spring madness

The snow was getting a little dingy, and so I was glad to see it all freshened up the other day. No harm done -- roads were fine, but drivers, even after a winter of snow, were timid and moved slowly on their way to work. As the winter progresses, I feel the increasing need to stuff my cheery snow attitude. People can no longer see the beauty and just grumble each time a flake threatens to drop. And yet, lying in bed yesterday morning while the sun started to come up and the trees were fluffy white and the flakes were coming down -- and I was warm and comfortable and treated to one of the best shows in nature -- it's hard to be grouchy on a day that starts so well.

Yesterday at work, we got into a discussion about transitive and intransitive verbs. Of course, it was the non-native English speaker who understood the concept and the two of us got to explain it to a native English speaker, mostly through example. ("Ok, Eric, I've just volunteered you for a new task.") This somehow led to a quick talk about verbing nouns and nouning verbs (for a quick example, try mixing up the words affect and effect, at least in their most common uses).

And then, on the way home, I popped the sunroof to get some fresh air into the car. OK, it's been kind of cold this winter -- the temps were only in the low thirties, but it felt warm to me!

Interesting developments at work. When I was hired, it was for a full-time position, but I work, officially at least, only 60%. We've hired another person about half time, and I'm nominally project leader. Then we set some aggressive goals for this release, and then my boss came up with another important and aggressive goal for this quarter. (I've been managing the tasks going into that goal, but my boss has been helping a lot.)

Somewhere in there was the idea that I'd manage my co-worker. And oh, by the way, we got a consulting job that requires us to hire a contract writer, we've just opened a req for another full-time writer, and we'll need another contractor fairly soon. And I'm on the hook to write a short book (with contributions from others) in an unfamiliar and unstable tool and QA the tool while I'm at it (there go those intransitive nouned verbs again). At some point, I realized I couldn't do it. My coworker might like being left alone, but I'm not being attentive enough, even to one person. So I said I couldn't manage, and... it was ok.

We seem to have a good solution -- our QA manager has managed doc groups in the past, she's wonderful, and she seems to know her limitations and her areas of expertise. So the doc group has (or is about to have -- these things are very mysterious) a new manager, and somehow I get to have as much or as little leadership responsibility as I can take on. And my new manager is already moving barriers out of the way, but I still get to work closely with my old boss -- the vp of engineering.

Sometimes I feel like Ginger Rogers (who could dance just as well as Fred Astaire but did it backwards and in high heels), but then again, I like that kind of job. Whoopee!

Not sure if I've mentioned this, but I have another tiny, almost unpaid job -- I'm trustee of a piece of family property. It's been requiring a lot of attention of late -- our tenants have rightly had some needs and getting things ready for the tax people has been a bit consuming. But things seem to be straightening out there for now, and for the last few days, all has been quiet on that end. My brother and I coordinate, mostly in email, but I'm state-side, so can often get more done. But it's good to have a partner in this effort.

And finally, there was a package yesterday containing a copy of the book I cowrote, but this time in Chinese. It might not have been a huge seller here, but I'm intrigued that there's interest in two countries where the software industry is starting to boom (China and Russia).