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I am day-dreaming a lot lately. I should get back to focus. I should really concentrate more on my work at work. I have been thinking about stocks, kacwin, Poland, and others and that is distracting me from work. Stay focused, Stas. In the morning, just read the dev material and throughout the day, read dev only. I should stick to this regimen or otherwise I always get myself too lose and I suffer as a result. I cannot let that happen.
I like this job at Markit so far. But I have to show results. I am being paid some big bucks. I cannot just sit around and do nothing. I have to be proactive and always look at what I can improve. I have to ask myself, what is the best use of my time right now! All the time! Granted, I do have some progress to report. It’s not like I’m just sitting and not doing anything. I am doing work. It’s just that I think I can do more. I can do better! I have to do better!

I am having some good time lately. First, I get a chance to walk with my son a lot. Not only do I get to brainstorm a lot, I get to just relax and enjoy the sun. This is good stuff.
Also, ever since I had been published on “Na Spiszu,” I have been thinking a lot about it. I am thinking what I can do to improve the region. I can start by writing for the magazine. We’ll see what happens.
One thing I can write about is, “Jestem Polakiem. Pochodze ze Spisza, przepieknego gorskiego regionu na poludniu polski. Niektorzy nazywaja mnie tutaj goralem. Jestem z tego dumny! Chociaz nie zawsze tak bylo.”

I am getting more involved with Kacwin’s website. From time to time, I get an email from somebody unknown with praise either for me or for Kacwin. This time it was for Kacwin. She said “RAJ na ziemi”. It’s really funny. But she seemed like she was actually there and lived though it. Nice experience!
I am also doing a better job at work. Things are falling into place here. I like the environment here so far. I like being open with my manager and with Tom. We go out more. Things are pretty good so far. I made a good decision coming here.

I am tired today. I am having some hard time concentrating. I think it’s because I am not taking enough breaks. Let’s see, I have lunch around 1-2. I should then take a 5-10 minute break at around 3:30-4 and then another one at 5:30-6. I read in a book that taking breaks so often will keep me working at top pace. I have to do that. I am feeling like shit now. I think if I could have taken a break, I would have felt much better.
Fabian is just a great kid. We love hi so so so so much. I am actually not recognizing myself. I feel a true love to him. It’s amazing. It pulls me and my wife more together. Lately, he’s been saying some “da da dad a” and other types of sounds. It sounds funny. He also is pushing himself and actually wants to walk by himself. He is so funny!

I am not being disciplined enough! Yesterday, I went to sleep around 12. As a result, because I was really tired yesterday, I woke up at 7. With that, I missed my gym and missed reading dev for an hour. That’s unacceptable. My goal is to read for an hour+ for 6-7 times a week. No exceptions. I’m going to accomplish that, though, if I wake up before 6 well rested. I can accomplish that if I go to sleep before 10:30, but no later than 11. I have to be more disciplined. I have to do what it takes. I have become more relaxed in this regard. I don’t want to do that and I need to change that.
That said, I have a lot of things I would love to learn in the next couple of months and years. AJAX, JSF, Hibernate, Linux, SOA/Web Services, Java, JEE. That’s a lot of material. I have to start doing things. I have to find the time at home and at work to do that. Otherwise, I am just going to slip and my future job search might be in jeopardy.
C’mon Stas!

Yesterday and today were one of the better days of my life. Why? It started normally, but at almost at the end of the day, as I was reading the latest issue of “Na Spiszu,” I read “Stas Kubasek: Kacwin z Ameryki”.  Wow! An article about me in a decent size magazine. Oh, man! That’s amazing!
I contacted Mr. Budz today and told him about this. He said that people are very happy with kacwin.com. It bring up more interests in Spisz. He told me that if I think of something that that could be put in a magazine, I should contact him. What can I do? Maybe I can write an article or something? I should think about something.
How can I improve as a communicator? I should be bold. I should try to be funny. I should actually try to be myself. I know I can be funny. I can be bold. I can just relax and open up. I should also make sure that I look around in the room. I need to improve that. Otherwise, I should just think how I can improve something.

I still don’t know a lot. I still have to learn quite a few things. I’m working at a different environment here at Markit. I’m dealing with more complex dev world. It’s j2ee and jboss and jms. It’s a lot to take. It’s a lot to learn. I feel dumb at times, but I think it’s a good thing. Oh, I forgot, we’re also dealing more in the Linux world. I feel dumb, but I think it’s good that I am the dumbest person on the team. I know that I am fairly week in the setup, sys admin, world. But I also know that I will learn a lot here. I will be up and running in no time. It’s a big challenge, but so far I like it.
In any workplace, I have an attitude that I’m preparing for my next job. I think that if I master j2ee, hibernate, swing, linux, and ajax, I should be very marketable. I am shooting for my next job to be either a senior architect, or a team lead, or a manager. I should not accept anything less.

During the day, I keep thinking about my son Fabian. I am lucky to have him. We are lucky to have him. He is such a joy. He gives us so much fun. My wife Marta would probably kill herself if something happened to him. She loves him so dearly and is deeply connected to him.
I went to Henry’s restaurant on Sunday. He asked me to come to look at a problem. It’s actually not a problem, but more of a challenge they have. They would like to modify some of the files in their Aloha system. They would like to do it programmatically. The files are DB files and I was able to find a program to read them and to modify them. But I was not able to find out how to do it on a regular basis. I have to spend some time on this. Supposedly, there are some big money involved with this. I should try to spend some time on developing it.

I did a module speech for Toastmasters this past Saturday. I think I did a fairly good job. I was confident. I thought I had a good eye contact. Gertrude said that I only looked at Jim. I agree, that I focused on a select group of people, as opposed to going around every 5-7 seconds. I should do that more. I have to vary my eye contact. I have to get in touch with other people. As far as criticism, one other thing was that I should smile more. I agree.
SMILE and BETTER EYE CONTACT. I should improve in both of the areas.
Overall, I think I’m improving my communication skills. I feel more confident. I can talk a little more “off the cuff.” I should take every opportunity I get to become a better story teller. I just have to get better at that. I am lacking in that regard. I am too shy. I cannot just talk. I am sometimes even afraid to explain a situation. I usually have to have a dry run in my mind to see that I don’t mess up anything. I cannot continue doing that. I have to just speak off the cuff. If I make a mistake, I learn something.
I am learning something new every day!

I have had a set of good working days at work. I worked my ass off for the last several days. But the results are here. I am working on the alerts piece and I have been able to create a quotes feed that feeds live data from the server and displays it inside a table with changing colors. It looks pretty good. This was a major overhaul in functionality. And a lot of work.
When I showed them today. Actually, a funny story happened. When I was showing that to my manager and Tom, it did not work. I had everything working, but at the time I was displaying it to them, it did not work. ( It always happens like that. But it was a recent change I put in (a risky move, actually) and I fixed it a while they went to their seats.
I called them again and this thing worked nicely. They were impressed, I think. Vadim said “very good job” to me. That’s good.  I still have some work to do. I promised to deliver it by Monday, so we’ll see.