Calling it Agile does not make it so

At my work about 7 years ago there was a big push to turn our process into "XP / Agile". It's been an interesting ride but at this point I don't consider what we do "agile". True, we've taken some ideas from the agile methodology, but very few of them have stuck. The thing that I find the most funny is that some co-workers believe that we're fully XP - which I am amused by because I think that we never were. I was discussing this with a co-worker (CW) today and the conversation went like this:

CW: But we're doing Agile things like standups.
Me: How many chairs do you use?
CW: All of them...
Me: Then it isn't really a standup, is it?

I'm not trying to be a jackass, really I'm not. The fact that people aren't following the steps that are in the name of the activity without realizing how they are deviating from the process boggles my mind. Just calling something "agile" does not make it so. Imagine going to a car dealership and buying a BMW and they show up with a ford focus - "But hey, it's got 4 wheels and a windshield, it's pretty much the same thing! Tell all your friends that you drive a BMW! Vooommm!"

If you're driving a ford focus, it's better to just tell people that. Then at least you're all on the same page. If you're telling people that you drive a BMW and then find out about your ford focus, then you'll lose any credibility that you had. It'll just add to confusion and doesn't help anything. You could argue that it'll help you get a new job (because it's a buzzword) but in the interview they'll probably suss out your answers and figure out that you don't understand the terminology of your industry.

*sigh*

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we shouldn't call it an Agile Frog. It just confuses people with images of a duck-frog-hybrid. (I hope that image stays in your mind all day.)

Let me know what's wrong

As part of the simplifying and ditching cable idea, I bought a DNS-323 that I'm going to hook into the ps3. Trying to set up the email alerts and have them use my isp (currently ncf) I was going nuts. It looked like it was timing out, but I there isn't any logging or anything useful. After a lot of failed attempts and some desperation, I decide to try google's smtp server.

And it works.

I'm half happy and half angry. I hate it when I feel that I've wasted a bunch of time. *sigh*

Best time to write a test

Today we were discussing using jQuery function rather than the $-function. I thought "there's no way that I'm going to remember to do that" - *ding! light bulb!* That's the point where you need to write a test. If there's any manual step that can be forgotten, then at some point it will be forgotten.

The 3 R's start with Reduce

When talking about the 3 R's order mattered - the first step was to reduce. I'm trying to apply this to more than just garbage. We're currently looking at ditching our cable tv and perhaps even the home phone line. The money isn't even the big issue - it's the fact that we're paying for things that we're barely using. The fact that the pvr cuts off programs and we lose the last 30 seconds and have to find it on the internet anyways just adds salt to the wound.

That's not to say that we won't watch tv - we buy plenty of dvd's, find episodes that we missed (again, cursed rogers and pvr) and now I'm looking at buying a OTA HD antenna.

In the end I think that I'd feel better if I just read more books and exercise more. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with tv.

At this point the only shows that we watch are: Glee, The Daily Show, Big Bang Theory, and How I Met Your Mother. The only one that I'm concerned that we'll not be able to get in a timely manner is The Daily Show. We'll figure it out.

Christmas of my dreams - from when I was 7

Sometimes I feel guilty about my wedding vows - I felt that I bent the truth and am not living up to what was said. Specifically 1 Corinthians 13:11. I feel guilty, but not guilty enough to put away childish things.

When I was a kid I always wanted lego for Christmas. At some point the question "aren't you too old for that?" started to get asked more and more. Sadly gifts shifted from toys to clothes and other odds and ends. This year when Laura would ask what I'd like, I'd just say "star wars lego". It's not that I was trying to be a pain, I just didn't really have any other ideas.

I thought that I'd get maybe one fun toy, but no, I got a ton. Even my mom and dad got me lego this year. Crazy.

So, in interest of completeness I'll list what I got:
8017 Darth Vader's TIE Fighter
8039 Venator-class Republic Attack Cruiser
8088 ARC-170 Starfighter
8036 Separatist Shuttle (but I think that I'm going to trade it to my 7 year old nephew and get Y-Wing instead)
a 7" (?) lego man with flashlights in his feet
2 star wars cookbooks (yes, you read that right)

I'm pretty sure most of the gifts that I received this year could easily have been for a 7 year old. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is what I was dreaming about when I was 7. I just had to wait a couple of decades.

My co-worker today was relaying a story about how he was speaking last night to his wife where he was telling me about all my star wars lego stuff. His 6 year old has the same interests as I do and overheard them speaking. The 6 year old then asked "what grade is [Jim] in?". Ya... grade...

If immortality is being forever young, then I think that I've found it, of a sort.

Update: I forgot some other star wars / lego related gifts like a "Obi Wan clone wars lightstaber" which lights up and make sounds when its waved around or hits something, Lego Harry Potter for the PS3, and of course Creationary which we played last night and is awesome. ;-)

My Murse

About six months of the year I wear a big winter coat and it becomes my murse. Sunglasses, pens, old receipts, headphones, work ID, candies, I got them all. It means that my coat is lumpy, not so flattering, and weights the same as a medium sized dog. Do I actually need to carry around all that crap? Of course not, but it's so easy to just keep on adding it to the coat's never ending pockets. As the weather warms up I sometimes wonder if I should get a european carryall, but then usually my good okay barely passable fashion sense kicks in.

Girls are so confusing

My sister is 13 and asked for books for Christmas. She asked for things like sci fi, mystery, and fantasy. I have no idea why she has chosen those categories because last summer I tried to get her to read Harry Potter but she just made fun of it. I think that she got through like 2 pages before giving up. When I was 13 I didn't understand 13 year old girls. I assumed that when I got older I would, but apparently that was a bad assumption.

All the books that I'd recommend to her are sitting on our shelves, so I quickly grabbed a stack that reaches to my knee. The trouble is I don't want to give her a lot of them. Borrow them, sure, but not for classics that I know I'll re-read a couple more times. There's an alternative pile of anthologies that she can have, but things like 1984, Brave New World, anything by Clarke, Asimov, Wells or Verne I'd like to keep. I don't know if that's silly though - will I just format shift all them from the dead tree version?

Having a lot of books around can be comforting, but they take up a lot of space that could be put to better use. Like displaying lego for example.