Category: Life

I wuz gonna….

Here it is, New Year’s Day 2006, and, as I look back, I think of all the things I was going to have accomplished by now.

I was going to learn Ruby (and Rails).

I was going to get my digital photographs consolidated onto one computer and remove all the duplicate copies that I’ve created as backups.

I was going to catch up on watching the shows on my TiVos.

I was going to catch up on reading Analog.

And those were just some of the projects for this vacation, let alone all of the plans I’d had throughout the year!

So as I look forward, what are my plans for this year?

The biggest thing I need to work on this year is focus; instead of having dozens of half-formed, tenth-executed plans, I need to concentrate on doing the important things well. This holds both at home and at work, but especially at work; 2005 was a much better year for me at work than 2004, but I still didn’t have the impact I would like to have had, and a lot of the reason is that I scattered my efforts instead of focusing them. The principles and tools in Getting Things Done helped me in the latter part of 2005, so I plan to continue to use them this year. (I’m not looking forward to dealing with the last two weeks of inbox buildup — I’ve taken a quick look, and there are hundreds of e-mails waiting for my attention, even if it’s only to hit the “delete” key.)

I still do want to learn Ruby and Rails; I even have a small project in mind at work which looks like it would be a good candidate for these tools.

I need to follow up on a piece of advice I got at the TechGen GDC program last month; I was there as an “observer”, which meant, among other things, that I worked with the other observers and the HR staff to help create feedback and advice for the attendees. And one of the HR guys pointed out that I should listen to some of the feedback and advice I was giving — that it was right on target for me. So this year, I intend to work on my “customer partnering”, and to seriously look at my strengths and weaknesses in the other IBM Leadership Competencies.

I also need to pay more attention to my strengths and successes and not spend time on what might have been — so I will mention a few things I did accomplish on this vacation (and there’s still time to accomplish more!):

I blogged daily; I may not keep up the pace in all of 2006, but writing is a useful thing to do, and writing in public forces me to, if nothing else, think about what I’m writing.

I read The Essential Drucker, which gave me much to think about in planning 2006.

I moved my old blog entries here, so that they won’t be lost (not that all of them were worth preserving).

I managed to get to the JCC at least every other day while not travelling, and so, despite the odd indulgence or two, I’m in reasonable shape heading out of the holidays.

I made a good dent in the Analog backlog (all that I have left is the current serial, Sun of Suns, whose last installment just arrived this week).

Diane and I finally watched an episode of Numb3rs, which we’d been TiVoing since its premier. And as soon as we’d finished watching that episode, I removed Numb3rs from the Season Pass list, which will save disk space for better shows in the future.

And there were more, but it’s time to stop writing and start doing before the power goes out; the JCC awaits.

Serious birthday dining

Today is Diane’s birthday, and so, as usual, we’ve invited some friends over for dinner and New Year’s Eve TV-watching.

Diane does most of the cooking (somehow, this seems unfair, but no one ever said life was fair); she made “Michelle’s Chicken” (from the IBM Research cookbook), Butternut Squash with Ginger, and Amaretto Carrots, all of which were delicious.

I made dessert; at Alwin’s recommendation, I made the “Simple Chocolate Sheet Cake” from America’s Test Kitchen. But, rather than make the Creamy Milk Chocolate Frosting that went with it, I chose Hershey’s “Especially Dark” frosting on the theory that a dark chocolate cake deserves dark chocolate frosting (that, and the fact that I’d’ve had to buy a whole bottle of Karo Syrup for two spoonfuls if I wanted to do the milk chocolate frosting). The consensus at the table was that this was a good decision — even Sam, who’s not a chocolate person, had a slice (though he didn’t have seconds, so I failed to convert him). I inadvertently modified the frosting recipe by omitting the vanilla (the phone was ringing a lot as I was making the frosting), but no one seemed to mind.

The diet starts tomorrow.

Happy New Year!