Eliot: 3 years 8 months and riding a 2 wheeler.
I glanced out the window to catch Eliot hammer the pedals of his little bike with training wheels on it. He had to to get though the think Spring grass. I couldn't help but think how riding with training wheels around the lawn has helped his confidence. He just looked ready and determined. So when 20 minutes later Ethan came into the kitchen with a big grin on his face I know something big was going on. "Dad you have to come out and see what Eliot is doing". You could see the pride for his little brother in his face. I instantly opened the cupboard for the camera but it was packed along with the video camera; we were minutes away from going to Grandma and Grandpa's. Ethan lead me out to the driveway to see Eliot riding Ethan's old bike. He was peddling for about 20 feet until he ran out of room where he would break get off the bike, turn it around and start back in a new direction.
I later learned that he did it all on his own. He just got on the bike and gave it a try. It was bitter sweet. My last child is now riding a bike and all my minds eye 'television commercial' visions of the event can be on their way. This all happened around 7 on Friday April 18th. 3 years 8 months to the day. His brother Ethan was a hair past 4 years 2 months. For the record their mother, father and big sister Emma were 5.
The next day, Saturday the 19th he was a pro, weaving around posts taking tight turns, riding on the rough stone driveway. Congratulations Eliot, Daddy is VERY proud of you!
Emotionally Drained
I am in awe of the outpouring of generosity from the greater Lotus community. Thank you everyone, and this isn't the last time I will say it.. thank you for your donation.
When someone makes a donation, I don't learn about it until hours later and they come in batches; the batch have been overwhelming. Over the last year, having the occasional tear (or tw..enty) in my eyes at work isn't all that uncommon, today they are a different type. The early totals are mind boggling.
I have Gregg Eldred to thank for the idea. He had mentioned once or twice before Lotusphere that I ‘have to get a wish list' so he can get me something from it in exchange for the work I've done on the site. The donor list at charity.planetlotus.org is far more rewarding then… well, you know the rest.
Tonight I will ride a little harder, a little longer and hope that Bill is doing the same
PS don't forget The Biggest Looser Finally is on tonight. If you're looking for your own motivation, here is your chance; apologies in advance for those that don't get US channels.
Help me say FUCK YOU to CANCER
I have been thinking about this day for months, the day that I change gears and start training for my 192 mile charity bike ride on August 2nd and 3rd. I invite you to join me on the journey.
I have launched charity.planetlotus.org to reach out to our greater Lotus Community with one question in mind. How much can we raise to eviscerate this nasty disease? If this site has in any way helped you, brought you entertainment, saved you time… Please consider passing it along to this worthy cause. Don't forget corporate matching funds… It kills me that so far the only matching fund to date is from… Sun.
In other news. I worked vigorously this weekend to get into Planet Lotus all the things that have been backlogged on my mental check list. The tooltip and also the blog list shows blogs with parsing issues. If your blog has a parsing issue, open you profile and check your blog against one of the two validation services listed. Then once its fixed/validated refresh your blog in your profile to get the back entries. 99 times out of 100, or more, its a bad character that is causing the error, (i.e., data related).
PS: Thank you Bruce for being the first to contribute!
How I got started with Lotus Notes.
It all started as an intern at Massachusetts Port Authority. I was the assistant to the assistant of the Executive Director. I was at my desk doing my favorite task, cutting out Massport related articles from the local papers when the guy that's office was just past my desk asked me the one question that started it all. If you're looking for something to do we're trying to put together a spreadsheet based expense report; or something to that affect.
So there I was, automating a Lotus 123 v4 expense report. I was enamored by the macro recorder but the second I wrote my first @if statement my fait was sealed. I went on to transition to his team. It was a group of Process Re-Engineering consultants; all ex auditors from Ernst and Young (I believe) that came on full time to start up a Management Systems group.
One of our biggest projects was to audit and propose fixes for the lengthy contract approval process. At the time it took 105ish days to get 12 departments to sign off on a contract. We proposed they could do it in 5 days with a computer based approval system. I'm not sure who recommended the Lotus Notes; maybe my boss from back then will tap with comments. Either way they needed someone to maintain the application that a consulting company put together for us.
With the servers up and the application in place the flood gates opened. We had a three person team building every application we could think of. This was all around the version 3.3 time frame. Eventually upgrading to 4 meant more fun. I graduated Northeastern University in 96 and started full time. I worked there for a year fulltime before getting a job at Lotus.
The rest… 3 years of *internal Notes application work (remember the PPC database?) and 3 years of product development on the LearningSpace team at Lotus. (so 3 years in LDB, 2 in Rogers and 1 year in Westford). After that I started at my current employer Axceler (back then we were Percussion Software).
*I spent three years right clicking on these databases.
PS: A big Thanks to Chris, Randy, Cindy, Ron, David, Philis.... We made quite a team!
My most geeky chat ever… Nathan T Freeman-20080406.html
This IM started after I posted a comment on Nathan's "How I got started with Lotus Notes" post. Welcome to my inner geek. If you're interested in IM'ing with others in the community start here. Basically he said he was destine to be a Notes developer on the count of his NTF initials, where I commended "I knew I should of gone into fashion." count of my initials.... YSL. (Yves saint Laurent).
Yancy Lent
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