Warren Shea - World of Warren

The last time I was on a plane…

Tuesday, June 11th, 2013 at 1:25 am

Was telling this story to my co-workers earlier today. Thought I’d share.

When I was in high school, probably around grade 10, I went to fly alone to visit my brother in Calgary. At the time, my calf muscle would occasionally cramp up if I would do a lot of walking/running (I think it occurs if your calf muscle doesn’t get enough oxygen). It’s pretty painful – but you can save yourself the pain if you’re quick to react and point your toes towards you/heel away from you. Pointing the toes away from you/heel towards you will cause excruciating pain if your muscle starts to cramp; it’s one of the most painful things I’ve physically experienced. Sometimes it would cramp up while I was sleeping. Waking up to that pain is not fun.

So anyways, I’m in Grade 10ish and I go through the metal detector in the airport. I put my wallet in the little basket so that it doesn’t go through. And I forget to pick it up. I go all the way to the plane and board it. Sitting in the plane, about 2 minutes in, I realize I’ve forgotten my wallet. I quickly make the decision: go get my wallet and possibly risk missing my flight or travel without my wallet. The latter’s not really an option (you need your wallet!). So I ultimately decide to tell the stewardess I have to run back and get my wallet at the metal detector and to please wait for me. It’s a pretty good distance away.

I figure I have about 10 minutes to do this before the plane is set to take off.

I basically sprint for a straight 4 minutes to the metal detector to get my wallet and sprint for 4-5 minutes back, just making it. Sprinting for 9 minutes like your life depended on it is no easy feat. And I’m heaving for air, super hot and sweaty upon returning to my seat, wallet in hand.

I’m sitting in the seat resting when one of my calf muscles cramps. I’m not quick to react and the excruciating pain ensues. A second after the first calf muscle cramps, my second calf muscle cramps. I’m basically sitting in this plane with two cramping calf muscles. And because I’m all hot – my nose starts to bleed.

So now, I’ve got two cramping calf muscles and a bleeding nose – and I basically can’t move my legs to go anywhere (like the washroom) so I’m stuck holding my head up to stop the bleeding and sitting there thinking ‘omg, This CANNOT be happening to me’. Physically, probably the most FML moment I’ve ever had.

It took about 15 minutes of sitting there with my head tilted for the pain to go away in my legs, for me to cool down and stop sweating bullets, and for my nose to stop bleeding. It was a rough 15 minutes…..

Looking back on it, it’s pretty funny :P (At least my co-workers thought so).

Hopefully that’s the worst flying story I ever have.

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This is harder than it looks

Thursday, June 6th, 2013 at 1:40 am

My new role is taking some adjusting to. I’m finding that as a dev, I’m a “like to get this done, quick, and out of the way” type person. I look for immediate gains/fulfilment. The feeling like I “accomplish” something. I think I stayed at work late yesterday, tediously sorting computer wires simply to feel that again.

But in my new role, all my accomplishments will not be short term. In fact, quite the opposite, they’re mostly long term. I find myself trying hard to stay focused and on track as there’s so much to do, but no way to do it quickly.

It was easier when I could do my day job as a dev and chime in where I need to. But now, the responsibilities are greater, and different. I have a lot of great ideas but finding they’re difficult to start….

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I’ve been trying to sleep earlier lately so that my mind is sharper (and I’m nicer) for work. It’s been working out. I think yesterday, I got too much sleep (10:30-8:30) and that left me slow and groggy throughout the day. Even today, I slept around 9? 10? but woke up around midnight due to a stomach ache (so much cheese for dinner >_<) and have been up a couple hours…plan to sleep soon though. . . . Oddly enough, finding myself suddenly bombarded with recruiters contacting me for dev. Where were you 2 months ago?! I got other things to deal with now! Just kinda ironic I guess… I miss being a dev and often think back at it – I definitely made the right choice (career wise) but I guess the grass is always greener… Dev was honestly, so much damn fun. And now it’s kinda more…responsibility. I have a huge responsibility and weight on my shoulders having a team. The problem (kinda) is that they’re already an awesome team, which makes my job harder to do (because I have the responsibility to not only maintain, but grow that awesomeness). Tough shoes to follow…

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Big changes!

Thursday, May 30th, 2013 at 11:13 pm

Didn’t know it would be announced so soon but…drum roll please?

I’m now a development manager with a pretty large team. Pretty crazy! O____O

I know I wrote a bit about management lately but those were pretty coincidental. I had been feeling this “what should I do next?” kinda feeling for over a month now, spoke to my manager a few weeks ago and it all sort of planted its own seeds from there. I had no idea things would be official so soon. I’m totally not prepared. (like, seriously, i wanted to read about stuff more and prepare more first – but there’s always time for that).

I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately – basically, ways to make things better. I’ve seen the dev side and I think we could really use certain things (says the dev side of me) and hopefully that will be filled by whatever path I help choose to accomplish them (says the development lead in me). I think it’s awesome because I already have a pretty good to great relationship with the devs so I really want to focus on assisting in their growth as my managers and peers have done with me. I know the change in me within the last 7 years is dramatic and I feel crazy thankful to everyone who has influenced me – either shown me what to do, or even shown me what not to do (it was hard to be thankful for that, but looking back on it, it was useful).

My last two managers were/are both super great and I want the way I saw them to be the way my team sees me. I just want to follow their lead but provide some technical guidance along the way as well. I guess that’s my big goal – to not screw it up and to help my team wherever I can. :)

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It’s time for some changes…

Wednesday, May 29th, 2013 at 11:31 pm

I’m sick. Again. And I’m not liking this trend, how I’m getting sick so often.

Seriously – I think it’s about time I start acting my age. Sure, staying up til 5am coding or doing whatever is fun. But at 31, I’m starting to realize: sleeping at 3:30 and waking up at 8:30 for work…is not okay. Having 5 hours of sleep, it’s no wonder I got sick. I’m not 22 anymore.

From now on, I’m in bed at 12. I’m getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night. No more irritability at work.

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Also : After 2 months of no progress on my secret project KB, I’ve decided to abandon it. It doesn’t hold the interest it once did, a year ago. That said, I will want to do figure reviews and work on my photography skills. I’m sad, I devoted a lot of money and time, months, towards this site but it just doesn’t hold the same appeal. I’m sure I could have built something, with user generated content in 1/2 the time and it would have been way more rewarding. That’s where I should have gone, I took an old approach to an idea and it bit me in the ass down the line with it’s tediousness.

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I’m going to try to focus my time, not on large projects that prevent me from sleeping – but on taking smaller projects. Reading and learning. I figure doing something like that before sleeping will also help with my sleep.

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It’s been almost exactly 1 year since I finished warrenshea.com. I’m still really happy with it both from a design and functionality/usability point of view. I’ve learned quite a bit in the last year regarding JavaScript and organizing JavaScript as well as XML/JSON. I would like to, at some point, start to investigate updating it. A professional portfolio that’s up to date will always come in handy when you least expect it ;)

Posted in All Posts, My Life | 1 Comment »

Recursive(?) / Redundant Statements

Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 at 7:07 pm

One of my more recent statements has been:
“You don’t know what you don’t know”

Since then, I’ve been noticing similar phrases:
We are who we are (Ke$ha song apparently)
It is what it is
You gotta do what you gotta do
(and, I don’t know if these are some but I thought of them)
It happens when it happens
I’ll do it when I do it

Those last two are pretty bad, not sure if they should ‘apply’.

I don’t know if these would be called recursive…cuz “we are who we are who we are” or “it is what it is what it is” doesn’t really make much sense.
They’re definitely all pretty redundant – There is nothing really gained by those statements yet they’re often said.

I do think “You don’t know what you don’t know” is kind of bigger in meaning – it implies you not knowing something of a greater infinity of knowledge. It’s more focused on the NOT in the universe than the IT.

Like, if these were equations:
“It is what it is” is like “This = This”
“You gotta do what you gotta do” is like “You gotta do = You gotta do”

“You don’t know what you don’t know” is like….!KNOW(!KNOW) or UNKNOWN(UNKNOWN) ?

I think I’m over thinking this ridiculous topic. I’ve been occasionally provided more time to think and write odd blog topics like this one >_<

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