hello new adventues. hello new york.

I traded in my yoga pants and work from home assignment today for a put yourself together project in new york city. I'd like to say I am jumping into this adventure full steam ahead and looking at it for all the opportunities to have, people to meet, places to explore and foods to eat.  But honestly I'm not.  

I didn't want to pack my suitcase yesterday. 

I didn't want to straighten my hair today.  

I didn't want to get out of my track shorts.  

I didn't want to go to the airport this morning.  

I didn't want to get on that plane.  

I just plain didn't want to.

But I did.

Now that I'm here and I'm in the city it's a little easier to embrace this new adventure - the office and hotel are in a great location .  However part of me wishes I was still back in the midwest - like tonight at dinner the service was TERRIBLE and I kept thinking about how just yesterday we had GREAT service at the Grog house back in Indy.  

I need to get myself out of this funk this is my career.  

I LIKE doing this. 

I LIKE new adventures.

I LIKE meeting new people.

I LIKE exploring.  

I will LIKE new york.

This will be good.

It will be.

Favs on Friday - Working from Home

It seems like it's been the dark ages since I did a Fav on Friday. Well maybe not in actuality. But it seems like it.  Anyhow today's Favorite is Working from Home.  When I am not on the road or not on vacation I have the luxury of working from home.  I love it!  It's awesome to roll out of bed into the office and wear my PJs, or my mismatched yoga pants and tank tops. Today is no exception I snapped the photo below of my mismatched slippers.  I can't find their real mates so I just wear them like this.  I also love being able to work from the kitchen table, the sofa, outside on the porch, at my desk just moving around.  Oh and making hot tea all day also fab on a cool day like today  Working from home is a glorious treat.  However sometimes the urge to not shower and to lock myself in is overwhelming in which case I meet people for lunch, I work at Starbucks, the library, Panera or a go to the gym at odd times or whatever.  Anyhow I look forward to my whole week of working from home.

PS - Check out other peoples Fav's here at Quilting in Pyjamas.

basketball and life on the road

after a beer at the fake bar at the residence inn.  I somehow found myself playing basketball with complete strangers at the hotels court.  I'm not entirely sure why as I am not the world's greatest player and let's be real I didn't know these guys and most likely will never see them again.  But it was fun and it was an interesting way to spend an evening.
Anyhow it got me thinking -  6 IT consultants all working for various companies working in cities we don't live in. All of us have spent the better part of the last 3-8 years living in hotels, taking early morning Monday flights and late Thursday or Friday flights back to our homes.   Two of the guys have been working on the same assignment for a hospital here for over three years traveling almost every week, checking in and out of the residence inn week after week.  Granted I have been traveling full time now for like 4 years but if I had been them I would have moved.   Don't get me wrong - I am not always the airlines biggest fan and I'm over getting my hotel keys redone - but most of the time I actually like no love traveling.  To me there is some sort of thrill about it still that doesn't seem to wear on me.  While I do sometimes feel like I'm stuck in that George Clooney movie - I am not - it's not just a routine to me - I like "test driving" those tin can rental cars, and meeting interesting people, exploring portions of different cities.  I enjoy housekeeping that makes my bed, and having little "thank you" cards left by the managers at marriott.   I am not even sick of New England - it's really grown on me recently.  I don't mind living out of a suitcase if it means I don't have to unpack, and I like if I do something really embarrassing out in public like singing dreadfully at karaoke or missing baskets I shouldn't have I might never see these people again so I can be a little be freer than I would normally.  And right now in my life I find that this just works for me, maybe later it won't, but right now it does.
so here's to being on the road. xoxo

Deployment Haze

So this is the weekend of my big deployment. We have been working on it since 3pm today and we are still working on it now. I wonder if I fall asleep anyone will even notice? Probably so. But who knows. I will post more exiciting things soon.

And the release...

not that anyone who reads this really cares. But I'm exicited about it - so I'm sharing.
We release "fred" to the company today at 10am. And by noon on a holiday we had over 3500 hours logged (the excitiment is spreading so fast it's contagious!) It's not just about the application either. I was at someone's desk today and I saw their neighbor following new processes and procedures too. that just gives me warm and fuzzies.
Okay end nerdy work talk.

We have lift off!

Yes that's right! I helped to build this...

(I'm pretty sure I can share this baby snipet of it). This has been about 18 months coming. Even though we have 2 other releases until I put this project to rest it's nice to accomplish something. So tonight after three 20 hour days we deployed the first phase of my project we call it "FRED". It's been a long road - have I mentioned we went through 5 test analysts, lost a SME to a vendor, changed technical solutions, we had performance problems that brought the app to it's knees, my tech lead had to return to india a week before deployment and much much more.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And like I tell my "super kool team" - it can only get better from here.

Oh in case you wonder what this does - because it's client specific I can't tell you too much but "FRED" tracks time toward requests. In Feb "BARNEY" will be deployed and we will intergrate with another application that will allow for justifying, prioritizing, approving, managing demand for IS resources.