Life with Tim

It's important to recharge. I've seen it time and time again, burnout. The reason that companies give you vacation time is so we don't burn out. It is important to take this time. I'm taking my first week off, that didn't have a major event, in almost 3 years. Amazing. I'm so excited to relax with my family and enjoy the amazing spring weather of Madison. Let's get back to normal, so we can do great things.

Start With Why * is a book about inspiring people. It is written by inspirational speaker Simon Sinek. I first discovered Simon through his lectures that you can find on youtube. I have saved some and stored them on a playlist here . The book starts out very simply on how you present your company. This seems like a great topic for leadership to read about :). Instead of presenting your words in WHAT we do, start by saying WHY you do things. They give the example of Apple that really stuck for me; Wrong : We make great computers. They are beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. Wanna buy one? Right : Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. And we happen to make great computers. Wanna buy one? ( Start With Why *; pg40-41, ch 3: The Golden Circle) I really like how the latter is phrase...

Well, I'm off to a great start for 2019. Although I debated if I could run due to some recent knee pains, I decided to run the Shamrock Shuffle 10K. This was the second time running this event for me and it was a great event again. The race started off on State Street in downtown Madison, WI. It did a small loop by the capital, then toward campus. Up the most challenging hills on Observatory Drive. It starts with a single switchback that isn't too horrible. However, after that is a pretty steep incline followed by a steep decline then another hill, then very flat for recovery. Unfortunately, they put a water station right at the end of the hill. The only water station, mind you, granted you hit it twice since it is a down and back race. After the 1/2 way point, we took the lakeside path back. I forget how amazing the campus area is, I need to find an excuse to run downtown more often. Anyway, once I hit Observatory again I walked the inclines and was slow on the declines...

OpenFaas  is a server-less framework for running functions on docker containers. It's wicked easy to configure, and deploy functions. I was impressed to find out that you can deploy it to Docker Swarm on a Raspberry Pi! How neat. Step 1) Install Docker > curl -fsSL get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh && sh get-docker.sh Step 2) Configure OpenFaas by following there really well done tutorial on OpenFaas.com Step 3) Configure a registry. Since you already have docker swarm running, deploy a stack with a registry running. Note, make sure to create the directory /data/registry. version: "3.3" services: repo: image: registry:2 ports: - 5000:5000 volumes: - '/data/registry:/var/lib/registry' and deploy with > docker stack deploy -c docker-stack.yml infra Step 4) Setup on Work Station. You only have have Docker and OpenFaaS CLI installed. Once you do that you should be good to go. Note that if you w...

Holy crap, it's almost a quarter the way through the year. Last year  my goal was to become a dad. Check. I also said "run sometimes". I did that, but less than what I was thinking. Turns out becoming a dad is a lot of work. Very rewarding though, she is worth all of it and then some. So yeah, 2018 really just boiled down to 1 goal, become a dad. :) 2019 is a new year I have the goal of reading more, I have a goal of reading 12 books. My job is helping a lot in that category. It feels like every other conversation I am in has a suggested book to read, and I'm loving it! So far I've completed 3 books (2 for work, 1 for fun). I have 3 books going right now. I have a goal of recreating my fitness regiment. I slipped in 2018, for good cause, but now it's time to get back on the horse. At first this was the same thing I did last year, "run more". That doesn't work. I need goals. So here is my goal, workout 3x per week. This can be run, bike, weig...

Also posted on medium . What makes a great leader? A leader, to me, is someone who looks out for the person next to them. That’s it. A manager can be a leader, but a leader does not need to be a manager. A leader is a role that someone chooses to take to make sure that everyone around them has a path for success. How people implement this varies in many ways. Here are some things I do. Being a manager you have a great opportunity to be a leader. You have this ability because you talk directly with everyone on your team on a pretty regular basis. There are a couple things that I do to help out to make sure everyone has a path for success. One on One meetups— These meetups are a great way to understanding individual needs/wants. How do you know what your teammate needs unless you talk about it? You can only get so much about an individual in a team meeting. The one on one is a moment where both parties can talk more deeply about the needs of both parties. This is a two way street. ...

I know it has been a very long while for a proper post but I suppose it is time. Only 4 blog posts this year, I must say I have been busy. 2017 was fully of joy, excitement, thrills, a few spills, and a ton of fun. Even if the blog doesn't show it. As planned Cassi and I were married in May on the lovely beaches of Cancun, MX. It was just lovely. It was a small ceremony right on the beach. I couldn't have asked for a better time. We then promptly finished building our house and moved right in a week later. By June we were living happily ever after in our brand new home. Later in the year we found out some more great news! We are planning on having a child come June 2018. We are both very excited for our next chapter. We also saw the passing of our elderly cat Snuggles. She lived a long and happy life dying at the age of 23, which is very old for a cat. She will forever live in our hearts. I partook in a few duathlons. Not as many as I had originally planned, partially d...