The final decision

On Friday they told us each individually whether we would be in or out.

As I was walking to work on Friday, I noticed one my colleagues walking away from work. I stopped him and chatted with him. He didn't have much to say except that he just lost his job.

I was booked to meet at 11:15, but I got a call at about 10:50 to see if I would come meet early. I literally ran to the meeting room (in my nice shirt and shoes) to await my fate. I was a bit short of breath when I finally got to the meeting room. Pat (new boss) was amused that I had run over and was short of breath.

Right off the bat he said that he was happy to offer me a place in the new team. I was very relieved to hear this. After this he told me that many of my teammates would be gone and this will be tough to deal with. He told me that I may experience "survivor syndrome" and I may feel bad that I got a place while others did not. He also told me that he had lots of good feedback for me and ideas for areas that I could grow in. He didn't tell me those yet, he will discuss those with me after the new year.

I went back to my desk after the meeting. There was absolutely no work being done that day. Everyone was either nervous about their upcoming meeting, celebrating, or mourning.

When you work with creative and savvy people, you must keep everything very secret. Desperate people will try to read every little move. For the most part HR kept a tight lid on this whole process, but they had one little slip up and, trust me, we caught this slip up! They booked meetings in Outlook calendar for each and every person. Most of the meetings were 15 minutes long, but some were 30 minutes. The meetings that were 15 minutes were booked with Pat, whereas the meetings that were 30 minutes were booked with someone from HR and another new boss. Sure enough, everyone who had a 30 minute meeting was fucked.

It was a very strange day at work. Several people just left immediately after hearing the news, but most stayed. We tried our best to comfort those who lost their jobs. One of the people who lost their jobs just had his first child 3 days earlier. That was especially tough being a brand new Dad and then immediately losing your job. His wife is unemployed too.

We sat around for the remainder of the day drinking coffee, reminiscing, telling stories, and trying to grasp the entirety of the situation. No work was done. I did feel "survivor syndrome" on Friday (although writing this on Monday, I feel a bit better now).

This is tough to say, but in all fairness, I think the best people were given jobs. The system did do what it was intended to do. Some people could have gone either way, but the people at the very bottom kind of deserved this. There were a few people who do just enough work not to get fired and it takes a recession to legally get rid of those people.

Anyhow, I promised myself that if I got the job, I would go out and by my dream phone. So I left work at about 2pm and headed off the the phone store and bought it. After that, Julie and I headed to a little Italian restaurant that we always go to after major life decisions. I played with my new phone all weekend.

Thanks everyone for the encouraging comments throughout this process.

Waiting game

I am still nervous about the job situation. It does feel a bit better now that it's totally out of my hands and that I have done all I can do.

December 11th still seems like the decision day. It really feels like a major junction in my life.

The timing for xmas is perfect though. I need an answer and a break from work and I will have both for my xmas holiday in Canada.

Not much is new here lately. We had a nice time at the Tragically Hip concert last friday. Julie is heading to Manchester, UK for a day/night trip to see a few people and places. I have been learning German and ogling over this phone. I hope to buy that phone if my job works out on Dec. 11.

I really miss everyone from back home and can't wait to see you all.

Interview

So I had my interview for my own job on Thursday. I was one of the first of the testers to be interviewed. I prepared for days for this 1 hour interview. I gathered lots of work related stories on projects that I'd worked on that went well, were challenging, etc.

It's a shitty situation when you are competing directly against your peers at work, but that was the situation and I think we all made the best of it. The day of the interview reminded me in a weird way of working on December 24th in that no one on the test team did any real work. We all just sat around and chatted about this whole process and about how nervous we all were.

I felt fairly confident going into the interview. I had done my homework, I had reviewed my notes, I was dressed nicely, and my health was good.

The interview itself was pretty typical. "Tell me about yourself"; "Describe a situation where you..."; etc.

In the end the interview went for about 45 minutes. I got a good feeling from it, but not an excellent feeling. The interviewers seemed fairly impressed with my work, but I had a bunch of good stories and experiences that I didn't get to mention.

I think I have a strong chance of getting a position on the new team at work. Mostly because I found out that 55% of your scoring is based on your annual performance reviews which I did perfectly on. So I am already at the 55 yard line right from the get go and since my interview went well, I think I should be fine.

Thanks for all the support. I will let you know on December 11, whether I'm in or out.

Goals

Hello,  here are my goals for the next 12 months.  Please read them, talk to me about them, and keep me focused.  I expect these to be completed by Dec 2010 (except goal #4 which may be completed soon thereafter).

1. Get top 20% at Microsoft - both in potential and performance.  After evaluations ask for (and receive) a raise.  This is required so that I have the flexibility (if desired) to easily move around inside Microsoft and possibly move to a different location.

2.  Learn german - finish all 3 rosetta stone discs and supplement them with some written grammar lessons.  This will require about 30 mins a day, 5 days a week.  Keep trying to converse daily with Julie in German.

3.  Support Julie in her goals at school.  This means financial and emotional support.

4. Take a 3 week, action packed, trip to Thailand, Taiwan, and other south Asian countries. Also, take a nice vacation to Berlin.

5.  earn 30$/month passive income from juicerinfo.net with ads

6.  New flooring installed at Kanata house for all the high traffic rooms and stairs (if tenant wants them).

7. Play soccer twice or more per week.

8. Do some upper body fitness at least once per week. 

9. listen to TED talks to and from work.

10.  Pay for all of the above and have no retail debt by Dec 2010.

11. Create & maintain relationships while doing all of the above.

Actions speak louder than words

I had an interesting experience today.

I found out on Friday that my immediate boss is leaving Microsoft in a few months.  I was very saddened by this because she was a very good boss to me and also a very good friend.

So, I bought some flowers this morning and hid them under my desk.  I went into her office (without the flowers) and told her, using all the words I could, how I felt about her and how much I appreciated her.  She was happy to hear my words.

After awhile I ran out of things to say, so I told her that I got her a thank you gift as well. I went back to my desk, got the flowers, then gave them to her.  All of the sudden she wasn't just all smiles, but rather tears of joy.  She gave me a big hug.

There's an interesting lesson here:  If you want to convey a message to someone, don't just tell them, show them.   Actions speak far louder than words.  

I'm very glad I got the message I wanted across and so was she.

Work update

So last week the new boss of our new group at work (Pat) came up to me and told me that if I had any questions I should go see him in his office. That's what he said, but the intonation in his voice suggested that he wanted me to come and see him regardless of whether I had questions or not.

Anyhow, today I decided to go see him in his office. I had a few questions to ask him, but the main point I wanted to get across was that I was excited about the new team and wanted to be part of it.

I really got the impression he just wanted people to come to him and say "I want to be on the new team". I think most people aren't doing that and, therefore, Pat doesn't really know where most people stand. He doesn't know if most people are excited about the new team or just grudgingly accepting this merge.

Now that he knows where I stand, I think he is much more excited about me.

I just felt so great about that meeting. I think I have a very strong chance of getting on the new team.

Crazy times at work

Lots of changes are happening now at work.

The mac team is being merged with the games team.  At the same time, they are cutting a little over 20% of the staff of the 2 teams.  Since there is only room for 80% of the current staff on the new teams, we will all need to interview for the jobs on the new team. All of this will be wrapped up by Dec 11.

Needless to say, morale around the office is very low and probably will continue to be low until everything is set in stone.

Luckily in Ireland, they don't just kick you to the curb when you are laid off.  For each year that you have worked for the company, you get 7 weeks worth of pay.  Which means some people who have been there for many years may actually WANT to be laid off to collect that large lump sum.  My hope is that many people will opt for this.  However, after talking to senior people, they don't seem to want to take this option mostly because the job market is so terrible right now in Ireland.

Anyhow, I am hoping for the best.  The new team might be a thrill to work for since it would give me a chance to test the latest and greatest games as well as mac office.

Only time will tell.  I will keep you posted.

The Yes men

These guys are crazy. They are similar to Borat, but the stunts they pull are with the intention of doing good in the world.

In this one, he managed to convince the BBC that he was a spokesperson for Dow chemical. Take a look:

Then check out the follow up meeting after the joke is over:

Race

I watched a very good Bill Nye episode the other day. He was talking about the science of Race.

Bill opened the show with a clip from a 1947 Dodgers game when Jackie Robinson first stepped onto the field. He was booed by most of the crowd and even some of his own teammates didn't want a black man on their team.

At that time, most people likely assumed that there were massive differences between the whites and blacks. People used to think blacks were "savages" and "inferior beings" and certainly not human.

Now, however, we have science which paints an entirely different story of the races. Science tells us that blacks and whites DNA are 99.9% the same! Science also tells us that we all originated from Africa and that the only reason our skin colours are different is because of a balancing act between getting enough vitamin D and keeping out harmful UV rays. This explains why you most often find dark skinned people near the equator and fair skinned people near the polls.

In fact, scientists at the AAA even sent a letter to the US government recommending that we abandon the word "race" because "Race has no scientific justification in human biology".

So, if we stop and think about that for a few minutes, your first thought is probably that "science proves the obvious". After living now in a multicultural society its plain to see that all races are pretty much exactly the same except for our skin colours.

For me, my second thought was "How the hell did they justify this shit 100 years ago?". Why did we need science to prove that we are all alike? Why didn't everyone just figure this out for themselves?

And then my third thought was "is there anything we are doing now that is equally ridiculous as slavery was 100 years ago?" Please stop and think about this for a minute. I would be very interested to hear your opinions on this.

When I started thinking about that question my mind instantly went to how humans currently treat animals. In fairness, we treat them much like slaves. We have property laws for animals - they are our property and we are their masters. We sometimes treat them like dirt, but this is OK because they are inferior to us, right?

I also thought to myself, what if food scientists came up with a flawless steak substitute. It tasted just like steak, it had complete protein, you could BBQ it, fry it, and cook with it just like steak. Considering that we already have strawberry flavored ice cream that has zero real strawberries in the ice cream, it really isn't that inconceivable that we could invent this veggie-steak.

If such as veggie-steak was invented, could we really rationalize killing cows anymore for steak? I can't think how we could justify killing a cow when we already have the steak.

I think a similar comparison is killing animals for fur. Most of the population has generally accepted now that because we have natural and synthetic fibers there really is no justification to kill a tiger, beaver, fox, etc. just for its coat. For the most part, since the invention of fibers, the fur trade has dwindled from a massive industry to near nothing. Once we had natural and synthetic fibers there was really no justification anymore.

I think if we were committed to the goal of a flawless veggie-steak, we could make it. I say we should.

Is society going to look back at us in 100 years and think "What were they thinking!" much the same way we look back at slavery today and think the same thing?

Any thoughts on this?

Simple Truths

I think Ted is right. There are thousands of truths in life. The ones below are important to me because they resonate in some way with me.

Simple truths in life

I want and need your help for this one. I am putting together a list of things in life I have found to be true. Some of these will be fairly obvious, but not so much so that 100% of people are already doing them.

Please comment to this blog post with any additions you can think of. Here is what I have come up with:



Wealth

• Taxes are your single largest expense
• Understand every possible tax refund or reduction that you can qualify for
• Employees typically have the worst tax breaks. Business owners usually have the best tax breaks
• the top 20% of people (by job performance) always have jobs (even during a depression)
• You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. Money is like gas in the car -- you need to pay attention or you'll end up on the side of the road -- but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!
• Compound interest is amazing. It can work for you (savings) or against you (debt). Use it to your advantage when possible
• retail debt is always bad and should be eliminated ASAP.
• Having an easily accessible emergency fund will give you peace of mind.
• driving & owning a car is very expensive. Many millionaires I know drive very modest cars. Car ownership can cost between $7000 - $20000 per year. An annual public transportation pass and occasionally renting a car is a much better option.
• Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. ( I know this, but am not implementing it... feel free to pressure me into this )

Relationships:

• trust takes time to build
• you should always try to make deposits (do good things) into your emotional bank account in other people. you can only be friends with someone so long as you make more deposits than withdrawals.
• calling or visiting old friends is always a good idea - they DO want to hear from you.
• Being smart and having lots of accomplishments might get you a first date, but it won't get you a second date. Developing social skills is equally important as developing an education.
• Attracting a partner is all about the dance of polarity. Energy flows between positive and negative electrodes, anode and cathode, magnetic north and south. Unless you actually convey femininity as a woman or masculinity as a man, you're not going to attract a suitable companion of the opposite sex.

Health:

• A diet rich in whole grains and plant foods is the best diet. Very little if any animal foods should be included. We are primates - millions of years of evolution has decided that an excellent diet for primates is 97% whole plant foods & 3% insects/animals.
• 2 workouts per week will maintain your body, 3 will build. Anything less will degrade your body
• Trans fats and Saturated fats are bad in any quantity
• The government's health recommendations do not have your best interest in mind. You must learn what is and is not good for you from non-government sources.
• an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
• Drink 8 glasses of water per day
• Flossing your teeth is important

Information:

• Information from books is usually the best source, the Internet is often a good source of information, and TV news is a poor source of information.
• People who read more than 10 books a year are often high caliber people.
• The more citations a piece of information has from varied sources, the better.
• The answer to almost all of your questions is in a book. All you have to do is find it and read it.

Universal:

• you get what you put in - but the rewards for slightly better performance can be exponential.
• Always put in more than is required
• Persistence is more valuable than education, talent, and strength.
• Very old people, when they talk about regrets, always talk about things the did NOT do in the lives. They almost never express regrets for things they did. Do the things you really want to do, make them happen!
• write your goals on paper, then write a plan to achieve them
• Older doesn't always mean wiser
• you can't soar with the eagles if you are scratching with the turkeys - hang out with positive people.
• Use a daily to-do list and prioritize it.
• Always work smart. Keep trying to find ways to do the same thing faster/cheaper/simpler/better. This has always been my personal value proposition in the workplace.
• extremism in any form is bad

Time:

• Don't watch broadcast TV. Don't even subscribe to it. Instead watch DVD box sets of your favorite shows. Its more rewarding and saves a lot of time.
• If possible, live close to your work. Its amazing! Lots of studies prove this.
• batch your tasks as often as possible
• Beware of emails. They come in constantly and most of them can wait - they interupt your flow. Dont check them 100 times a day. Ideally check them no more than twice per day for personal. Don't have your email display in your browsers default page. (see batching tasks). Play with how little you can check your email - try only checking once a week and see how that goes.
• The best time of day to do important things is in the morning. (For example: If working out is important to you, do it in the morning. If you do it in the evening, the events of the day may dissuade you from working out)

Happiness:

• More money will only marginally increase your happiness
• If trying to "buy" happiness, purchase "experiences" rather than merchandise. Concert tickets are better than a new sweater. (there are some exceptions to this; like a guitar where you are essentially purchasing merchandise that will lead to an experience).
• Everything you do in life is ultimately to feel happy. Happiness is the over arching goal to all of your other goals. Make sure you are aware of this and try to be happy as much as you can.
• You are ultimately in control of whether you feel happy or not.

JuicerInfo.net

I am starting a new website:
www.juicerinfo.net

I am hoping to put some google ads on it soon and make some money. Let me know what you think. If you have any good ideas for promoting it, let me know.

I need to do a bit more cosmetic work though, it's still a bit ugly.
I have already started to get some organic traffic from search engines to it.

My goal is to make $30 USD per month from it in ad revenue.

Climate Change

I'd love to know your thoughts on this video:

Hello,

Just a general update. Everything is peachy here. We just got a €100 rent reduction because of the recession (and because I just asked). This recession keeps coming up Ben!

Work is going well. I am still proud of myself for getting top marks on my yearly evaluation. I am aiming to get top marks again next year. Microsoft really compensates their top performers well. If I stay on for a few more years and keep performing at a high level, I could get some serious cash and stocks! It doesn't really seem that hard to do a great job either. I think my value proposition at work is mainly in my ideas. I have lots of good ideas and I try my best to see that they get implemented. As long as I keep churning out great ideas, I think I continue to be a top performer!

Julie and I are planning our next trips. I have a free trip to Belfast which I need to use before 2010, so we will likely be going there soon. After that, the one high on our list is Berlin. I've heard nothing but amazing things about Berlin and many of Julie's academic interests are in Germany.

Lately I have been learning more and more about global warming and mans impact on the global climate. It's some very scary stuff. Most of the reports from the IPCC are optimistic at best. If you start reading what the more likely case scenarios are, they are very scary. We may not even recognize planet earth by 2100. I would really suggest watching this presentation. The lecturer just gives it to you strait and doesn't sugar coat anything. He also talks about some solutions and options that we have.

Personally I have done some huge things lately to cut my carbon footprint. I have become vegetarian, given up my car in favor of electric light rail, and moved closer to work. But even then, I calculated my carbon footprint today and it's still too high (around 6 tons). So I have started to donate $40 USD per month to a charity called "Trees for the future". For every dollar you give to them, they will plant 10 trees (10 cents a tree). They focus on planting trees in very low income areas so I am assuming that's how they can get the price down to 10 cents a tree (which seems almost too good to be true). But, the charity rates highly on Charity navigator and I've seen several good things said about them around the web. So, essentially, for my $40 USD per month, I am getting 400 trees per month or 4800 per year planted for me. That should offset my carbon footprint by a large margin. I feel good about this. Take a look at this video which I think describes the charity quite well.



I still don't have my new goals ready yet. I am trying to be even more ambitious this year but I need to take enough time to figure out what I really want from this thing we call life.

I should be back in the Toronto/Ottawa area this xmas time. I would love to see anyone who wants to see me :)

cya soon
--Ben

Unwritten goal

One goal I didn't mention in my last post was becoming vegetarian.

Much of the reason for becoming vegetarian can be attributed to simply learning more about food from all those books and audio books needed for goal #10. Listening to Mark Bittman's TED talk was really eye opening. you can see it here:



Plus a tiny bit of research to make sure vegetarians weren't sissy, tiny people. This was quickly proven wrong by Vegan body builders and by Mac Danzig.

I encourage everyone to become vegetarian. I truly feel that this is an enlightened way of life that I am living now.

I encourage everyone to get yourself 7-10 good vegetarian recipes and try it for a month. The recipes are key though. You can't go wrong with Chili, fajitas, spaghetti, veggie burgers, tikka masala, biriyani, green curry, red curry, pancakes with fruit (works for dinner too), and pizza. Please let me know if/when you try it out.

Last years goals and the results

It's time to review the goals that I set out last year. Here they are and how I did:


1. Get maximum performance bonus from Microsoft for doing outstanding work. Work towards a management position.
Result: Nailed this one. I got an A+ grade at work and as a result I received a nice cash and stock bonus.


2. Learn Spanish
Result: I failed at this. I could make excuses, but I just don't have the drive right now to pursue this goal. Other goals were more important.


3. Have no retail debt (Canadian or Euros) and have 10,000 Euros in the bank or in stocks.
Result: We did it! This was a massive goal. I had $18,000 CAD retail debt 1 year ago. Through a series of miracles (including the large bonuses as a result of achieving goal #1) we hit this target! It's an incredible accomplishment.


4. Take a 3 week, action packed, trip to Thailand
Result: Still in the works, this one could take awhile longer though. Although, we have travelled over the last year to Bulgaria, Paris, Prague, and Madrid. I'd say that's pretty damn good.


5. (sorry, #5 is private)
Result: I hit this goal as well!


6. Play soccer and/or Gaelic football twice or more per week
Result: I hit this goal as well!


7. Visit Family (including Ted & Aba) for 2 weeks around Christmas
Result: I hit this goal as well!


8. Reward yourself with an awesome smart phone and service when Goal #3 is completed
Result: This will come soon enough, unfortunately goal #3's money is tied up in pension, stock, and other monies that will "eventually" come. I think I will do this when we have 10k euros in the bank.


9. Work from home at least 2 days per week.
Result: This goal didn't work out as planned at all. Working from home isn't necessarily a good thing. Sometimes its far better to work in the office. I now live within walking distance from work and I simply prefer to work at the office.


10. Read at least 3 books per month
Result: While I didn't read 36 books this year, I did listen to a hell of a lot of audio programs that were highly stimulating. I would consider this goal about 70% hit.


11. Create & maintain friendships while doing all of the above.
Result: I am happy with the group of friends and acquaintances we have collected :)


Wow! What a year. The law of attraction is an amazing thing. Many of those goals were stretch goals that I thought would be quite tough to pull off, but I did it! I am very happy with what has been accomplished and I am not sad about what has not been accomplished.

Now, I will have to come up with some even more ambitious goals for myself. Who know what adventures are in store next year. I will post my new goals soon here.

I appreciate everyone reading my goals because it holds me accountable for them and it strengthens the law of attraction.

The bookstore story

A few weeks ago, when Julie was in Madrid, this happened:

So Julie had been gone for a few weeks by this point and I was bored after work. I decided to go to the local bookstore and read until they closed. It was 7:30pm at this point. I wasn't sure exactly what time the store closed though.

I got to the bookstore and since I was going to be visiting Madrid, Spain in a week, I figured I would read a few books on Madrid. The travel section was tucked away in the back corner of the bookstore. They had 6 books on Madrid, so I grabbed all 6 and sat on the floor and started reading. These books were surprisingly riveting! Did you know many restaurants in Madrid close at 4pm and then reopen at 10pm - interesting. That means most people must eat supper at 10pm or later - interesting.

Anyhow, I'm reading away on the floor in the back corner of the book store. I look at my phone and I see it's now 9pm. The lights and the music in the store were still on, so I figured the store must close at 9:30pm. I kept reading for about 5 more minutes, but then I got bored of Madrid books. So I got up and headed over to the magazine rack. The store was strangely very empty. I grabbed a magazine and started reading. Something inside me felt very wrong at this point. I figured the store had probably closed, but the employees were probably still cleaning up somewhere. Still, I felt so uncomfortable that I decided I should just leave. I walked up to the sliding glass doors at the entrance to leave the store. They didn't open!

The store lights are still on, the music is still playing, but the store is definitely closed and I am definitely locked inside! I walk around the entire store yelling loudly "Hello!?" - nothing. Then, all the sudden the motion sensors pick me up and the alarm goes off. In my head I'm thinking this is good that the alarm went off because they will send someone from security to come get me. So I waited 10 mins but no one came! Maybe I should have waited longer, but I had a feeling like this alarm was just an audible alarm and not hooked up to anything.

I didn't know what to do exactly. Julie was out of town so I couldn't call her. I thought of calling the emergency number 999 (like 911 in Canada), but I figured this didn't really classify as an emergency. I didn't know the number for information (411 in Canada). I figured I would just call 999. When the lady at 999 answered I said "ummm, I don't know if this classifies as an emergency, but I am locked in a bookstore". The lady at emergency transferred me to the police station. I told the officer on the phone my story and he just laughed. He said he would send over an officer.

When the officer came, I looked out the sliding glass doors with my puppy dog eyes. He just shook his head with a grin on his face. I could tell he was thinking "you silly, silly man". The officer went and found the security team responsible for the complex.

A security officer came and called me over to the sliding glass doors. We talked through the glass doors for a bit. He wasn't a whole lot of help because he didn't have any access to the store, but he did call the manager and told him to drive over. The security guard wasn't sure but he thought I could get out through a stairwell in the very back of the store. He said, whatever you do, make sure you don't go through a door that you can't come back from. He didn't want me to get locked in the stairwell and some doors may lock behind you once you go through them. This task stressed me out a bit because the last thing I wanted was to get locked in another place. My brain works terribly when I'm stressed.

I went to the stairwell and went through a few doors (none of which locked behind me - I think), finally I got to a door that obviously led to the street. I pushed on it but it was magnetically locked to the frame. I pushed harder, but the magnetic lock was very strong. I looked to my left and saw a sign that said "In case of fire, break glass to open door". I was thinking to myself, does this count? Can I break that glass? Like I said, my brain wasn't working well. Luckily I had enough sense not to break that glass and keep looking. There was another button that didn't have any glass to break that just said "emergency exit". That sounded better to me, so I pushed that button instead and opened the door to freedom!

I ran around the building to the complex security guard who was excited to see me. He told me the store manager was on his way and he would rather I waited around with him until the manager got there.

The manager (Damian) got there 5 minutes later. He was very nice and apologetic. He brought with him the guy who closed the store that night who had nothing to say to me. I asked Damian when the store closed that night, he said 8:30. Apprently, I had been reading for 30 minutes after the store had closed without even realizing it. I gave Damian my contact details and went home.

The next day Damian called me and apologized again. He said he reviewed the security cameras and found the whole thing rather funny. He offered to send my some Madrid books as compensation. I said I would rather have a gift card instead. So, he mailed me a 40 euro gift card.

The end :)

Madrid 2009

Hello,

I just got back from Madrid, Spain. We had an awesome time!
A few interesting observations about Madrid:

Madrid is a desert! There's no other way to put it. Crops just don't grow in that area of Spain unless they are irrigated. That being said there are several very large parks right inside the city of Madrid that are full of lush green grass and forests (but they are all irrigated).

When I went to Toledo (a very old, small city, outside of Madrid), the entire city was just rocks and cement. There was no green at all - it was actually a little depressing. So I was very glad to see Madrid had lots of irrigated green space. I found out that they water the parks with dirty water rather than city water which is good. I hope Spain will continue to have enough water to maintain its beautiful parks and cities. (click to make the pics below bigger).




The other observation of Madrid was how lively the people are. I was so impressed by how many people were out doing things during the day. In Parque Retiro, there was so much going on. Every few steps I walked, people would be doing interesting and different things. In one section there was a large collection of various "monkey bars" that many men were doing all sorts of exercises on (chinups, situps, etc). Then I walked to a long and wide asphalt strip in the park where there must have been 100 people learning or practicing how to roller blade. Then I walked to a large lake in the middle of the park where there were many people practicing some strange game that seems to be a combination of kayaking and water polo. I just love to see people out there, doing things with their lives.



Despite the meat centered cultural diet, we were able to find several great vegetarian restaurants.

We went during late July, so it was hot! One day I saw the temperature was 38 degrees and I image most other days were about that too. However, its a very dry heat, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds - the humidity during a hot day really does make a huge difference.

You can find all my pics here:

And Toledo pics here:

What really happened in Dublin on day 1

Ok, now that I have some roots down here and things are starting to go well, I can tell you what really happened when we first arrived in Dublin. Let me just paint the picture for you:

During the flight, the person in the seat ahead of me kept complaining that I was kicking her seat until Julie stood up for me and told her off. I couldn't really do anything about it, my long legs would hit the back of her seat if I moved even slightly. After the first few complaints I tried my best to sit absolutely still during the 5 hour flight which was very tough.

When we land in Dublin, we see not really a metropolis but rather cow fields all around the airport. The weather is very grey and its raining.

Inside the airport, it was very dingy as well. Every airport I have every been in has always been pretty nice. They typically have very high ceilings and sparkling clean floors - not Dublin airport. The customs agent desks had old wood paneling obviously installed in the early 1970s and seriously needed to be updated.

The airport was packed tight with people. There was not nearly enough room for all those people. We got our bags and made our way through the people to the taxi stands. It was pouring rain at this point. We were still excited tourists at this point despite the fact that we hadn't slept much and were very tired.

We got into a van taxi and loaded our many bags in. We struck up a conversation with the taxi driver who seemed nice. Despite the fact that the driver seemed nice, his conversation kept turning to how shitty Dublin is. Once we got into Dublin city center, the traffic was bumper to bumper and not moving very fast at all. I asked him if it was like this often and he said every day. He talked about topics like where the bad parts of town are and how bad the bus system was.

He dropped us off at our hostel and we checked in. We had 8 bags between the 2 of us. We found out that our room was on the 4th floor and there was no elevator. We lugged 2 of the bags ups the stairs. 1 bag was 5o pounds, the other was 70 pounds. At about 3 floors up, the handle on the 70 pound bag ripped off. We managed to get those 2 bags all the way to the top, but decided to just lock up the rest of the bags on the main floor in a locker area.

At this point, we were still excited about starting our new life in Dublin. We were both tired and hungry - but still excited. We decided against taking a nap first and opted for getting something to eat first and then nap. I had read that in Ireland, they don't really have restaurants but rather they just had lots of pubs that would serve food (this is just dead wrong - it's exactly like Canada).

So we went to a pub for food. The inside of this pub was exactly something you would expect for a place to get extremely drunk, but not really somewhere you would expect to eat. However, I thought this was just how they did it in Dublin, so we sat down to eat. It was dimly lit, everything was made of wood, and it smelled very much like beer - it was a typical pub really but definitely not a typical restaurant. We got menus and I ordered the Fish, chips, and peas. I was trying to spend as little money as possible because we really didn't have any. The fish and chips I just ordered was pretty expensive in Canadian dollars and I wasn't terribly excited about paying that much - it better be good I thought. If I remember correctly, at this point Julie was starting to get nervous about the whole move. I started assuring her that we would make this work and everything would be fine. I was trying to be strong and supportive, but I was pretty tired myself and didn't have much energy for that.

Then the food arrived. It was typical pub food. This was not restaurant quality food. The peas weren't left in their shell but rather mushed up with a fork or something. I had a few bites. The food was edible but certainly not worth what I just paid for it. At this point I started to cry. In my head I was thinking "What the fuck did I just get myself into". I had a nice, safe, secure life back in Canada and I gave it all up for fucking overpriced, mushy peas. We couldn't very well go back to Canada because we had sold everything and rented our house out. I cried some more and Julie started now to console me.

We decided to go back to the hostel and get some sleep. Our room was tiny but nice. We slept for several hours.

When we woke up, we both felt rested and better but still shaken from the events in the pub. We walked around Dublin for a bit, bought ourselves a mobile phone, and took some pictures. After some time, we were ready to eat again, this time being very careful to select a nice place to eat. We stumbled upon small, modern, and attractive Italian restaurant. This was clearly a restaurant and not a pub. The food was still expensive, but looked good. I ordered the pasta with bolognaise sauce. When it arrived and I tasted it, it was absolutely amazing - possibly the best pasta in my life. We decided to celebrate and order 2 glasses of wine. From that moment on, everything turned around... and the rest is history.

It's amazing what some sleep and good food can do :)

Note: I cried just writing this blog post. Both of the above meals were life changing events.

Green card

Got my green card! no problems.

Capitalism and the planet

Sometimes capitalism gets a lot a bad press. There are lots of examples of companies that clear cut forests, contaminate rivers & lakes, and pollute the air & ground with no regards for anything but the bottom line.

However, sometimes pure capitalism works out favorably for the environment. Here is a great example. Several very large companies in Europe are about to invest $500
billion (with a B) into solar power for Europe. One of the major stakeholders in this project is an insurance giant Munich-Re. From the article:

"Munich-Re is the insurance firm that pays back insurance companies
when they are wiped out by the ever increasing numbers of natural
disasters fueled by climate change. So Munich Re’s bottom line is
already impacted by climate change losses. As a result it has been far
more forward-thinking than other major corporations who have yet to
see bottom line impact from climate change. Munich Re has been ahead
of other firms in publicizing the dangers of climate change risks to
coastlines and property values."

The article is here.

Climate change is actually affecting Munich-Re's bottom line, so it's in their best interest to fight it. Pretty neat eh? Go capitalism.

Reforesting the rainforest

This is an amazing project that has been going on for decades now.

http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org/Gaviotas_Forest/Gaviotas_Forest.html

updates

Hello everyone,

The big news is that I got my green card to work in Ireland for another year. I will not be required to leave Ireland during processing which is huge. The lawyers at Microsoft are amazing for making this happen. From this point on, the process will be much simpler and I will not need lawyers anymore. This entire process has caused me to lose sleep on many nights and I will be very happy when its all over. there is just one last step which I hope will go flawlessly. I just need to register now with immigration on June 24th when my old visa runs out and my new one kicks in. After that, I hope to sleep like a baby.

Julie's visa however will be a bit more complicated. Julie is allowed to stay in Ireland because we are married. But, for each job she gets, she must apply for a work permit which is a 2 month waiting period. Luckily she will be going to school in September which means she will have a student visa which allows her to work up to 20 hours per week without any of that hassle.

Julie has lots of news too. She finished her teaching English certification and will be teaching English in Spain for the month of July in a teen summer camp environment. I hope to visit her in Spain during the last few days she is there.

In September Julie will be taking her masters in Modern European cultural history for 12 months.

Last week Microsoft took us out for paintballing and gokarting. It was good fun. There are a few pictures here. The paintballing was an urban setting which is different than I am used to but still very fun. Microsoft even paid for extra paintballs if needed.

My job is still going well. My boss still likes me and is happy with my performance.

I'm now player 3 games of soccer per week. This third game I am in is much more competitive and I realize my Canadian upbringing makes it tough to compete with the Irish in a European game. I think I'm getting better but only time will tell.

I miss everyone from back home, so please feel free to send me lots of emails, facebook messages, pictures, blogs, etc.

List of jobs

My inspiration for this blog post is this Homer Simpson quote:

"I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life: boxer, mascot, astronaut, baby proofer, imitation Krusty, truck driver, hippie, plow driver, food critic, conceptual artist, grease salesman, carny, mayor, grifter, body guard for the mayor, country western manager, garbage commissioner, mountain climber, farmer, inventor, Smithers, Poochie, celebrity assistant, power plant worker, fortune cookie writer, beer baron, Kwik-E-Mart clerk, homophobe, and missionary, but protecting people, that gives me the best feeling of all."

My list is not quite as good, but here goes:

Berry picker, corn picker, berry salesman, corn salesman, corn business owner, poultry business owner, dairy farmer, general farm laborer, home mover, building construction laborer, road construction laborer, road construction gradesman, packer operator (steam roller), Ebay business owner (selling PDAs, GPS systems, video cards and various software), Computer salesman, computer repairman, CD/DVD duplication business owner, transcriber, computer/software contractor, website developer, software tester, and real estate investor.

I'd say that's not bad for 27 years old.

The internet

The Internet is like a Cat D8 bulldozer.
Real life is like a hand shovel.

It's insane how powerful the Internet is and how slow real life is.

Not to say I love being in the cab of my bulldozer all day. More often than not, I want to get the hell out of my bulldozer and use my hand shovel. But my bulldozer is just so insanely powerful and I am a very skilled operator.

I can make money, meet friends, meet the opposite sex, work, play, research, etc. All of which I have done too.

Our eBay sales saw over $50,000 wired into our accounts. I met my wife there. I have made real friends there. I do most of my work there. Every computer program I have ever written for work or school has been influenced by the Internet.

The problem I have is that I spend all my time on this damn box. It's so powerful it sucks me in.

Sure there are lots of great ways to get off the Internet, but my life is just getting going and I need the power of a bulldozer right now.

Any thoughts?

Ireland

Hey everyone,

I survived the second (bigger) round of job cuts at Microsoft. Again, my entire group was unaffected.

It's a very good thing I did, because from what I hear, there are just no jobs in Ireland. Unemployment is 11.4% (currently its 8% in Canada). There are stories of lawyers working in retail because they can't get a better job. Tens of thousands of people are leaving the country too. Housing prices are still painfully high but they have fallen over 10-20%.

Microsoft won't be giving raises next year and the tax man keeps asking for more.

However, there is a silver lining... we did manage to save on rent because of the recession. Prices are falling in electricity, groceries, cabs, electronics, etc.


Anyhow, besides the great depression, things are going well. Julie & I took a very nice trip to a fishing village outside of Dublin called "Howth". Howth is a very picturesque place. It would be a great place to retire, there were a few million dollar mansions up on the cliff tops. There are some seals that regularly visit the harbour looking for fishing scraps so we got to see them. Some people were throwing some fish for them to eat. Julie and I had a picnic of Indian food while we were there. The weather can change so fast in Ireland though, so you always have to be prepared for rain and sun. It rained just before out picnic, so we got a coffee for about 2o minutes, then had our picnic once the rain blew away. Here are a few pictures.

We might be coming back to Canada for a few weeks in mid to late June. I will keep you posted.
Cya

News

Hello everyone,

Things are going well. We seem to be riding high through this recession (knock on wood). I still have my job, we negotiated a lower rent for our new apartment, prices of goods and services are falling, and our house in Kanata seems to be keeping its value. Seems like a good deal to me.

If you want a hot investment tip, buy real estate in Ottawa. In my worldly travels, I still think Ottawa has kick ass potential for real estate. The houses are affordable and new. The economy is strong because of good business and lots of government employees.

My fingers are still crossed that all goes well with my green card application in May. I should have no problem actually getting it... the question is whether or not I will be forced to go back to Canada for a few weeks while it processes (which would be very expensive). Please wish me luck on that.

My boss keeps mentioning possibly sending me to Redmond, USA for a few weeks - which would be nice. I need to meet some of my overseas colleagues mostly just so we can work together more effectively. I hope I get to go :)

Hope everyone is doing well.
--Ben

Prague trip

Back from our trip to Prague, CZE.

Lots of fun. Jewels finished her half marathon. I drank lots of cheap beer.
Good times.

Here are some pictures. I had to chase Jewels on the subway to get these pictures of her running. It was kinda fun actually :)

We mostly just walked around the city looking at the cool buildings. The churches there are massive. I'm talking a football field long, with ceilings 90 feet high. There are several of these massive churches spread throughout the city.

You can drink on the street in Prague which is neat too. I really wish you could do that in Canada and Ireland. I didn't see any problems because of it. It's a great feeling to be drinking a cold beer on a warm day while snapping photos of your wife running a marathon :)

Fox news at it's best

Wow, if anyone still watches Fox news (Faux news), you really need to checkout this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcJn5XlbSFk

Forgive me father I have sinned... It has been months since my last blog entry

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of blogs lately. I am going to start scheduling blog entries to a minimum of every 2 weeks. Please hold me to that.

The biggest news is that we have moved from Dublin 4 to Dublin 18. I am much closer to work now. Its about a 20 minute walk instead of a 1 hour commute. The change is huge. There are lots of studies about commuting time and happiness and I can attest to them. More free time makes me richer and happier. Even though I was making the most out of my train rides before by listening to great audio programs, I still would rather be doing something else.

The new apartment is beautiful though - here are some pictures. We are on the 6^th floor and we have huge floor to ceiling windows. The ceilings are 20 feet high. The high ceilings are very sexy, but I think my dream home will have regular ceilings. I preffer the cozy feeling of regular ceilings. Still, this place is perfect for this stage in our lives – it feels very “young professional”.

Today was saint Patricks day in Ireland. We got the day off work (even though it was a Tuesday which makes the week a bit weird). There was a parade downtown which was fun. People were hanging off anything high just to get a glimpse of the parade. Lots of funny pictures of people sitting on window ledges and roof tops. I was amazed at how many people actually brought their own step ladder into town to see the parade. We walked around the whole city mostly just people watching. Almost everyone was sporting some kind of green shirt or crazy green hat. Then we went to a bar for a few drinks. The bars were jam packed. The one we were at was about 50% Americans and 50% irish. I was very surprised at how many Americans come over for the festevities. The bar was an absolute blast though. Everyone was breaking all sorts of social rules like don’t take the microphone from the band and start singing or don’t take off your shirt and pants. Great craic!

I’ve been putting together a list of features I want my dream home to have. Some items have pictures. Check out this link and let me know what you think. Anything I am missing? Apparently I really like fireplaces, because I want one everywhere!

Work is going very well. My boss and my 2 levels up boss both think I am doing a great job. I am no longer a newbie and I am expected to pull my weight. I think I am fitting into my role very well. I am trying to do the little things that will get me ahead. I am trying to use the 80/20 rule to focus on the 20% of activities that get me 80% of my results. I’ll keep you posted on my results.

Microsoft won the best workplace in Ireland award for 2009! It’s not surprising though, it’s a pretty awesome company. I can see sticking around for many years to come. A few weeks ago, we actually had a psychologist come in to chat with us about how to achieve your best work/life balance. How awesome is that? She had some great tips actually. One I liked was “Fun routine is good”. Have nights in the week where you know you are going home to fun. For example, a movie night or soccer night, or new recipe night. It sounds lame because you are scheduling your life, but what you are doing is ensuring you take time to have fun!