In a nutshell, Murphy’s law states that whatever can go wrong will go wrong and at the most inopportune time. This day for me seems to to be the most literal example of that law and it seems to crown a really crappy week:
My “so called” team has never been complete the whole week.
Nothing seems get to the state that can be called as “done”.
Screening of the “fit to contribute” recruits across the company isn’t going well.
Issues germinate like dormant spores and each one comes unwrapped with a tag of “URGENT: RESOLVE IMMEDIATELY OR GLOBAL MELTDOWN IMMINENT”
I have had the introduction to the project incident report template and mastery of accomplishing one in a single week.
I got tagged for not finishing the work I wasn’t even scheduled to do on time even if it would supposedly only take a few hours (and which task isn’t supposed to get done in a few hours?)
A little storm called “Basyang” decided to kill the power and water supply in our area w/c forced us to stay in an overpriced hotel-esque place. This reminds me that I need to create a mini-review for that place.
Those are just some examples for the week and just for today:
My “change” can’t be completed because it hasn’t passed UAT execution because…
The environment decided to crap out the whole week and be excessively stubbon today that no requested build from me ever finishes successfully. It doesn’t matter that I went to the office earlier than usual to get the testing done.
I got tagged for not being prepared to present items in a meeting attended by the client. It doesn’t matter that the list items magically appeared in the list and it hasn’t really come into my attention.
My change suddenly had a twin ticket that I wasn’t aware of, and the approach is still dubious as it smells of too much patch-me solution.
Everybody is too busy to submit admin requirements. And that is because I really don’t do anything each day but be a PHB and think of useless things to assign to my team.
I said I will leave at 7:30PM, announced to the powers-that-be that I will leave at 7:30PM, and then get stuck in ten thousand little important tasks that made me walk the hallway with the powers-that-be at 8:15PM. The powers-that-be are on their way to a meeting that I declined because I need to go leave at 7:30PM!
And to top it all off, I still don’t feel like I am contributing anything. This is the feeling that I really, really hate. Life is getting consumed by work that is starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth because I don’t feel empowered nor ingenious enough to really make a difference.
Oh life… I just need to accept that this is one of my “Shit Happens days & it will keep on pouring”.
Who said being together for 10 years can diminish the sweetness of a relationship? The conversation below that Neth and I had while having dinner last night is a contradictory statement to that premise. Names were abstracted to protect the innocent. 😉
X: Nakakapagod kang mahalin?
Y: Bakit?
X: Kasi napapagod na ako tapos mahal kita, kaya ganon.
Y: Ganon ba? Then I am sick and tired of you.
X: Bakit naman?
Y: Kasi I am sick; I am tired; and I am with you.
I know it doesn’t make sense but aren’t those declarations sweet? 🙂
I came across this Window Farming site which promotes growing some of your food on your home/apartment windows if it gets enough sunlight.
Image courtesy of Britta Riley’s Flicker Account
My gardening interests have grown dormant and my mini-produce plot has grown brown because of a couple of reasons like being away too long, extremities injury, etc. The most notable reason is still that nobody will water the plants when me and the wife are away.
The Window farm is a hydrophonic variant of home gardening and it uses an ordinary water pump (like the ones used in aquariums) to pump the nutrient-rich water into the recycled water-bottles that have been re-purposed as hanging pots. The pump makes sure the owners don’t forget to water the plants but that still means there is an electricity cost involved. I am thinking that coupling the pump with a solar panel would negate the electricity cost if there is ample sunlight and space. I haven’t gone through the manuals yet but in case the hydrophonic plants require 24×7 water flow then it might be a workable compromise to have the water pump working in the day and then adding some water retentive materials in the bottle-pot (e.g. coconut husk threads or rice husks if available) so that the plants would still have some accessible water at night.
I wonder how much solar panel is required to power an electric pump… Btw, watch this video for more information…
In a very irritating turn of event, a pedestrian actually hit our car in JP Rizal street in Makati city. The man (whom I suppose is slightly drunk) broke two cardinal and basic rules of crossing the road:
Look out for incoming cars, and
Look at both sides of the road .
We were already traveling at around 40kph since there was no car ahead of us when I suddenly saw a man suddenly darted from the other side of the street to cross to our side. In a split second I saw that his face was glued to the other side and didnt even took a peek at our direction. The distance between him and our car was less than 20 meters so I started slamming the breaks and blaring the horn (mind you the horn of the Toyota Avanza is very loud). I also tried to slowly turn the car to the right side of the road but I was fearful that there would be speeding motorcyles so I couldn’t pull to the side quickly. It was a slow-motion sort of experience where I saw in my peripheral vision the man’s right cheek hitting the window behind me a split second before his body bounced off the middle door and as I was just able to bring the vehicle to a full stop.
I immediately opened the door and saw the man was standing up. His companions already rushed to help and check him out. I am thankful he wasn’t seriously hurt but I would imagine that come tomorrow he will have some bruises on his face and body when the anesthetic properties of alcohol wears off. It took the man a while to slur out “Nakita mo naman akong tumatawid..” (“You already saw me crossing the street…“) to which I irritatedly replied “Oo Manong pero ang lapit at ang bilis ko na. Di ka man lang tumitingin sa mga parating na sasakyan! Mag-ingat ka naman sa pagtawid!” (“Yes but I was already too near and travelling at high speed. You didn’t even check out the incoming cars! [Please] Exercise caution when crossing the street!“). The man’s companions let us go when they were assured that the man wasn’t permanently hurt.
I know that when it comes to accidents like that it will always be the driver of the incoming vehicle who is at fault. Even if the pedestrian is too stupid for their own good to obey basic rules for crossing the street, I still have a responsibility as I was manning a vehicle. I always keep watch of the right side of the road but I didn’t expect a pedestrian to slam me from the other side especially as I was in the outer lane of a 4-lane road.
The experience was my first vehicle accident (not counting this) and strengthened both my dislike for driving, my respect and fear for the deadly nature of a moving vehicle, and that you can’t really avoid an accident. It is too easy to snuff a life when you have at least half-a-ton of moving metal at your disposal. Especially in places wherein pedestrians lack the basic common sense to know basic road safety rules.
In homage to the “In Russia, …” meme: be extra careful when driving in the city because in Manila, the pedestrians accident you.
I am maintaining an infrequent office distribution list that contains some tips and tricks regarding common utilities and apps that we use at work. I call that “newsletter” as “IT TipJar” which was initially intended for my co-project members. To quote the last description in an internal office blog:
What is normally just an email push to the members of our project team will now be mirrored in this blog. The primary reason is I am rolling-off from the project and there might be some people who are still interested to receive such information. Mail versions are still being pushed to my current project and those who have expressed interest in getting them but for the rest this personal blog would do.
What is It Tip Jar? It started as a cheesy IT tips and trivia posts that I think will help improve the day-to-day tasks while working with computers. Or at least get an understanding with how things work.
Isn’t that similar to the working smarter memos from CIO? Yes but the difference is that I am not taking responsibility with the tips and content I am sending out. I am not a nanny and I am a firm believer that our people actually have the necessary brain cells to decide what is morally proper. Just like the maxim “guns don’t kill. people do.” what I send out are just tools that can be gleaned from the Internet (which is probably where I find most of them in the first place) so whatever you do with them and the consequences are your own problem.
The decision to mirror the content here is that I also send the content to colleagues who have already left the company and who have express their intent to still keep on receiving these posts. The extra work would be worth it as that is how much I love you guys/gals. 🙂
During my high school and college days the instant noodle was the king of the kitchen, the ultimate go-fer for the hungry mind and stomach. Forget bread, back then I could live on instant noodles alone and with egg if I want a luxurious treat. Adding steamed rice makes it a full meal. Philippine noodles are notorious for packing large quantities of MSG but I was young and nothing can touch me.
When I started going out with Neth my tolerance for MSG-laden foods went down because Neth’s family doesn’t really use MSG because of the reported health risks associated with it. I still get to enjoy noodles every now and then, and MSG when we eat out but everything went south when a simple breakfast of noodles and pan de sal (local breakfast bun) turned into a 3-day toilet bowl marathon for us. Since then I gave up eating noodles.
About a year ago I started sampling local noodles again, especially during weekends. The temptation of a quick breakfast is hard to ignore. But I realize that when I do have noodles for breakfast then I will have an excruciating headache in the afternoon. I always blamed the afternoon naps but recently I put two and two together. One Saturday morning I tried eating noodles and not on the following weekend. Lo and behold the pattern recurred so I guess that means forever saying goodbye to those multiplying variants of instant noodles that are invading the market. 🙁
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