...or this is a fine example of the "small world" in which we live.
I'm leaning towards the former, for what it's worth.
So there's a blog I read that is truly a random chick from out in the interwebs with whom I would love to be friends. I am a follower and so I read her blogs on a regular basis and giggle at her quick wit. She's also on twitter and recently I've started reading her tweets.
Today I was reading her recent tweets and she had a congratulations tweet to some random. I don't know why folks, but I chose to click on the name and find out who this random is. Random #2 has a picture on her twitter page and she looked vaguely familiar. Lo and behold, she lives in Minneapolis. Now I'm really curious. She's not smart on the interwebs thing and announced the birth of her new baby with the full name...including last. So now that I have her last name *facepalm* I searched for her on Capella's intranet. Sure enough, she's a Capella employee whom I know (but don't work with).
So now the question, do I send her an email of congratulations and describe the stalkerish way in which I found her? Or do I let it go?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
And we're launched!
It's official. On Thursday, October 22nd the project I have been working on for a year finally launched ... to silence. What's that you say? No hiccups? No fanfare? No freak outs? Nope, none of the above. Which is a good thing. A very, very good thing. It appears that for the most part, all systems are go. The environment works (huzzah!) and is being met with little fear or confusion.
*sigh*
Do you hear that? That, my friends, is what you call sweet relaxation.
It was touch and go there for awhile. I mean, think back to my post where I was told we had a 30% chance of success. Oy. And then the fact that I got sick ... deathly sick ... for the two days pre-launch and had to reschedule team training. But it's Sunday night and tomorrow I head back to work to start the two week post-launch clean-up phase. Yes, we'll find problems. Yes, we'll have some work to do yet. But I have dedicated Business Analysts and Developers to help get these things fixed and for that I am extremely grateful!
So what's next on the docket? Tomorrow night is a launch party happy hour and should be a great opportunity to get everyone into one room to thank them for all of their hard work over the past year. And soon, I will have some serious time off to dedicate towards my dissertation since my proposal is due no later than January 27th. Thank God. It'll be nice to get that hurdle behind me.
The holidays are quickly approaching and I love me some Christmas!
Things are looking up and looking good. I'm feeling a little more relaxed (and a bit pleased with myself too, I might add).
Onward and upward!
*sigh*
Do you hear that? That, my friends, is what you call sweet relaxation.
It was touch and go there for awhile. I mean, think back to my post where I was told we had a 30% chance of success. Oy. And then the fact that I got sick ... deathly sick ... for the two days pre-launch and had to reschedule team training. But it's Sunday night and tomorrow I head back to work to start the two week post-launch clean-up phase. Yes, we'll find problems. Yes, we'll have some work to do yet. But I have dedicated Business Analysts and Developers to help get these things fixed and for that I am extremely grateful!
So what's next on the docket? Tomorrow night is a launch party happy hour and should be a great opportunity to get everyone into one room to thank them for all of their hard work over the past year. And soon, I will have some serious time off to dedicate towards my dissertation since my proposal is due no later than January 27th. Thank God. It'll be nice to get that hurdle behind me.
The holidays are quickly approaching and I love me some Christmas!
Things are looking up and looking good. I'm feeling a little more relaxed (and a bit pleased with myself too, I might add).
Onward and upward!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Mr. Wonderful
After 4 glorious days off (and a 5th if you count the work from home Monday due to a cold) of nothing more than hanging out with my main squeeze, I must say that he is a-maz-ing! I'm one lucky lady.
That is all.
That is all.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
I think this is what one might call an "epic fail"
We are two weeks from release of the authoring environment I have been working on for over a year. Two weeks. I'm now in an official state of "tizzy" where I'm currently running around trying to mitigate risks associated with data integrity/migration and the fires that are raging each and every day.
I have two days off making for a glorious 4 day weekend. It's a horrid time to be doing this but I'm burning out and burning out quick.
So, prior to leaving the office this afternoon, I decided to stop in the "war room" where all of the developers work. My plan was to check in and see if they needed anything from me prior to leaving on PTO. They were not at their desks so I smiled, waved to the project manager and said I'd be on my way. He responded with "let's have a seat and talk." Never, ever good. He proceeds to tell me that the final build of the environment...the build that will be used in the production environment as of October 22nd...is ready. The developers, business analysts and others were shut in a conference room this afternoon (when I visited) and they were "banging" on the environment doing some load testing. Okay, makes sense. He continues to tell me that when the environment is pointed at the dummy data, the speed was improved and everything was working fabulously. When they pointed the environment to our data (1200+ courses, 34 degree programs, 122+ specializations, 25+ certificates...) the environment crashes and burns. It burns so hard, there aren't even any error logs on the server to give any indication where the problem is.
I'm still not very alarmed. I mean, they'll figure it out right?
He proceeds to tell me that I shouldn't be alarmed...that he hopes he'll be emailing me while I'm out to tell me that they've found the problem, fixed it, and everything is hunky dory. Great! I say. So what are the chances I'm going to get this email? He says, 30%.
WHAT?!
He follows that up by saying that if worse comes to worst, we'll just fail the project and move onto a scalability build.
WHAT?!
I left the office in a daze realizing that an entire year of work could be deemed a failure. How did this happen?!
So tonight I sit here wondering what will unfold over the next couple of days. I'm still on PTO though I'm reachable and will be waiting with bated breath for every email that arrives in my inbox.
Say a prayer folks. Say a prayer.
I have two days off making for a glorious 4 day weekend. It's a horrid time to be doing this but I'm burning out and burning out quick.
So, prior to leaving the office this afternoon, I decided to stop in the "war room" where all of the developers work. My plan was to check in and see if they needed anything from me prior to leaving on PTO. They were not at their desks so I smiled, waved to the project manager and said I'd be on my way. He responded with "let's have a seat and talk." Never, ever good. He proceeds to tell me that the final build of the environment...the build that will be used in the production environment as of October 22nd...is ready. The developers, business analysts and others were shut in a conference room this afternoon (when I visited) and they were "banging" on the environment doing some load testing. Okay, makes sense. He continues to tell me that when the environment is pointed at the dummy data, the speed was improved and everything was working fabulously. When they pointed the environment to our data (1200+ courses, 34 degree programs, 122+ specializations, 25+ certificates...) the environment crashes and burns. It burns so hard, there aren't even any error logs on the server to give any indication where the problem is.
I'm still not very alarmed. I mean, they'll figure it out right?
He proceeds to tell me that I shouldn't be alarmed...that he hopes he'll be emailing me while I'm out to tell me that they've found the problem, fixed it, and everything is hunky dory. Great! I say. So what are the chances I'm going to get this email? He says, 30%.
WHAT?!
He follows that up by saying that if worse comes to worst, we'll just fail the project and move onto a scalability build.
WHAT?!
I left the office in a daze realizing that an entire year of work could be deemed a failure. How did this happen?!
So tonight I sit here wondering what will unfold over the next couple of days. I'm still on PTO though I'm reachable and will be waiting with bated breath for every email that arrives in my inbox.
Say a prayer folks. Say a prayer.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
It's all tied together
I can always tell when something in my life is a little out of whack (or at least different than the norm). If one aspect is crazy and a bit unpredictable, then the other aspects tend to suffer because my energy is no longer distributed across all of my responsibilities.
While work requires much more time, energy, and focus all I need to do is stop for just a minute or so and look around. My house is a mess. It is in complete disarray. Dishes need to be washed, laundry needs to be done and the floor (love my dogs but srsly!) needs a vacuuming very, very badly. That's just one aspect. Another is how I eat. I eat TERRIBLY when things get out of whack. Pizza, pasta, and sweets galore. Seriously, it's out of control.
For some of you there is the more obvious fact that my social life suffers and I don't see my friends as much as I need to or should.
Today is the day I take a deep breath get my house in order, do a little work, and take care of myself so that I can start the week in a better place than I ended the last.
While work requires much more time, energy, and focus all I need to do is stop for just a minute or so and look around. My house is a mess. It is in complete disarray. Dishes need to be washed, laundry needs to be done and the floor (love my dogs but srsly!) needs a vacuuming very, very badly. That's just one aspect. Another is how I eat. I eat TERRIBLY when things get out of whack. Pizza, pasta, and sweets galore. Seriously, it's out of control.
For some of you there is the more obvious fact that my social life suffers and I don't see my friends as much as I need to or should.
Today is the day I take a deep breath get my house in order, do a little work, and take care of myself so that I can start the week in a better place than I ended the last.
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