New obsessions

So I took a breath, joined the gym and got a personal trainer!  I love it.  I see the trainer twice a week (shades of Army training I have to say) and "we" have chosen a mountain run to aim for in December.  The whole things been driven by a couple of things - got some inspiration from my visit to NZ (thanks G, inspiration has turned into obsession), I'm surrounded by 40 something year old women all deciding they need to run half marathons (very California) and work this year (fiscal year that is) isn't nearly as intense as it was last year when I was working anything from 50 to 65 hour weeks (and I'm not kidding....it was full on intense).  Woke up out of the work haze and realized I was doing very little beside work and hadn't been able to commit to any regular activity - now I'm totally committed.  Trainer gets how to motivate me too...."well 15 would be good, 20 excellent.....okay you can push out 5 more...." stubborn self comes into play and before I know it I have pushed out 5 more (quivering wreck of course but determined!).  

Spent last Saturday in San Fran with my friend Dee.  Went to Women's Will, Shakespeare in the park then for a two hour hike through one of the state parks near Berkley.  Lovely - not least of which because the fires that are just outside Santa Cruz have made the air quality here terrible (I'm kind of glad I get to commute to San Jose each day, just to get out of it).  Sunday Michelle and I headed down to the wharf for the Polynesian Festival, saw some very cute tots doing Hawaiian dances (hula isn't quite the word......!) as well as some of the more accomplished older dances.  It was fun, with lots of kitschy stuff for sale (none of which made it back to my house).

Works really interesting - it just keeps evolving and Michelle has reminded me that this is the longest time I have spent in a single role for maybe five or six years.  Economy's still tight but we did manage to keep all the team employed for Q1 (folk are still being laid off here, but it's slowing).

This week we did our final practice run for the big release next weekend (basically we turn off our quoting and ordering tool and they add new functionality.....takes 30 hours and it's Cisco wide so (while my part of the organization does monthly releases, this one involves the organization as a whole so a different set of compliance required).  While my team share shifts I get the midnight to go-live (when we bring the system back online) shift, so staying in San Jose.  I end up doing that shift because that one requires the most co-ordination (I wouldn't exactly call it a privilege of rank).  We send out messages throughout and then final messages when the system comes back online.  Then it gets even more intense as we manage any messages around the system not performing as expected and status......it's a full on time at work that often involves rapid turn around of information and juggling many balls at once (it's part of what keeps me interested).

Other than that looking to plan some other adventures and some holidays.