Category Archives: Personal

Life’s Too Short for Long Texts: The Art of Embracing Brevity and Shallow Discussions

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Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the era of bite-sized communication! Gone are the days of long-winded letters, in-depth discussions, and anything remotely resembling substance in our conversations. We’ve entered the brave new world of short, snappy, and superficial text messages. Why waste time on profound conversations when you can embrace the simplicity and beauty of the one-word response? Let’s dive into the wonders of short text messages and explore why you should never, ever dare to get serious over texts.

Depth is Overrated

Sure, you might think discussing essential issues and exchanging deep thoughts build strong relationships, but that’s just so old-school. Why bother with meaningful conversations when you can keep it short and sweet with a simple “K”? Who needs depth when you can just skim the surface? After all, it’s not like any real progress or growth comes from deep conversation, right?

Keep ’em Guessing

Nothing quite says “I care” like sending ambiguous, vague text messages that leave the recipient in a perpetual state of confusion. What better way to maintain the intrigue and mystery in a relationship than by keeping the other person guessing about what you really mean? Bonus points if you can send a message so cryptic that it sparks a full-blown existential crisis.

Emojis are Worth a Thousand Words

Why use actual words when you can convey your thoughts and feelings through a series of emojis? The beauty of emojis lies in their ambiguity andability to spark miscommunication. So, next time you’re about to pour your heart out in a text, just send a winky face or a dancing cat, and call it a day. They’ll get the message, or not. Either way, you’ve successfully avoided any serious discussions and further cemented your position as a master of the emoji arts.

Save Those Precious Finger Muscles

We all know that typing is hard work. Those thumbs can only take so much before they stage a protest and go on strike. Save yourself from the horrors of carpal tunnel syndrome by keeping your text messages short and sweet. Remember, every character counts, so cut out any unnecessary words or phrases. Better yet, just stick to monosyllabic grunts like “Huh” or “Meh” to show your true commitment to brevity.

Keep it Light, Keep it Right

Text messages are no place for serious discussions. The last thing you want is to accidentally trigger a thoughtful conversation, delve into the depths of human emotions, or make a meaningful connection with another human being. Stick to the essentials: gossip, weather updates, and cat memes. It’s much better to keep conversations light, breezy, and utterly forgettable.

Conclusion

Embrace the art of texting minimalism, and watch your life transform into a beautiful symphony of superficiality. You’ll be the envy of all your friends as they struggle with their lengthy, serious conversations. So keep those texts short, avoid any serious discussions, and remember: when in doubt, just send an emoji! 😜

Until next time,

Rob

Rekindling Romance: Navigating the Dating Scene After Divorce at 49 in Boston

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Divorce can be a challenging and transformative experience as it has been for me. Still, it also opens up the opportunity for growth, self-discovery, and a new chapter in life. As a 49-year-old male in Boston, diving back into the dating scene after a divorce may seem daunting. However, with the right mindset and approach, you can find the ideal partner and rekindle the romance in your life.

  • Give Yourself Time to Heal

Before you start dating again, it’s crucial to allow yourself time to heal from the emotional turmoil of divorce. Take the time to process your feelings and focus on self-care. Engage in activities that bring you joy, connect with friends and family, and consider seeking professional help from a therapist or counselor if needed.

  • Establish a Solid Foundation

When you’re ready to start dating, it’s essential to have a strong sense of self and be clear on your values and goals. Ensure you clearly understand your relationship expectations and be prepared to communicate these with potential partners.

  • Utilize Online Dating Platforms

In today’s digital age, online dating platforms offer a convenient way to meet new people. There are numerous options catering to different preferences, such as eHarmony, Match, OkCupid, and niche dating sites for specific interests or age groups. Please don’t shy away from using these tools, as they can be an excellent way to connect with potential partners in Boston.

  • Attend Local Events and Activities

Boston is a vibrant city with a plethora of social events and activities. Attend local gatherings, such as wine tastings, book clubs, or cooking classes, to meet like-minded people. Volunteering is another excellent way to make new connections and foster meaningful relationships.

  • Be Open to New Experiences

Re-entering the dating scene might feel intimidating, but being open to new experiences is crucial for personal growth. Embrace the idea of meeting people from different backgrounds, trying new activities, and exploring Boston’s rich cultural scene. This approach will make dating more enjoyable and increase your chances of finding the right person.

  • Take it Slow

Rushing into a new relationship can be tempting, but taking things slow and allowing time to build trust and understanding is essential. Remember that you’re starting a new chapter in your life, and building a solid foundation for your future relationships is essential.

  • Seek Support

Having a solid support system is vital during dating after divorce. Reach out to friends and family for advice and encouragement. Consider joining a local support group or online forum where you can connect with others who have experienced similar situations.

  • Be Patient and Resilient

Finding the right partner may take time, and you might experience setbacks along the way. Stay patient and resilient, knowing each experience is a valuable opportunity to learn and grow. Don’t let temporary disappointments discourage you from pursuing your goals and finding the right person.

Conclusion

Dating after divorce can be a complex and challenging journey, but with the right mindset, tools, and support, you can find happiness and companionship in your post-divorce life. As a male, remember that this is an opportunity to rediscover yourself, create new connections, and ultimately find the right partner to share the next chapter of your life.

Until next time,

Rob

Working Remotely as an IT Pro in this age of COVID-19 – Tips to a Successful WFH Strategy for your end-users

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Hey All,

Its been a few months since I did my last blog post. Not making excuses, but working at an IT Director at a large Biotech can be challenging :).  I finally have some time to share some good tips I shared with my team and end-users during this COVID-19 Pandemic.  Having a good WFH (Work from Home) environment is key to keeping the balance at work and at home.

Get your technology in order

Technology is what enables remote work in the first place. So make sure to take your laptop home, and don’t forget your dock and charger. Also, take home your mouse, keyboard, and monitors — anything that might make working on your laptop from home a little easier. Then there’s the software. Make sure you have the right applications. Lots of remote workers are leaning heavily on Microsoft Teams. Slack, WebEx, and Zoom.  In fact, Microsoft is giving MS Teams out for free to use.

Iron out what your team is planning to use ASAP.  and of course, you’ll want to make sure all your technology actually works from home.

Make sure you have bandwidth

Another thing? Internet access — is yours robust enough at home to allow you to video conference? Many conferences and almost all nonessential work travel are being canceled right now, so people want to use online video conferencing, which requires a good Internet connection.  If your bandwidth is low and you’re on a video call, try shutting down other programs to lighten the load on your connection. If your connection is really choppy, you can often shut off the video portion of a call and participate with audio only, which defeats the purpose of seeing your team but will still allow you to participate in the conversation.

Another Internet hog? Kids.  If your connection is not robust, set some ground rules about when kids can’t be online because mom is on a conference call, or stagger your video meetings with your partner or other family members if possible

The kids are alright — but they’re home too

With school closures and concerns about putting kids in daycare, as well as staffing those places up, parents are faced with a challenge, especially parents who have to physically go to work because they have no remote work option. If you are working from home with kids in tow, you’ll need to make a plan for education and entertainment. Stock up on books and puzzles. Also, it’s OK to use streaming services (Common Sense Media has good recommendations for kid-appropriate content)

Manage expectations with Work

It’s wise to have a discussion with your manager about what can actually be accomplished from home.  Ask your manager what the priorities are, and discuss how tasks will get done.  How are teams going to track projects they’re working on? How will they meet to discuss this? Will you all be connecting on Microsoft Teams or email? Will there be standing meetings at a certain time to get everyone coordinated?  This should be an ongoing conversation. Remember, going fully remote is a new experience for many companies and their workers. Be honest about what isn’t working or can’t get done in these circumstances. More overall communication is going to be necessary.

Embrace the webcam

Conference calls are tough — there are time delays, not knowing who’s talking because you can’t see the person, people getting interrupted on accident. Webcams can solve a number of these issues: the sense of isolation and that confusion. “To be able to see the person you’re talking to I think is important,”. And also, because we miss cues when we aren’t working together in person, make doubly sure all colleagues understand their marching orders.  “Personally, I tend to overcommunicate, and I think that’s a good default setting,” Don’t be afraid to ask, “Is this clear?”   You can even try repeating back what you heard the other person say, to make sure you interpreted the person’s meaning correctly.

Stay connected

One undeniable loss is the social, casual “water cooler” conversation that connects us to people — if you’re not used to that loss, full-time remote work can feel isolating. To fill the gap, some co-workers are scheduling online social time to have conversations with no agenda. Use Microsoft Teams\Slack chats and things like that if you miss real-time interaction.  Again, embrace video calling and webcams so you can see your colleagues. Try an icebreaker over your team chat: What’s everyone’s favorite TV show right now? What’s one good thing that someone read that day?

Are you a Manager of a Team? – Have a Daily Stand-Up Meeting with your Team or a Virtual Lunch and Learn

Keep them quick and make sure everyone participates. We do this in my IT team every day. It keeps the team engaged. I plan on having virtual lunch and learns and have the company pickup lunch for the team.  Again…Keep everyone engaged.

Hopefully everyone is staying safe at home and off course keeping social distancing…Until next time and Stay Safe…..Rob

Surface 3 – First Impressions…

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Hi everyone….to start, I don’t normally write product reviews, but had to share my thoughts and experiences on the new Surface 3 (not the existing Surface Pro 3, which was released last year) as I love it as my new mobile computing device. This surface was released during the week of Microsoft Ignite 2015 (May 4th-8th) of which I received my that week have had 2 months to play with it.
Surface 3

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Nutanix Next Community podcast – ScienceLogic

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Again….at my job at Nutanix…I get to work with great partners and one of the first was ScienceLogic  🙂 .The Solutions team was great to work with and I really got a chance to see deep integration with Nutanix’s REST API and watch the their solution grow.
Below is podcast of an Interview that my awesome buddy TommyG (@NutanixTommy) and I did with Jim Weingarten (@jweingarten) from SL. Jim has a great perspective of the IT landscape and the current shift in Hybrid IT. It was great to work with Jim over the past few months and watch their solution evolve.

A little about ScienceLogic…

ScienceLogic is a software and service vendor. It produces information technology (IT) management and monitoring solutions for IT Operations and Cloud computing.
The company’s product is a monitoring and management system that performs discovery, dependency mapping, monitoring, alerting, ticketing, runbook automation, dashboarding and reporting for networks, compute, storage and applications.
The platform monitors both on-premises and cloud-based IT assets, enabling customers who use public cloud services, such as Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS), to migrate workloads to the cloud.

Enjoy the show…..Rob

Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference 2015…Picture Highlights

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Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference 2015 WPC is the largest event for Microsoft partners When it comes to meeting the right people in the right place, bigger is better. The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) brings together over 15,000 attendees … Continue reading →

Symon Perriman….his thoughts on Hyper-V, Security and future of Virtualization on the Nutanix .NEXT community podcast

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Hey everyone…I wanted to share a very cool update (and maybe a little of hero-worship 😀 ).  Well, anyways, my job at Nutanix had another highlight recently.  As many of your know, I love reading, breathing, consuming Microsoft technology. During my consumption of education, there  number of people I follow, but there are few that stand out…and one that I spent a lot of time listening to via podcasts; Symon Perriman

Symon Perriman

Symon Perriman
He takes complex technology subjects and explains it extremely well on many levels so everyone understands..He believes in the community….all things as technologists, we can all strive to achieve.

I recently had the lucky chance to interview him for the Nutanix .Next Community Podcast.  It was great honor to interview him with my colleaguebuddy @NutanixTommy as we both had different points of views.

Symon joined 5nine Software earlier this year as Vice President, Business Development & Marketing and is how I came to meet Simon as part of my job in Technical Alliances at Nutanix.

For those of you who are not familiar with 5nine Software, 5nine has a great alternative management product for Hyper-V with benefits of simplified vCenter type management without the footprint of System Center. They also are the only vendor with agentless security product via the Hyper-V extensible virtual switch. Think vShield for Hyper-V…Very cool…   😎

For those that are not familiar with Symon…a brief history…
With more than 12 years of experience in the high-tech industry, Symon is an internationally recognized expert in virtualization, high-availability, disaster recovery, data center management, and cloud technologies.

As Microsoft’s Senior Technical Evangelist and worldwide technical lead covering virtualization, infrastructure, management and cloud. He has trained millions of IT Professionals, hosted the “Edge Show” weekly webcast, holds several patents and dozens of industry certifications, and in 2013 he co-authored “Introduction to System Center 2012 R2 for IT Professionals” (Microsoft Press). He graduated from Duke University with degrees in Computer Science, Economics and Film & Digital Studies.

Enjoy the show……

Until next time, Rob…