Food Day

Once again, today was Food Day at work.  What is Food Day?  Multiple departments typically agree on a day for each person to bring in one item.   So we're talking 15-25 people, at least.  We arrive to Starbucks coffee, Panera bagels, donuts (from me), brownies (for breakfast), etc etc...  

And then around 11, lunch setup begins with fried chicken, various dips and vegetable plates, more brownies, pasta salads, multiple soft drinks and the list goes on. 

At both my current and previous employer the situation was the same - so it's not a company culture thing.

Depsite the plethora of food, I still bring my standard sandwich, yogurt, apple and diet coke.  I just skipped the chocolate bar.   Call me a creature of habit, but I prefer a reasonably consistent healthy meal.

Here's the interesting part, for me anyway.   I work with a bunch of very analytical people.   And every time the group is always amazed at the volume of food.   "Oh, there's so much here!  How are we going to eat it all?"   The surprise is what really gets to me.   If you asked any of these people out of context how much food you'd need to feed 25 people (keep in mind we don't burn many calories sitting all day), I would think they'd all agree not everyone would need to bring something.   But this never happens.  There's some unwritten social dynamic at work here.  For some reason, it's never an option to have say 5 of the 25 people bring something on one day for five consecutive Fridays.   Guess what, you could have 4 additional food days without the waste. But for some reason, it's socially unacceptable to indulge if you haven't contributed that particular day. 

Today I brought in a dozen donuts.   By 4pm, there were 4 left and I had eaten 3.    I just don't get it.  

Home For Awhile

I returned from Sacramento this evening from a quick work trip. Everything was quick except the flights. And that'll about do it for the traveling for the next few months. The dry heat was an odd change from the sharp humidity here in Florida. It was pushing 100, but it only felt like 80 here.

A New Office

On Monday, my coworkers and I moved to our new office building. The move took place over the holiday weekend. Surprisingly, the move itself went smoothly. The computer servers and telephones were all back online on schedule. I thought for sure one of the servers would fall off the moving truck on the way over. But I guess not.

The building is your standard modern office construction, certainly no feat of architectural brilliance. I miss the modern art from Progressive - it's amazing how much difference something interesting on the wall makes. I'm sure it's of the same caliber of construction as any new home around the area - thrown up quickly with mediocre craftsmanship. We're also making a attempt to go green. Everyone got a new mug, no more styrofoam cups. That's a forced change that's good all around (as long as I wash my mug on occasion) And the bathrooms (only the men's for some reason) have a sound sensor that turns off most lights after about 30 seconds of quiet. Yes, that means we end up peeing in near darkness until the flush wakes up the lights. Either the sensor is miscalibrated, or the designer needs to see a Urologist.

My drive time is a little longer due to the increased distance from home, but I'm getting a better freeway mileage. Oh and the parking spaces are surprisingly tight - even for my little 325. Maybe it's a back door way to discourage all the SUV owners by scratching up their doors.

Complaints aside, my new desk is probably in one of the better places to be. I have a nice window seat away from the major traffic areas, break room and restrooms. And we're much closer to a YMCA branch. So the lunch time workouts will be a little easier to squeeze in.

Back from The Great Northwest

After nearly a week traveling around Portland, eastern Washington, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, it's nice to be back baking in the humidity of sunny Florida. The weather was rather chilly for June. In fact, the locals are so fed up with the weather, they're referring to this month as Junuary. Of course, the day I headed back to the airport, it was started to warm up.

Portland is quite a contrast from Jacksonville. The Jacksonville city leaders might learn a thing or two about city planning if they were ever to take a visit. New construction projects are carefully integrated into the existing landscape - unlike the razed fields that mark a new housing project in much of the country.

The Coeur d'Alene resort was impressive. It's popular golf course with a famous floating (and moveable) island green was a treat! If only I played golf a little more regularly...

Stall Shortage

Sure, our office doesn't have an abundance of bathroom stalls.   But who knew some felt so strongly in our building?   Luckily, we're moving soon.   

iPhone Fun to Come

I'm sitting here watching today's iPhone SDK presentation.    SDK stands for software development kit.    Basically, Apple has created a programming environment that will allow people to create applications for the iPhone.   Some of the tech speak was beyond me, but the demoed sample software was pretty slick.   A few games were shown that use the full functions of the touch screen and accelerometer.   Nintendo Wii games came to mind.  Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few Wii games converted to the iPhone platform. 

But games weren't the sole focus.   AOL IM was shown along with SalesForce marketing tools, and even Epocrates, a mobile drug guide for the health care industry (and the consumer). Check out their consumer lookup using the link.    

Apple is also going right after the Blackberry market with the announcement of a major behind the scenes infrastructure change to the phone.  If I'm able to use my phone for work I'm sure I'll prefer using using it over MS Outlook any day of the week.   I may even want to check my work email on the weekend.   Find me a full size keyboard, and I'll never use Outlook again. 

It's also great to see that all the new applications, which we'll start to see in June, will also be available on the iPod Touch.  

The growth for Apple may be just beginning.  

Google Apps at Work?

Yes! With this new version of Google Apps (watch the video), Google is clearly aware of people like me who loathe the productivity options available at our workplaces. Anyone working in even a small corporate environment knows software is updated less often than Microsoft releases a new version of Windows. But virus and security patches are made daily, which are installed without any thought to the productivity needs of the employees. 

Work with me for a week and you'll hear me complain about Outlook at least twice. At my work place, we're blessed with a whopping 70 megabytes of email storage, yes - 70 MEGABYTES. As of today, Gmail is granting me 6404 megabytes - FOR FREE! The worst part about Outlook is that when it comes to finding a particular message, well just don't bother because you won't find what you're looking for. Searching in Outlook is pathetically poor.

Perhaps Microsoft is finally getting the hint as evidence by its offer for Yahoo. In the meantime, I'll be giving Google Apps a serious shot.

Funny French Lakes

It's back to the office tomorrow for me. Bonnie gets the day off. Why my line of work doesn't observe MLK day is beyond me. After the new year the holiday drought lasts until Memorial Day.

My trip out west was good but cold. Mid week, we started out at about 4 degrees. My travels took me through 3 states in a week - Washington, Idaho, and a slice of Montana. Here's a few photos. Probably the most interesting sights were the two major lakes along my route. Lake Pand Oreille, which we saw from Sandpoint, Idaho, was beautiful. What amazed me was the fact that this lake is over 1100 feet deep in some places! The great depths make this lake a unique area suitable for military submarine testing. Not much was happening on the lake now, but it looks like a hip place in the summer. Also of interest was Lake Coeur D'Alene, home to an impressive resort with golf (with a floating green), boating, and skiing.

Heading North

Northwest actually. This evening, I'm traveling to Spokane, Washington for work. What better time of the year to connect through Minneapolis than mid January? The weather doesn't look too bad today though, so hopefully the flights will be on time.

I'll also see a bit of northern Idaho - specifically Coeur D'Alene and Lewiston. The sights should be stunning as I'm looking for some good photo ops.

Who's The Boss?

If you're someone's boss, here's a guide to see how you measure up. And if you're not lucky enough to have someone to do your work, this guide tells you what you probably already know about the person in charge of your raise.

A Weekend of Rest

This busy October has finally started to settle down for me. I returned from Idaho on Friday. I spent the week out west traveling for work. Boise, Twin Falls, and Sun Valley were among the stops. Unfortunately there was little time for any sightseeing. My point and shoot only found its way from the case a few times. We traveled hard and ate well. Now I get to look forward to catching up on Monday.


Prior to the Idaho visit, I was down in Port St. Lucie, Florida for a photography workshop. We spent a great four days shooting and having loads of fun. I figured southern Florida couldn't be much more humid than north Florida - so much for that theory. The humidity was intense and the rain fierce. But fortunately, the weather didn't impact our schedule. This was the fourth workshop Chris put on the United States. It was also one of the smaller gatherings. But that kept the schedule flexible and the level of personal attention high. I was one of the more experienced shutterbugs in the group. A few the attendees were just discovering the world of DLSR photography.

Having gone through some of the workshop photos, I've finally had a chance just to relax.

Oh, and I had to pick up a copy of Apple's latest OS X upgrade... More on that later.