Lessons Learned Today

1. Superglue near eye burns
2. Glasses are hard to fix when the frame itself actually breaks
3. The new Super Mario Bros game is chaos with four people all playing together... fun chaos
4. Preparing the night before for a 10:55 flight is more relaxing than preparing for a 7:20 AM flight
5. Being fewer than 2,000 words away from finishing NaNoWriMo / PragProWriMo feels really great! If you're interested in data warehousing, you can see a few highlights of the 48,061 words I've written over the past month on my tech blog: Sharpening Stones.

10 Random Things to be Thankful For

• 48,061 words on NaNoWriMo / PragProWriMo with 3 days left to go
• Friends willing to watch our dog
• Margaritas and Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
• Nintendo Wii
• My wife
• My family
• My brother-in-law
• Children who go to sleep
• Christmas music
• Life

I can be silly and sentimental in the same post if I want to!

38,761 words; 158 pages

PragProWriMo going well and looking for a strong finish over the next week!!

Getting it done

I really have to give a lot of thanks to Sarahlynn for how much fun I'm having this month with NaNoWriMo / PragProWriMo (despite having come down with an annoying cold yesterday).  See "snot" reference.

Setting a pace of 2,000 words per day for 6 days a week, and not having a goal 1 day per week has been great.  If I can find 20 minutes to write during the day and an hour or two at night, I seem to be able to keep pace.

#pragprowrimo word count: 18,297

Liking People

...not licking people...

It occurred to me just now that maybe I would like people more if I took the time to learn more about them.  Not that I don't really like people, but I just don't take the time to ask people at work about their personal lives.

I like sharing things about myself with other people.  Maybe I'd actually like to hear more about them, too, if I took the time.

Huh.

Accountability

"People aren't accountable enough for things..." is a phrase that I heard at work a few times over the past couple of years.  The phrase bothered me a lot.  I couldn't tell why, but it gave me one of those visceral "that doesn't make sense!" reactions.

Tonight, I finally figured it out.  You cannot independently and simply be accountable.  Rather, accountability is directed outwardly.  You are held accountable by someone else, by yourself, or by God.

Accountable and Responsible are sometimes used inter-changeably, but it seems to be there is a very important distinction.  When you are responsible for something, you simply and matter-of-factly are responsible for that thing.  By definition.  When you're accountable for something, it is because of an expectation or obligation that is a third-party to the relationship between you and the thing for which you are accountable.

Interesting.

Running Log 2009-11-01

Distance: 3.01 miles
Time: ~30 minutes

My favorite part about this run: after a little bit of warm-up and providing for a little bit of cool-down at the end, I ran the entire distance without walking.  Lately, I feel like I haven't been able to get more than a mile without walking a bit, so this was a good accomplishment.  I think the 55 degree weather helps, too.  By the end, though, I feel like I was breaking through another wall; as if I could have possibly done the entire loop again.  Maybe I'll try that next time.


Now, it's off for some more PragProWriMo / NaNoWriMo!
You can follow my progress on my other blog, Sharpening Stones, or via twitter.

PragProWriMo Begins

It's begun.  Less than 8 hours later, I'm off to a running start at 1,492 words!

Track my progress on my NaNoWriMo page or my Sharpening Stones blog.