Posted in coolness, music, Real Life

What On Earth is Scrumming?

About 5 years ago, my project manager at Fidelity asked my coworker and I to attend a class in North Carolina so we could be a pilot Agile project team. The class they were running was for becoming certified Scrum Masters, so that’s what we became. It’s been a long time since that training, or at least it feels that way. My coworker and I were laid off, I got rehired into a different business unit and a few years ago I accepted a retirement package offer and moved to Europe to live in a castle.
No, wait, I got another job, my “post-career career”. I’m still immersed in websites and giving users the best experience we can. And still working with or adjacent to Agile Scrum Teams.

At our last Quarterly planning meeting I said “I should have my son write an Agile Song” for the next quarterly planning meeting. Which starts tomorrow.
Behold the song I created with my son. I wrote the lyrics, and he did everything else including re-organizing them, making a couple of changes, and blowing me the heck away. The last time we did this, we wrote the song “The Big W” about “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and I won’t pick favorites, I love them equally.

The song will eventually be available on Apple Music, Amazon Music and others, probably under the band name “Just Ducky” so Mike won’t have to sully his Outlyer brand with weird songs his mother wrote.


Spotify Link! https://open.spotify.com/track/0YPV6jllu0ZcJPqNJui3y9?si=5e6714214c0e4e05

Or listen at https://www.bigdumptruck.com/agile-song/

(And The Big W is here.)

The Agile Song (Scrumming)
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Posted in parenting, Shopping

Want Some Cheese?

I sent my son to pick up a few things for me at the grocery store. I created a very detailed list with instructions on exactly where to find some of the items I needed, so he would get the right things and not waste a lot of time wandering.

I thought the list I gave him was too detailed, but I know where the things I want are located and I don’t want to risk him buying the wrong thing. So yes, he took an overly detailed list to the store.

He bought the things on my list, took them home and put them away. Life is good! I wondered if maybe I don’t need to put so much detail in the list next time.

I finally looked in my fridge, 3 hours after he got back. I asked him to pick up a package of the American cheese I like. I assumed he’d know which package I’ve been buying for the past 8 years, but he thought I’d like the 3 pound package of sliced American Cheese product. I received 7.2 times more cheese than I expected and it’s not even actual cheese.

Look for my soon-to-open restaurant: Grilled Cheese R Us

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Posted in humor, parenting, Real Life

Time to Think About My Major

When my son was very little he became alarmed while watching An Extremely Goofy Movie. That’s the one where Goofy’s son Max (wait, we’ll get back to the fact that Goofy reproduced later) is going to college. My son went into a complete panic at the thought that he’d have to leave home and go to college. At the time, he had probably just started elementary school (there may even be a post on the subject somewhere from when it happened) so I didn’t even think he knew what college was. But he did understand that you moved away from home and lived at the school, thanks to the movie. And he hated the idea.

So he asked me, tearily, if he would have to go to college. I said that I thought he would want to, but that if it would make him happy, I would go to college with him and be his roommate. He was very happy with this, and dropped the subject completely. (See, parents, sometimes when they are little, it isn’t about being honest with them, it’s about making them feel like you won’t ever put them in a scary situation alone.)

Anyway, I’m a woman of my word and he graduates high school in 2016, so he and I should probably sit down and start to talk about what schools we will apply to, and what my major should be.

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Posted in coolness, parenting, Real Life, video

My Kid Razzle Dazzles ‘Em

My son starred as Billy Flynn in Chicago over the weekend. I took video of his three big numbers.

(Quality: taken with my iPhone from the back half of the theater, surprisingly not horrible, but not flawless.)

We Both Reached For The Gun (live, this number brought the house down)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykkipCi-47E

Razzle Dazzle (This one is stuck in my head) http://youtu.be/J3heVAVjyuo

All I Care About Is Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ROEuy2WHU

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Posted in coolness, parenting, Real Life

The Boy Wonder

My son, the actor. I like the way that sounds. A week or so ago he was nominated for an EMACT (Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theaters) DASH award. DASH stands for “Distinguished Achievement and Special Honors”. That sounds impressive, no? It is. I cried like little baby.

These are the Individual Performance categories. Michael, at 15, was nominated in the Best Youth Actor category, against every other under-18 boy in any production under consideration by EMACT.

http://www.emact.org/services/dash.asp

I’ve been in awe of my son’s talent for years now, but you always wonder if you’re just blinded by being his parent. This is independent confirmation that I’m not one of those American Idol moms at auditions telling her tone-deaf child “they don’t know talent when they see it!” When I say he’s really very good, I am not the only one who thinks so.

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