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Mother's Day

I'm the son of Linda Whitehouse.  My Dad Floyd and my sisters Stephanie and Heather are here.  My other sister, Anne, is resting somewhere in south Florida - she just had a baby this weekend - Linda's 8th grand-baby.  I think she may hit double digits eventually. 

We're all here to celebrate Linda's retirement from the world of corporate accounting - I guess it's really just retirement from this fine company.  She'll be keeping plenty busy with the Whitehouse Cattle Company but I think the returns might be slightly less complex for the farm than for oil and gas holdings and the variety of related companies - all the things she's been working on for the last 21ish years.

I have a lot of memories of this company.  I spent quite a few days during busy season sitting in the Bass offices entertaining myself on an old Tandy computer, playing DOS games.  Those days probably played some part to making me the computer geek that I am - so thank you. 

I learned that the little black button under the desk shouldn't be pressed unless you want armed visitors to come and have an embarrassing little chat with you.  I got to know some of you at office parties at my house in Weatherford and at company picnics where we had gunslingers and horse-back rides and live music and barbecue.

When I got married, I brought my wife Dawn up to meet you all.  She had to meet the extended family.  When we found out that we were having triplets, the people at this company were excited for us and when our babies were born 9 weeks early and placed in the NICU, you encouraged us, cared for us and prayed for us.  I know that if I have warm memories as I look back on the time my mom has spent with this company she must remember her time here with great fondness and great pride.

It is certain that she has left an indelible mark on this company.  She's always had a knack for seeing what needed to be done and set herself to the task of making sure things got taken care of.  She's always believed in getting her hands dirty.  She's added rooms onto our houses, replaced fixtures, painted, laid tile...  Her daddy was a carpenter; a roofer.  I guess it's always been part of her personality to have a vision, set a plan of action and work to complete the process.

I know that she has a vision for what lies ahead.  Linda is not retiring to the farm to rest and watch the cows graze - she's embarking on her next adventure.  She has in front of her a blank canvas and a picture is starting to take shape.  She'll spend her time putting paint to canvas.  She'll go camping and hiking and site-seeing with her husband and best friend.  She'll attend most of the soccer games her grandsons play in and she'll attend more princess parties than she can count (and she's an accountant so you know that's a lot of princess parties).  She'll plant new gardens and may eventually cover the entire farm in sandstone pathways.

Figuratively, she'll spend time putting paint to canvas and literally she'll be continuing to explore her artistic side.  Last month, my wife's friend, Renee, came over to our house from Boston.  She found one of Mom's paintings hung prominently in our living room and said, "only in Texas would you find someone with a painting of an oil rig in their home."  Just like you see the work of her hand as you walk through my house and see the amazing paintings hung on my walls, and you see her influence in the personalities, creativity and work ethic of her children and grandchildren, I know that, for years to come, you will walk around the halls at Bass and see her hand in the makings of organization, processes and quality.

Mom, congratulations on everything you have accomplished here.  You leave a legacy, a master work.  You now move your focus away from the department and away from the company and onto things of more personal significance.  We look forward to hearing about and seeing what you do next - whatever you decide to focus on, we know it will be remarkable.

I love you - congratulations!

Windows Mobile not available in English yet...

I got a new phone recently (January?) - my 3rd or 4th Pocket PC...  Anyway - when asked to register my OS, I went ahead and went through the process...

At least they'll let me know...

Prize Information

I clicked on an ad about a GTAIV sweepstakes.  Well, turns out the sweepstakes entry period has expired but I thought the prize information was a little odd...

On or about April 23, lucky winners will be chosen from all entries to receive the following prizes:

Four Grand Prizes: Four winners will score a four-day/three-night trip for two to New York City to attend the Xbox LIVE Gold Party. Trip includes round trip coach air transportation for winner and a guest from a major U.S. commercial airport nearest winner's home, three (3) nights standard double occupancy hotel accommodations (one room, two people), ground transportation in New York to and from the airport and hotel, and $200 cash, awarded as a check from the Sweepstakes Administrator

1.       One Hundred First Prizes: Custom Xbox 360 Elite console
2.       Two Thousand Second Prizes: A Rockstar baseball bat
3.       Five Thousand Third Prizes: 500 Microsoft Points
4.       Three Thousand Fourth Prizes: 1000 Microsoft Points
5.       Two Thousand Fifth Prizes: 1600 Microsoft Points
6.       Five Thousand Sixth Prizes: One-month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription
7.       Three Thousand Seventh Prizes: Three-month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription
8.       Two Thousand Eighth Prizes: One-year Xbox LIVE Gold subscription

So, first think I saw was the baseball bat - sweeeeeet.  The console would be awesome (can't have enough 360 consoles). 

The wheels kind of shoot off around 3, 4, 5 and then 6, 7 and 8...  Aren't those groupings kind of backwards?  Why is 5k 1month gold subscriptions the sixth prize and 2k 1 year subscriptions the eight prize?  Shouldn't both groups be in the other order?  How much you want to bet MS legal had to get involved and there's actually some reason to put those in backwards order? 

I don't know - I wish I saw this before the 14th so I could enter.  I'd probably win but miss the notice and have the prize pass on to another winner *cough*SXSW*phizzpop*GH3*cough*...

Easy and Hard Problems

Tonight I've been thinking about that face Deryl gives me when I try to explain that it's OK for me to say some feature request is "easy".  It's that look that says, "silly PM, you're dangerous and you should be destroyed."

First off, I'm no PM (never really was <rimshot />).  I am, however, probably dangerous but that's why I'm trying to redefine Easy and Hard.   They sound like opinion words - you would think you could convince someone that some problem has an easy solution and some other problem's solution is hard. 

I theorize that "easy" and "hard" are statements of fact.  Here's how:

An easy problem is one that's been solved before by someone who is accessible to consult on solving the problem again.  A hard problem is one that hasn't been solved before by anyone who can be consulted with.   Moderate problems fall somewhere in the middle.  Where else?

An easy problem may have a solution that requires months of effort to implement.  This is something the feature requester typically doesn't understand.  They see the feature implemented right over there.  They just want the same thing.  That's ok - it's an easy problem but it's going to take months to make it happen.

Likewise, a hard problem may have a solution that requires minimal time to implement.  The New York Times Sunday Cross Word is a hard problem but give me a week and I'll "implement" the solution (I'll get the answer from the key in the new paper)...

So, within a closed set of consultants, it's possible to ascertain to 100% certainty that a proposed problem has an easy or hard solution (assuming there's no debate on the congruence of the two problems - give me a little wiggle-room here).

So, using my definitions, there's no need to go around putting down rabid PMs (at least not for saying something's easy)...