Freedom from unread books

Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them”

—Lobel, Arnold. Whiskers and Rhymes. William Morrow & Co, 1988.

To celebrate Independence Day, I freed myself from several hundred pounds of old books and manuals, most in new condition, that I had accumulated over the years but never read. Here is a picture of me with some of the books before they went into the recyling bin. A complete set of Ingres 6.4 manuals still in shrink wrap also went into the recycling bin. You can clearly see some of them in the middle of the pile if you click on the picture and zoom in.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 28,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

How a tiny slip can lead to big delays

A tiny slip can lead to big delays. Late yesterday evening, I had to go from the Courtyard in Foster City to the Marriott in San Mateo, a distance of only 3.3 miles according to Google Maps (http://g.co/maps/2bry9). I made one wrong turn in the dark and the 3.3 mile trip suddenly ballooned into a 22.8 mile trip (http://g.co/maps/ae7sq). Zoom out a bit in Google Maps to get a better picture. Not funny, if I only say so myself.

Notes to self for the next major production change:

1. Entertain the team with the above anecdote.
2. Check if we are using an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).
3. Check if the person executing the SOP has practiced it.
4. Check if there is ample slack time in the change window.