Category: Uncategorized

strategery and plans

My current job involves strategic planning. Some of the distinctions I’ve encountered in the course of this job have inspired some applying-work-concepts-to-my-life thinking, to whit:

  • strategic planning: determining mission, setting broad goals, and identifying potential challenges and thinking about how to address them. I spend a lot of time on this. I may identify more goals than are practical. (E.g. I will learn spanish, gymnastics, to play the guitar, therapeutic massage, and swing dance. I will earn a promotion and a phd. I will find a job better suited to my interests. I will slim down and bulk up. I will eat well and stay healthy. I will see the world. I will complete a marathon and/an ironman. Build a relationship with a most excellent man. Raise one or two awesome kids. Have sufficient $ that I can do what I want.) Some of these goals are complementary (pretty body and heart health) and some are not (promotion, phd, and new job). Narrowing the range or at least prioritizing them would help.
  • operations planning: or resource planning, making sure I have what I need (time, money, support and assistance) to do what I want. Other than believing I have infinite time (big problem), I seem to do okay at this, so more work required.
  • implementation planning: organizing the resources you have to accomplish the goals you set for yourself. This may involve operationalizing abstract goals. (See also “get fit” -> “3 hours of cardio per week”). This is budgeting, scheduling, and all those other boring and essential activities. Aside from operationalizing goals (the better to guilt myself with, I suppose), I basically do not do this one. This is where I fall down go boom.

Each type of planning informs the other types of planning. Each is an ongoing process. It is not sequential.

I’m not saying I need to plan every moment of my life, but a little more thought about how I spend my life, particulalrly focusing on the concrete day to days might help improve the quality of my life, or at least make sure more of my plans make it into reality.

WoW Stuff

Given the changes in recent WoW Patches, I’m wondering how long it will be before we have mages who tank and heal.

Trying to start a horde instancing group with . (level 1 – 80, baby). So far, recruitment has been problematic.

Why on earth Blizzard doesn’t allow inter-realm and inter-faction chat is beyond me. Why they don’t make it easier to change servers also boggles me. (If transfers were, say $5-10, I’d probably do it once a week to once a month. Way more profit.) Other possibilities include allowing inter-realm raiding, sorta like how they have inter-realm PvP. I say this knowing jack and shit about how their servers are actually set up, of course.

android still blows

Hmm, it seems I still dislike the game android. I wish I hadn’t wasted an entire afternoon (and $17 in cab fare) to find that out.

Major complaints:

  • I dislike a direct “screw others out of their turns/bits/” mechanic.
  • I dislike direct “undo everything player X just did” mechanics.
  • I dislike waiting 18 minutes for a 2 minute turn.

It has many clever mechanics. But not many fun mechanics. I think I will categorically refuse to play it again. Sorry to anyone who spent money on it. Hope you enjoy it more than I did.