Loan sharks and onesies

Every once in a while I come across a website I just have to talk about. Thank goodness I have this blog now, so there's an outlet.

First, I need to brag about my wife again. Have I mentioned just how creative she is? Well, now you can not just take my word for it, but you can see for yourself. Check out In My Jammies - it's Kristen's own store for custom made, one of a kind, and super creative baby apparel. She's taken her artistic talent (and in many cases her sidesplitting wit) and put it on t-shirts, bibs, and of course, onesies. If a you're still not a parent and don't know what a onesie is, don't worry, I didn't either until about 7 months ago. If it fits the baby's whole body, and has buttons on the crotch, chances are, it's a onesie. There you go, you learn something new everyday.

And for all you aspiring loan sharks, check out Prosper.com. This concept is brilliant in my opinion. People helping people. I love it.

What does one site have to do with the other? Not much really. But come to think of it, if you can't afford to buy anything on In My Jammies - and I know you will want to buy a lot - you might want to try and see if anyone on Prosper.com will loan you the cash! How's that for resourceful?

BlackBerry or underwear?

Hey readers, thanks for the comments! It's good motivation to write. Yes, it's been over a week, but it's been one heck of one. Oh, and don't forget, you can't rush perfection!

Part of the madness that was this week was the "BlackBerry Blackout" (BBB). If you suffer from the same addiction as millions us out there, you know what I mean. The madness started at about 8pm on Tuesday (yes, as wrong as it may sound, if you have a BlackBerry, you're likely checking your mail at 8pm on a weeknight). I happened to be reading an email from the president of the division with which I'm employed. It was a long message, and I got to the point where "more" was required (for those who don't know BlackBerry splits up long messages, and gives you the option to request "more" when you get to the bottom of the first chunk). Well, at 8pm, "more" was just not coming. At first I thought it must be a glitch, just request "more" again, right? No such luck. Four "more" requests, a power down/up, antenna on/off, a hard battery in/out later and still no"more", I knew something bigger was up. My next clue was no new mail, after 2 hours, then 3, then 4 etc. Panic set in by about midnight. Needless to say, it was not a restful sleep that night.

Morning came. Still no new mail, and no "more" of the message from the president. This is now bordering on catastrophe. For the record, I'm not THAT important, and neither is my job. Yes, I need help, I'm addicted to BlackBerry and was suffering from email withdrawal - if you can recommend a therapist, comments are welcome. On the drive over to the commuter train station in the morning, the radio announcer confirmed my biggest fear - the BlackBerry network had suffered a catastrophic failure. I'll never forget that 35 min train ride Wednesday morning. There was an eerie silence - no clickety clack of the BlackBerry keyboards that usually occupy over a third of the seats on the train in the morning. Instead, more newspapers, more novels, more sleepers, and a few people (me included) staring into nothingness just praying for the soft vibrating sensation on my hip to signal message flow had resumed. It was the longest 35 mins of my life.

I know what you're thinking "so what?" or "Steve! Get a life!" Fair comment. Here's my point. If you think I was alone, or even the minority, you're wrong. Just do a Google search for BlackBerry and you'll find a ton of news articles and blog entries from all over the world. On the day of outage, news anchors were on the street interviewing bankers in the financial district asking them how they were "coping" without their BlackBerries. Four days later, the media is still talking about it.

As Cindy mentioned on her post about me, I started my career at RIM working the phones helping what few customers we had with any technical issues they had with their "pager" back in 1999. Back then, we dreamt of that day, way off in the distant future, when we'd hit the million BlackBerry milestone. Now they add a million new subs in a quarter. I haven't been on the RIM payroll for over 6 years now, but I couldn't be prouder of that organization, and I'm not afraid to say it. What a Canadian success story. Few brands in the world can claim as big an impact to our daily lives, in such a short time frame.

Later that night, I was on the phone with technologically illiterate Dad (I'm sorry, but he works in construction, and can count the number of times he's used a PC on one hand) and he asked me "hey, how's your BlackBerry, did you survive today?" We laughed about it, and I assured him that all was good now, but man, what an uncomfortable 12 hours. Imagine going without underwear for 12 hours - I don't care who you are, that would be rather uncomfortable. I'm sure you don't really have to worry about going without underwear on any given day, but if it suddenly happened that one day you were all out of a fresh pair, I'm sure you'd panic. You might even take the day off or go to work late while you wait for the laundry cycle to complete. Well for many of us, having to go a day without our BlackBerries is almost the same. Imagine that.

So congratulations Jim and Mike, and the rest of RIM. You've gone from a little tech nobody in Waterloo to become a prominent player on the world stage, and in millions of homes around the world (for better or worse). You've become as essential to many of us as air, water, and yes, even underwear. Tuesday was pretty catastrophic, and we hope not to see another outage like that anytime soon. I'm sure it was even more hellish for you, and you may have even gone as far as firing one or more for not doing their job properly. But hopefully you've stopped for a second and relished in just how important an organization you have become to society. Amidst the chaos that was Tuesday, some of us cheered quietly for your accomplishment, and can only aspire to achieve the same kind of greatness.

Balance vs. Harmony

Okay, it's been a few days since I've blogged. I'm overdue. For those who missed Kristen's play "A Bad Year For Tomatoes" you missed a great show, and a great performance. I'll be sure to give you ample notice before the next one, in case you're interested.

When I setup this blog, it was meant to be a random collection of observations, rants, lessons, and just general "stuff" I pickup along this journey I call life. Well, it's a busy time of life right now for me as I'm sure you can imagine. A new son at home is all the newness I need to turn life as I knew it upside down. Even though it has been about 6.5 months now, I'm still adjusting. Loving every minute of it of course, but wow, life is different in every way. The one thing that has been the most challenging for me has been finding the right balance working on being a good dad, a good husband, a good employee, a good friend, a good family member, and in general just being a good person. Good is a pretty weak word. If you know me, you know that it's in my nature to accept nothing short of 'absolutely outstanding', not just 'good'. The reality is, those 6 things are often naturally at odds with each other, and not being absolutely outstanding at all 6 is really stressing me out, and is even a little depressing at times. This week, I had dinner with a really good friend who shared some perspective on "balance" with me that I found really insightful and refreshing. I feel compelled to capture, and perhaps share it with whom ever cares to read about it right here on my blog.

Picture a balance scale. It's a very simple mechanical device with two sides that are naturally opposed to one another. One side goes up, and the other one goes down. Therein lies the problem. To achieve balance, one thing needs to suffer, for the other one to benefit. It's a zero sum game. For years, I've been running around trying to achieve a "balanced" lifestyle. I say trying because I never really have ever pulled it off, and I don't think I'm alone on this one.

The other night I realized what I really want is not balance at all, it's harmony. Harmony implies that the different parts of my life (career, parenthood, marriage, friendships, family, and my personal well being) actually co-exist well together. In fact, they co-exist in such a way that one supports the other 5, to the point that all 6 co-exist better together, than if they existed on their own. Simply put, the whole needs to be greater than the sum of the parts. It's not a zero sum game, it's a game where the sum has no bounds at all, and unlimited potential.

If you have had the stamina to read this far, you probably think I'm on some really good drugs, and you may even be inclined to ask me for some. This harmony idea for certain sounds either really obvious, or like a pipe dream. Well I think it's neither. It's perspective. I feel grateful to have received this perspective the other night, because it's changed how I think, and how I approach each aspect of my life.

As a final way to illustrate my point, I'll leave you with an example. Theatre fits harmoniously with the rest of Kristen's life. If you haven't seen her on stage, you don't know how amazing she really is at it. And I can tell you, being involved with theatre has made her a better friend, a better mom, a better wife, and in general a better, happier person. I now have stopped trying to achieve a balanced lifestyle, and seek to establish harmony instead. I'll let you know how it goes...