Weekend Activity

Saturday cleaned and did chores.

Sunday went for a bike ride with Jodi along the American River. It was a good trip, especially because we stopped at 16th street and took the bus home. It reminded me of when I lived in SF and was jogging. I used to jog from Laguna to Baker Beach and then walk up and catch the 38-Geary home.

Monday I drove up near Cool and Foresthill. I hiked along the Middle Fork of the American River near the Ruck a Chucky camp. The road down was a little fierce for my car, but no broken tie rods and no fluids leaking from holes poked in the bottom by serpentine rock.

Then I drove back and across to the other side of the river. I took Sliger Mine road and exercised my cars suspension system until a dried up mud bed that was way too bumpy stopped me. I did see some sedan type cars below and I'm not sure how they negotiated the obstacle. I guess they just have bigger balls!

I walked down the road a ways to a curve and an abandoned cinder block structure (Sliger Mine?), then headed back.

On the way down I passed two women on the way up. One said to me, "Hiking alone?"

I wanted to give a snarky answer, "No, Harry the Rabbit is hiking with me." But I didn't, I just said yes.

She then said, "Well good for you."

WTF? Usually the conversation is more along the lines of "nice day" and "great day for a hike" or something equally tame. I got the sense too that she was a little critical, that I shouldn't be hiking alone. Yes, well, that's just the way it is. The humans I encountered (several cars passed me on my way up) all waved cheerfully, or, asked if I needed help. I suppose it's statistically possible that a mountain lion could attack me, a jogger was eaten 5 or so years ago...but I think I took my life in my hands much more on the drive on I-80 to and from the hike.

I also sort of wanted to point out that the deep tan they had now looked fine but once they got over 50 they'd look a lot more like leather (and not fine Corintian leather!) than they might prefer. Ooh, snarky!

Good weekend!

Retirement

I can leave the state at 50 and not draw retirement and get the age factor. I will lose health insurance though. I can come back to work though for even 1 day and then retire and get the health benefits.

I'm at a retirement function.

Sick leave credit is by contract. 250 hours of SL equals 1 year of service credit. Days of SL / 250

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Too bad my brother is getting so old

This is a quote from His Oldness:

The actor who plays Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter
movies is exactly three days younger than me.

* And by fun I mean totally dispiriting.

If I weren't his sister, I would have sympathy. Since I'm his sister, I can just say HA HA! (Note: It might be a jollier HA HA if I weren't older)

Notes from GTC West-Gopal Kapur

The instructor was Gopal Kapur from the Center for Project Management. www.center4pm.com. He’s a great speaker so if you ever have a chance to listen to him, take it.

A. One of the analogies was good…PMO as air traffic control. Here’s a quote as he expands the analogy:

Announcement in an airport lounge: Attention all passengers, all flights are delayed today, possibly cancelled. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Some of the pilots and cabin crew are still in transit. We do not have the right staff to service the planes. There is no one in the air traffic control tower,
and we cannot give you any gate arrival or departure information. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Have a nice day.

This got a big laugh from all of us as possibly somewhat reflective of some of our IT and PM experiences.

He further outlined the analogy: Can the organization answer questions about its projects? How many are underway? What is their status? What is our capacity for projects? Imagine if the airport could not answer those types of questions about planes.

It drives home how important a PMO (or something that replaces the functions of a PMO) is.

B. He talked too about the common statistics about project failures (Cedars-Sinai, FBI, Hershey Foods, HP, Tri-Valley Growers---at least we’re in good company when a project fails). He recommended that execs fund a PMO, "You’re going to waste the money anyway, why not waste some of it on a project office?"

Where is your PMO Charter?

C. He validated that our PMO is in line with others (in a good way). Many of the things he said we are doing, or are planning on doing.

D. I’m not sure our agency is quite ready for this, but he recommended that we include shutdown conditions in the project charter. Shutdown conditions mean that if the project gets to this state (so much over budget/cost/schedule, or requirements, or technical issues), we’re going to quit the project and close it down as it will no longer make business sense. It’s sort of a prenuptial agreement for projects (kinda).

E. He also talked about making the PMO an attractive place to hang out to comfortably relax and share information so that PM’s are eager to come to the PMO. We may need a library for example.

Nalu goes home

A great young couple came in and fell in love and took him home! Yeah!

He's relaxing here at the entrance to the shelter after a busy morning leaping after the ball and being charming to those around him. I spent several mobiles with him (Petsmart, Starbuck's Dog Fashion Show, and Family Fitness in Folsom) and then today's adoptathon.

He's a great, great dog and I almost took him home with me.

Vaya con Dios, Nalu!

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Chuy's

We ate at this regional chain. The picture represents their cute idea of how to find us to give us our food.
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