Category: People

Professionalism?

So the other day I’m at work, writing code, in the zone, working out some complex and esoteric problem. Concentrating, you dig?

The phone rings. “Hello, is this John [horribly mispronounces my last name, which is not even that hard, and doesn’t even come close the standard mispronunciation most people use]. My name is Michael [somethingorother] and I [blahblahblahblahblah]”, talking a mile a minute, without a comma and without getting to the point. No good morning how are you, am I interrupting? or anything.

Eventually he has to pause to take a breath so I ask him “Are you a recruiter?” We’ve been having a growing problem with headhunters cold calling random people in my office looking for an in. They go onto LinkedIn and see your job title and the company you work for and then call the main switchboard and navigate the phone directory to get out numbers at our desks. I don’t know why they do it; it’s a complete waste of time. It aslo seems to me extremely rude. We all tell them about our HR department, whose job it is to listen to people like them. Usually the headhunters are pretty pushy, and some developers will wait patiently to get a word in edgewise, and plead “I’m really sorry but I can’t tell you that. You’ll have to call HR.” Sometimes the hapless developer will repeat this 3 or 5 times.

So the guy says “Yes I am I work for [some recruiting agency] and I [blahblahblahblahblah]”. So before this gets too out of hand, I tell him to talk to our HR department and hang up the phone.

Steve, who sits across from me and is not a developer but a “Resource Manager” and has to put up with more of these calls than anyone, looks up and says “Good answer.”

A minute or so later the phone rings again. I should mention I’m expecting a legit phone call right about then, so I pick it up again. “Hello this is Michael [somethingorother] and I just want to say that it is very unprofessional of you to hang up the phone on me …” Well I’m just floored! This is your sales pitch Mike? You cold call a complete stranger just to spam me, and when you’re told the right way to pitch candidates to our organization you don’t listen? Then you call me back just to insult me? And you expect me to help you because why? I thought for a second or so about trying to explain to him that it really is appropriate to hang up under these circumstances, and that had the info he called me for anyway. But I figured he probably wouldn’t listen to that either. I never found up what his second point was, cuz I hung up again.

I guess I should cut the dude some slack. He was probably just having a bad day. He’s probably just figured out he’s going to get fired for being such a lousy salesman.

Life and Origami

I’ve been really busy the last few weeks. More on that below, but first a few preliminaries.

First, both of the girls had their models accepted in OUSA’s origami for children exhibit! Look for them this June.

Next, it turns out that Nick.com won a Webby. Thanks for all your votes. I have no idea how canihazacheezeburger.com did.

Spring is really, really here.  The weather has been really, really beautiful.  Out in the garden we planted tomatoes a few weeks ago. Critters ate them.

I haven’t had a chance to work on music in a couple of weeks, although I want to get my last song of the current set done soon. Hopefully this weekend I will get back to it. One or two more sessions and I’ll be able to post a rough mix; it’s down to vocals and horns. A couple things came up that delayed the music work.

One is I got some malware on my PC. It looks like it’s under control now, but I’m afraid that next time I reboot it will come back. I had to go out and get anti-malware sofware and all, and it didn’t even fully clean it. I might have to go back and restore my OS from and archive I made last fall. Oh such fun. Glad at least my new computer’s a Mac.

The other is I’ve been really jamming on origami, making a ton of models. I’ve been working the last month or so on an origami commission, and I finished all the models last Friday. It was a cool set of subjects; each on presented different and interesting challenges. I’m please and satisfied that I was able to come up with good designs for all of them pretty much on demand in a short time, and while I was at it, came up with some new ideas I can apply in other models. These were more in the intermediate than complex level, so it was also good to take a step back towards more readily doable subjects. I’m particularly fond of the bear and the moose.

The Bear is in the modern style, which is to say it doesn’t really use a base. With a model like this it’s all about the pose and the posture. I came with the basic form and approach pretty quickly, but it took a couple of days just to work out the ears! And it changed around the design quite a bit.

When I was done I noticed an underlying structural similarity to my Elephant. So I went back to look at my Elephant, and it seemed needlessly complex to me, especially the back legs. I remember a few years ago when I came up with the design really struggling to work it out but never being fully satisfied with the fold sequence. So now I’m redesigning my Elephant. The new version is closer to 30 steps than 50, and the same size paper yields a substantially larger beast. The overall appearance is very similar, and the head is almost exactly the same. Of course one thing leads to another, so now I’m working on the head.

For the moose, I had a bit of an idea about how to approach the antlers. I saved this model for last, cuz it was the hardest and I figured I’d work up to it, but by the time I got there time was running out. So rather then do a free body design I fell back on the tried-and-true bird base. (A modified stretched bird base, actually.) I pretty much nailed the model on the first try with not alot of experimentation and some lucky guesses on the proportions. Using the base turned out the be a good thing because it left me with a thick body with lots of layers; it was strong and the legs could support the weight, and the model doesn’t tend to flop forward despite the big antlers.

I took the day off Thursday and pretty much folded continually from first thing in the morning into the evening and the wee hours of the night, all the final models in one long session. I was amazed at how exhausted I was by the end of the day. It was intensely creative, and my brain felt like it does at the end of a 16 hour marathon of writing code. My hands hurt right at the base of the joint of my thumb too.

Sunday was a folding session at the Museum of Natural History. I took Lizzy and my friend John was in town to teach and hang out. He’s working on a new book that includes a lot of theory, and I looked thru some of the material. Lots of math; very intense stuff. It’s going to be up there with Robert’s ODS. Lizzy learned how to wet-fold. It’s also kind of cool to see how she can function and enjoy herself in an all adults kind of setting. All in all a really good day.

Jeannie stayed home and re-planted the garden, and built a little fence out chickenwire to keep the critters out. Tomatoes again as well as various peppers. So far so good on the critter front.

Hello Spring

Well, spring is here. In fact it’s April already. The nights are still cold but the days are getting mild. It’s been a few weeks since life has returned to normal WTR the work week, but I feel like I’m still catching up. Haven’t even had time to go shopping. Been trying to catch up on some random purchases. Been getting back into biking and rollerblading regularly again. We *did* manage to finish tiling and painting our bathroom (more on that in a previous post). Also last weekend we started getting the yard going for spring. Raked off the leaves and debris, and uncovered the fig tree, and started planning what we want to do this spring.

Been making progress on the new Mac. Every new thing is an adventure. After we discovered that Boot Camp won’t work if there are three partitions on the drive, we basically started over. We got a new external hard drive (which we were planning on anyway for backup) and put a 10.5 partition on it, and then put a 10.4 and a Win XP partition on the main boot drive. I went back and installed proTools on 10.4 and it worked, and so did the drivers for my MIDI interface, and so the whole MIDI rig. So far so good. Last week we installed VMWare, which involved calling up Microsoft to talk numbers with a phone robot. Tons of fun. My friend Blick, who is a Mac ProTools guru, came over to help me out last weekend with my music setup. Still after all that SampleTank still doesn’t appear in the list of plugins. So it looks like I’m gonna buy the new SampleTank upgrade for intel macs and see how that goes. At least I always have the option or running PT under windows now.

Been making progress on a new song. The song is gonna be it’s own post when it’s ready but for now I’ll say it’s a kinda prog-ish r&b number and I’m working out the horn arrangement. I realized as I was tracking it that I don’t really have funk chops on the bass, so I went for something I’ll call the funky rock approach that seems pretty good. Now I’m up to penciling the horn section.

And I did get a bit of a spring break, a few comp days. We took the kids up for a day of hanging out in the Catskills with my brother Martin and his fiancé Kathleen at this quaint Victorian era lodge. Sort of like camping but without sleeping out in the cold. The place had a Teddy Roosevelt kind of vibe; thematically consistent with the Museum of Natural History. It was built kinda like a castle into the side of cliff on a small lake. We went hiking and ice skating and swimming, and had a blast. Pictures to be posted sometime in the indeterminate future. The next day M & K came back to our place, and we hung out and played Wii and Settlers of Catan. Our friends Steve and Alice from Texas (yo!) also popped by for a visit.

I’ve also been making progress on diagramming my origami turtle (hope to be ready in another few days), but overall I feel like I need to devote some time to new origami designs, and haven’t yet had the opportunity. I have a bunch of ideas in my head I need to work out in paper.

South Side of the Sky

Good news: my project for work is going live this week, which means no more working nights and weeks to meet the deadline. I worked basically continually from Thursday morning thru last night. At least it’s a good time of year to be sitting inside in front of the computer. I feel like I’ve made it through the worst of the winter, and the days are getting longer. On the other hand, I’ve been not devoting as much time to music and origami as would have liked this winter, not to mention playing Super Mario Galaxy, and need to make that up. Oh yeah and finishing tiling my 2nd bathroom.

At least I got out on my bike a few times when there was a break in the weather. I find I can tolerate 40 degrees or higher pretty comfortably. And I got my bike fixed up just recently. I originally bought my bike when I moved to California, and Jeannie and I were sharing a car, and my commute was shorter, so I did it on bike. I bought it at Palo Alto Bicycles, which at the time had a little neon sign that said “Google” in the window in the floor above the bike shop, the home of a tiny internet startup. Jeannie and I had a conversation something like this:

I though it was spelled Googol. I wonder what they do.”

“I think they do search or something like that.”

“Sounds interesting, I wonder if I should apply for a job there.”

“Nah, most startups tank. And Alta Vista already owns search.   I’m sure they’ll be gone in a year.   Stick with the job you’re at.”

It was a basic but well made mountain bike (a Trek if you’re curious), that has held up well over the years. No shock on the front, cuz in those days it was a pretty high-end feature. Palo Alto has lots of bike paths and I used to pass over a cute little bridge and by a kind-of farm with donkeys, so it was very pleasant.

So I switched to biking in the evenings after work when it got too dark to skate, and kept it up into November, and here and there in December, January and February. But then I got a flat tire, and not only my tubes but my tires were shot, so into the shop it went. This time it was Pelham Bicycles, with no internet startup on the floor above. They put on new tires, trued the wheels and replaced the brakes and cables. Now it rides as good as new. Of course as soon as I got it back from the shop, I rode it once and it was back to the cold and snow again that very evening. Ah well spring is getting closer. I’m looking forward to taking a few days off to catch up on things, and hopefully getting a day of skiing in before it’s too late, and get a bit of a spring break.

Special Guest Blogger: Lizzy

Today we have a guest contributor to this blog, my daughter Lizzy. She’s been getting into taking pictures and wrote about a few of them. Here you go:

“This is my play-dough heart. On Valentine’s Day Michelle brought pink play-dough from school. I made a heart out of it. Plus we got a lode of candy. Also I saved my brownie.”

“We didn’t have the week off but we had Monday off. But we had a snow day on Friday. On Friday we built a snowman, had a snowball fight and played with our friends on our block. And we also played ice princesses.”

Tea With Warriors – Quiet Revolution

Hello world, I’m back from Thanksgiving break. Four and a half days of getting caught up on rest, enjoying the company of family and friends and getting some work done around the house. Sleeping in, going to bed early. Lovely to just sit around in the morning and listen to the birds.

…

when you wake up feeling
in your empty space
are you in a rush to fill it
and let the outside take its place?
sit back and feel the rush of the machines
as they fill the spaces in between

lead a quiet revolution
beating wings
are part of your solution

Over the weekend I received a copy of the CD Quiet Revolution by Tea With Warriors from my friend John Neumann. Congratulations John! It sounds great. If you’ve checked out the rough mixes last time I blogged about it, John has added some guitar parts, polished the vocals, and taken the to level and EQ everything quite nicely. The album is now for sale on CD Baby, so check it out.

And while you’re there, pick up a copy of The Brothers Zing – Buzzy Tonic!

…

Today it’s back to work getting up early and waiting in the cold rain for the train, and then running the gauntlet of relentless New Yorkers, trying to avoid getting poked in the eye with an umbrella. Coming down with a cold. My project has to ship by Christmas. Fun fun fun.

Here Be Dragons

I’ve been getting back into folding again lately. A couple of weeks ago my friend John from Maryland visited and we spent the weekend doing a lot of origami (in addition to introducing Lizzy to Settlers of Catan). He’s working on a new book or origami polyhedra, which is always fascinating for me since there are not alot of people doing polyhedra from a single sheet. I came up with a design for a stellated icosahedron. I worked out the CP but it’s pretty difficult to make 3-D. I made a study of a half stellated icosahedron which should be a bit more doable.

I also came up with a new design for my Hot Air Balloon just before John’s visit. Recall that I developed this model at the OUSA Convention back in June. It is the newest member of my series of flying-vehicles-based-on-a-polar-plan. Others include my Rocketship and UFO, and the forthcoming Dirigible. The main change to the Balloon is in the basket. The original version had the basket made from one corner, but it had the problem of not holding together very strongly. The new one makes a basket joined together from all four corners and is more secure.

I am working on an exhibit-quality version of the Balloon now, and soon will post pictures and the CP. I realize I’m running out of nice paper for origami. I tried it out of a few different kinds: all my nice Japanese foil is used up, and anyway foil looks nice and folds well, but is terrible to photograph. Regular 10″ kami works pretty well, but doesn’t look that special to me. I have other papers in my stash such as Wyndstone but that my be too thick for the strings, and I don’t need a really large sheet anyway, 10 to 12 inches will do. So I’ll have to take another look and see what I come up with.

Meanwhile I have interesting problem, which is the balloon doesn’t stand so it needs some kind of stand or holder. I’ve never had a model that needs this before, although I’ve seen plenty of models that require propping up its something I’ve tried to avoid until now. I made a stand out twist ties but the wire wasn’t stiff enough and the weight of model causes the stand to bend. The best I came up with was re-bending and old Easter egg dipper, but end loop that holds the balloon isn’t big enough, and besides its bright orange. So I need to find some wire that is thin and stiff and bendable and black. If any origami people out there can recommend a good kind of wire and where to get it, I’d be grateful.

The other origami thing I’ve been doing of late is folding dragons. There is a Chinese food and sushi restaurant down the street that we go to alot and Jeannie suggested I make them a nice gold dragon as a gift since they’re so nice and their food is really good. So I did, and along the way I got some ideas and folded several more variations with different body proportions. Then I learned that the Origami Society, who does an origami holiday tree every at their headquarters in the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, was having as their theme this year fantastic an mythical creatures. So I just had to fold one to contribute to the tree!

I dropped it off one day last week. It’s about a mile and a half from my office to the museum, and most of it is thru Central Park, and it was a beautiful crisp fall day, perfect for a brisk walk. They’re already setting up the bleachers for the Thanksgiving parade. I met the OUSA people who were in the middle of putting up the tree. The lighting ceremony is on Monday. I’ll have to take the kids in to see it once it’s up.

Flex Development and Weekend on Long Island

Work has been — well, programming can be a challenge, especially when learning a new language while trying to write a software application on a deadline. I’ve been deep in the steep part of the Flex learning curve, with its monumental edifice of pre-built components, loaded with design and usage assumptions. I’m trying to forge our designer’s interactive, animated, curvy concept into Flex’s prefab boxes. I’m particularly having difficulty with the HList Component, which does not give the developer the power and flexibility one would want or expect. Seriously, for example you can’t turn off rollover highlighting of a list item without also suppressing the event that the rollover action generates. Oy! Over and over with stuff like that. I feel like I’m trying recreate a wood carving out of Legos, and am running into the same limits as you face in real Legos: either it looks blocky or you have an over-reliance on specialized, one-off pieces.

A couple weeks ago I went to a wedding on Long Island for Jeannie’s cousin. It was on Friday afternoon, so I left work early and we were able to get out of the house on time with the kids. On the trip out it started to rain, and then turned into a severe thunderstorm, and naturally traffic was massively backed up to the point that by the time the wedding was over we were only halfway there. Well, I thought to myself as the wipers swished back and forth energetically but futilely, this is easier than writing code.

We dropped the kids off in Wantagh and proceeded to Babylon. Thanks to Nick & Lisa for watching the kids! They had a great time. Lizzy is now a fan of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. By the time we got there the rain had pretty much stopped. Got to the hall. Pointless valet parking. The parking lot was right there, but everyone had to wait in line, and the parking guy spilled my CD’s and maps all over the front seat. I can’t understand the format of the Long Island wedding. The meal is stretched out over the whole night, constantly interrupted by dancing, but only a few songs, not a real set. On top of that the music was EQ’d badly, with the mid-bass too loud drowning out conversation. There must be some “club” effect they use. It was a I good time anyway. Got to see lot of Jeannie’s family. Denis and Sarah were in town. Jeannie and I did take a nice walk around the harbor, spotting cabin cruisers. And we did stay ’til the end and danced, which is something we don’t get to do very often. Stayed on long island overnight and spent the next day at Jeannie’s sister’s house, with the whole clan. Like I said easier then writing code.