The Dog Jumps-הכלב קופץ » Work

Challenging the Hierarchy

Nathan — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 01:33:06 +0000

Dogs will always attempt to become higher than you in the pack order. You have to sometimes physically remind them you are more important than they are. If you do not, they they start to nip, fight, even bite you. Just watch an episode of Cesar Millan and you will see that 99% of the [...]

Why Focus on Process?

Nathan — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:24:56 +0000

If you are taking a moment to read this short blog post, you might want to first detour out of here to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_command_system.

Ok, back? That is the nearly universal Incident Command System and most anyone schooled in the area of rescue, search, disaster management, etc… will be familiar with it. My first exposure to [...]

5 Tips for Helping Guide Technical Decisions

Nathan — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:32:01 +0000

Here are 5 technical ideals that we should make sure all of our work conforms to and how they each support your local Value Proposition.

Support the Value Proposition – Yes! You thought the first one would be anything but? Make sure your work supports the Value Proposition! If this isn’t clear take a moment [...]

Starting Point in Teaching PMO Processes

Nathan — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:17:25 +0000

The primary issue being how do you create a very domain specific document for people who are not immersed in the domain? To that end I have created a this diagram. It is impossible to intrudice a domain without domain language, if this is so new to you that you are lost, please drop me [...]

Maine Canine News

Slobbie — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:26:22 +0000

Hi Ellie,

Happy Passover! Just had some Matzo..it was plain..would have preferred some peanut butter with it.

Sorry it has taken so long to write but I cannot get to the computer without you being here. Cart and I miss you and so does Harlow. She says you were so much fun to annoy and [...]

Snowland

Ellie — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 20:47:02 +0000

Hi Dad,

Thanks for the food and treats! Sorry I haven’t written. Just been really busy dealing with winter. Guess G_Mom told you we were all sick and just staying in bed for several days. Better now! I hurt my thigh doing Wii Yoga, so I had to behave for several days. It really fooled [...]

Magic Makes the Rules Obsolete

Nathan — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 22:40:21 +0000

It was the start of 2009. I had managed to sell my house in Hoboken in an incredible down market for a serious multiple above what I paid for it, I managed to bargain down the new place to a reasonable cost, I had an exit strategy from a stagnant job and was in the [...]

Working with Constraints

Nathan — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 02:30:37 +0000

Working without constraints is not really that much fun and while we all think, at times, that it would be easier if only we had X, Y, Z, having it all causes a whole host of other issues. Moreover, the tighter the parameters on a project the more fun it can be to solve the [...]

Résumé & CV

Nathan — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:25:03 +0000

Senior Information Technology Leader

Strategy • Operations • Development • Implementation

Information technology professional with 19 years of experience leading the design, development, and implementation of business software and infrastructure. Frequently leading projects that are critical to business success and high profile in both startups and mature corporations. Advanced technical acuity [...]

Structure of the Startup?

Nathan — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:09:48 +0000

I have been thinking a bit about how you structure the start up of today. This also includes older companies looking to bring the best of the startup mentality onboard for rebirth. Maybe we can call this re-starting-up? There are a couple problems that I think are valid in my current position that have made [...]

Zoology to Dev: Lessons in Learning & Teaching

Nathan — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:45:08 +0000

I get asked a lot about why I have a background in Zoology (particularly, marine and even more particularly, neuroscience) but now work in IT. It is a little hard to describe quickly, especially since this question is often asked by an HR representative over the phone as part of an interview.

To answer this [...]

Some Notes on Agile

Nathan — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 20:51:44 +0000

The purpose of this post is to give a very short template of what each project should do to work in the Agile framework and with Rally (our project mgmt tool). Now that a lot of you have had some exposure to Rally and Agile this seems like a logical next step.

To start: a [...]

Wicked Good ‘Hi Ellie’

Slobbie — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:58:41 +0000

Hi Ellie,

My Mom is at work and this new computer that your Dad brought her is very easy to work. Mom leaves it on and uses it a lot more. We can hear and see Katie now and that is so much fun. Harlow sits next to Mom and watches Katie on the computer [...]

Currency Collection

Nathan — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:21:11 +0000

A little trinket of my travels augmented by a couple friendly additions can be found on the inside cover my my work portfolio – by Il Bisonte of course, now mass market crap here (and by that I mean Gucci, Prada, Fendi, LV, etc…). Also in there are my tickets to Petra and the Prado. [...]

Blow’ In The Wind

Ellie — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:25:14 +0000

Dad, have to make this quick…power goes on and off! We are also surrounded by flood water. This has been an unbelievable 24 hours. 60-70 miles an hour winds and things blowing everywhere and hitting the house. Don’t worry I protected everyone. G_Mom made us go out in the wind and rain to use the [...]

Slobbie – Gate

Ellie — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:40:38 +0000

Well Dad I think I am off the Doggie Crap List. Why you ask? Well I was sick and tired of hearing G_Mom give Slobbie the same lecture every single morning that G-Mom works.

Each work day, G_Mom comes out of her room after getting dressed for work and that is my clue to go [...]

India Week One

Nathan — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:57:15 +0000

CTS is organized well. In addition to the teams technical abilities, they meet me each day, assigned me a driver to make sure I got to where I needed to go, brought me food, and generally took good care of me.

The only downside, and this applies to everywhere I have been so far, is [...]

India Here I Come!

Nathan — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:05:08 +0000

In about 36 hours I will leave for Bangalore, India. This will be my first trip to India and my first trip to Asia that isn’t the Middle East. I am very excited to be traveling to meet the folks that I work with each day at CTS, see some of Southern India, and then [...]

Snowcationland

Ellie — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:46:50 +0000

Hi Dad,

Just woke up form a nap and it is still snowing! It stopped for a little while last night but this is great. SNOWCATIONLAND. G-Mom promised that I would have snow and she delivered. Slobbie says that G_Mom has nothing to do with getting it to snow. She says that Kevin Mannix makes [...]

Busted…Doggie Porn?

Ellie — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:24:30 +0000

Dad, I am in big trouble and have had my computer privileges removed for an unspecified amount of time. G-Mom caught me surfing the net and I was looking at a web site called whitehouse.com for doggies. Honest Dad, I thought I was reading about the White house, you know where the President and his [...]

My Ducati is Gonna Kill Me

Nathan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:59:25 +0000

And not in the way you think! A letter of complaint about my lemon.

My 749Dark is parked in front of Corsa Motor Sports. It is locked up. My friend josh who lives nearby will drop over with the key to the ignition and the lock.

The brief history of this bike is that is [...]

5 Lessons on The Hard Work of Web Dev

Nathan — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:08:56 +0000

I have been thinking a lot about leanness & productivity both on the staffing side and on the technology side. How do you get that super cool content driven website up quickly with all the features you want and not have it cost a fortune? One of the first things I think about is how [...]

Comments on Public Clouds

Nathan — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:06:26 +0000

An interesting article appeared in the press this morning. This redux is that the three major public clouds from Amazon, Google & Microsoft are not up to enterprise or even near enterprise levels in terms of SLA, monitoring, and performance.

This is not really news for those of us who have “played around” with these [...]

Apps & Servers In The Cloud

Nathan — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:39:57 +0000

In the last 6 months I have spent time figuring out how to get java applications running in the cloud – EC2, private, or otherwise. While there seems to be a great deal of progress in making this easier for me as the developer/deployer there still seems to be a problem with the way many [...]

Slobbie

Nathan — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:35:29 +0000

My given name is Slowbow and I am a beautiful buff cocker spaniel that lives in Maine. However my friends call me Slobbie. My days are fairly predictable but busy. Originally I was an only dog, but my mother felt I needed a sibling because being an only dog was spoiling me. So we adopted [...]