conference over, baby born, poker tourney won.
I had an interesting last few days. I shall use LJ-CUT so that people do not cry I am filling up their friends page with all my text!
My best friend Rosemary finally gave birth to her daughter! I was so fortunate to be able to be able to visit with her, her husband, and their new baby, just hours after she was born. Her name is Grace Olivia Gaines and she was 6lbs 15oz, 20 inches long. Sadly, I have no pictures. She is doing well, the doctors say she is healthy. It was a hard delivery, so my friend is very tired and will take some time to recover.
The baby is so quiet and peaceful, she really hasn't cried at all. The doctor said it is nothing to worry about and that they should enjoy it while it lasts. I got to hold her for about 30 mins and she opened her eyes and looked around and blew little bubbles, like babies do.
There are those women in the world (and some men) who just really adore all babies and want to giggle and coo at them and talk baby talk and blahblah. I used to make fun of those people.... wait, I still do! However, I used to think of myself as not much of a "baby person" but I guess I am. They really are quite amazing little people. They have personality of their own from the moment they are born. Cheesy as it may sound, their lives are full of so much promise. When they are children of people I care about, I get very excited thinking about all the great things the future will bring for them and their families.
I was there when they were filling out the birth certificate and trying to pick a middle name. I am glad they decided on Olivia. Their other choice was Ashley and that would make her initials GAG. No good!
So not only did I get to see my friends and their baby, but I lived through the conference, and my presentation seemed to go over well. I will get evaluations back from the attendees later this week. The people in my session all seemed interested and asked good questions. There was only one asshole who kept falling asleep. I wanted to ask him if he needed a pillow or something. Then he asked me some strange question about how to get his pages to show up #1 in a search engine at the end of the session. I replied that there is no one way to guarantee that your site is top in the search engine and started to give some examples of ways you can make sure your site appears high in the rankings. He interrupted me and said I was wrong and you could pay Google and Yahoo to appear first in the rankings.
I explained that at least for Google, he was incorrect. You can purchase ad space, tied to special keywords, but these are clearly marked as advertisements and the advertisements don't come up on every page. Searches that are part of the Google University search site that colleges and universities can use do not include the ads, for example. He was pretty adamant about how you could buy rankings on Google, which was somewhat frustrating, but I kinda ignored him and went on to explain that the exact algorithm for determining how sites are ranked in search engines is not generally released and considered a trade secret. I gave them some tips about how to make sure your site is high in the rankings and then pulled up amazon and showed them the dozens of books written on the subject.
Other than that small annoyance, the session went well. I wasn't nearly as nervous as I thought I would be, but my feet sure were sore after standing there for 90 minutes (questions went long) in heels.
Anyways, despite the conference not having much to do with what I do at work, there were several interesting sessions that I attended. There was one given that was trying to help you learn your role in a team. You answered a bunch of questions, added the scores up then charted it on this graph. I was amused, and found it overall fairly accurate.
There are 3 main types and then blends of those types.
It has to do with your motivation -
There is Red, the assertive, your motivation is to complete the task
There is Green, the logical, your motivation is to gather data to make an informed decision
There is Blue, the peacemaker, your motivation is to make sure people work smoothly together
According to the woman giving the presentation (which says says usually takes 3 days, but she did it in 3 hours) all these types are needed for a good team. You get 2 scores, one is your base score is your motivation in times when things are going well. The questions are about work, life, hobbies. The second score is how you tend to behave in times of conflict.
Can you guess what type I am? I am a blend of 2 colors - the same colors in good times and in conflict.
I was not surprised by the results.
There was only one person in the room that was the same color as me.
There was no one else in the room who did not change colors in times of conflict.
Then later they had us do another similar test about our job on the same scale to see how closely we match what we feel is required of us in our job. I was surprised to find that I do not match my perceptions of the requirements of my job very closely. I had many thoughts about this in the last few days. I think probably my perception of the requirements is much different than the requirements really are. My performance reviews are always full of praise and top marks, people often comment that they "can't think of anyone better suited to my job" and above it all, I really do enjoy what I do. I think I am always somewhat surprised by people's comments, because I always have a feeling I can be doing something better. Anyways, it was much food for thought for me.
The best part of the conference was the Monday night entertainment heh. They had a mechanical bull and did a Texas Hold'em tourney. I won the big poker tourney prize, a nice stainless steel box of chips and poker stuff. Some people there were pretty good and they were dismayed to find out that I had never actually played a hand of real texas hold em ( I didn't really understand the big blind, small blind rules, for example - but now I do ). I have seen it on TV though! It's all a game of probability on your first 2 cards anyways.
I did get a royal flush though, which was pretty freaking awesome. A-10 of diamonds. They took pictures of me and got all excited heh. It was kind of embarassing, but I played the hand well and knocked one person out and brought another to his knees. It was fun, in any case.
It's also amusing to watch people in the "my parents" age bracket get drunk and ride a mechanical bull!
That's all for a while.
My best friend Rosemary finally gave birth to her daughter! I was so fortunate to be able to be able to visit with her, her husband, and their new baby, just hours after she was born. Her name is Grace Olivia Gaines and she was 6lbs 15oz, 20 inches long. Sadly, I have no pictures. She is doing well, the doctors say she is healthy. It was a hard delivery, so my friend is very tired and will take some time to recover.
The baby is so quiet and peaceful, she really hasn't cried at all. The doctor said it is nothing to worry about and that they should enjoy it while it lasts. I got to hold her for about 30 mins and she opened her eyes and looked around and blew little bubbles, like babies do.
There are those women in the world (and some men) who just really adore all babies and want to giggle and coo at them and talk baby talk and blahblah. I used to make fun of those people.... wait, I still do! However, I used to think of myself as not much of a "baby person" but I guess I am. They really are quite amazing little people. They have personality of their own from the moment they are born. Cheesy as it may sound, their lives are full of so much promise. When they are children of people I care about, I get very excited thinking about all the great things the future will bring for them and their families.
I was there when they were filling out the birth certificate and trying to pick a middle name. I am glad they decided on Olivia. Their other choice was Ashley and that would make her initials GAG. No good!
So not only did I get to see my friends and their baby, but I lived through the conference, and my presentation seemed to go over well. I will get evaluations back from the attendees later this week. The people in my session all seemed interested and asked good questions. There was only one asshole who kept falling asleep. I wanted to ask him if he needed a pillow or something. Then he asked me some strange question about how to get his pages to show up #1 in a search engine at the end of the session. I replied that there is no one way to guarantee that your site is top in the search engine and started to give some examples of ways you can make sure your site appears high in the rankings. He interrupted me and said I was wrong and you could pay Google and Yahoo to appear first in the rankings.
I explained that at least for Google, he was incorrect. You can purchase ad space, tied to special keywords, but these are clearly marked as advertisements and the advertisements don't come up on every page. Searches that are part of the Google University search site that colleges and universities can use do not include the ads, for example. He was pretty adamant about how you could buy rankings on Google, which was somewhat frustrating, but I kinda ignored him and went on to explain that the exact algorithm for determining how sites are ranked in search engines is not generally released and considered a trade secret. I gave them some tips about how to make sure your site is high in the rankings and then pulled up amazon and showed them the dozens of books written on the subject.
Other than that small annoyance, the session went well. I wasn't nearly as nervous as I thought I would be, but my feet sure were sore after standing there for 90 minutes (questions went long) in heels.
Anyways, despite the conference not having much to do with what I do at work, there were several interesting sessions that I attended. There was one given that was trying to help you learn your role in a team. You answered a bunch of questions, added the scores up then charted it on this graph. I was amused, and found it overall fairly accurate.
There are 3 main types and then blends of those types.
It has to do with your motivation -
There is Red, the assertive, your motivation is to complete the task
There is Green, the logical, your motivation is to gather data to make an informed decision
There is Blue, the peacemaker, your motivation is to make sure people work smoothly together
According to the woman giving the presentation (which says says usually takes 3 days, but she did it in 3 hours) all these types are needed for a good team. You get 2 scores, one is your base score is your motivation in times when things are going well. The questions are about work, life, hobbies. The second score is how you tend to behave in times of conflict.
Can you guess what type I am? I am a blend of 2 colors - the same colors in good times and in conflict.
I was not surprised by the results.
There was only one person in the room that was the same color as me.
There was no one else in the room who did not change colors in times of conflict.
Then later they had us do another similar test about our job on the same scale to see how closely we match what we feel is required of us in our job. I was surprised to find that I do not match my perceptions of the requirements of my job very closely. I had many thoughts about this in the last few days. I think probably my perception of the requirements is much different than the requirements really are. My performance reviews are always full of praise and top marks, people often comment that they "can't think of anyone better suited to my job" and above it all, I really do enjoy what I do. I think I am always somewhat surprised by people's comments, because I always have a feeling I can be doing something better. Anyways, it was much food for thought for me.
The best part of the conference was the Monday night entertainment heh. They had a mechanical bull and did a Texas Hold'em tourney. I won the big poker tourney prize, a nice stainless steel box of chips and poker stuff. Some people there were pretty good and they were dismayed to find out that I had never actually played a hand of real texas hold em ( I didn't really understand the big blind, small blind rules, for example - but now I do ). I have seen it on TV though! It's all a game of probability on your first 2 cards anyways.
I did get a royal flush though, which was pretty freaking awesome. A-10 of diamonds. They took pictures of me and got all excited heh. It was kind of embarassing, but I played the hand well and knocked one person out and brought another to his knees. It was fun, in any case.
It's also amusing to watch people in the "my parents" age bracket get drunk and ride a mechanical bull!
That's all for a while.