Unexpected events Its been an interesting time. The events that have transpired weren’t something I could ever predict. I bought a house, with all payment made upfront, and am performing a general redo of the decor In my job, I manage 5 teams, out of which 4 have been completely laid off, and are on a 6 month retainer to help transition work to an offshore location My mom had a mild brain stroke, and was very sick for a while, and still has not recovered My daughter was laid off after only 7 months in her very first job, despite her manager, and her manager’s manager being advocates of her performance From any standard its been a trying time....

Buying a preowned house is getting a fun project. The bones are what you like and buy, and the meat is what you need to hunt and procure. Our new home is ~20 miles from our current abode. It is around two and a half decades old, and the style is dated. The flooring is a mix of carpet and tiles. The cabinets in the bathrooms and staircase are in yellow oak finish....

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of events that finally led me to close on a house that we liked. Some statistics on the buying process: We started looking for a new house last August, so it took us six months to locate and buy an available house. We toured an average of 1-2 open houses every week We switched our search area 3 times Not liking the neighborhood Not liking the houses in our budget in a desirable neighborhood Optimizing for being near existing friends We made 3 offers, and the last one got accepted We increased the budget twice We got the house at asking price What next?...

A corporation fulfills a social contract. The social contract is an consumption of value provided by employees of the corporation for social capital (i.e. money) given in exchange by customers. As value production becomes ever more sophisticated and energy dense, a third entity enters into this contract: investors. They provide employees access to social capital to capture certain part of the social capital given by the corporation customers. For a healthy outcome, the CEO (head employee) of the corporation has to carefully balance these social relationships....

Behind this short post lies a whole week of tumultuous experiences. I experience emotions by acting them out: being angry with someone, sad at losing someone, joyous in a beautiful place. I also repress emotions: rejections, judgments, and when not in control. This led me to avoid: confronting people, having difficult conversations and even social gatherings. Instead, I want to learn to be at peace with my emotions, as and when they arise....

Crisp air and a warm golden Sun was an unexpected bonus in our continuing celebration of my 50th in Las Vegas. This was our first post pandemic all boys trip, and anticipation was hanging in the air. Figure 1: Reunion before getting into our comfy Chevy Tahoe Uber, Las Vegas Airport We arrived post lunch time, but Vegas is super busy on Friday’s, and securing a table in Senor Frog was a twenty minute wait....

Life portfolio value, \( lpv \) is a concept I am noodling with to help me achieve a more wholesome understanding of how savings, income, and enjoyment are related. \(lpv = (fnet(number) * skex(years,skill) * (cash+stocks+realestate))/ hp\) Any health problems \( (hp) \) I develop affects the real value of my life portfolio. For example, if I start to suffer from one of the life style diseases (diabetes, heart, blood pressure), then it restricts how I enjoy my money and time....

Avoiding bad situations, and preventing failures plays second fiddle to building and releasing new features and processes. For example, there is often low motivation or even discussion on improving legal, security, and compliance processes, as they are deemed boring and complex. However, engineering teams continue to pay high cost of proving compliance or firefight incidents that could have been prevented with better telemetry and alerting. Similarly, removing brittle product features and deprecating failed products are taboo, and users continue to deal with abandoned half starts....

Skilled and talented engineering teams often become “known” for the solution they provide successfully to customers. This is dangerous. Impact to customer value Once an engineering team comes to identify themselves with their solution, they inadvertently try to fit and adapt the problem to the solution, instead of the other way around. More worryingly, teams tend to discount better alternate solutions, even if they fit the problem better. Reasons given are higher amount of time to solve, unknown unknowns, low skills etc....

Maybe it is a placebo effect, but meditation makes me feel clear headed. I used to have dreamless sleep, but now I often have vivid dreams. In my interactions with people, I feel that I am able to get to the main concerns faster. I am patient in performing routine work. I have less fear, and know when my anxiety levels are rising. The twenty minutes meditation practice still isn’t easy....