Week in review

Last week I was either travelling to or in Paris, sitting in meetings all day. I did make it out of the hotel three times.. twice to travel to the office and once for dinner on the last night of the meetings.

So much for Paris, traffic in that town is unbelievable, be glad you live in the good old "US of A" where it only takes 1 hour to travel 30 miles.. in Paris, it took 3.5 hours to travel the same distance!

Anyway, back to important stuff:
The Invaders soccer team is doing very well, while in Paris the kids won a game 3:1 and this past weekend, had a great 3:2 game which they also won (and we incorrectly had a goal taken away from us, which the ref later admitted was a mistake - glad it didn't decide the outcome of the game!)

Only two more action packed weekends left in the regular season, with games on both Sat / Sun for each of the coming weekends (so much for my marksmanship practice). I am looking forward to the kids finishing in a very good position this year, and also looking forward to seeing how they do in the post-season tournament. This was one of the best teams I have ever had the pleasure of coaching.

Until the next time..

Sitting in O'Hare en route to Paris

In this blog I will complain about business travel.. well not really complain but gripe.

Oakland Airport sucks.. "warning Will Robinson!" do not fly out of Oakland if you are flying United, there were only two counter people but about 300 people that needed to board 6am flights!

Then there is my layover to Paris.. I will be stuck at O'Hare for 5 hours! Well that is what I get for attempting to make United my "carrier of choice". At least I will make my Tuesday meetings with little to no headache..(unless my luggage.. dooh, I don't even want to think about it)

Of course, the reason why this is even a problem at all, I don't really like to leave my family to fly on business.. it is one thing to have them fly with me, but a totally different one to have to be away from them for a week.

I guess that is why I make the "small bucks"..

That is it for this post..

First Place in the Mustang Stampede Tournament!

The team did an awesome job on Tuesday night, defeating the Danville Flames 3-1 for the Mustang Stampede Tournament first place finish for u12 Rec+.

I was very proud of how the kids played, they have been listening to the coaching and learning more each practice and game.

This weekend will be interesting as I will be away on business.. so I will miss the Sunday game, Tuesday practices. Hope the kids will do well anyway.

That is it for now.

Soccer Update 9-25-06

First off, if anybody out there is reading this blog.. sorry for not posting for awhile. Work and travel have kept me out of the blogging business of late.

Now on to the real news..

The kids are progressing nicely, we went to a tournament this past weekend and placed first in our section, meaning we get to play the team that placed first in their section tonight for 1st place!

The kids have been working hard and actually listening during the practices, it shows in how they are starting to play the game. If things keep going as well, I am sure the kids will have a much greater appreciation for soccer and teamwork.

Well off to work now, I was up till 12am last night working on a couple of patent proposals.

Go figure.. work never stops... but I am happy as long as the money keeps coming.. ;-)

Mentorship and giving back

A couple of thoughts for the day:

- Mentorship (getting and giving)

- Giving back

For mentorship, I have been approached recently by a couple of peers, requesting some of my time for mentoring. I am very flattered by the request, but unsure of how to take it to the next step. I was being mentored by a well respected individual in my organization, but never seemed to get to any actual mentoring (at least not in the way I expected).
I find these as keys to any relationship, including mentoring;
- as in any relationship, stating your goals and expectations
- open communication on both sides
- setting aside the time to listen intently to the guidance or challenges

I am pondering whether I am capable at this time of giving the time and efforts necessary to do justice in a mentoring relationship.

Giving back is the other subject of thought lately, I wasn't raised with a "silver-spoon" in my mouth, nor did I have all Ivy-league friends in school. I want to find a way to enhance the lives of others, helping them to acheive more than I have been able to thus far.
I guess mentoring is one way, but that would be for people already well in the path of their careers (at least mentoring those at work). I should probably look into some type of program for low-income individuals, wherein I could use my professional skills to guide them down a different future or career path.

Well that is it for now..

Training hard for my first 5k

Today I covered 5.5 miles in training for my 3.10 mile race, the pace was ok but I wasn't working at the pace I would for a race.

I am going to continue to push my way through this, I have less than 1 month to go.. Oct 8th is the big day. I will then see if I really like the running stuff and continue, or try to do something different.
So far, I like it and can see myself committing to a half-marathon.. but one step at a time bronco. :-)

September 12th 2006

Things seem to be back to normal again..

The news is reporting financial data, accidents on the road, the weather and the middle east conflicts (yes, plural).

Here are some problems for the next millennium:
- How to reconcile the differences between the different religions and ensure the world can live peacefully.
- How to stop war in Africa and other hot-spots around the world (is it food, religion or other?)
- Demolishing the digital-divide (can we really use the "Internet" to spread "good" knowledge)
- How to bring developing nations into the future, while maintaining our leadership globally (but with a different tact, so we do not appear to bully people and countries)

I don't know if these problems can even be solved, I know they cannot when viewed from the current perspective ('problems cannot be solved from the same perspective in which they were created'), what is needed to take a fresh look at them and the possible solutions?

September 11th 2006

Rest in peace to all those that passed away in the tragic incidents of 9/11.

May your families find comfort in knowing that "we" didn't forget.

God bless...

Soccer update

My son did pretty well today, he played center mid for most of the game and got two shots on goal, close but no cigar on either.
Then we transferred him to left-forward and with 1 minute left, he nailed one in the top corner to give the team the insurance goal it needed to win the game 3-1.

All worked out well today.. he was very happy to put one away.

Soccer update

Very interesting goings on in the local soccer world.

1) We currently have practices on Wed / Fri nights
2) We have games on Sat / Sun mornings-afternoons

One could ask themselves, how can you have decent practice on Friday and not be too tired to play on Saturday? I ask myself this very question.

The kids had a good practice on Friday night, then tried to play hard on Saturday morning. They played pretty good overall, but seemed sluggish and unable to play hard. I think it is time that I suggest to the head coach (I am assistant only) that we should rethink our practice strategy in order to give the kids the best in coaching as well as enough rest to play games effectively.

Today is another game, we will see how it goes. Maybe yesterday was a fluke.

Patience is a virtue

As Bruce Lee was alleged to have said "Patience my ass, I'm gonna kill something", well it may not have been Bruce Lee that said it ... but that is definately how I feel some days.

Have you ever had a day when it seems that everyone elses mind is working far slower than yours?
I guess sometimes we all get caught up in the things that we do on a daily basis and expect that others should have this knowledge too.
Things are always working so fast at work, that I just don't seem to have the patience in guiding folks along.. sometimes it seems as if I get things done 100 times faster if I just do it myself instead of teaching someone else.

Interestingly enough, according to Wikipedia the four classic virtues are:

• Temperance
• Prudence
• Justice
• Courage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue

Since patience isn't listed there.. I guess I am ok.. :-), well at least in the classical sense.

ok, move along.. nothing to see here..

What a day..

Presented to the engineering team working on one of my projects, getting everyone on the same page as it pertains to how all of the development efforts come together to make a product, how that product fits into our product portfolio, why it is important to our company and where we need to take this product in the future.
So far on this product I play the following roles:

• Technical Marketing Engineer (scoping the project for engineering, using customer requirements to define the development efforts)
• Product Manager (defining the marketing requirements and materials)
• Product Architect (designed the project from whiteboard to individual designing efforts)
• Chief Evangelist (evangelizing to other groups)
• Corporate Architect (defining how the product fits into our overall company solution-space)

Now those aren't really all within my job description, but you do what you need to do.. ;-)

Back to the presentation, it went very well and I believe I got the team energized and understanding where our direction is and should be.

This was a very good, but tiring day.

:-)

Putting the world on my shoulders...

Todays topic is the amount of time that I put into work each day. Currently I put at a minimum 12 hours (minimum that is) in at work each day, I spend about 8 in the office, then the rest of the time at home working on the laptop.
It is way to common that I come home from work, eat dinner with the family, put the kids to sleep, then work until 1am or so only to awaken at 6am, resuming where I left off.

There are many reasons for this unhealthy behavior, I shoulder the burden for most of it:
- I have the only income in the house, so I want to ensure my revenue stream is ok
- I always want to be the best at whatever I do, so I work hard to be on top ("if I am not in the top 10% at what I do, then I should be doing something else")

Then there are the work reasons:
- I get stuff done, so they give me more to do
- There is always something to be done and not enough time to complete all the tasks at hand

The real questions are:
- What will all this work really mean in 10 years?
- What is life, health and my personal time really worth?
- Does the company really care if I worked 10 vs. 12 hours or more?

Life is a pretty fragile thing, it is here one day.. and you should enjoy it at that time, as you have no guarantees for having more.

These are some of the things I am thinking about today...

Labor Day Weekend

Overall this was not too bad of a long weekend, I would have rather been camping.. but no-go this time around as we planned a bit too late and all the campgrounds in California were totally booked up.

We did get to see my 91 yr old Grandmother though, the whole family enjoys the time spent with her, which isn't often now that she lives about 2 hours away. :-(

Today, I am going to work from home in the AM, then off to the local office, no need to drive all the way down to SJ today. I have several papers and such that I need to catch up on so this works out quite well today.

This week, while short.. should be very action packed as way too many things are "popping off" at work at this time.

Almost forgot! I took the kids to the range this weekend and man are they getting good. My son used to be only interested in shooting the scoped .22. But I have been working with him to show him how to use iron sites on a shorter "kids" .22.
This weekend, he almost exclusively wanted to shoot iron sites! When he saw that he was able to shoot better with iron sites, than most of the adults using scopes on the 50 yrd range (unsure why they would do that other than sighting in the rifle, but some were at it all day!) that sealed the deal for him.
My daughter was having fun with the scoped .22 and she was doing very well, she is very receptive to the coaching and is really intense when shooting. The intensity in concentration for both of them, grows each time we get out there.

Happy Tuesday..

Thoughts...

It has been a few days since my (first) last post, way too much time spent working to have time to post a blog I guess.

Here are some thoughts that I have been pondering lately:

1) I appreciate genuine people, but seem to deal with many people that do nothing more than position agendas for their own good.
example of genuine: How many people do you meet a day that ask "how's it going?" and really mean it, are truly interested in knowing how your life has been going and care to listen?
example of other: When they ask "how's it going?" they don't really want to know the answer, it is just a way to open a conversation, to get to the points they wish to address.

2) What changes could I make to my life that would enhance:

• My Atomic or Nuclear family lives or interactions
• Others less fortunate
• Global Warming or other Eco-concerns
• My health and well being (so I could do more of the above)

That is it for today..

Invaders Soccer

My son's team finished 2nd in their first tournament of the year, this was not too bad at all considering the following;

• We have not had a full team participation in practices so far, due to vacations, etc
• This is the first time that many of these kids have played together
• We have some relatively new (to soccer) players on the team
• 60% of the kids are at the lower portion of the age limit (U12)

I was very happy with their performances overall, they passed well and talked to each other a lot. This year should turn out to be a very good year!