eyes were going to pop out. I’m not sure if she *really* thought I thought I weighed 150 or what. Good times all around though. J

Webinars and Seminars

I'm stuck in a "webinar" right now. It's one of those presentation type webinars where the first half hour is an advertisement for the company that's hosting. If I were queen of the world, advertising at the beginning of seminars/webinars would be illegal. Luckily it *is* a webinar and I'm able to go off and browse around when the presenters are repetitive, boring and or wearing too much the used-car-salesman cologne.