I've been at CM for 1 Year Now.

Kick. Ass.

Yet another major milestone was hit recently. World Wide Guides, a Hyatt project that I have been working on for a long time has finally gone live. This project is essentially the full localization of all 200-and-something Hyatt Hotels into 10 different languages including Japanese and Russian; with simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and Korean to follow soon. Not only did I do a large part of the web development work on this website, but I also ended up doing a some of the apps development work.

Really this project was the project that I "Grew up on.". This was really the project that turned me from a Junior Web Developer to a Senior. It feels good to have something this big, and this significant (at least, to me) out the door.

So, if you read French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian or Japanese (or are just interested) check the site out.

I just finished the first week as the Senior Web Developer for our team at Critical Mass. Wow. Hard Work. My running joke for the week has been "Whos bright idea was it to take on this job?" This has been an especially difficult week to begin this kind of role: a major project was going live (more on this later) and there was a new employee to take care of. It was very much an out-of-the-pot-and-fat-into-the-fire situation! Luckily for me, the "new" employee has worked there before, and is already quite skilled and knowledgeable, so I didn't really need to hold his hand. On top of that, the already established team leads are nothing but top-freaking-notch, so they were able to help this greenhorn along.

I've already identified the various skill sets I am lacking, and need to improve on. I don't want to fall into the world of management, turning into that balding guy with glasses on the C-Train, reading "Improve your personal power" on his blackberry, whilst listening to Tony Robbins on his MP3 player. Yeuch.

One of the things that has really opened my eyes with this promotion is how I view management culture in general, and all the implicit assumptions I have about workplace culture. It's all very turgid and confused, but the fundamental crux of this introspection is that I need to be enough of a leader to actually lead, but I also need to step back and let the team members shine through as well. It's a whole different level of chainsaw juggling. I plan on taking a very Taoist lead-from-behind style of leadership.

This is such an awesomely amazing opportunity for me to grow as a person—both personally and professionally. I am ready.

I've learned 292 Kanji so far. I started really honestly trying to learn the kanji at the tail end of January, seeing as how it has only been a month and a half.. call it 50 days, this is fairly significant. I really owe it all to Remembering the Kanji by James W. Heisig. It is, bar none, the only way to really try and take on written Japanese as a second language.

Its pretty freaking cool.

Not as much fanfare this time. Still got the chillout and Alan Watts happening.

It's our 5th year Anniversary. Wow. 5 years.

When I think back on my relationship with Shell, I think about how I was sure that this was not "the" relationship. In those early times, I recall how often everything with her could have totally gone pare-shaped.

It didn't.

But not only did it not go pare-shaped, but our relationship grew and grew. I think a large part of this is because we keep allowing ourselves, and each other room to grow. We encourage each other to develop in the directions we need to go in, with just the right amount of pressure. Even under the most stressful of circumstances and situations, we have been able to turn the worst into an opportunity for growth, change, and even intimacy.

So...

Thank you Shell. Thank you for your patience, your understanding and your love. Here is to another 5 years, another 10 years, another 50 years...

I love you.

I'm feelin mighty chuffed. Yesterday, I blogged about a few SXSW podcasts I really enjoyed. And now, Boing-boing has done the same, but look at the dates.

So I pre-boinged instead of post-boinged. Which is to say, I wrote the same blog post as boing-boing before they did, rather then the other way around.