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I have to be strong. Many things seem to be failing all the time. It might seem like a world is collapsing, but life goes on and everyday is a great day to learn. Every day is a great day to achieve something more. Everyday is a chance to get ahead.
That is the type of thinking I’m adopting.
Things are not working everywhere. My son was sick for over a week. He did not want to eat. He just wanted to be breastfed. My wife broke out several times. She was ready to give in. It’s not a nice feeling.
My job situation is not good at times. Things are over complicated. Things are not working. Some people are not delivering.
It feels like things are just not working right.
But on the other hand, failures are a great way to learn. I am learning from these tough situations. I am learning and I see that I am growing as a result. I am getting better. I can handle stress a little better.
I did not expect this to be easy. It’s tough and I think it’s going to be tough for some time now. I am not going to give up easily. Sure, if I think this is not savable, then I will give up. But only then. I am not going to give up just because it’s not easy. No, that’s not me. There are a lot of opportunities for making things better. I know I can and will make things better. It’s a very good opportunity for me as well.

I am starting to have doubts about my new role. Not because I don’t like to be a manager. In fact, I think I’m starting to like it, but because I have a hard time with the product that I inherited. It’s just a COMPLEX beast. It has so many components, so many moving pieces. It’s an unmanageable beast. Really! It’s a beast.
I am going to stay on it for some time. I want to at least get a bonus and see what happens. I also don’t want to just leave it out cold.
So do I want to be a manager? I think so. Am I good at it? Not yet. But I see myself improving.
At times, I think I’m not good. At times I think I can handle it. At times I don’t. But I really have to just take it easy and see how it goes. If after another couple of months I still feel this way, then I have to do something about it.

Fabian is going to be 15 months soon. He is a sweet boy. I like to play with him. He is smart. He likes to play with me. He also likes to when we read books to him. He is getting stubborn as well. He likes to unplug the telephone, move things around, and get on the table.
Oh, it was a mistake that I made with him. I showed him how to do it once and let him play, now he wants to just stand on the table and just play.
I had another article publish “Na Spiszu”. It was a shortened one but still. I am getting popular! Not really, but it is cool, nonetheless. I like to write in an open style and I think people like to read in that style. The magazine does not have too many open articles. Most people write in the third person – I don’t like that. I like to see “I” in the article.
I am getting more assertive in my style and way of being. I am starting to be aggressive in this regard. I don’t care what people think of me. I still do, but not as much. I have to just force ahead and do what I think is right and do the best job that I possibly can. As simple as that. I cannot let others dictate what to do. I am what I am. I don’t know a lot, but I do know a lot as well.

Days like today are tough. Things are failing left and right. I don’t really know what is happening. I don’t know what to do. Makes me want to quit and start looking for a new job! Really.
But I don’t expect things to be rosy. The bottom line? I am gaining experience as a development manager and I should continue doing it for at least a year. If after a year I feel like this is something not for me, I should then start looking for a new job.
So, in either way, I have to make it work at least until the end of summer 2008. I will re-evaluate things then.
I am trying to make changes. I will make changes and I will make this a better environment. The only blocker is that some things are unmaintainable. Things are so complicated that I don’t feel like touching them. It’s horrible. I don’t like this situation.
One of the first things I am going to try to institute is a TDD style of code development. I just think this is how we’re going to write maintainable code. Pretty much the only way under our circumstances. It is going to take us some time to adjust, but over time, we will get better. Over time, we will develop high quality code. Plus, I think this is something that I can put on my resume.
Fabian fell of the bed today morning. Again. My wife said that he was moving around too much, probably because he’s in pain. And it happened. He fell off. This was not that bad. He did not cry too much. He takes pain very well. He is a great boy.

I have not been very productive for the past 2 days. It’s time to stop by. I am trying to read up on different things, but I am also trying to read a lot about polish politics. I have to stop by. I cannot view emails and read good readers entries at work. Period. Of course, I am going to do it when I have to, but generally, I don’t want to do it.
I have a lot of things that I want to change in the dev environment. I have a lot of things I have to change and a lot of work I have to do to improve myself. Do I have time to read email and news? I don’t think so! So, Stas, c’mon, just stop.
I am thinking about how I can improve the Connex infrastructure. One of the things that I am going to adopt is to introduce Test Driven Development. I believe in it. I believe that it really can improve the quality of software. I will work hard and try to introduce it. Another thing that I will try to introduce eventually is doing Code Reviews. All production code should be improved. All code should be code reviewed.
I should also start writing the Better Coder newsletters again. I enjoyed doing that. I will start next week or so with an issue on how we should adopt Test Driven Development. It should be fun. Before I do that, though, I should order the book so we have it for reference.
My wife and I had a fight yesterday. I was with Fabian, but at the momement I was watching TV. He took out a bottle of syrup, and then he dropped it on the floor and fell on it. My wife thought he injured his mouth. So she came over screaming – not really controlling herself. She hit me and I hit her back (on her hands). She then said she never wants any flowers from me. She also said that if it was not for Fabian, she does not know if she would be with me. That hurt me.
I had a conversation with her today. I told her that if she does not to be with me, she does not have to. She backtracked, but I’m still a little bit hurt. She apologized. I think things should get better.

I am going into stages as far as the kacwin.com site is concerned. At times I am very active and then I become stale. I am going through an active stage now. I received an email from Jasiek Budz. He sent some archived issues of Na Spiszu. I found a way from box.net to browse it on naspiszu.kacwin.com. It is really cool. I am curious what he says tomorrow. I think he’s going to like it.
My son Fabian is such a cute boy. He looks so funny. Just by looking at him in the morning, I really have a lot of fun. He is developing nicely. He understands more. When I ask him where a kaczka or piesek is, he knows. He is stubborn at times, but he learns quickly.
I am doing more learning at work lately. I am also trying to write more. I wrote a long-awaited blog entry today. This was after a few months of inactivity. I have to do a better job writing blog entries.
I also have to do a better job going to sleep on time. I delay it and then I wake up tired. I don’t want to do that. I want to go to sleep around 10, and then wake up refreshed. If I continue doing what I’m doing now, then I am really hurting myself. I don’t want to do that.

I am getting a little bored at work. Today was such a day. I am waiting for Tech Ops on an item that is stopping me to make further progress. Plus, there is not much other type of work that we’re doing.
I think I have to become more proactive. I have to start looking for things to improve. I have to start looking and find things that we can fix. If we cannot do that, then we will not have anything that we strive to fix.
Am I doing a good job being a manager?
I don’t think so. At least not yet. I have a hard time jump starting one of the collegeues that is under me. Actually, I am ready to fire him. But before we can do that, we have to find 2 other new guys. The problem with that? There are not many good guys available. When somebody shows up, he usually finds something else. It’s not easy to be a manager in this type of IT field now. It’s easy to find a good job, but not easy to find a good programmer. Things should improve with a market downturn, if it happens.
I have to spend more time learning. I am going to shift my hours to come in at 9:30am. When I start at 8:30, I just cannot finish anything at home. I don’t have enough time. I have to read for at least an hour every day. I had trouble waking up for the past several days. I have to adjust that.
I am learning EJBs. I think the whole EJB developments might actually be too difficult. It’s easy to create a Stateless session bean, but the client is not so easy. It’s difficult if you are trying to do it from an external client.

I am sick again today. I have a pink eye today, which I learned today that it is contagious.  And I have a sore throat, and still remants of a cold. It’s not the best feeling that I have.
Being sick is not a good feeling. Oh, man, I would much rather be healthy and do great work. Struggling with sickness is horrible.
I learned today that David has pneumonia. He is hospitalized. Hopefully, he gets healthy soon.
My son is becoming smarter and smarter. Yesterday, he was sitting with me, he kept on touching the keyboard and then wanted to move. So I shook him up and told him to go to mommy. He did. But when mommy looked at him, he pointed a finger at me. He basically told mommy that daddy did something bad to him. 
He is a smart boy. I love spending time with him. I think that I should find more time for him. I am tired a lot of times, but I think a time spent with him now is well worth it. It is a joy. He likes it a lot when I read to him. I should do that more often. He likes to play hide and seek with me – that’s great! I should do that more often.

I am sick. I took out a sick day yesterday. Today, I don’t feel that good either. It’s just I still have a headache, I still have a runny nose. I just had 2 awful days.
On the work end, I think things are moving quite smooth. I have 2 guys under me that are doing a pretty good job. They are doing all that I am asking them to do. I cannot ask more than that. Samir is still on a “out” list, but it is really his choice whether he is going to go out, or whether he will have a chance stay and become a contributor. We’ll see. I am hoping he stays, but I remain doubtful.

My wife got upset yesterday. I signed up to coach the Acquirian toastmasters club. The meetings are late at night, at 7:30PM and yesterday I got home around 10PM! I don’t blame her. On the other hand, I am doing this to better myself, to become a better speaker. I am going to do whatever it takes. Yes, I am going to do whathever it takes!
There is no reason for her to get upset like that. She is not being understanding, I think.
I like days like today. Things have gone fairly smooth today. I came in, had some very good meeting, some progress from my developers. Things are moving ahead in a smooth way. I really like that. I love being a developer manager on days like today!