Geek Philosophy

(This review is mostly in jest – I hadn’t planned to do this, but the people I was with thought it would be funny.)

Scott had never been to an IHOP (or the International House of Pancakes, if you prefer) and a few of my friends had some spare time on a Saturday morning, so we decided to drive to Burnaby and have brunch. There was a mix of IHOP experience – Luke had spent many hours in this particular establishment, whereas I’ve only been to IHOP once 7 or 8 years ago (back when I claimed not to like any breakfast foods). We were all looking forward to an interesting experience, if not a tasty one.

The atmosphere was as predicted, sort of a Saturday-morning-at-a-family-restaurant chic. After finding a table for 5 (between some seniors and a large family table where the kids were watching Dora on a portable DVD player), we dove into some coffee. The coffee itself was… coffee, I guess. Just as I had trouble reviewing seafood since I don’t eat much of it, I have trouble criticizing coffee since I see it purely as a caffeine delivery vehicle. I rarely pay for coffee, always preferring the “crappy, burnt-tasting” (according to coworkers) coffee that I get for free at work to the $5 coffee available downstairs in the café. The IHOP coffee was made a bit more interesting by the array of syrups that I added to it. There were 4 syrup bottles on the table (old-fashioned, strawberry, boysenberry, and one other I didn’t sample), and Luke suggested we take up his old practice of pouring some into each mug of coffee we downed. It was a bit odd, seeing how I never add anything to my coffee, but it sure made those 4 cups of coffee go down smoothly.

The menu was pretty varied, much more than I had expected. It was more of a Denny’s feel than the breakfast-only food I was picturing, but since I was here for brunch I only skimmed most of the menu. I did pay a bit of attention to the “healthy” part of the menu, IHOP For Me. These dishes are pitched as low-calorie, healthy alternatives to the rest of the menu, but they’re hardly health food. There’s information about calories, fat, protien, and sodium for each of the items, and I noticed that the Balsamic-Glazed Chicken had over 1700 mg of sodium, or more than 75% of the daily recommended allowance. That’s some salty chicken.

In the end I settled for what is probably IHOP’s most famous dish, the Rooty Tooty Fresh & Fruity (two breakfast sausage links, two bacon strips, two eggs, two pancakes with whipped cream and choice of fruit topping). To help fool myself into thinking I was making a healthy choice, I went with poached eggs instead of fried. The eggs were well done, much better than the poached eggs I massacred last week, and the bacon and sausage were both fairly tasty if not spectacular. The pancakes were large but not as fluffy as I like them, although the apple-cinnamon compote and whipped cream made them pretty tasty. My breakfast was also served with hashbrowns (making it a SUPER Rooty Tooty Fresh & Fruity), as it was actually cheaper for me to get hashbrowns than not. The hashbrowns were basically a solid mass of pan-fried potato, but some Tabasco sauce helped me get them down.

My brunch mates had a variety of menu items. Luke followed in my lead and had the Super RTFF (with strawberries instead of the apples I had). Scott had the meat explosion Breakfast Sampler (bacon, ham, eggs, sausage, pancakes), Brook had the Country Fried Steak (his first), and Orlando went for the French Toast. Orlando also had the Philly Cheesesteak, a mass of beef and Cheez Whiz on what appeared to be a fried bun, served with hasbrowns. We consumed maybe a cup or more of syrup and 4 carafes of coffee by the time the meal was done.

Our digestive systems may never recover. Scott, I hope you’re happy.

This school year I’ve acted as a mentor in UBC’s Tri-Mentoring Program. I enjoyed my time at UBC, and looking back I know I would have benefited from some industry interaction. I’ve met a few times with my mentee, given him what I think is useful advice, and even given an interview to be profiled on the website. It’s not only UBC that I help out with – I’ve done talks on Extreme Programming for classes at BCIT and SFU, manned booths at career fairs, and have been on an industry panel or two. Basically, I like spreading knowledge, and I’m a pretty outgoing guy that’s comfortable in all sorts of situations.

This past Thursday, I went to the wrap-up event for Tri-Mentoring, which involved some food, some thank-you speeches, a final talk with my mentee, and some “speed mentoring”.  Borrowing the idea from speed dating, speed mentoring has students talk to a mentor for a few minutes at a time, switching whenever a bell rings. This format had been used at two previous events, and everyone seems to like it. The problem is that nobody will start a conversation with me. Over the course of the past two events, I’ve had a grand total of 1 student approach me to strike up a conversation.

I think the problem may be my appearance. When I’m freshly shaven (which I usually am at such events), I could easily pass for a first or second year student. In my late 20′s, I still get carded when I buy alcohol. This doesn’t bug me, but I think the students just assume I’m a fellow student and don’t initiate conversation. Once I’m talking to somebody (usually achieved by standing near another mentor who has a group of students and waiting till someone gets bored), they seem very interested, and others may get closer to here what I’m having to say. Then the bell will ring, the students will disperse, and once again I’m standing by myself.

There are some possible explanations. In the first two meetings, everyone had to write their own name tag, so it was not at all obvious who was a mentor and who wasn’t (other than an experienced look, which I don’t have). This meeting, there were separately coloured name tags, but the colours were white and light blue, and I was wearing a blue shirt, so I wasn’t doing myself any favours.

Maybe next time I’ll dye my hair a little grey, grow a beard, and hold a flashing sign reading “I have potentially valuable career advice and I’m willing to share it” …

I spent a few hours this evening attending a complementary tasting at Regional Tasting Lounge (or r.tl – I’m unsure as to which is the official title). This was the first establishment I’ve ever attended specifically as a reviewer, and I must say it was a pretty good experience.

Located in the heart of Yaletown, r.tl has a lot of competition in the neighbourhood. Focusing on shared plates and drinks, the menu highlights dishes from three regions – Pacific Northwest is always included, with two regions from a rotating list filling in the rest of the menu. The current menu features French and Portuguese cuisine, and I was pleased to see that the chef tries to source local / seasonal ingredients when preparing these foreign meals. I didn’t look too closely at the wine list (and the link from the website is currently broken), but I think I saw at least a few BC wines among the European varieties.

The sampler that I had was served canapé style, providing a selection from 5 menu items. Some full dishes were prepared so the shutterbugs could get a good picture, and these gave me more of an idea of actual serving size. I was a bit disappointed at first to see that 4 of the 5 contained seafood, something I tend not to eat (perhaps an understatement – only once or twice have I ever had seafood I’ve enjoyed). However, not being one to turn down free food, I decided to tough it out and try at least some of each dish, knowing that I had a tasty Dark and Stormy (añejo rum, lime, ginger beer, and old-fashioned bitters) to wash out anything I didn’t like. Trying to keep an open mind, I dove in.

First up was a French offering (and only non-seafood item of the night), Duck Liver Paté with pickled red torpedo onions and fresh baguette points. I don’t have much experience with paté, but I did enjoy this one. The onions were especially interesting – when I’ve had paté in the past, it’s always been with buttered bread, but the lack of butter combined with the acidity of the onion prevented the dish from seeming too heavy. The full dish came with a generous serving of paté and also included peashoots and sliced cherry tomatoes.

Moving on to my first seafood dish of the night (with some tasty paté left over for later), I tried the only Coastal BC piece on my plate, a Dungeness Crab & Shrimp Cake (pacific caught crab and shrimp meat, fresh ginger, red onion relish). I’ve actually been able to tolerate a crab cake or two in the past, so I thought it a good introduction to the rest of my oceanic meal. The meat itself was quite good, at least on par with the crab cakes that were served at my wedding, but the relish and ginger are what had me hooked. After finishing the cake in two bites, I realized that I would have eaten another if one had been available. That may have been the first time I’ve ever felt that way about seafood.

The second time I felt that way about seafood was after tasting the next dish, this time from Portugal: Prawns Piri Piri (pan seared wild sea tiger prawns with traditional Portuguese chili sauce).  This was the dish that most challenged my long-running dislike of seafood, as it’s very obviously of the sea (it’s hard to hide a prawn). I sampled a bit of the chili sauce and found it quite good, if potentially too hot for some tastes, and decided to just go for it. It was … good, I guess? It’s really hard to say, as it was my first time eating a prawn. I would have had another, had one been present, but it’s pretty much impossible for me to tell if it was a well done prawn as I have no basis for comparison. I suppose that the fact that I liked it either means it was a very well done prawn, or a very un-prawn-like prawn. Either way, I’d think the dish would be worth getting simply as a chili-sauce delivery mechanism.

Next up was the second Portuguese dish, Bolhinos de Bacalhau (salt cod firtters with parsley and onion, saffron aioli, piri piri dip, roasted garlic mayo). This is the dish that I probably found the most “fishy”, but the array of sauces really saved it for me. Once again it’s hard for me to offer up a good comparison (even though my Newfoundland heritage should mean I can spot a good cod from a mile away), but I do know sauces, and there were great. I didn’t find the cod particularly salty, but again without knowing what salt cod is like I can’t really say if that’s normal. This was probably the only dish of the evening that I would not order again, but that’s mostly because of my fish aversion.

The final dish of the night (and second French dish of the evening) was La Petite Salad Niçoise (fresh micro greens, quail eggs, haricot vert, niçoise olives, fingerling potato). Usually served like a traditional salad, the canape version I sampled had the ingredients integrated, reminding me of a potato salad. Even though they were well mixed, I could clearly taste each individual ingredient. I’d love to try the full version of this salad to see if the ingredients hold up just as well separately. As it turns out, there was no fish in this dish – the copy of the menu that I had mentioned albacore tuna, but as it turns out that’s an optional addition that wasn’t included in the sampler. That’s just as well – I’d already pushed my fish boundaries for the evening, so it was nice to have something familiar at the end of the meal.

I found the meal more surprising than anything else, due to the previously unheard of amount of seafood I consumed. If I step back and try to think objectively, I find that r.tl successfully executed each of the dishes, provided a tasty drink, and had great service and atmosphere to boot. That said, I’m not sure if I’d go again, but that’s mostly due to a demographic mismatch. I’m not much of a share plate guy, nor am I the type to go out for drinks with friends, so r.tl isn’t really my style. If tasty tapas and after-work drinks are things that you enjoy, I think r.tl is worth a look.

Scott suggested that I write about my transition from being a software developer to managing a team of software developers. In this entry, I’ll talk about my history at Sophos and what led me to apply for a managerial position.

I started at Sophos in 2004, just a few days after writing the last exam of my degree. After a referral from Luke (thanks, Luke!), I was hired as an intern to develop software in Perl on Linux. Needless to say I was quite excited, but also a little worried – I didn’t know any Perl, and I only knew the basics of Linux / Unix. I was hired because I “showed promise” (thanks, Cliff!), and I immediately set myself upon the path of Learning Perl.

After spending 8 months developing internal test tools, I was recruited onto a product team. The goal of this team was to take PureMessage, the company’s flagship anti-spam product, and turn it into an appliance form factor. Most of the grunt work had already been done by some senior developers, but I was brought in as part of a three-person team tasked with creating an award-winning UI for the product.

The next few years were a bit of a blur, work-wise: we got a new VP Engineering, who introduced our office to Extreme Programming. The Sophos Email Appliance launched and has done well, the team grew and thrived, and I found myself a bit more drawn to the organizational / process aspects of the company. I was still writing unit tests, writing product code, running test passes, and all the other things a developer should do, but I was also acting a bit like an XP coach (sort of like a party whip for XP practices).

Around two years ago, I began taking more of an interest in long-term planning as it relates to software. Neil, my manager at the time, gave me the responsibility of doing the tracking for our project – finding out how many hours were spent on certain tasks, helping track project progress, and attending release planning and project status meetings. During my review that spring, I briefly mentioned that at some point in my career I could see myself getting into management, but I didn’t expect anything to come of it in the near future. The next week, I met with our HR department and Neil and learned that there was an internal management training course being offered later that summer. I was excited about the quick turnaround time, but also a bit nervous – I had mentioned that I could see myself in managment at some point, but I didn’t necessarily want it to be this soon. The course came and went, and I found it very interesting – I’ve never taken any psychology or cognitive science, so it was interesting to see techniques from these fields being applied to the software realm.

There was an opening for a managerial position on the maintenance team soon after that, but I decided not to apply for it. I’m not really sure why I didn’t go for it – probably a mix of lack of self-confidence and comfort in my existing position. I was one of the more senior people on the team by that time (in terms of length of time working on the project), and it was nice to be able to provide answers when people asked. The management spot went to a person who was already on that team, and I pretty much stopped thinking about advancement for the short term.

Fast forward to about 7 months ago. The manager who took the role I mentioned above decided that management was not for him, so he was stepping down. That left an opening for a manager, and with Neil’s encouragement I went for it. I was especially interested in the position since it was going to be for a brand new team – the old maintenance team, with only 3 people (including the manager) was being upgraded to a 6 person team and being given a broader mandate. There was a transitionary period where I worked with the existing manager to get up to speed, since I was now going to be spending part of my time with a product that I didn’t know much about, and there was a bit of time when I was “unofficially” in charge (due to delays in the promotion process), but in mid-November I officially became the manager of the Email Gateway FastTrack team.

In the next entry, I’ll talk about what my team does and relate my first impressions of management.

It’s been a while since I posted, so I thought I would post a summary of February. Or, more accurately, a sampling of my tweets from February, with some context filled in.

“Best brother-in-law ever” (Feb 1st, 8:04 AM)

I had just finished helping my youngest sister-in-law get a free queen-sized bed. Unfortunately, this required me to strap a box-spring to the top of my Co-op car, where it stayed (rather tenuously) as I drove across town. I ended up running a red at Burrard @ Pacific because I couldn’t safely stop without the mattress flying off into the intersection – I received my red-light ticket in the mail last week

FAG-M / Cecil Firepower (Feb 7 / 8 )

The Buddha Beer Club, a home-brewing club I’m in with some of my friends, had its First Annual General Meeting. This was mostly an excuse to hang out and drink beer. It was a smashing success! Highlights: beer, the Best Beer Ad Ever, and getting the title of “Cecil Firepower” (the result of typing in random characters and hitting spell check). Lowlights: Brook getting naked.

St. Ramatine’s Day (Feb 14)

Melanie and I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day – we never really have. That’s not to say we’re anti-V-Day, though. We don’t actively bash Valentine’s Day, or make fun of people who have plans, or try to ruin anyone’s good time. We’re just not into the celebration, because we don’t agree with the whole “celebrate your love because society tells you, and by the way flowers and chocolate are more expensive” spiel. It’s much the same way we don’t celebrate Hanukkah, observe Ramadan, or wear red on Chinese New Years – it’s just not our thing. Go ahead and do it if you want to, but we’ll be over here, eating discount chocolate on the 15th.

Talent, Reviewed (Feb 17)

I had my first Talent Review at work. This involves getting all the managers together into a room and talking about each employee, rating them on how they’re doing with respect to their grade. I was quite nervous before hand, just because I could see myself getting grilled on the ratings I had assigned them – I’m quite pleased with everyone, and gave them high marks. Luckily everyone agreed with me, and I actually only talked for about 15 minutes or so at the ~5 hour meeting.

Lying Cake (Feb 26)

I had just beaten Portal, which I had from borrowing The Orange Box from Scott. It was quite fun, if short, and had a catchy little tune at the end which I proceeded to learn how to play on guitar. It was weird finishing a game so quickly after spending so long on GTA IV. Oh yeah, “the cake is a lie” is a message scrawled on walls in the game – a murderous computer is trying to lure you to your death by tempting you with cake.

Luke’s Retreat (Feb 28)

Even though my initial impression was skepticism, Luke’s first retreat was quite enjoyable. There were a great mix of people sitting around and talking about life, time, and goals, and the dinner afterwards at Radha Yoga Eatery was delicious, if a touch pricey for a buffet-style meal. I’m definitely looking forward to the next retreat, although it will be interesting to see if the conversation is very different – 6 hours of rehashing the same subject could get a bit tedious.

Well, that’s my February – how was yours?