Long week and an active birthday weekend

Last week was a long week full of work, meetings, and more work. Two notable meetings I had were the first Java/Oracle/Open Source "channel or practice" meeting on Monday or last week, and a meeting with our head of operations on Tuesday.

The "channel" meeting was interesting. Sogeti has their business model broken down into a number of "practices" which as far as I understand them are the main client services we provide. Similar, but not the same, are the internal "channels" of which each Sogeti is a member of (1:1 relationship here). Sark, depending on the given office in question, had a healthy mix of Java, .NET, and other services to provide our clients. Sogeti on the other hand was primarially a .NET, ERP, and other business solutions provider. Thus, a new group was formed around those consultants working with Java, Oracle, and Open Source technologies. This meeting was to get those people together, discuss what we want to get from the "channel" and to start working on ways to get what we want done, done.

The fact that there currently isn't a "practice" around the Java work we do is appearing to be both a good and bad situation. Bad: lack of seniority in the Java world coming from Sogeti, all business examples you hear first are all .NET related, etc.... Good: it presents a nice opportunity for us Java folks to step up and show the company what we can do, and hopefully in the process I will be able to help lead that work. Time will tell, but I am actually a fair bit excited about that.

My other meeting also went well. While I still don't have any definite dates yet, all things are moving forward. My client will be contacted hopefully this week or next as well as the receiving office in St. Louis. Barring any major problems I should be able to know a definite date in the next few weeks. In either case, Em and I are confident in how its going and are looking to move forward with planning out move back. Next up is looking into some more apartments, figuring out what all we need to do to move, scheduling, etc. Things are looking up!

I threw darts on Thursday ... despite having a sub who had never thrown in a real match before we pulled off the victory 9-6!

This past weekend was a whirlwind of a birthday weekend (if/for anyone who read the post's title or that last sentence and is scratching their head right now and realizing they forgot or didn't know it was my bday ... don't worry about it. If you know me well enough to feel that way you should know that I put very little stock into celebrating my own birthday and have zero hard feelings ;) )

Friday after work Em and went out and got Quiznos, went walking at Sharron Woods for a while (its nice to see some green coming back) and went out to a few stores.

Saturday we got up, did some things around the apt and drove over to Winton Woods. We spent a couple hours there walking around and watching the turtles try and get back on a log in the middle of the lake. When we got back we ate a quick late lunch and went off to the local rec-plex. I had a dodgeball game (we, the Sark team, played the Sogeti team ... I think we lost but it was close, it was a blast yet again) and Em worked out. After that we drove back home, took showers and headed out to Ando for a great Sushi dinner (Em got seaweed salad, miso soup, a California roll and a futomaki roll ... I got one of their Sushi dinners which included soup, salad, and the following sushi: sea bass, flounder, yellow-tail, tuna, salmon, crab, shrimp, a tuna roll and salmon roe) The food was excellent as always.

Sunday we got up, Em went to the store while I fixed up the bikes and around lunch time we headed out to Miami Whitewater Forest. The ~8 mile main trail was nothing on our bikes. After the main trail we chilled by the lake for a bit watching people try to catch fish off the dock (I admit a couple did, but none looked to professional ;) ) and watched ahuge 3-month-old Saint Bernard puppy sniff the world. Finally we "hiked" the Badlands trail on foot and headed home for dinner (grilled hamburgers, homemade coleslaw with dried cranberries and baked beans).

Thats pretty much it. This week is looking to be another long one (lots of work to do, our current sprint is a shorter one) and trying to get stuff cleaned and organized around the apt.

[The pictures are from the park and my dodgeball game, if you couldn't have guessed. The strange looking bag of worms was from a tree we walked by full of hatching bag-caterpillars. In the dodgeball pic, I am the one on the far left throwing so HARD you can barely see the ball ;)]