Ryan James O'Sullivan

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…

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.

It’s been three weeks now.  Things around here have been a long time heading towards normal but it finally feels like we might be getting there.

The biggest thing both Tammy and I have been dealing with has been sleep.  For me I lay in bed, I can be tired or not and I just get so much going on in my head I can’t sleep.  It’s made me useless for weeks, since the funeral.  I’ve spent most my time laying around watching TV or doing this and that.  Not good.

Paige started school full time (although only for half the day) this week and despite some sadness around Papa not being here to see it, it was a jump off point for some healing, some rebirth and moving on around here.  I finally managed a full nights sleep on Tuesday (after walking Paige to school on 1 hour in 24 – I was a zombie) and it’s been spotty since but I’ve been a bit more rested.  On Friday Tammy went to the doctors and got us both sleeping pills.  I was opposed, I hate anything that can be addictive.  I caved and it has helped.  I’d say this weekend I’ve finally been able to function a bit.

Did some laundry, did some cleaning around the house.  One day at a time, slow but sure.

My original unemployment plan was June and July I’d spend up north relaxing, August and early September I’d spend learning/relearning some programming languages and working on projects.  Then September and October I’d move on to the job hunt.

My Papa went in to the hospital 2 days after we got back from vacation.  The first week was almost all our time visiting and worrying.  The second week I came down with a bacterial infection and couldn’t leave my bed (and to my regret I was unable to visit the hospital).  After that it was over.  When you look at a calendar and chart the time out it was a depressingly short time.  Bottom line though August was a wash.  A black hole.

So the timeline has been moved back a bit.  This week I started up on my programming refreshers and working on some projects.  I have 2 or 3 I want to dabble in.  One in particular I’d love to see through to release.  I’m going to focus on this stuff for a few weeks, get my head back in to analytical thinking and problem solving (and work that doesn’t involve taking my little girl to the play ground).  I also happened to clean break a front tooth last week (root canal gone bad) so that sets the timeline for my start of the job hunt as well.

So in a month or so my tooth will be fixed and I’ll have my resume ready to go.  At that point who knows who will be hiring with holiday at hand.  Fact is I have the luxury of time and I’ll use it.

With everything that has gone on I’ve been given some great perspective on just how lucky I am.  I was laid off, and on the surface that sucks but I was in a place where I wasn’t happy with my job, to the point of being near depression about it.  I’m free of that now.  I had a great summer off with my kid before she started school.  I got to spend almost a month solid with my Papa up north, his last month alive and free of the hospital.  Now I’m free to work on projects involving programming, something I always am keen to do but often find starved for the time.  My Papa aside, and maybe even with it, if you consider the way I got to spend time with him, this has been the best time of my life.

I don’t know how I would have recovered from all this if I was working.

One day at a time I imagine.  It’s life.  The only way to live it is with a happy heart and a day at a time.

On we go…

I had the great honour and privilege of  speaking at my Grandfather’s funeral.  Here is what I said (sadly I added a few ad-libbed anecdotes not here, when I do my full memorial post on the blog I hope I am able to share those memories with you):

Thank you everyone for coming today. Thank you for your support and for sharing in the rememberance of my Papa.

Today is a sad day, I’ve never known such profound sadness in my short time on this earth.  But I wanted to stand up here and talk to you all today because I don’t think my Papa would want us to be sad.  I think it would be important to him that we come away from here today remembering the good times and the joy he brought in to our lives.

I believe this because when I think back on my grandfather’s life I can’t find unhappieness before this last month.  He was a special man, I’ve never known anyone like him.  I’ve never known a man who so universally loved, a man whose smile and kind approach to life was so endearing.

I was lucky growing up instead of day care I got to spend my before and after school time with my grandparents.  It gave me a unique opportunity to spend time with them and the bonds we formed lasted a life time.  Some of my earliest and best memories are of spending time playing outside with Papa.  Walking Erin, my grandparents cocker spaniel.  Riding my tricycle.  Playing with whatever toy I was fascinated with at that moment.

All of this at my Papa’s side while we talked away… honestly we mostly talked about the weather.  If you ever wanted to know the weather back in those days you just had to ask one of us. (aside) Luckily we added the Blue Jays, Wayne Rooney and the price of gas to our conversational repertoire over the years.

Papa probably had the biggest impact on my life when he helped turn me in to a giant nerd.  He would actively encourage me and help me use his commodore 64 computer every day after school.  Later when he upgraded to an Amiga 500 he also introduced me to the world of pirated software.  Honestly, he had a collection of computer games that puts me to shame.

As I got older and was able to walk to school myself I was lucky that I still got to spend plenty of time with my grandparents.  Before and after school rituals were replaced with Sunday dinners and eventually the whole family started spending our summers together up north.  At an age when many kids start to spend less time with their family I was fortunate to, if anything, spend more.  It was great.

Over the years Papa and I got to spend summers together watching baseball, boating and even ATVing! (Papa got to see the Blue Jays win two world series in his life time, I likely will only get to see the Blue Jays win two world series in my life time as well).  While everyone else would go to bingo Papa and I would stay behind and chat about what was in the news while we’d watch the baseball game.

These are all great memories and only in the last few years have I really come to appreciate the net impact of them on me as a person.  I’ve come to realize that many of my best qualities have come from him.

I realize now that his “keep a smile” and optimistic approach to life has rubbed off on me.
That my ability to let things roll off my shoulder by and large comes from him.
That by being there for me through thick and thin, even retiring so he could spend more time with my sisters and I he taught me the value of love and family.

This was my Papa.  He was a special man who kept an optimistic smile, who let things roll off his shoulder and above all loved his family.

I am who I am today because of Papa, and for that I owe him more than simple words can express.  I’m thankful that I came to this realization well before today.  It gave me the opportunity to cherish these last few years, to fully appreciate everything he meant to me and my family.

I’m glad he got to meet and bond with my darling wife Tammy.

I’m glad that he and my daughter Paige were fast friends, the best of buds.

More than anything I’m glad for each of the 29 years we’ve got to spend together.

So I leave you now with only one request.  Leave here today glad about something he gave you.  He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.