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by on May 24, 2013 Leave a Comment

What is Walmart trying to tell me?

I think I already know the answer to what Walmart is trying to tell me…

As you have probably seen in previous posts, I’m on a weight loss, muscle building mission so I probably made some purchases at wally world that their super analytics, big data crunching algorithms just loved… and they came up with an email titled “Just for you, Clayton – products you’re sure to love! “

Walmart suggested products

Walmart suggested products

Here is what they suggested – pretty relevant stuff so I can’t complain, but if you think about it from a privacy and freaky perspective it is getting scary.

I DO need some protein, but I hate all that carb control stuff :)

Hope everyone has a great 3 day weekend!

Filed Under: Fitness Tagged With: , , ,
by on May 8, 2013 1 Comment

Self improvement choices

Self Improvement Choices

Self Improvement Choices

Another quote caught my eye last night and this time it hit me in the face like a shovel because I had just had a conversation at the gym that basically went like this on my side… “I can’t lose weight. Keep eating poorly on the weekends and some nights…”

Utter BS!

Losing weight is a choice

I thought about the post from last week and how relevant it is, but I just didn’t see it – blinders I guess. You never want to see yourself as you really are especially if it hurts. Here it is:

Stop saying “I can’t.”
You can.
You just chose not to…

I can lose weight. It is a very simple math formula for [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fitness Tagged With: , , , , ,
by on May 7, 2013 Leave a Comment

BI update

A quick update on how things have been progressing on the Business Intelligence front!

  1. The project prototype for the SOA solution was completed and accepted by the technical team. JEAH!
  2. The dweebi.com site is slowly progressing.
  3. We have started the dweebi.com Twitter account and have a plan for interacting
  4. Got the logo from the fiver gig. It is ok, but almost identical to our sketch without any real creativity, but for $5 what can you expect. Good enough for now for sure!

An interesting BI and Big Data observation – as much as big data is growing and BI is booming, so is writing/blogging on the topics. So much great information, but can’t. read. it. all… Argh!

dweebi.com business intelligence blog logo

dweebi.com business intelligence blog logo

If you are interested in the logo and the requirements we gave just let me know. Here is how it turned out:

See you tomorrow.

Filed Under: Business Intelligence Tagged With: , ,
by on May 1, 2013 Leave a Comment

Tough times and character

There’s an old saying about a person’s character coming out in tough times that goes something like:

The true test of a person’s character is how they react in times of adversity

I think this applies to people, families, workgroups and even corporations. Especially corporations! I have worked for several over the years and when one loses their identity and character it is an ugly thing.

Corporate CharacterCharacter is very important especially for large corporations to keep them from getting too impersonal and forgetting that their customers, employees, and stockholders are all just people and want to be treated that way.

Corporate Culture

As you probably know, I work for a large corporation, Southern Company, which has roughly 26,000 employees. (Note – I work for Southern Company, but this is my blog and everything here is my opinion and does not represent Southern Company in any way). It would be easy for them to lose their identity given [Read more…]

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , , ,
by on May 1, 2013 Leave a Comment

It depends on what the meaning of the word is is…

The prototype review for the Oracle SOA implementation went very well yesterday. Lots of great technical stuff!

As an added bonus, there was a classic moment that only myself and a couple of other people in the conference room picked up on. You have to know a couple of things about the people in the room:

  • Half are too young to remember much about the Clinton era
  • One fourth are foreign born and probably didn’t get caught up in all the political news of that time in the U.S.
  • Relations from a technical database standpoint refer to how things hook up. Come to think of it I guess that’s what it means in real life too!
  • I am easily amused especially when I’m tired :)

If you’re old enough to remember the Bill Clinton years and you had any political or current event news awareness at all then this headline regarding what the meaning of “is” is probably caught your attention. Long story if you don’t know it so just Google it.

So the scenario is that we are [Read more…]

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: , , , ,
by on April 30, 2013 Leave a Comment

Hard drive crashes are great!

Now before you call the men in the little white jackets and see me break into a rendition of “They’re coming to take me away, HaHa!” please know that I really don’t think hard drive crashes are great…

Hard drive crashes suck if you’re not prepared – be ready

Hard drive crash

Hard drive that crashed

My hard drive on my pc at home really did crash last week, but luckily I had noticed some odd behavior a while back and had been backing up important stuff like pictures, videos and taxes. It still sucked when I got the blue screen BIOS boot failure and tried everything to get it back to no avail.

New Hard Drive

New Hard Drive

I bought a new hard drive, installed Windows 7 and since then I’ve been installing patches, printers, wifi, etc. It has consumed all of my normal home “work” time so I haven’t posted the last couple of days and I am doing this from my daughters laptop while itunes runs on my pc trying to recover music and podcasts.

A couple of good things about it are:

  • I get a bigger hard drive :)
  • Patching a new os and reinstalling programs take a lot of time, most of which is just waiting…

Waiting on patches really isn’t a good thing either, but in my case it allowed me quiet time to organize my thoughts on the Oracle SOA and Business Intelligence project and since the prototype review is today it worked out perfectly to give me some planning time for the rest of the project which goes another 6 months for this phase.

It also allowed me to change around my development plan to include some training, some architectural guidance, and most importantly, some hands on BI and SOA stuff I want to accomplish this year. I’ve always believed that you are responsible for your own career development and your manager should only be there to open doors and help you think through your goals with a corporate perspective and luckily I have that at Southern Company where I spend my days…

I hope you have the same perspective and make your own choices and if you don’t, start today. Come back tomorrow and tell me what choices you made today to improve your own tomorrow.

Filed Under: 30 day challenge Tagged With: , , ,
by on April 26, 2013 1 Comment

Business Intelligence progress update

Things have been moving on the Business Intelligence front!

  1. The project prototype for the SOA solution is progressing nicely.
  2. The dweebi.com site is resolving and has WordPress installed along with a couple plugins and a theme framework.
  3. We had some great ideas on the logo
  4. Ordered the logo – can’t wait to see what the fiver artist creates
  5. Created a content strategy with a posting schedule and assigned tasks

Short update today because it has been a very long week and I am going home.

See you tomorrow.

Filed Under: 30 day challenge, Business Intelligence Tagged With: , ,
by on April 26, 2013

Please excuse the Daddy moment

Daughters and Dads

Daughters and Dads

For those of you who know me, you know that I am a fairly private person. You know that I love to work out by lifting heavy things and that I really enjoy technology, but you also know that my true passion is my daughters…

Incredigirls

I have two wonderful girls and if you follow me on Facebook you know that [Read more…]

Filed Under: 30 day challenge, Personal Tagged With: , , , ,
by on April 24, 2013 5 Comments

Business Intelligence. Really?

After my Take Action Tuesday “Make Changes” post I decided to keep the daily actionable items going.

I continued with my health and wellness actions by eating right and working out and then running two miles. Great way to start the day. That takes care of the body part.

Now for the mind!

I am always trying to learn new things and since I work in IT I get that opportunity more than most. Since I wanted to accomplish a few things I thought what better way to get it done than incorporate it into my work life.

I am currently leading a strategic, long term project which involves Oracle SOA Suite and eventually OBIEE which is Oracle’s Business Intelligence tool. Since I am ramping up on [Read more…]

Filed Under: 30 day challenge, Business Intelligence, WordPress Tagged With: , , , ,
by on April 23, 2013

Be yourself! Make changes!

Be Yourself. Make Changes!

Be Yourself. Make Changes!

I saw a quote today and immediately thought of how I tell my girls to CHOOSE how to respond to people, comments, situations in life… Trust me, it helps keep you sane, or at least it does for me.

Be Yourself, but first Know Yourself

Then I thought about the quote some more and realized it was on a much broader scale and scope than I thought. Here it is:

You are the way you are because that’s the way you want to be.
If you really wanted to be any different, you would be in the process of changing right now.

Stop and think about it for the next few seconds or minutes.

Now, what did it mean to you? Are you happy with your health, weight, job, spouse, children and [Read more…]

Filed Under: 30 day challenge, Fitness, Personal Tagged With: , , ,