music lovers ... i must reiterate:

download some Aqueduct from their site!. it is such good music .... i saw them live last week and they were the shiznah (sp.) ... we met the guys afterward and they were genuine people who love great music ...

then, watch this video ... it's a great song, and one of the best low-budget music videos i've ever seen ... (note: the site will ask for your video preferences first .. don't panic! ... (the ending makes my heart soar as high as a kite) ... after you choose your video preferences it might take a few seconds to load, but it's worth it ...)

:)

so get this ...

... i never really look at the monthly statements i receive from my company pension plan ... because i contribute nothing out of my own pocket, so there's not much in there ... anyway, i decided to read up on my policy today .. since that little number on the statements is growing closer to an amout that is worth caring about ...
... and the following is written:

Since your date of birth is September 18, 1974, your normal retirement date is October 1, 2039.

LOL!

2039 - 2007 = 32 years early .. 32 years old

I am ssooo happy with my priorities and my good fortune. :)

fear not feeling

i am afraid of being bored; of being boring; ... i fear not feeling

i've never gotten too personal on this blog ... or have i ?...
...........
well, this is me, right now:
...
a great song playing in the background, have to pee, ... ... and there i have to stop, because the things that come to mind next ... ALL of them up 'til now ... and i'm not a very quick interface between my mind and my fingers right now ...
..... ...
... but maybe that's the point ... how can i be a perfect typinst ... for this is certainly a type of meditation ... .... eyes closed ...how do i best type?. where does that focus come from ... i hold my breath ... that makes things short-lived in find ...
...
i just wanted to write ... i suppose i'll judge later whether this is worth sharing ...

the quote fitz ...

... here's what some of my favourite celebrities have to say about making poverty history ...

welcome to the new urban: clinton street

i love my street ... lots of cute little houses .. a mix of older italian people and toronto chic urbane .. lots of trees and birds ... and i love my little basement apartment .. with the wide-open Clinton Public School playground directly across the street ... but there are alot of cars driving past my door .. especially in the warm months when i like to leave my door open for fresh air, additional sunlight, the sound of birds chirping in the trees, et cetera ...

... and now college street is closed at clinton .. not so many cars .. it's wonderfully quiet .. peaceful ... .. except at the moment ... the sound of dogs barking! ... sersly ... 8(D) ....

... i am going to plant a garden .. herbs, i think ... and i'm thinking of building a deck chair into that nook at the top of my stairs ...

... i'll let you know how it goes

.. oh, and Brett might have found a new flat 5 minutes from here

... the summer begins

.. love you

douglas coupland

one of my favourite writers / artists / thinkers ...

... the first chapter of his most recent photo-essay, Terry - The Life of Canadian Terry Fox, is available here (sans photos ...)

... he is also responsible for the wonderful collections Souvenir of Canada and Souvenir of Canada 2 (<-click for samples from his site ...)

... as well as some of my favourite novels: Generation X (he coined the phrase with this book), and Girlfriend in a Coma (okay, The Smiths came up with that one ...)

... and i can't wait for his upcoming book: jPod

blame it on Cosmo ...

... check out this great article, by my good friend Jenn:

"Not only does the planet's most-read women's magazine preach the value of appearances over content of character, it degradingly paints men as daft, macho, one-dimensional creatures who must be subdued and ensnared through manipulation and deceit ..."

FAQs about my job ...

people always ask me what i do for a living; that is, for money. i hate this question for a few reasons, but the main one is that it is very difficult to explain what i do. if i tell the long version, i am greeted with blank looks and boredom; if i tell the short version, it sounds like i install Microsoft Office for a living. so, here are some frequently asked questions about my job; to clarify for my friends, and to defer the question to my blog the next time i am asked!

who do you work for?

IBM. out of university i started with a company called OmniLogic, we were purchased by PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting, and they were purchased by IBM. my job did not change with any of these acquisitions.

but didn’t you work for Nestle?

i am a consultant. this means that i work for one company (see above), and they loan me out to help other companies, my “clients”. so when you hear that i have a “new job”, i actually have the same job, but at a new client.

what do you do for these clients?

i am an SAP consultant (pronounced like an acronym, not like “sap” from a tree.) SAP is a huge german company that produces software for big business. most of the large corporations in the world use this software (something like 90% of the Fortune 500.) The main piece of software produced by SAP is called “R/3”, but most people just call it “SAP”.

what is SAP?

SAP is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. behind the scenes it is a huge database that collects information and helps everyone in the company share this information. attached to the database are transaction screens that employees from the different parts of the company use to do their jobs.

SAP is split up into different “modules”. They are called modules because SAP is very modular ... you can choose to use only one part of it, or dozens of parts, depending on which business processes you want the system to handle. The main modules are Finance, Controlling, Sales & Distribution, Materials Management, and Production Planning.

An example of a typical series of integrated transactions in SAP [this section is kinda long ... skip it if you're bored]:

a customer service representative receives an order for 10 widgets. she opens the “sales order” screen in SAP and types in the details of what her customer is ordering. the system immediately checks the company inventory to see if there are 10 widgets in the warehouse. if there are no widgets in the warehouse ...

a production planner opens his session of SAP and it tells him that he will be short 10 widgets if he doesn’t produce them this week. he schedules a production order in SAP to produce the widgets on Friday. the system immediately checks if the components required to make 10 widgets are in stock. if the components are not in stock ...

a purchasing manager opens his session of SAP and it tells him that he must order components for 10 widgets. he creates a purchase order for the parts with his preferred vendor, and the system automatically faxes that purchase order to the vendor ...

a truck arrives at the company loading dock with a bunch of parts. the receiving department opens a session of SAP and confirms receipt of the parts. the purchase order for the parts is automatically closed. the inventory of the parts in automatically updated in the system, as is the “asset” account in the financial books. the accounts payable department is automatically sent a request to pay the vendor for the parts.

10 widgets are produced and this fact is entered into SAP by the production foreman. the parts used are automatically depleted from inventory, the inventory of widgets is increased, the labour used in producing them is automatically posted as a labour expense in the financial books, and the shipping department is notified that the 10 widgets are ready to send to the customer who ordered them. the widgets are shipped, and the books are updated again accordingly (decrease inventory account, increase revenue account, etc.)

That was a long example ... but what the hell do YOU do?!

i work with the production planning module. when a client decides that they want to implement this module (usually along with others), we begin a project with the client. we create a project team, comprised of SAP consultants and people from their business. i sit with people from their business and try to ascertain how their production planning process works and what they want the new system to do. i then work with them to create prototype after prototype, getting more and more detailed until we have correctly modeled their business process into the system. when we’re done, we test the system for bugs, train the employees on how to use it, and eventually turn the system on for everyone to use. this is called the “go-live”. a typical project lasts between 6 and 18 months.

So you’re a programmer?

no. most companies have very similar business processes. for example, most manufacturing companies use sales orders, production orders, and purchase orders like in the example above. SAP comes ready to work for any type of business, but needs to be “configured” (by me) to the specific needs of the client. sometimes the system can’t do exactly what the client wants, so we have to create custom programs to help out. i don’t write these, but i help design them.

Don’t you teach courses as well?

yes, sometimes i give training to clients who have just chosen to implement SAP, but whose employees don’t really know how it works. in this case i go in and provide “intro to SAP” courses, where the people can get into the system directly and learn the basics of how it works. i usually teach these courses when i am between clients.

When you are “between clients” do you still get paid? (sorry, i get asked this a lot)

i am a salaried employee of IBM. my pay does not fluctuate with how much of my time IBM can bill to clients ... however if i was ever sitting in the office for too long without a client to work for, i would be fired pretty quickly.


see why i don’t like the question “what do you do for a living?” ;)