Sad News

One of the renters in the house in Orem committed suicide on Saturday. I checked the answering machine at the house, I had a feeling I should check it Sunday but didn't. Well today I checked it and two messages were on it from Orem police department. Apparently, their was a suicide at the residence, which is both shocking and very sad considering these guys are all very young, in their early 20's I think. I am not sure how to react, it is hard not to think about this person's friends and what they must be going through losing him like this.
Growing up I considered suicide to be a selfish way to get attention, now I think of it as more an act of desperation or extreme hopelessness or sadness. I did not know the man well, I think I shook his hand once or twice when visiting the house. I guess I just feel like I should have been a little friendlier, kinder, nicer and somehow made more of an impression. Like if I had done that, he would still be around.
My heart goes out to his family and friends, may they be comforted in this time of sorrow.

Missing Utah and Everyone

I miss Utah, even more so now that I am likely going to be here until June 28th... Once I am back here is a list of things that.. as Rebecca would deftly say.. need done.

1. Play me some blue dragon and various other games at Linc's and Randy's.
2. Mow my lawn, then tell some kid to "Get off of my lawn!" like the grouchy old man I am.
3. Cruise in my "pimp" Sonata for some JCW's burger with a shake (I am thinking maybe peanut butter or score bar.)
4. Eat me a garden tomato! Garden zucchini and summer squash would be sweet as well, I am thinking of this as an omelette.
5. Make me some migas style breakfast tacos with potato on our gas range (I won't even try on the crap electric range in this hotel.) Hopefully I will set off the fire alarm in our house in the process and get a two for one deal.
   
6. Backyard BBQ, with our special reserve beef.
7. Visit the temple, the closest one here is several hours drive and we don't have a sitter, otherwise I would love to checkout the Houston or Dallas temple.
8. Rent a movie and watch it at home with Rebecca.
9. Spend time with the family and extended family playing board games like Puerto Rico or Carcassone or just catching up.
   
10. I must be hungry, their are a lot of food ones on here, last thing that needs done is for me to finish the garage and do various maintenance work on the house while the weather is nice.
    
    
    
    

Soft Launch /Sea World/ Austin creep

Finally able to tie a bow on this pig.... the project 2 has finally soft launched (therefore I might actually only have one job going forward). A nice email went out acknowledging my efforts to get the system ready for a soft launch, however I was identified as Harley Davidson. Oh well, one more reason not to name a son the fourth. Maybe now I can have some time with the family... I didn't bother asking anyone at work and just took a Saturday to go to Sea World San Antonio with Rebecca and Eleanor. Thankfully no fires erupted while I was watching whales perform acrobatics. I have been to the San Diego Sea World with Paul and now the San Antonio one. Sea World is one of the few parks that I would like to go back to many times. sea world > disneyland

The tickets were 42 online or 50 if you want to go twice, we did the 50 ticket option since it is very likely we will be in Austin past May 4th and have time to go again. They actually fingerprint scan you and require picture ID to enter sea world when using the two pass ticket because they don't want people buying the two pass and selling the second trip to someone else. So it is much more high tech than the blurry black and white photos taken at Lagoon to prevent the same thing.

Overall it has been a good weekend, some strange white dude approached us and swore a blue streak at Rebecca, Eleanor and I as we were heading out Saturday morning in the parking lot. He felt the need to complete his tirade with a double middle index send-off as we drove away. I have a tendency to replay my actions in emotional events like that, but I just can't see how me trying to calm him down would have ended well. At the time I felt I was responsible to get us away from him before things got violent. It was nice to have that encounter to remind us that we are not exactly living in the safest area of Austin, nice in that it is better have that then actually get mugged or killed. Signs in the adjacent parking lots remind drivers to conceal valuables in cars, lock all doors, and ALWAYS keep your eyes open for suspicious behavior. I think that is good advice anywhere you are even Happy Valley, Utah. I heard a story about Rebecca's home life in Dallas that shocked me, her home was robbed often, so often they would leave notes for the intruders. The thieves would steal everything, including on two (2) occasions, the copper plumbing under the house, how insane is that?! They had to put in cheap PVC so that it would not be worth the effort to take.

16 hour days plus weekends

I have been really really really busy. Rebecca misses me and I am in the same hotel room. I guess the upside is I can't really work more hours, just about every minute of my time is work/sleep/food/hygiene at this point. This experience has convinced me I would never want to work at home. With Eleanor screaming when put to bed while I am on conference calls or trying to focus on complex programming issues really disrupts the thought process. Since the hotel room is just that, one room, I can't close off the noise and I just have to push through the distractions. The upside is Rebecca and I will fully appreciate our comparatively huge house when we get back.

Why You Should Almost Never Customize Enterprise Software

Why is it that so many large companies will buy an expensive enterprise software package that is missing critical functionality and features for their business? Why do these large companies that buy this expensive software then pay for expensive developers to write customizations to that software that should have been included in the software to begin with. In every case that I have seen, the customization was not necessary and should not have been done. It wasted thousands of dollars and results in unnecessary delays or in one extreme case even compromised the benefits the out of the box software would have provided.
Each customization an enterprise company decides to make should have a strong business case behind it because of the incredible cost it will bring to future upgrades and general maintainence. In other words, each software customization(ui change, feature enhancement, integration piece, etc...) should have a positive return on investment that factors in the cost to maintain that functionality. Most good features should just be added to the next release of the enterprise software and supported by the software vendor. If their are features missing from enterprise software ABC, the first step is to engage the vendor Product Development team and ask for it to be added in and tell them why. Open a feature request ticket, call them everyday, twice a day, until they relent and say yes because phone calls are cheaper than developers.
Good reasons to customize:

1. It gives my company a strong competitive advantage.
2. It is legally required, my company will be take to court if it is not included.
3. It saves my company vast amounts of time or will reduce expenses dramatically.

and, after many attempts, the vendor has told me they will not add it to the product.

Very bad reasons to customize:

1. My subject matter experts don't want to have to click that. (resistance to change)
2. My customers will be confused. (assumption / training issue)
3. I have this exsting system I want to leverage (another form of resitance to change)
4. I can't wait for the next release to have this feature and the vendor won't backport it. (shortsighted decision)

From day one, installing and rolling out an enterprise software system to replace an existing process (or set of processes) will be subjected to tremendous resitance to change by every department affected by the project. Picture a single person (you) on one side of a rope and the entire company pulling the rope the other direction to get an idea of a typical resistance scenario. Recognising this early and planning for it is critical for a project to be successful.

Furthermore, until the software is rolled out and actually used by the actual agents or customers in an actual work setting or production environment, any beliefs about how the interface will be (mis)understood are just plain guesses. Often they are not intelligent guesses. Often what I have seen is contrived, based on assumptions or imperfect mental models, or, worst of all, problems derrived from sandbox environments where the edge cases get lots of attention and the meatier workflow is left unnoticed or ignored. Until users are forced into the new software, kicking and screaming, the real usability issues will remain hidden. So why fix the UI when you don't know for certain what precisely is broken?

Finally, your existing systems do what they do, any attempt to integrate them with the new system is a change resistance on your part to allow the new system to stand alone as it was intended to operate. You can't always know the impact on the existing system an integration will have, nor should you expect to fully understand the negative impact the existing system will have when it is connected.

Bottom line is the vendor sales agent will probably tell you anything can be done and is possible, and technically they are correct. Just because a sales person says your ideas are great and wonderful does not mean they actually are. Would a car dealer tell you that putting snow tires on your band new convertable mustang was a stupid idea? not if they thought it would cost them the sale! Custom auto shops are glad to take your money to drop a truck's suspension rendering the vehicle a crippled novelty rather than the expertly designed and highly functional vehicle you test drove. Enterprise software is not that different.

Fort Worth Zoo

I took a lucky shot at the zoo. I think it turned out really well. I don't remember if we actually ever went to the Fort Worth Zoo when we lived in Texas. I like the Fort Worth zoo because it is not very big, their was lots of shade, it was not too croweded in the morning, lots of the animals were active and walking around, and their were statues that the kids could get on and "ride". I will post the rest of the photos on my flickr page.