Yet Another New Chapter In My Life

My life has, so far, been a simple one from my perspective. I pretty much fly along whatever path life takes while making minor course corrections as I go and think it is necessary. It’s kind of funny because I often go through life like I am having one long 39-year out-of-body experience. I see things happening as though I am watching them happen to someone else. I have always lead my life as honest and kind to others as I could be. Not because I am religious, I am far from that, but because it just feels right.

Unfortunately I get taken advantage of a lot and that is too bad. I don’t lie to people because, first of all it’s not fair, and also because I have a crappy memory and I don’t want to waste my brain cells trying to remember what I said to whom. It is much easier just to tell the truth all the time and not worry about it. That said, I am not going to say things that will hurt other people. Sometimes you can leave out details and let people jump to their own conclusions without actually having to say anything.

That is another thing, I listen a lot. Some people talk WAY too much. It’s like they just want to hear themselves talk. I can’t even count the number of times I almost said something and decided not to and it turned out that I was very glad I kept my mouth shut.

In business I have found that being a good listener is one of the most valuable traits you could ever have. I sit in meetings all the time where two people are talking and they are both saying the exact same thing but arguing right and left about it because they don’t listen to what each other is saying.

Anyways, I’m rambling on but the point is that things just happen to me. It’s like the laws of attraction operate in my favor because I generally always have positive energy. Take work, which is basically the main topic of this post. When I was going to college I was working with my dad in construction during the summer and with a computer store during the winter. I put myself through college, books, tuition, everything. It was hard, and it took a long time to pay back the student loans, but I did it. When I got out of college and started the other half of my university transfer program at U of C, I was literally out of money and starving. I was only able to get about a year and a half into my two year program before I had to get a “real job” and neglect to finish my degree.

My first IT job was at a computer store as a technician. It came naturally to me and I enjoyed working with computers and dealing with the public. After a few months I was promoted to “Saturday Manager” which didn’t sit will with some of the other people that were there for a lot longer than me. Still, I took on the responsibility with gusto and did a very good job of it. When I had any spare time I was cleaning up the place and organizing things so we could be more efficient. Well all good things must come to an end and we found out that we were going to be bought out by a big US company.

As that boat started shaking I got a call from a college buddy that was working for a small software company downtown. They needed a new system administrator and thought I might be interested. Naturally I took the job right away and moved on to the next chapter of my life while the computer store went out of business (the buyout never happened). The new job was not too bad and they had a pretty relaxed environment. Although the pay wasn’t that great there was a lot of room for advancement. Within a year I was talking to my boss letting him know that being a sysadmin was not my main goal in life and that I wanted to take advantage of my education and get into programming. I got the speech about how they don’t pigeon hole people and that as long as I could find someone to fill my position they would be glad to have another good developer on staff.

As my eight and a half year career with the company went on, I quickly grew. People above me left and I climbed up the ranks to where I was doing project management, business analysis and technical sales support with my good friend and co-worker, Bill, who just so happened to be the guy that originally hired me at the computer store when I was going to college. I ended up suggesting to my boss that we hire him when the computer store went under.

My best friend since grade three, Chris, also joined our company after some nagging from me for a couple years. The three of us were an awesome team and we got a lot of work into the company. Again, things don’t last forever and one of the partners that owned the company got cancer and passed away. The remaining partner in the company, my boss, had a lot of legal crap to deal with and the boat started shaking pretty good. Work began to dry up too and we had to let a lot of good people go. That is when I got this crazy idea to start my own software company.

After a lot more nagging I convinced Chris to join me and we started our own software company. It was awesome, we worked hard, treated our clients with respect and did a good job. The company grew over 6 years to 17 people including Chris and I. We were getting a lot of work, but we were not charging enough and our capital and operational costs were way too high. With a tearful goodbye we were forced to close the office, sell off everything and let all our employees go. We were originally going to file for bankruptcy but found out that is more expensive than just paying the debt ourselves. That and I also believe that when you make your bed you need to sleep in it. We got into this mess ourselves and it is our responsibility to get out of it ourselves.

So began another chapter in my life. Down to just the two of us, I raised our rates up to where they should be and we both got a decent amount of work contracting. I was working for the Airport on a contract doing Project Management work and it was really a great job. I got along with everyone and enjoyed all the interesting technology I was involved with. Yet again, it didn’t last. The amount of work they had for me got very slim and due to some major construction projects over the next 10 – 20 years and the recession they were trimming budgets right and left. Turns out I would probably have nothing much to do for the rest of this year and very little if anything next year. With a house and a young family to support, panic was setting in. I had resumes out everywhere and went to a couple interviews, but nothing much came out of it. That is, until one of the vendors that we dealt with at the airport invited me for lunch.

This is getting to be a very long story, but anyway he offered me an incredible opportunity in his company as a Senior Business Analyst. I just finished my first week there and so far I am very impressed. This, I think will be one of the most exciting chapters in my work life. The company produces a Geographic Information System (think Google Maps, but for both outside and inside buildings). Something I am very interested in, and I look forward to learning a lot more about.

For those who are wondering, the software company we started is still fully operational but my time and effort towards the company is much more limited than it was.

Technorati Tags: Enlightenment,Focus,Positive Thinking,Technology,The Secret,Law Of Attraction

The Priceless Value of a Photograph

Here is something that we have all heard before in some form or another, but I feel is important to be reminded of on a regular basis.

I was recently reminded by a good friend’s post on Facebook regarding his grandmother, about how priceless a photograph is.  He posted a series of photographs from when his grandmother was younger.  As I looked through the images I thought to myself how many memories would be completely forgotten if people had not taken pictures.

The first photograph was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce titled “View from the Window at Le Gras”. Since then things have changed, technology has advanced and millions and millions of pictures have been taken.  There are many moments in history that were captured in photographs.  Families all over the world clicked away and took pictures of themselves, their children and families as they grew and experienced life.  Photojournalists took pictures of famous events, politicians, wars, celebrities, celebrations, sports, and local news events.  Without those pictures the only historical records we would have are what people wrote.  Obviously you can’t always trust what people write and the visual reference of a photograph makes a big difference… that is until the invention of Adobe Photoshop. 

Motivated to write this post, I decided to go through some of my own old photographs.  I was just going to grab one or two old shots to stick in this post and the coolest thing happened.  My two young boys (5 and 6) came in to see what I was doing.  They started looking at the old pictures with me and it was really cute.  My oldest son, Tony, saw a picture of me when I had long hair, glasses and a moustache and he said “who is that?”  I laughed and said it was daddy when I was younger.  He gave me a strange look and said “you look like a bad Elvis!”.  My wife and I laughed so hard we were crying.

I hope you all go out and take lots and lots of pictures.  They don’t necessarily have to be good pictures, but capture those moments, those places, those people.  It is so important for the future, for yourself and for your family and those that follow years and years down the road.

Technorati Tags: Artistic Expression,Blogging,Calgary,Creativity,Photography

Schools Kill Creativity

I was at work today and none of my usual friends/co-workers were available for lunch so I decided to sit in my office with the headphones on and watch one of the TED talks on my laptop. 

If you haven’t heard of TED before you are seriously missing out on some incredible conferences on Technology, Entertainment, and Design.  You can read more about TED on their website, but here is a quick quote from their site…

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

The main reason for this post is the fact that the particular talk that I listened to today was by Sir Ken Robinson who is a creativity expert and led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education.  He was even knighted in 2003 for his achievements.  There is more about him on the TED website, but his talk titled “Schools Kill Creativity” was really amazing.  He is an excellent speaker, very intelligent and an extremely funny man with his dry British sense of humor.

This particular talk by Sir Robinson brings to light some very interesting ideas in that education throughout the years teaches people to focus on only the left side of their brain under the common misconception that you can never get a good job or make any real money unless you get a degree or even better a master’s degree or a PHD.  Think about it, the way it works out is that the “A” students end up teaching the “B” students to work for “C” students.  Your laughing right now aren’t you, because it is so true.  I hope you can spare the time to listen to the entire talk as people really need to open their eyes and change the way they look at education.  Without creativity we can’t solve the world’s most complex problems.  We have all heard the term “Thinking outside of the box”, and really what that means is to use some creativity to solve the problem.

Technorati Tags: TED,Art,Digital,Enlightenment,Positive Thinking,Technology,Creativity,Design

Ring Tones

I just upgraded my Nero software for burning CDs and DVDs and it came with a bonus program called Mediashop RingPlus 3.0. Not a program I would have actually purchased, but since I got it for free I tried it out.

I have always wanted to have the closing theme from my favorite podcast TWiT as my ringtone and now I do...

Unbelievable Dining at a Fair Price

Today I had the pleasure of dining at a relatively obscure restaurant in Calgary called “Avocado Restaurant and Lounge” with President & Co-Founder Troy Miller.

This family owned restaurant markets itself as Urban – Mexican and is a very unique concept in Calgary.  Troy told me his story about how he started out at age 24 with a Wendy’s fast food restaurant.  By the time he got tired of the fast food thing he and his brother owned four Wendy’s restaurants.  They wanted to get out of fast food, but they were not interested in moving into the upscale Earls and Joey Tomatoes market.  The way Troy describes his concept is a nice sit-down restaurant with fast food service.  A great place for lunch, you can be in and out in 30 minutes. 

He and his brother came up with all the recipes themselves after traveling around Mexico tasting different Mexican style food.  They were unable to find anything that quite fit in with what they wanted to serve at their new restaurant so they came up with their own unique dishes and incredible flavors.  There is nothing at Avocado that is bland, everything on the menu is a mouth full of flavors that leaves you feeling satisfied.  The portions are generous and the number of items on the menu is just right to provide variety, yet not leave you with too many decisions.  I had the “Ranchero Fajita Burrito” with a tossed salad and the restaurants own avocado dressing.  All the food is made fresh and it was wonderful.  With the first bite my mouth was watering and looking forward to the next.

The decor I would describe as modern with a South American flair.  While I was there they were playing the movie “The Three Amigos” with Steve Martin being projected on the white wall above the bar.

The current location that has been open for four years is just across from IKEA on Heritage Meadows Way S.E.  Troy is very busy right now with the planning and construction for three other locations including the soon to open 17th avenue location.

If your in the mood for something a little different to spice up your life then I highly recommend you dine at Avocado.

 

Technorati Tags: Avocado,Restaurant,Food,Mexican,Calgary