What’s Next?

Well, recent events have me wondering if I need to worry about hot hail or locusts coming next.

First came the winter storms full of large amounts of snow, ice, snow, rain and more snow. We had a grand total of about 20 inches of snow here in the South Puget Sound area of Washington state. This was highly unusual and broke all records. And it was very cold on top of that, which made for some miserable snow shoveling episodes.

To add to the fun, since this was so unusual for the area, there was virtually nothing effective done to clear to the roads. For several days, the roads were solid ice, except for the areas where the ice had broken forming pot holes. Driving on this excuse for a road surface was an exercise in skill, luck, and probably stupidity. Better to stay home and wait it out. But taking pictures of the beautiful scenes was a must.

After a few weeks of this winter wonderland, the temperature rose and the snow began to melt. All seemed well. Until too much melting started to happen in the mountains. Several feet of snow had fallen, and now it was melting and pouring into many of the rivers in the area, which began to rise at an alarming rate. This coincided with the jetstream pointing a firehose of rain in our direction. So, for the second time in a little over a year, we had another 500 year flood.

Most of the interstates, and small roads were closed in this part of the state. Getting to work was again an exciting adventure, best avoided for those with brains and a cable modem. However, even the damaging floods had their own particular beauty.

Eventually, the rains abated, the waters receded, and life is again returning to normal. But someone said that things like this come in threes. So I watch the skies, and listen to the trees, wondering what fun nature has in store for our little part of the world. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be filled with beauty, wonder, and maybe some more excitement.

Change

Everyone believes that change is good. The mantra of “change” is heard throughout corporate boardrooms, political halls, and living rooms across the land. Yet, when change comes to sit in their laps, it is often looked upon like a snotty, sticky child at Christmas. You can’t get too mad, but you want it kept at arms length.

One project I worked on that really brought this home was an upgrade of a warehouse operations application. It was used by a few hundred users in a large corporation, with the users located in diverse locations around the country. The legacy application was Microfocus Cobol based, and had some lovely, colorful ANSI screens. It had been in place for many years, and was reviled by all who used it.

Management decided to upgrade to a wonderful new version of the application done in the client server genre, with a new fangled (at the time) Microsoft SQL Server database on the backend.

All seemed poised for grand success.

However, when the end users were shown the new application, complete with tab interfaces, drop downs, and many of the other now standard bits of a Windows application, they balked like children being asked to clean their rooms on a Saturday morning. Some had to actually find their mouse, which was often buried under stacks of dusty yellowed reports from years gone by.

So as we allowed our test group to use the application, the bug reports piled up, and the manager’s faces frowned sternly at me. Somehow, I had to not only get the application installed and working, manage the vendor, and manage the project, but also be the corporate ambassador for this new technology.

Being the creative sort, I faced the grumbly voicemails and fussy faces with a bit of cheer and some distraction. First, I created a fancy full color booklet, spending a few evenings stapling the copies together. Then I got management on board with the concept of a change management team. This team included some of the fussiest grumblers. We made them feel special, part of a team, and truly listened to their feedback, addressing what we could, and explaining what we couldn’t.

We did some multimedia presentations, which we put on special floppy disks – which are probably collectors items these days. I even put on some “trade shows” in the different city locations, demonstrating the application, and showing how it would make life easier for people.

In the end, though one or two remained highly dubious of the endeavor, most saw the wisdom of accepting this new change. The application was rolled out, and when I revisited the company after an absence of seven years, still in use.

The right presentations, and training documents helped make the project a success in every location.

Change is often desired, but it’s never easy. With a lot patience, courage, and a bit of luck though, it often delivers on the hype.

Spring Thaw

When I moved to the Northwest, it was late spring. I had heard all about how it rains here so much that the people are permanently depressed. My first six months here put that rumor to rest.

Bright blue skies, long days of sunshine with clear air. It made my eyes, used to the hazy atmosphere of the industrialized east coast, hurt. But I quickly adjusted to the wonder of seeing the colors in their full hues.

And then came fall, and the rains began. Slowly at first, then the sun was gone from view and the land was plunged into the mushy moist grayness of my first northwest winter.

We had a few snows, much more in the high mountains of course, and some icy days. But mostly rain in all it’s forms. And cold. The wetness of the air makes the cold all the more penetrating, and the fireplace all the more appreciated.

But yesterday, the sun emerged from it’s long vacation, heating the ground and skin. I spent a few hours working on the motorcycle, changing the oil and getting her ready for another year of riding. The accident last year put a huge damper on my riding. It was another form of winter, taking me longer to heal mentally than physically. I’ll be updating my motorcycle blog again with nice rides and pictures, I hope.

So now my dormant muscles have that pleasant ache that comes from working outside, washing cars, cleaning up the gopher mounds, and a myriad of other things done while the sun warmed the land.

So, no it doesn’t rain ALL the time here in the northwest, but the winters rains and snows make for a much appreciated, and anticipated, spring thaw.

Leaping Days

Our various ways of tracking the passage of time have always been a source of fascination for me. How our clock has 60 seconds, 60 minutes. And the calendar, being oh so close to 360 days. It must have frustrated the ancients to have those 5 extra days in there. Everything would have been much more orderly if the world just had a slightly tighter orbit around the sun.

Today is of course “leap day” which happens once every 4 years or so. It is a source of consternation for anyone who has written a calendar type program, since it’s not always every 4 years. This makes 2008 an “intercalary” year, while 2009 will just be a “common” year. I hope 2008 feels special.
Not every calendar solves the problem of 365.25 days per year in the same fashion. For example the Iranian calendar uses 8 leap days every 33 years. The Hebrew and Chinese calendars use the concept of a leap month. And the Islamic calendar doesn’t even bother with a leap day or month. They simply move the dates of holy days 11 days earlier every year.

As for the Gregorian calendar, even with this correction, the calendar drifts – every 8,000 years, the vernal equinox will be one day earlier. I guess that in several thousand years, assuming we aren’t living back in caves fearful of bears and lions, our progeny may have to make some kind of correction that will be talked about for days on their version of cable news.

There are also many folks tales associated with this day. Women may only propose marriage during a leap year. Supposedly, Queen Margaret of Scotland in 1288 even issued an edict that men who refused marriage during a leap year should pay a fine, ranging from a kiss to 1 pound, to a fine gown. In order to give men a chance to avoid such a predicament, women were supposedly required to wear a red petticoat on the day they went to pitch woo.

Heaven knows what crazy rules people will make up in the next 6,000 years. I just hope they are ready to handle two leap days in the year 8,000. I doubt anyone is programming for that now, so I’m sure in the year 7,999 there will be much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth as developers rush to fix the Y8K problem. It’s always something when you’re dealing with time.

Beginnings

Traveling down a new road always requires taking a first step, and so SpringBird.com now has a whole new look, and somewhat different purpose. While the site has existed in various forms over the years, just as the company has, I’ll now use it as both blog and marketing tool.

I started SpringBird about 7 years ago as a part time project. More as a hobby to see what consulting was all about. Rather like dipping one’s toe in the cool lake water on a spring morning, just to get an idea of how shocking it might feel to dive right in. Then last year, I decided that I was ready to embark on my own course, free from the shackles of the cubicle culture.

It has been a learning experience.

And just like diving into the cold lake water, it has its pain and rewards. Worry about security - which always was an illusion anyway, even in the big corporations. Parents calling from time to time to make sure I’m “all right”, even though I’ve been away from home for 25 years, and still look reasonable well fed.

On the other side of the scale, is the indescribable feeling of being in charge of one’s life. Sure, there are risks, but that’s what life is all about. Clichés and famous quotes aside, it is really a great truth that if you’re not risking something, you’re not alive.