Vatsan’s Ramblings

Day 3 of Management Excellence Event.

We are finally starting to finish the slide deck for tomorrows presentations. My only dubious contribution to the presentation itself is the agenda catch phrase – How to Push Someone Off the Cliff and Feel Good About it. Our research is about how we can change our current reward system to better equip managers to defend themselves when an employee who is on the edge of the average-bad spectrums has to be bumped down… boring subject (and a really bad sentence!), but very important for us who must face this system every day.

I played the project lead for the day, with a co-lead Randy to share my responsibilities. Randy came in with a well done schedule and job assignments. I felt left out of the job assignments, but I was working on being less pushy and being less about “I”, so I let it pass. After all, it was a sound plan. So we proceeded to run the show, with me largely deferring to Randy’s initiative.

After a couple of hours, we had already been slipping for a while, and were not making enough progress.

We had a pulse check with our manager Mark, who suggested that I should start focusing on the competencies that I wished to grow – which was to learn to better set and execute on goals. Another point he made was that he would like us to focus on growing our teams better – by allowing them opportunities to grow their own self-identified deficiencies in their competencies.

In retrospect, I did moderately okay as a project leader, and made more mistakes than right choices. But in the end, the project seemed to converge into a good form – which is testament to how smart and effective the people in my team were.

During feedback, this is what I heard…

• Did not have a consistent management style with co-lead
• Did not have a coherent voice as co-leads – acted as 2 voices instead of 1
• Did not help follow the initial schedule very effectively
• Does not clearly convey changes in (previously articulated) plans/priorities

• Strong, opinionated and smart

• Well organized
• Detached from work when watching over the clock (i.e., after switching to a schedule driven project management mode)
• Agitated
• Lack of compassion for reasons behind project slip
• Did not have other choices for management style given the constraints/bubble the team was in.

• Ignored causes for project slippage
• Put too many people into a single unit which wasted time, instead of pairing up

• Interrupted focused activity which was being lead by one team member (this happened when I walked in to reset the schedule and recreate priorities and scale down scope based on what time we had left).
  • This felt very abrupt and almost insulting
• Went off to do other things while being paired up with one member (this happened when time was limited and did not have the luxury of randomizations, but had to leave for meeting with leads)

• Many times, one-upped co-lead and made decisions without consultation or even a courtesy information.

• Completely forgot about the mandate from management to focus on competencies and instead focused on project completion. (This is the equivalent of losing sight of business priorities while being shortsightedly focused on completing coding)
• Learned from and adapted to prior feedback very well.

Day 2 of Management Excellence Event

After working with my team for almost 10 hours straight in a very intense getting-to-know-each-other process and making incredibly good progress, we met at 6pm for some honest, direct and as much as possible, non-judgmental feedback about each other.

Earlier, in our full-group check-in, I mentioned that since judgments matter, I would be happy to receive those too, because they matter in our effectiveness to get things done. I didn’t say this, but others perception of me, and their judgments – they definitely matter to my sense of self esteem and worth. So it was important to learn what I could. I also expressed my fears of working on a project that made me feel out of my depth, and that since I was used to managers/leads being experienced and with the capacity to offer up wisdom to their teams as needed, I was worried that when it would be my turn to be the project manager, I needed to have somehow figured out how to become that person who can offer qualities of a leader.

In the lunch line, one of the participants mentioned that he really appreciated how articulate I was and how freely I was willing to share my thoughts at the circle.

So this is what I heard during feedback time. It was very easy to just take it in and say thank you in return. But the feedback was far from rosy – it was quite the contrary – and very extreme. It was also perfect – I believed my teammates because they were very honest and not at all judgmental in their attitudes. And they also were very honest with praises.

I had always hoped that my own manager would have given me feedback like this. It’s easy to see why he didn’t – because it is too much of a risk to take to be so honest – I could just feel very insulted or hurt that I’d never be able to work with him again. But I suspect that I would have easily taken it in and learned – but once again, that is something very hard to know about anyone before taking the chance and actually giving a very honest feedback…

So this is what I heard..

• Analytical
• Willingness to speak his mind without fears
• Pushes the envelope with ideas and open articulation.
• Could greatly benefit by talking a little less
• Constant stream of ideas like bullets – but not always very well thought out or concisely articulated
• Good intellectual horsepower
• Pushes ideas relentlessly, does not get discouraged easily, or acts afraid.
• Doesn’t know when to stop pushing – could do better by stopping earlier and backing off a bit.
• Comes to the table with preconceived “right” answers. This causes some listeners to not want to agree. Would be better served by trying to work with others to construct/create a solution.
• Talks more. Asks less. Could be better served by asking more questions, and listening.
• Very charismatic. Strong presence that can’t  be easily ignored. Easily commands a “I like you” reaction.
• Creates overly broad generalizations from narrow bases of observations.
• Perceptive
• Does not always care about brining perspectives to the table that apply broadly. Instead, he brings his own experiences and (wrongly assumes that they will directly fit/apply broadly to other situations.
• Acts more confident than he really is. Very ‘I’  and ‘me’ centric.

My take on this -

• The feedback about personal presence is surprising to me. But in hindsight, I probably should have known that a long time ago.
• I talk a lot. I need to learn to listen, and ask more useful questions.
• Overgeneralizations from narrow experiences- I learned to do this very very young in my teens. I already know that this is a weakness. Sounds like I need to work on changing this behavior all over again!
• ‘I’/'me’ centric – is this ego or compensating act for insecurities? Not sure, yet. I suspect a combination of both, but more of latter. Either way, not a very attractive trait.
• Not very well thought out ideas – I was not intending to be well thought out anyway! I was trying to think aloud and collaborate on the thinking process. In hindsight, I think that this is not often done – so I might be better off learning to think within my head instead of doing that aloud!
• Narrow perspectives – Need to observe myself on this front. I suspect that working on this project with a team of non-engineers might have something to do with this feedback – since I really do lack perspective on life outside of engineering disciplines. So my choices were really between not bringing anything to the table for fear of narrow applicability, or to just go to the table with what I had. I chose to go with what I had. I wonder if I failed to acknowledge that and instead tacitly pretended like my ideas were broadly applicable? for now, I’m leaving this as an exercise for further self-reflection

I can very much see how this feedback process can cause many a tears to be shed. But I’m really excited to have this information – what better way to learn and grow than to have a true mirror to show you all that is beautiful and ugly in you at the same time!

Another point here – I’m glad to be among my teammates. They are very very smart and a great company to keep, besides being very good at giving honest feedback. They all got this type of feedback too – so I hope they are excited about learning about themselves as much as I am

Day 1 of Management Excellence Event

Sitting in a table, we were six strangers. Having barely met each other 3 hours ago, we had worked together to solve some basic problems and indulged in mini-conversations and debates.

Then we were asked to describe each other in a few words. This is what I found on the piece of paper with my name. Some of these descriptions are my own

Calling me a ‘Canadian’ was a joke, but I have to agree with most of what was written about me.

I didn’t like being called Careless, Not Committed and Easy Going. Despite that, I think that Arasu, who wrote those words, was quite honest in basing it on observed behavior – and I actually agree that these are words that do many a times describe me accurately!

I have been living in Hilton in Bellevue, Washington since yesterday to participate in the Management Excellence Foundation Event.

This is unlike a traditional training, thus the use of the word ‘Event’. This is being facilitated by consultants from Bluepoint Leadership Development – John Colburn and Rebecca Perry.

[I finally figured out who Rebecca reminds me of - she vaguely looks like Marlee Matlin from The West Wing and The L Word! ]

Day 1

On day 1 yesterday, we were mostly subjected to routine classroom sessions that ranged from powerpoint lectures to highly interactive group activities. This day was set up as a precursor to Days 2-4, where we learned some tools for interacting with each other, decided on what we wanted to learn from our experiences and how to give and receive feedback. These are common activities, but it was very helpful to to have our ideas and perceptions dissected and deconstructed to illustrated productive vs. unproductive styles of communication and interaction.

At the end of the first day, we split up into groups and chose to work on a project. We are taking turns being the project lead, and some participants are acting as managers of managers. This is very reminiscent of The Apprentice, but it is intended to teach us about ourselves and offer us an opportunity to learn and expand skills that we want to focus on.

The 6 Values exercise was part of this event.

My focus in this training is learning to set goals effectively and create good plans for achieving those goals. So far, I haven’t made much progress on this front.

Day 2 – 4

These are the project days. The project is simply a vehicle for other learning, which have all been very interesting experience.

The days start at 8am (earlier actually, counting waking up, showering and getting breakfast), and end around 8pm or sometimes later. We work through lunch, drinks and dinner. Occasionally, we meet for a check-in with everyone across all the teams and share our views on what is going on in our head and how things are coming along, as well as anything else we’d like to share.

Others had mentioned that they had heard about participants breaking down and crying in this event. I received some really detailed feedback about my working style and personality from my peers, which didn’t affect my self-esteem too much. But it definitely helped me see how someone else might break down and cry at such a brutally honest and direct feedback system!

We just did an exercise with flash-cards with several values. We had to do 3 binary cuts of important vs unimportant, then finally pick 6. Mine were…

1. Independence

2. Relationship

3. Health

4. Wealth

5. Adventure

6. Passion

The most traded off value among these is Wealth.

I woke up clearheaded. For the past several days, I had been all murky in my mind. So today, I’m pretending to be a kid who believes in Santa Claus, who woke up to find his wish granted. The coincidence seems apt. And it’s snowing…. Festivals have the power to change the mood and ambience of the world around us – mostly for the good. I’m starting to enjoy these days despite my lack of religious affiliation.

As I stood in Starbucks, I saw a black guy standing in a corner, not fitting in. He didn’t fit in not because he was black, but because of the way he was dressed – clothes that conveyed cleanliness and poverty at the same time. I looked at him briefly, took care to not make eye contact and wondered about him. It occurred to me that maybe, he was at a Starbucks, which is a store rarely visited by the poor, that maybe he was there because no other stores were open on Christmas day. After that brief consideration, he was gone from my mind.

The line was long – about 20 customers ahead of me. Sigh!

I suddenly hear someone standing next to me, speaking to me. “Sir, Can you please buy me a bacon sandwich?”. It was the same black guy. I’d normally judge, ponder and consider the request at length, but something within me blurted out, “Sure, I’d be happy to get you whatever you want”.

“Thank you sir, I really appreciate it”. The accent was, of course, typically ebonic.

After a few moments of awkward silence, I asked him,”So, what’s your name?”.

“Antwon”. I later Googled and found out that the name Antwon is a variant of Anthony.

I extend my hands to shake his, and introduce myself.

We stood in the line together for over 5 minutes, perhaps longer. No polite conversations – mostly I didn’t know what to speak to him, and I really did not want to embarrass him by trying to talk about something he would be reticent to speak about. I felt that I owed him a few minutes of peace, and the sweet anticipation of warm food.

He clearly had never been to Starbucks until now. When the barista started taking drink orders, he asked about sandwiches. Which is arguably a Starbucks Faux Pas. I explained to him that he should wait until he is closer to the food display and then make a pick. And suggested that he should get whatever else he wanted.

He bought a bacon sandwich, a loaf of chocolate-bread and a bottled drink. And I decided to get him a gift card for $10 he could use at Starbucks again – I hoped that he wouldn’t have to go hungry at least for the day. He seemed grateful. Then he left in a hurry.

It’s snowing outside – I hope Antwon finds a warm shelter.

Thinking back, I might have been his Santa Claus for the day. But of course, there is no Santa. It’s all a big series of accidents, one after another. And oftentimes, our actions are motivated by the feel-good factor it brings to us afterwards – an entirely self-centered motivation which, as a side effect, benefits another person. And now I truly can’t decide what the distinction between altruism and selfishness is. I think they might be two sides of the same coin.. And having thought this thought, I can no longer feel happy for the coffee-shop experience . But I suspect that it doesn’t matter very much…

I was driving to work earlier today. The traffic was stopped on Cambie going East just before Shell – there was a train passing by and the gates were closed for safety.

After the gates opened (after the train had passed), the signal wouldn’t change back to green, and the gate lights continued flashing.

Some drivers in front of me lost their patience and decided to ..

1. Turn R into Shell and make a quick U turn, then turn R into Cambie.
2. Drive through the red light anyway, after looking around to make sure that there was no traffic on Shell.

After a bit, the #2 drivers got crazy. They decided to drive through regardless of cross traffic, and the drivers on Shell were in for a nasty surprise – they have a green light, are doing 50kph and suddenly, there is this stream of killer cross traffic..

I was at the R-most lane, and an old (old as in almost dead) couple behind me. I eventually made to the head of the intersection, but stayed put, waiting for the signal to change. The old-man driver started frantically honking at me, as if I was somehow infringing upon his birthright to life and freedom by obeying the law and not driving thru a red signal. I turned back and shook my (index) finger at him, conveying that it was dumb of him to honk. I was very tempted to use my middle finger.

Then I turned R into shell and found an alternative route altogether – thanks to my handy GPS.

As I was driving, I really wished that I had a gun in my car – or at least a toy gun. I’d have really really loved to get out of my car waving my gun frantically at the senile bastard if only to see the reaction on his face. Maybe a megaphone too – then I could have stood at the intersection, announced to everyone to stay put and not cut thru the red light, and threatened everybody with my awesome gun to wait patiently until the light changed to red.

I’d probably have been in big trouble if I’d done any of that – so this is one fantasy I’m going to pass on. But when I fantasized the fantasy, it sure felt delicious!

I wonder where all the Richmond cops were? Sounds like they get paid for nothing!

I need a link blog…

 http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005229.html 

 Update – Now I have one at del.icio.us!

Reposting this from my old blog.

Because I like it very much. Because it depresses me to no end. Because it is brilliant. Because I wish for a world with no rules but mine. Because I want what and who I want. And oftentimes, I just have to accept that there are rules created by others, because as much as I might imagine this Universe as a figment of my imagination, it is more like the intersection of several imaginations…

From: Gayleen Hays
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2007 8:27 PM
Subject: RE: [burningman-bcwa] The REAL problem

Drip by drip,
It’s difficult,
To expand your view,
Perhaps, it stretches beyond
Children
Because some of us want to keep
That expression and
Protect that energy and so we come to
Play at Burning Man
With our secret child eyes’ focus.
I come to pull and get pulled up into
The joy of connecting with kindred’ childish
Souls and I think on some level many
Of us come with that hope of
Finding a deep mutual
Friend.
But, then. a stranger
Hung himself early Thursday
Morning. He hung there about sixty
Minutes before we figured out he was there;
Star of his own art creation.
Why?
I began to question my own opinion.
I had arrived at Burning Man, being yelled at
By a power-hungry gate/guard before I even got
My ticket stamped. It was a bad start vibe.
Then, a stranger hung himself
And it changed my focus off myself and onto the
Culture I want to protect and wish we could all live
Under it’s umbrella of freedom,
But, a man hung himself.
And, it’s interesting.
I believe in abortion
I believe in taking mushrooms
I believe in not drinking water
I believe in drinking wine
I believe in expression
I believe in a person being free to kill himself
With he can’t stand the pain.
My mother died in my arms as an animal
From pancreatic cancer.
I believe she had the right to kill herself .
But, I can’t accept his freedom to
Hang himself, not here.
Why, Why do I feel he had no right.
And then, I start to understand,
This must be the start of rules
The start of constricting rules
And that sucks.

A long time ago, during freshman year in Chennai, I was thrilled to have access to a real library – The British Council Library, or BCL. There, I renewed my passion for fiction and read voraciously. Sometimes I wonder if that was where the seeds of all of my today’s troubles were sown

I discovered Marge Piercy’s novels at BCL. I was, and still am, very interested in science fiction. I found a title “Body of Glass” and couldn’t resist exploring the book (In the US, this is published under the title “He, She and it”). This is the story of Shira, who falls in love with an illegal cyborg, Yod. Yod sacrifices himself to save the people he (it?) loves. The story is interspersed with a tale told by Malkah to Yod. Malkah is  Shira’s grandmother and Yod’s teacher and lover. The tale is that of  a Golem, Joseph, created by a Rabbi to protect the Jewish community in Prague from Christian mobs, and how the Golem develops feelings and emotions, and how he is rendered back to clay after serving his purpose. Both stories raise the question of what it means to be a human and what it means to be a person.

Besides this, there are other famous characters  – Data and The Doctor from Star Trek, and various Asmiov robot characters – most notably R. Daneel Olivaw.

I was just watching a random movie on Disney channel – Pixel Perfect. This is the story of a ‘hologram’, Loretta, who is created by the movie’s protagonist Roscoe to save his band. She develops a personality and feels emotions,falls in love with him, and eventually sacrifices herself to save Roscoe’s belle Samantha. Don’t see this movie – esp. if you only like unequivocally happy endings. Although technically a happy ending, Loretta-The-Hologram’s demise isn’t exactly how I’d have wanted it to end. It have preferred it if somehow she (it?) could have possessed Samantha’s body and lived happily ever after with Roscoe.

This is all a pipe dream – the idea of Artificial Intelligence that is conscious, self-aware and capable of feeling and having an individuality. So the question of human-AI equivalence is probably so far out that it might be several millennia before it comes up for a real discussion. But if I had a vote, I’d vote for equal treatment of any system that can exhibit sentience and sapience.

In the meanwhile, I’m hopeful that as humans, we are capable of creating something that is much greater and grander than ourselves. Some day, we will give birth to a consciousness that will complement our own existence. Some day, we will be Gods !

http://www.buymorestuff.org is an awesome prank. Next year, I might have the time to play instead of actually being stuck in a line to buy stuff

Now on to the How To guide for Vanquishing Black Friday.

1. Know Your Deals
2. Plan Ahead
3. Prepare For Cold
4. Make Friends
5. Get Food
6. Entertain Yourself
7. The Ticketless Go First
8. Eureka!
9. Craigslist

Know Your Deals

Search http://bfads.net. And remember to use Google a lot.

I wanted to buy a laptop. I found several deals, but one of the most attractive offers was an awesome Sony VAIO laptop with 1 GB RAM, DVD-RW and 120 GB HDD from Best Buy.

I decided to do a bit more research. Searching further on Google, I found a better doorbuster deal – Toshiba AS135-S7403 for $229. This also came bundled with a Canon photo scanner/printer/copier combo. Wow! I have never ever seen a decent configuration laptop sold for under $300, leave alone for less than $250, and with freebies thrown in at that. And to top it all – there were no mail in rebates – this was the upfront price.

So the plan came about – I was going to try to buy this laptop. If this was a hoax (it seemed too good to be real at that time), the backup plan was to buy the Sony instead.

There were some flipsides to this idea – there were only 20 guaranteed units per store, which meant that I had to be way ahead in the line. Also, the laptop came with only 512MB RAM, so I needed to buy a RAM upgrade.

Lucky for me, I also found this – PNY 2GB PC5300 DDR2 Laptop Memory Kit. Nice!

Plan Ahead

I had the Thursday – Thanksgiving Day – off, and I was in Seattle as well. But as I’m wont, I was lazy. The store was supposed to open at 5am on Friday, so I headed out at 5pm on Thursday. Little did I know that there ware other crazies inhabiting the same land as me. I was almost #40 in the line.

After some enquiries, I learned two things.

• The first guy in the line had shown up at 7am that day, and the second person came at 9am. Most others had started queuing up around 3 or 4pm.
• Because this was the Bellevue,WA store – the only Best Buy around the technophile infested Microsoft area – they were apparently used to having 3-4 times the minimum quantity for doorbuster deals. This I heard from two different people who had friends or family working at the store, who were also standing in line. While it was hearsay, I thought it was a logical thing to assume that they’d stock at least 40 laptops each – after all, they wanted to sell as many units as possible and this store was at the heartland of buying power!

So I stayed.

Prepare For Cold

Thanksgiving is the 4th Thursday of November.  The temperature at this time of the year typically in low 30’s (Fahrenheit), just marginally over freezing temperature. Add to that the windchill factor and you are in for a treat.

I had worn 3 layers of shirt, a soft shell jacket, 4 layers of socks, 2 pants + gloves + a donut hat.  And with me, I had a fleece sleeping bag.

Turned out this was just not enough… I was especially cold in my feet.

Next time (if there is one), I’ll remember to take a comforter and maybe even my tent.

Make Friends

Being friendly to those standing in line with you pays. It really does. Being reclusive is a bad bad idea.

Lucky that I was only 15 blocks from home. When it got really cold, I was able to go home and get a real sleeping bag filled with down. My neighbors kept my spot for me.

Also, they kept me company and saved me from dying of sheer boredom.

Some were generous and gave away Hotties to their newfound friends.

Get Food

Fourteen hours is a long time. We don’t quite feel hunger while sleeping in the night, but being awake is a different game altogether. And boredom also adds to hunger.

I had a few granola bars and water – but it just wasn’t as good as hot and freshly cooked food.

So some of us went out to Top Foods, a 24 hour grocery store, and bought frozen pizzas. Then we went home to bake it, and took it back to our line to share and eat.

The food was bad, and quickly became cold. It was still delicious!

Entertain Yourself

I took a portable DVD player and about 4 discs with me. Despite all the camaraderie and talking, the place was getting cold and windy, and I really preferred to slink into my sleeping bag and avoid the weather. While inside, I was watching episodes of Family Guy

The Ticketless Go First

At 3am, the store employees started showing up. They eventually handed out tickets for guaranteed pick up of doorbuster deals. To my relief, the Toshiba was a real deal, and I also managed to snag a ticket. They had more than 50 of them, probably close to 100.

Around 4am, they started giving out free coffee and donuts. I’m not so sure if this was funded by Best Buy or whether individual food stores were giving out in the hopes of gaining some goodwill among customers and working the marketing angle – but it was a relief. The line had grown to 200+ people – probably even more than 300 by this time. The food/coffee only lasted the first 100 or less – which seemed apt since we were the ones who had been there for 10 hours or longer.

Everything was orderly thus far and the security was really well managed. Nobody was cutting in the line successfully (of course, many tried).

As soon as the doors opened, I went seeking the 2GB RAM deal. Again, I was lucky and found the last piece hanging along with the desktop RAM’s.

Then I went around to pick up the Toshiba laptop and a TomTom GPS unit that I’d picked up a ticket for. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying a car GPS device for over 2 years, but could never justify it because I knew how to drive around Seattle just fine. Now that I’m slowly moving to Vancouver, BC, I figured that a GPS will come in real handy in a new city. Turns out that I was right!

Eureka!

It was another 2 hours before I checked out and I was finally back in my car with all the goods at 7am – 14 hours after I started in the line.

Craigslist

I didn’t really want the printer/scanner/copier – so I posted it on CL for $40. I figured that I should be able to sell it easy for that much since a new unit was selling for $80 elsewhere. I got a few offers and I was able to sell it within two days.

Epilogue

• I was under the impression that both the memory slots in the laptop were occupied by a 256MB stick each. Turns out that I was (pleasantly) wrong – there was only one 512 MB stick.
• One of the two 1GB sticks in the PNY RAM bundle turned out to be a lemon. So I plugged in the machine with the other 1GB stick and now it has 1.5G in all. I didn’t have the patience to go back and exchange the item in the store – it would have been too crowded then, they probably wouldn’t have any in stock and would have to order it, and $54 for 1GB was still a good deal.
• Now the total cost has come down to (229 + 54) * 1.089 – 40  = $268. For a laptop with 1.5G RAM, Vista Home Basic, 120GB HDD, CD/DVD-RW and inbuilt wireless and all the works – this is an awesome awesome price.
  • The only thing that I’d personally miss in this machine is the lack of integrated Bluetooth. A smaller screen size would have been nice too – but miniaturization adds to costs…
• Hopefully, it will get transported over to India before the month is out…

If you are a Washingtonian or wondering which Vancouver I’m referring to (to the uninitiated – there is a Vancouver,WA and then there is the big city in British Columbia, Canada) – I’m referring to the city in BC. Unqualified,  there is no ambiguity here. He he!

I’ve mixed thoughts about this place thus far. It’s a much bigger city than Seattle, no doubt. But that’s kind of a pointless comparison really – I think I’m learning first hand why people are loathe to leave their cities for whatever reason – job, school etc. The traffic is horrendous here – I could of course go live in Richmond and avoid all the commute delays – I might actually opt for that in a few months. But on the flip side, I’ll be away from Vancouver where all my social life will be concentrated. It will be akin to living in Bellevue and visiting Seattle often…

For a nation/state with socialist tendencies, this is a pretty damn expensive town. There is no sign of universal subsidies – rather – they ask for more taxes and make you pay more surcharges. The wonders of equality. The situation with medical coverage is seemingly better because everybody gets a equal access to hospitals/doctors etc. – but my oh-so-entitled self ask – So what? Equality is certainly worse than aristocracy. I did mention the entitled word, didn’t I? <Sigh!>

I’m ambivalent about workplace too – I was hoping to be in an extremely dynamic construction-site sort of environment where I could support my own needs. Instead, I think I might be in a place that’s adapting to engineering needs pretty fast, but at any given time – self supported maverick-ness isn’t exactly encouraged. Maybe it’s time to put on the It’s-better-to-beg-for-forgiveness-than-ask-for-permission hat

Video: Microsoft Canada Development Center

http://xkcd.com/140/ 

Reminded me of the days when I used to like the flavor of Coffee, but not the taste quite as much! I used to want just a splash of coffee in milk. Sometimes the coffee would become too discernable, so I’d want to add more milk. Then it would be too diluted, so add more coffee… and now I’m back to where I was – gotta add more milk. Oops.. now there is way too much of it and I can’t drink it all…

These days, I make my own french press. Hazelnut cream is my favorite for now.

The background music is Fantasia Cubana by German Villareal.

I’ve a 5  10 year lease on this spot. Yay!

This is hosted on wordpress.com.

Also hooked up to Google Apps. Soon, I can have user [at] vatsan.name email addresses. Still undecided if I will really switch over.

 My old blog was at http://vatsan.spaces.live.com