Author: SK

Ok, I really need to practice my speech. Saturday is only a few days away! 🙂 But of course a little adrenaline will help!

Draft #3
To byl wtorek, 9go lutego. Ladny zimowy dzien. O 12:52 urodzil sie nam Victorek. Niesamowity moment. Niesamowity dzien. Nastepnego dnia, w srode, nie byl to juz zwykly zimowy dzien. Byla bardzo duza sniezyca. Koledzy w pracy smiali sie… powiedz Victorowi ze pogoda nie jest zawsze taka zla. My ta sniezyce zapamietamy. Victorek pewnie tez.

Jako rodzice, zyczymi Ci abys takich stormow wiecej nie musial przezywac. Nie pogodowych. Bo te da sie przezyc. Ale w zdrowiu, zyciu personalnym i zawodowym. Prosimy pana Boga aby Ci w tym pomagal przez cale zycie.

Chcemy tez jeszcze jedna rzecz. I wy myzecie nam w tym pomoc! Chcemy powiedziec Victorkowi ze wszyscy goscie na jego Chrzcinach bawili sie super. Tak wiec, zapraszamy do zabawy!!!

I need to work on my Christening speech. My wife was intrigued at first, but then she told me that I might have to change it a bit. I sounded too much about the storm. It’s OK, I probably have to revise it a few times anyway. So let’s give it a shot again.

To byl wtorek, 9go lutego. Byl to ladny zimowy dzien. O 12:52 Viktorek sie urodzil. Bardzo sie tego dnia cieszylismy. Nastepnego dnia, w srode, bylo bardzo duzo sniezyca. Koledzy w pracy sie smiali… powiedz Victorkowi ze nie zawsza jest taka zla pogoda. My zapamietamy ten dzien. Viktorek pewnie tez.

Jako rodzice, zyczymi Ci abys takich stormow wiecej nie musial przezywac. Nie tylko pogodowych, bo to tylko male utrudnienie, ale w zdrowiu, zyciu personalnym i zawodowym. Prosimy Boga aby Ci w tym pomagal przez cale zycie.

Chcemy tez jeszcze jedna rzecz. I wszyscy goscie dzisiaj moga pomoc. Chcemy powiedziec Viktorkowi ze wszyczy goscie na Chrzcicanach bawili sie dobrze. Ze bylo bardzo fajnie.

I already wrote about this yesterday. I easily get distracted. I easily get “consumed” with things that really shouldn’t do. I should be smarter. I shouldn’t give in to this temptation. But I do that because “something” changes, or I have a different

I am still falling to the email checking, news reading, facebook distraction trap. In the morning, after waking up at 5:30am. BTW, it seems to be a good time to get up. I check the email, and boom, it consumes half an hour of my time. Time really wasted. I cannot fall for that. I cannot afford that. It’s costing me too much time.

I had an idea at B&N today. Since I finished my book on JPA, I should start concentrating on Algorithms. And also read other materials on JPA. I think I have to look over Open JPA docs, and then the JPA spec. There is much more learning that I should do.

I can’t wait for my Kindle to arrive. I think it will soon, in the next 2 weeks. Should I cancel my order and get the iPad instead. I can’t say that this thought has not crossed my mind. But I want a ebook reader first and there is really no comparison. Kindle kills the iPad as a reader.

I am trying to setup clustering for JPA and it’s not the easiest thing to do. Really not. Documentation is scamp. It’s spreaded all over the place. There are no true full examples. It’s tough.  I have a few options. On the positive, I learned a lot today. Let’s review.

Ben wants to use memcached instance and have the servers connect to it. This should technically work, but the servers will be connecting to the server via http. That will slow things down a bit, I think. It probably will work, though and it might be the way to go.

Another solution, and this looks like a competitor to memcached is ehcache server. This works pretty much the same as memcached, I think. I think it’s better suited to be used in a Java environment. It’s better documented.

We can also use built in solution in JPA. I think OpenJPA and Eclipselink actually provide extensions/solutions for this. So this will be a matter of configuring it correctly. But that might not be easy. Another solution would be to extend JPA and add ehcache as the cache solution. That might work.

In any case, I think I have my work cut out for me. Very important stuff though. But it’s not really coding, so it takes time. But I will make sure it’s done correctly. I have to.

My son Victor is becoming a happy baby. He smiles a lot. I love it when he does. He is so funny. I think he’s a calm baby. He doesn’t cry a lot. But he does like to be held. With the help of our grammy, I think he might get spoiled. But that’s not really my problem! 🙂

I just hope things are stable here at NBC. I got a fairly large raise my current paycheck. I hope that I’m not going to become “too expensive.” That’s my concern. I hope not. Obviously they gave me the big raise because they want my contributions. But it remains to be seen what will happen. Only time will tell.

I still have work to finish here. I love working on the new project. It’s a Java Web Services project. I am able to learn new things. It’s a dynamic project. Of course there are risks. We are really starting from scratch. We don’t have much experience in this domain. So it’s going to be painful. But we will learn. One concern is that Ben is changing his ideas/views all the time. I would like it to be more stable. But it’s OK because I have a lot to say.

I gave an impromptu speech yesterday. I think I did well. It was fairly well received. I wasn’t nervous too much. I was just talking about something that is dear to me. I am sure that people know this already. But still. I stepped out of my comfort zone and I delivered. And that’s what matters. I am getting more comfortable speaking in a group. I do have to change my view and look around a bit more. I have to involve others when I speak. Need a bit more vocal variety.

But I am concerned about the club. I am concerned that we will not make it. We are too small. We will struggle to attract more people. I’m giving it 2 more months. If there is no improvement, I think I will give up. That’s about it. We were close to making it, but it just did not work out.

I am still hoping that it will. I really do. I like the club. I like the setup. But I don’t like failure. I like the club to move forward. I like quality. I don’t think we have all of that. And that hurts me.

We have a critical toastmasters meeting today. We have announced some changes. A big change is that we’re moving into a more dynamic club. One to two of our speeches every meeting will be impromptu. Selected at the meeting. I think this is going to make it more interesting for all of us. I’m a bit scared. But I think that’s a good thing. Can I give 4 minutes impromptu on a topic I don’t about? Of course I can! I know I have a lot of improving to do. I know that my impromptu speaking must improve. But that’s OK. I know it will. It has to. And it will.

One other change is that we’ll be meeting at 8:15pm and meet more often, twice a month. This will make our meetings more coherent and without such a huge gap.

To be honest, I’m really excited about these changes. We’ve started thinking outside the box. That’s good.

But is that enough? Can we survive as a club. We need to grow. And grow fast. If we add 2 new members before the end of the year, I think we can survive. If we add 3, then I will feel better. But if we add less than 2, I think there a big chance that we might not make it. Especially if a few more people leave. I hope not.

I want this club to survive. I want it because I think we can be good. I want it because I think it can be convenient for people. I gave up last year, then we picked up a few people and things started to get interesting. I hope the club continues. It’s great leadership training I’m getting. I would love to help others as well.

What am I going to say tonight? Not really sure yet. I know, it’s 5 till 12. But that’s just me. I think I will introduce the changes.