Spec’ing

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, my son came to me with a good idea for a web site. So this week, while waiting for work to come in or to hear something (anything) concerning the third contract, I started fleshing out the requirements.

It has been fun and a great way to both fill my time and contribute to a possible future family fortune J. We need to find a great web developer and graphic artist, algorithm wiz, database designer and data miner. We need them to come on board for free, in return for part of the company. I currently have no idea how to do this and will soon start talking to friends to benefit from their experiences.

When I first started my career my title was systems analyst, and in addition to understanding the functional requirements, I also provided basic database design, with rationalized entities and their attributes. In Israel that is not considered part of the job, and also how we hold databases has changed and we have experts who work with the developers on this. As part of my son’s project I am again looking (at least) at the entities and attributes, as a large part of the added value of the web site will come from data mining. I find this fascinating and challenging and it reminds me of earlier times.

Days with ‘nothing’ to do

There are long stretches in my day that are not filled work-wise. I do not have the calmness required to read a book, and I feel quite jumpy. If I knew that I would not get the third contract, I would hopefully go after every possible project; but I don’t do this – so we have lethargy.

This blog helps, and I also read articles from the various professional forums. But this is not enough. Yesterday my son came to me with a great idea for a new website, so I am now researching the idea and writing up a brief description. That gives me more interest, but I see myself falling into a pit. I had a friend at work, who I shared a room with, and he was let go a year before me. We talk on the phone and occasionally meet and he is always cheerful. The last time we met, he was at the office to pitch a workshop he wanted to hold (and did after I left). This was after I knew that I was leaving. He whispered to me that it isn’t easy going it alone, that there are times when he is down, and then he forces himself to be cheerful and positive about the future. I think I am at that point. I feel ‘teary’ and it really isn’t justified.

I need to make lists of everything I wanted to do while I wasn’t busy – such as to sort out all the books in our library, throw out old clothes from the wardrobes, plan the future renovation of the apartment (on hold until our cat passes away); what else? Originally I kept waiting for cooler weather, so it would be easier; but here we are at the end of November and the weather is still hot. So I think I need to be bold and settle for perspiring. I also need to go on those small trips I keep talking about.

In addition, I need to shrug off the custom that we can only go to visit people at the weekend or evening; or indeed go on small trips. So this afternoon we are going to visit family who live quite far away. I also plan to go on a walking trip around Jaffa soon.

My son (the other one) has stated that this all down to worrying too much over things beyond my control. “Worry not, lest ye be worried,” is his advice.

Supermarket confusion

First some background. Cleaning materials and items such as biscuits, tea, coffee and milk can be claimed for income tax purposes. Originally, I hadn’t intended to claim these, but Ayelet explained to me that the tax man always strikes out some entries, even if all are perfectly legit, and so I should claim everything – so he causes less damage.

So Shaul and I went to our supermarket. I had explained to Shaul the procedure, but I must have made a botch-up of the explanation, and he mixed items up at the check-out point. I got nervous and started rearranging the items and kept saying to him (loudly) “No, not that; yes, yes that,” and so on. He swore never to go shopping with me again. Finally everything was split into two bills, and then I had to get a formal receipt at another desk, which took time and I could feel his patience stretching even thinner. Finally I was the proud possessor of a formal invoice for the recognized goods.

And I have to repeat this next time we go shopping. Hopefully we will get used to the routine and the tension will be reduced.

Wireless worries

I have a wireless router, I have a supposedly fast connection (it never is even with only one PC attached), so theoretically there shouldn’t have been a problem adding my laptop to the network. Sure.

First-off I had protected my PC (running Windows XP) so that it could not be accessed by external users, but even though I knew my own password, I couldn’t get the router to accept the laptop (Windows 7).  I also couldn’t access the router – the default user and password (as supplied in the documentation) didn’t work. So I phoned the phone company (who provided the router) and found that it was best to pay 9.90 shekels a month for technical support. As this is no longer a private affair, I agreed to this. It took a long while, but eventually the laptop was set up and could see both the router and the printer. In order to be efficient, I was sitting with the laptop next to the PC, thus was not aware that there would be other problems.

When I took the laptop back to my office, I noticed that the signal strength was poor to fair, and often I couldn’t access the router at all. In previous posts I mentioned that to download updates (or anything large) I would move the laptop to be near the router. In addition, the printer was always offline unless I was right next to the router. Recently it just became too much and there was one day when I could hardly access the internet. I went onto the PC network map and saw that I had intruders accessing my (by now unsecured) network. So I marked them as intruders and phoned the phone company. This time they first secured the network so I would no longer have intruders, and made it so I could still access the router from my laptop. But that didn’t solve the problem of the poor signal, and I was recommended to buy an extender (they call it a repeater - 9.90 shekels a month for 24 months – special offer).

So off I went to town and waited for a long time in a queue to buy the extender. I got it home, installed it and could not find a convenient place near an electric outlet that could reliably receive a signal from the router. I was getting really fed up at this point. I found an extension cable and eventually located a reasonable spot (near the door) in our guest bedroom (the extender has to be approximately mid-way between the router and the laptop) that received a good signal from the router. The only problem is that we now have cables snaking across the guest bedroom (apologies to children who have left home and had their bedrooms reassigned).

Okay, so finally I received a good signal, the download speed was improving, but now the printer was offline. Another call to the phone company, we redefined the printer, and would you believe it I think that I now have proper and reasonable wireless connectivity!

Startup problems

I don’t mean my problems, but those of startups that started small and have suddenly expanded. One of my two contracts is for a startup whose progress I have followed closely as a friend of mine was very involved with it. There were only a handful of people working and they all fitted into 2 rooms. Gradually they started developing a product, won awards, were asked to provide pilots and realized that they needed to grow up. So they employed marketing and sales personnel and increased the development head count.

Previously the original guys did everything and felt that they owned the process and the product. That, as we all know is a great and giddy feeling. But today that has all changed and there are actual heads for most jobs. The original team has to learn to pass across responsibility and lose some of the control. Not an easy thing to do.

I went in for a meeting and all I could see was lack of communication and minor political in-fighting of who is responsible for what. I mentioned this, saying that it is much easier to notice such stuff when you are on the outside looking in, gave a few examples that I’d seen, and I sincerely hope that they take the comment on board and sort themselves out quickly.

So what am I doing to reaffirm myself?

Well first off Shaul and I walk to the beach most mornings. This is when the shadows are still long and gentle, the waves gently lapping and the birds shaking themselves out of the trees. I used to go to the gym at lunchtime (double-whammy, not only do you exercise but you also eat healthily afterwards), but that is now far away and I hope to replace the exercise by walking, isometrics and stretching. But the walk to the beach is much more than exercise; it is a balm to the soul – both sight and sound. Traffic is still scarce (except for bikes and joggers) and we have time to chat with each other.

I started doing yoga again, but must have overdone it and both my back and knees complained; so we’ll need to take a different approach on that. My yoga teacher is my wonderful daughter-in-law, so not only do I have a yoga lesson but we spend quality time together.

I signed up to audit a university course and find that fun and mildly stimulating. This weekend we went to the Hula. It is that time of year when there are thousands of cranes coming in and even some pelicans are still around. We got up at 3:30 so we could be there at 6:30 to see the cranes perform mass take-offs to go feeding. The noise and the arrow formations are something else. Later, when it started to warm up, the pelicans took to the air. They are massive and it felt like the air force was exercising. There must have been a couple of hundred pelicans, in groups of 10 or so.

I promised myself that I’d catch up on my reading – but that has not happened yet, though I do read the newspaper (not just skim the headlines). My reading list is long and varied, from books trying to make sense of the Middle East, Richard Dawkins, a new (for me) Umberto Eco collection – Turning Back the Clock, and background reading on Antarctica. We are going on a 7-week voyage at the end of the season to the Antarctic Peninsula and then up the South Atlantic towards the Equator. Seven years ago we visited Antarctica from New Zealand, and this will round off the subject.

Something else is cooking. I now cook quick and healthy meals (even tasty) at lunchtime. I got used to eating out, but however good the food was, I had no control over the amount of oil and salt used. My waistline reflected this. I enjoy the cooking and it doesn’t take up too much time. It is usually based on the premise that there are 1001 ways to cook chicken breast. These are quick to cook and the marinade makes all the difference and stops the boredom. Anyway, it makes me feel good about myself (that I am looking after myself) and that is reaffirmation in my book.

Paying VAT for the first time

There is something in my character that requires me to fill in forms before the deadline, to be legally exact, and generally be a model citizen. Boring.

I went online to register my VAT returns (is that the correct term?). I had signed up to do it online, rather than wait in a queue at the post office. When I registered with the VAT authority I was told that my first return should be for October, and that I had until mid-November to do this. I felt confident, I had entered all my expenditures for October, calculated the VAT on items with depreciation and items without depreciation, items with 100% VAT and items with 2/3rds recognized, etc., etc.

Somehow I ended up at a page where they wanted me to enter each receipt manually. That didn’t sound right and I correctly panicked and phoned Ayelet (my tax advisor). I had ended up at the wrong place. She guided me through the process, which was as simple as I had originally thought, and voila it was completed. But lucky I phoned her. Because of the fact that I only start earning in November, I had nothing to balance the VAT I had spent on my purchases; so I had to put a zero in all the boxes and I’ll report on both VAT spent and VAT received in mid-January.

Now I have to work out how to pay national insurance online.