I’m finally home again, after spending 2.5 glorious vacation weeks in the Mediterranean! The vacation was definitely much needed, given that I’ve been slammed at work for the past few months (as seen by the timestamp of my last blog post prior to this one).
This vacation – comprising of a land tour of Italy, followed by a cruise to Egypt, Greece and other parts of Italy – was absolutely divine. It’s something that I’ve always dreamed of – and am very blessed to have fulfilled. It was filled with adventure, laughter, a bit of drama here and there (had my wallet pickpocketed in Rome) – but most important of all – filled with friends and memories to treasure life by. And not just old friends like Leonel, Francis & Shannon, Tony & Ira, etc., but I managed to meet some really cool people once again, like Carl and Peter or Henry and Charlie.
The piece de resistance of the cruise – the main reason why I booked this – is a one day trip to Egypt, where I was able to see the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids of Giza – and was able to check off one more item in my list of things to do in life: set foot on Africa. I can now say I’ve been to 6 out of the 7 continents.
The only continent remaining – Antartica. And that is definitely on my plate for sometime in the near future!
In the meantime, I’m glad to be back home, and I’m thankful for all the blessings in my life.
A lot of folks think that I am not that spontaneous when it comes to doing things. On one hand, I agree in that I do have a tendency to plan things out – especially the bigger things in life.
But yesterday I think was an example in extreme spontaneity. In a matter of hours, I booked myself a flight and hotel room to Seattle – just after a few e-mails back and forth between Leonie and myself. He’s heading to Seattle for a cruise w/ his family, but the cruise leaves on Sunday. After looking at the airfares and hotel rates, I found it very cheap actually to do a quick getaway mid June, when he was going to be up there. It basically was a no-brainer.
And now, it looks like the entire gang is going to be there. It seems the planets have aligned – we’re all meeting up there for a reunion – something that we haven’t been able to do in a while. I think the last time we all got together was during our respective 40th birthday celebrations a couple of years ago. The past few trips after that, there was always one missing. Now, it looks like the SATC gang, aka Team PLDJ, will be together once more.
I’m soooo looking forward to what’s been dubbed as the Recessionista Reunion! Can’t wait for mid June to be here.
It’s oppressively hot this weekend. Well, in the house at least. It’s a little more palatable outdors, but not by much. That’s the one bad thing about an old house – it needs some updates, namely, in the insulation department. However, I’m putting it all off – cause I’m definitely thinking of getting a major renovation done at some point. I have my ideas in mind – it’s now up for me to find an architect to flesh out those ideas, and a contractor to do the work. The big question is – when should I do it…
We seem to have slid right into summer with this heat wave. I barely even noticed spring go by. We’ve had some rain and cold, and a few nice days, and then all of a sudden, a big blast of heat. It is a bit humid, and I took the opportunity this weekend to jump in my pool to cool off. What a relief.
I’m already waiting with impatient anticipation the upcoming grand Mediterranean vacation that Leonel and I are going on. We finally made our decisions this past week to go ahead with taking the Atlantis Mediterranean cruise, joining our amigas Tony and Ira who we met at our last cruise, the Carnaval excursion last Feb 2008. (I’m hoping to convince Francis and Shannon as well…they had mentioned that they were planning on it last year, but of late, Francis has been iffy.)
Leonel and I decided also to do some gallivanting in Italy beforehand. We arrive a week before the cruise, and we’ll be visiting Venice, Como, Florence and Rome. As always – it’s all about the experiences and pictorials. We’re already anticipating 60000+ worth of photos just between the two of us. We’ve already managed to compile a list of things to do – things that normally aren’t done by tourists…Leonel has this knack of getting not-your-run-of-the-mill travel info from all these various sources for all the places we’re visiting
The nice thing about the week traveling in Italy is that we’re not spending as much. One might think it’s due to the economic doldrums affecting the world, but in reality, it’s due to the fact that most of our lodging will be free – I’m using the points I’ve accumulated all this time for our lodging. And mind you – the lodging we’ve signed up for are decent to excellent. I’ve even managed to get the same hotel that I stayed in when I was last in Como during the XP 2007 conference – that was just beautiful!
As a result of my grand vacation, I will, unfortunately, be missing Agile 2009. It’s the one conference I look forward to every year. I think the break will do me good, but there’s always a part of me that says I’m going to miss a few things. I may not be there physically, but then, I’ll be there in spirit…one of the experience reports that I worked on last year is now slated for this year’s conference. It’ll be all about the Agile adoption at Yahoo – which I was there from the very start in 2005 till about early 2008.
I may not be attending Agile 2009, but then, I’m attending an in-house Agile conference at Wells Fargo, courtesy of my Agile amigo, Michael Dowling. I’ll be talking on implementing distributed Agile. I can’t wait.
Britain’s Got Talent continues to amaze – and surprise me. Thank God for YouTube…this totally was not what I was prepared to hear and see…I definitely agree with Simon Cowell…I’m perplexed…yet at the same time, I want to see more.
I attended the Agile Alliance Board of Directors reception/meeting last Monday, held at the Google offices in San Francisco. I went along with my friend and old co-worker, Michael Dowling. The goal of the meeting was to help the board come up w/ roadmap items what people in the Agile trenches think need to happen to sustain as well as move the Agile community forward.
It was a great meeting to say the least. On a social level, it was nice to reconnect with some old friends from the Agile community. I was happy to see Diana Larsen and Esther Derby once again – two stalwarts in the real of retrospectives and team dynamics. I always look to their body of work (as well as to bounce ideas) whenever I’m faced with a quandary on getting teams to the next level, or figuring out how to get past a source of conflict within a team. I also saw some old Agilistas from Yahoo – like Nicola Dourambeis, who I worked with in the Agile team back at Yahoo, as well as Keith Nottonson from having coached the Yahoo video teams back in the day.
I felt very rejuvenated – seeing people of like minds, being able to bounce ideas, getting support and validation for ideas of my own. It’s the one key ingredient that I’m missing right now – I feel a little bit isolated, being the lone person who knows various ways that can help improve things and make things better.
I can’t say that I’m entirely alone – there are folks who I’ve worked with that have embraced the practices. But that is not enough for me, I guess. There are so many things we can do – things that I’ve mentioned like road mapping, one pagers, etc., but it seems that we haven’t moved forward as much – except in the adoption of scrum and a few XP practices (which the dev team is still trying to master).
To really see the change, the whole organization has to embrace it…but so far, it seems only one group has. Other groups have adopted scrum-like practices – like tasks on a task board in priority order – but that in and of itself scares me. I know partial implementations work in the short term, but long term, can cause more problems – I’ve seen it happen back during my coaching days at Yahoo.
I did mention this to people, in the hopes that some of my concerns can be addressed. However, in the grand scheme of things with everything going on currently, people have put it on the back burner…lowering it’s priority. I can understand the reasons why, but I’m not liking it.
Of late, I’ve been second guessing my decisions because of what’s happening. Could I have made another decision? Should I have made the alternative at that point time?
And I’m really starting to question – what value do I bring to the table? Try as I might, I feel I’ve hit a wall. And what needles me is the fact that certain messages which I’ve delivered before – are now being delivered by another messenger, and it seems that that messenger is being listened to. Same exact message, and yet this time, there seems to be more action.
Is it the way I deliver the message? I remember a time as a coach, I’d deliver the message, and people would do something and have more dialogue on how to go about doing the change. But I’ve noticed the dialogues have stopped…since sometime ago last year.
The one thing that I left with from attending the BOD meeting of the Agile Alliance is that I need more community support. And I think I’ll have to look for it elsewhere. I just need an outlet (aka person) to bounce off my ideas, and get an objective take on things. I really miss Gabby being here so that I can talk with her, since as a friend and mentor, she has a lot of insight and ideas that always send me, to the right direction.
I think I’ll propose something w/ Michael Dowling – he’s also having similar issues, trying to get his company to go Agile. Maybe we can meet like every two weeks, bounce our ideas. At the very least, we can commiserate w/ one another, and hopefully, feel better.
From my earliest memories of literature, there is nothing more moving than a simple rags-to-riches type story to warm the cockles of your heart. Aesop’s fables, Grimm’s fairy tales, or some other kind of mythology and lore – all have common threads that depict an underdog of sorts – pushed to the sidelines, unassuming, overlooked, frumpy, drab – woefully overlooked and marginalized by the most of society. And yet, out of that dusty, dirty, disheveled morass of a thing rises – somehow miraculously, incredulously – a magnificent star of beauty, grace, and boldly quiet dignity. The ugly duckling, Cinderella, Ashputtel, the hunchback of Notre Dame – all share a story of the underdog triumphing – showing that beauty does not come from the package wrapping, but from within – especially when confronted by a world that easily seems to accept first appearances and impressions.
Such is the case for the viral video of Susan Boyle, who in the end effortlessly quiets the judges – and the people – with her gift of song.
From the moment she walks on stage, everyone discounts her – especially when she talks about her dream, her dream to sing. Alone on stage, she chugs on – and as she sings the first words of the song she has chosen – it suddenly dawns on the judges – and the people – that hidden beneath this frumpy, old lady lies a most magnificent voice of immense beauty.
I can’t help but watch – and re-watch – the clip from Britain’s Got Talent…I’m totally mesmerized, and at the same time, uplifted. She has cemented, once again, the age-old adage to never judge a book by its cover, to never assume, to always see beyond the package and find what is truly beautiful.
I’m reminded of that line in the book, The Little Prince – “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Her triumphant audition is very life-affirming and inspiring – especially as my life seems to be full of troubled and trying situations.
I may not like it, but I have to believe that there is beauty underneath all of this – that in the end, something beautiful emerges. I just don’t know what now – a lesson learned, a skill enhanced – who knows. But eventually, I will.
Is it just me getting older? Or is it the current sad state of the world with the messy economy? Lately, I seem to be bouncing between highs and lows like a wanton roller coaster. Hmm, maybe I’m just reflecting Wall Street – one day the market is up, next day, the market is down.
As I grow older, I seem to feel that life’s peaks and valleys are coming at a more erratic, stuccato pace. I seem to think that during my younger days, there was less volatility from one phase to the next…that it was a little more even paced…
Or am I just going through hormonal changes now? There is such a thing as male menopause.
