Family Man, Support & Software Engineer
My newest piece of WordPress swag arrived in the mail the other day, and I love it.
I think this is my favourite one yet because I can wear it everyday. When I go out I almost always wear a hat. I have a couple I alternate but I haven’t worn any other one besides this since it got here.
If you want one there are still some left at http://freedomzero.org/. Thanks Nick! It made it here crazy fast after I ordered and he threw in a Wapuu keychain.
This morning I had one awesome view down at the marsh. The most rising up like a dog and the ducks swimming around. Not another soul around.
Then I came home and was taking the garbage to the road. I opened the shed and there was a huge spider standing in the door way not moving. I wish I had of our something in the picture for scale.
This morning I finally did it. I’ve been saying for a long time that I needed to get out running again. Having not been feeling well, and then going on vacation I kept putting it off. I decided last night it was time. Still I managed to stay in bed later than I planned but I got up and went for a run.
Well most people in their right mind wouldn’t call it a run. It was pretty bad. I was very slow and didn’t go very far, but I did it. Now to work to make it a habit again. In a few months time I am going to get to meet my team again and the rest of the company as well. As part of that there are usually lots of fitness activities like morning runs etc and I want to be able to participate. Not to mention I have to get up in front of a bunch of them and give a flash talk. That is going to be hard enough for me, I may as well look my best when I do it.
It was a beautiful morning for being out at the marsh though.
This afternoon, together with a bunch of friends and family, we headed to the shore. The beach is a all rocks and is at Scot’s Bay on the Bay of Fundy. The tides are huge and as we were getting there it was on it’s way out. It doesn’t take long before there is a long walk to get to the water.
It is a wonderful place to spend the afternoon. We had a fire which we used to cook hot dogs for lunch and then roast marshmallows for s’mores afterwards. The kids love playing together running around. Digging in the rocks, collecting shells and playing in the water.
There was an installation of Uncommon Common Art there which was very cool. The artist, Genny Killin, created an installation called What was Left Behind: Ribs. It is the ribs of a ship made from recycled cans. In the past there have been some installations with this project that I didn’t appreciate but most, including this one, are really neat to come across.
Spending time laying next to the ocean having great conversation with friends is the perfect way to end a weekend and recharge for the weeks reality to begin again.
Each year the Valley library system here puts on a summer reading club. It is an awesome idea to keep kids reading and gives them some great incentive to do it as well.
You sign up for the program and you are given a sheet with different tasks to complete over the summer. As you cross off so many of the tasks you can go check in at the library and get small prizes like stickers and temporary tattoos. At the end when you have completed the correct number you are given a Fast Pass for Upper Clements Park!
When we were on vacation we were able to cross off a number of things like go to a Zoo, visit a Museum. They also did some reading and other tasks while we were driving and on the ferry on the way home.
Today I walked in to find Caile and Ella sitting in the bathroom with a book. One of the boxes is to read in every room in your house. They let me take a picture, but Caile told me I had to put an explanation to what was happening if I was going to post it on my blog.
For quite a while now I’ve really enjoyed my first generation Pebble watch. Right before we went on vacation the strap broke on it.
I picked up a new strap but I couldn’t find one the right size so I choose the closest I could find. It was 20mm when it really should be 22mm. This allows enough wiggle room that the strap kept coming off. At one point early in the trip I thought I lost the watch. Turns out it fell off as I was digging in my backpack and it was in there. That was my sign though that I needed to take it off.
The rest of the trip I went without it. So no notifications came in at all and it was pretty peaceful. I keep the sound and vibration off on my phone already so I relied on the watch.
What did I miss? Especially when I’m out I did miss getting phone and text notifications. I get very few of these and typically when I do they are important. The email and other notifications I don’t care about anymore. Not having the time in easy view was annoying too. I didn’t wear a watch for a long time before this watch but now I miss having the time there. It didn’t come into play on vacation but I really like the silent alarm as well.
For a long time I’ve also wanted to get a Fitbit, but wearing two things on my wrist wasn’t going to work for me. When I was running more, like I need to get doing again, I loved tracking my runs. Having a Fitbit would allow me to track that and a lot more as well. The Surge looks very interesting to me. At first look it seems like it would do everything I’m looking for.
The big downfall is the price. Pretty sure I might get in trouble spending that much on another gadget. I could go with a lower end Fitbit and not have things like the notifications and not have some of the tracking. The Charge might be the happy medium. I get most of what I’m looking for and could use my phone to track workouts. I might even be able too get away with the cost. If I could sell the Pebble that would help me even more.
Does anyone have opinions one way or the other?
Noah running back for a drink of water at the end of a good lesson.
While on vacation for the most part we kept really busy. Even when we had down time when driving a lot of it was either driving or navigating. There was also a lot of talking and planning that took place on the drives. For me I got up early before everyone else, grabbed some coffee, and made my way to a quite place. I used this time to write, read, and just think in general. It made a great way to start each day.
It seems that after every vacation I end up thinking about customer service. Not sure if it is because of all the interacting I end up doing with different people all over, or because I actually do have time to think, or a combination of both. Coming back I felt the same way I did last year, almost every interaction I had was positive. In the past I used to think that small talk was a big part of being friendly. While that certainly has it’s place you can be friendly and professional and stay on point. For many people this is even more important. They have other things to do with their time than chat. That was the majority of the service I had, everyone was friendly and helpful, but they stayed on point and got the job done.
The only one time that comes to mind that was not a great experience was one of the hotels we stayed in. We arrived basically right at 8:00pm. We had been driving pretty much all day, it was still light out and 30 degrees Celsius out. On the way we figured it would be great for me an the older kids go relax and stretch in the pool while Jen put Noah to sleep with no one else around. As I’m checking in I ask about how to get to the pool, she tells me, but then says it closes at 8:00. It’s not a supervised pool, still really warm and light, so there is no real reason for it to close at 8:00 except that it’s the rule. It made me thankful that in my job I wouldn’t have had to say no. If this hotel were like Automattic I pretty much would have been able to say, go swim and have fun, then let everyone know that I let them go swim and that we should revise our thinking on pool closing times.
In all the vacation was a great time away and I feel refreshed and looking forward to getting back to work. I’ll take the good parts from interactions I had and use them when I talk with our users and make sure I don’t follow any of the things I didn’t like. I also read this great post by Andrew Spittle on Customer Success and renew my efforts to ensure I take advantage of the opportunities I have each day.
We have made it home! It was an amazing vacation but I’m very thankful to be in my own home, to get clean in my own shower, to sleep in my own bed, and have fast stable internet connection 🙂 No more having the the younger girls share a bed or Jen and I on either side of Noah in double beds.
We woke up early this morning and hit the road. We had talked about it off and on but finally decided the night before to book the ferry from Saint John New Brunswick to Digby Nova Scotia. This saves us a large drive around where we can get out and stretch and move around while still making progress to home. It also puts a time constraint on us though. We had to be there to make the ferry or we’d miss it.
This meant it was a long day of driving without really stopping. We only stopped twice, once for gas and bathroom break and one more to grab lunch to eat in the car.
When we arrived home the first thing I noticed as a surprise was my peony has its first bloom. It apparently just opened today to welcome us home.
When we opened the door inside there were welcome home cards on the counter from my sister and her kids along with some fresh strawberries. She had also picked us up some groceries so we had things like milk and bread so we didn’t have to worry about that stuff. What a nice thing!
On day ten we made our way back to Maine to spend one last night in a hotel. Not sure I’m ready for all this fun to end, but I can’t wait for my own bed.
There was a lot of driving today but we made a number of stops to beak it up. Our first stop was to a Mass EZPass customer service station to get an account. We should have done it at the beginning of the trip but at least now our next visit we won’t have to worry about having enough money for tolls and we will be able to blow through the toll booths!
From there we went into Hingham Mass to have an early lunch as Wahlburgers. The timing was perfect as we were there shortly after it opened and it wasn’t busy yet. Jen is a little obsessed, but the food is good.
Our next stop was to be Hampton Beach. We made it there in good time but at the beach it took us about an hour to get near the beach and find parking. Looks like everyone else wanted to go there too. We finally found a spot but it wasn’t on the main beach, it was down further and not nearly as nice. There was next to no sand area and a fair amount of sea weed. The kids had fun though and it was nice to sit on the beach.
Whenever we get down this way we try to stop in and see Jen’s Aunt Claire. Thankfully we were able to get a quick visit in with her and Jen’s cousin as well.
As a treat we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese for supper and a bit of play time. I had gone as a kid and remembered it being fun, but only very vague memories. The kids had a blast and the pizza wasn’t terrible either.
We made it to the final hotel around 8:30pm. While Jen got Noah ready for bed I took the kids to the pool to cool off and stretch, relax a bit before bed. It seemed to work as everyone went to sleep quick. That’s good because there was an early wake up call to head home.
Sandy McFadden 