Mike’s Blog

I have noticed that there are two primary reasons I post to this site.  The first is that I am running out of things to do at work and something is on my wind that I think is worth sharing with others.  The second is that something is either making me really happy and really annoyed and I want to get the thoughts out of my head.

This post spawned on the latter of the two.  A non defined process for things really gets to me and makes me feel like it can be done so much more efficiently if a little time was taken to think and plan it out.  I keep running into this at my current job. Every time I have to do a task that is tedious or doesn’t have a defined way to do it I will try and find a good way to accomplish the task.  Often times I will not know a good way to do it until after I have completed it and think some more. This is helpful for when the same or a similar task will need to be done again. Many tasks like that have no defined way to do them so when people do them they do it their way and it makes a mess of things for the next person that has to do it.

So far I have given my two cents about this kind of thing at work and often times something new is put in place as a result.  But other times people just go own making a mess of things for others. Having a process is very helpful in a team environment.  I understand that everyone has their way of doing things and I would be happy to change my methods if people have better more efficient ways to do something.  The major problem is that everyone here is quite smart. Most intelligent people have this problem where their way is the right way no matter what. Many of them are not willing to admit that someone else found a better way to do something and thus do not adopt this better method.  This causes further inefficiency and often times spawns tense relationships among co-workers. Hopefully people can start to realize that everyone has good ideas and when you combine those ideas and work as a team it makes workflow smoother and creates a better environment for everyone.

There are a lot of things that can change your mood and turn any day into a good day.  I was not having a bad day but I was taking a moment to think about the day and things I am thankful for.  So here we go:

1. It is VERY nice outside so I am riding my motorcycle.
2. I have a lot of good co-workers and had a great lunch with one today.  Was nice to get out of the office for a little bit and I didn’t get paged!
3. I will get to ride home on my motorcycle and spend the rest of the day with my wonderful wife and daughter.
4. My daughter turned one today!
5. And most importantly, MY DAUGHTER TURNED ONE TODAY!!! Smilie: 🙂

So yeah, I am very happy with today!

I’d rather be eating brains!

That is all!

My daughter’s first birthday is right around the corner and it seems like I lost one year of time when I think about it quickly.  However, when I actually think about it I have sooo many memories from the past year. I have photos of my family all around my workspace and I could write several pages for why each one was the best moment in my life.

As I continue to get older the time speedup feeling doesn’t go away – in fact it continues to speed up.  I suppose it makes sense though. I am 23 right now so when I turn 24 that year will comprise of about 4% of my life.  It always felt like time went slower before when I was young. So for example when I turned 11 that year was 9% of my life.  So as you get older and that percentage drops you feel as if time is going by faster because you continually add to your memories and relative to the rest of your life it starts to become a smaller unit of time.

Now that you got my little explanation of time speedup, let me tell you when it doesn’t matter at all!  I mentioned before that I have SOO many good memories from the past year. When I sit down and remember them the last 4% of my life becomes more like 50% of my life.  I can’t even imagine what my life would be like without my wonderful wife or daughter. They make me so happy and give me so many memorable moments!

I have a photo on my desk of my daughter after one her nightly baths.  She was looking directly at me as I popped my head around the door. That smile was for ME – her daddy, and I happened to get a photo of it at the same time.  Its one of my favorite photos of her and gives me a simply unexplainable feeling! The joys of parenting will FAR exceed the pains of it.

I recently became a writer for a Boston based tech blog called t3niq! You should go check it out at http://www.t3chniq.com and read my product reviews!

I have been using Pandora at work this week – it is awesome! Helps you get into a groove and get lots of work done. Having nice headphones helps too. Good Headphones + Pandora = passing the time a bit quicker.

Today is the start of a new week – well, a new work week. I am excited that I will probably get to see a bunch of friends I have not seen in a while. That is one of the things I miss most about College. You get so used to having so many friends around and seeing them everyday, then when its over, you never see them as much. IN some ways though it makes it more fun when you do get to see them.

As for jobs, I know what I would like to do but somehow it seems like I never get to do just what I want in a job or even LOVE it. The last time I was actually truly excited to head into work was over a year ago. There have been plenty of days that are not that bad but I would love to just have a job that I wanted to do at least 90% of the time. I am hopeful though, because my current company is working to try to make it better for me. That is more than I can for my previous company. I really hope they get something worked out quite soon otherwise I may have to jump ship again :-/.

Getting back to the title of this post, a new week means new opportunities! I am hopeful that more progress can be made here to get me into a better position.

So it has been almost 2 month since I release my first Android app (Word Crush). I have found that the hardest part by far is getting it out there! Most of my friends have it and then some people who happened to stumble on it in the Android Market. I attempted to have it mentioned by two of my favorite other blogging sites (Gizmodo and Lifehacker) but as I expected – nothing. Oh well – I’ll keep plugging at it, maybe eventually it will catch on.

This year marks the first December for my daughter and thus the her first Christmas. Planning for it can be kind of tough since our entire family will not be together on Christmas day. Fortunately we will be able to let most of the family see her within a couple days of Christmas. We got a little 3ft Christmas tree up in our window that we have our presents under. She likes to look at it. My parents have a full size tree at their house and she likes to try and touch all the ornaments on it!

Yesterday marked a first time for me as a father too. My wife had a dentist appointment and both of my parents were at work so For the time my wife was gone I was watching my daughter – with no one else around. This had not happened before. She was a little angel for me (besides refusing the new nipple on her bottle). She just sat there on the couch happily playing with her toys and clapping her hands. Occasionally she would look up at me and say “Dadadadadadadada” and then get this huge smile on her face. It is moments like that when you know that no matter what – you will always love that child. There is just a feeling you get where it makes so unbelievably happy that you really can’t explain it. All those things you hear about having a child really are true. Sure there are moments when you just can’t take it anymore because they are driving you crazy – but they make up for it! My daughter has already changed my life in many ways, but they are all for the best and I wouldn’t trade her for the world!

Here is a video that was made for my wife’s class.  I think it worked out so well that more will have to be made! Smilie: 🙂  Check it out!

Kaylee LoVerme being adorable