I was talking to a buddy of mine yesterday about this job offer I have. He's much older than me and has started a number of successful businesses so he's sort of a mentor to me. He asked the following:

• Do you have enough saved to carry you for 2 months? - Yes
• Do you have enough credit card limits to carry you for another 2 months? - Yes
• Do you have any major financial obligations? - No
• Worst case scinario can you get a job in construction, labour, or restaurants? - Yes

So he said "do it, you're young, you're suppose to make mistakes, take risks, and it really can't be that bad". I'm really unhappy with my current position as far as failed promises & co-workers. My concern, as I mentioned to him, is that I might make a mistake, what if this new job is no better than the old one? What if I can't do it? What if I hate it too? Now I realize that even if it doesn't work, I can suffer through a job I dislike for a year or two if it means getting ahead, getting an MBA, and earning more money than currently.

I'm slowly, systematically going through my life and removing frustrations and things I'm not happy about. First to go was my "climbing partner" and ED of the non-profit. I call him a climbing partner in quotes because we haven't climbed together in 2 years and he continually suggested climbing/running but never called me back. Next to go will be my roommate who doesn't clean, breaks my shit, and is generally disrespectful. Finally, to go will be my current job and & co-worker. The job is frustrating because they don't seem to value my opinion, don't ask me for input (even for things specific to Western Canada), and the communication has be lousy. My co-worker is a waster of their money & my time, is rude, has sworn at me, makes racist/sexist comments, and outright lies about the amount of work he does.

So, the question is, what will I do when all these frustrations are gone? I don't want to be an angry person, I don't like focusing on this stuff, and I generally always want to be moving forward. But, I watched a movie from Mexico the other night and they referred to a guy as "addicted to anger", I'm a bit concerned that's me. I don't want to always be angry, but I do have certain standards & expectations for people around me; I expect that they work hard, act respectfully, clean up after themselves, communicate effectively, etc. Certainly my standards are high, certainly I don't always meet my own standards (in fact rarely do), but most importantly I am fine with others missing expectations occasionally. When it becomes chronic missed expectations it's time to move on because I refuse to change for those around me.

/sl

P.S. I'm now missing 4 out of my 10 toe nails, kinda gross.

I slept in and got to the office late, at 7:30am, for the regular conference call. I worked moderately hard today and this afternoon I wiped my work laptop and re-installed Windows (I feel dirty) without Linux (I feel really dirty). But, all-in-all it's for the best because I've gotten rid of the stupid mistakes the previous IT guys made. For some reason they mapped the C:/My Documents folder to a network drive and then set it up to sync with the network. Thus, any temp internet files and that sort of thing synced over the VPN when it was connected. When it wasn't connected it continually tried to connect.

Now I'm watching Terminator 2 and relaxing for a bit before I bull and all nighter and try and get ahead on insurance. I'm also working on a development plan for Reporter to set some deadlines in place to get the thing done.

Back to work.... /sl

P.S. I got a couple toe nails falling off.

Worked hard today, came home, and was brain dead.

/sl

I was playing with the Blackberry camera, it's ok, better than Android but certainly not a dSLR. I do like that I can zoom in on Mount Baker but it's still recognizable.

In other news, I went for a run with a woman this afternoon and was offered the same job from February. When I was offered the job back in February the current company made a number of promises (more money, internal development, planning & implementation, etc.). Other than paying me more money, none of that has happened. In addition, I often don't get replies from co-workers on important emails (it took 4 months for the president to reply to an email regarding web redesign/blog). To put it bluntly, the corporate culture seems to be one of empty promises and big dreams and thus so long as I get a decent offer I will take it.

Oh! Forgot to mention that after my run I went and bought a new running shirt and was looking at buying a tri bike (my buddy is trying to convince me to do Ironman 2012). The last picture is the marketing material that came with my "PRO series shirt". So...what you're saying is that PRO is better than Elite, and Elite is better than Select? Do I really need a lame grid with +, ++, and +++ to tell me that? Horrible.

Been so busy lately, /sl

I need an opinion on these "logos". Jesse knows what it's for. I'm obviously not doing a good job of keeping my new "blog" anonymous by posting possible logos here but no one reads this anyway.

Side note: It's amazing/awesome what you can do with Google Fonts now, you can whip together a possible logo/font in a few seconds.

So...I've decided to take professional development into my own hands. When I was offered a job back in February of this year, part of the deal for me to stay was implementation of an internal development program so I can continue to grow and advance my career. That has yet to happen although promises were made and senior management sent an email to all staff asking what they would like to see included in internal development. Empty promises...
Anyway, long story short, I found a bunch of online courses from Harvard/Yale/Carnogie. This is the course description from a computer science course (I really like and respect this prof) from Harvard. Apparently the conclusion is exciting.

I guess I need to finish the courses I paid for before the free ones, /sl