Idiomatic Expression

Well you don’t actually see me, or hear me, but they do say my name a couple of times.

We headed back to Hawaii for another family ceremony. The good thing about traveling westward on your birthday is that it lasts just a little bit longer.

Interesting times indeed, in the last forty-five days I transitioned my last client-serving project to a different manager, and transferred to an internal position concentrating on the safety and security of the firm’s personnel and information. I have traveled to Hawaii for a buddhist memorial service (in Chinese); Manhattan, NY twice; Lyndhurst, NJ three times; and hiked for seven miles on the AT just for fun. Next week will take me to Ohio, Tennessee, and Missouri. So far I am enjoying the new gig, at least there is no time to get bored.

Pictures of Hawaii and hiking to Mary’s Rock should be coming soon.

It is the second week of the 2006, so time to get around to publicly making some New Year’s resolutions.

• Make more timely blog entries. The fact that this entry is eleven days late is probably a bad sign there.
• Be better at keeping in contact with friends and family. This is one that I make every year, and every year I fail miserably. If you don’t hear from me very often, hopefully it will make you feel slightly better that no one hears from me very often.
• Find a hobby; I need something to concentrate on outside of work and home improvement projects. The front runner is home brewing, but like many of the hobbies that have failed to hold my interest in the past, brewing has a relatively steep entry price.
• Live healthier; Less cookies, less chips, less fried food, more whole grains, more exercise, and an attempt at remembering to take my vitamins. Hopefully the previously mentioned resolution to find a hobby won’t impact this one too much.
• Write more; both on this blog, and starting on other writing projects.
• Waste less time; If I am going to do all of this crap, the time has to come from somewhere.

300 is the highest score in bowling and the lowest possible credit score. That can’t possibly be a coincidence. This is also my 300th entry on Idiomatic Expression.

In other news it is New Years Eve, everyone party likes its 2005!

I have a Mandatory training session next week that is partially based on the book Now, Discover your Strengths. Participants were required to take the Strengths Finder quiz to find our strengths prior to the training course, and in the interest of full disclosure here are my results.

• Input: People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.
• Command: People strong in the Command theme have presence. They can take control of a situation and make decisions.
• Restorative: People strong in the Restorative theme are adept at dealing with problems. They are good at figuring out what is wrong and resolving it.
• Ideation: People strong in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.
• Strategic: People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

Wow, I didn’t even know that ideation was a word. I have to admit that this is a decent description of how I behave in the workplace, but then because the results only focus on strengths most people will be inclined to see themselves in the results.

Unfortunately you have to buy one of these books to take the quiz, but you probably wouldn’t enjoy it anyway.

Anyone care to assess the usefulness of the training based on this information? I am looking forward to meeting the other first year managers in the firm and hanging out with the ones I already know; I am just skeptical of using a system like this as a basis for the course.

The full list of strengths is included on the next page.

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According to faceanalyzer.com, I am 68% Korean/Japanese. This will come as quite a shock to my mostly Welsh father, and my mostly German mother! At least I have a new theme song! Apparently, my picture shows that I am very intelligent (which will also be a surpirse to my parents). Perhaps the diagnosis of intelligence is just because the analyzer believes that I am Asian.

If anyone else gets around to uploading a picture I would love to hear the “real” race the Internet assignes you to.

You are a long-term planner, diligent worker and avoid risk as much as possible. You are of above average intelligence and have the ability to focus on tasks that seem unimportant at present, but can lead to greater things in the foreseeable future. You are not keen to interact with others or make social connections. You would rather gain material wealth before putting yourself in a position to be judged. You are not confrontational unless someone directly opposes your intellectual beliefs. You are highly concerned with your social status. You are keen to avoid risks that could jeopardize your long-term plans. You take a calculated approach to life, working hard to control all aspects of it in order to not leave anything important to chance.

You tend to be a perfectionist and quite self-conscious. You sometimes wish you were less reserved and more like some others you see who are more bold and outspoken in social situations. But as much as you try to be like them, you cannot, because you care too much about the future to ever be comfortable taking risks in social situations.

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I have always enjoyed the sexual connotations of my name, Randy. Now I discover that according to www.randomhouse.com;

“The name Randy is not etymologically connected to the word randy ’sexually aroused; lustful’.”

I can go back to being the self-righteous puritan I was before I found out of the other uses of my name.