Geek Philosophy

Vancouver got a fair bit of flak for not having any snow on the mountains during the Olympics, but I think mother nature is over-compensating:

From Snow in March

From Snow in March

The month of November is known for a lot of things – snowfall, leaves falling, and presidential elections. Around my office, it’s known as Movember – a time when the guys can get together, grow horrible moustaches, and raise a bunch of money and awareness for men’s health issues, particularly prostate cancer.

I have never attempted to become a Mo Bro and grow a moustache – until now! Below is my day 1 photo, clean shaven (well, clean shaven as of last night). Expect it to get much, much worse.

From Movember

So, how can you help with men’s health issues? By donating to my moustache campaign, of course! All of the funds go to Prostate Cancer Canada, and qualify for tax deductions – you can’t afford not to donate! I will be updating photos ever few days throughout the campaign so you can view my horrible, horrible progress.

Thanks in advance!

Wow – pretty close to a month since I’ve posted last. It’s certainly not like I’m lacking things to write about. Here’s a brief recap of the past few weeks.

At home, I’ve moved, explored the new neighbourhood, planted some herbs on my new patio space, BBQ’d on the first BBQ I’ve ever owned (thanks, Jen!), and nearly ruined my wrists playing Guitar Hero: Metallica. The cat is having a lovely time running up and down the stairs (her first, I believe), it’s wonderful to have in-suite laundry again, and it’s just awesome getting out on the patio, even if it’s just to varnish a shelf. I have yet to name the bird that sings to me every morning on my walk to the bus loop, but that may get done this week.

The commute to work hasn’t been too bad – 45 minutes there, an hour back – and I’ve been playing some awesome emulated games on the way. At work, the team’s been doing really well, garnering a lot of internal and external attention with our efforts. I’ve moved to a kanban system for pull-based scheduling, which I’m hoping will streamline our work flow. This will be especially important early next month, as my team is set to grow by 66%.

Let’s see… I’m quite enjoying playing ultimate, Michael Jackson’s still dead, and I’m tired from a long day of around-the-house busywork. Hopefully I’ll get back to writing regularly sometime soon.

Following Jen’s lead, I’m going to try to make up for a recent lack of posting by taking the easy out and doing a meme. Instead of writing it about Mel, it’ll be about me – I’ll ask Mel the questions and write down what she says. Here are the twenty questions, answered by my wife, and my comments on her answers.

1. He is sitting in front of the TV. What is on the screen?

“Video games.”  (No argument there)

2. You’re out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad?

“Oil & Vinegar.” (Sounds good)

3. What’s one food he doesn’t like?

“Seafood.” (Three for three!)

4. You go out to eat and have a drink. What does he order?

“Gin & Tonic.” (Those are good – her first answer was “beer”, but she changed her mind when I asked her what type of beer. Beer is also a good answer)

5. Where did he go to high school?

“The same place as me.” (Correct!)

6. What size shoe does he wear?

“8?” (Between 8 and 9, depending on the brand. Same size as her, so I’m glad she got this one right!)

7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be?

“Hockey cards.” (I would have said “nothing”, but hockey cards are probably the one thing I’ve ever collected.)

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich?

“Turkey.” (Yeah, that’s what I usually get at Subway. Made by sandwich artists!)

9. What would this person eat every day if he could?

“Nachos.” (Si, señorita).

10. What is his favorite cereal?

“Granola.” (Yes, and yet another answer that’s identical to her choice.)

11. What would he never wear?

“A thong.” (As good an answer as any).

12. What is his favorite sports team?

“Vancouver Canucks.” (Maybe from October to May, but in the summer it’s “How I Hucked Your Mother“, my ultimate team)

13. Who did he vote for?

“NDP.” (Mel Lehan, for the man, not the party)

14. Who is his best friend?

“Me.” (So very, very true)

15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn’t do?

“Be clumsy.” (She *does* have a tendency to break the occasional dish while stubbing her toe and knocking over the cat food…)

16. What is his heritage?

“Newfie and Irish.” (I can’t be sure about the Irish, but I heard once that my family can be traced in Newfoundland back to 1770)

17. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what kind of cake?

“Double chocolate or goat’s cheese cheesecake.” (Double good. Now I’m hungry.)

18. Did he play sports in high school?

“No, not unless you count D&D.” (Hey! I didn’t play D&D in highschool, but I did spend 6 years kicking ass in Ju-Jitsu, thank you very much)

19. What could he spend hours doing?

“Sleeping or playing video games.” (Guilty as charged)

20. What is one unique talent he has?

“Confident humility.” (Interesting phrase – I like it. Described to me as knowing what I’m doing but not being too cocky about it)

There we go, 20 questions. There’s a lot going on that I should write about, but I think I’ll wait until everything has blown over before I sit down and commit it to e-paper.

I’ve been putting off doing a few larger, structured posts, but I’d like to write something, so here’s a random collection of unrelated thoughts and updates

I’ve been reading through the Dune series of books (thanks to Jeremy for lending them to me!). I hadn’t read fiction in a while, especially science fiction, so it’s been good to let the mind relax and take in the interesting world that Frank Herbert has created. I’ve just started the third book in series, and so far it seems to be as good as the first two, but it’s worth pointing out that all of the books break the fictional rule of thumb.

I’m currently playing through Lost Odyssey for XBOX 360, and it’s gorgeous. The level of detail is stunning, the music is great, and the story is compelling. It’s even got a fairly interesting (if somewhat conventional) battle system. It’s games like this that make me believe that the quest for better and better graphics hasn’t completely destroyed the pursuit of other aspects of video games.

For the month of June, I’ve decided to not drink any caffeine at all. I usually have one coffee in the morning each day at work, but in the past month or so I’ve found that I’m often having a second cup in the afternoon. I’d also started having coffee or tea on the weekends, where previously I’d go caffeine-free Saturday and Sunday. This doesn’t really concern me, but for some reason it seemed like a good idea to go without for the month of June. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’ve also decided to not drink any alcohol for the month of June, but I’m wavering on this one. I don’t drink very often at all, and almost always it’s with food. This week was interesting, making me realize that alcohol is a lot more prevalent when the days are warmer and longer. I found it quite easy to resist the beer at our weekly ultimate game (except for an I-just-had-to mouthful of Bud Light Lime*), and it took no willpower to turn down a sip from the keg of beer at Friday’s rooftop office party. The real challenge came this morning, when I had to turn down a wonderful mimosa with breakfast (after drinking a third of it before remembering this month’s goal). I did okay with that, but the thought of attending a BBQ tonight, having a wonderful buffalo burger, and NOT opening the bottle of 2004 Gray Monk Gamay Noir that I’ve had for a few years – that was much harder. I may end up updating my decision – perhaps I’ll move on to having a glass of wine with dinner but not doing any non-meal drinking. We’ll see how that goes.

There are a few other exiting things going on, but I’ll wait until they solidify before I write about them. I hope everyone reading this is enjoying their summer

* For those who are curious, Bud Light Lime is actually not too bad. The trick is to not think of it as a beer – it’s a horrible beer. As a fruity, refreshing summertime drink, it’s drinkable.

Some silence from me recently, so here’s a quick update.

I went to Ucluelet a few weeks back, which was nice and relaxing (full post upcoming). I’m currently sitting at my parents’ place in Penticton, enjoying the 30º weather. Today I’m having lunch with my parents and brother and sister-in-law, then heading up to Kamloops to spend some time with my brother and Mel’s sister.

May has been a bit of a crazy month for various reasons that I won’t get into, but it’s looking like June will be a bit more easy-going (and sunny!). Hopefully I’ll get back into more of a regular writing flow as well.

Enjoy the nice weather, everyone!

For me, media seems to come in waves. I’ll have nothing at all to watch on TV for a while, then I’ll get a hold of boxed sets of Firefly, Extras, Torchwood, and The F Word (my current list of things-to-watch). However, television is rarely something I prioritize, so I’m not usually concerned with having this backlog.

Books and video games, however, are things I do prioritize. That’s not to say I consider video games to be a high priority, but I do enjoy them quite a bit and look forward to the limited amount of time I have to play them (usually otherwise wasted time such as an hour before bedtime). I consider reading to be fairly important, but I’m often at a loss to figure out what I want to read. There’s just so much out there that I haven’t read, and I’ll never read it all, so I usually I end up not particularly interested in anything for a while, and then something will trigger and I’ll get a backlog.

I’m in such a backlog situation right now. Before December, I was reading rather sporadically, maybe a book every 2 months, and it was quite often that I wasn’t reading anything at all. Before getting my Xbox 360 in October I hadn’t played much at all over the previous 6 months. Now, I’ve got quite the queue.

For books, I’ve recently finished off a few books on Lean Development, as well as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (look at that – Geek and Philosophy next to each other!). I plowed through The Goal, which was quite enjoyable and hopefully useful. Next up is a bit of lighter reading, with Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture, followed by pop non-fiction in the form of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. After that, I was going to move on to Frank Herbert’s Dune series (the first two books of which I borrowed from Jeremy), as I haven’t read fiction in quite some time. However, both ZatAoMM and The Goal have mentioned the Socratic Dialogues in a positive light, so I may have to turn in that direction next, although I’ve just borrowed Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, from my mother-in-law, so who knows where I’ll go.

In the electronic entertainment realm, my usual habit of getting into a console late is paying off yet again. Most of my friends own an Xbox 360, so I’ve been able to borrow most of the high profile games I’ve wanted to play (namely Grand Theft Auto 4, Half-Life 2, and Bioshock). Several friends have also owned the original Xbox (with which the 360 is backwards compatible, for the most part), so I’ve been able to get quite a few original Xbox games as well. Here’s the current stack of games I have to play, only the bottom of which I actually own:

Worth noting is that at least 5 of these games are expected to weigh in at 50 hours each. There are also a few other games that I plan to borrow (Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fable 2), which should mean that it’ll be well into 2010 before I have any need to buy a video game.

I’ve got a great Library plugin that lets me keep track of what I’ve read (and when I’ve read it) and do up little reviews. I haven’t been able to find something similar for games – I could modify the library plugin, I guess, but I’m not much of a php coder and that would take valuable time away from my reading and playing

Does anybody else notice their media list go from drought to flood? Know any good way to represent games played in wordpress? Let me know!

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” …

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.