Aside from the usual end-of-quarter/end-of-fiscal-year crunch at work (along with it being the busiest time of year for us), Ann and I also made some major changes over the past few weeks which have had me incredibly busy outside of work too.

I wrote a few months ago about plans to buy the house I grew up in from my parents.  That plan came to fruition on the 18th when – at 8am – movers showed up at our (old) house prepared to move us to our (new) house. We’ve named the house Chateau Whelan.  Yes – we are dorks.

The move itself was horrendous – I highly recommend avoiding Two Men and a Truck if you can (trust me, you can… and should). Initially we were quoted 4.5 hours – it took 12 hours.  That’s an awful big discrepancy when you’re being charged by the hour.  I will save the tale of horror for another day, however – look for it soon.

We’ve spent the past week (minus a brief trip to Florida for Christmas) unpacking and getting settled.  This is a significant undertaking – one we’re still struggling through.   It seems like every box we get through unpacking is replaced by three more just like it.  I’m beginning to wonder how we got all of this “stuff” to begin with.  I’ve found myself wanting to purge large portions of the items I have accumulated.   The prevailing mentality has been “I’ve not used this for two years.  I’ve not even THOUGHT about it for two years. Pitch it!”  I will feel much better when the volume of “stuff” diminishes dramatically.

As I mentioned above – we did take a break from unpacking and work – to go to Florida.   After we got married we decided that – until we have kids – we will alternate major holidays (thanksgiving, Christmas) between families.  Last year we did Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with Ann’s family.  This year we had Thanksgiving at Ann’s family – leaving Christmas for my family.  That meant flying down to Florida for a couple of days with my parents – away from snow, unpacking, and work.  It was wonderful!  Being able to sit back and just relax after multiple weeks of the high pressure stress of constantly having people working on the house,   work to do for my job, and packing/moving/unpacking was such a huge relief.  My only regret is that it wasn’t able to be a longer trip!

And with that I leave you.  Go forth and have a Happy New Year – I may or may not write more this year.

[the image above is of one of my favorite parts of the new house - the wet bar in our dining room.  Forgive the quality, it was taken with a cell phone.]

The music / video files are all still there – even if the iPod app doesn’t appear to recognize that fact.  Thankfully – it’s not terribly difficult to GET the iPod app to recognize that the files are there.

I was able to do so a few minutes ago by hooking my iPhone up to my mac.  iTunes opened and said it was syncing the phone.   I cancelled the sync (the phone is synced with another mac, not this one) then opened itunes on the phone – I got the message “updating library… this may take a few minutes”  before poof – all of my media and playlists appeared.   It would seem that kicking off the sync is what triggers this – and my guess is it was supposed to happen during the update process but for some reason did not.

This is dangerous for a few reasons, but most notable is that you’re implementing security controls without looking at, or understanding, the big picture.  Implementing a control because you think you have to, or because somebody somewhere said you have to, without understanding a.) why you’re doing it and b.) what you hope to achieve (other than being able to say “we have this”), will lead to nowhere but pain. That pain will be significantly amplified if you fail to understand the organizational and cultural push-back you will encounter.

You absolutely MUST define why you’re doing it. That includes a vision of what, exactly, you hope to achieve. Why are you implementing DLP if you’ve no idea what data you want to protect?   Are these controls appropriate for the size of the company, and it’s culture?  It can be disastrous to attempt to implement draconian rules and controls in a company devoted to an open culture of trust and laid back atmosphere.  Pick your battles, and choose then wisely.

Bottom line: Don’t implement security controls just to be able to check them off a list. It won’t make you any more secure. Look for, and understand, the big picture. Only then can you implement effective security.

Too often we become mired in the bad things, however small, that have happened.  We fail to see the great deal of good things.  By focusing on the good, we can remain positive and turn a bad day into (at the very least) a decent day.

So next time you feel as though you’re stressed out and having a bad day – take a few minutes and think of three or four positive things that happened that day.

Focus on those things.

Feel any better?

You’re welcome.

It turns out that not much actually happened last week anyway. I had injured my knee during a run the preceding weekend and took the week off to let it heal (tendinitis, for those wondering). While I did do some walking during the week, it wasn’t strenuous and was merely because I couldn’t stand not doing SOMETHING for exercise. An added bonus is that it let me spend some good quality time with Ann. The injured knee was definitely a setback, putting me two weeks behind in my training plan (I’m repeating the last week of running I did this week in an attempt to strengthen my knee a bit before I advance further). I’m not happy about it, but would rather do it this way than push a bad knee and injure it further.

I did get back to running on Sunday. I went easy doing a 14min/mile pace for two miles (the previous run which caused my knee to freak out was at a sub 13min/mile pace, for contrast). I was pleased that I wasn’t really winded by this and in-fact felt quite good about it.

Due to my knee acting up and Ann being sick for part of last week, we decided to wait and start P90x this week instead. So, on monday we popped in the first dvd and… got our asses handed to us on a silver platter. That was not unexpected – we knew going in it was going to be very tough and we likely weren’t really going to enjoy it. We’ve found though that we, for the most part, like the exercise.  We DO NOT like the “host”.  That guy is the epitome of meathead douchebag. We’ve actually taken to making fun of him savagely during the exercises. Despite his douchieness we HAVE had fantastic work-outs, and I can easily see why this gets you in good shape. I already feel every single muscle in my body protesting. This is telling me – quite clearly – which muscles I have not been using regularly enough. Message received.

My efforts have continued to pay off with slow, but steady, progress each week.  Several people have commented at my slimming down.  My clothes fit better (in some cases) and looser (in all cases).  My weight has declined as well.

So – what’s the current weigh-in?  Well – as of about 630 this morning: 198 pounds. That takes me into the sub-200 pound range for the second week in a row (last week was 199.2) – a great feeling. I still have a long ways to go to reach my goal, but as long as I keep exercising and marching steadily towards the goal I will remain patient.

What are we doing?   Who is “we”?

“We” is me, and my awesome wife Ann.

What we’re doing that might be a great idea (or might be a terrible idea)?    P90x.

For those who aren’t aware – P90x is a ridiculous fitness program that takes you from ordinary shape to incredibly fit in 90 days.   Everything I’ve heard about it tells me I am going to hate doing it, but that I will love the results.  We shall see.

We start next week – I will update everyone on our status weekly during my Wednesday Weigh-In.

Oh – and yes – I still plan on running while doing this.

The end result is that we have a lot of things that are half-assed or, at the very least,  not done as well as they could/should be.

What we should be doing – instead of focusing on everything we WANT to do – is focus on the few things we CAN do, and do them well.  Doing this, we can eventually get to the things we want to do.   We can build a foundation of things done right, and build upon that foundation.   It should be about quality, not quantity.

This happens quite often at larger enterprises, but happens quite frequently at smaller organizations as well.   There’s a project that needs to be done and so there simply must be a meeting about it!   Wrong.

Meetings can be good and useful – as long as there is a clearly defined objective that requires the input (or output) of everybody in attendance.  Often this objective is not pre-defined so one of two things happen:  You either end up spending half, if not more, of the meeting trying to define why you’re meeting OR (and) half the people there aren’t needed.   Congratulations – you’ve wasted everybody’s time for half the meeting and half the attendees time for the whole meeting.

More often than not – meetings are not needed.   If you can accomplish the same thing without a meeting, do so.   If you simply MUST have a meeting be sure you define what you intend to achieve first and ensure that the people invited really need to be there.

You’ll get more done this way.

This is not unique to Mr. Jobs, though – it’s a trait I’ve seen from most every highly successful and high level performers.

The observation here is that brevity is golden.   Be clear and concise in your communications.  The benefits are bountiful – you spend less time communicating and more time doing.  The recipient spends less time reading long missives and more time carrying out whatever you needed.

In business especially there is little use for waxing poetic.  It is a clear sign of insecurity that nobody wants to read.  Be clear and concise.  It shows you’re secure in who you are and what you do – and people will read and appreciate what you have to say.

I see it often in the workplace – a disagreement turns into an impassioned argument – neither side listening to the other.

Emotions can be wonderful things – joy, love, happiness and empathy can do wondrous things.   It’s important, though, to not be ruled by your emotions.   It’s OK to feel them.   It’s risky to react because of them.

Rule your emotions,  learn when and how to react,  and you will be the better for it.

Remember:  Always listen, evaluate, and act with precision.   If all you do is react (out of anger, fear, frustration), all you’re doing is being played.  And losing.