It is done, we have managed to pack and move to Dublin. Thursday was the big flight day and it was an adventure getting to this date and an even bigger one getting through it. In the weeks that followed my hiring by Microsoft there was a lot of waiting around, filling out forms, answering questions, etc. The companies that Microsoft has outsourced its relocation services to do a wonderful job of getting every last detail handled. The problem is you fill out all the questionnaires near the start of the process then you sit and wait for the Visa/Green Card process to complete before any of it can happen.

That can lead to a lot of frustration as you never actually have a travel date. You are given a window when it could happen, but never know for sure. This results in a lot of good bye’s with friends prematurely as you don’t know when you will really see them again. But when the green card process is complete, let me tell you the time is short between approval and pack, load and fly day. For me the official word came on Thursday August 21^st and by Friday they had booked the movers, hotel for us in Regina once the house was packed, a rental car for use in Regina, flights, an apartment for me in Dublin for the first 30 days, a rental car in Dublin for 30 days, a chauffeur to pick us up at the airport, contact the tax consultant in Dublin to schedule an appointment and a relocation specialist to start our home search and school search. That was in 24 hours!

The pack happened on the Tuesday and Wednesday, we cleaned the house and touched up paint, final renovations, etc until 2:00 AM Wednesday night and then flew to Dublin on Thursday afternoon/evening. We flew Air Canada the entire way and they had a great set of times. We left Regina at 2:09 local time to Toronto, had a 2 hour layover in Toronto and then direct to Dublin over night arriving at 9:00 AM Dublin time on Friday morning. This is where the Air Canada thing fell apart. I did some research and based on my previous travel experience with good old Air Canada had told the kids there would be movies and TV on the planes to watch. This was going to make my life my easier as we would not have to enterain them for the entire flight and avoid them making every passenger on the flight hate us. Well……

They have us seated like this (we are the x’s):

00 x0

00 xx

00 xx

Not so good for looking after 3 kids under 8! Luckily someone switched seats and I was able to sit beside the 2 older girls. The problem is there are NO TV’s on this flight. So with some coloring books, Polly Pocket’s, a craft gift from Emily’s very good friend Sachia we were able to make it most of the way without the kids screaming. The baby was real good. We let her walk the isle way between the 2 seats and she had fun. She made faces at the other passenger and they seemed to enjoy here laugh so it was all good. We get to Toronto with no scars and everyone in one piece. A short layover to get a meal in (they didn’t even give us a cookie on the flight!) and we are off to board the other flight.

So we arrive with enough time to spare before the pre-boarding is to begin. Sarah decides to take everyone to the bathroom first since they have not made the call yet. In the 5 to forever minutes they are off going to the washroom the call is made for the people with children (that one down), the call is made for the elite card patrons (another one down), and general boarding begins for the rows back to 27. Then they all show up and we are in a long line to board. Let me tell you carrying 8 carry-on bags, pushing a baby stroller and trying to keep 2 kids from running through security is no easy task. We managed to get on the flight and not have our pictures hung worldwide terrorist threats.

We get on the plane and it is the oldest 767 in Air Canada’s fleet. From my reading there are 2 that have not been upgraded with the new leather chairs and individual TV’s….and we have one of them! Great, 6 ½ hours with no TV to keep the kids amused. We are dead! The flight is completely booked. 5 minutes to departure and the pilot comes on saying they need to remove some bags from the flight as they people have not arrived for the flight….that equals a 15 minute delay.

My 4 year old Elizabeth asks me about the “remote control” in the back of the chair. “If this is the remote, where is the TV?” I explain to her that there is no TV’s again and that Kung-fu Panda is not going to be played and that remote is a phone. She then asks “What is Finley’s (her best friend) phone number?”

Sarah gets the kids their blankets and stuffed animals and the 4 year old falls asleep waiting for the bags to get removed. Now Air Canada has again seated us in the best possible manner:

0x xxx 00

00 x00 00

Perfect with a baby, mother 2 more kids and a dad. Luckily another passenger changed seats (for his own protection I believe) and we had 5 across. Then we get a visit from the flight attendant asking why the baby wasn’t sitting on Sarah’s lap or in a car seat. We explained that Celeste had a ticket and that we were told to put the car seats in the cargo with our luggage as she would not need one. After some checking they confirmed her as having the seat, but Sarah needed to hold her during take-off. Sarah cuddles the baby through take-off and 15 minutes into the flight we have another sleeping child. 2 down and 1 to go, we can deal with that!

Now this 1970’s plane comes equipped with a great entertainment system. The old school 2 pronged headphones and a projector hung from the roof the size of a small car. I am sure it was playing VHS as they fast forwarded one of the in-flight commercials. As for the movies, the first was a period piece bank robbery movie with Michael Cane and Demi Moore that sucked and then “What Women Want” with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. Wholly Crap! The 7 year old isn’t gonna watch this.

The meal was good and Emily ended up going to sleep about 90 minutes into the flight. Sarah and I stay awake for the whole flight and arrive in Dublin with about 9 hours sleep in the last 60 hours.

 We get off the plane on the tarmac (international airport with 1.1 million people in Dublin and we exit onto the asphalt!) and head to the Irish Immigrations booth before we get to our luggage. The lady at immigration reads my scanned copy of the green card and letter from the lawyer who filed for it ….a quick head shot for the computer system file and off we go to collect our bags and then to customs. Now, I am arriving with 8 carry-on and 9 checked pieces of luggage, 3 trolleys worth of luggage plus a jogging stroller just so you get a picture of me in the airport with Sarah and the kids. We are heading off to customs they have 3 lines:

Red:       Came from Ireland origin flight

Green:  Came from EU, N.A. or other origin with nothing to claim             

Blue:      Came from EU, N.A. or other origin with something to claim or unsure

You are kidding me right! So we head to the Green line. It is very long and there is a reason for it……you don’t get checked! This is the honor system of international customs, you walk through the door and there is the lobby to the exit doors. I kid you not, no checking. I am use to entering the USA and returning to Canada from the USA and being asked detailed questions and even searched in very inappropriate ways to try and find 1 extra beer in your possession. Here….walk on through sir….good day!

We were shocked in disbelief and tired from the travel but we had made it to Dublin unscarred, and then we somehow lost Emily who was pushing the baby stroller with the baby in it. When we walked through this magical tunnel that is customs someone had cut in between us and she turned left instead of right. Well this was a great scare. Sarah stayed with the bags and Elizabeth and I looked for her in the airport lobby. 5 minutes later and I had found her by the door trying to finds someone who worked at the airport to report her problem to. She was calm and did exactly what we had trained her to do. Everyone was safe and she was rewarded for a good job instead of talked to angrily for loosing us. A long 5 minutes, but they turned out fine.

Our chauffeur was waiting and we managed to fit everything into his Chryster mini-van and off we went to the apartment. We unpacked and walked down to the local grocery store for some supplies to make chicken and spaghetti for dinner. We were surprised at how reasonable the food prices were and amazed to find organic vegetables and fruit was about the same price as the other. We had our dinner, walked back for some ice cream and then it was an early bed time as everyone was tired. We woke this morning and felt refreshed and everyone seems to have adjusted to the time change OK. We took a train today to the mall to get some more supplies and have a bit of an adventure.

All in all life in Dublin is good so far. Monday will be the real test as it is my first day at work and Sarah’s first day with 3 kids in an apartment in a new country, but I know she will do great.

Will

Friday was Bill Gates last day at Microsoft.....like you were able to miss the biggest retirement since Bill Clinton (not that I am comparing Ballmer to George W!). I have to write a small thank you to Bill, as without him I would not have a job, the passion I have or the vision for the world I do.

I think there are many people in the world who have passion for technology like Bill Gate`s. Most of us do not the opportunity to take that passion to the same level Bill has. Equally I believe there are a number of business savvy people around the world on par with Bill. What differentiates Bill Gates from all others, other than maybe Steve Job, is his extreme ability in both of these fields. He is an uber geek and a ruthless businessman all rolled in to one, and it as been awesome to watch.

I received my first home PC computer in 1984. I used to write basic applications to help my dad’s company cost out products it manufactured and keep track of the average cost of the year’s production. I was just entering university and there was a limited number computer classes but I was enrolled in them. I ended up leaving university after the 2^nd year to go to work for a while to try and find my focus but kept working on computers.

It was from this point that I started to use predominately Microsoft products. DOS, the early releases of Windows, Windows 95, 98, NT, the early releases of Office and Windows Server. Sure I learned some UNIX, Novel, Corel, Adobe and Apple along the way, but the reality is that what I have been using, like most of the computer world is Microsoft’s products. No other software company has been able to find a niche in almost every single computer field. The bread and butter is the OS business, on the desktop and server side but the dominance in the browser, development tool set and framework, productivity tool sets, email solutions, mobile solutions and gaming systems is unbelievable. While they do not own some of these markets, they are usually 2^nd in all other niches.

Sure there have been some failures along the way (see Bob, ME, URGE, TabletPC, UMPC and some of the hardware they have pushed) but they tend to succeed way more than they fail.

I love technology and the possibilities it provides, and for this I thank Bill Gates for his vision of a world with a computer in every house and on every desk. Some said it was crazy, but in some areas of the world it is the norm. I have had 20+ years to watch the evolution of the PC and computing in general, and can’t wait to see where it goes. Gates fingerprints are all over this…..for good or bad some may argue…but no one can argue his impact.

I had the pleasure a couple of weeks ago of co-hosting the Community Connection event here in Regina, sponsored by Microsoft, CIP, ICTC and ACCC as part of the launch tour for Server2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL 2008. As part of this event I was able to participate in the afternoon presentation to about 50 SIAST and high school students as well as the evening session for IT Professionals. There was a sound message delivered as part of these presentations, there is an immediate and short range need for a large number of people to enter the field.

The numbers presented by ICTC indicate a 33,000 person shortage for 2008 and 89,000 in the next 3 to 5 years. Those numbers are staggering when you look at the enrolment numbers in computer programs across Canada. In Regina, there are currently 12 declared CSS students at the University of Regina, with 20 people attending SIAST Wascana campus’s networking class, and another 20 in SIAST Palliser campus for the programming class. Those numbers are not reassuring when you are looking to hire staff. I recently attempted to hire a QA Developer and a .net Developer. We had approval to make this happen as fast as possible and in the end I was hard pressed to find any candidates from Regina. We ended up interviewing people in Calgary, Winnipeg and finally ended up hiring the .net developer from Halifax.

What seems to be the market condition at this time in Regina is the consulting firms are having employees jump around between them to take on various new postings, but few if any new people actually are entering the workforce. This will really lead to a problem in the next 3-5 years when the baby boomers start to retire. My personal take away from the Community Connection was to find a means of encouraging enrolment in the school programs around the province, and find a way to increase the public’s awareness of this need.

In Saskatchewan, we are experiencing a bit of a renaissance in terms of population growth, economic growth and revitalization in general. One of the by-products of this boom is a need to fill professional and trade positions to meet the demand. In the case of the nurses and teachers, they have a collective bargaining group in the form of a union to lobby on their behalf to encourage the government to hire more positions as well as to market to the general public, and the current high school students in particular of the need for these professionals. This is lacking in the IT sector as we all work for different companies and organizations. Far be it from me to preach the virtues of a union, but I do believe that there is a need for a common voice to represent the technology profession in Saskatchewan at some level.

Within Saskatchewan, there is an organization that could do this. SATA is a non-profit organization that has a large membership of corporations and companies with IT interests. The downside is that this organization has mainly made its mandate to present information as to why the outsourcing of IT jobs by the government is the right choice to make. Funny enough, most of the membership companies are consulting firm who would be the beneficiary of these practices. That does not make them the right voice for the industry in my mind.

This then leads me to the second option, CIPS. As an organization, it is exclusively made up of volunteers with no paid or full-time staff. They would have a great deal of trouble in finding the leadership to take on this task. It requires statistical analysis, marketing, lobbying the provincial government at different level, the education institutions as well as making presentations around the province to perspective students. It is a giant undertaking and one that a volunteer organization can’t do effectively.T

his then leads me to my third option. For those who have been following my blog since the start of the year will know that I have been looking for a means to become a Technology Evangelist within my own community and how to turn this into a profession; this may be the opportunity to do just that. Who it is that would sponsor such a position (or non-profit organization)? That is the part of the mission I need to work out, but I now have a starting point to work towards my goal.

I will keep you updated as I continue to work this all out.

Will

So not to sound like a 11 step program group leader, Hello my name is Will and I have an addictive personality!

Addiction #1.....PEPSI

Anyone who knows me at any level knows that I am addicted to Pepsi and have been for over 20 years. I consume a few of these drinks a day, and need one first thing in the morning to get my day started. When I am feeling stress, or trying to recover from a tough day, it is Pepsi I turn to. From my perspective this is a good thing! I do not drink, smoke or do drugs, so if the worst thing you can say about me is that I consume too much Pepsi, all is good.

Addiction #2.....Technology

I admit it, I love technology and the application of it. Seems logical that I work in the technology field, but I find lots of people in the technology business who do not have a deep love for technology like I do. It does not matter what it is, new phones, media players, all forms of computers, UMPC's, laptops, desktops, servers, screens, etc I dig them. Even more I love how these devices can be used to improve work, life and processes. It is hard to explain the exhilaration I feel when I get to use my smartphone to connect to my home Exchange server to pull my email, the endorphin rush of a touch screen laptop mounted in a vehicle with GPS and EVDO to provide live mapping and traffic info.

Are you a gadget junkie? Does using your mobile device cause a release of dopamine to your brain’s nucleus acumens’ and make you happy? Some are worried that our addiction to gadgets and being always online (texting, email, etc…) are hampering our interpersonal communication. I am not sure I agree, I see it as only making it better! 

Thoughts?????

Another year arrives and people traditionally start to look back and forward to make resolutions for the coming year. I guess I am not much different, in that I have spent the day thinking about the past year, my accomplishments, my short comings and trying to set some priorities for the coming year. It is difficult to set goals for an entire year when you work in technology....anything I think about today will be old in 6 months; but at the same time I do think it is important to set goals.

This year my goals are not around technology or learning...for a change. I rather want to focus my efforts on changing my career path and starting to make my own way in the world. I am currently employed as a "Business Solutions Integrator" (WTF?) at SaskEnergy, I was suppose to start a new role with the organization as of today as the "technical architect". This was a big step forward as there has been to date no architect, enterprise or other within the organization and I worked hard for the last 2 years to make them aware of how important this role is to an organization. I was told last month that a formal announcement of this role was on hold pending a final decision from the CIO based on some internal reviews underway. Well this is all well and good, as I am still gainfully employed and collecting a salary....but that does not make me feel better about the sudden change late in the game.

With this sitting in the back of my mind, I have decided that the following will be my goals for the year:

1.       I want to be working for myself by the end of the year (2008) in some form. This working for the government is killing me. They can't do anything without spending months talking about it. I am all for governance, but there is a difference between making sure you are doing the right thing and spending so much time in approvals that you actually loose productivity and possibly make the solution need to be reworked. Beyond that, I want to start to control my schedule a little better. I have 3 kids that need and want my attention, and I want to be able to work around them instead of the other way around.

2.       I want to spend some time this year looking at how I can become a technology evangelist within my own community in some fashion, and if this could be a career path. I have had this idea in my head for a while. I want to take my enthusiasm for all things new and digital and translate that into a job. This could mean blogging, an online series of videos, a local tv show, presentations, etc....I am still working all of this out in my mind...stay tuned.

3.       I want to dedicate some time this year to my music life. For the last 7 years I have played only a couple of gigs a year and let my DJ life slide away from me. It was necessary given my new family and additional commitment that they require. I played a Christmas party for the Connect Tribe last week and then watched "High Fidelity" last night and realized that I am the John Cuzak character. What is missing from my day to day life that separates the mundane from the extraordinary is music and the expression of it through DJ'ing for people. At 40, I think I am still able to bring the sounds that make people move, and maybe better able to appreciate the fact that it is not the hottest new track that will always make people go crazy, it can be 15 years old, if played at the right time and mixed with the right lead.

4.   I want to take some time off at some point this year and have a family vacation. I have not taken a holiday longer than a 3 day weekend in the last 3 years and it is time that this changes.I have always found work excuses to not take a vacation. The reality is that I just don't know how to turn off the job. I think about work almost all the time. I can't really explain why I am this way...I at different times have thought I was bi-polar in a mild way as when I am on I am way on. That can mean 3-4 hours sleep and constant thoughts running through my head. While this is all great to me, it is how my mind works, it does not change the fact I need to take a break once and a while. I spend the last week, between Christams and New Years, at home with the family, not responding to my blackberry or working on anything to do with the office. To be honest, it was a pretty good time. I think I need to do this a little more.

5.  I want to blog more frequently, and about the 2 things that drve me...technology (this one) and music (I need to set this one up yet)

So, in a nut shell, that is the days thoughts. Nothing earth shattering......but still what is on my mind

 w