Brian's Mind

There are some parts of the general sales field that I think I would be very good at, and others that I think I would be lousy at. For example, I am not comfortable with the concept of cold calling. Therefore, establishing new business is difficult for me. Here are some of the skills that I think I could use.

• I am a good technology translator. A person can tell me in their own terms what the problem is, and I can generally understand what they mean, I can then communicate a technological solution back to them in terms they can understand. I have frequently used this skill in a Help Desk environment, when guiding callers through solving problems in their own stores.
• I am a good communicator. People are comfortable talking to me. I have had many experiences where I was not the first person someone was supposed to call, but they called me anyway, because they were more comfortable talking to me.
• I am a good troubleshooter. When I understand the problem, I am good at breaking the problem down into smaller, easily solved parts. I can see the list of solutions that will solve the problem, and how to implement them.
• I believe that as a salesman you must know your products inside and out. This allows you to see them as a system, which makes the Troubleshooter skill above more useful.

Education is an area where I definitely have a strong interest. My counselor has suggested I contact some of the smaller private colleges and present my list of skills with the idea that they might not need a full-time person for each of these things, but might have a use for someone who can work at many seemingly unrelated tasks. I could do this as an employee, or perhaps under contract (or maybe even under the Anykey name).

What skills do I have to offer? I hope to list some of them here.

• I have experience as an educator. I might not be qualified to teach college level courses (or maybe I am, depends on the school), but I am familiar with the environment. There may be tasks this lends itself to that I am not even thinking of.
• I have some sales ability. Perhaps I could work a booth at various trade shows, or at career days to represent the school.
• I have a class B drivers license with passenger endorsement. I could run a shuttle or bus for the school for trips or picking up / dropping off visiting guests.
• I have a strong IT background. I could help maintain the school computer systems, or a computer lab. I can handle working with technology vendors when looking for new solutions, or resolving existing problems.
• I have a wide area of interests, which makes me a student of many different topics. I may be able to tutor students in many topics, especially technology related ones. I am good at finding answers, so if I do not know something a student comes to me for help with, I can find what is needed to assist the student. Along these same lines, I am more likely to help the student find the answer, to help them learn how to learn, rather than giving then the answer.

I have been looking at changing jobs or even careers now for some time. My happiness at Cousins was decreasing for a couple of years now, and especially over the last year. Two weeks ago, I was given some assistance in finding the motivation to do this, along with help in finding the time to do it. For the last two weeks, I have not had to worry about going in to work. I have been released from my job at Cousins.

This can be a scary time, but it does not have to be. There are so many things I would like to do, and in the end I have a skill set that allows me to do many things. When push comes to shove, I am sure I will find work, even if it is not exactly what I want.

My current plan is to start laying out my skills, abilities, achievements, etc.. here and see what I can build. Maybe lay out the various career paths I see myself as able to get and why I think I fit into them.

The URL for the Weather Service page that I like has been a pain to deconstruct. I have found a shortcut. Instead of trying to build the URL that I see when the page is loaded, I have instead deconstructed the form they use to look up your city.  This page is designed to take the name of a city and state, or to take a zip code, and determine the rest of the information you need to create the long URL you see when the weather page is displayed. Using this page, I found the Query string that can be matched with just a zip code (or conceivably a city, state pair). I can now make it simple to load the weather page for the location of my choice from code.

The following link will load the Weather page for Waukesha Wisconsin (Zip Code 53186). To load a different location, just replace the 53186 at the end of  the URL.

http://forecast.weather.gov/zipcity.php?inputstring=53186

The first part of this can be found at http://wordpress.anykeycs.com/?p=229

This is just a quick addition to that article.

Another feature I think should be automatic in a good online creation tool is the ability to insert collapsible sections. An example of what I am talking about can be found on this page.

http://courses.anykeycs.com/internetBasics/index.shtml

The Table of contents on the left side of the page has the little green arrows that will expand and collapse the lists. I now know how to code this, but would like an online GUI tool for this.

I have made a few updates to my wish list. If you are interested, here is the link to the page.

Wish List

My Grandfather passed away on Saturday, November 22nd. This hit me harder than I would have expected. However, there was no time to grieve, as my boss had set a very short deadline for a rather heavy project. In addition, this was the beginning of a holiday week (Thanksgiving). Needless to say, it was difficult, but I got the project finished. It took a lot of creative thinking, a few long days, and even a weekend day to complete.

This Morning (Monday, the 30th), I overslept by about an hour. I called my boss, and it was clear he was once again frustrated with the fact I was going to be late this morning. Being late has been an issue with me in the past, however, I think I had a reason for it this morning, given my past week.

At no time do I feel that he has offered any condolences, nor has he even suggested that I might take some time off. The employee does indicate that I may take one or two days off. He has not communicated the situation to others in the company. I would think that he might at least notify human resources of the situation. I am very angry at the callous attitude I feel from him.

I worked very hard to get the project done on time. It was not easy. There has not even been a thank you, or ‘job well done’ from him about it. I am sure from his perspective, I have simply done what I am required to do as part of my job, and that it requires no special recognition.

I should be used to the fact that no matter how hard I work, as long as things get done, I have simply done my job. However, if for some reason they do not get done, no matter what the reason, Then I am spoken to about how I could / should have done better.

I feel paralyzed right now. By body is shaking, and I am not sure why. Is it anger, caffeine, sadness, or some combination. I cannot think clearly, and I have absolutely no patience right now. I feel that I am on the verge of needing to throw things. I should check to see what the schedule at the gun range is right now. It may prove to be therapeutic.

Writing this is helping me. I feel a little better. I am still angry, and I still do not feel ready to handle my daily tasks. I am sure I will be chastised for that at some point. Writing this is not exactly part of my job, so I am wasting company resources in doing so. I normally would feel very guilty about that, but my (pain, anger, ??) is so strong that I NEED to write this right now.

I needed an advocate this last week. It is clear to me that my boss cannot / will not be that advocate.

– update
At this point, my boss, as well as his boss have been informed. I have also let HR know that I may need to use the help line to deal with the passing of my grandfather. No one has mentioned that I might take a day or two off. The Employee handbook does allow for that, but I am too angry right now to ask for it.

I hate mornings! I mean, I really hate mornings. Think of the most horrible atrocity that you could possibly have to deal with in life, and I hate mornings more than that. I do not sleep well. This is not to say I wake up a lot in the night. Matter of fact, once I am out, it is difficult to wake me back up. However, I apparently do not get into a deep sleep.

My current alarm clock is working fine, but I have started thinking about replacing it. Mainly, because I am moving my room downstairs, and this seems like a good time to change the clock, if I am going to.

What features do I want on my new alarm clock? That is what I hope to explore here. Some features I have on my current clock that I want to keep are as follows:

• Crescendo Style Alarm – This is an alarm that starts quiet, and gets louder and louder the longer it is left on.  I would like a longer build time than the current clock has.
• Multiple alarms – This clock has two alarms.
• Ability to wake to radio – Should be able to have one alarm on radio, and another on the alarm sound.
• AC powered, with a battery backup

Now, I need to see if there are other features I would like to add to this list.

The Neverlate 7-day Alarm Clock has a few interesting features.

• Separate alarms for each day of the week – I would like an alarm clock that can have a different alarm time for  weekdays vs. the weekend.
• Adjustible Snooze from 1 – 30 minutes.
• Nap button for up to two hours.

Other features I have seen on alarm clocks include an extremely loud alarm with bed shaker (Sonic Bomb), or a Jeeves style wake up call (Good Morning Sir).

This just in! I found an updated version of the Neverlate clock mentioned above. It is the Neverlate Executive Alarm Clock. This puppy does all the stuff the above Neverlate does, but adds the following.

• Dual daily alarms, and a daily reminder.
• Each alarm can be tied to a different radio station
• Gradual Awake feature.

I am looking for a tool to allow me to create an online book. I want to be able to create Chapters, sections, etc.. Maybe the best way to look at that is to say I want to be able to nest sections inside of other sections, with a virtually unlimited number of levels. I would like to be able to add the levels above, or below an existing section. For example..

I start by creating a chapter, and I add a few pages to it. I want to be able to click a button, and create a sub-section within that chapter. Later, I may realize I need to group sets of chapters into Volumes.

The basic interface could be like that of a blog. There is a area to enter the text for the current page, and below there may be buttons to add another page, Start a new sub-section, or end this sub-section (return to a higher level).

Each page would automatically have Next Page, Previous Page, and if appropriate, buttons for Top of chapter, Top of Volume, etc..

An expandable Table of Contents would be automatically created at the side, that shows where you are in the structure.

since this site will be viewed by non-geeks, I need the layout to look good. For example, I need to be able to use good looking titles (including spaces) on the pages.

I am sure I will think of more, but this is the kernel of what I am trying to accomplish.

Continued at http://wordpress.anykeycs.com/?p=307

Yesterday was the day I had been waiting for, for the last few months. I have been waiting longer than that, but I did not yet know when the waiting would be over. Either way, yesterday was the official release to T-Mobile of the Touch Pro 2.  It was a small challenge to locate a store that actually received them already, but I was successful.

I have not had that much of a chance to play with it yet, but I wanted to document the day that I actually got my hands on it.  I can say that so far I am pretty happy with it. It will take a little bit to remember all the little customizations I like to make. Therefore, it will be a little while before I am ‘home’.

The keyboard is nice so far, and the new ‘Teeter’ game is nice. I am not sure of the screen yet, and Opera Mobile still is not my favorite mobile browser.

Time for me to go back into the Archives and see what ideas are still valid!