Summer birthdays suck

If your birthday is in the summer, prepare for a lifetime of disappointment. No cupcakes in elementary school. No parties in your honor in college. And after graduation, even the best-laid birthday plans are constantly disrupted by a never-ending string of engagement parties and weddings. All I want for my birthday this year is to have been born in March.

From "Ruminations #134: Twenty-Nine Rules" at http://www.CollegeHumor.com

I've been saying for years that summer birthdays suck.

Even a broken watch is right twice a day

But 12:34 and 11:11, or as it was known "muh-leven, muh-leven", will always remind me of better times.

Take a stand

People in positions of authority need to stand up and say, "We need to do this, this, and this, or we're going to fail. Trust my judgement and let me do my job, or accept my resignation." <ref>

Interesting, I was just relaying the story of when I did this at one point in my career. I wasn't in a position of authority, but I was the one with the skills and abilities who was actually going to have to do things to have the project be a success. The manager backed down and I got the project completed successfully. And I ended up resigning anyway, though later on and in not such a dramatic fashion.

Looking back, I am proud of myself that I took a stand. Of course, it is easy to do that when you think you are right, and after all the "Customer Service" training I've had, I knew that making a paying customer upset isn't the way to get ahead in business. And it has served me well knowing that I can take that stand.

Lazy and Proud of It

LAZINESS: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer. <ref>

I've been telling people I'm a lazy programmer for years and it has served me pretty well.

Introvert vs. Extrovert

I heard an interesting definition of "introvert" and "extrovert" once. I don't remember where. The definition went like this:

For an extrovert, socializing with strangers boosts their energy.

For an introvert, socializing with strangers drains their energy.

Sounds right to me. <ref>

Sounds right to me as well.