King of Big Wheels

Been pretty f-ing busy this week. Work has consisted of back to back meetings packed tighter than a Cooper Mini with Star Jones in the back seat. Lots of talking and adding things to the task list, but no time to be productive. And with vacations and all, I'm the one covering for other people. Oh, and it's month end - which is hard enough to mire through even when fully staffed.

I'm going to need some barley and hop flavored refreshment to get me through - good thing it's a four day weekend.

PS - Damn, I miss running my own blog webserver.

Got to chat with Kath and Shmeder this evening, at least for a few minutes. That first impression is important, so I was cool but cautious. It's so easy to take written IM messages out of context. I feel like a dork, even in 'cyberspace'. Didn't want to say the wrong thing, didn't want to seem too stiff, but didn't want to just keep typing emoticons and LOL through the whole thing.

I had a good vibe, even though I think I was delaying their pizza war. Highlights of the conversations:

After I added up some of my past years activities (college, work, marriage, etc) I told Kath I was 47 years old. Since I'm only 34, that didn't seem correct.

Shmeder stated she has never IM'd the words "ah daniel-son" before. So, I told her I'd blog about it. Tada!

Hope the two of you had a good evening while I worked. Was cool chatting about something other than how to reset a password.

I have my used Dell Axim x50 up for sale on over at Ebay. Check it out.

Everybody accounted for out there?

By request from some of the new viewers of my blog, I thought I'd post a quick autobiography.

* Born Feb 22 in Pennsylvania
* About the age of 8 I win a Big Wheels race, beating out several hundred kids. I receive trophy that says "King of the Big Wheels". I still have the trophy!
* High school years - my father suggests I go into computers. Personal computers are gaining popularity in the late 80s, early 90s. I wanted to be creative, not a programmer. Attended Vo-Tech school for culinary arts.
* Get my Bachelor's degree in Hotel / Restaurant / Institutional Management from Johnson & Wales University, Providence RI. One of the top three schools in the country for culinary studies. Graduate with honors.
* Lived in London, UK for a year and obtain Master's degree in Business Administration at Schiller International University. One of the least known schools for any kind of study.
* Worked as chef, hotel front desk supervisor, and banquet sales manager over the years. After several years in the hospitality business (and with my MBA) and still only making $20K, changed careers. Lack of growth opportunity combined with a contempt for poor management, decide it's time to switch to computer networking. During this time, meet the woman who will become my wife.
* Go to night school while still working at a 300 room hotel. Take first IT job answering calls on a help desk. Nearly double my salary in the process. Get certified in Microsoft and Novell.
* Work at several "dot com" blowups over the next few years, gaining loads of experience and much better pay than staying at the hotel. Get Cisco certified. Get married. Purchase first home, move to Delaware.
* Concentrate on IT security, obtain CISSP certification. Land job only 8 miles from my house. Daughter is born.
* Today - I blogged this post.

The thing that really fueled my career change was the whole irony of the hospitality business. Management wanted you to treat the customer like gold, meanwhile they treat the employees like crap. Example: I was administrative assistant (yes, basically a secretary!) in the banquet sales department for over a year. In an office without computers, only typewriters and carbon paper do type up contracts! In 1998! One of the staff leaves, and I'm pretty much expected to move up. Boss says, sorry - no promotion, but you get more responsibilities, and a meager hourly increase. So, I'm doing the job of two people, but way underpaid. On top of being insulted with the 'offer'. I do that for a while hoping to go to another hotel, make my big move.

Regional VP comes in on a quarterly visit to check up on the hotel. Pulls me aside, says my overtime is way out of hand. Christ, I'm doing the work of two people in about 60 hours a week. (Thank God I was hourly!) Now, if they compared my wages plus overtime against the cost of a full time salaried sales person - they had me for a bargain! Fine, I cut back to 40 hours a week. Came in exactly at 8am, left right at 5pm. Bastards. A month or two of that bullshit, and I made the big decision.

I pulled up next to a small pickup truck yesterday with one of those magnetic signs stuck to the door.

"Global USA Window Washing"

Just seems to be a little bit of jingoism, especially from one who washes windows.

I had this 2pm webinar to attend today about securing virtual servers, something I'm highly interested in. Five minutes to 2pm, I point my browser to the webpage. Oh, this is not going to be good. It's running slower than a snail in molasses after drinking a quart of vodka.

After several login attempts, it's about 2:15pm. I email the webinar host and complain. At some point around 2:20pm, I get actually into the site, but there's no audio. About the same time, I get the email reply back.

I apologize, it has been running slow as everyone has been logging on simultaneously. It will be available as a podcast tomorrow on our site, or you may continue to try to log in….

So wait a sec. You schedule something to happen at 2pm, and are surprised that everyone tried connecting at the same time? Nice.

Even before I had a daughter, I've had a soft spot for the Make A Wish Foundation. I don't care what people say, this article brought a tear to my eye.

and now for something completely different.

I just learned a new word today. Actually, it's two words, but whatever. It's Helicopter Parents, and it describes parents that obsessively 'hover' over their child.

For those of you who don't know, I have a two year old daughter. My wife and I have a great pediatrician. He doesn't ask much about how much is she eating, sleeping, consistency of poops, etc. He does a little of that, but her checkup sessions are usually about behavior.

The pediatrician has this great methodology that I refer to as the 'if then' learning method. Example: IF you throw the ball in the house again, THEN you'll sit on the step for one minute. Pretty simple. No yelling, no fighting, and more important: my daughter makes her own decisions. If she throws the ball anyway, we sit her down. No second chances, no 'don't do that again, I'm warning you'. And it's working great! She's been pretty responsive since we started it.

There's a few simple rules. Make the end result something you can live with. It can even be fun. The purpose is to teach them decision making and consequences. If you put your toys away, we'll go outside and play. Also - it has to be in a IF / THEN type of rule. Just issuing commands like 'stop it' or 'pick those toys up' doesn't work. And as I mentioned, one warning. None of those 'do it again, and I'll really be angry', 'what did I just tell you, don't do it again'... you get the idea.

As anxious, concerned, protective, etc I am as a new father; I still want my daughter to make her own decisions and deal with the consequences. We're avoiding becoming helicopter parents in the process. Using that analogy, maybe we'll just end up being the support troops in the background - standing by when she needs us.

Hello, I'm Walt and I'm a Procrastiholic.

Hi Walt.

I have a serious case of procrastinitis. I'm not motivated to do much lately, like the past month or so. That explains my reverting back to "paste a link" type blogging. I've started reading books to rethink my life goals and get out of procrastination. But, I'm procrastinating on reading the books and doing anything about it. I know I should be doing all kinds of things, I just don't feel like it. I guess it feels like I'm not getting enough in return.

I've been here before, and I've tried other ideas. But the payback seems minimal, and I'm back to feeling like nothing I do is worthwhile. Why bother exercising if I don't see results? Why bother looking for a new job, companies are all the same. Why bother with anything?

I'm unfulfilled, and I'm my own reason. I don't feel like doing anything about it anymore. It's not that I'm depressed. I'm pretty happy. I guess it's this itch that says 'it could be better than this'.

Father's Day is coming. Power tools are usually a good gift idea.

SFW - except if you work in a monastery

Advice to all the kids:

It's ok to wear a helmet when a 250 pound man is coming at you.

It's not worth it to wear a helmet when a 2000 pound steel object is coming at you.

Bear with me, this will almost be worth it. Here's a timeline of events of a very strange but amusing coincidence.

1912 - Hercules Powder Company is incorporated, manufacturing gunpowder and dynamite.
1987 - (well some year in my early teens) I watch a movie called The Car. It's a 1977 movie starring James Brolin. It's a precursor to Steven King's Christine. Car is possessed, runs over people, blasts this loud air horn signaling your death. It's an instant classic in my mind. Much more evil than Christine... but I digress. Sheer enjoyment for a teenage boy who's not really allowed to watch horror films. Even ones rated PG and me at the age of 15 or so.
2004 - I left a computer consulting company to work at Hercules. At this time, Hercules no longer manufactures explosives - instead it's chemicals that go into paper processing, food gums, construction materials, and pharmaceuticals.
2006 - Feeling nostalgic, I sat and watched The Car again. SPOILER ALERT (for those who will actually watch the movie ha!) The big finale: they trick the car into driving into a large canyon then blow hundreds of tons of rocks on top of it using.... (dramatic pause) Hercules dynamite!

Whoa! I'm sitting here watching this silly movie, enjoying a moment of my youth when it hits me. I work for the company that kills The Car. Awesome! I'm so floored, I had to take a capture of the scene, post it on YouTube, and blog about it. Check out the short video below. Does this make me famous?

I had a truely evil day yesterday. Besides the usual hell at work, it all started on the way TO work.

I stopped at the Dunkin Donuts drivethrough and got a #2 - small coffee and a blueberry muffin. Got to work only to find the blueberry muffin was not completely baked all the way through. It was a little mushy on top. Tasty, but truely evil if you asked me.

6.6.06

Just saw this on espn.com.

In case you can't read it, it says: No matter what Barry Bonds did to reach 715, Gary Gillette says it's time to celebrate the achievement and stop the witch hunt.

Let's rephrase that a bit to put it in context.

No matter what Richard Nixon did to reach the Presidency, KingOfBigWheels says it's time to celebrate the achievement and stop the witch hunt.

No matter what former Enron chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling did to live incredibly extravagant lives, KingOfBigWheels says it's time to celebrate the achievement and stop the witch hunt.

No matter what Sauron did to become ruler of Mordor, KingOfBigWheels says it's time to celebrate the achievement and stop the witch hunt.

Just kidding about the last one. Seriously - is the ESPN writer forgetting that Barry Bonds might have achieved success through a sneaky, underhanded, and deplorable means? Or is he saying that those means justify the end?