Before I get to the title of this post, I did have my meeting with my (cool) manager and it went well. We talked for 2.5 hours and discussed my work, my progress in certain areas, and where I need to improve. One of her recurring themes is that I need to figure out what others can do to help me because I can't do it all. I have 6 weeks of work on my desk and even more en route, including the 9 systems I talked about in my previous post. So there is a lot on my plate and a lot of things that need to get done. I really think that my job is not going to slow down anytime soon. One of the things I like is that I was able to map out when I am going to work on things. I know that I will have next week to get through as many doc changes as I can. After that, I will have 2.5 days the week of Thanksgiving to do user interface design. Coming back from Thanksgiving, I am giving myself two days to finish that UI design work. Then Wed-Friday, I have to uncomment some doc changes I made for a project that was slated for the release we just shipped out but then got delayed to the next release. By that Friday - the day after I turn 39 - I need to have all my doc changes done and any doc changes that I need to do for other projects have to be small changes - no massive projects can be undertaken because by 12/12, the cut should be made and by 12/15, I should be prepping for the Early Release CDs. Somewhere in there, I'll get the 9 new systems and I will still have additional projects to work on that are unrelated to those 9 new systems. The number I threw out today was that if those 9 new systems have 100 screens each, that's 900 new help topics to write. I hope it is not even close to that many help topics. About 450, or half of the 900, would even be a lot to work with and, I guess, right now, I haven't seen enough to have a feel for what I am going to have to deal with when these systems arrive on my desk.
Now... onto the purging and deaths in my life today.
First, the purge. I have a Hotmail account. I have 20 pages of e-mails in my Inbox, dating back to March of 2008. I have 500 messages. My goal is to purge my messages until I am down to 25. In order to do that, I am (probably) going to be including a lot of links to version websites in my blog so that I have some sort of record regarding links that I, at one point, thought were pretty cool. In a brief survey of some of the messages, I noticed links to freeware sites. There will probably be all kinds of other things as well.
According to Cal Thomas, a political writer, there was a death with the election of Barack Obama - the death of the religious right. I am Catholic. I believe in God and I believe in making good choices because that, after all, separates a man from a beast. Thus, this is the link to Thomas' article: http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=2419
The other recent death in my life is my grandma. She died on April 23, 2006. Today, 11/14/08, she would have been 100. I miss her. A lot. I think I probably have written about our connection in the past and just to say it again, I still feel our connection. Our lives were woven together. I credit her with starting my music collection: http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=5202. I still use the red drumstick holder she made for me. It is tied to the lugs of my floor tom. I stilll have some of the denim drum cases she made for me. I also remember her coming to watch me play drums at Mass @ St. Pius X in Cedar Rapids. There are all these memories that surround us and make me smile - not sad - when I think of her. I remember her daily when I get into the 1992 Oldsmobile Achieva I bought from her for $5 when she was no longer going to drive. So, today is her 100th birthday. I'm sure she's up with my grandfather, Leo, and our white toy poodle, D.D. (Damn Dog), having a blast. My Uncle Jim is up there as well. My hope, as a good person on Earth, is that I get to end up with them as well.
So that is the game plan - purging my Inbox of 500 messages. Onward...
No comments:
Post a Comment