Vancouver is having its first snow fall of this winter.  The whole city is covered under snow.   The road condition is really bad with low visibility.  The street is empty, no one want to go outside since it is too dangerous to drive.  So I am trapped at home for the whole day due to the bad weather.  If the snow storm comes one day later, we will have a snow holiday.  Why can’t we have the snow storm on weekdays instead of weekend?

Since snow has start falling, my ski season officially begins.  Luckily I just took my ski to the ski shop for waxing yesterday.  I can pick it up on Friday, so I am ready to hit the mountain next weekend.  I am sure there will be a long line up in the ski shop next week.

Today I moved cubicle.  I moved back upstairs to the department I belongs to.  I ended my life living as an exile on loan to another department.  The physical environment is better.  The new cubicle is closer to the window, quieter and has more sunlight.  It is much better comparing to the old cubicle locating in the entrance of the aisle, which is noisy and dark.  The psychological environment is also better.  My department is much more organize and well managed than the on loan department.

It was like constantly fighting fire downstairs due to lack of planning.  The project is a disaster.  We are still finding bugs on the last day before tape out and push out the schedule.  It is very likely the manager will just say that’s enough and tape out the device once the last known bug fixed.  It is almost guarantee there will be more bugs hiding in the device if the device is in a constinous state of flux.  The device should reach a stable stage with no new bugs for a couple of weeks before tape out.  Not enough time to do testing earlier is not an excuse.  If the device is not properly tested, it is not ready to tape out.  They should either move out the tape out or put more resource in the planning phase.  Saying we will finish the tasks with best effort is just an excuse being too lazy to make a proper plan.

Once you heard the word “best effort”, you can pretty much write off quality in the work.  You can qualify the features, the scope, the priority, the schedule, but you can’t qualify what exactly is “best effort”.  At the end of day in the eye of the managers, the only measurement of “best effort” is long working hours.  It is a known fact that long working hours is not correlated to the quality of the finish product.  It is just a waste of time.  If time is tight, estimate how much work can be done, prioritize the work and do it right.  Sometimes we have to admit, we just don’t have enough time.  If we really can’t  move the schedule and we have to work over time, we should incorporate the over time into the schedule.  Be honest and say the project requires 60 hours a week to finish on time.  Don’t underestimate the work and try to sneak overtime into the schedule as a unpleasant surprise.

Canadian Gunnutz is a probably the most informative forum for Canadian shooters.  A forum is a virtual meeting place in the net.  It is hard to meet people loves shooting in real life, shooting is not a common sports after all.  It is important for the nurturing of marksmanship by talking fellow shooters, exchange tips for the skills or experience with different firearms.  The website also has a buy and sell board, let the members can exchange their firearms.  I think it is probably the biggest 2nd hand firearm resources in Canada.

It is fun to read the endless debate on which gun is better.  I don’t know whether is it people grow to love the guns they own or they buy the guns the because they love them.  It is easier to compare different models.  you can always look at the numbers and objectively determine which one is the right gun for the right task.  It is a lot harder to compare same model from different manufacture.  I have been looking to get a 1911, but there are over 20 makers fro 1911.  Even within the same maker, they offer a dozens of variations.  A custom made 1911 can goes from several thousands to several tens of thousands.  Production 1911 sells from eight to twenty hundreds.  Chinese copy is selling for as long as four hundreds.  I think after reading all the postings, take balance between price and quality, I will go for a mid-range Kimber 1911 for the best value.