Take me home. My flight for friday was cancelled so I had to wait until tomorrow. I got in a lot of snowboarding and even more frustrations. Right now, I need to get home to see my greatgrandfather in the hospital. The next 3 months of my life will either be the easiest or the hardest, I’m not too sure yet.
I just put the top down to my jeep on this amazing day. The weather is glorious. I fixed the zipper the correct way so my top can go up and down easily, but ripped the end of the zipper a bit. I was going to go snowboarding from noon to 4 today, but had a presentation to give for enterprise projects. I am going to go tomorrow night and thursday, and attempt to go friday morning before my flight home. I have a feeling these next few days will be my last snowboarding in utah. With temperatures in the 70’s, the snow wont hold up for long. I hope I can get as much t-shirt snowboarding in as possible.
I went snowboarding yesterday from noon until 3. It was one of the best days yet. I know I say that a lot but it keeps getting better as it gets warmer. Yesterday, I was boarding with just a t-shirt on. Later on in the day, it started to get slushy. Besides that, I hit quite a few jumps. Normally, I dont, but after hitting one for about 30 feet of air, I was psyched. After landing that, I was trying to hit everything that remotely resembled a jump. I am going to try to go every possible day this week before going back to Jersey. A lot of students and I are going to Brighton Wednesday night. I cant wait for the week to be over. I need a vacation. 5 more days…
I saw the midnight showing of 300 last night in IMAX. It was my first IMAX experience and I am blown away. It’s like giant HDTV. 300 was well done. The cinematography was incredible. There were more deaths in that movie than every movie from the 80’s and 90’s combined. Drinking that Rockstar during the movie wasn’t a great idea seeing as how I only slept about 3 or 4 hours last night. All in all, last night was great.
Weekly Schedule
This artifact shows my skill in project management. It is a week’s schedule for a project for The First American Corporation. While at
Skills acquired: Working in Agile development while leading a team was quite an experience. The greatest thing I acquired from this was the ability to adapt in a fast paced quickly changing environment. I figured out what worked well in an Agile development team and what did not. It gave me the skill to try other types of scheduling as well as leading.
What went well: Our team worked well together. I got some really good anonymous reviews from people I led. This was my first enterprise project, so I got some good experience with real software development. Besides leading the team, I got some really good experience in requirements gathering and working with business in developing an end product.
Description of what you would have done differently: We had one person in the group who wasn’t very contributive to the group. That person hindered our group’s performance, but that was taken care of shortly thereafter.
Quarterly Schedule
Why artifact is included: This artifact shows my skill in planning for the long-run. It is a schedule of tasks and resources. Not only does it show my skill in planning for the long-run, but it shows my skill in planning concurrent tasks. This was a schedule that was edited slightly as time went on.
Skills acquired: On this project, I gained the ability to shift things around in a schedule when the original plan is off. Our team worked well and got our project finished. We were also the team that everyone else relied on.
What went well: Our team worked well together. I got some really good anonymous reviews from people I led. This was my second time leading a group. It was during this time that I learned that not everything is always going to go as planned. After learning that, I learned how to edit a schedule accordingly.
Description of what you would have done differently: I would have had a meeting with my group sooner. Half way through the project, some team members weren’t working. I called a meeting to talk about it. If I could have gone back and done it differently, I would have called the meeting sooner.
Scheduling Software
This artifact shows my skill in using different tools for software project management. It is good for estimating cost and benefit of a project. I also learned Gantt charts from it.
Skills acquired: On this project, I started using estimates for resources so I could calculate cost of the project if it were needed. I guessed an example cost in the beginning and the final match was pretty close.
What went well: I learned a new asset in project management, cost. Cost is very important to a project. No project can be completed without one. A project is successful when it I under budget and on time. This project taught me how to budget resources.
Description of what you would have done differently: I would have used a different program. GanttPV has its advantages, but I am normally used to Microsoft Excel for scheduling. I should have put my efforts into learning that.
I woke up this morning and looked outside to see its snowing. Excellent. I had an easy time driving on snowy roads because of the jeep’s 4WDH. Before running out of the apartment today I grabbed my camera. Maybe I’ll snap up a few photos throughout the afternoon. It is now 8:20 and my professor isn’t here yet. Hmm I want coffee. I wonder if I can bare the cold for it. Off to the other side of the internets I go. Be back later…
I was driving to Snowbird this morning when Burnin’ For You by Blue Oyster Cult came on, on my Ipod. The opening lyrics go:
Home in the valley Home in the city Home isnt pretty Aint no home for me
Home in the darkness Home on the highway Home isnt my way Home Ill never be
There hasn’t ever been any lyrics closer to how I feel than that song. So I’m driving up the canyon to Snowbird, and I thought “these mountains are really lacking some mountain rams. I mean, what is a mountain without some goats? I think our president needs to shift his focus to reintroducing wild mountain rams into mountain states.
Yesterday, I got my stitches out. My wound healed very nicely. Now I wait for the scar. Last night I went snowboarding with a bunch of classmates. We went from 4 to 9. Tickets were cheap. We had some new guys and some experienced ones. I had a great time. It’s something we may start doing on wednesday nights from now on.
This morning I saw the greatest car ever, a brand new yellow suburban. It’s color was very close to the color of my jeep. I thought it was really good looking. Back to slave labor(class haha) I go…
I just had part III of my root canal. They put on a temporary crown. I go back March 12th for my final crown. I just took a painkiller for the tooth and am now completely wiped out. I think a nap is in order. In the meantime, I will discuss RSS.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Basically, whenever an online newspaper or website publishes a new article, they have an RSS feed. This feed is updated by the website and is subscribed to by aggregators or readers. Imagine a newspaper made out of thin tvs with constantly updating stories. It’s pretty cool. I just started using Google Reader. I’ve already got tons of sites added, everything from news to weather to comics. This will come in handy. A lot of the time, I find myself surfing the web and reading news. This will bring the news to me. Minor conveniences in life are the cause of happiness.
Yesterday, I had the 2nd part of my root canal done, and still have one more part to go. Today the pain was pretty bad so I called the dentist to get painkillers. I am typing this as my sight becomes dimmer from drowsiness. I picked up the key to my new apartment today and checked it out during lunch. It is pretty cool. It has one less couch than my current place but seems larger altogether. As of right now, all I can move are light things until my stitches come out next monday or tuesday. I think it’s time for a nap…