Projects Possible

There is an ever increasing rumble that sellers are NOT through with their protest of the changes that eBay is making to their system.  eBay seems to have taken the stance that if they just ignore the rumblings they will go away, and many rumblers are going away to other auction sites like ePier, OnlineAuction, BidVille, eCrater and others.  How long will eBay keep their head in the sand?

The changes sellers are upset about include increased final value fees, sellers inability to post neutral or negative feedback about buyers, PayPal holding auction funds for up to 21 days on “risky” transactions, and the new search which apparently lists eBay’s “best” sellers first in the auction listings.   Many of the changes are in effect now and others are slated for roll-out in the future. 

Loading...

I know I have been playing at other sites (I hope to review these soon) and I WILL probably be participating in this particular boycott.  Now I’m not a powerseller,  but just in the past month I’ve noticed that my fees are higher than they used to be even with the reduction in listing fees.   I’ve also noticed that even though I charge ACTUAL shipping charges, ship the day of payment or the next day depending on when an auction closes that my Detailed Seller Ratings as posted by my buyers are not high enough in those two categories to ever qualify for any discounts or preferential search treatment.  I’m guessing the key to these number is going to be sheer volume.  Something we smaller sellers don’t have the luxury of.

I do know one thing…I’m just tired of it all.  I want to go back to the days when things were simpler.  I want to be a smaller seller on eBay and be able to make a little money and not be treated like I am a waste of eBay’s time.  What are your thoughts?  Are you an eBay seller or buyer that is “moving on” to other options?   Let us know your thoughts…  Click on Comment!

The subject of death and dying is not a very pleasant subject to talk about.  In the “Bucket List” our lead characters, played by Nicholson as the wealthy billionaire and Freeman as a family man and mechanic, face death head on when both are diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Through the course of the movie, these hospital roommates, become friends.  Friends that learn they must face the fact that they are dying and perhaps some not so “joyful” other things in their lives.  

The concept of the “bucket list” - the list of all the things you want to do before you “kick the bucket” -  is one that Carter (Freeman) shares with Cole (Nicholson) as a college philosophy professor’s exercise to his students.  I seem to recall a similar exercise and my results were actually pretty similar to what Carter remembers.   Money, family, happiness… they are all things that as a college freshman I thought were a long time in coming.  Now on the right side of middle age, my college bucket list is important and certainly has relevance to what and who I am today but I think with life experience there are a lot of other things I think I would add to that list.  Cole and Carter create the list and head off on this world adventure to see and do all the things they wish they could have in their life.  

There is an interesting side plot that I think the movie really glossed over rather poorly.   Carter is a married man and when he finds out he is terminal he makes a choice to spend a portion of his remaining days away from his wife and family doing the things that he wants to do.  I find the way the movie handled this to be very “light” as opposed to how it might play out in real life.

The power of the movie for me was not in the humor, or the very poorly done visits to some of the wonders of the world.  (You would think the digital additions of the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, or the African Safari would have been better done.)  The power lies in the message.  If you know that you only have a specific amount of time to live what are the things that you would do in your life… what would be your “bucket list”?   Do you have relationships that need mending?  Places to see?  Experiences that you would like to capture?  Are there mistakes you made that need to be corrected?  When the eulogy is given…what’s going to be said?

While I wouldn’t call the movie “life changing” it is definitely one that I am not disappointed that I shelled out the bucks to view and I will purchase it when it comes out on DVD.  Definitely a thumbs up and a movie that I would wholeheartedly recommend.  

And I can’t help but ask… What’s on your “bucket list”?

I’ll start…   I want to learn to play the piano! 

Maybe we should all start Living Like We Were Dying?    Loading...  

Great song from Josh - I’m kinda on a Valentine thing.  This song seems to be appropriate for that.

I’ve heard many different things being compared to herding cats…  Project Management is Like Herding Cats, Managing Programmers is Like Herding Cats, Leadership is Like Herding Cats, Teaching is Like Herding Cats, Getting My Family Together is Like Herding Cats. (You’ve probably got a few things in your life that are like herding cats as well.)

The interesting thing for me as a NON-CAT person is I really wasn’t sure what that whole phrase implied…so I thought I might take a look at it from the standpoint of why I don’t like cats.

1. Cat’s don’t “need” me in the truest sense of they word.  They tend to do just fine by themselves and really to me only seem interested when they need or want something from me.  I’ve been told they “sense” that I am not a cat person.
2. Cat’s never seem to focus on anything.   You can easily distract them with a ball of twine or some other toy.  They can bounce from distraction to distraction and seem to be quite happy doing it.  I’ve been told they focus on the distractions… that’s what they are good at.
3. Cats will climb all over everything.  Boundaries don’t seem to matter.  My kitchen table, the stove, bathroom vanities, you name it and it is their territory. 
4. The incessant need to make sure that you know they have claws.  When you push them away or put them down, they will let you know that they also know how to use these claws.  Make sure you provide them with an acceptable scratching post or they will use whatever they can get those claws into.
5. Cats want to be awake when I want to sleep and if it’s mating season it is absolutely amazing the amount of noise that you can get out a cat when they are on the prowl.

So now look at your [Job or Task] and look at some of the reasons above…  I’ll use Project Management since I am a bit familiar with it…

1. Team members will often think that the PM is really not needed and that their job is to make their life miserable, holding them accountable for their portion of the project.  When people want to go it alone in a project things will quickly start to become problematic.  The sum of the parts is much better than the lone wolf.  (ummm cat)
2. Projects need to be organized, well communicated, structured, etc… If you are easily distracted or have team members that are easily distracted the project becomes at risk.
3. Everyone needs to know their boundaries and work on the things that they have been assigned.  I am a firm believer that you can’t manage ever single task.  You need to allow your team members the flexibility to do their task and all of its sub-tasks in the time allotted, holding them accountable.   
4. Having claws… In a project I might consider this to be the hidden agenda.  Either the project sponsor, the team members or in some cases even the project manager have an agenda that they want to accomplish that is not part of the project but they will wield their claws to get it accomplished.
5. Time management in projects is so important to meet the deadlines agreed upon.  If we aren’t meeting the deadlines we end up with again a project at risk.  Doing things “on your own time” never works well with projects.  I don’t care if you do it at 2am as long as I don’t have to get a call from you at 2am that you are running up against problems or need to discuss a change order.

So I guess the reasons I hate cats can be fit into the analogy…  I wonder if it would work with dogs?  Perhaps another day!

There was a super bowl commercial that was done a few years back by EDS… It was absolutely one of the funniest and well done!  I’ve included it from a YouTube search below… enjoy!

At this time of the year we often spend quite a bit of time reflecting on the year past and the things we’ve accomplished and those things that we haven’t.   We also seem to spend more time with family, friends,  and loved ones and when we can’t spend time with them we are certainly thinking about them through our Christmas cards and gifts.  

When I bought Josh Groban’s NOEL CD I read through the songs and thought it would be an awesome Christmas album.  The first time I heard Thankful it brought tears to my eyes.  Holidays have always been a time of reflection for me… and this year is no different.   What is different this year is that I was shaken at the foundation with the sudden passing of my Papa Carm.   The experience, the loss, has been very sobering, and eye opening for me.  We can’t take time back… and as each minute ticks by we lose it forever… that minute is now only available in our memories.  I get so busy sometimes that I forget what I am Thankful for…  Josh’s song helped me to remember.

This holiday season I would encourage each of you to reflect on the things that you have… the things that YOU are thankful for. 

I won’t claim to be democrat or republican… And frankly it wouldn’t matter who the candidates were they would all have something about them that would scare me… so I just have to pick the one that has the least number of these and hope that the checks and balances are in place.

Here are a number of You Tube political videos… 

We are happy to say that the static images provided by the stationary web cameras we have at Deep Lake are going to be supplemented by a full pan/tilt and zoom camera in the near future.   While the static images were nice when there is something happening that I want to see I need to be able to control things just a little better.

While this still isn’t the Canon camera that I want (check out the Old Faithful streaming webcam found in this post) we are going to experiment to see just how much use it will get.  Keep in mind I have a satellite connection with limited bandwidth so public usage of this camera will be restricted.   Those with a specific interest in Deep Lake will certainly be able to receive the password that will control the movement of the camera via the Internet.

I’ve run across this Mark Osborne Academy Award nominated 6 minute short film a number of times on the Net.

On first pass I found it to be quite depressing but on further thought the message is rather powerful. I believe this story of the factory worker / inventor can be personalized and if we find ourselves trapped in a dehumanizing job or in a depressing world we should do as our inventor in this film and use our creativity and ingenuity to find a way out… but in the end we need to be careful or our success may make us become what we were trying to escape.

Your thoughts?

Loading...

You can find this and many other “demotivators” at Despair Inc.

For those of us that spend a lot of time on airplanes and traveling you just can’t help but laugh at this old Dean Martin, Foster Brooks comedy bit.

Loading...