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Fri, 22 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting...

"But the best thing was the chef Nat had hired for the week, who cooked delicious crepes every morning. He even cooked, after seeing there was a Spanish guy in the crowd, some Spanish omelettes."

Once again I have solid proof that there are better ways of “team building” than what I’ve experienced so far in my short career as a developer. It used to be that the IT group of any organization ruled, getting a lot of respect and perks along the way. Not so anymore... at least around here... More and more our sub-divisions (i.e. Operations, Developers, DB Admin, etc) are growing apart and there’s just too much “statics” in the sole communication channel. Even within sub-divisions there’s not much appreciation by our superiors... “You want a 17-inch monitor because you think your 13-inch is straining your eyes??? Go back to your cubicle and write 25,000 lines of code for that!” The sad thing is that after a while you get used to it... Almost as if numb to it all.

Talking To The Mono King

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

This last Friday was the second day of my trip to Boston. The agenda was very simple and yet had all the ingredients to an unforgetable day. Having swapped a few emails with Miguel De Icaza where I convinced him to meet me and give me a tour of Ximian’s office in Cambridge, we had finally settled I’d meet him during his lunch break. My friend Vinny and I left his house around 11am figuring it would take us about 30-40 minutes to get there but we were not counting on getting lost on the way. Hehehehe… So around 12:25 we arrived at 8 Cambridge Center and told the doorwoman that we were supposed to meet Miguel. What followed next were a series of phone calls between the doorwoman, someone from Novell, and us where Viiny and I were drilled interrogatory-like by the Novell person about our intentions with this meeting. Now, I understand that it may have sounded very weird to her when we pretty much stated that we were “enthusiasts that had swapped emails with Miguel and had arranged for a agenda-less meeting during lunch.” “What company do you work for,” she asked. “We’re not here representing a company,” we replied reciting the “we’re enthusiasts” mantra again. After some 15-20 frustrating minutes during which I felt like turning around and forgetting about the whole thing, we were finally allowed to go up to the 5th floor.

Ximian on Og Maciel's Journal

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Talking To The Mono King