joelpowell.com

It’s been a little over a month since we launched Borders.com. The website is Border’s entry into the online commerce world and marked the end of a long relationship of…well let’s say one of those “other” online booksellers.

I am responsible for the operation of the site and am also extending my efforts out into the development teams to help stabilize the site and allow us to handle more traffic. I like having the background of a software engineer and an operations manager. It allows me to work with a lot of interesting people - each one of them thinks differently and tackles problems in a unique way.

We have busier days due to email campaigns and tomorrow is one of those. I enjoy the pressure of a tough day and always love the feeling of ending the day knowing you processed as many transactions as possible.

Make sure you visit Borders.com (or any Borders or Borders Express store!).

Just a quick post. Chris Wascha just pointed me at an Outlook plugin that is pretty cool. It’s Xobni. The plugin provides new ways to organize and search Outlook email, view threads, and connects better with my mind’s version of organization.

It has cool built-in analytics that I found very useful right away. I currently get in excess of 200 emails (from humans) a day and even more than that from systems throughout our enterprise.

Give it a shot!

After a lifetime of being glued to an Intel machine of one form or another, today I bought an iMac. Yep, after months of playing with the iPhone (and several visits to the Apple site) I finally gave into the temptation.I must say getting up and running couldn’t be easier. I started taking it out of the box about 20 minutes ago and here I am posting from it.So far I am enjoying it - the screen is awesome and it is side-by-side with my 24″ Dell. Both of them look pretty good actually. I would post more, but…. (back to the iMac  )  

About six months ago, I left my former employer for a new opportunity. That opportunity was a chance to run projects at Borders Group (the corporate headquarters of Borders Bookstores). It started as a more laid back role than I have held in a while; a chance to run some projects and not have any direct reports.

It didn’t take long for the pace to pick up. I quickly found myself running a few large projects along with a few small ones. I really enjoyed myself helping an organization that was not following standard process get going - putting some sanity around some chaotic past.

A few weeks back I was presented with an opportunity to run the data center at Borders. I was the Director of Data Center Operations at MarketWatch/Dow Jones and left there in 2005 to head back to my home state of Michigan. I was thrilled to get this opportunity at Borders since I enjoyed the challenges at MarketWatch so much.

There are a lot of differences between the data centers. Borders has an on-site data center running a large variety of business processes as well has a variety of platforms (mainframe, AIX, Intel, and more…). MarketWatch involved managing remote lights-out data centers in AT&T hosted environments.

Adding to the excitement is the fact that we are launching our new website which will run out of the data center in April. It is our separation from Amazon which has fulfilled online orders for years. We will do this on our own starting in April!

I am glad to be back in the data center world. I feel comfortable - sort of like the feeling you get when visiting a familiar place or reuniting with a great friend. Wish me luck!

I had a rare day off today. I had lunch with my Mom - took her browsing for maybe a new cat. Then I headed off to the golf course. I played 18 by myself and walked the course. It was a beautiful day. I shot 85 and could’ve gone lower if I wouldn’t have made a few boneheaded shots.

 It was a nice day to relax. Tomorrow it’s back to work. We have a release coming up that is very important.

We have had some unusual weather since the beginning of this calendar year. As I recall there was a thunderstorm on New Years Eve. It was about 50. This was followed by a “more fridgid than normal” winter to make up for it.

Once we finally started to get warm weather it went from what it seemed like low 40s straight into the 80s. We just couldn’t seem to find that great summer-day temperature.

 That is - until this weekend.

Today was mid 70s with a perfect blue sky. And the forecast for the next few days is very similar. It is a graduation party weekend on top of this, so it couldn’t have come at a better time.

I did have my “indoor geek” type of plans made for this weekend just in case the weather was 100 or 40. That stuff will just have to wait. Time to enjoy a little of the sun!

A local country club went up in flames in my home town a few days ago. It is not a place I frequent, but you hate to see things like this. A few firefighters were hurt. It was a six-alarm fire and took them over 12 hours to put it out. Oh, and it was about 5-10 degrees out as they fought the blaze… 

I found out late in the workday yesterday that I had power back. I use Vonage for my home phone, which routes to my cell phone if it is down. Since I had no power, calling my home phone immediately rings my cell phone. Finally a call to home didn’t ring through - I knew my router was back up - I knew power was restored. Being the geek I am I should have a more sophisiticated way to check, but that worked.

I got home around 6:30pm. I could tell by my clocks the power was restored around 4:30pm. In that time the temperature in the house went from 35 to 55. Believe me 55 felt like 75 at the time.

By the time I headed for bed my home was it’s usual toasty self with computer fans whirring and the faint sounds of my dryer running. Boy, I love electricity!

Yesterday I fell victim to what hundreds of thousands (millions?) of Americans have this winter - a ice storm - following by a power outage.

As far as I can tell, I think I lost power while I was at work yesterday, around 2pm. I got home from work at about 7pm and had to go through a door via key instead of my garage door opener. It was eerie driving through the subdivison with no lights on, except for the few hard core guys with generators - and maybe a few flickering candles.

I was greeted by Henry, my golden retreiver who couldn’t care less about the temperature OR the lack of light. I started a fire in the fireplace - fortunately the place was still around 60 degrees, so it was comfortable.

I went to bed early before the temp really dropped. I woke up to 45 degrees in the house and, yes, still no power. Once I got to work I checked the DTE (my power people) website which provides an estimated restoration time: 11:45pm tonight. I hope this is a generous estimation :-).

It did make me realize just how many little things I miss when the electricity is gone. I have a well, so missing water is the biggest. That lasted for about a glassful. When I went to feed Henry this morning, I realized &#%$%#%!!!! - no water for the dog. Luckily and unused toilet proved to be the source to help Henry out (I am glad I was not as thirsty as him).

It’s 14 degrees here now, so I am guessing that the temperature in my house is probably in the 30s by now. Crossing my fingers that DTE comes through!

Merry Christmas to everyone. We opened up the biggest gift last night, his name is Henry, a 9-week old Golden Retriever. We are already taking tons of pictures which I will post.

Here is a link to a video of Henry and his litter mates earlier in December. The girls were very surprised and we kept the secret for almost a month.

I hope everyone has the holiday they are dreaming of. Try to keep your stress low and relax - that is what we are trying to do!