Team grows by another 33%

Today, another developer joined the team. Looking back, I gotta admit how much the team has grown in the past couple years - and the drastic difference from when I started 6.5 years ago.

Thinking back, it was quite funny - Erica and I being the newly hired QA/developer, plus Michael our main TS. That's pretty much our whole team (neither Erica and Michael is 100%, and I wasn't suppose to be full time on this team as well). I still remember calling our team one of the smallest team (if not *the* smallest team) in the whole company. Deadlines are especially *fun* of course, since we always have to scramble for PQA resources. I am still puzzled how we manage to pull several releases with such level of resources.... hahaha...

When Brian joined in 2006, which made things a bit better. Unfortunately with the departure of Konphused and the moving of our team to another division, we were back to square one with me being the only developer again. At the same time, things really got hectic as the dashboard was starting to take off. Fortunately, Ru joined the team late 2008/early 2009 - but it was still a crazy dev cycle.

The golden triangle was formed mid-2009 when Chris joined. After 6 years, we finally have enough people so our projects are "self sufficient" in terms of PQA. Well... Almost. Now that we have another member, that should give us a bit more wiggle room and our future project plans a bit smoother.

I just hope that we don't scare him away.

Overall, It was a Great Memorial Day Weekend

Bars on Friday night
Met some new friends on Saturday
Caught up with old friends on Sunday
And of course being a "workaholic", I did throw in a couple hours of work here and there as well. =P

Just like the title said, overall it was a pretty good weekend. Oh - and I got my hair dyed. It's been a while since I last had my hair colored, I decided to change things up a bit - also an early present for myself. Right now, it's brown with some hint of red in it. I wasn't too sure how red it will turn out when i picked the color, so I opted for the safer route. Next time, I think I should try the one that has a bit more red in it. (And if I could convince my stylist to move up to Madison - and then it will be blue!) I don't think anyone from work (at least my "current" team) have seen the last "copper" color, so this should be something new to them. The cost wasn't as high as I originally thought, so I probably will keep my hair colored in the foreseeable future.

Morning Meetings

I had a 830 meeting this morning... and it really has been a while since the last time I had a meeting earlier than 9. Those who work with me on a regular basis know that I am definitely not a morning person (thank goodness work hour is not too strict here). As a matter of fact, meetings at 6 or 7pm is much more preferable to me, but I digress.

The meeting actually wasn't too bad - other than the fact that it added some small projects/investigations on my plate. My main problem with coming to work early is that I don't get to leave early. It seems like regardless of when I come into work, I end up leaving around 730 - 8 (830 today). Even with an hour of lunch break, and taking a sanity break, that's still a pretty long work day when it's not around deadlines.

Hopefully the rest of the week will be better, but somehow I have the feeling that I won't get much of my own stuff done. :P

Is it too early to plan for vacation... in December?

Since it's been all work so far this year (see previous post), I am really looking forward to a nice, long, uninterrupted, disconnected (from work that is) vacation. I don't think i can skip going back home (HK) - after all, that is where i do my main shopping, but perhaps I will venture out a bit this year and pack a 3-4 day trip to some other places. I'll see how that go.

On the other hand, my sabbatical most likely will not happen this year. For those who don't know, my company offers a 4-weeks sabbatical leave for every 5-years of service (Sometimes, i can't imagine having worked here, the same company, for 5+ years already. Many college/high-schools friends have switched jobs, even multiple times. In certain sense, I think I'm quite lucky that I found a company that matched quite well with me. Oh, back to sabbatical). They would also pay for airfare (include a companion) and up to 20-days (or 21... forgot the exact number) of lodging cost (i think it's 150/day). England is a front-runner for me at the moment, but not 100% sure yet.

I could also break the 4-wk into two 2-wk trips (taken 18-months apart). So that's another question i have to think about. Should i take it all at once, or two mini-trips instead? Um...

Finally another blog entry in 2+ months

Well, blogging definitely took a back seat so far this year. This is like, the 3rd/4th post of the year.

First off, let's blog about work - since the work/lift balance scale is heaviliy tilted toward the work side. Things have been extremely busy in the previous months. Endless requests + Limited resources = Lots of OTs. Hopefully as this development cycles in wrapping up (still got couple more issues to fix), and new ones won't start until mid-summer/fall (please, no "surprise" in between), things should start to get better (finger-crossed).

Another exciting news from work is having a new developer on the team. For a loooooong time, I've been the only full-time developer on my product (and i do claim the title of THE XXXXXX developer in the company... hahaha). With the re-org late last year, my team had to give up the other half-time developer, but luckily got a full-time in exchange (can't imagine developing on my own for this release - well, actually I could, but i don't want to think about it). That brought the number up to 2. Still means I had to scramble for resources for each of our projects - which always causes headaches and frustrations.

On May 4th, another developer joined our team. I think the whole was pretty excited. As for me, not having to worry about finding additional resources is always a plus (well, my TL actually should be happier - since she wouldn't have to hear me complaining... XD). I could definitely see projects flow a lot smoother and quicker in the next cycle. Might be a headache for QA; but for now R&D is happy. :D

YouTube and work

I just realized YouTube plays such an important role in my OT work hours. Though i have a decent collection of songs on my computer, sometimes you just want something different. The only functionality i would like to see is an auto-loop function so i don't have to click "Play All" when all the items on my playlist have been played. Here's my current playlist:

Finally some decent weather today

Though i got up waaaaaaaaaaaay too late (like 5pm...Mwahaha...) to enjoy any of it. Ever since Jan 4th, weather in Madison wasn't too pleasant. Although there wasn't many snow days (thank goodness), but we haven't had a day where the temperature is above freezing point. In fact, on the 16th, the low was -16F! So today is definitely a pleasant change - with the high finally breaking the 32F barrier. Hopefully the temperature will continue to climb as we move into Feb/Mar.

New Year... New Beginning

Oh well, looking at the number of blog post last year, i definitely didn't do so well on one of my 2008 resolutions (which is to post more than 2007). Let's make that same resolution this year - since it'll be much easier to reach. XD

Things are going well I guess... and it'll definitely be getting busier at work (which i don't mind actually - but ask me again in a week or two). I moved back to the Madison (or Fitchburg campus) at the end of last year, so now looking toward the completion of the new buildings in Campus 2.

This weekend I got these two songs stuck in my head (I blame GoNintendo.com for linking the video). The sad thing is that I can totally see myself singing and yelling along.... "Ka~~~mo ne Hai!" How Sad! :P

Animal Crossing in Progress

Tuna! Took me quite a while to catch this fish. :D


12/6 Update -

Today i caught my 2nd Pike! PSYCHED. XD

What a drastic change...

Couple days ago i was enjoying weather in the mid-80s back home... today I saw snow flurries and the high was only 39. Yikes~