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So, I think I’ve mentioned I started a new job a few weeks ago.  Thought I’d mention an interesting culture shift I’ve seen…  I’ve mentioned that I’m running at lunch now.  Most of my office does some sort of exercise at lunchtime.  For most of them, bicycling is the sweat-dripper of choice.  These guys go out for 16 mile rides, and then come back and sling code with the best of ’em. 

At my previous gig, lunchtime meant walking to a great restaurant in Bethesda and having interesting conversations.  Here, it means dripping with sweat and comparing stories as to great hills conquered or sports jelly beans (I want to get me some of those!).  Gotta admit, this way is cheaper, and might even lose me a few pounds in the meantime. 

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So, a few weeks ago I mentioned needing to run between 7 and 8.5 miles to hit my next milestone on the marathon plan.  I’m happy to say I ran 8 miles that day along the local trail.  That meant Saturday was a nine miler.  I got up in time to go out and beat the heat, but then, so did my son, and since my hubby’s never been one to go to bed earlier than way later than he should, didn’t seem quite kind to get him up so I could go run.  Cameron and I went for a walk instead.  Later in the day, though, when it was way too hot to be out pounding the trail, I did my 9 on the treadmill at the gym.  Boring, but effective. 

My marathon strategy is to recognize that I’m neither a fast runner, nor a great endurance runner.  I can, however, run for stints of time over and over again, so Galloway’s method of run/walk works by me.  At the moment, I’m a 6 minute run, 1 minute walk person, which puts me in at around 11 minute miles.  (I did mention I’m not fast.)  Since I just want to finish, preferably in under 5 hours, that puts me in good shape.  This upcoming Saturday is my first training run with the local running club.  I missed the cutoff date to get my entry bib into the Marine Corp marathon, but the local runners’ clubs have first-time marathoner entries.  Gotta suck up the 6:30 am start time, and the ten mile + training runs, though.

In the meantime, I’m running loops at work at lunchtime, making good use of that afore-mentioned shower in the ladies’ room.  The loop is 2 miles, with a nearly .5 mile trek to get there (with an almost .5 mile trek to get back).  By the end of the summer, I want to run the loop twice, getting me a 5 mile trek.  Short-term, I just want to run the loop itself without stopping.  (Closer today, but still walked on the uphill side.)

I like goals.  Running gives me goals, and accomplishments.  Given how slow/out of shape I am, I can pretty reasonably continue to set incremental goals, and with some work achieve them.  The upside to the side-effects of 3 pregnancies, too much beer, and too little exercise.

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7-8.5 miles tomorrow…  yikes.  I was driving back from Krispy Kreme tonight with the girls (today was National Doughnut Day, according to our favorite Krispy Kreme guy, Mr. Jeff), and was watching our van tell me how many more miles it could eke out on the last bit of its gas tank.  10 miles.  Which looked to be longer than the distance from Krispy Kreme to get back home, in terms of how the Sienna’s mileage meter was counting.  (Note that I stopped for gas before I got home, as I didn’t want to rely too heavily on that meter.)  Still a darn long distance, though one that I need to be able to run/walk by the 16th to go on a training run with the Striders and get my marathon entrance.  To make it to 10 by then, I’m supposed to run 7-8.5 tomorrow.  I did 6 last weekend: very slowly, iterating on running N minutes, walking 1 minute.  Starting to fathom just how much long a 5 hour marathon is…..

 

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My princess-savvy girls have discovered Lego Star Wars, the XBox game.  They’re too young to watch the Star Wars movies, but they make those Lego parts fly with their light sabers.  And, of course, they fight over who gets to be Princess Amadala.  Even better is when they’re BOTH the Princess…  all sorts of confusion ensues.

Peek at some screenshots here…

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A sign that I work in a male-dominated field: the ranking guy at my new office had to send out an e-mail to the guys in the office.  He told them that that since their newest hire is female, the gents would no longer be able to commandeer the ladies’ room to use the shower there after their lunchtime bike rides.  Sheesh….  I’m used to being in the minority, but this is amusingly out there.

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Take a quick look over on Dice’s Rant Room… These folks are competing for a “a maxed-out Alienware Area-51® m9750 Notebook.”, and hopefully not raising the wrath of their HR departments, or their potential employers.

One that amused….
jumpcut movie:They wont talk to me!

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Interesting perks of my job of late:

– seeing us on Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network in banner ads, and part of the SpongeBob Friend or Foe episode sponsorship.
– knowing that we’re in Best Buy (search ‘kajeet’ on BestBuy.com) and LimitedToo (again, search ‘kajeet’ on LimitedToo.com)
– We were in the WashingtonPost: my boss is the guy holding the cellphone
– We were on CBS News (!) tonight. See clips ‘Eye to Eye: Kids Go Mobile‘ and ‘Marketing Cellphones to Kids‘ (note that we’re the good guys at the end of this clip looking at all the bad things that happen in the market of selling cellphones to kids).
All very cool, and nowhere near anything I’ve had at previous jobs. I’ve been there a bit over a year, and seen us grow (sniff, sniff) from an idea / architecture to an operational system. My part in it? Based on some stats run against our code-base, approximately 28% of the code, or some 125,000 lines of code. (Note that I didn’t run the stat tool and count the numbers highly suspicious. That said, I’m holding onto the email that says ‘She is personally responsible for more than 125,000 lines of custom kajeet code, all written while leading a team of engineers, managing collaboration with Marketing and Product Development/Management, and interacting with half a dozen vendors.’ )

The sad part is that I’m leaving kajeet for pastures closer to home. The commute is killing me (running about an hour and a quarter each way for me in Beltway traffic, since I don’t live that close to Bethesda). That said, that leaves a wonderful opportunity for someone to come and fill my shoes. (No pressure here, looking at those stats above.) Cool job: Java technologies, interesting frameworks, agile development, smart team members, and a focus on building stuff that’s really going to get used. There’s no shelf-ware here: something you build today will hit the production system and be used by customers within a matter of weeks. Those Best Buy customers will be using YOUR stuff. Those CBS news viewers will be checking out YOUR stuff.

Check a job posting for a software engineer at kajeet. Multiple positions being hired, on a variety of skill levels. But it’s a good snapshot of the technologies and platforms in use.

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Peeking through the local community college’s summer course catalog, a few classes jumped out that would seem to not be quite as useful when taken online.

‘Hypnosis, the Magic of’, whose course description includes “Learn to use hypnotic suggestion on yourself and others”. Look into my blue screen… you are getting sleepy..

‘Get Funny’, whose course description includes “Write one-liners, use physical humor and find ways to target your audience.” Oh, that ctrl-alt-delete combo gets me every time!

And my personal favorite: ‘Goodbye to Shy’: “Become more confident in social, professional and romantic situations. Learn how to interact with and relate easily to others” – so long as all interactions are via the computer. Hey, babe: I find your typing quite sexy. Can I buy you a PayPal credit?

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Ever considered building a house for a giraffe?  Stop for just a moment and think about it.  Long neck, long legs.  What kinds of things would a giraffe find comfortable?  How does it get in?  What does it do with itself inside the house?  Does it have a favorite room color?

Question of the day, courtesy of my boss, who uses just such questions to try to throw interviewees a curve ball and see what their thought process is.  So, start thinking about that giraffe house if you want to come work with kajeet.  And people with giraffe houses shouldn’t throw… giraffe poo?

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Another EBF (Emergency Bug Fix) night. I hate ’em. Hate deployments in general, in fact, if I’ve already got a system up and running. The model that came to mind tonight: systems are like Rubik’s cubes. You can get yourself in a lot of trouble if you try to make that one last cube line up right.