Finally back to it
After getting sick this back weekend, I really just felt drained all week and couldn't get myself out of bed. This led to being over-rested on Tuesday night and then I couldn't sleep, so I ended up on Weds morning with 2 hours of sleep and a major lazy streak starting. This morning, although I felt like I still needed to catch some more sleep, I rolled myself out of bed and ran anyway. I really didn't want to - but I needed to.
After speaking with my de-facto running coach and project manager, Ryan, about running more slow miles, I ran tried to run this morning at about a 10/mile clip, rather than the usual 9-9:15. Made a difference in HR throughout the first 3/4, but it showed me that regardless of how fast, my HR still crept up to the 170 mark toward the end, which according to Ryan, is the true signal that your body is tired and cannot keep up.
So on the menu for the next few weeks is - lots of slow, relaxed miles. Next Run: Sunday. 6 miles at 10.
Shot a 90, Skipped My Sunday Run
When I woke up Friday morning, my throat was killing me which is usually the first sign I am getting sick. However, I had a tee time on Saturday morning at Hermann Park Golf Course. I took it easy on Friday, and went to sleep early hitting a preventative dose of Nyquil to see if I might head this one off at the pass. Saturday morning, I was sick but not sick enough to skip my tee time. I sure am glad I didn't. Shot the best round of golf in my life, not only breaking 100, but shooting 90. Back nine was nothing but pars and bogeys. I did have a couple of double bogeys on the front nine and a snowman at 2, which will be the next target of my golf - accuracy and a better inside-to-inside swing plane. Right now, I am still having some issues because my plane is very vertical, resulting in over the top shots with a strong fade.
By Saturday afternoon, I felt horribly and slept the rest of the afternoon and all night. Decided to skip my Sunday run to make sure I had a couple more days to recoup prior to hitting a strenuous workout again. Next run: Running workout on Tuesday morning, but this time I am running 4 miles and doing three sets.
Here's a picture of Art, Me and Todd on the 9th hole with downtown Houston in the background.
Run for Thursday, July 29th 2010
I am going to start training for the Rock and Roll San Antonio Half Marathon when I return from Vegas (which is in 4 weeks WHOO HOOO). Vegas represents exactly what it should be - the last hurrah before ten weeks of sacrifice and commitment to a larger goal. Many times when training for longer races such as these, it's easy to get ahead of oneself, visualizing and focusing on the entire body of work leading up to the race. Thinking about 10 week of running 4 or 5 times a week can be daunting so instead, I have decided to try and focus myself into smaller, more manageable chunks. I was trying to come up with a way to focus on single runs while simultaneously tracking progress as well as providing some sort of accountability. My facebook friends got sick of my posts about running, so here I am.
Here's the Garmin stats from my run today. Pre-Vegas, I am trying to run 3 times a week - Tuesday, Thursday and once on the weekend on the day I am not playing golf. I need to build up my endurance and mileage to 8 miles and able to run a single 8:30 mile. I'm close but have some work to go over the next 4 weeks.
My next post should be on Sunday morning after I run 2 laps at Memorial Park.
Trip Report – West End, Roatan, Honduras
7 days in paradise. It's not a matter of if we go back, but when. So let's start from the beginning.
Continental from Houston to Roatan. Got upgraded based on status so upgraded wife. First class to Roatan is a great way to start. Airport in Roatan is tiny. Two gates. Line for incoming passport control can be long (unless you are in 1st class and off the plane first). Wait for bags. There are drivers for the different resorts waving signs and asking if you need a ride. Got bags. Headed for door, got a cab, asked for the price (which is NO LONGER 10 bucks, but rather 15), loaded and was off. No problems. That being said, our neighbors on the trip, PJ and Samantha got to Luna Beach and realized someone had tried to slit PJ's shorts to get his wallet out. Deep cut through shorts and into wallet itself. Keep your eyes open and keep the 3 foot rule in effect.
Drive from airport to West End/Luna Beach takes you down the south side of the island and then up into the mountains and over to the west side of the island. The island is dramatically mountainous and there are basically no laws or common sense for driving. For those renting a car, I would recommend experience prior to driving on Roatan. And again, just like in Cozumel, if you enjoy your life, I would recommend against scooters anywhere else other than on the beach.
Luna Beach Resort (LB)
About 20 minute drive from the airport, again 15 bucks. Luna Beach is situated about a half mile south of the south edge of West End. The location was great because the party escalates as you head south. Perfect for us as we walk home.
The room we were in was facing the ocean and we got to enjoy the sunset (almost) every evening. The rooms were nice. Check in was fairly simple. Basic accommodations. AC worked too well. Hot and cold water. Maids were great and on time. The common areas were well kept and the place was overall clean and very pleasant.
That being said, the waitstaff and bartenders were horrible. I am a veteran of "island time" and definitely understand the cultural differences involved in customer service but the lack of attention by the wait staff was absolutely unsatisfactory. Until our final meal - which was handled by Spencer and Chuck's granddaughter and was great - we were sitting for up to 10 minutes as we made eye contact and were even passed by several times by wait staff before even getting a menu. On one occasion, my wife went in early (2 hours) to order lunch for us prior to me getting back from a dive trip. After 30 minutes of waiting, she finally got up and went and had to force the waiter to pay attention to her. Even after ordering 1.5 hours early, she was told it might not be ready in time. Then, when the food never came out, we were given an excuse that she thought the food was for the dive crew - even though she had personally taken the order from my wife and my wife sat right there by the bar.
Other than that, the food was OK but not great. On rainy days or breakfast, it was fine but I would not recommend eating there unless absolutely necessary.
Luna Beach Dive Shop
So I went in on Sunday and met Joanie, who is the dive shop manager. Got all signed up for the next three days. She checked my creds and my dive log and was very attentive to all my questions. Got me suited up with equipment (yes, I still rent my equipment and don't have any issues with it) and was ready to rumble.
The next morning, I was up early for the 9 am dive. Got the equipment on the boat and ready to go. Got going a bit early to talk a bit and get to know some of my fellow divers, along with just not having to rush prior to my first dive. The LB dive boat is wide and downright comfy. Lots of room and relaxing. If you want to chill out, you can climb on the roof and catch some rays.
Met with Martin the divemaster for the briefing. Meticulous and thorough to say the least, Martin is one of the best DMs I have experienced. I was singled and this was my first dive of the trip so I got buddied with the DM and off we went. Spent quite a bit of time talking with Martin and really enjoyed his amicable and carefree personality. He seemed to be one of those kinds of people that take what they do very seriously yet can encapsulate that professionalism in a "no worries" feeling that sets the divers at ease.
Dove with Martin most of the time, since he was the true DM of the group and Joanie and Hailee were both instructors, mostly working with specialty students. There were several groups of divers doing specialties, AOW certs, getting their c-cards, find diving and one guy getting his Rescue. I did get to dive with Hailee for the wreck dive and found her to be quite good as well. She is a bit younger than Martin which might make some people nervous, but her demeanor was similar. Was well versed and through in her briefing, especially because it was a wreck and divers tend to do stupid stuff around wrecks.
The actual size of the group tended to stay around 12, including DMs. Most of the time it was split between around 5 or 6 doing certs or specialties and 5 or 6 fun diving. Big boat. No problems.
Frankly, I was a bit worried about the LB dive shop, especially after the unexpected and abrupt farewell to Wolfgang and with the plethora of available choices in town, I was ready to jump ship at the first sign of any questionable behavior. Joanie, Hailee, Martin and Fermin all did a great job and I would definitely dive there again. I might even dive there even if I was not staying there because of the boat. I am not a fan of diving off of skiffs and it looked like most of the other shops were skiff divers except Coconut Tree and the big resorts like AKR.
The Shark Dive - Waihuka
The shark dive was everything they said it was - and more. Let's preface this with the fact that this was the second day of diving (Tues) and I had a few Port Royales the night before. Really, based on the first day of diving, I didn't think much of it because the north side was like glass....
The south side is different. The place is actually east of the airport on the southern coast. The wind was kicking that day and the seas were pretty bad. We went through a nice 20 minute briefing of the dive, from start to finish, and all the precautions one should take when diving with sharks. They are all basically females because the males don't like us. Basically, don't act like a fish is the advice.
15 to 20 foot seas rocked us on the way out and my stomach, despite the Dramamine, was really not doing well. We finally got hooked onto the mooring and had to use a drift line due to the currents. Finally, after a lot of wasted air and pulling, we got about 20 feet down and there they were. I thought I heard a dinner bell on the way down.
The sharks were standoffish at first, and then they just started multiplying and getting closer and closer. You know when you dive and you usually see something in your peripheral vision, it's usually another diver - well, on this dive, it's a freaking shark. We get down to the bottom, get situated after a hurried entrance and the currents, even 70 feet down, were swaying us 2 to 3 feet. Like I said, pretty rough but you didn't think about it because there were sharks everywhere.
The DM carries a blue bucket full of fish and we swim from one place to another. The sharks get closer and closer with each minute until you can actually feel them swim past you. We had about 15 or so on this trip and they were ready.
At the conclusion, the bucket is opened and the frenzy begins. No. Seriously. You've watched the discovery channel thing about it. I watched it from 20 feet away. So you are sitting there, on the bottom (I had added a couple extra pounds to ensure I stayed put if I wanted), 20 feet away with your extremities glued to your body. It's really breathtaking. One of the first sharks to get to the bucket stuck it's whole head in and got stuck. Didn't care. Just sat there, twisting and chomping. You can actually see the shock waves through the skin of the shark's jaws on each bite. Yes. It's that close.
Once the fish were gone, so were the sharks. A couple late comers were circling but they were soon gone as well. We all just relaxed for a minute and pet the friendly grouper then headed back up to the boat.
The seas were rougher than before. My stomach was teetering on full yack and of course, everyone is having trouble getting on the boat. Once we got on, it was sweet relief and I spent the next 20 minutes praying and keeping my eyes on the island, hoping to get back to the dock.
All was well after we got back. Overall, a great dive. The only funny story is when my buddy tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a huge green eel. I looked back at him and pointed at all the ******ing sharks. It was pretty funny.
Diving with Coconut Tree
Coconut Tree Divers are a great shop. We met with Gaye the first day and talked about island life and such. PJ is a character (I don't think the man owns a shirt) and Tree is a great host. Spent a lot of time nerding it up with Steve (the guy who does their website) because we are both software developers. Here's his blog: The Scuba Geek. He had some great stories about diving in North Carolina and hopefully I will be able to get some "contract" work that brings me back to Roatan soon.
As for the actual diving with them? It was good. Professional staff. Really nice dive. Their boat saved us on the first 2 tank because a front was coming through and we went down in 2 foot seas and came up in 10. Rough ride home, but Wish You Were Here cut those waves like a hot knife through butter.
Dives themselves
I didn't do as much diving as I wanted. Particularly because there was a storm coming through so my night dive got canceled, and I made the mistake of assuming the weather patterns were going to remain bad so on Friday, I tried to drink all the rum on the island thinking there was no way we were diving the next day. Woke up the next morning in no shape to dive and guess what - it's beautiful. No worries though.
Day 1 - Dixie's Place and Bikini Bottom
Maybe I am just spoiled from my Belize trip, but I was seriously underwhelmed by the wildlife. Saw some turtles the first day (3 actually) and got some seriously close pictures with them. Other than that, it was the usual suspects. The diving was good though and reminded me much of the channels outside of San Pedro.
Day 2 - Shark Dive
Day 3 - Odyssey (Wreck Dive) and Blue Channel
There are two wrecks on the north side. The Odyssey is the bigger one and it is pretty sweet. We didn't get to penetrate but it was fun anyway. It goes from about 60 feet at the top to close to 110 at the sea floor so you really have to stay conscious of your air/time. Blue Channel was like day 1 other then these 3 connected swimthroughs that were pretty flippin sweet.
Day 4 - Spooky Channel
This was supposed to be a 2 tank dive but got cut short because of the weather. The name says it all. You start down and then you go into this cave/swimthough. When you come out, you are in this underwater cave with a small slit at the top. Really surreal. Closest thing to Blue Hole I have seen. You swim through this cave then breakout into the wall.
Day 5 was scrapped because of weather.
Day 6 was scrapped because of my rum habit. 
Overall, I would say Roatan is about on par with Belize. So far they are #1 and #1a on my list.
West End Restaurants and Bars
Where did we eat? Everywhere. What did I eat? Everything.
Pinnochios - very underwhelming. Wouldn't go back.
Pura Vida (the restaurant, not the dive shop) - Rocked. Great pizza. Good service.
Mavies and Dixies - Great view but that's about it. Food was nominal.
West End Restaurant (by the sub place) - Awesome.
Argentinian - Awesome.
Eagle Ray's - Great view. Decent food. Lobster quesadillas.
Breakfast at the shack next to Coconut Tree - Baileadas - Yes, they are that good.
Luna Beach? Don't bother. Only eat there for convenience.
The Bars
One of the bonuses of staying at Luna Beach was the party goes south at night. Start at Sundowners after dinner, then on to the Purple Turtle, and then late night at FUBAR. Regardless of what you hear, stay away from the nitrous balloons unless you want to get dumber. That was our nightlife and it's all you need. There were some other "clubs" along the way but I am a bit too old for that.
Other Dive Operations
I spoke with several other divers about the dive shops and really heard good things about Native Sons and Reefgliders. When I go back, I will probably split between Coconut Tree and Native Sons although I would almost definitely go and hang with Martin, Joanie and Hailee at Luna Beach for some dives. They were great.
Rum and Beer
It's good. Drink it. Port Royale was my fav but Barena was a close second. With a lime, it tastes like Corona.
Additional Notes and such.
Book your dives and excursions. We tried to book the dolphin encounter when we arrived and it was booked solid. My wife was very disappointed. Another excuse to go back.
If you have child divers, you need to dive with them. We were on a dive boat with a 14 year old and although he ended up having more experience than me, I still didn't feel comfortable buddying with him. I don't mind younger divers but it's unfair for a 31 year old man who weighs 200 lbs to be paired up with a 14 year old. Sorry if this offends anyone but it's reality. FWIW, I didn't get paired with him but others did and they grumbled. He was a great kid and behaved very mature but if I am 100 ft down, the last thing I would want would be a buddy that was that young. You can disagree with me all you want - it's just my opinion.
The sunsets are amazing.
Our next door neighbors, who we got to be great friends with, did the submarine thing. Evidently, the guy built it himself and everything. Took them down 2000 feet. One the the funniest stories I heard was that he will routinely tie dead dogs and animals to the sub to attract predators. That week, he had gotten hold of a horse. No bulls**t.
I have named two new physical ailments - scubanose and flippertoe. Scubanose is when the lower part of your nose gets sore after days of equalization. Flippertoe was because those tendons on top of your feet are not used that often and after 2 days of kicking and walking on sand, my foot was swollen.
Next step - Roatan Consulting. Matt is sales. I'm development. Maybe PJ can get us some funding?
Recruiting at SFA
I got to spend 2 days back in Nac for some presentations and on-campus recruiting at SFA. I drove up on Tuesday morning and made it there in about 2 hours (going the speed limit, of course). Drove straight to the campus, got a visitor parking pass from the UPD (University Police Department) and proceeded to the UC - or what used to be the UC.
There was some major changes to the campus since my last visit including a brand new Student Center and it was big. Much bigger and nicer than the old UC. To my surprise was the commercialization of the campus. Trying not to sound too old, back in my day the choices to eat on campus were all Aramark-run, cafeteria style meals and they were absolutely horrible. People always laugh about the freshman 15 at other campuses but st SFA, the freshman 15 meant you LOST 15 pounds because the food was gross. What do they have now? Chick-Fil-A. Starbucks (2 of them). Panda Express. A retail type convienent store. They even had a branch of Commercial Bank. How things change. I got my starbucks and headed for the business building.
The core of the campus was pretty much unchanged. Beautiful as ever and the students have changed only slightly. They are still all walking around oblivious to the real world and not fully appreciating how nice they have it (but I digress). Headed for the 3rd floor of the business building and took the stairs I walked a million times before. Memories flowed like a river as I walked into the computer science department.
The professors were as great as ever. Dr. Pickard and I spent some time prior to class discussing some of the major developments to have happened since my graduation, such as technology changes and outsourcing concerns. I met with Mr. Harber, Dr. Dunn, and Mr. Long for a few minutes as well and discussed the same things - what they are doing, what I am doing, etc. Everyone seemed truly excited for us to be there and everyone remarked they looked forward to the Scrum presentation later that afternoon.
The presentation to the 426 class went very well up until the end. The overview of my current employer as well as the information related to business procurement, project management policies and methodologies were all well accepted by the audience and they seemed to enjoy the discussion. Then I got to the technology and I completely lost them. I started talking JSF, Hibernate, Spring and patterns and the "glaze" came over their faces. I had made the age old mistake of going in to a presentation without fully understanding the audience. I made the assumption our current CS students would be more worldly to the technologies that run the internet but I guess not. I could have spent another 3 hours just giving background but decided to wrap it up, chalk it up to experience and opened for questions.
The Scrum presentation in the afternoon went a lot smoother. Scrum is not very technical and is considered more of a common sense, logical approach to software development. I actually had a couple of guys, Ian being one of them, who were already aware of agile and scrum. Based on the feedback from the professors and the students, I need to change a slide or two but overall, they enjoyed the information. Quite frankly, I enjoyed acting like a professor for a day. We ended with a huge feast of pizza and some additional discussion about consulting and my expereineces in general. Headed to the hotel, got changed, met with some friends at Bullfrogs and then headed to Shack. Overall, a great Tuesday.
On Wedsnesday, the job fair went well. I was targeting only a small portion of people (about 10 to 12 total) so I was idle for much of the day, spending my time answering the basic questions ("so, uh, like, what do ya'll do") and trying to chat it up with some other booth attendants. Got to talk more with some of the CS students throughout the day and again, I was very impressed by the graduates of SFA's computer science department. To this day, I'll put my guys against any other school and not worry.
So let this hopefully be the start of a recurring theme. I'll be headed back soon to do some on-campus interviews and will be back in the fall, hopefully as part of the advisory committee.
Going back to school
I just finished a meeting with one of my collegues in which we discussed our recruiting trip back to our alma mater, Stephen F. Austin State University. For those of you who do not know, SFA is a smaller state school located in beautiful Nacogdoches, Texas and has a reputation for being an excellent forestry and teaching university. But what most people do not know about SFA is that the business school is accredited by AACSB International-The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Only about 29 percent of the business schools in the United States share this distinction. I graduated from SFA in December of 1999 with a bachelor of business administration in computer information systems and coincidentally, sat next to one of my best friends, pledge brother and roommate for 3 years - Jason Ortega - during graduation.
The other fact that is not well known is the quality of the computer science department at SFA. The faculty doesn't mess around with teaching visual basic and calling it a computer science degree. When I went through the CIS program, I was enrolled in all but two classes in the true computer science degree plan. When I graduated, it was almost as if I had double majored in CS and business. Most schools nowadays are selling MIS degrees, where they teach "analysis" and a few computer science courses. While those students are learning how to build a requirements document, SFA's CIS students are doing 8 dimensional arrays on a mainframe (RIP Dr. Dailey).
So now I get to go back and mingle with my old professors as a colleague and not a student. It will be interesting to see how my perceptions will change seeing them in a new light. Not only do I get to present in front of the 426 class and do a presentation to the Computer Science Club later that afternoon, but I get to spend the better part of 2 days just hanging out on campus talking with students and enjoying the academic side of things.
Professional Development Opportunities in 2008
I ended 2007 with a flurry of activity. I participated in the Sun Certified Enterprise Architect Beta Exam for Java 1.5 during the final two months of the year and barely finished in time, mostly because of the compressed time requirement due to the beta status. I studied only two weeks, maybe 20 hours total. I found the test to be challenging and incorporated some different technologies and concepts. Although the test is brand new, it still feels like it was written 2 years ago. Passed Part One. Finished the project in 3 weeks. Took the essay exam the next week. Don't get the results until Feb 15th. I am assuming I passed.
During this time, I was also preparing for a company wide technical presentation on Spring 2.5. Knowing and understanding Spring is one thing, but trying to explain dependency injection and inversion of control to someone for the first time via a web conference is hard. I got some good feedback, especially from my colleagues up in the NYC office and I am looking forward to expanding the presentation soon.
So with all this activity at the end of the year, and after a refreshing Christmas break, I am ready to tackle some more opportunities. Here's my short list:
- ScrumMaster Certification. This one I actually started setting up last year. It's all set. I'll be attending the course, here in Houston, on February 13th and 14th, with Peter Borsella. I am stoked about this because we are having a company-wide technical conference 2 weeks later in Miami and I am hoping to be a part of the push for integration of Agile methodologies into consulting work, especially fixed-cost projects.
- Certified Associate of Project Management (CAPM), PMI - This is something I am targeting for Q2 of this year, after I return from my vacation in March. I am largely a technical kind-of-guy and I am wanting to round my experience more.
So after that, I am looking at Q3 and Q4 as a blank canvas as far as technology goes. What can I learn in six months? Should I go ahead and bite the Microsoft bullet, get cross trained in C# (which is basically Java, without the control) and become a player in the dark side? What about moving away from programming languages and moving toward Oracle and DBA-type knowledge?
Along the same lines, I am looking for more in-depth training and understanding of trading, hedging and other activities involving both financial and energy derivatives. I polished off the Nontechnical Guide to Trading Natural Gas which I enjoyed as it presented a majority of the hedging strategies for natural gas trading. I have a lot of experience in transportation services after having worked for Enron Transportation Services (Northern Natural Gas, Transwestern, and Florida Gas Transmission) as well as Spectra Energy, but have only been in natural gas (energy trading) for about six months, mostly on the risk side after an implementation of a risk product for a client in Indianapolis, in which I was the technical architect. For the next month, I am going to begin to research the free and company-sponsored avenues to becoming an expert in energy trading and will report when I make my decisions. If you have any suggestions regarding learning energy trading, please shoot me an email or leave a comment.
What I Do
I was reading Ben's blog and decided to take part in the ongoing discussion of describing what you do for a living.
I think what I do is best described by the rare combination of talent and interest in a subject that most people find rather boring, overly complicated, too meticulous, or something so abstract they can't fully comprehend it. If you haven't figured it out, the subject is software development and computer system architecture design.
Here's a typical conversation I have when meeting someone and the conversation winds through what a person does:
Person: So, what do you do?
Me: I am a consultant.
Person: So, what do you do?
Me: I am a software developer and application architect.
Person: So, what do you do?
Me: Like right now? I am building a deal capture and data integration system that allows 2 other trading software products to work together for a power trading company.
Person: Cool. Well, I hate computers. I can't even get my mail to work. Speaking of, do you know anything about Windows??? I am getting this weird error message when I..............
So to the average person, I work with computers.
That being said, what I do is solve problems and implement ideas. Whether the ideas are related to the actual business, such as generating invoices, or they are related to internal processes, such as streamlining team development practices, what I do is try and solve the primary question on the minds of all management: How is this going to make more money? What kind of return on investment will I receive for this undertaking? How can I make the business more efficient?
More and more, I am engaged into projects more related to articulating and managing risk, which might not necessarily give an exact and measurable ROI, but is necessary to prevent losses. For example, cumulative open positions are used by trading companies show the current risk with the company. This is a number that is required for many different reasons and is quite necessary both internally for management but also for external credit management. So basically, the computation might not give you a specific and measurable ROI, but it allows the company to reduce risk.
So what do I do? I make those calculations faster. I make those calculations wider and deeper. I show those results in a format allowing for better communication. I also provide more insight into how those calculations could be seamlessly integrated into other decision making processes. How do I do that? By listening. Listen to what my customer wants, provide feedback and alternatives not only solve the question at hand but leverage the work across the entire business, and then ultimately doing what they want and need.
I create answers to questions. My answers just happen to involve computers. That's what I do.