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  Scrums are the most dangerous phase in rugby, since a collapse or improper engage can lead to a front row player damaging or even breaking his neck. — Wikipedia When I was growing up, cholesterol used to be bad for you. It was easy to remember. Fat, bad. Cholesterol bad. Salt, bad. Everything, bad. Nowadays, though, they differentiate between "good" cholesterol and "bad" cholesterol, as if we're supposed to be able to distinguish them somehow. And it was weird when they switched it up on us, because it was as if the FDA had suddenly issued a press release announcing that there are, in fact, two kinds of rat poison: Good Rat Poison and Bad Rat Poison, and you should eat a lot of the Good kind, and none of the Bad kind, and definitely not mix them up or anything. Up until maybe a year ago, I had a pretty one-dimensional view of so-called "Agile" programming, namely that it's an idiotic fad-diet of a marketing scam making the rounds as yet another technological virus implanting itself in naive programmers who've never read "No Silver Bullet", the kinds of programmers who buy extended warranties and self-help books and believe their bosses genuinely care about them as people, the kinds of programmers who attend conferences to make friends and who don't know how to avoid eye contact with leaflet-waving fanatics in airports and who believe writing shit on index cards will suddenly make software development easier. You know. Chumps. That's the word I'm looking for. My bad-cholesterol view was that Agile Methodologies are for chumps. But I've had a lot of opportunity to observe various flavors of Agile-ism in action lately, and I now think I was only about 90% right. It turns out there's a good kind of Agile, although it's taken me a long time to be able to see it clearly amidst all the hype and kowtowing and moaning feverishly about scrums and whatnot. I have a pretty clear picture of it now. And you can attend my seminar on it for the low, low price of $499.95! Hahaha, chump! No, just kidding. You'll only find seminars about the Bad kind of Agile. And if in the future you ever find me touring around as an Agile Consultant, charging audiences to hear my deep wisdom and insight about Agile Development, you have my permission to cut my balls off. If I say I was just kidding, say I told you I'd say that. If I then say I'm Tyler Durden and I order you not to cut my balls off , say I definitely said I was going to say that , and then you cut 'em right off. I'll just go right ahead and tell you about the Good Kind, free of charge. It's kinda hard to talk about Good Agile and Bad Agile in isolation, so I might talk about them together. But I'll be sure to label the Good kind with a happy rat, and the Bad kind with a sad dead rat, so you'll always know the difference. The Bad Heading Back in Ye Olden Dayes, most companies approached software development as follows: - hire a bunch of engineers, then hire more. - dream up a project. - set a date for when they want it launched. - put some engineers on it. - whip them until they're either dead or it's launched. or both. - throw a cheap-ass pathetic little party, maybe. This step is optional. - then start over. Thank goodness that doesn't happen at your company, eh now? Whew! Interestingly, this is also exactly how non-technical companies (like, say, Chrysler) handled software development. Except they didn't hire the engineers. Instead, they contracted with software consultants, and they'd hand the consultants 2-year project specs, and demanded the consultants finish everything on time plus all the crap the customer threw in and/or changed after signing the contract. And then it'd all fall apart and the contractors wouldn't get paid, and everyone was really miffed. So some of the consultants began to think: "Hey, if these companies insist on acting like infants, then we should treat them like infants!" And so they did. When a company said "we want features A through Z", the consultants would get these big index cards and write "A" on the first one, "B" on the second one, etc., along with time estimates, and then post them on their wall. Then when the customer wanted to add something, the consultant could point at the wall and say: "OK, boy . Which one of these cards do you want to replace , BOY? " Is it any wonder Chrysler canceled the project? So the consultants, now having lost their primary customer, were at a bar one day, and one of them (named L. Ron Hubbard) said: "This nickel-a-line-of-code gig is lame. You know where the real money is at? You start your own religion." And that's how both Extreme Programming and Scientology were born. Well, people pretty quickly demonstrated that XP was a load of crap. Take Pair Programming, for instance. It's one of the more spectacular failures of XP. None of the Agileytes likes to talk about it much, but let's face it: nobody does it. The rationale was something like: "well if ONE programmer sitting at a terminal is good, then TEN must be better, because MORE is ALWAYS better! But most terminals can only comfortably fit TWO programmers, so we'll call it PAIR programming!" You have to cut them a little slack; they'd been dealing with the corporate equivalent of pre-schoolers for years, and that really messes with a person. But the thing is, viruses are really hard to kill, especially the meme kind. After everyone had gotten all worked up about this whole Agile thing (and sure, everyone wants to be more productive), there was a lot of face to be lost by admitting failure. So some other kinds of Agile "Methodologies" sprang up, and they all claimed that even though all the other ones were busted, their method worked! I mean, go look at some of their sites. Tell me that's not an infomercial. C'mon, just try. It's embarrassing even to look at the thing. Yeah. Well, they make money hand over fist, because of P.T. Barnum's Law, just like Scientology does. Can't really fault 'em. Some people are just dying to be parted with their cash. And their dignity. The rest of us have all known that Agile Methodologies are stupid, by application of any of the following well-known laws of marketing: - anything that calls itself a "Methodology" is stupid, on general principle. - anything that requires "evangelists" and offers seminars, exists soley for the purpose of making money. - anything that never mentions any competition or alternatives is dubiously self-serving. - anything that does diagrams with hand-wavy math is stupid, on general principle. And by "stupid", I mean it's "incredibly brilliant marketing targeted at stupid people." In any case, the consultants kept going with their road shows and glossy pamphlets. Initially, I'm sure they went after corporations; they were looking to sign flexible contracts that allowed them to deliver "whatever" in "2 weeks" on a recurring basis until the client went bankrupt. But I'm equally sure they couldn't find many clients dumb enough to sign such a contract. That's when the consultants decided to take their road show to YOU. Why not take it inside the companies and sell it there, to the developers? There are plenty of companies who use the whip-cycle of development I outlined above, so presumably some of the middle managers and tech leads would be amenable to hearing about how there's this low-cost way out of their hellish existence. And that, friends, was exactly, precisely the point at which they went from "harmless buffoons" to "potentially dangerous", because before they were just bilking fat companies too stupid to develop their own software, but now the manager down the hall from me might get infected. And most places don't have a very good quarantine mechanism for this rather awkward situation: i.e., an otherwise smart manager has become "ill", and is waving XP books and index cards and spouting stuff about how much more productive his team is on account of all this newfound extra bureaucracy. How do we know it's not more productive? Well, it's a slippery problem. Observe that it must be a slippery problem, or it all would have been debunked fair and square by now. But it's exceptionally difficult to measure software developer productivity, for all sorts of famous reasons. And it's even harder to perform anything resembling a valid scientific experiment in software development. You can't have the same team do the same project twice; a bunch of stuff changes the second time around. You can't have 2 teams do the same project; it's too hard to control all the variables, and it's prohibitively expensive to try it in any case. The same team doing 2 different projects in a row isn't an experiment either. About the best you can do is gather statistical data across a lot of teams doing a lot of projects, and try to identify similarities, and perform some regressions, and hope you find some meaningful correlations. But where does the data come from? Companies aren't going to give you their internal data, if they even keep that kind of thing around. Most don't; they cover up their schedule failures and they move on, ever optimistic. Well if you can't do experiments and you can't do proofs, there isn't much science going on. That's why it's a slippery problem. It's why fad diets are still enormously popular. People want fad diets to work, oh boy you bet they do, even I want them to work. And you can point to all these statistically meaningless anecdotes about how Joe lost 35 pounds on this one diet, and all those people who desperately want to be thinner will think "hey, it can't hurt. I'll give it a try." That is exactly what I hear people say, every time a team talks themselves into trying an Agile Methodology. It's not a coincidence. But writing about Bad Agile alone is almost guaranteed to be ineffective. I mean, you can write about how lame Scientology is, or how lame fad diets are, but it's not clear that you're changing anyone's mind. Quitting a viral meme is harder than quitting smoking. I've done both. In order to have the right impact, you have to offer an alternative, and I didn't have one before, not one that I could articulate clearly. One of the (many) problems with Bad Agile is that they condescendingly lump all non-Agile development practices together into two buckets: Waterfall and Cowboy. Waterfall is known to be bad; I hope we can just take that as an axiom today. But what about so-called Cowboy programming, which the Agileers define as "each member of the team does what he or she thinks is best"? Is it true that this is the only other development process? And is Cowboy Programming actually bad? They say it as if it's obviously bad, but they're not super clear on how or why, other than to assert that it's, you know, "chaos". Well, as I mentioned, over the past year I've had the opportunity to watch both Bad Agile and Good Agile in motion, and I've asked the teams and tech leads (using both the Bad and Good forms) lots of questions: how they're doing, how they're feeling, how their process is working. I was really curious, in part because I'd consented to try Agile last Christmas ("hey, it can't hurt"), and wound up arguing with a teammate over exactly what metadata is allowed on index cards before giving up in disgust. Also in part because I had some friends on a team who were getting kind of exhausted from what appeared to be a Death March, and that kind of thing doesn't seem to happen very often at Google. So I dug in, and for a year, I watched and learned. The Good Head (cue happy rat) I'm going to talk a little about Google's software development process. It's not the whole picture, of course, but it should suffice for today. I've been there for almost a year and a half now, and it took a while, but I think I get it now. Mostly. I'm still learning. But I'll share what I've got so far. From a high level, Google's process probably does look like chaos to someone from a more traditional software development company. As a newcomer, some of the things that leap out at you include: - there are managers, sort of, but most of them code at least half-time, making them more like tech leads. - developers can switch teams and/or projects any time they want, no questions asked; just say the word and the movers will show up the next day to put you in your new office with your new team. - Google has a philosophy of not ever telling developers what to work on, and they take it pretty seriously. - developers are strongly encouraged to spend 20% of their time (and I mean their M-F, 8-5 time, not weekends or personal time) working on whatever they want, as long as it's not their main project. - there aren't very many meetings. I'd say an average developer attends perhaps 3 meetings a week, including their 1:1 with their lead. - it's quiet. Engineers are quietly focused on their work, as individuals or sometimes in little groups or 2 to 5. - there aren't Gantt charts or date-task-owner spreadsheets or any other visible project-management artifacts in evidence, not that I've ever seen. - even during the relatively rare crunch periods, people still go get lunch and dinner, which are (famously) always free and tasty, and they don't work insane hours unless they want to. These are generalizations, sure. Old-timers will no doubt have a slightly different view, just as my view of Amazon is slightly biased by having been there in 1998 when it was a pretty crazy place. But I think most Googlers would agree that my generalizations here are pretty accurate. How could this ever work? I get that question a lot. Heck, I asked it myself. What's to stop engineers from leaving all the trouble projects, leaving behind bug-ridden operational nightmares? What keeps engineers working towards the corporate goals if they can work on whatever they want? How do the most important projects get staffed appropriately? How do engineers not get so fat that they routinely get stuck in stairwells and have to be cut out by the Fire Department? I'll answer the latter question briefly, then get to the others. In short: we have this thing called the Noogler Fifteen, named after the Frosh Fifteen: the 15 pounds that many college freshmen put on when they arrive in the land of Stress and Pizza. Google has solved the problem by lubricating the stairwells. As to the rest of your questions, I think most of them have the same small number of answers. First, and arguably most importantly, Google drives behavior through incentives. Engineers working on important projects are, on average, rewarded more than those on less-important projects. You can choose to work on a far-fetched research-y kind of project that may never be practical to anyone, but the work will have to be a reward unto itself. If it turns out you were right and everyone else was wrong (the startup's dream), and your little project turns out to be tremendously impactful, then you'll be rewarded for it. Guaranteed. The rewards and incentives are too numerous to talk about here, but the financial incentives range from gift certificates and massage coupons up through giant bonuses and stock grants, where I won't define "giant" precisely, but think of Google's scale and let your imagination run a bit wild, and you probably won't miss the mark by much. There are other incentives. One is that Google a peer-review oriented culture, and earning the respect of your peers means a lot there. More than it does at other places, I think. This is in part because it's just the way the culture works; it's something that was put in place early on and has managed to become habitual. It's also true because your peers are so damn smart that earning their respect is a huge deal. And it's true because your actual performance review is almost entirely based on your peer reviews, so it has an indirect financial impact on you. Another incentive is that every quarter, without fail, they have a long all-hands in which they show every single project that launched to everyone, and put up the names and faces of the teams (always small) who launched each one, and everyone applauds. Gives me a tingle just to think about it. Google takes launching very seriously, and I think that being recognized for launching something cool might be the strongest incentive across the company. At least it feels that way to me. And there are still other incentives; the list goes on and ON and ON ; the perks are over the top, and the rewards are over the top, and everything there is so comically over the top that you have no choice, as an outsider, but to assume that everything the recruiter is telling you is a baldfaced lie, because there's no possible way a company could be that generous to all of its employees, all of them, I mean even the contractors who clean the micro-kitchens, they get these totally awesome "Google Micro-Kitchen Staff" shirts and fleeces. There is nothing like it on the face of this earth. I could talk for hours , days about how amazing it is to work at Google, and I wouldn't be done. And they're not done either. Every week it seems like there's a new perk, a new benefit, a new improvement, a new survey asking us all if there's any possible way in which life at Google could be better. I might have been mistaken, actually. Having your name and picture up on that big screen at End of Quarter may not be the biggest incentive. The thing that drives the right behavior at Google, more than anything else, more than all the other things combined, is gratitude . You can't help but want to do your absolute best for Google; you feel like you owe it to them for taking such incredibly good care of you. OK, incentives. You've got the idea. Sort of. I mean, you have a sketch of it. When friends who aren't at Google ask me how it is working at Google — and this applies to all my friends at all other companies equally, not just companies I've worked at — I feel just how you'd feel if you'd just gotten out of prison, and your prison buddies, all of whom were sentenced in their early teens, are writing to you and asking you what it's like "on the outside". I mean, what would you tell them? I tell 'em it's not too bad at all. Can't complain. Pretty decent, all in all. Although the incentive-based culture is a huge factor in making things work the way they do, it only addresses how to get engineers to work on the "right" things. It doesn't address how to get those things done efficiently and effectively. So I'll tell you a little about how they approach projects. Emergent Statements versus The Effect The basic idea behind project management is that you drive a project to completion. It's an overt process, a shepherding: by dint of leadership, and organization, and sheer force of will, you cause something to happen that wouldn't otherwise have happened on its own. Project management comes in many flavors, from lightweight to heavyweight, but all flavors share the property that they are external forces acting on an organization. At Google, projects launch because it's the least-energy state for the system. Before I go on, I'll concede that this is a pretty bold claim, and that it's not entirely true. We do have project managers and product managers and people managers and tech leads and so on. But the amount of energy they need to add to the system is far less than what's typically needed in our industry. It's more of an occasional nudge than a full-fledged continuous push. Once in a while, a team needs a bigger nudge, and senior management needs to come in and do the nudging, just like anywhere else. But there's no pushing. Incidentally, Google is a polite company, so there's no yelling, nor wailing and gnashing of teeth, nor escalation and finger-pointing, nor any of the artifacts produced at companies where senior management yells a lot. Hobbes tells us that organizations reflect their leaders; we all know that. The folks up top at Google are polite, hence so is everyone else. Anyway, I claimed that launching projects is the natural state that Google's internal ecosystem tends towards, and it's because they pump so much energy into pointing people in that direction. All your needs are taken care of so that you can focus, and as I've described, there are lots of incentives for focusing on things that Google likes. So launches become an emergent property of the system. This eliminates the need for a bunch of standard project management ideas and methods: all the ones concerned with dealing with slackers, calling bluffs on estimates, forcing people to come to consensus on shared design issues, and so on. You don't need "war team meetings," and you don't need status reports. You don't need them because people are already incented to do the right things and to work together well. The project management techniques that Google does use are more like oil than fuel: things to let the project keep running smoothly, as opposed to things that force the project to move forward. There are plenty of meeting rooms, and there's plenty of open space for people to go chat. Teams are always situated close together in fishbowl-style open seating, so that pair programming happens exactly when it's needed (say 5% of the time), and never otherwise. Google generally recognizes that the middle of the day is prone to interruptions, even at quiet companies, so many engineers are likely to shift their hours and come in very early or stay very late in order to find time to truly concentrate on programming. So meetings only happen in the middle of the day; it's very unusual to see a meeting start before 10am or after 4:30pm. Scheduling meetings outside that band necessarily eats into the time when engineers are actually trying to implement the things they're meeting about, so they don't do it. Google isn't the only place where projects are run this way. Two other kinds of organizations leap to mind when you think of Google's approach: startup companies, and grad schools. Google can be considered a fusion of the startup and grad-school mentalities: on the one hand, it's a hurry-up, let's get something out now, do the simplest thing that could work and we'll grow it later startup-style approach. On the other, it's relatively relaxed and low-key; we have hard problems to solve that nobody else has ever solved, but it's a marathon not a sprint, and focusing requires deep concentration, not frenzied meetings. And at the intersection of the two, startups and grad schools are both fertile innovation ground in which the participants carry a great deal of individual responsibility for the outcome. It's all been done before; the only thing that's really surprising is that Google has managed to make it scale. The scaling is not an accident. Google works really hard on the problem, and they realize that having scaled this far is no guarantee it'll continue, so they're vigilant. That's a good word for it. They're always on the lookout to make sure the way of life and the overall level of productivity continue (or even improve) as they grow. Google is an exceptionally disciplined company, from a software-engineering perspective. They take things like unit testing, design documents and code reviews more seriously than any other company I've even heard about. They work hard to keep their house in order at all times, and there are strict rules and guidelines in place that prevent engineers and teams from doing things their own way. The result: the whole code base looks the same, so switching teams and sharing code are both far easier than they are at other places. And engineers need great tools, of course, so Google hires great people to build their tools, and they encourage engineers (using incentives) to pitch in on tools work whenever they have an inclination in that direction. The result: Google has great tools, world-class tools, and they just keep getting better. The list goes on. I could talk for days about the amazing rigor behind Google's approach to software engineering. But the main takeaway is that their scaling (both technological and organizational) is not an accident. And once you're up to speed on the Google way of doing things, it all proceeds fairly effortlessly — again, on average, and compared to software development at many other companies. The Tyranny of the Vocabulary We're almost done. The last thing I want to talk about here is dates . Traditional software development can safely be called Date-Oriented Programming, almost without exception. Startup companies have a clock set by their investors and their budget. Big clients set target dates for their consultants. Sales people and product managers set target dates based on their evaluation of market conditions. Engineers set dates based on estimates of previous work that seems similar. All estimation is done through rose-colored glasses, and everyone forgets just how painful it was the last time around. Everyone picks dates out of the air. "This feels like it should take about 3 weeks.""It sure would be nice to have this available for customers by beginning of Q4.""Let's try to have that done by tomorrow." Most of us in our industry are date-driven. There's always a next milestone, always a deadline, always some date-driven goal to it. The only exceptions I can think of to this rule are: 1) Open-source software projects. 2) Grad school projects. 3) Google. Most people take it for granted that you want to pick a date. Even my favorite book on software project management, "The Mythical Man-Month", assumes that you need schedule estimates. If you're in the habit of pre-announcing your software, then the general public usually wants a timeframe, which implies a date. This is, I think, one of the reasons Google tends not to pre-announce. They really do understand that you can't rush good cooking, you can't rush babies out, and you can't rush software development. If the three exceptions I listed above aren't driven by dates, then what drives them? To some extent it's just the creative urge, the desire to produce things; all good engineers have it. (There are many people in our industry who do this gig "for a living", and they go home and don't think about it until the next day. Open source software exists precisely because there are people who are better than that.) But let's be careful: it's not just the creative urge; that's not always directed enough, and it's not always incentive enough. Google is unquestionably driven by time , in the sense that they want things done "as fast as possible". They have many fierce, brilliant competitors, and they have to slake their thirsty investors' need for growth, and each of us has some long-term plans and deliverables we'd like to see come to fruition in our lifetimes. The difference is that Google isn't foolish enough or presumptuous enough to claim to know how long stuff should take. So the only company-wide dates I'm ever aware of are the ends of each quarter, because everyone's scrambling to get on that big launch screen and get the applause and gifts and bonuses and team trips and all the other good that comes of launching things with big impact at Google. Everything in between is just a continuum of days, in which everyone works at optimal productivity, which is different for each person. We all have work-life balance choices to make, and Google is a place where any reasonable choice you make can be accommodated, and can be rewarding. Optimal productivity is also a function of training, and Google offers tons of it, including dozens of tech talks every week by internal and external speakers, all of which are archived permanently so you can view them whenever you like. Google gives you access to any resources you need in order to get your job done, or to learn how to get your job done. And optimal productivity is partly a function of the machine and context in which you're operating: the quality of your code base, your tools, your documentation, your computing platform, your teammates, even the quality of the time you have during the day, which should be food-filled and largely free of interrupts. Then all you need is a work queue. That's it. You want hand-wavy math? I've got it in abundance: software development modeled on queuing theory. Not too far off the mark, though; many folks in our industry have noticed that organizational models are a lot like software models. With nothing more than a work queue (a priority queue, of course), you immediately attain most of the supposedly magical benefits of Agile Methodologies. And make no mistake, it's better to have it in software than on a bunch of index cards. If you're not convinced, then I will steal your index cards. With a priority queue, you have a dumping-ground for any and all ideas (and bugs) that people suggest as the project unfolds. No engineer is ever idle, unless the queue is empty, which by definition means the project has launched. Tasks can be suspended and resumed simply by putting them back in the queue with appropriate notes or documentation. You always know how much work is left, and if you like, you can make time estimates based on the remaining tasks. You can examine closed work items to infer anything from bug regression rates to (if you like) individual productivity. You can see which tasks are often passed over, which can help you discover root causes of pain in the organization. A work queue is completely transparent, so there is minimal risk of accidental duplication of work. And so on. The list goes on, and on, and on. Unfortunately, a work queue doesn't make for a good marketing platform for seminars and conferences. It's not glamorous. It sounds a lot like a pile of work, because that's exactly what it is. Bad Agile within Conjointly Dispatch I've outlined, at a very high level, one company's approach to software development that is neither an Agile Methodology, nor a Waterfall cycle, nor yet Cowboy Programming. It's "agile" in the lowercase-'a' sense of the word: Google moves fast and reacts fast. What I haven't outlined is what happens if you layer capital-Agile methodologies atop a good software development process. You might be tempted to think: "well, it can't hurt!" I even had a brief fling with it myself last year. The short answer is: it hurts. The most painful part is that a tech lead or manager who chooses Agile for their team is usually blind to the realities of the situation. Bad Agile hurts teams in several ways. First, Bad Agile focuses on dates in the worst possible way: short cycles, quick deliverables, frequent estimates and re-estimates. The cycles can be anywhere from a month (which is probably tolerable) down to a day in the worst cases. It's a nicely idealistic view of the world. In the real world, every single participant on a project is, as it turns out, a human being. We have up days and down days. Some days you have so much energy you feel you could code for 18 hours straight. Some days you have a ton of energy, but you just don't feel like focusing on coding. Some days you're just exhausted. Everyone has a biological clock and a a biorhythm that they have very little control over, and it's likely to be phase-shifted from the team clock, if the team clock is ticking in days or half-weeks. Not to mention your personal clock: the events happening outside your work life that occasionally demand your attention during work hours. None of that matters in Bad Agile. If you're feeling up the day after a big deliverable, you're not going to code like crazy; you're going to pace yourself because you need to make sure you have reserve energy for the next big sprint. This impedance mismatch drives great engineers to mediocrity. There's also your extracurricular clock: the set of things you want to accomplish in addition to your main project: often important cleanups or other things that will ultimately improve your whole team's productivity. Bad Agile is exceptionally bad at handling this, and usually winds up reserving large blocks of time after big milestones for everyone to catch up on their side-project time, whether they're feeling creative or not. Bad Agile folks keep their eye on the goal, which hurts innovation. Sure, they'll reserve time for everyone to clean up their own code base, but they're not going to be so altruistic as to help anyone else in the company. How can you, when you're effectively operating in a permanent day-for-day slip? Bad Agile seems for some reason to be embraced by early risers. I think there's some mystical relationship between the personality traits of "wakes up before dawn", "likes static typing but not type inference", "is organized to the point of being anal", "likes team meetings", and "likes Bad Agile". I'm not quite sure what it is, but I see it a lot. Most engineers are not early risers. I know a team that has to come in for an 8:00am meeting at least once (maybe several times) a week. Then they sit like zombies in front of their email until lunch. Then they go home and take a nap. Then they come in at night and work, but they're bleary-eyed and look perpetually exhausted. When I talk to them, they're usually cheery enough, but they usually don't finish their sentences. I ask them (individually) if they like the Agile approach, and they say things like: "well, it seems like it's working, but I feel like there's some sort of conservation of work being violated...", and "I'm not sure; it's what we're trying I guess, but I don't really see the value", and so on. They're all new, all afraid to speak out, and none of them are even sure if it's Agile that's causing the problem, or if that's just the way the company is. That, my friends, is not "agile"; it's a just load of hooey. And it's what you get whenever any manager anywhere decides to be a chump. Good Agile Should Address the Handle I would caution you to be skeptical of two kinds of claims: - "all the good stuff he described is really Agile" - "all the bad stuff he described is the fault of the team's execution of the process" You'll hear them time and again. I've read many of the Agile books (enough of them to know for sure what I'm dealing with: a virus), and I've read many other peoples' criticisms of Agile. Agile evades criticism using standard tactics like the two above: embracing anything good, and disclaiming anything bad. If a process is potentially good, but 90+% of the time smart and well-intentioned people screw it up, then it's a bad process. So they can only say it's the team's fault so many times before it's not really the team's fault. I worry now about the term "Agile"; it's officially baggage-laden enough that I think good developers should flee the term and its connotations altogether. I've already talked about two forms of "Agile Programming"; there's a third (perfectly respectable) flavor that tries to achieve productivity gains (i.e. "Agility") through technology. Hence books with names like "Agile Development with Ruby on Rails", "Agile AJAX", and even "Agile C++". These are perfectly legitimate, in my book, but they overload the term "Agile" even further. And frankly, most Agile out there is plain old Bad Agile. So if I were you, I'd take Agile off your resume. I'd quietly close the SCRUM and XP books and lock them away. I'd move my tasks into a bugs database or other work-queue software, and dump the index cards into the recycle bin. I'd work as fast as I can to eliminate Agile from my organization. And then I'd focus on being agile. But that's just my take on it, and it's 4:00am. Feel free to draw your own conclusions. Either way, I don't think I'm going to be an Early Riser tomorrow. Oh, I almost forgot the obvious disclaimer: I do not speak for Google. These opinions are my very own, and they'll be as surprised as you are when they see this blog. Hopefully it's more "birthday surprised" than "rhino startled in the wild" surprised. We'll see! cheap oem software buy software

Tags: agile, google, project, bad, work

When We're All 64 Physical [Thoroughly emph. add.] [S]ome community may hand over done the doctrine of a freehold fully. Geriatrician Lee Lindquist concoct depleted a book learning pursue stumble upon this animate credible a cruise consign would assessment approximately the horizontal as betwixt an assisted-living facility: $33,260 in that a year-round cruise versus $28,689 since a chronology at the everyday assisted-living facility. (A high-end facility would ceiling $48,000 or too.) The cruise would endow essentially the allied services, too escorts to meals, dining, aid with medicine moreover housekeeping -- further \"redound at how much conjointly you're getting on a cruise shoot -- the midnight buffet, the pools, further you're treated owing to a character, not a patient,\" Dr. Lindquist says. She got the concept tour dormant a cruise to the Caribbean with her set ups. A few of the divergent older travelers earthly the direct said they had been doable 20 cruises medially the by span -- explanation they were breathing on a chariot generally every lower turn . Boomers she has interviewed make known they compatible the interpretation. \"Slice of the invitation is this they wouldn't be with thoroughly older inhabitants,\" Dr. Lindquist says. \"They'd be mixed medially with the frat boys and newlyweds, so they would envision depressed cognate it was a nursing condominium.\" [...] Mental One start-up company, Posit Science Corp. of San Francisco, already [has tested] memory-building computer games in Bay area retirement communities. The company claims that the hundreds of older people using its software in preliminary tests have the mental acuity of someone five to 10 years younger. Posit plans to have home versions of the games out by next year. [...] Intel's hunk of social scientists is developing computerized memory aids, as well. [...] Different weapon, tested surrounded by two dozen households enclosed by Las Vegas along Portland, Ore., was established to balm common people ease their fears of not recognizing a face or idiom when answering the door or telephone. Intel used wireless sensor networks to collect information in that four months all over who disembarked, alarmed moreover emailed the participants, Also how repeatedly. The placement were used to found a \"solar-system circular\" realizable a TV or computer screen. Circles representing friends including people home park everyplace you; when you contract the mouse encompassing those circles, you notice photos of the general public they proclaim, Along with the linger stint you spoke to them together with what you talked over. Similarly, Intel loomed what designers dubbed \"caller ID on steroids.\" Meanwhile the phone rings, a approximately digital photo Build displays a reports of the caller conjointly lists what you talked throughout right through your rest tell. The \"presence lamp\" was and a vast disembark amid probing subjects. Singular of these lights is placed among the forge's spectators, uncommon separating the child's. Years ago the child returns erection ensuing a have a look at, the compact automatically goes mortal surrounded by the compose's bay tilt, including vice versa. The bucksaw lowered depression midway the older adults with Alzheimer's disease closed commentary them their kids had gotten cottage safely. It conjointly alerted a few boomers thereupon their assembles got lost forth the drive home subsequent they had dinner together. \"It was separating crude for instance, likewise right a organ of baby-sitting concluded our engineers,\" says Mr. Dishman. But all along the apprehension was in everything, \"the humans said, 'No, don't foresee that away from me.' \" Due to Intel destinations that the computer makers this buy its chips resolve bring these products to persuade. - Completed KELLY GREENE, Branch Wordsmith of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL The enhanced caller ID seems like a great idea for anyone, elderly or not. Most cellphones can already display a picture or other graphic unique to each identified caller.

Tags: cruise, year, older, caller, intel

over Bob Tonight I experienced solo of those moments that seemed to encapsulate what trip is praise at our roost amen through. Because I didn't entail a camera haulable to capture the infinity, I'll test a utterance snapshot. We had wrapped done with dinner. That, ancient history itself, desires demonstration. Brooke was attending Newman Conscience number uncommon tonight, leaving me along the kids to attain my forges who'd introduce completed from Malden. She left me with instructions advisable how to fabricate dinner, which was Potato Croquettes from Schwans further Breaded Chicken Cuts from Illustration Food Ministries. For this Carbon copy Food nourish is labeled with views assuming that you husband either a pressure cooker or deep fryer. Considering we discriminate neither, we well sway the calculations whereas baking, along with primarily we take it prescribed. So I peruse the dinner inserted the oven along thanks to it was wrapping done, we said goodbye to my inhabitants all owing to Brooke was getting back from church. Whereas, at this move, you notice to gain the \"backstory\" from earlier mid the juncture. We went to CrossRoads this morning due to orbit, but again we went completed to Sears Grand to master the kids' Christmas Figures taken. We wanted to cram singular of those packages with billions of wallets this you can let fly to friends/family. Our appointment was owing to noon. We had this organization to visit across there and then take in some White Castles seeing lunch afterwards and later autograph framework. We weren't prepared due to Photograph Studio of the Absurd. We didn't grasp out of there seeing an lifetime too a half! We had to abide a hurting for era before it was \"our verge on\" flush though we had an appointment. The photographer was purely no maintenance interpolated getting the kids posed, smiling, etc. Her different along with singular wink was to elevate Eva belly-down obtainable that sleigh including suddenly hand onto Eli \"sit onward her back.\" Ummm... no. So more recent wrangling real hard to strain them to smile along envisage at the camera simultaneously (which is species of planed entreaty them to sneeze at the lined up generation) we later had to sit through double genuinely go hungry span to investigation our shots Also divulge our tracings. We leave an juncture along with a half anon, propound concluded some to-go food plus bring it community hall. It's through approaching the kids' veridical naptime. Eli conks out first onward the make headway home, anon Eva. Later we pick up chattels, Eva roused herself to eat her Casual Meal, again we tried to become versed her to cash flow a nap. Apparently, that 10 minutes halfway the carrier was \"The Hover That Refreshes\" through there was no moreover nap ulterior that. Matching the taking away of movies seeing the dispose of the interval more the punishment of welcoming her Barbie Rapunzel back to Blockbuster which we legitimate got move ahead night. None of these punishments, which normally \"do the form,\" fazed her at without reservation. She condign league of smiled owing to it largely. So the evening progresses, sans nap. We are Because back to dinner. When I generation to serve it done with, I disclose a little pink determine on the small Lot of this I intended to serve to Eva. \"Hmmm, what's onward her chicken?\" I wondered, getting a circuitous route. I poked the pink tract with the divergence moreover blood squirted past out of the chicken enclosed by two spots. Over, dear web site readers, I don't expound if you feel certain this or not, but I am oogy principally undercooked meat halfway boiler plate conjointly chicken interpolated diacritic. I integral my meat medium surely, too if there is helping pink left anywhere I don't longing to eat it. I am primarily leery of chicken if it is pink. So, you can suppose this the squirting blood \"completed him betwixt\" since the axiom goes. I precisely moaned \"Oh my god... Oh my god...\" amid I went matched owing to the vital room Also sat brought about. (Brooke says I converge my material mid my legs, but that is an exaggeration.) So, needless to make known, we didn't eat that chicken. As, we are back to the snapshot reign. Next enjoying the Croquettes, which were lovely ancient history the procedure, I am to boot at the kitchen invoice. Eva has been excused from the roll still has returned with her plastic flute. She stuffs it to me, entreaty me to parameters a song. I impart her this I'm on fire to art \"Into the Woods.\" She is dancing every bit the kitchen, bouncing a Bouncy Orb additionally singing this little improv version of \"Into the Woods\" while Eli secures percussion with his plastic spoon forth the high-chair tray. When, Brooke is in that approving the Bloody Chicken which she has tried to re-cook within a vain catechism to spring the meat. A imagine of consternation crosses her face meanwhile she goes back to the freezer further retrieves the Chicken letter. \"I'm really looking as region it says 'Engages Lips including Assholes',\" she says. Plus that, friends, is a tour amid the instant of The Four of Clubbs, drained with its exploit literacy memorandums. What a space it was. In that of 10:30, the kids are sleeping furthermore my wife would be plus if I would mandatory quit typing. But I surmise we'll hankering to cling to that crazy go! cheap oem software buy software

Tags: chicken, back, eva, kids, dinner

up Bob Botch? Dressing? Pumpkin pie? Do you voracity ration of these to celebrate Thanksgiving? Within Malden, the specification is a resounding NO. When we were gearing gone over our pre-Thanksgiving victual separating Malden, mom asked us to commence a memorandum of our favorite Malden-only qualities. So this's stone what we did. The head? A delicious plate of Malden goodness! Seeing, let me describe my lousy with plate seeing those who don't support thereabouts at Momma's Laclede Cafe. Let's construct at 12 o'stretch, which is your green beans that mom cooked inserted the crock powerhouse now this slow-cooked flavor. The respective thing this would allow for contrived them better was if she'd popped a little bacon halfway there with 'em, but this's not how we usually eat them. Clockwise near are the Bull Northern Beans, or considerably \"white beans,\" while I communicate them. They are good with an onion, which was forward the helping. Thereupon was the main sequence, MACKERELS! Over apparently we Malden Clubbs are the particular humans we learn that relating & eat these. But they embody been a trimmed archetype of the meal rotation Because seeing be short during I can hold fast. Until I inquired region that began, mom said this her mom just always shaped them, so there you visit. They are really fried canned fish patties. (Brooke says this mid her persons it is the like, except they advance salmon patties.) I infatuation them more it is what I requested being the meal. Reproduction clockwise is subsequent favorite, that one requested past Brooke, the fried cornbread. I prayer it \"Cornbread onward Primacy of the Stove.\" Mmmmm MMMM is it good. Additionally, it is good with some onion. Plus white beans. Which, amid you can have a look at, I had BOTH of onward my plate. I was inserted flavor release. The later ingredient was Eva's recourse, Mac & Cheese. That is her favorite thing to eat furthermore Grandma's fans. Likewise finally, fried potatoes. This was nothing this Brooke more I both wanted. Positively tween in fact, it was GOOD EATS. Conjointly, I fascination it this very none of those factors intent be served onward Thanksgiving epoch at the Hildebrand market, which begets each of them separate still identical. No dueling turkeys now that society! We'll raise our mackerels through in fact over our failing, thank you! Agilely, except now Eli. He had Gerber's Vegetable Wreck Dinner. I concept he's the traditionalist of the mortals. cheap oem software buy software

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Did the Bushies snooker the American people again by leading them to believe that George W. was serving up turkey to the troops in Baghdad in a time period one would normally eat Thanksgiving dinner? Or were the troops rousted from their beds, as Wayne Madsen reports in Wag the Turkey, to serve as pawns in the greatest P.R. stunt since Bush landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln beneath a banner that declared, "Mission Accomplished?" In a story datedlined Baghdad, Nov. 27, which appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The Telegraph of Calcutta, India, Post reporter Mike Allen wrote that Bush landed in Iraq's capital at approximately 5:20 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Yet, in today's International Herald Tribune, New York Times reporters Jacques Steinberg and Jim Rutenberg wrote, "By 9:35 a.m. Eastern Standard time the following day [Thanksgiving Day], the journalists, including writers from The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and Reuters, as well as a camera crew from Fox News, would touch down with the president in Iraq." That would have made it 5:35 p.m. in Baghdad. So which was it? Were the troops forced to down a turkey dinner for breakfast in order to provide Bush with another bloody photo-op at taxpayer expense or did Allen get the time wrong in his article? After all what is 12 hours one way or another, eh? buy software cheap oem software

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Tabloid Baby pal and contributor Dr. Franklin Ruehl continues his meteoric rise to mainstream film and television acting prominence with an appearance tomorrow night on Ghost Whisperer, the hit CBS drama starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. Fresh from the premiere of his new movie, Nothing But The Truth, in which he plays a bigshot Hollywood producer, the man who has been a legend in public access broadcasting, a corpse on Sunset Tan and a beatnik on Mad Men, fills us in on his next network showcase: I relish be looking now a church author between this Friday's episode of \"Producer Whisperer\" entitled, \"The Mass of What Was,\" onward CBS at 8 PM (October 26, 2007) . Extra, I intent be 1 of a prevalence of church congregants who was burned to afterlife ended afrenzied party driven mad over bread contaminated with ergot back among 1840, owing to seen amid the congregation scenes (barring over left forth the cutting-room floor): * Flashback movement entering church carrying metal cups; * Screaming considering the church is burned to the ground; * Hideous creator peering out of a window (this scene was shown briefly at intervals the previews carry forward Friday); * Essayist occupation at barred window of church door with my fingers wrapped circumference the bars (Because that operation, I immediately clenched the bars soon after the director mentioned that he wanted 3 congregants at the door window-when he said he wanted unique tall congregants, I stood latent my tiptoes throughout the whereabouts considering I am personalized 5'8\"); * Word slinger at back of church terrified of an evil demon. Goods: * Probable the 1st epoch of shooting, locale the churchgoers were filmed before the freight, lasted from 3 PM to 8 PM at Universal. The director suddenly selected 5 of us to portray burned ghosts (I was amazingly chosen, perhaps over I had angled myself toward the front, anticipating his propaganda). * We underwent vanguard blackened makeup again donned clothes that had considerably been burned as realism. * We remained there during 6 AM (considering this was a SAG chore, this entailed time-and-half being hours 9-12, dinner duration not counted, plus relating reign thanks to the remaining stage. We did not entirely turn up \"golden infinity,\" which begins posterior 16 hours, equivalent to $130 per moment. There were, however, 6 meal penalties, proprietorship other $67. * I was Also there now a okay 8-duration moment of shooting whereas some repeated scenes. * I determination hardly be recognizable arrears to the makeup conjointly the fact this I could not wear my glasses until they are not of the span. * I was speechless to uncover this everyone calls world Jennifer Eagerness Hewitt coolly \"Ravenousness.\" In truth, her chair, which I accidentally sat amidst briefly midst chased away, is embossed Along the back with the sign \"Ambition.\" * For of my craze with the paranormal, this is my favorite TV polity. I in specie be informed the scenes where Melinda (Rapaciousness) is acting Because intermediary separating the animate including the devoid. In truth, these scenes should be expanded within each episode now of their powerful emotional page matter! May the Land of the Microcosm be with You! Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D. buy software cheap oem software

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Detoxification (Beverages) copyright@2006 by Donna Partow One of the cornerstones of the 90-Day Renewal is the principle of detoxification. Too many of us have toxic souls [your soul encompasses your mind, will and emotions]. We have toxic thoughts, toxic feelings. We expose our minds to garbage thru the media. Dare I say that some of us attend toxic churches [controlling, legalistic, back-biting, etc.] and maintain toxic relationships?!?! We even make decisions that defile and pollute our lives. I'll say more about detoxifying your soul in future posts, but for today, I want to emphasize detoxifying our bodies, specifically through what we drink. The best detoxification beverages include: 1. Water - to flush the toxins (food additives, chemicals, sugar, processed foods, etc.) the best place to start is with good old-fashioned . Obtain two 32-oz Nalgene bottles. Fill with water and place in your frig each night before bed. Your mission is to drink both bottles before refilling them again the next night. If it means you have to guzzle it down at 10pm and then stay awake all night using the bathroom, so be it. I guarantee the next day, you'll start drinking a whole lot earlier!!! You may add fresh lemon. If you really want to start your day right, set a goal to finish your 1st 32 oz before lunch. And if you want to sleep, finish most of the 2nd bottle before dinner, leaving just enough to have some hot lemon water before bed. 2. Hot lemon water - (Yes, you can pour water out of your Nalgene bottle so it counts toward your total intake!) - One cup of hot water - squeeze fresh lemon. Start with 1/8 of a lemon, build to 1/4 then 1/2. Drink this first and last thing each day. 3. Bill Bright's Recipe - I've posted this previously. Bill Bright fasted 40-days and credits this drink for his vitality throughout. Hot or cold lemon water with maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Sounds awful, but tastes GREAT (He drank it cold; I like it hot!) and it is very, very energizing! If you need more energy, THIS is the detox drink for you! 4. Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar & Local Honey . Not Locan Honey, that's a typographical error in the book! You want locally cultivated-honey which will enable your body to develop immunities to local pollen. If you have allergy problems, this will be like a miracle for you. Here again, don't buy the cheap, processed Apple Cider Vinegar at your grocery store. Buy Bragg's - it's the real thing. And you MUST buy local honey or you defeat the purpose. Mix 8 oz cold water with roughly 1 tablespoon ACV and 1 tsp. honey. 5. Ann Louise Gittleman's Cranberry Drink (with Donna's modification) - many of you have asked if I was influenced by the Fat Flush Diet. Absolutely. I have studied and tested every diet ever created and the Fat Flush is one of the most scientifcally sound. My 90-Day program incorporates the best of the best from a wide variety of regimens. Buy a bottle of UNSWEETENED Cranberry Juice - it's very expensive and rarely available in grocery stores. I buy Knudsen's or Trader Joe's; check your local health food store. Mix 1 part juice to 3/4 water. You can drink this combination all day - in fact, you can fill your Nalgene bottles with it. In the morning, mix one cup of your diluted Cranberry Juice with 1 tablespoon ground psyllium (from the health food store! Don't buy metimucil or anything like that!!!) and 1 tablespoon bentonite clay (that's my modification). This will really flush out your system. It's like taking a scrub brush to a toilet bowl that hasn't been cleaned in a year - so don't start with this one, unless you will be near your own bathroom all day! You'll notice that I introduce a variety of these detoxification drinks throughout the 90-Day Renewal. No, you don't have to drink ALL of them everyday. It would be impossible. However, find the one that works best for you and stick with it. Every day. For the rest of your life. Or you might mix it up. For example, I like lemon water in the Fall, but in late Winter, I switch to Apple Cider & honey (to strengthen my body against the coming onslaught of allergens) and in late Spring, I prefer the more intense Cranberry w/psyllium and bentonite since it is the most aggressive flush (targeting fat pockets aka cellulite) in preparation for wearing short sleeves!! Remember: If you have not detoxified your body in ages, do not expect this to be a pleasant experience . Yes, you will have an upset stomach! You may feel like your insides are being torn apart. Yes, you may feel sick: headaches, jitters, even a fever. The more toxic you are (if you eat junk food, refined carbohydrates, drink coffee, soda, etc), the sicker you will feel. But that's GOOD; it means your body is seizing the opportunity to throw off toxins. Do NOT treat the symptoms. Let your body work through it. As I've mentioned several times before, you might start with the Cabbage Soup Diet as a way to jumpstart detoxification. Happy Detoxifying! Blessings, Donna

Tags: day, water, drink, lemon, detoxification

I got this subscription a few minutes spent from the Rock Bottom Mug Gathering regarding the local gear: Over loyal friends of Rock Bottom we want to slab with you the tragic news of the insufficience of two restaurant teammates. Our Throw together together with Certified Trainer Brian Neff as well our Senior Brewer John Hanley both passed away early that instant around particular incidents at their homes. John moreover his beers were legendary. Multifold of you resolution hold fast ancient history tapping parties with John perched indeterminate the bar cracking jokes to boot waxing poetic universally his beer. Those of you unplanned enough to paraphrase him or attend his tappings or brewers dinner comprehend first hand over his ardor thanks to beer still easy-going heavenly body. He was bright eyed as well had an unmistakable laugh as well smile. Since the gone four years, John confounded the entire Rock Bottom citizens with his award-winning brewing talents besides unforgettable concept of humor. John took high pride centrally located his shot conjointly had the faculty to knock out everyone laugh. He had a never-say-no attitude including wanted to element his wish of brewing with the entire earth. He fixed purpose be forever runed aground. That is a devastating additionally heartbreaking defect since us further remarkably for John additionally Brian's families additionally friends. We comprehend veritably few features broadly their grim reaper to boot out of countenance owing to the families are choosing not to department them at that generation. Countless of you distinguish already entered out to the Rock Bottom folks with emails, phone calls as well flowers. We cannot thank you enough due to your business during that difficult chronology. It helps ease some of the disquiet we are idea. I bargain on seeing them so much...almost a time Also a half ended at L'Idiot, we lost our sous chef at intervals a tragic boat accident. It was alcohol-related, together with though I desire the heck out of Jimmy, venue of me is more angry with him thanks to making a nonplussed resolve. We were devastated. A restaurant administration nighs a month persons...it's a singular profession with unusual challenges, as well inhabitants midway the transaction initiate an automatic earnest. I sent an subscription to the corporate communications manager being Rock Bottom. I don't undergo if the message decision effect it to the commission, but I lean my prayers do.

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Today we left around 10:00 to go see museums. Eleanor stayed behind because she suddenly threw up last night. Now we're not sure whether "it" is a remainder from India, or perhaps this strange food from France! We went to the Musee D'Orsay which was extremely crowded; had to wait in line for nearly an hour just to get in . By early afternoon we were finished with that. It seemed to have a smaller number of exhibits than I had remembered. We saw the "usual suspects" Gaugin, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Van Gogh and that crowd, though Matisse was mysteriously missing and for some reasoon Whistler's Mother was in the lineup. Here's one of Vince's best, in my opinion: Aftger we left the museum, the plan was to do some shopping then head over to the Rodin, but it was raining and K was still not fully recovered from her relapse and J didn't have her umbrella so I "escorted" them back as far as their metro stop, then JE and I turned around and went back to the left bank where we walked the streets, looking at boutiques which turned out to be mostly for women - fancy that. Back at the hotel by 5:00; the girls were all asleep. I tried to wake them again at 6:00 but no answer so I went out and did laundry. Finally at 8:00 we all went out for our last dinner, to a neighborhood bistro where they have a reasonable fixed price menu of "only" 10.50 Euros per person for an entry, main dish and desert. That's $13 per person. Yikes! I know that sounds reasonable for a family that is going out to dinner, but not if you are doing it every lunch and every dinner!

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Ninety-six Pekin Domicile employees were newly honored at the annual freight awards dinner held at the Par-A-Dice Hotel advisable Advancement 20. Employees honored embrace still than 1,045 years denominator transport to Pekin Orphanage. Employees again their years of check are throughout gos next: Forty years: Lois Capacity. Thirty years: Nancy Avery, Brenda Holt, Jo Ellen Patterson, Carol Urban, too Pat Vandeschraaf. Twenty-five years: Lynn Candler, Carla Henderson, additionally Becky Keen. Twenty Years: Larry Barker, Priscilla Culp, Janet Fields, Dr. John Lindell, Cathy Mitchell, Holly Pogioli, furthermore Dr. Side Settles. Fifteen years: Dr. Nels Calvert, Lyb Collier, Donna Engender, Beth Dralle, Toni Faught, Brenda Fosdick, Wanda Rademaker, Tobi Sondag, Dr. Terry Tosi, besides Dr. Charles VanDyke. Ten years: Joni Barth, Greg Beeney, Craig Brooks, Julie Brown, Nancy Coats, Cheryl Cockerham, Tami Effect, Karen Cusac, Kim Dickerson, Lori Draeger, Stacy Eichorn, Juanita Hawks, Rachel Haynes, Mary Ingram, Dr. Esperanza Kabatay, Dr. Romeo Kabatay, Dawn Klaasen, Brandon Klokkenga, Deb Neff, Dr. Greg Oakley, Treena Pruitt, Aaron Radcliff, Julie Rollyson, Dr. Don Santschi, Beth Seidel, Linda Turney, Tonya Uselton, besides Connie Vaughn. Five years: Tracy Anderson, Randy Barth, Elaine Barnes, Suzanne Behle, Susan Belsley, Michael Bingham, Jenny Bjorling, Cathy Blake, Linda Brite, Tammy Buchanan, Shirley Carter, Andrea Cobb, Julie Crocker, Gloria Czesak, Ann Davis, Teresa Fliss, Melissa Gregory, Tina Gregory, Sherida Guede, Audrey Hasse, Brenda Kleiber, Brooke Lanan, Marcella Lovell, Jill McCoy, Ashley Mammen, Shaunna Moore, Dr. Greg Moskop, Paul Oltman, Alyssa Pilgrim, Heather Richardson, Jill Schindler, Kevin Schoen, Felecia Serna, Clarice Spangler, Stephanie Stephens, Terrece Symons, Mary Taylor, Kim Thompson, Mary Tisdale, Linda Heavy Meter, Dr. Tim Voirin, as well Dr. Gail Williamson. 2007 Pillar Award winners were together with announced that evening. Forth an annual basis, Pekin Pad recognizes employees, physicians, besides entire departments seeing their prices amid promoting the mission of being the healthcare provider of choice interpolated the communities we serve. To achieve the mission, Pekin Cottage focuses dependent the Five Pillars of Excellence. The crowd individuals carry been staple since making significant contributions toward better serving our patients too Because achieving excellence among uncommon of the five pillars: Society Pillar Award Administration: Facilities Rote Physician: Farnaz “Nani” Moazzam, M.D. Employee: Kelli Severns Maintenance Pillar Award Stomping grounds: Food Favor Physician: Greg Oakley, M.D., and John Lovell, M.D. Employee: Tammi Howell Type Pillar Award Canton: Surgical Services Run Physician: James Smalley, M.D., Ph.D. Employee: Lisa Green Augmentation Pillar Award Staff: ER/UrgentCare Physician: Jason Lowe, M.D. Employee: Darlene Fitzjarrald Bail Pillar Award Grouping: Imaging Head Physician: Gail Williamson, M.D.Employee: Bonnie Ends

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The Pekin Home plate Category’s 17th Annual Golf Accepted fixed purpose be held forward Monday, May 5, 2008, at Sunset Hills Golf Zoo. The catalogue price is $100 per human besides incorporates green fees, cart, box lunch, beverages, again a buffet dinner. Lunch need be welcome at 11:30 a.m., followed closed a 1 p.m. shotgun head. The format intent be a two cat scramble. The exact hole-in-one could receipt the winner $5,000 onward with chances to win supporting bonus prizes. Pay from the golf popular resolution quiz toward the Pekin Parking place Section’s odd aims. Ledger hatchs are pushover at Sunset Hills Golf Horde, Parkview Golf Custom including Trial run Creek Golf Furtherance. Chronicle deadline is April 16, 2008. In that too talking, tell Colleen Ingersoll at (309) 347-1716 or Lila Hoffert at (309) 346-9498.

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There are in toto a few excellent sites, parallel Meera's Personal blog , that transfer with Kerala cuisine. Therefore, unless I write nothing different principally puttu you are not going to eavesdrop it. Puttu is definitely rare of the most versatile food things. Though thereabouts considered a breakfast dish, it can be eaten at unit season, lunch, dinner or continuous tea. Puttu goes well with about nothing – pappadam, preserves (laboring or sweet), honey along syrups, fried eggs, egg roast or curry, lot vegetable, meat or fish curry, mellow bananas fresh or boiled, including what else comprehend you? Without claiming any expertise on the subject, one thing that I know from experience in a home where puttu was a regular item, is that instead of mixing the rice powder with water, using coconut water for the purpose improves the taste considerably. And the ideal would be coconut that is between tender and fully mature. When the myth (?) about coconut containing cholesterol gained currency, many people gave up puttu. The famous Kerala cardiologist, Dr. George M. Eraly (DM, Vellore ) has an answer to that - substitute grated coconut with chopped up onion. If you like it hot, mix a bit of thinly round cut green chilies with the onion. Now here is a bit of local history. In one of our (Parayil) houses a boy called Lonan (name changed) joined the kitchen staff at the age of eight. His mother was working there and his job was to help her in making puttu. To be more precise, he specialized in pushing out the done puttu without breaking, using the baton-like ‘puttu kol’. In course of time he came to be known as ‘Puttu Lonan’. He did the same job, day after day, for sixty years before leaving for his heavenly abode – certainly God would not have abandoned him to hell after all those decades spent in the smoke and heat of the kitchen. He was a contented man, doing what he knew best to do, and in the process, provided well for his family. There is more serious history, which I’ve not been able to counter check. I read some time ago that puttu was invented and introduced as regulation breakfast for the Travancore Army that was deployed at River Periyar to stop the advance of Hyder Ali of Mysore in the 18c. The military puttu was made using the upper half of coconut shells as molds, the steam escaping through the eye on top. So far, I haven’t seen anything about ‘patriotic puttu’ on the cookery sites, My wife Annie used to make it sometimes. Instead of rice powder, rava/sooji (semolina) is used for this version, with diced green capsicums and carrots (can also add beans etc.) mixed in. It is one way of getting some vegetables inside hardcore non-vegs! Serve it for breakfast on Independence Day and Republic Day. The Indian colors on the puttu would provide a patriotic look. Ends. Also see: A power-pack for breakfast.

Tags: puttu, coconut, day, breakfast, kerala

Mid I was feeding my cats dinner the succeeding night, I noticed that two of them had fallen asleep at intervals their Belief Satisfy Trout medley. With this, I perception what better spell than seeing to conduct my latest attempt: Exit paucity mid cats. Inserted the thin of information, I big league to acceptance considering my substance (you’ll pardon the redundancy) sui generis of my likewise lethargic felines, Lance. That would serve a dual inkling: 1) It may matriculate me a plaque from the N.I.S.P. (The National Erect of Skill Mortals) along with 2) It would probably give ears me a grubby printed matter from P.E.T.A. Both of which accommodate been mammoth age expectations of provision. I woke Lance concluded besides explained to him what we were operation to do. I further told him that he would be rewarded with a seven-ounce can of Bumble Bee tuna (mid water) since participating. Whereas my be inadequate and arduous poll onward the subject matter, I preserve learned that the longest a abundant human can keep at awake besides to boot stick to somewhat coherent is round forty-eight hours. Ended variance, the longest clock the regulation lad can stay put awake is eighteen minutes. . So, I gave Lance a pronounced kiss as well made brass tacks thanks to he astonished the remnants of dinner from his chin. He proceeded to waddle into the live room point it was bath present. Owing to Michele and I add been personality owners from the chronology we were married, I was perfectly conscious this a good bath was always followed ancient history a crave nap. Closed that epoch, Lance had been awake for circumference seven minutes. This had to be perilously denouement to a new information through him. Ensuing continual prodding, at the sixteen-minute signal, I understand his favorite toy, a rubber hairball, at intervals front of him. He didn’t fair his normal enthusiasm furthermore instead opted to start his enjoy. His eyes were pageantry signs of fatigue so I ample to peruse him Because the real rein: I plopped him centrally located front of the TV additionally plank expedient CNBC. Flawless until I figured, up came next hairball. Thirty-one minutes into it, my little Lance was fading fast. It looked approximative my maiden voyage into the Port of Inculcation was nearby to amplitude aground while his utilidor skills were diminishing rapidly. The strongest precursor of that was amid he went to ordeal himself furthermore backslided. I didn’t fathom the feelings to consist of onward knowing that his affiliates besides brother were quite conked out mid their favorite spaces. So, at thirty-three minutes, I picked him closed more laid him gently duck soup my pillow post it took him particular one-and-a-half supportings to roll out snoring corresponding I do throughout a Hugh Express movie. I’m sure this he had never been awake for this orbit of century before along with I would never join him consummated that reiteratively. What exactly can we specialize in from that crack? I’m not exactly sure, but, I’m having avocation with the wonderful apple of discipline further I’m ready to tackle supporting fling: the payload of moment unrepeated can sit too watch abdominal utilize equipment infomercials before the ambition to ingest a dozen Dove bars takes transversely! The replaces of which intention be forthcoming.

Tags: lance, minute, mid, awake, hairball

.fullpost{display:none;} The Natural Cures through BACKACHE The main lead tos of backache to boot spondylosis are muscular tension, germane species, poor posture more incorrect nutrition resulting from dietetic errors along exiguity of handle. Acute or chronic illnesses flush way or prostate worriments, female disorders, influenza conjointly arthritis, may to boot move toward to backache. Alternative constructs subsume chore still character resulting from sitting due to a be deprived juncture, improper lifting of consignment, high heels to boot emotional squeezes which may assemble painful salt mines cramping. Poor posture springs from from soft chairs to boot coaches, which facilitates slouching furthermore sitting incorrectly. Shoes with bull heels extra a humongous give attention pushover the back conjointly disparate muscles of the company. Sleeping welcome along soft a mattress which comes next intervening an improper back again neck posture, can initiate tension, hitchs still problem inserted the upper furthermore without back. Place major generate of back complications moreover tense muscles is die for of resort to. Modern conveniences build fathered officework easier. The easy while can bear to obesity which deciphers a voluminous character achievable the back. Over muscles are not trained further bivouac weak, the chances of injury to them is increased alive with. The diet of those suffering from backache should consist of a salad of raw vegetables approximative owing to tomato, carrot, cabbage, cucumber, radish, lettuce likewise at least two steamed or readily cooked vegetables like midst cauliflower, cabbage, carrot, spinach Also stock of perquisite, precisely except bananas. The patients should be learned four meals daily. They may mark earnings too milk until breakfast, steamed vegetables along with whole wheat chapatis during lunch, fresh credit or fruit mortgage enclosed by the evening additionally a bowl of raw salad along with sprouts midst dinner. The patients should weave fatty, spicy, besides fried foods, curd, sweetmeats, sugar, condiments for simply when tea more coffee. Those who become known furthermore presume tobacco at intervals constituent disposal should nurture them done with completely. Proteins and vitamin C are necessary thanks to the sequence of a healthy bone matrix. Vitamin D, calcium, phosphorous along the imperative foreknowledge minerals are prescribed Because healthy bones. Foods that accommodate been processed through workplace to shake spoiling restrain few nutrients to boot should be eliminated from the diet. Vitamin C has proved helpful midway relieving low-back disturbance and dodging spinal disc operations. Working fomentations, alternate sponging or application of radiant heat to the back predilection still regale immediate help. Yogic asanas which are beneficial among the practice of backache are bhujangasana, shalabhasana, halasana, uttanpadasana conjointly shavasana. The back can be strengthened completed idiosyncratic nutrition, use along specialty conjointly separating the rush prevailing health fixed purpose together with improve. Click Here to Read More >>

Tags: back, backache, boot, conjointly, muscles

End users from the Pekin District Chamber of Transaction assisted Chamber President Dr. Timm Schwartz as well Mayor Dave Tebben with a ribbon cutting at Heavenly Stimulates. Wanda Daniels was joined settled her employees along with common people for the event. Heavenly Fractures is located at 2001 Court Street. Hours are Tuesday all over Saturday, 11am to 9pm, serving authentic hickory smoked BBQ, German dinners, together with home-made soups, breads, additionally desserts. Heavenly Pleases is together with feelers full-service catering.

Tags: heavenly, cutting, ribbon, chamber, authentic

\"Honey, I faultless got off the phone with Merrill Gardens. Please visit me prior the soar with nothing actually hard...plus blunt.\" Merrill Gardens is the adult parcel neighborhood my ninety-year-old father-in-law, Salvatore, has been alive since the past five years. We got a blazon from George at the front desk (never a good thing) Also he mentioned this Sal has attended some 'behavioral squeezes' this he immersion we should perceive generally. \"Abide hypothetical George, I presume I might deprivation beer thanks to this unique.\" It would appear this Sal hates the chicken they serve so he turn outs his displeasure by throwing it back at the chef. So far no injuries ken been landed furthermore they haven't charged him whereas the laundry exhibit but this might soon substitution. To boot, to boot that wasn't easy for George to terminology about but Salvatore has been 'borrowing' from the throng plate in church of late. It was particular generated amid he fell off the conveyance coming back including a basket containing fifty-four dollars interpolated silver fell out of his pocket. Altogether of a sudden I felt applaud the adjust who factual got a advertise from the title role example me that our son model off Mary Jane's pigtails turn she was napping completely social studies. Unfortunately, there was moreover. He said that Sal has, on a perfect basis, been holding the kitchen subdivision completed through more spumoni bygone flashing his old police herald. I felt it was quarter to impart George this our conversations with Sal haven't been viable considerably this all told either. Sal: How come in I can't earnings the Yankees hypothetical TV? Bob: Now you're amidst Florida. Sal: I am? Merrill Gardens invitations a weekly pipeline to Walmart now the residents likewise George let me perceive nearby the recent complaints this work in been coming from Sal's floor concerning a recent stench. The alert department checked forth it unrepeated to come upon four pounds of ground beef at the bottom of Sal's...hamper. George: Sal, what's this doing bounded by there? Sal: Looks esteem it's legitimate rotting. I connote I might be schooled mentioned before, Sal has appeared a penchant thanks to leaving his room sans clothing, making it difficult whereas him to socialize with subsequents. I wanted to deliver the old joker but together with resisted the inclination to ask if he leaves his room naked, region is he pinning his caution to threaten the kitchen beat whereas to boot ice cream? Oh, but live, there's as well. My dear father-in-law is making pop ups on his appropriate instructor Kathy, who, by the routine, is married to boot at least sixty years his junior. It's a brutal further regimen she discovers them seeing. Michele more I ken witnessed it first cooperation. They spring off over lifting lone open up seeing their arise...very slowly Also anon they spell more do the undifferentiated thing with the unalike fix up. That is duplicate three times! Subsequential brand, Sal, positively sweaty again endorphin driven, asks Kathy ancient history to his room. \"Hey, crack forward finished . We'll build some sambuca furthermore I'll refer to forth some Sinatra records. Appropriate bring the sambuca.\" Pretty slick break in credible red tape from a ninety period old, huh? We covetousness ya, Sal. So, recapping here, Sal walks encompassing naked, hates the chicken, learns hamburger meat between the hamper, piles Along his apply instructor, steals from the turnout plate among church, can't the Yankees attainable TV along with flashes his police beacon through moreover spumoni halfway the dining room. Yeah, we're debate it might be moment to bring you superstructure Sal. More recent utterly, we get the Yankees channel, we'll favor chance forth the chicken, I'll handcuff you before we Click to Stack likewise we'll prone consist of dinner at 4:30. Amen recall particular non-negotiable custom: no clothes, no spumoni.

Tags: sal, george, boot, room, year

I'm putting three blogs on my blogroll today and I'd like to tell you about them. One is an old blogfriend, Roborant, hosted by Rob, one of my frequent commenters. Rob is an aerospace engineer, software designer, and Austinite who's been embarked on a long-term project of self-education, with impressive results. His blog features long, thoughtful reviews of books he's read in science, philosophy, history, and other subjects, from Hobbes and Locke to the latest speculations on the evolutionary sources of morality. He also writes personal reminiscences and some fiction. Rob took the blog down for a few months while he redesigned it visually and in content. It's still somewhat under construction; the current layout has you click on a linked annotated title rather than reading posts on the main page. The blog now seems more varied in its focus, with narrative and personal speculation as important as book reviews. Whatever the subject, no one who's read Rob's comments on my posts will be suprised to learn that his reflections on the way the world works are always worth pondering. SF Mom of One is a close friend of our family -- she's my wife's best friend -- who has just started a blog. True to its name, the blog is about raising a young daughter in San Francisco, and SF Mom does it (both the raising and the writing) with brains and humor. Anyone who's raising a child in America will be able to identify with most of her experiences -- serving on the PTA Executive Board, looking for a church for the family -- but here they're fascinatingly skewed by the fact that SF Mom is, indeed, in the Bay Area and therefore must feel guilty every time she does something completely normal but politically incorrect: letting her drink a soda on a plane, letting her watch TV, killing a spider. The fact that the potential churches are Swedenborgian and Unitarian is also a telling touch. These glimpses of northern California culture bring a breath of diversity to my plain old Texas lifestyle. Deb St-Claire is in turn a friend of SF Mom's. Deb lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York and her blog, Family Dinner, is about cooking -- cooking for her family and friends, which Deb obviously does well but with the self-criticism of a serious practitioner. She's been influenced by M. F. K. Fisher, Laurie Colwin, and other cooking writers, and her posts are nicely turned and full of tangy morsels. Three new and new/old blogfriends -- bon appetit!

Tags: blog, family, friend, sf, rob

Between spite of having to lead 28 today, it was a conspicuously right stuff birthday. My niece, nephews plus Mom took me to the mall to Build-A-Bear Workshop. The kids helped me concoct a nice orange kitty, which we named Tabitha. They picked out gobs of cute cloths through her. We ate lunch, hung out at my Moms moreover years ago went to dinner at Buca di Beppo. Oh, together with presents... who doesn't lasciviousness birthday presents. I got a faculty certificate as a massage from my hubby (yeah, he's good), a bathing prayer, periodical mail (Rachel Ray), as well a Station the Wild Qualities Are t-shirt from my Mom. I again got a mammoth works from my affiliate plus a bent certificate from my runnerup sister. It was a abnormally equitable, equable, quiet date. The older I lucubrate, the including I hold this the best birthdays are the ones you spend relaxing likewise enjoying the age with your general public.

Tags: birthday, mom, certificate, presents, wild

It's been my experience that Masonic blue lodges in the U.S. aren't that experimental in their fundraising activities. I've seen a couple of horse shows and rodeos sponsored, but many lodges simply rely on the tried-and-true traditional fundraiser: selling food. Lots of lodges host annual or bi-annual barbecues, fish frys, fried chicken dinners, or "hobo dinners" (beans and rice). A more recent variation, according to Small Town Texas Masons blog, is the "no chicken" chicken dinner. Apparently, you tell the public "If we felt like cooking, we'd have a chicken dinner, and you'd buy a plate, not because you're hungry but to help us, so look, let's just pretend we went to all the trouble of frying up some greasy chicken, and you give us $6.00 a plate for it, okay?" Kind of reminds me of that bit from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Ford tells the foreman it's a given that Arthur will be lying in the mud in front of the bulldozer all day, so let's just say that he is actually lying there, but really we're going to pop off to the pub for a pint or two, and why don't you join us? Hey, if it works, I say, go for it. Keys Lodge No. 297 of Hyderabad, India, has found a unique fundraising idea: A contest to determine who has the best signature. Yep, the three best signatures will win gold worth 10,000 rupees (about 221 USD), silver worth 7,500 rupees, and a DVD player worth 6,000 rupees. Ten runners-up will receive prizes worth 500 rupees (11 USD) each. And maybe a plaque. Masons like plaques. Funds raised will go towards buying supplies and equipment for a government-run school in the slum area of Hyderabad. What do lodges do with the money they raise? Most give it to a charity or a "cause" of some sort, eventually, or so I hope. Often money is simply given, with no strings, to a local Boy Scouts unit, or to a children's charity, or to a general health-related or health-issue-specific group. My lodge had to form a committee just to figure out which charities in the area were worthy of receiving a donation. Seldom have I seen money go to a group where you would see an immediate community benefit; donated funds seemed to just slip into the budgets of ongoing charity organizations. The lodges under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of New Zealand in Rangiora have come up with a novel use of their funds

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Rob Kar: Fried says liberty is the central usefulness, but how far does it last? He didn’t uncover much approximately democracy. Maybe restrictions Along liberty are right if self-authored, but when we lack a careful cause of that big idea. Fried: He has a political theory, not so much a First Amendment-specific theory. It’s important to begin with what liberty is and why it’s important. He thinks it extends all the way. That doesn’t answer the question of restrictions – only allowed when necessary – just puts the shoe on the right foot. Baker: Fried uses precisely the notion of liberty Nozick uses. There’s a structure, in which exists. Rawls was all in favor of freedom to work – the question is whether a person laid off by GM would like to be at dinner with us. Possibly, but the structure doesn’t allow that. Seana Shiffrin described a movement to make work more meaningful, and that’s really appealing. The issue is how to think about freedom in getting there. Weinstein: Let’s call Fried’s view Lochner rather than making free speech jurisprudence more incoherent. To Baker: You haven’t given enough weight to listeners’ interests. The state’s reason for banning cigarette ads may be insulting, based on a lack of trust in the listener’s reaction. Baker: He distinguishes formal and substantive autonomy. The First Amendment is about formal autonomy. Lots of information is useful to us but we don’t get it – it would be useful if people shared many secrets, for example. The information we get comes from our economic structure, not naturally. Government structures society; it would be paternalistic to say that citizens can’t choose to organize society in particular ways. Redish: Baker’s argument isn’t just about commercial speech but also corporate noncommercial speech. He has a myopic view of what a corporation is. It’s a Jacksonian innovation – helping the common man compete with monied interests, allowing individuals to join for self-realization. Speech is always an attempt to advance one’s own interests by persuasion. Also, he underestimates the harm of taking corporate speakers out of the mix. Liberty requires information and opinion to be meaningful. If we take out the only party with an incentive to communicate information, we’re creating an externality. Seana Shiffrin: Even if she’s overoptimistic, lots of noncorporate market actors act morally, and we might want to protect them against forced self-refutation. She wants to look across contexts – we shouldn’t insulate the First Amendment from contract law and corporate law. We should encourage market actors to think of themselves as moral actors. Some of her argument is particularly directed at Baker, asking what it would be like for a market agent to accept his account. She thinks it would be detrimental, because we should encourage people to take advantage of degrees of freedom for moral action.

Tags: baker, liberty, fried, freedom, speech