Category: tricia

Channel Your Inner Tim Gunn

I don’t always watch Project Runway, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis I watch Tim Gunn. In terms of a competition show, it’s easy to see why it’s appealing – the fashionable hopefuls take on a new challenge with 30 minutes to design and at max 2 days to make the thing.

Yes, people get kicked off the island (it’s Manhattan!), people get immunity each challenge, people get prizes, and only 1 lucky winner gets to be called the next America’s Top Model American Idol Food Truck Foodie Trucker Apprentice Top Designer. So yes, there’s pressure, and people losing their cool.

And that’s where Tim Gunn comes in.

What makes this show different is that there’s this impartial person who’s EVERYBODY’S BUDDY – he’s not a judge (although, with the ‘Tim Gunn Save’, he can veto one elimination per season now), he’s a mentor. He’ll walk into the work room and work the room, going from bench to bench, asking each designer how they’re doing, hearing out his/her design, and giving feedback, be it technical, aesthetic, or emotional.

He’ll give hugs AND he’ll give tough love. He’ll give his opinion AND he’ll tell you to show the judges who you really are. Be authentic? We need to hear more of that message! Signature phrase? Make it work! TIM GUNN FOR PRESIDENT!

And that’s what Tim Gunn does.

And that’s what a ScrumMaster does.

She gives hugs AND she gives tough love. She gives her opinion AND she tells you to show the Product Owner who you really are. Make it work!

(Oh boy… and now to apply this to ScrumOfOne…) And this is what I do.

I give myself hugs AND I give myself tough love. I give me my opinion AND I tell myself to show me who I really am. Make it work!

Yes, you’re right – that doesn’t translate as cleanly, and maybe it’s partially because the notion of coaching yourself is inherently paradoxical. Balancing what you want (“More!” says the Product Owner) and what you need (“Less!” says the ScrumMaster) is why there are two different people taking on these forces in a normal Scrum team. This echos the struggle of an artist: More! / the drive to keep working on it until it is perfect, versus Less! / the need to stop working on it and then share it with the world. So, yes, you’re right – it’s not easy.

And that’s why I forgive myself when I fall off what feels like a ScrumOfOne Wagon. Moving, getting married, settling into a new home, plowing through a couple of Ruby books, getting sick a couple of times, closing out the storage unit, all in a couple of months, means I’ve been way more focused on the ‘now’, and barely looking into the ‘next’ / short-term future.

So this is how I forgive myself for falling off the ScrumOfOne Wagon… by writing a blog post about forgiving myself. How self-serving. (Kinda like this whole blog. There. I said it.)

And this is where my inner Tim Gunn comes in.

I give myself a hug.

Thanks, me.

(I’m welcome. Now pull myself together and stop talking to myself. Make it work!)

Honeymoonlanding

Don’t do it.

Getting married and moving in the same month? Yeah, take it from me, kids: don’t do it.

Especially if you’re moving into a place where the previous tenants left it in a state that was… less than desired, such that you’re applying elbow grease to a welcoming layer of grime in places. Yes, I chose this place as our new home since it was available, in our price range, larger, and walkable to a great number of centers of activity in Cambridge – killer & quiet location.

To apply a Scrum lense, it’s been an interesting exercise in Product Ownership. We moved in while still dealing with our wedding planning, so after some initial settling, we put further nesting on pause to deal with the wedding …aaaaand now we understand why folks plan weddings for a living.

(That said, ours kicked ass. Biggest reason it all came together? Friends who pulled more than their fair share of logistics, like moving tables, setting chairs, manning the bar, solemnizing, and running the three-legged races. Want to have a low-key, high-fun, close-knit, kick-ass wedding? Have great friends.)

Speaking of planning, our honeymoon was wonderfully unplanned. We stayed local, slept 14 hours the first night back, which meant we woke up to… boxes, which meant we couldn’t help but clean and unpack and paint the place. On our freakin’ honeymoon. Not my ideal, but again, an interesting exercise in Product Ownership and balancing priorities.

Good thing I’m extending this honeymoon. Indefinitely.

ScrumOfTwo

You go to a wedding. You chat up the peeps. You talk small-talk: the weather, them Yankees, the Ebola virus. You are offered a beer. You take it: mmMMmm! You then ask what was in it: good stuff. You are asked what you do for a living. You take note of the crowd. You make a decision.

You …point out the ceremony is starting.

At some point, there is a… reading?

And now, a reading from the Central Little Dogma, by Taco Bell MSG, the Taco Bell Motivational Speaking Group.

Life is like a burrito.

Life is like a burrito where you have full control of what you put inside your burrito. You can put in the tastiest components, the most delicious ingredients. Or, you can put in shiiit. It is up to you. You have full control of what you put inside your burrito.

Some people say life is like a circle… which is valid: just look down the length of the burrito, and the burrito model of life still holds.

Some people say life comes in stages… which is also valid: it is generally recommended to eat burritos one at a time, so again, the burrito model of life still holds.

Now, it is not only important what you put inside your burrito, how much and the quality, but what is also important is who you share your burrito with.

Ever since eating was invented, it has evolved to be best enjoyed as a communal sport, so who you bring to the table is as important as what you bring to the table. For just as you may be having some burrito of that special somebody, you must think about the burrito you yourself will be sharing.

There is a quote by Jim Rohn, an American entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker, that, when lightly para-phrased, goes,”You are the average of the five burritos you eat most frequently.” Beyond the notion of, “You are what you eat,” this noted burrito aficionado succinctly serves us a recipe for how you are shaped by how you have your meals.

Indeed, it is a beautiful thing to see two ravishers of the burrito, together partaking in the mystery of alimentary bliss that is complementary burritos.

You are slightly confused, yet happy for the couple.

Wedding Bands

You are also suddenly craving Mexican food, which we’re they’re not serving at the wedding.

Hello Again, Genesis

I’m in the midst of settling into a 2-bedroom apartment in Cambridge from a 1-bedroom apartment in Boston’s Back Bay. We moved last weekend, with the freakin’ rest of the world, or at least what felt like it in this college-dense area of the planet.

So, I’m busy.

But I’m not too busy to notice that my concept of a ScrumOfOne was born out of the combination of moving to that Boston pad (aaaaall the way across the river) and being single, and how now, while I’m very happily not single, I’m once again moving to a new abode.

Boxes and bags abound, up to my eyeballs in a neatly compartmentalized chaos, and affronted by entropicly evolved states of the floor in most rooms, a prioritized list manifests more easily.

Hello again, genesis.

Ode to Eliot

The relationship you have with your web hosting service is a very special one. (Man, I should totally write Hallmark cards…)

Eliot is the one-man shop behind OK Public, a web hosting company. He is my web host. Well, was my web host, until he decided to evict this very peace-loving blog… along with all my hosted peace-mongering files… along with all his other peace-ambivalent customers, because he has decided to transition to a new stage of his working life, or something silly like that, which effectively meant a grave inconvenience to me for the past week, and this is why (plus two weeks’ vacation) I haven’t been blogging. Instead, I’ve been finding, then migrating, this very peace-hording blog to another worthy home.

And it’s been strangely emotional.

This guy Eliot, he’s known a part of me that very few have seen. He’s seen me grow from a green and experimenting webmaster (remember that term?) to somebody who puts ‘blogger’ on his business card. He’s seen me through romantic relationships (Hey, Eliot, now I’m getting married!), two academic degrees, several moves, shepherding me into an online presence by being ridiculously there for me, holding my hand like a guardian angel, and generally being the definition of excellent and personalized support.

And now I won’t have him.

With him leaving this part of my life, he takes with him a direct link to a me as… a newb.

…

OK, I think I’m done processing this. Thanks for bearing with me, Eliot. I wish you luck and I hope to meet you in person some day. Now I can transition to a new stage of my life.