A trip and a memory

We decided to have a short family vacation, going to visit the in-laws. They live in Nova Scotia, so that should be enough to say that they are ok and deserve the in-laws rather than out-laws label. Took a flight on Friday night and spent the Saturday in Halifax. After that, we drove to their place, about 40 minutes and spent 4 days there.  

Halifax
If you have never been there, it might not look like anything special until you go by the harbor front. That is because they are doing a lot of constructions around the city now. We started with a trip to Citadel, the fortress at the top of the hill. A star shaped fortress that was build to protect the city. As a matter of fact, Halifax was never attacked. Nobody has tried because was a loss from the beginning. The tour guide, Mr. Adam, was really knowledgeable. He has been writing a book for 10 years and he promised us that it will be published in the next 20 years :). We happened to be there at noon, and as per the tradition, the canon was fired and, as per what the locals say, nobody is awake after that in Halifax. Then for lunch, we met an old friend that we used to work with. Was so nice to see him and catch up. He looks happy and I am happy for him. He moved there, after 1 year got divorced, and after another year started dating someone that sounds like a nice girl for him. They build their own house that we went to visit on our way back and was really gorgeous. You could tell that he put a lot of love on that house, on every corner of it and on every detail that was still to be finished. After that, we went down to harbor front. It is so beautiful there. Maybe because the weather was also sunny and warm, it just made that area so inviting. We went on a museum boat, on the real museum and then took the tour with Harbor Hopper, an amphibian vehicle from the Vietnam war, now changed and dressed up to be used for tourist. US made 900 of them for $900M. The guide was Max, a student at the Halifax Uni. He really knew a lot about the city. A couple of times he made me cry with the stories he told us.

 Story 1
Captain Cornwallis came from Cape Breton to find a place where to build a strong fortress. When he landed to the harbor, he walked up to the hill and decided that that was the best place to build a fortress and a city. But he needed people. So he went back and he started recruiting. "I will offer you free land" - nobody came. "I will offer you free food for 1 year" - nobody came. "I will offer you free Wifi" - nobody came :D. "I will offer you free booze for 1 year" - next day 2500 people were ready to follow him.

Story 2
The most respected Mayor, had his own brewery, called after him, Alexander Keith. When the city was celebrating something I forgot, the Mayor at that time, decided to close the bars and pubs so the people wouldn't get drunk and make a mess. People got angry about that and went around the city and started destroying bars and shops. Until Keith decided to open the doors of his brewery and people celebrated in peace. I thought that was a dumb decision from that Mayor. The city was build by people bribed with booze. How can you expect them to celebrate something without booze??!!! Alexander Keith's grave is on the graveyard across the Garden. We went there and we found a lot of beer cans that people had put around :)

 Story 3
During the war, the city would put a net on the water to keep the boats from offloading on harbor during night time. The net would be removed in the morning. On December 6, 1917 a french boat full of ammunition rushed to get to harbor after waiting all night behind the net, hiding what they had on board. A boat full with medications was eager to leave because missed to leave on time the night before and now was late. During the rush, the two boats hit each-other and the french boat went BOOOM. The biggest disaster ever happened to the city. Thousands of people died, thousands were injured and thousands were blinded by the flying glass. On top of that, that day the city had one of the worst snow storms of the history. Someone, Morse-ed out a message for help. People in Boston caught the message, filled up a train with medications, doctors and even Harvard students that were not doctors yet, and came to help. As a Thank you sign of appreciation, every year, on Christmas time, Halifax city sends to the city of Boston, the biggest Christmas tree they have on the forest nearby.

Story 4
Howe was a journalist that called out a lot of the corruptions going on on the government. So they arrested him. He decided to defend himself and for 6 hours, he spoke non-stop, giving examples of what was going on. At the end, the Chief Police apologized to him publicly and he was a free man. After some years, he became the Premier of Nova Scotia.

Story 5
Remember the canon that goes Boom every noon? That happened during G8, when all leaders were lined up to have a picture. They all thought they were being attacked and they were halfway to Peggy's Cove by the time they explained the tradition. Needless to say, they will not have another gathering of World Leaders there anytime soon.

Back to Halifax. Another thing to try there is donairs. Max told us that when Bill Clinton was there, he liked it so much that he got a lot of it, frozen, back with him to White House. But I had decided to eat only seafood.... and beaver's tails .... and awesome ice cream. Have to say, it is a city with a lot of history, comfort food and during winter, full of students.

At the in-laws 
They live in a small town, that during night is very quite and doesn't have very bright lights. You can stare at stars at night and feel small like a grain of sand. The goal was to spend some time with them and get my daughter to understand that there are more people in the world that love her and that she should love and respect. There is an aunt there that is very sweet to us. She never forgets to send a Christmas card. So we decided to go and visit her. Tuesday was what worked best for all of us. So we went for a visit to Peggy's cove, stopped for a nice meal at a cute restaurant by the side of the ocean and then drove to her house. Her house is on a small strip of land surrounded by water on East and West. She and her husband were so happy to see us. They took us around for a tour to the backyard that was at the Indian harbor. Just amazing view! She is 72, full of energy and ideas for future. She paints, a hobby she found late in her life but she is now a real painter. She took us around her lovely house and showed us the paintings all over the walls. We got one of her paintings and she signed it on the back, with the date and with a sweet message about our visit. She told us a lot of history about the family tree. Some stories not even my in-laws knew! We asked her to put all of those stories down and create the family tree. She promised she will do that! Around 7 pm we left her place. We hugged and we waved bye. The next morning, her husband called to tell us that she passed away last night, at the hospital, after a fall.
I still cannot believe she is gone. I still have her in front of me, hugging her husband and waving us goodbye while we were driving away from her driveway one night before. I cannot understand how all the energy in that women, all the plans that she had to visit some new places, all the paintings that she was planning to make .. are all gone just like that! The painting we got from her is now in our house and her writing is on the back, with her lovely message and the date we visited her, one day before she passed away. I know she is in somewhere nice, peaceful and by the ocean. It will be the first Christmas we will not get a card from her. RIP!

Spending time with in-laws is good. We got to cook Clam chowder and that was an event where everyone did something. Food always gets people together. 3 generations contributed into that chowder and it came out to be really yummy.
One day we went to a corn maze. One day to the pool. Every night we had deers visiting the backyard and eating the seeds left on the bird-feeder. One night when the sly was clear we saw the International Space Station flying by.  Now I know where my husband's first girlfriend house is, where he got drunk before prom, what window did he use to sneak out at night, and what did he used to do to get out of mowing the lawn.
We played darts, we drank, we ate, we cried and we laughed.

A Blah day

What a day! In the morning, everything went fine, like a well oiled machine. I woke up, prepared the lunch bag for my kid, chose what to wear, left home at a decent time, read some nice articles on the train and went to work at a decent time. Answered some emails, started some work that I had on my To Do list, scratched a couple, had a nice lunch and then my manager told me that he has a good news. I will be promoted to Signor level and my salary will go up. Me and a couple other people on my team, have been asking for an increase for a long time. Although this is a good news, it is not as good as we expected because the increase is not where we were aiming to be. So I am left with a desire to move out of this place. On the way back, I didn't read anything on the train, I was just thinking about my options and what to do. Start finding another job, I am tired of that. Continue staying with at this job, hurts me when I think that there are people at my work that can't select text, and make more than I do. Arrived home and my kid said: I think the hamster is dead! I said, let's go to karate and will check later. So we ran to karate class and I was thinking what to tell her when we get back home. While she was at the dojo, called my husband and asked him to handle the dead hamster before we get home. I kept thinking about my job. We came home and my husband had put the hamster on a small plastic box, wrapped with tin foil and inside the freezer. We can keep the hamster there until we decide how the funeral will be done. While checking my social stream, I noticed that I had an answer from Space!! A couple of days ago, I asked Col. Chris Hadfield on Twitter to put a picture of my country from up there. He is on a spaceship that orbits Earth 16 times/day. And today he put a picture of my country!! It was really cool, very nice feeling! I thanked him and shared the picture with a lot of my friends.

Looking back, this day was a roller coaster of emotions!

Scanner Daybook

While in a meeting with my team, I confessed that I can't make up my mind where do I want to spend my next 10.000 years of my life. PM? Developer?Coach?Communications? People skills? Until now I have been like a student, learning a lot, never caring about certifications and moving from one career to the other, worried that I do not have a strong future ahead. One of the Senior guys in my team started smiling and said; You are a Scanner! He brought me this book, "Refuse to Choose" by Barbara Sher. I started reading the cover and the Prologue, and I started crying! It was me all over. I have been misunderstood and misdiagnosed until now. I have been beating up myself until now when thinking that I am not good at something, I am all over the place and I am scared about my career. Well, apparently this is something that a lot of people have. Before 50s, people like me were appreciated. But then there was the need for professionals and very focused careers. People like me were seen as unable to commit, unable to focus, not trusted. We were offered methods to find what we should choose and keep being focused at. But how can a Scanner do that? I have always found myself interested in a lot of things, and I can't say which one the most. Because, typical for Scanners, at some point the interest is lost and we move on to something else that is interesting. People like Da Vinci, Aristotle, Ben Franklin have been like this. They were amateurs (meaning lovers of something) but never specialist to it. The things is that, we do not want to finish everything we start. As soon as we become knowledgeable on a field, we loose interest and want to move on to something else. This explains how I feel happy when I start a new job but then I am bored of it and want to change it. One of the exercises to do is to create a Daybook, where every time I have ideas on what to do, I would sit down and write them. When I stop writing, I should put down the reason for stopping. This for 2 weeks. Then I should do a list of things I want to do that are small enough to be done in a period of 6 years. I can write down here the list of things I want to do, and I will write Daybook ideas on other posts. As an extrovert, I need external input to feel motivated :) Here a list of things I would like to do in 6 years: - Learn to play guitar - Visit at least 3 of these countries: England, Spain, China, Japan, Vancouver, Israel(Jerusalem), Sweden, Australia, South Africa - Go through some really good sessions with a psychiatrist (alone or with my husband for couple sessions) - Go through some good sessions with a fortune teller - Sing a song and recorded - Make another dress for myself that I can wear - I would know more about Mars atmosphere - Go to some classes about Quantum mechanics at any University - Throw a Christmas party with a lot of special food I have cooked. - Been to a Lang-Lang concert - Write 2 more short stories - Have the stories that I have written put together on a book - Go on stage on an improvised show - Improve my French - Learn more German - Get back to exercising 3 times a week (karate/swimming/core/yoga) I know, it's all over the place! But I like them all.. and maybe some more that I can't think of right now. I am just glad that at least there is a name for people like me, and I have more to read on what to do about who I am

Update: Jobs I found interesting for me: - Coach. I can talk with different people, teach them something, learn something from them - Speaker at Discovery channel. While I do my job and I read a script, I learn a lot about cool stuff they show on that channel

Vinegar

I am noticing myself lately becoming bitter and assertive. More. Maybe I have always been like this but maybe I have been in different positions when people have expected different things from me. I envy this girl in my team, she is all organized and very on top of the process. I can't be like that, it clashes with my personality. My way of working is to get things done, rather than measure a lot of metrics. I do lack academic-ism and for sure I am more hands on and I value practic-ism I know I am doing something wrong, but for everything I identify as something I did wrong, I can find also a reason behind why I did it so I can justify myself. I am worried that I am working against myself, I am becoming like that strong vinegar that ruins its own container. Until now I have seen the role of a psychoanalyst as a hobby. Now I need it professionally. More for a focus, direction, a simple technique on how to keep my mouth shut, on how to be happier and less grumpy. I hear that a lot of people in my new profession, do have personal coaches. Not just for professional coaching but also personal. I think I need one. It might cost but I can pay it as long as I have a job. Maybe will help me stay in a job. So I am thinking to ask some of the guys that have tried a lot of these coaches to recommend me someone. I don't know what this makes me. Desperate, psychotic, complicated, intellectual, crazy or just plain aware that my brain needs more than what is getting right now. I will try it.

Synonyms

My manager is very creative. When he tries to explain something, he likes to use examples that are supposed to explain a complicated situation in an easy way for someone to understand. "There are different ways to skin a cat" is just one of them that is most common. Here some more:
- Business doesn't want to buy a cat on a box!!! (what he means is Business will buy an application that they know what it does and what supports)
- We need to pave the road so the goat doesn't pee on the rug !!!! ( what he really means is that we need to put a clear road map ahead so that teams are not confused and take over work that is not valuable from the business point of view)
- We must make the cow jump the fence so it can eat the grass!!! ( what he means is that we must guide these teams to focus to what is really important for them in order to be efficient)
- We will not spill the milk from the box, but will use a straw!!! (what he really means is that we will not tell to others everything we know, but bring our knowledge out slowly, when requested or when in need)

He is driving me nuts!! One of my colleagues has found a way around and asks "Can you explain that to me in a different way, please?".
Stay tuned to this post as I will be adding more as soon as I hear it from him!

New Additions
- Tell them what you want, developers, PMs, red leather shoes size 73 by Sunday...(What he really means is that you should make it clear what you need in order to deliver what they ask)
- If no requirements, and they need an axe, build them a bottle and if they don't like it build them another one (What he really means is that you start building something until they realise what they need)
- Need to keep the cat in the box. (What he really means is to keep some secrets and not tell everything we know)

Broken hearts in GO train

Copy-paste from the newspaper that I read every evening on the GO, over 5-6 days in the Shout Out section:

@justastrangernow: did you hear anything?
When I read your S/O it was as if I had wrote it
myself. I starting seeing someone and I thought
he was the one. After a few months, things
changed. I miss him so much. I don’t really know
what to do, and I don’t know why? feelingalone

@feelingalone: No, I haven’t heard from her and
never will. Funny how some people express their
true feelings hoping that the other person will
never know the truth. Out of sight, out of mind
I guess. I use to find a silent comfort in knowing
that I mattered to her, but clearly I don’t matter
any more. No one to blame but myself for clinging
to this stupid hope and falling for a person who
doesn’t care for me. I learned that there is no
fate, just coincidences. - Justastrangernow

@justastrangernow: Not 100% certain you are
writing to me. I wrote something similar to a
man I care for, but not a year ago. I read your
response to @feelingalone & I’m still not sure,
but do want to reach out. Maybe you should try
calling her. I know I’ve thought about calling him,
but I’m scared of rejection. I miss having him as a
work husband, miss his charm, sense of humour.
I’m urging you to get past her not responding
to your S/O, as you can’t be certain she read it.
He has been out of sight for 6 months, but I still
think of him. We had something that comes once
in a lifetime. It’s a shame ... @still your sweetie

justastrangernow: it’s hard when you fall for
someone who is in love with someone else.
It’s harder when you think they loved you but
realize too late that they never really cared @
feelingalone

Hey Justastrangernow: All of us fellows who
are unlucky with the opposite sex are feeling
your pain, man. And since you now have some
free time to ponder whether life is of fate or
coincidence, I propose an ideally suited summer
reading novel to help you along: Bridge of San
Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder. Georgetown Gord


Not just girls are broken hearted. This is something good, something that should make women believe that love does exists. And on the other side, is a proof to men that women are mean. What is the truth? What should we take as a fact? Maybe there are men out there that might think like this about me. I have been in situations like this before myself. I don't know what to say but sometimes we do fall for the wrong person, and sometimes the wrong person gets closer to us and makes us believe things we should not believe, makes us feel emotions we should not feel for them and makes us fall in love with the person we should not.

Sometimes immersing yourself in that one other person on an otherwise ordinary day, can be the best highlight of the day.They can bring out things in you which may never normally express or feel.I used to have a daily travelling companion and our conversations were sometimes the only thing I used to look forward to. Our talks could be elaborate, stupid, complex and sensual – all at the same time. I miss this person a lot in ways that are hard to define, and I still haven’t found a suitable replacement for my fellow traveller. - Anonymous <3

Who sucked up my energy?

I met some friends during the weekend, to a kid's birthday party. I thought I had fun and as usual, made some jokes here and there. And then, today, I got two emails from two different people, worried about me. One said she mist my jokes and fun and the other one said I have become very quiet.
I am doing a survey about my performance at work, and one of the comments I got was "Express more energy, but not as much as Jeff", where Jeff is this guy that is 24/7 pumped up. He is so energetic that he can't just type, he has some weird gadgets that transforms his talk to writing.
In my head, i was thinking I have become really chatty. I find myself talking all the time at work and with my friends. So I am trying to figure out what is going on here and as I read back what they said, I see that they are not saying I am not talking. They are saying I have less energy than before.
WHO SUCKED UP MY ENERGY?
In my new job, I am dealing a lot with coaching and being coached. While I have taken the coaching seriously, I had a bit of resistance being coached. The group that is coaching me is made up of an experienced coach and a bunch of apprentices. The apprentices are all kids that just finished MBA, but dressed in contractor suits all day they look older. They are maybe 10 years younger than me but have the attitude "Listen to me, this is how it must be done". I have a problem with that. Pisses me off!!
So I took a position where I almost ignored them, especially a couple of them. I chose to talk with only a couple that didn't come with that attitude and actually knew how to talk and what to say.
On the other side, with my team members, we used our lunch time to vent off all the "Us vs. Them" issues we faced day in- day out.
One of the books I started reading for my new job, explained me something: There are 3 levels of coaching: Follow the rule, Break the rule, Be the rule.
I read it as just one of the things explained in the book, but then after that, it hit me. These guys, see us as contingent that MUST Follow the rule! While, we were hired to BE the rule. So we are constantly heading each-other. They do not want us to even Break the rule, just Follow the rule.
I am tired of this and I find myself constantly breaking the rule and trying to be the rule. But then I watched an episode of "The pitch". The story was about 2 ad companies competing to win the marketing role on a company that was focused on women products. One ad company was made by women, 100%. The other one was made by men with one women. The women from that team did all the right questions to push these guys to the right path of thinking. At the end she came up with the right pitch and they won. The company with 99% men won over the company made 100% by women, over an ad for women products!!! And guess what! The asswholes did not even recognize her contribute. They did not say "We won this because of you"! They actually complained about her way of debating with them and pushing them with questions and discussions!
I think I am probably doing the same for my team. I am being that women that pushes them until they make the right decision but because of my "feisty-ness" I am not recognized. So, I am getting to a point where I am stepping once notch back and let the others in my team step it one notch up. I am losing my energy! I am losing my attitude to talk and doubt everything I hear. Good/Bad?
The good part is that I will probably make it to recover my reputation at work. The bad thing is that I am losing my reputation with my friends. I am drained!