The Domino Chick
Ch-ch-changes
Thursday, July 17th, 2008
Cross-posted from my new blog. Comments are closed here; please post comments there.In the past couple of years, I've been through a series of changes both big and small - moving back to New York City, getting married, changing blogs. Today brings another in that series of changes, as it is my last day with IBM.
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 07:15:00 AM
Location: New York, NY
Hiatus
Friday, June 20th, 2008
I'm having so much fun writing and posting photos at my new blog that I am taking a hiatus from this one for an indefinite period. Don't be sad - you can still find me at all of the following places:My personal blog
Flickr
Bye for now!
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 06:53:22 PM
Location: New York, NY
Engaged!
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
Some of you may have seen the congratulatory post on Paul's blog, but here's the official word. Over the weekend (on my birthday, no less), my boyfriend proposed to me and I said yes! We're very happy and excited. Of course, we both keep looking at each other and going, "Oh my god! We're engaged!" It'll probably take us a couple of weeks to get used to it. :-)I also have some other great news - I'm transitioning to a new role, effective September 1. My new title is Lotus Brand Architect within the Technical Sales organization. Basically, I'll be responsible for architecting multi-product solutions across the entire Lotus product portfolio. While that's exciting, the best part about it is that it's regional - meaning that the constant travel I've been doing for the last three years will slow down significantly. Hello, social life! Now I'll have time to do things like... plan my wedding. Despite what it may look like, these two events are unrelated, but they sure do complement each other well!
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 11:56:24 AM
Location: Waltham, MA
On the road again
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
I haven't had much time to drive the new wee car since I got it, as I've been either flying to other cities or working from home in NYC, where I don't need to drive much. Customers in New Jersey and upstate New York should start requesting my presence so I can drive more! I kid, I kid. At the moment, I'm in Chicago, which is one of my favorite cities, so I will probably be spending my evenings enjoying my limited free time and spending it with friends and colleagues.Which brings me to my issue - I rarely have time to blog here, and when I do, I don't have much to say. As much as I'd love to post tips and tricks, I stare at this little tabbed Notes form and just blank on things to write. So, I think I will take an official break (as opposed to my normal long silences with no explanation). However, what I will do instead of babbling nonsensically is continue to update the photo blog, and post photos that I've taken during my travels. You know what they say - a picture is worth a thousand words!
Don't worry, I'll break my self-imposed exile to announce the winner of the car naming contest, which is open until Tax Day in the U.S. - April 15. So name away!
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 10:40:37 AM
Location: Chicago, IL
A slight distraction
Friday, February 23rd, 2007
Those of you who know me know that I'm a MINI enthusiast. I decided to get a new one - well, new to me, but it's only a few months old - and today, the dealer brought it over. It's a Cooper S with the JCW kit, with lots of good stuff like a bike rack so that my partner and I can take weekend trips upstate and he can go cycling while I lounge with my feet up, sipping a spiked cup of hot cocoa.Here it is:
Now here's the fun part! I haven't named it yet, and that's where you guys come in. I don't care about gender - some prefer to name their cars with a woman's name, and I have named all past cars with a woman's name, but these little cars break tradition in many ways, so that one can be broken as well. I was leaning towards naming the car with some sort of sci-fi, comic book, or pop culture related reference. However, all suggestions will be considered equally. The winning suggestion gets a ride in the car if they're ever in NYC, or an adult beverage of your choice (or dessert, for non-drinkers or those with a sweet tooth) at the next conference we both attend. So suggest away in the comments!
Oh, and Jess, maybe I'll see you at a MINI rally!
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 05:10:07 PM
Location: New York, NY
A solution to those DST woes
Friday, February 16th, 2007
I, along with a number of my colleagues (including the eternally patient and awesomely knowledgeable Susan Bulloch) have been working on educating customers about the upcoming DST changes for a while now. A few of us have come up with some novel solutions to help make the DST changes as painless as possible.1. Ban all meetings for the period between March 11 and April 2, and October 28 and November 4. Productivity will go through the roof.
2. Remember those things we used to hang on our walls that had dates on them? Say it with me - pa-per ca-len-dars.
3. IT people should all plan to be on planes to various destinations for at least a three week vacation no later than March 10. Since Hawaii and Puerto Rico do not observe DST, I strongly suggest packing up your swimsuit and heading to either destination.
Or, you can take this fellow's approach.
Any other suggestions are welcome!
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 08:14:58 AM
Location: New York, NY
5 Things
Friday, January 19th, 2007
So, I got tagged with this thing where you have to tell people 5 things that not too many people know about you a couple of weeks ago, and haven't had time to think up a bunch of trivia about myself. I've been a bit busy, what with coming up with technical gems for Lotusphere attendees. I figured I'd tackle it now, while I'm procrastinating packing for the trip. That'll be relevant in a few minutes.1. When I was in high school, I participated in a junior version of Toastmasters. I wasn't the best speaker in the world or anything, but I'd like to think that it prepared me for speaking at Lotusphere and other conferences. Speaking in front of a room full of 1,000 Lotusphere attendees might be scary, but it pales in comparison to speaking in front of a room full of grouchy teenagers.
2. Before I was a techie, I was an accountant. No, I will not do your taxes (though I do prepare taxes for my more IRS-fearing friends).
3. I can pack enough clothes, cameras, and toiletries for a 14 day trip in one 20" carry-on suitcase. In less than 20 minutes. That's right, I'm that awesome. Deal with it.
4. I may or may not have one or more tattoos.
5. I am a distant relative of Father Michael McGivney, who founded the Knights of Columbus. (Oddly enough, a CSR on a recent call to American Airlines recognized the last name and tied it in to the KofC reference, which is more than I can say for the staff at the museum at KofC headquarters when I was there a few months ago!) I am one of only two people currently alive who is a blood relative of both the founder of the Knights of Columbus and a founding member of the American Legion. (If you can't tell, I'm kind of a history geek.)
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 01:32:01 AM
Location: New York, NY
2006 Year in Review
Friday, January 5th, 2007
While I'd like to do a comprehensive year in review, I'm all busy working on my Lotusphere presentations. So, instead, I will present my year in review in this convenient bulleted list!In 2006, I:
Huh. Seems like I did a lot more than that in 2006. I know I did, it's just hard to boil it all down to a bulleted list. Ha! And here I thought it'd be more convenient.
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 01:15:07 AM
Location: New York, NY
Baseball fever
Monday, May 8th, 2006
Most people who read this know that I travel a lot for work. How much, you ask? On average, I'm on the road 3 weeks out of the month. The bulk of that is domestic U.S. travel, but every so often I'm lucky (or I go on vacation) and I get to go out of the country. Since most of this travel is for business, my evenings are usually free. A lot of the time, I know people in the cities I visit, but even then, sometimes I end up looking for things to do. Couple that with the fact that I'm a complete baseball geek (who am I kidding, I'm a geek about everything I like) and you get my project for the next couple of years: I intend to visit every Major League ballpark. This is to the great delight of a few of my friends, who like baseball nearly as much as I do and would be happy to aid me in my quest by attending baseball games with me. :-)To that end, last week I was in Milwaukee and attended a game at Miller Park. It's a really nice park - nice concessions, easy parking, a cool retractable roof, and everything is designed so you don't miss a moment. They have a TGI Friday's in the park, and pretty much every seat in the dining area overlooks left field. There's even a little balcony area - it looked like it was close enough that we could've tossed down some hot wings to the outfielders. We were able to snag field-level seats about an hour before the game started for under $40/person, which is pretty cheap (by L.A. standards, of course - I notice wide variance in ticket prices around the country). I noticed that they also had bleacher seats for $5, so going to a game in Milwaukee is pretty affordable. They played against Houston, and since I really don't care about either team unless they're battling the Dodgers for the wildcard towards the end of the season, I rooted for the home team, but the Astros (Libby's team) won. All in all, it was a great game. Some photos are over at my photoblog.
I'm getting ready to go to Boston for the View's Admin2006 conference, where I'll be presenting a few sessions. I've got a head cold right now, so I'm doing everything I can to get rid of the congestion before I fly. Hopefully I'll be sniffle-free by the time I get there. I hope to see you there!
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 05:18:45 PM
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Google Calendar
Thursday, April 13th, 2006
I'm testing out the new Google Calendar features. I created a public calendar feed, where I'll post appearances at events like Lotusphere, DNUG, and the View. You can put the XML feed into any feed reader and the iCal feed in any iCal-compatible calendar application. I'm going to play with it some more and see what I can do with it. Fun!Permanent Link | Comments: Read (0)
Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 03:13:23 PM
Location: Los Angeles, CA
2005 - Year in review
Monday, January 2nd, 2006
I'm going to steal Ed's format for this year in review because I love bulleted lists like nothing else. If I could marry bulleted lists, I would. Anyway.I didn't blog as much as I would have liked to this year, and I heard about it from a lot of people, customers included. (Thanks, Steven! I can always count on you for a good heckling. And sorry about the misspelling!) I hate to use my constant travel as an excuse, but I will - it's difficult for me to find enough left over brain matter to conjure up something interesting most of the time. But really, the reason for the lack of blogging is that this year has been such a complete rollercoaster for me. I've been pretty much off-balance the whole year. Some really amazing, wonderful things have happened, and some really awful things have happened. I haven't talked about most of these things here, because I like to keep things light, fun, and full of monkeys. So I'll throw out some highlights for you. And some monkeys.
Memories from 2005:
------------------------------------
Travel highlights from 2005:
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Wishes for 2006
--------------------
I wish everyone a happy, healthy, successful 2006. I want to thank all of my friends and colleagues for being there for me this year and I hope next year will be even more amazing than this one.
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 03:55:42 PM
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Katrina - relief efforts
Thursday, September 1st, 2005
We've all seen the images of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina this week. I'm glad all my friends in the affected areas are safe, but there are countless people who aren't, or whose homes and livelihoods have been eradicated by this disaster.Some ways to help:
My pals at blogging.la have a post up with links to relief effort sites.
Channel 4 WWL in New Orleans has information about the disaster and relief efforts.
If you're into poker, my friend Wil has, through the help of PokerStars, set up a couple of tournaments, and the buy-ins will benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Since that post, there's been so much interest that two more charity tourneys have been set up.
More information on donations and help can be found at the Red Cross and FEMA websites. My thoughts are with all of those affected by this tragic event.
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 01:07:35 AM
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Alive and kicking
Monday, June 27th, 2005
I'm baaaaaack. Aren't you excited?With my triumphant return thus announced, I'd like to welcome a shiny new addition to the Domino blog family (I hate the word blogosphere!) - Susan Bulloch. Susan
(By the way - yes, I know, I haven't posted in a while. Thanks for reminding me, Steven.) ;-)
One of the reasons I haven't been blogging very much - and there are many, I swear! - is that I've been traveling a lot. Couple that with working on a couple of artistic projects, and there's no space left over in my brain to come up with new blog content. I'll keep trying, though.
For now, I thought I'd start a Kathleen-tracker. I'm going to list every city I've been to this year, just for kicks. I'll put this into the sidebar at some point (though I may need help with that - Rocky?), but here's the list so far. An asterisk denotes a city that I'd never been to before.
Hartford, CT*
Orlando, FL (I bet you can guess what this was for!)
Pleasanton, CA
Chicago, IL
Rochester, NY
Canandaigua, NY (personal)
Rosemead, CA (barely counts as travel, but it's L.A. traffic, so I'm counting it)
Detroit, MI*
Columbus, OH*
Kansas City, MO*
Grand Rapids, MI*
Charlotte, NC* (where I got to sample some of Susan's world famous home cookin')
Pittsburgh, PA*
Dublin, Ireland (personal)
London, England (personal)
Boston, MA
San Jose, CA
New York, NY
Columbus, IN*
North Chicago, IL
Phoenix, AZ (present)
As you can see, I've visited two Columbuses (Columbii?) already, and I'm scheduled to visit a third in August, rounding out the Columbus trifecta.
Hey, I warned you guys this blog would be about travel sometimes, too. ;-)
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 07:33:55 PM
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Germ-o-rama
Thursday, February 17th, 2005
After spending a week recovering from Lotusphere (and really, it did take a week - it was intense this year), I spent last week just outside of San Francisco in Pleasanton, CA doing some knowledge transfer with a customer. In some ways, it was like a mini- Lotusphere Comes to You, because I delivered the Domino Administrator jumpstart as well as the AdminP session, along with 4 or 5 FSS* presentations. The hecticness of Lotusphere finally caught up with me, though - I had been fighting off a cold for a few days before I flew up there, but I think 6 hours of talking each day for 3 days straight made my immune system declare mutiny and refuse to help any more. I woke up on Thursday with a very sore throat and almost no voice. A day of rest and no talking, except to order a smoothie from one of those oh-so-Californian juice places, was just what the doctor ordered, and I felt well enough on Friday to conclude my talks.So here's my totally non-technical related question: for someone like me, who flies one round-trip every other week on average but sometimes one or two per week, what is the best way to boost my body's defenses so I don't keep getting colds? This is the third cold in as many months, and I try what my doctor and friends have said - lots of water, daily multivitamin plus extra vitamin C and B-complex, take Airborne or Emergen-C when I fly, and frequent handwashing. I feel like I'm doing everything possible to prevent getting colds and I'm still getting them. Any tips from frequent flyers, moms, doctors, and anyone else who has to deal with germy people often would be appreciated.
* FSS = Field Support Services, which is my team.
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 10:09:16 AM
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Volunteers?
Wednesday, October 27th, 2004
I'd like to take a break from our irregularly scheduled geek programming to mention something that I think is important - for US citizens. For everyone outside the US, please bear with me.You may have noticed in the news lately that there is a major shortage of pollworkers for this coming Tuesday's presidential election. According to USA Today, there is a shortage of half a million pollworkers right now. This shortage is bound to cause long lines, frustration, and potentially, ballot problems or delayed results in the election.
You probably don't know this, but I am a volunteer pollworker. I take a day off during regular elections, primaries, and, if necessary, special elections to work at my local polling place. And I'd like to ask you and your friends and family to join me.
It's not difficult - you need to learn the processes and procedures so that the election rules are upheld, but they're not complicated. You might be surprised by all the checks and balances that happen in an individual polling place to make sure all voters and ballots are properly accounted for. Don't get me wrong - the hours are long, the pay is negligible, and dealing with grumpy voters who have been in line for an hour can be challenging. But you get the satisfaction of knowing that you've directly participated in and helped others with the electoral process - and I can tell you, it's immensely satisfying.
This election promises to have one of the highest turnouts in recent history, and we need more pollworkers to help make sure it goes smoothly. I know we're all busy - I'm so busy it took me a minute to remember what city I'm in right now - but I think that taking one day out of my busy schedule to help make sure something as important as a presidential election runs smoothly is something I can make time for.
This site has a direct link to each state's official web site. Information on volunteering as a pollworker is usually on the Secretary of State's page, or on the County Clerk's page. It's not too late to volunteer - training sessions where I live are going on right up until the day before the election. No matter what your political affiliation or opinion, please take a look at your schedule and see if you can help. The integrity of the electoral process depends on volunteer citizens.
And if you can't volunteer, please be nice to your volunteer pollworkers on election day. :-)
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 05:57:04 PM
Location: Chicago, IL
Back in black
Thursday, May 20th, 2004
I'm back safe and sound in L.A. I have lots of things to blog about, not to mention getting some extra files up from the Admin2004 show, but I also have to catch up with the insane amount of work I missed while I was gone, so frequent posting won't start until next week.But quickly, I found a quote that I think Ed and his evil twin might like:
Even "The Magic 8 Ball" is smart, and knows Microsoft Sucks. It says "Outlook Not Good."
Full review of the Admin2004 show & lots of funtimes Linux goodness coming soon!
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 08:14:44 AM
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Busy Busy
Wednesday, April 21st, 2004
An apology for the lack of posts recently - I've been working like crazy on about a billion projects, while also tending to some personal matters. Some highlights:In between working on A Major Project at work the weekend before last, played tour guide for Chris when he visited L.A.; while working on said Major Project, confirmed that there is no easy way to touch archive settings for multiple users in R5, which made me really appreciate policies in 6 even more; worked on slides for my talks at Admin2004, which I'm putting the finishing touches on now; and played tour guide again for a whole slew of other friends last weekend during the Artwalk at the artists' community where I live.
I'll be back to Domino geekery as soon as possible. I need to get those presentations finished ASAP, though, so I probably won't be posting much until next week. And I'll try to have my RSS feed back up by then, too!
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 08:21:01 AM
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Welcome Aboard
Thursday, April 1st, 2004
This is a test of the emergency broadcast system.Well, not really. It's my first post in my lovely Domino blog.
My friends have been pestering me to get my Domino blog up and running for a while now, so here it is. I'll attempt to post frequently about my adventures with Notes, Domino, QuickPlace, Sametime (I can never get used to those long names that IBM changed them to, so Sametime and QuickPlace they will remain), WebSphere, and my latest obsession, running all of them (and many other things) on Linux. Expect much geekiness and probably a lot of snarky comments in the future.
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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 10:00:00 AM
Location: Los Angeles, CA
