More Reading

This past year as likely been the best year I’ve had in a long time for reading. By reading I mean actual books that aren’t a school text book or something technical like learning JavaScript.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy reading or think it is important because I do both. After a recent team meeting that we had where we ended up talking about books. Hearing them talk made me realize that I’m missing out on a lot of great reading.

Like most things in live though it’s one of these things that I just have to make sure it is a priority and make it a habit. That reminds me of the next book that I want to read that was recommended to me on our team meetup in Barcelona, The Power of Habit. In the past I’ve done good at making things that are important to me a habit and I’m at a point now where I need to do that again for a few things. Reading is going to be one of them.

If you’ve read something really good recently that you think I should take a look at I’d be grateful if you shared.

Building actual relationships

For the past while I’ve been slowly working my way through Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. It has been out for a while but I hadn’t heard of it, or at least didn’t recall hearing of it. I stumbled across it recently at a second hand store and the title grabbed me. Maybe something to do with my job title. I then realized it was by the CEO of Zappos.com and figured it would be a good read. Just because I’m taking my time getting through it doesn’t mean it isn’t good, I’m really enjoying it so far.

One section that stuck with me was when he was talking about building friendships and relationships. For the most part I’ve always been a pretty shy and find it hard to just approach people and start up a conversation. I’ve attended a few traditional networking type events before but always felt like they were mostly a waste of time. Probably what I made of them.

This section Tony included was from his excerpt in Ivanka Trump’s book, it talks about making real relationships.

If you are able to figure out how to be truly interested in someone you meet, with the goal of building up a friendship instead of trying to get something out of that person, the funny thing is that almost always, something happens later down the line that ends up benefiting either your business or yourself personally.

Then continues

So my advice is to stop trying to “network” in the traditional business sense, and instead just try to build up the number and depth of your friendships, where the friendship itself is its own reward. The more diverse your set of friendships are, the more likely you’ll derive both personal and business benefits from your friendships later down the road. You won’t know exactly what those benefits will be, but if your friendships are genuine, those benefits will magically appear 2-3 years later down the road.

I’ve never quantified this before but what he says holds very true in my own life. It would be difficult for me to look back and see just how much having good relationships with people have helped me along my path which has led me to where I am. Whether it was a friend who ended up helping me get a job or even just having a good relationship with a previous manager ended up resulting in a lot of great contract based work much later on.

It almost sounds like what some people would call karma, if that is something you believe in, but I think it is just in human nature. In general I think people want to be nice to others so having good relationships with people is naturally going to bring opportunities.

Feast or Famine

When I was running my own business it seemed work always came in peaks and valleys. Helping people get online was always my favourite part of it. Having to worry about making sure I had the next project to work on when one was finished, I hated.

Not knowing when I would be paid for from someone was hard too. Really I guess it comes down to the fact that I didn’t like and wasn’t good at the business part. It felt like a catch 22 situation, I could find someone to help with the business part but was never really busy enough to justify or afford that. 

In the past few months I’ve ended up having more inquiries and people looking for web development work than I did in a long time. If I wasn’t 100% sure that I’m in the right spot at Automattic it would almost be tempting to take a look. 

Just one of the great parts of working at Automattic and supporting WordPress.com is that I still get to help people all day get setup online without having to make sure there was a next person to help. There is a steady stream of users looking for help from me.

It’s not quite the same thing as going from the beginning to the end with one client but everyday I get to help many people. Some it might just be a small question but others it’s finding out what they really need and if WordPress.com is the best option for them. I wish I had of used WordPress.com more when I was doing client work. For many of the sites I did it would have been more than enough without having to worry about server side aspect of things at all. 

Son of Krypton

For sometime I’ve been semi following along local artist James White. If you’re not familiar with him you should be. He was recently featured with Lynda.com celebrating 25 years of Photoshop. Seeing his incredible talent I knew from early on that I wanted to have at least one piece of his work eventually. I’ve tried to catch a few different items over the years but always ended up late when they were all sold out.

Back in the summer of 2013 he wrote a post about a poster he had done for an upcoming show he had been invited to. Shortly after reading I was in contact with him to see if he would be releasing prints of this. At the time he wasn’t sure so I kind of forgot about it.

Luckily about a month ago I was checking out his site again and happened to see prints being offered and was lucky enough to snap one up. While I was working today it arrived in the mail which absolutely made my day. It’s now hanging in my office beside my desk so I can admire his version of Superman all the time.

Thanks James for creating this and allowing me to get print for myself.

Here it is hanging on my wall. My picture doesn’t do it justice so I’ve included the picture from his site as well.

Son of KryptonSuperman

Dance – Now and Then

My girls have been dancing for a while. This week is picture week so they were all dressed up in their costume for recital and luckily Jen grabbed a picture of them. She also dug out a picture from about five years ago I think. Anyway they are super cute now and then.

Caile and Ella Caile and Ella

I’m Home!

As great as the staff at the hospital all were I’m very happy to be back home! As it turns out it wasn’t an abscess in my throat as was the original thought. It turns out that it was cellulitis. It got below the skin and was affecting the tissue and spreading that way.

Not quite completely done yet, I have more antibiotics that I need to keep taking and I need to follow up with my family doctor early in the week just to make sure things are still progressing properly. But the fact that I’m home, showered and cleaned up, I’m a happy guy right now. The doctor says I need to take it easy for the next 7 to 10 days which won’t be ideal when it comes to my exercise routine I was getting myself back into before this happened.

Oh well tonight I’ll concentrate on getting caught up on the things I need to around here and then get back to work tomorrow. The week or so will go by quickly and then I’ll be back on track again!

Thanks everyone for the messages and well wishes!

Hospital stay

I’m just getting settled in for what is my only night stay in the hospital. For getting close to two weeks now I’ve had a very sore throat making it very hard to swallow and sleep. Lack of sleep tends to have a way for making everything even worse than it is too. 

During this time I’ve been to the Emergency Room at the hospital twice to see the on call doctor. After testing for mono I was told both times it was a viral infection that should pass. They gave me a prescription for antibiotics but told me I should need to fill it because it was viral and they really wouldn’t do anything to help. The second time the doctor did give me some steroids that helped with the swelling a lot. That made things better for a while and I really did feel things were getting better so never filled the prescriptions. 

Yesterday was a horrible day. I didn’t sleep a bit the night before and now my voice was gone and the pain was making its way into my jaw. I tried to get an emergency visit with my family doctor but there was no way. So I went to a walk in clinic that I had heard good things about and he gave me antibiotics right away and told me to start. 

When I woke up this morning I was feeling a bit better and did sleep a little bit, but still not great. I was able to get into see my family doctor though and she right away called the ENT specialist on call and had me come over to the hospital to see him. This was due to a Peritonsillar abscess. The doctor told me I’d likely be here a few days while they fill me full of IV antibiotics steroids and pain meds. If that doesn’t work then surgery would be needed to fix things. 

I’ve had a couple embarrassing moments since I’ve been here so far. First is when they went to put in my IV. Needles don’t bother me, in fact I had just watched them pull 6 viles of blood out of my arms no problem. So when they asked if I minded in the student did her first IV on me I said sure. She has to learn sometime. She stuck it in my hand but wasn’t having good luck. I remember saying I’m starting to feel faint. Then the next thing I know there are a bunch of doctors around with cold cloths and one saying welcome back with us. Poor girl will never want to give an IV again. 

Next embarrassing thing was when I had to call the nurse to bring me a new Johnny shirt. This isn’t usually bad except that I had managed to let it fall in the toilet when I was changing my pants and getting it all soaked. Luckily everyone here is being very sweet. 

Not just everyone here but everyone. Not long after getting to my room my wonderful team had flowers delivered right to my room. The. They got mad at me when I told them the wifi here was so good I was going to get my laptop and do some work. The cool thing is I totally could have but they are more concerned with me getting rested and feeling better. I really do love my job and my team. Even a Pastor from our church got word I was here and came In and visited with me for a while. 

Tonight my throat was feeling so much better that I felt like I really wanted soil is food. In particular pizza. My mom who was visiting promptly left to go find us pizza. It tasted so good and felt so good in a stomach that was eating mostly liquid for days. 

The hospital chicken noodle soup wasn’t bad at all but the Luke warm dark caffeine water the call coffee left a little to be desired. I will have to find a way to get better coffee tomorrow. 

As I’m laying here getting ready to sleep in the hospital, for the first time in a long time, all I can think of is how blessed I am in my life. Surrounded by great friends and family with an amazing job with which I file my coworkers in the friends category I mentioned first. 

Thanks everyone. 

  
   

Finally feeling like Spring

It finally feels like Spring has arrived. The snow is starting to melt and I’m actually getting to see my front lawn again. Although it has lots of gravel on it, I’d rather that than snow.

I’ve been using the bench in the front yard as a bit of measuring stick judging how much snow was out there. At some point in between Feb. 6th and April it was completely covered for a while so I couldn’t really judge how much was there then.

Now that a lot of the snow is gone it’s a lot easier to get out for walks with the kids. Yesterday we were able to walk along the waterfront in Wolfville for a bit. It was really nice to be able to do this. It hopefully helped counteract the treats we had from Tim Hortons right before this. Alex had a Nutella filled doughnut. Could be the cause of the dance show they put on in the gazebo.

Looking towards Blomidon
Alex on the Wolfville waterfront
Caile on the Wolfville waterfront
Ella on the Wolfville waterfront
Dance show in the gazebo
Noah and I on the Wolfville waterfront

Went way backwards

Thus has been a brutal winter, but it seems like it is finally turning to Spring. We’ve had a lot of snow melt away and I’m finally able to see some grass in some places of my yard. 

Not only was there a lot of snow but I also let this winter be an excuse to fall away from all the good habits I had built for myself. I’ve been scared to get on a scale because I know I’ve gained a bunch of weight back. 

This last Sunday it made things very evident when I put on a shirt I hadn’t worn in a while and it barely fit. I probably shouldn’t have worn it really. That’s when I decided to change and get back into my good habits. 

First thing is I’ve really cleaned my eating back up. I’m eating good food and healthy portions. I’m not constantly snacking on crap food. 

I’ve only gotten a couple workouts in so far though because when I woke up Monday it was like my body was punishing me for not giving it the junk it was craving and making it work so hard during the workouts. 

I’ve had a headache since then and haven’t been sleeping well at nights. It’s taken a toll on my family life isn’t the evenings and I haven’t done enough excersise either. 

Thanks to my awesome job I don’t have to go anywhere to work so I’ve been able to pop some painkillers and work away. I do hope that I sleep tonight though and wake up with no head pain so I can get feel like myself again. 

Time to get up

This morning Alexandria came down stairs and asked if Ella was supposed to stillbe in bed. 

Up the stairs I went to get getup and ready for school. I rubbed her back and said Mom ready woke you up once it’s time to get up. 

She instantly sat up, blinked her eyes trying to get focused and said:

Ah I hate it when that happens, I fell back to sleep. 

Instantly she was out of bed getting ready to go.