L.A. - Here I come!

I've been pestering my manager to send me on a trip somewhere and he's caved (or I like to believe so). I pretty much grew up on a plane - my Dad worked for an array of airlines through his career and well, I got to travel a lot when I was younger! Yeah, I know I'm spoiled but I just love experiencing new sites and sounds. And it's awesome that I can do it for work reasons too now.

On my very first business trip, I get to go to Los Angeles! I leave on Tuesday and return Thursday evening so that won't leave much time for checking out the city but that's OK - I already did the touristy trip back in '99.

Despite the short stay (and the work) I'm sure I'll have a blast!

And since traveling is on the cards, here are some useful Travel Tools courtesy of The Man From Mars.

I'm back!

Wow... I can't believe I took a 3 month break from blogging!

I can't promise I'll keep posting regularly but it's worth a shot. So, what's happened in the last 3 months?

• I went on my vacation to India. I wrote a blog post while I was there but wasn't connected at the time so it's going to have to be added at a later point in time. I had an awesome time while I was gone but it was way too short.

• Work's been crazy and I find I usually have very little left in the tank when I get home. I don't regret my move to Project Management though. I'm having the time of my life (or something like that...)!

• I upped a level in Seikido (it's the type of Martial Arts I'm learning). I'm all the way up to a lowly green belt now. Woohoo!

• While I'm talking about Seikido, I competed in a tournament a few weeks ago and took away 2nd for my pattern and tied 3rd for sparring (it was only with 4 people so not that impressive!).

• I was on the organizing team for this year's PMI - South Western Ontario Chapter Annual Symposium and it went off great on May 3rd. We made a wad of cash to make up for the massive hole from last year! I couldn't be happier for our success.

That's all folks!

Serena Williams vs. Conan O'Brian

The Man from Mars posted this link on the forums at work and it's straight up hilarious! I think I'm going to have to start watching Conan again...

Freezing My Fingers Off

I can't believe how cold it is out there today... Actually, I don't care too much with it being cold out there as much as it being too cold in my apartment. The Weather Office claims it to be -17 Celsius with a wind chill of -28 Celsius right now and with the leaky windows in my apartment, I'm in danger of losing a few fingers.

Usually, I don't mind my leaky windows since it brings down the temperature to comfortable (the temperature is controlled by the building's management but I'm surrounded by retirees so they like to crank up the heat) but I'm seriously cold today!!

I can't wait to start my vacation at the end of the week and go off to London, England (where it's currently 5 Celsius) and then to Mumbai, India (where it's 24 Celsius right now).

The Superbowl

It's that time of year when everyone in North America huddles around their big screen TV (except me who huddles around my little screen TV) to watch the big football game while the rest of the world doesn't even know what the Superbowl is. And if they do, they still have no idea what the significance of a large plate is in a game called football when it's not even primarily played with the feet.

That's what I used to think some 10 years ago too but I'm quite a fan of the game now, although not so much of today's game. I really wanted to see the Patriots and/or the Saints in there but it wasn't meant to be.

Indianapolis vs. Chicago - They say defense wins championships. Comparing the Bears defense to the Colts offense, the Bears are more than capable of shutting down the Peyton Manning show. The Colts defense on the other had aren't guaranteed to stop Rex Grossman (despite him not being that special of a QB). Logic tells me the Bears should win however the Colts have looked better and better as they've advanced through the playoffs, which is almost reminiscent of the great Steelers team of last year. The bottom line is it's going to be a defensive snore but since I need to pick a team, advantage - Indianapolis Colts.

A Book About Business Strategy

Here's an interesting business article I came across. It talks about strategies to break away from the competition. It doesn't get it to very much detail but it does enough to make me want to read the book the author is promoting - "Breakout Strategy: Meeting the Challenge of Double Digit Growth" by Sydney Finkelstein, Charles Harvey, and Thomas Lawton.

Site: BusinessWeek
Title: Planning a Breakout

Tuck management prof Sydney Finkelstein talks about his new book on how to leave your competitors in the dust

I Want A New TV

I'm planning on buying a spanking new TV sometime this year and I was talking to CJG earlier this week (or was it last week?) about how I know nothing about TVs. He was gracious enough to give me a run down on the technologies which was a really useful since I'm the kind of person that likes to do a little research before buying anything new. And then today I came across this slide-show on the making of a Plasma TV. Pretty interesting stuff.

Feed: BusinessWeek Online -- Technology & Science
Title: Slide Show: The Making of a Plasma TV

If you're one of the many people replacing an unwieldy tube-based TV with plasma technology, you'll want to see what goes on behind the screen