Current Events Archives – Page 4 of 7

20 Sep 2010

Doug the Plumber

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:51:18-06:00September 20th, 2010|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Software Development|

There are surprising similarities between the process of plumbing and building and supporting software. I didn't realize that until the other day.

Recently the pump that runs hot water through out in-floor heating stopped working. This was fairly easy to determine as:

The floor was getting colder,
The pump was not making it's normal humming noise, and
It was overheating (the last time this happened I burned my fingers learning this).

The last time the pumped seized up I called in a plumber. I had to wait a week for them to show. Then they put in a new pump. The total cost was over […]

23 Aug 2010

Crow Conventions and Other Dark Rumours

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:52:14-06:00August 23rd, 2010|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Yesterday I looked out of the window, south over our yard and neighbour's field just after a thunderstorm had blown through.

There were hundreds and hundreds of crows. I've never seen this many crows in one spot before (in real life anyways).

It took a few minutes to realize that they were not making much noise. Hundreds of silent crows.

After about 15 minutes they started flying off in groups of 20-40 heading north. As you can imagine it took some time before the last group left.

Ominous if you are superstitious. They are obviously up to no good.

Ravens and crows (and magpies) have […]

20 Jul 2010

Shocking Products

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:52:38-06:00July 20th, 2010|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog|

I saw a building maintenance guy in the building next door changing lightbulbs.

He had a long metal expanding pole with an attachment on the end for grabbing lightbulbs from high overhead fixtures.

At first I thought, there is a clever contraption.

Upon further reflection I realized that he was sticking a metal pole into light fixtures. Sure, 99.9% of the time the lightbulb doesn't break, but…

I think there is a reason electricians use fiberglass ladders after all.

12 Jul 2010

Empty Nesters

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:53:01-06:00July 12th, 2010|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

Yup, our kids just left the nest. The pressure is off but we are also sad.

It seems like just a while ago when it all started. The expecting parents were busy and ignoring all their friends. I think it is called nesting. They were building nests like crazy. Five or six that we know about. Yellows, greys and some baby blue highlights from an old tarp.

Then mom laid the eggs. She sat on them to keep them warm during snow storms and cool nights. Two eggs didn't make it. One we found smashed on the ground (all the king's horses and all the kings […]

25 Jun 2010

You Don’t Care Anymore, Do You?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:53:37-06:00June 25th, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog|

If you are in the software development world, you've pretty much got to like or eat pizza once in a while.

I used to be a big fan of Panago pizza. The toppings and flavours were pretty darn good.

But Pizza isn't just about the toppings, it is about the part that holds the toppings as well. Would it be a pizza if the toppings were served on focaccia bread? How about un-cooked dough? Mastering the pizza dough is an important part of the great pizza equation.

The last few years, quality has been suffering. I think the pizza places are running the ovens […]

29 Apr 2010

Nearly Skunked

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:55:33-06:00April 29th, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Tuesday night I decided to take the dogs for a walk. I stepped out the door and froze. The smell of skunk was very strong. The dogs were sniffing the air but fortunately didn’t see anything.

After pausing for what seemed like several minutes, but was likely a few seconds, I quietly turned on my flashlight and looked around. Sure enough, there were eyes looking back at me about 50 feet out, beside a bush.

I don’t actually know what the range of a skunk is but I assumed it was less than 50 feet so I took the dogs out along a route that would […]

22 Mar 2010

Agile Landscape (and Garden) Development

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:03-06:00March 22nd, 2010|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Software Development|

There are two main approaches to building out a nicely landscaped yard:

Waterfall – Large up front design and implementation by a contractor (whether or not an actual waterfall feature is included in the garden),
Agile – Iterative, incremental and continuous improvement of a design and implementation.

The "Waterfall" approach is typically taken by people who:

Like having a garden but don't want to be a gardener (insta-garden),
Have a significant amount of money and want the work done quickly,
Like to plan everything out on paper beforehand, and
People starting with essentially a blank slate (new home).

Planning out the hardscape (structural) parts of the landscape requires some […]

20 Mar 2010

Spring Is In The Air?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:08-06:00March 20th, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog|

Today, Saturday the 20th of March was the first day of spring. It was a beautiful sunny day; warm with a light breeze; just what you picture when you think of spring.

When you are living in Calgary (or most of Canada), winter is usually cold and dark with the sun much lower on the horizon. Some people suffer from depression in winter caused by the reduced sunlight. However, I suspect much of the depression is actually caused by realizing your favourite hockey team might not make the playoffs.

So spring brings optimism. (Football will be starting up soon; maybe they will do […]

17 Mar 2010

Jogger Killed by Plane

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:12-06:00March 17th, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

I read in the paper today that a jogger listening to an iPod while jogging on a beach was hit from behind and killed by a small plane making an emergency landing.

What are the odds of that happening?

A year ago I read about someone jogging with an iPod and getting hit by lightning through the ear buds.

Obviously iPods attract danger and we should all stop jogging just to be safe.

(Or maybe safety is an illusion and we should all listen to iPods while jogging on the beach during a thunderstorm.)

5 Dec 2009

Black, White and Shades of Grey

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:20:05-06:00December 5th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

I have two border collies. They are black and white.

Friday it started snowing and really blowing; blizzard conditions. Falling snow is white. Blowing snow causes white-outs, even at night. Ice you don't see on the road is called black ice.

This morning we woke up and our snow was grey, not white. Not a light grey, a fairly dark grey.

The field to the north of us is bare soil. The wind was blowing from the north all night… strong enough to move a substantial portion of the field into our yard along with the drifting snow.

The dogs were outside playing […]