Another gorgeous day out today. I took advantage and spent a while working outside at my favourite cafe in town TAN Coffee. Fresh air and good coffee make the work day even better! Kentville might not be as exotic as some of my co-workers “offices” at https://officetoday.wordpress.com but it still felt great today!
First zoo visit of the year
This weekend has been a birthday weekend for Jen and the kids. On Saturday they went to two different parties and yesterday we had another one to attend.
The party was at Roo’s Playland. It had been a few years since we had taken the kids there, but they used to love it. It is a giant indoor playground with all kinds of different things to do. Noah didn’t remember being there in the past at all, but he didn’t want to leave when it was time.
After the party we headed to our local zoo. Everyone else had been there once already this year, but it was last weekend so I had missed out. It was a beautiful day so it was a perfect way to spend a bit of time outside. We managed to arrive right at feeding time which always amazes me. Especially the lions. Gail one of the zoo owners will go right into the lions area and hand feed the them.
She used to get audience participation when it came to feeding a black bear they had at the zoo but, he was old and passed away. They have a younger black bear now but I don’t think they do the same with him. They didn’t today at least.
The zoo started out as a farm with some exotic animals and grew into a really cool zoo. The owners still live onsite and really consider the animals part of their family. Their Facebook page has all kinds of great pictures. I really enjoy the pictures of the lions the most. The old ones where they have some real cool interactions and the new ones documenting the growth of the new pride.
After the zoo we stopped for a quick ice cream snack on the way home too. The proper way to take advantage of one of our first t-shirt weather days this year.
Spring day and not so naked gardening
It felt like spring yesterday! It was about 12 degrees Celsius and sunny. Seeing as I procrastinated for way to long doing our taxes again this year I didn’t get to enjoy nearly as much of the day as I would of liked.
For the morning and part of the afternoon I spent my day sorting through a years worth of paper work and calculating numbers out on the computer screen. It eventually came together and was able to get them submitted.
It was supposed to be my last Saturday’s job but that would have been hard to do from a hospital bed. Luckily there was some mistake made in some notice that went out from the Canada Revenue Agency so there was an extension on the filing deadline. So it turns out I didn’t get them in late.
Once that was all done I was able to spend some time outside in the yard. Managed to get some of the lawn raked and the rocks back in the driveway. Still more to do there but got a good start.
As it was apparently World Naked Gardening Day we did some gardening as well. Cleaned out the beds from last year and dug a new one in the front yard. Don’t worry though, my neighbours were safe as I did it all fully clothed.
I’m not opposed to doing things naked, in private that is. However even if was completely secluded and warm enough outside I don’t think gardening is one of those things. All I can picture is dirt in bad places and rose bushes or other prickly plants causing pain.
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.
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.
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.
Sandy McFadden 