Ryan James O'Sullivan

I was having a particularly bad day yesterday when some old friends from Stratics invited me to join a Google Hangout to celebrate the Richard Garriot’s Kickstarter Shroud of the Avatar reaching its final goals.

I’ve been following Shroud of the Avatar news closely because frankly if you are a fan of MMOs and not excited about the prospect of the spiritual successor to UO than you are either bad (and should feel bad) or you joined the MMO scene in the post World of Warcraft era (I’m not mad at you).  In a world with a lack of sandbox MMOs and the excitement of the kickstarter model for gaming (which I promise some day I will blog about) this game has the potential to kick off a revolution of a new more “core gamer” type of experience.  A real return our roots.

So there I was talking to Richard Garriot (we’ve met a few times in the past during various media functions) and having a blast.  When what happens?  Oh just “we are going to get Tracy Hickman on the line”.  I started to shake a little.

There are two things that make up the core of the leisure time of my life:  video games (and the industry meta) and reading.  So there I was talking to gaming god Richard Garriot and if that wasn’t enough along comes the author who got me reading for fun for the first time.  I cannot even fully convey Tracy’s influence on my life.  His Dragonlance novels were responsible for getting me in to Fantasy and really defined the type of gamer and reader I’d become.  If it wasn’t for the writing of Tracy Hickman I likely wouldn’t today play MTG, be in to fantasy MMOs, or many other of my favourite nerdy pursuits.

Being able to thank Tracy face to face (over a series of tubes) for opening doors in to some of the best parts of my life will go down as a memory I hope to never forget.

Here’s the video of the hangout, hopefully I didn’t do anything embarrassing:

Wow.  I haven’t posted on the ol’ blog since February.  To quote Lieutenant Ellis Carver: “I’ve got a neglect case here if I want it…”.  But the oh I’m sorry I neglected you sweet blog is a meme over done here and on blogs everywhere, so we’ll just move on from that.

Things have been getting a lot more productive on the home front recently.  I’ve started doing some contract work for Kobo Books and man I have to say, it feels good to be back in the groove again.  Business has proven to be like riding a bike, but it has felt so sweet to be back, especially for a company I’m a huge fan of.  I’m hoping that I can rock this contract work and find a way to a full time job within the company.

The shift towards productivity has had a positive impact elsewhere.  I shipped a small project I’ve been toying with today.  SoccerCanadaTV.ca went live this afternoon after I spent a day crunching and crushing the hell out of it.  I had been prototyping this idea as a way of actually helping someone who was running a similar site (basically building him a CMS to power his already awesome blog) and I always wanted to fully build out.  Today he announced he was retiring and I wanted to strike while the iron was hot so I coded my heart out and produced my own take on his site.  The premise is really simple: Watching soccer on Canadian TV is not really all that easy.  Soccer is broken in to many leagues and each of those leagues have their own TV rights (where they are shown in a given region) so following your favourite team across tournaments can be a bit of a gong show.  Andy’s great idea was to run a blog that tracked this.  I’ve iterated on the idea and really built a great platform/CMS to run this thing from.

I’m going to crank out an iPhone app once I get the site to a place I’m happy with it (that’ll be a few weeks I reckon).  I’ve been looking for something to build an app around and this feels perfect.

I’m very excited and have been extremely productive in the last few weeks.  Loving it.  Feeling 100% for it.  The morning I first woke up and went in to Kobo I felt like a new man.  I think the last year and a half with unemployment and my grandfather really created some demons and I think I can see them in the rearview now.

I wanted to tweet this, but I couldn’t do it justice in 140 characters so here it is…

I’m extremely sad to see Gary Webster go.  For those who don’t know he’s the current General Manager of the Toronto Transit Commission and he has been a long time servant of the corporation and the people of Toronto.  So long in fact he was the man who gave my grandfather his big promotion back in the 70s and 80s.

There’s a personal angle to this.  Gary Webster was the last thing my grandfather and I talked before he died.  You see I didn’t know my grandfather was going to pass away and I didn’t know I was going to fall sick, with pink eye which prohibited me from visiting him in the ICU, when we had that conversation.  So to pass the time during a visit we did what we usually did when we talked together.  We talked some politics and talked some transit issues.  My grandfather loved to discuss both, I was always curious for his take on the TTC (he was senior management there for years, working his way up from an immigrant bus driver).  So there it was.  My grandfather’s take on Gary Webster.  His last words to me.

What was that take?  That you couldn’t hope to find a person more knowledgeable about the TTC and transit to be running the TTC.  But my papa cautioned:  ”The thing with Gary was he always too nice.  The TTC was a place where you could be taken advantage of if you weren’t careful, and that was always a problem Gary ran in to – he was too nice of a guy”.  My grandfather was one of those nice guys and he retired bang on the 30 year mark. He had had enough of trying to make it work at the TTC, being a nice guy in that tough environment.  How many good guys have we lost over the years by creating a poisonous climate in our civil service?

Some will celebrate this today as a victory for transit in the city.  Many of my conservative friends, one of which actually voted on the motion for today’s dismissal of Gary, will claim some victory for the Mayor and for conservatism  and transit policy in the city today.  There’s no victory in firing someone with that level of dedication, passion and knowledge.  Maybe firing him was the right move.  Maybe this was the time for him to go, maybe in order to change the direction of the company (which believe me, there’s a lot that needs changing) he needed to go.  But there’s no victory for us citizens in losing that type of person from a key position in a key institution in the city.

On a personal note I want to wish Gary all the best.  When my grandfather passed away we exchanged some emails and he wrote a lovely letter to my grandmother which I know touched her deeply.  I know if my papa was here today he’d be saddened by this to.  So I’m sad on his behalf today and I hope Gary will go on to retirement or some other opportunity and find happiness.

Gary.  All the best.  You gave Toronto so much, and probably deserved a little better.

Today was a bizarre day weather wise. Overnight we had about 3-4cm of snow yet it was 10 degrees by the time I picked Paige up from school.

We decided to play in the backyard and we built a snowman however, by the time we got our boots off inside the snow had melted.

This winter has been very odd. The temperature has hovered bang on around 0 … I’m actually really hoping that February actually brings us snow.

I love me some spreadsheets.  I love tracking apps.  I love data about every aspect of my life.  If I could afford to have someone follow me around to record the details of my life so I could analyze them later I would.

So when it came time to decide how to implement my life style changes to get back in to shape it’s rather mind blowing that I decided to do it without any data.  I’ve decided not to count calories or carbs.  I’m not even going to weigh myself.

When I’ve tried to lose weight before I’ve always immediately created a spreadsheet, some charts and any tool you can imagine to track my success.  Heck, when Weight Watchers released their online service once upon a time I signed up immediately.  Tracking web apps?  Graphs with my progress?  FUCK YEAH!

The problem is that becomes a burden.  Or it becomes a game that eventually you just get tired of.  It can later become an excuse and excuses lead to the end of the road for actually making changes in your life.

So here’s where I’m at.  I roughly know what I weigh.  But I don’t care to weigh myself every week.  I want to make changes that make me feel better.  And that’s my only goal: To feel better.  To feel more like me.

As I said in my 2011 recap I said I’m not big on two things: year in review posts and resolution posts.  This year I’m doing both!  Suck it standards.

This isn’t really a resolutions post however.  It occurs to me that resolutions are things you make with the full expectation you’ll try them in January and apologize for not doing them the rest of the year.  These are 2012 EXPECTATIONS.  Shit that is going to happen.

Get back in shape

In May it’ll be 9 years since I injured my knee in a Sunday night game making a play at third.  I had to be carried off the field that night and I haven’t been the same since that night.  In the time since I’ve gained around 100 pounds and seen my activity levels drop way down.

When I saw the physio after the injury he made it clear until I had the surgery it was going to be difficult for me to be active.  I did have the surgery, 3 years ago now and it is high time I start working towards a full recovery.  I also made myself a promise coming out of that meeting with the doctor – by the time I was 30 I’d be back on the horse.  I figured 30 would be near a peak for my body and my metabolism and if I wasn’t on the road to recovery by then I’d be screwed.  So 30 is coming up this year and its time to make good on that promise.

I suspect there’ll be weight loss and exercise blog posts coming…

Ship something

At the moment I have 3 really good projects in different stages of design and development.  2012 is going to be the year to ship one of them (one of them I’ve been working on on and off for 3-4 years now).  I need to really sit down to decide which one to choose, but god damn it this year something is going to market.

Get a job

The time has come.  By spring I need to get myself back to work so over the next few weeks ramping up my search is Job 1.

Be better at maintaining balance

When I do go back to work I need to be better about balancing family, friends and work.  I’m a workaholic.  And it led to burn out in my last job and I can’t let it happen again.

I’m going to be very conscious of balance as I get back in to the working world

ATV in Quebec

My dad and I have been talking about doing this forever.  They have a brilliant and organized trail system and we are just itching to get there to check it out!

Double my geocache finds again to 150

Back in 2010 I had a goal to double my geocaches to 72 within a year.  I accomplished that this summer reaching 75.  In 2012 I want to hit 150, again doubling!

Build a smart home project

I haven’t done as much physical computing stuff lately and in 2012 I really want to do one of two projects: A door lock powered by RFID and possibly an android app OR build a smart thermostat.  Blog post to come on my thoughts for these.

Reduce Debt

I’ve been pretty good in the last 2 years as my debt hasn’t gone up at all.  But it hasn’t gone down either.  In 2012 I’m going to work on  bringing my debt down.

I’m looking forward to 2012…

Merry christmas everyone!

I hope you all have a great time with your family and that Santa is good to you

So it’s going to be a strange holiday season on the blog.  I’ve never been big on end of year recap blog posts or new years resolution posts, etc.  I guess usually I’m just too damn busy at this time of year.

But it’s been a big strange year and it requires some reflection before we can safely steer this blog in to 2012… I will also be following this up with not a resolutions post, but some personal goals/expectations for 2012.  Closing one door and clearly moving towards another.  That’s the goal here.

2011 started at a bit of a low which was I guess a sign of things to come.  At the end of 2010 I had just finished opening a warehouse and implementing SAP EWM at work with Indigo.  Coming out of the Christmas retail season after just implementing a major project (at the same time Christmas was happening) was just exhausting and it was a bit of a struggle to function sometimes.  Indigo itself was (is) facing tough times with ever increasing competition from eBooks and a more digital minded consumer base (and competing with Amazon).

So work was tough but I loved the challenge and I honestly loved scrapping with Amazon, it was one of the most appealing aspects of taking the Director job with Indigo’s online operation.  Fighting a giant is a hell of a rush.  But there was a bigger truth that was harder to cope with: Indigo as a company had changed.  It wasn’t a fun entrepreneurial environment anymore.  That youthful energy I found the first time I showed up for work at the corporate offices was gone.  We spent years pushing and fighting to become a “Billion Dollar Company”.  Indigo in those days was an environment where new ideas would flourish and a culture of excellence wasn’t a bullshit quote from the mission statement.  It was what we showed up every day to do: make a great company, offering great products in an experience that was geared towards the customer.  Indigo did manage to become a billion dollar company this year but the company that crosses the finish line looks nothing like the young, entrepreneurial and energetic company that got it there.  They key personalities that did the heavy lifting and built the strategy are now long gone.

As the threats and competition heated up Indigo did what many failed enterprises have done: money for everything not needed as part of the core business dried up (despite large cash reserves), the needs of the employees were cast off and all the projects focused on moving the business forward were cast aside to “get back to basics” (the department I was part of in Supply Chain (Process Improvement) was closed out as an example).  Instead of moving forward we moved side ways.  We did more (or thought we did – we tried) with less.

So winter 2011 I found myself coming out of a tough Christmas season on the back end of a year and a half long project with 10-20 hour work days.  It was not easy.  Morale was low all around and anxiety high.  So when Spring 2011 came around and I started hearing credible noises that there might be some sort of restructuring that would leave me on the outside I have to be honest: I was hopeful.

So when the layoffs came I was happy to be on the list.  The layoff and the arrangements involved with it meant I would have time to get a much needed reset and find something new.

I spent June and July mostly at the cottage, spending time with my family.  When I was laid off I had a few priorities I set out for myself:

1. Catch up time with my family.  The EWM/Warehouse project kept me away from home a lot and I needed not just for me, but for Paige and Tammy to spend quality time with them
2. Spend time learning and getting back to my software route.  Early in my career I decided I wanted to get in on the business side of business.  My goal when I went corporate at Indigo was to get involved with something that was heavily tech focused but would have me representing the business end of things, not the tech.  I already had strong computer and technical skills but I wanted to spend some time honing the business end of things.  I had accomplished this but it had caused atrophy in my technical skills!  So this was a great time to get caught up on things.
3. Find something new and exciting to do with my career time.

June and July were very much about #1.  The plan was to keep going with #1 (and the cottage) through in to September at which point I’d ramp up the learning (I had done a lot of reading through the summer, but I wanted to start working on the projects to put the knowledge to the test) which in turn would get me in the mood to start on #3.

Then August 10th happened.

My grandfather was put in the hospital and the earth shifted off its axis for a while.

Then August 27th happened.

My grandfather passed away and the earth fell off its axis completely.

August and September are lost in a haze of hospital visits followed by a funeral followed by grief.

I don’t necessarily want to relive it all but I’ll boil it down to its lasting impact and what I’ll remember when I look back on 2011:

• I live in a different world now.  A man I loved and drew inspiration from is no longer in my life.  There’s the world before his death and the world after.
• My atheism was challenged and came out intact.  The death of someone you love is as sure a test you’ll have ever of the things you believe and the faith you hold.  On the night we told Paige (the night of his passing) Tammy and I frantically read as much as we could and debated how we would explain what would happen.  In a moment of frustration I said “this would be so much easier if I could live with telling her he’s with the man in the sky”.  It was a moment of honest questioning and reflection.  A moment of clarity.  Transformative and entrenching.  In the end we told Paige the truth.  It wasn’t easy, but it turns out some things in life aren’t easy.
• I’m aware of mortality like never before.  I’m a very easy going person.  Almost to a fault.  But Papa’s passing has introduced a sense of the seriousness and finality of the finiteness of life.  There was a period this drove some serious anxiety.  I’d have to get out of bed occasionally to check the doors were locked.  I felt unsafe and antsy even in the security of my house.  Luckily this has mostly faded now and I’m back to my care free ways.  But there are scars, some things will never be the same.

And that brings us to the last few months.  Paige has celebrated her fourth birthday, the family has with more than a little sadness gotten back in to its December-crazy-holiday-events-calendar and I’ve been working on projects, learning new techs along the way.  So from my layoff goals I’ve hit #1 and #2 to satisfaction.  Now as Christmas and the New Year period are coming up I’m working on getting ready to attack #3.

The reason I wanted to make this post is I wanted to share what 2011 was to me.  I saw the Big Pictures The Year in Pictures post and I realized looking through it that so much happened in the world this year and because of the things going on in my own life it feels like most of them are from another century.  This post is part apology and part chronicling what I imagine will be one of the most transformative years of my life.  Apology because I’ve been a bit withdrawn from the world this year, and not all because of my Papa, but also because I just wanted to spend time away from things with my family.  I haven’t been in touch with people and events as I usually am but that’s starting to change now as I work back towards the working world, etc.  So if you’ve been impacted by that, I’m sorry, it was necessary for me.

Next up… 2012 – what happens a next, hopefully a better year…

Today is my daughter Paige’s 4th birthday.

4 years ago today moments before my little girl was born I was hit by a feeling of heading in to a great unknown.  Life was forever changing in those moments in ways I couldn’t comprehend.  It was terrifying.  Paige came weeks early (and we were going with an inducing date, so we thought we had all the control on when it was going to happen) and there was just no preparing for it.  People try and give you advice, and tell you how it is going to be, but you just sort of laugh and thank them for the advice, you have no frame of reference.  No matter what anyone tells you or what books you read the truth is its a deeply personal experience that you have to experience to understand.

So here we are today 4 years later and life has changed.  Priorities are different and we have a brand new source of joy.  Because if nothing else that is one thing that will change for everyone – with a child your life will have a greater capacity for joy and happiness.

So today on Paige’s 4th birthday I’m most thankful for that – the joy she’s brought in to  our lives.

Now my little girl is in Kindergarten and she’s making friends and coming home every day with some new knowledge to share.  She’s growing up.  Just yesterday she was an xray image, an impossible idea to my head around.  Today she’s becoming her own little person and an amazing one at that.

Happy birthday Paige, daddy loves you very much.

Seriously.  Where did October go?

When I think back on October 2011 I doubt very much I’ll be able to tell you what I did, or where I was.  The month has been lost to a mixture of grief, insomnia due to the grief, and spending time with the family.  I did some other stuff: Started an exciting new project (Details maybe soon), put in some game time, spent time learning and relearning a load of program languages and who knows what else – the details all seem foggy.

It’s been a blur.

The last few days this fog has become something tangible and the awareness of it has allowed me to start brushing it away.  This evening I feel kind of reborn or reawakened or something.  I haven’t spent much time thinking about my grief but it’s clearly taken a bit of a toll.  But I think I could only write that last sentence with the worst of it over my shoulder, somewhere in the rearview mirror.  Even if I haven’t shown it in public, I admit it, I’ve been at a low.  But today, tonight, here, now, I feel optimistic and on the rise.

None of this makes the death of my Papa any easier but the bright, bright light of a wonderful life spent together through 29 years is starting to shine through the dark clouds of an August spent visiting the hospital, a late August evening I’ll never forget and a September and October lost to a haze of grief.  Three months.  That can’t hold a candle to 29 years.

Dark clouds in the rearview, sunrise as we move forward.  Ever forward.