digitalBush

This year has been up and down for me. If you'll recall, I made a 2007 resolution to lose 50 pounds. So, the big question is, did I do it? Nope, I didn't do it. The good news is that I have made quite a few changes in my lifestyle and I did manage to lose 10 pounds. It's not a lot and it's not my goal, but it's something and that is better than nothing at all. In a normal year i would've gained about 5 pounds.

What did I do wrong?

• I started the year with a very high calorie reduction diet. It was too ambitious and was very hard to do. I managed to shed weight quickly, but I couldn't sustain the diet.
• I injured myself. Once I had enough of the low calories, I decided to up my intake a bit and start a running program. I injured my foot by running on worn out shoes.
• I stopped trying at times. Once I jacked my foot, I got really bummed out and stopped even trying.
• When I exercise I'm not watching my diet and when I'm watching my diet I'm not exercising.
• The holidays kicked my ass. Ashley made candy to give out as gifts. I helped eat the candy that was remaining.

What did I do right?

• I keep trying. There is something to be said for will and determination. I've managed to make this a focal point in my life despite some temporary lapses in judgment.
• I've made lifestyle changes to my diet. It's now where it should be yet, but I've managed to virtually eliminate certain things from my diet. I no longer drink sugared drinks. I rarely eat deep fried foods. I'm eating smaller portions.

I'm making progress, just not at the rates I wanted to. At this point I understand what I need to do and what it's going to take. I'm going to make this a priority again in the coming year because this is such a problem for me. See you in 2008!

I just wanted to wish everyone a very merry Christmas.  Take a few minutes to remember why we celebrate this holiday and to reflect on your life.  A new year is coming and it's time to think about how you can improve yourself.  I will be celebrating tomorrow with family, friends, and lots of food. 

At this point I've been blogging for about a year.  Looking back at my posts, it's obvious that I'm all over the place topic-wise.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it really reflects who I am.  My interests move around and I apparently like to rant about the stupid things I see around me.  I'm not sure that will ever change.

Here's where I need your help.  I need to know what my audience (Yep, I'm talking to you.) care about. It looks like I have about 300 daily visitors who seem to gravitate towards my jQuery plugins.  I do meddle in javascript, but I'm also a c# developer by day in the healthcare industry who does quite a bit of data management via Oracle and MySql.  Even though I'm a geek, I have quite a few non-tech interests that I intend to talk about as the urge strikes me.

If you (Is anyone out there?) are reading this, then I'd love for you to comment back to this post and introduce yourself.  I'd like to know what you are interested in so that I can direct my blogging efforts.  It doesn't matter who you are, be you a developer from the other side of the world, a friend from high school or a relative (I'm talking to you Ashley); I'd really appreciate your feedback.  If no one comments back, then I guess I'll just keep rambling on about whatever the hell I feel like.  Consider yourself warned.

So, let's get on with it.  Roll call!

I don't play nearly as many pranks as I should. The office can get boring sometimes, so it's good to spice things up from time to time. Brandon and I managed to pull a good one off with some help from our office secretary. Here's a few things to get you going:

1. Pick Your Target - Our target was a salesperson who has a very low tolerance for things not being right. As a bonus, he's not very good with technology.
2. Pick Your Prank - Our prank was to plant 2 Annoy-a-trons in his office. We tried hiding them in the ceiling, but people thought that something was wrong with the lights and wanted to call maintenance. The final hiding place for these ended up being one behind the blinds and one in his chair.
3. Stay close - It's important to get constant feedback about the status of your subject. It's good to find reasons for you (or your accomplices) to visit the victim.
4. Make it public - Once you've started the prank, slowly include people in the joke. Some of the people we included were because they had the authority to actually try to help this person. A few others we just felt would appreciate the joke. REMEMBER: It's still important to maintain control of the prank and not let others interfere with your plans.
5. Make the reveal even more public - Our pick was the company Christmas party. It's more embarrassing that way. As an added bonus, there will be witnesses should your victim become irate and try something funny.

This prank turned out to be a blast. That whole side of the building knew about the prank before all was said and done. We had a few snags. First, we set the beepers on the wrong beep. This noise was a high pitched squeal that kind of sounded like electricity doing things electricity shouldn't do. That prompted cries for someone to call our building's maintenance crew. Luckily we had the secretary in on the whole deal, so she did a good deal of stalling. One day while he was out I fabricated a ridiculous fake letter from maintenance as follows:

I listened for the noise that you reported for a good 30-45 minutes without any luck. I think that you may be hearing the rain or possibly even the building settling. It's very normal for older buildings to make strange noises. If you can find where the noise is coming from, then I might be able to help a little more.
Sorry,
Maintenance

The letter was meant to sound stupid from the victim's perspective. Of course those things wouldn't make a beep. We tried to play it up as if someone just reported a "noise" without specifying what it was exactly. The victim bought it and was furious because no sensible person would hear a beep and think that the building was settling.

For the reveal, we stuck one of the annoy-a-trons underneath his seat to see how long it would take for him to figure things out. Unfortunately he didn't figure it out until our CEO made a public announcement with the noisemaker in hand beeping into the mic. The reveal still turned out to be good and the entire office got a laugh at his expense.

Now I have to start watching my back for retaliation. One down, many more to go...

Ashley and I survived another year of company Christmas parties.  I love the social awkwardness that surrounds this special event.  My close friends will know that I'm not a total introvert, but at the same time I'm not exactly a people person.  I'm that guy that sits with his friends in the back making fun of everyone else and their ridiculous antics.  Now that I have shared this with you, dear reader, I can continue on with my evaluations of the 2 company parties I attended.

• Ashley's company party - This one was particularly awkward for me.  You see, my wife works for a small company of 5 people.  Since the company is so small, the party was at the owner's home.  While this isn't a bad thing, it automatically puts a few people in a lot more comfortable situation than the rest.  The party was casual which is nice, but it was so casual that people brought their kids along.  A few people were drinking way too much, and that tends to make me very uncomfortable.  Couple that with the fact that I share very little common ground with those in attendance and you'll realize that I had a very dull night.  It's worth noting that the party wasn't for me, so this is totally acceptable but still very agonizing.
• My company party - This was a totally different ball of wax.  We have a larger company with around 30 employees.  The attendance wasn't huge, but it wasn't as cozy as Ashley's.  We rented a conference room at a local hotel and had a semi-formal event.  There was live musicians playing Christmas tunes and we had a nice steak dinner. 
  This was definitely more enjoyable for me, but (there's always a "but" isn't there?) it felt forced.  We had assigned seating to try and make people interact who normally don't. (Thank you to the seat assigner for putting me at a table with Brandon and Laura, it surely made the night more enjoyable for both Ashley and myself.)  All in all, this was just okay for me mostly because I'm not one who likes to socialize.  I'm sure there are others at the company who enjoyed the party and its format.  The best part of the night was the after-party which was just a few close friends hanging out.

It's funny because you get to see a lot of different people from different backgrounds try to hang out and find common ground. You'll always have at least one person that drinks way too much liquid courage to try and force social ability into their soul.  You'll always have at least one person who doesn't sense that "vibe" that the conversation they are having is very awkward and that they should just walk away.  Instead they just kind of linger in your conversations a little too long.  There's a double bonus if the 2 aforementioned people are actually the same person, they'll make the night truly magical.

Company parties are a necessary evil.  If you are a social bug, then it's going to be a fine evening out.  If you are like me, then it's going to be another evening of people observation and mocking.  There was less of that from me this year because of a prank I was involved in, but I'll reserve that story for another post here soon. 

Merry Christmas!