Man I needed this week to end.
Babies aren’t sleeping. Work is non-stop. Even hanging out with friends feels like this epic trade off between staying in touch, and falling further behind.
I’m just looking forward to 2 days with the babies, and getting to hit the reset button.
Now here’s to 8 hours of sleep :-/
On Tuesday, I was really excited about NC State’s chances in the NCAA tournament.
This is one of my favorite times of year. I used to watch a ton of basketball, and spend hours staring at my brackets as they turned more and more red. Even with all of the crap my family throws at each other, the NCAA tournament was the one thing that kept us together. And, last year or the year before, I finally won!
Not this year.
Not when those kids couldn’t hit a damn free throw to save their lives.
Not when I’m sitting on the West Coast without a single person giving a damn about the games. It’s so hard to get into it on your own. 5 people signed up for the office pool :-/
I swore I wasn’t going to let 18 year old kids bug me this much. College sports is an epic case of exploitation and obsession. But Tuesday left me feeling so damn good, and tonight I can’t even open ESPN to check the scores because I’m so damn depressed.
Oh well, there’s always next year 🙁
I met with a cool cat today for some coffee. We were introduced by Jason (check out this post), and talked about being a PM, what that means, how to represent oneself well on a resume, and the like.
I told him about a role we’re looking for that involves a lot of storytelling, and it made me realize how hard it is to represent storytelling as a thing on a resume.
I remember last year when I was hiring the first two folks that I found how I’d talk to pretty much every resume that came through just to get a read on whether I liked the person or not. I think the reason was as simple as I had no idea what to look for in a resume.
Since, I’ve realized that the value of a resume is mainly in understanding how people see themselves. When you challenge someone on a role that is labeled as Project Manager applying for a Product Manager job, then they can immediately bring up points that had nothing to do with moving a ticket between working and complete. And yet, they took a job called Project Manager, and didn’t think about the label that that put on them.
Byrne told me once that the role at TokBox let him re-establish how he marketed himself for the future. That’s a really forward looking approach to taking a step back, and then being able to jump into a gig knowing what you’re hoping it does for you.
In that regard, titles are really important regardless of what other folks in Silicon Valley may say. It has nothing to do with who you are, and yet everything to do with who you could end up being.
So back to the point – whether your resume says it or not, if you’re a great storyteller, who can speak developer, and help folks fall in love with a real-time communication platform, then let me know.
In search of storytellers 🙂
Big sports day today. One big win, and one big loss.
Galatasaray were not the story for this game. It was all about Didier Drogba returning to Stamford Bridge. And he played awfully. And the whole team was awful as well. It was a really shit game, and it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
Why put up a second half like you did in Istanbul to play like this in London? Just give up early so we can enjoy a goal fest. It was really awful. I was ashamed to dress Luka in Galatasaray colors after the game. Until there’s a reason to change, he’s now a Besiktas kid.
And then came the good game!
We just dominated. There was a period in the 2nd half where Xavier made a run, but we took care of business, and that was that. I think this team could do some really amazing things. I’ve picked them to go all the way in my family bracket. I’ve got an ’83 like feeling.
Go Pack!
I came home at midnight. The babysitter headed out. This post is Monday’s post, but it’s written in the future because… we had a lot of St. Patrick’s Day fun today 🙂
This morning I totally forgot it was St. Patrick’s Day. No matter. I took the kids to school without green, and I showed up without green at the office. It was particularly bad since I sent out an email imploring folks to wear green to celebrate. Oops!
Sierra ordered corn beef sandwiches and Guinness beer for lunch. Very stereotypical of us!
Mike saved me with a Celtic shirt, and so the day wasn’t too much of a disaster 🙂
Trey is in town, and he came over to see the house. I took him out to dinner at Nopalito. Holy smokes EVERYTHING was spicy. AND I saw a huge rat in their back patio area… I think :-/
I’d definitely go back though 🙂
Trey had been up all day, and so I got him back to his hotel, and headed up to Maggie McGrary’s to see Mike’s band play. I hung out with Jelena, and had a blast. I even had a Magner’s Cider! I really love that stuff. It’s just fancy apple juice after all 🙂
For this old fogey/dad who never gets out, it was an awesome night.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Not a lot of sleep. Micky being in NYC fills the whole house with weird creaks, and this strange sensation that every noise is someone out to get me (or maybe I’ve watched too much Burn Notice…).
The week ended well, and the weekend was even better. Saturday was good family bonding. Sunday was good bonding with the Green family. It’s really fun to just let the kids go wild in the backyard or in the park. It’s also really interesting to see different kids blooming and becoming people across their very short lifetimes.
The magic of today may actually have been NC State getting into the NCAA tournament. I’m picking them to go all the way baby! I love this time of year just for that. Let’s see if there’s magic to this team (feels like an ’83 kind of year).
On to the next one 🙂
I just dropped off the check to our CPA to pay for his services. I really like the guy, but the results have been a bit brutal lately. Getting smart about finances and money management has been hard for us.
We’ve nailed budgets in Mint (what an awesome tool. I really wish they’d hired me sometimes).
We’re finally saving again post house acquisition.
But man oh man I don’t understand taxes at all, and I don’t get how to optimize for them. I really wish there was a dummies guide to living in Silicon Valley, getting Silicon Valley wages, and still feeling like the tax code isn’t screwing you. I guess the title is too long to fit onto the cover of the book though :-p
Eric stepped in and gave us a low down of what to do this year… which is really nice, but we learned the lesson two years too late.
Oh man this growing up thing can suck.
Today so many good things have happened.
Micky came home last night, and we went out to breakfast as a family. The kids had their chocolate pancakes. We had our breakfast foods. And then we dropped the babies off at school. It was a really nice family breakfast (even though I spilled iced tea all over myself).
I had a fun lunch with Betsy (and even though she’s leaving, we laughed anyway).
I had a good outbound event.
I had a good bit of news.
And then I finally got to come home to Micky for the first time this week, and that was really great.
A good work week, and definitely one to remember.
My 12th grade English teacher had us build a writing portfolio of our life’s work up through high school. I told her mine was going to be digital, and that I was going to write it all up as a web page.
I very distinctly remember her telling me that that was a horrible idea. Years later when others still had theirs, I’d wish I still had mine.
I don’t know why this came back to me. Maybe as I’ve been writing, I’ve been thinking a lot about if I’ve improved or not. I read a lot of writing at work, and I challenge that folks can be good writers without editing, writing, and improving in a vicious loop.
And so, with Mrs. H’s voice in my head, I went out to find my old writing portfolio, and it was incredibly easy to do so. It’s sitting exactly where it did 11 years ago when I turned it in.
And you can find it here.
I’ve decided that I need to make a very serious effort to get out, and see folks.
I’m really awful at that. But I’m going to change it. Sometimes, I’ll get to include the babies. Other times, it will be about leaving the office, and not seeing the babies that night. Tonight was one of those nights.
Micky out of town. Genevieve had the babies. And Meg and I made a dash to see “The Monument Men” at the Kabuki Theater. It wasn’t a good movie. But dinner before hand at The Grove Fillmore was a blast. And we just spent the car ride home making fun of folks we both know.
Today was a good night. The first of many because it’s time for me to really start focusing on getting out again.
This is going to be hard 🙁