When I heard how cold it was going to be this weekend I knew it would be a very boring couple of days. That's why I decided to put in a bunch of overtime instead of just mope around the house. I've got to say though, I didn't think it would snow. I had a nice little dusting this morning on the car. Weird.
I blame global warming. Or maybe El Nino.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Crucial Conversations
I just finished up two full days of training in something called Crucial Conversations. It was a workshop that gave you tools and insights into how to handle difficult conversations. I was fairly impressed with the class and while I don't think it will help in my current job, I do think it will help me out in the future.
The basic idea behind it was this: Whenever you feel like you are stuck in a situation that probably means you have not had a crucial conversation that you need to have. You need to build up a common purpose and respect from there in order to have that conversation. Then you need to guide the conversation so that a good solution comes out of it.
I'm sure I'll annoy the pants off of Jen now that I have all of these conversational tools. Maybe I'll make her read the book and then we'll never argue again. Yeah, right! :^)
The basic idea behind it was this: Whenever you feel like you are stuck in a situation that probably means you have not had a crucial conversation that you need to have. You need to build up a common purpose and respect from there in order to have that conversation. Then you need to guide the conversation so that a good solution comes out of it.
I'm sure I'll annoy the pants off of Jen now that I have all of these conversational tools. Maybe I'll make her read the book and then we'll never argue again. Yeah, right! :^)
Monday, April 18, 2005
Heavy Lifting
Jen and I tackled the front bushes this past weekend. It was quite the undertaking. We ripped stuff out on Saturday and put stuff back in on Sunday. Luckily, we were able to borrow my neighbor's truck for the weekend to help us out.
We started pulling out the bushes with the aid of the truck. I just hooked some tie-downs around the bush and then yanked them out. Unfortunately, only one of the bushes came out using this method. A couple of others came out part-way and the rest didn't really work out.
So that meant I had to break out the axe and the shovel. A couple of hours later we had ourselves one large pile of dead bush and one large pile of tired Mark. It took us the rest of the day to pull out all of the little roots & clean up the area. Then we had to go dump all of the dead bushes & dirt out in the country in an undisclosed location. :^)
Sunday started out with a couple loads of topsoil to build up the flower bed. We decided to provide our plants with something besides rock-hard clay for them to live in. Our soil is just plain awful.
After throwing my back out shoveling 3,000 pounds of dirt we then proceeded to plant the new bushes. I'll give some before & after pictures when I get home. We planted two pygmy barberry bushes in the little area between the sidewalk, porch, & garage. In the main bed we planted a holly bush at each end, a regular red barberry in the middle, and two yellow eucy-somethings in between those. It turned out pretty nice. Still a lot of work to be done though.
The neatest thing was finding out that when you plant holly you need both a boy and a girl. There's a little cross-polination that needs to happen to get the pretty blooms. I found that interesting.
Anyway, now I'm tired. Ugh.
We started pulling out the bushes with the aid of the truck. I just hooked some tie-downs around the bush and then yanked them out. Unfortunately, only one of the bushes came out using this method. A couple of others came out part-way and the rest didn't really work out.
So that meant I had to break out the axe and the shovel. A couple of hours later we had ourselves one large pile of dead bush and one large pile of tired Mark. It took us the rest of the day to pull out all of the little roots & clean up the area. Then we had to go dump all of the dead bushes & dirt out in the country in an undisclosed location. :^)
Sunday started out with a couple loads of topsoil to build up the flower bed. We decided to provide our plants with something besides rock-hard clay for them to live in. Our soil is just plain awful.
After throwing my back out shoveling 3,000 pounds of dirt we then proceeded to plant the new bushes. I'll give some before & after pictures when I get home. We planted two pygmy barberry bushes in the little area between the sidewalk, porch, & garage. In the main bed we planted a holly bush at each end, a regular red barberry in the middle, and two yellow eucy-somethings in between those. It turned out pretty nice. Still a lot of work to be done though.
The neatest thing was finding out that when you plant holly you need both a boy and a girl. There's a little cross-polination that needs to happen to get the pretty blooms. I found that interesting.
Anyway, now I'm tired. Ugh.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Free Grub
Every once in a while AADC gives their employees something nice. This morning they gave us a free breakfast, served to us by our management. It was kind of neat. Unhealthy, but neat.
So the rest of the morning will be filled with a food induced haze that should effectively limit my ability to get anything at all done. Mmmmmm.... bacon.
So the rest of the morning will be filled with a food induced haze that should effectively limit my ability to get anything at all done. Mmmmmm.... bacon.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Spring has arrived!
I see that I haven't written anything in almost two weeks. I guess that's just because not much has been going on. We had some friends visit, but that's about it.
The best news right now is that spring has arrived in full force. We'd had some beautiful days lately. It was 74 F yesterday with crystal clear skies. I took a nice long walk at lunch and then Jen and I took another long walk in the evening. The "nice" thing about living through a cold winter is that you appreciate the spring and summer that much more.
The arrival of spring means two things to Jen and I. First, it's time to start working outside. I've got a list of about 30 things we need to accomplish. I've already finished most of the lawn aerating. We need to install an extension to our garden for some veggies, rip out and replace the shrubs in front of our house, and on and on. I like to work outside though so it should be fun. Our grass already needs a trim. The Scotts fertilizer plan I've been using is working wonders on our yard. I think it will really make it nice when we decide to sell it.
The second thing spring means is that it's time to start grilling. Yeah! Some friends of our gave us their old gas grill last fall. We hadn't tried it out until just a couple days ago. I got it all cleaned up and was nicely surprised to see that it works quite well. We've already grilled hamburgers and hot dogs twice, shish-kabobs (sp?) last night, and tonight is going to be brats. Ahhh, the power of fire. I think we might just grill out every single night until the snow starts falling again. :^)
The best news right now is that spring has arrived in full force. We'd had some beautiful days lately. It was 74 F yesterday with crystal clear skies. I took a nice long walk at lunch and then Jen and I took another long walk in the evening. The "nice" thing about living through a cold winter is that you appreciate the spring and summer that much more.
The arrival of spring means two things to Jen and I. First, it's time to start working outside. I've got a list of about 30 things we need to accomplish. I've already finished most of the lawn aerating. We need to install an extension to our garden for some veggies, rip out and replace the shrubs in front of our house, and on and on. I like to work outside though so it should be fun. Our grass already needs a trim. The Scotts fertilizer plan I've been using is working wonders on our yard. I think it will really make it nice when we decide to sell it.
The second thing spring means is that it's time to start grilling. Yeah! Some friends of our gave us their old gas grill last fall. We hadn't tried it out until just a couple days ago. I got it all cleaned up and was nicely surprised to see that it works quite well. We've already grilled hamburgers and hot dogs twice, shish-kabobs (sp?) last night, and tonight is going to be brats. Ahhh, the power of fire. I think we might just grill out every single night until the snow starts falling again. :^)
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Good News At Work!
Okay, I'll warn you right off the bat that this is going to be bragging. Sorry in advance.
My boss called me into his office today and told me that I got a promotion. I'm not supposed to be able to get a promotion yet because I have only been there two years. The minimum is supposed to be three to five years before consideration. However, my boss told me that the folks from him on up through the ranks thought that I was performing well enough to get an early promotion. Awesome!
Now, if that wasn't cool enough I've also been given one heck of a raise. A couple weeks ago we got our annual raises and I think I got the highest in the group. The average was just under 3% and I got 4.07%. We've got a bunch of older guys so they've been around long enough to have big salaries built up. That means there's a little more in the pot for us lowly young workers.
The great thing is that I also got a raise with my promotion. My boss figured I'd get around 4% but they ended up giving me 7.06%. That's a total of 11%! Wow!
Okay, so there's my bragging. To pay for my pride it looks like I'll be working pretty darn late tonight. Oh well.
My boss called me into his office today and told me that I got a promotion. I'm not supposed to be able to get a promotion yet because I have only been there two years. The minimum is supposed to be three to five years before consideration. However, my boss told me that the folks from him on up through the ranks thought that I was performing well enough to get an early promotion. Awesome!
Now, if that wasn't cool enough I've also been given one heck of a raise. A couple weeks ago we got our annual raises and I think I got the highest in the group. The average was just under 3% and I got 4.07%. We've got a bunch of older guys so they've been around long enough to have big salaries built up. That means there's a little more in the pot for us lowly young workers.
The great thing is that I also got a raise with my promotion. My boss figured I'd get around 4% but they ended up giving me 7.06%. That's a total of 11%! Wow!
Okay, so there's my bragging. To pay for my pride it looks like I'll be working pretty darn late tonight. Oh well.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Weekend
I got to see a couple of friends this weekend that I hadn't seen in quite a while, almost since my wedding. I drove to Angola to pick up Pat Knox and then we went to MSU to see Vern Moore. Pat is working in Edgerton (sp?) and Vern is finishing up his B.S. in Agricultural Engineering at MSU.
It was nice to see those guys. Pat is getting married this summer (July 9) and he asked me to be a groomsman. I thought that was pretty cool. After Pat the only holdouts from marriage will be Vern & Rob. Who would have thought that any of us idiots could have found women to marry us. Weird.
It was nice to see those guys. Pat is getting married this summer (July 9) and he asked me to be a groomsman. I thought that was pretty cool. After Pat the only holdouts from marriage will be Vern & Rob. Who would have thought that any of us idiots could have found women to marry us. Weird.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Google Adwords
You might have noticed that on the right side of the page I've displayed some ads from Google. Google has a service where they scan your site & post ads relevent to what they find. This, of course, is a blog so most of the ads tend to be along those lines. The ads are usually pretty interesting.
Anyway, Google pays me anywhere from $.10 to $1.00 (and sometimes more) every time someone clicks on one of the links. So if you feel like giving me a present go ahead and check them out from time to time.
I know, I'm begging for money. Give me a break though, I'm trying to save up for a new TV. :^)
Anyway, Google pays me anywhere from $.10 to $1.00 (and sometimes more) every time someone clicks on one of the links. So if you feel like giving me a present go ahead and check them out from time to time.
I know, I'm begging for money. Give me a break though, I'm trying to save up for a new TV. :^)
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Our hyper cat
I noticed that my blog was getting a little boring lately due to lack of pictures. I also noticed that I haven't taken any fun pictures in a while. So I whipped out the camera this morning and captured some up-to-date pics of our little furball.
Mosby has been flying around the house this morning playing with some paper towels he has absconded with. He's also done a few flips on the stairs. I could tell he was going to be hyper today because he woke me up this morning by meowing for 15 minutes outside of our bedroom door. Of course, that's after he already got kicked out of the bedroom last night at 4:00 am for some ill-advised face licking. Yuck!
So here are some picks of the hyper little furball.
The lump of fur that is Mosby.
Mosby loves to play on the stairs.
Mosby has been flying around the house this morning playing with some paper towels he has absconded with. He's also done a few flips on the stairs. I could tell he was going to be hyper today because he woke me up this morning by meowing for 15 minutes outside of our bedroom door. Of course, that's after he already got kicked out of the bedroom last night at 4:00 am for some ill-advised face licking. Yuck!
So here are some picks of the hyper little furball.
The lump of fur that is Mosby.
Mosby loves to play on the stairs.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Thoughts on management
Those of us who have worked in the corporate environment have a unique perspective on management and the bureaucracy of a large corporation. It's what makes the comic strip Dilbert funnier for us than for other "normal" people. You just don't understand the humor until you've worked in a cubicle with a plethora of managers looming overhead.
One thing that always baffles the worker bees is how particular people ever make it into management positions, especially upper management. There's always that person or persons that just doesn't seem to have a grip on how to lead or run a group of people. It follows the Peter Principle: The theory that employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent.
Well, through my ECHP (Early Career High Potential) experiences at work I've been exposed to some situations that clear up the issue. I was labeled as a "fast-tracker" in the ECHP program because I excel at my job and exhibit leadership qualities (fools!). The idea is that young people can be groomed into becoming tomorrow V.P.'s & CEO's. I've been provided with trips to headquarters, special training opportunities, special project & job opportunities, and fantastic support from management. It's great, I've got to say. I've been very impressed with the level of commitment from the company.
What I've noticed through all of this is that the 16 of us designated to be in this program can't really go wrong. You'd just about have to burn the place down to ruin your career. That's not to say that you can't opt out of things, but if you want to advance you can.
Therein lies the problem. There are 16 young people who have been fast-tracked to be leaders. There is no way all 16 of us would make good managers. There are many things that go into being a good manager that just haven't been seen in us yet. Unfortunately, no matter what we're all guaranteed to be a manager if we want it.
Take myself for an example. I'm a techy and I'm pretty darn good at being a techy. I can write computer programs and do math for just about anything you want. I'm actually decent (for an engineer) at giving presentations and talking to people as well. However, being a good techy doesn't mean that I would make a good manager of people or the business. I could be a complete goon when given the reins on the company. Who knows?
What's my point? Well, it's just becoming clear to me how bad managers make it to their position. It really is a manifestation of the Peter Principle. I don't mean to say that my managers are bad. Actually, I've been really impressed with our North-American leadership as well as our leadership here in Indy. I think it's kind of interesting, that's all.
One thing that always baffles the worker bees is how particular people ever make it into management positions, especially upper management. There's always that person or persons that just doesn't seem to have a grip on how to lead or run a group of people. It follows the Peter Principle: The theory that employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent.
Well, through my ECHP (Early Career High Potential) experiences at work I've been exposed to some situations that clear up the issue. I was labeled as a "fast-tracker" in the ECHP program because I excel at my job and exhibit leadership qualities (fools!). The idea is that young people can be groomed into becoming tomorrow V.P.'s & CEO's. I've been provided with trips to headquarters, special training opportunities, special project & job opportunities, and fantastic support from management. It's great, I've got to say. I've been very impressed with the level of commitment from the company.
What I've noticed through all of this is that the 16 of us designated to be in this program can't really go wrong. You'd just about have to burn the place down to ruin your career. That's not to say that you can't opt out of things, but if you want to advance you can.
Therein lies the problem. There are 16 young people who have been fast-tracked to be leaders. There is no way all 16 of us would make good managers. There are many things that go into being a good manager that just haven't been seen in us yet. Unfortunately, no matter what we're all guaranteed to be a manager if we want it.
Take myself for an example. I'm a techy and I'm pretty darn good at being a techy. I can write computer programs and do math for just about anything you want. I'm actually decent (for an engineer) at giving presentations and talking to people as well. However, being a good techy doesn't mean that I would make a good manager of people or the business. I could be a complete goon when given the reins on the company. Who knows?
What's my point? Well, it's just becoming clear to me how bad managers make it to their position. It really is a manifestation of the Peter Principle. I don't mean to say that my managers are bad. Actually, I've been really impressed with our North-American leadership as well as our leadership here in Indy. I think it's kind of interesting, that's all.
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