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March 16, 2006: Report Thirty </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="5"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" valign="top"> <center>

- The Jim Report -

- The Word -

- The MT/miniGJW -

- The Development Server -

- The Function re-write - </center></td> <td valign="top"> <center>

- The Next Week -

- The Sarin Transfer -

- The DV Update -

- The New DC -

- The Props -

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Jim Report</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

Whew. That was a rough week or so. I've been working my butt of in RL trying to keep up with things. I hope I don't have another week like that for a while.

Big fraternity event this past weekend, hence my little absence. I was on a psuedo-LoA. It was our annual Founders' Day event and I was in charge...well, I wasn't supposed to be in charge, but it all fell to me anyway. That's the way things go with me. The event was a success though. We doubled our attendance from last year and people were pleased overall. I was elected to president of our chapter's Housing Corporation. I now am in charge of managing our $700,000 property on OSU's campus. Fun fun! I have been gradually conned into doing a bit more for the Fraternity. Basically, if I don't do it...others won't. The way of my life.

Huge news came yesterday from my travel agent. It seems that the people for Princess Cruise lines overbooked my cruise for next week more than they were supposed to. It's normal to overbook in case of cancellations, but someone screwed up. They needed some people to get off of the cruise and reschedule -- so they offered some packages to people on my deck of the boat. Keep in mind that my entire cruise package for my wife and I, with flight, ran something around $2600....

In order to get us to reschedule, they offered us a 12-day cruise around the f'ing Mediterranean Sea. 12 days cruising around Europe for not a single cent more. The damn flight out to Europe would cost more than our entire original cruise and they wanted to include it all for nothing more. Wooo Hooo! Jac's lucky day.

So, I traded a 7-day Caribbean package worth $2600 for a 12-day European package worth $11000-$12000. They gave us a balcony room, $550 onboard credit -- all sorts of crazy stuff. I leave June 9th and we will hit Venice, Athens, Ephesus, Istanbul, Mykonos, Naples, Rome, Florence, Marseille and Barcelona! Holy Crazy! I've only been to Canada to gamble at Windsor....this will be nuts.

And even better on top of that -- we still wanted to do something for next week, so my travel agent pulled some strings and found us a cheap cruise on Royal Caribbean sailing out of Miami on Saturday. Boooooyaaaaaaaa. I get to spend Friday in a car, but still get to go on a sweet cruise next week. Can't really afford it -- but we'll figure that one out later.

I figure, when else in my life am I ever going to get a chance to go on two cruises in one year, with one being in Europe. My parents have been trying for years to no avail. Once I get a job and have kids, my chances are gone. So we're goin. Yeehaw.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Word</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

Now for today's word(s):

Do what others don't

This weekend at my Fraternity event we had a guy from our headquarters come and speak for a bit (he was impressed by me, biotch). He got up and told a very good story about a lot of the Fraternity members he'd meet (Pi Kappa Alpha has lots)...the rich ones especially (lots of those too). Well he was at dinner with a guy who had made a crap ton of money (like five dolla) and the guy leaned over to our speaker and said "do you want to know how to be rich like me?" Of course the speaker was like "Hell yeahz!". He was probably all excited and stuff (sweet stock secrets!). And then the rich guy leans back over and says "all you have to do, is what others don't." (seriously, wtf. That's not a sweet stock to invest in)

It wasn't the advice that the speaker was hoping for, but it was good advice nonetheless. (my balls it was good. ::grumble::) When you look around you here in the DB and in Real Life, the people that are truly successful heed that advice daily; they are set apart from the rest because they do what others don't do. Here specifically, that separates the good leaders from the mediocre ones, the active members from the inactive ones (and the inactive from the balteeted ones). If you want to excel as a leader here there are things that you must do to excel. Leaders are expected to do the bare minimum. They contact members, write reports, come on IRC (yes, that is the minimum). But it is those leaders that do what others don't that truly excel. Unit evaluations, activity tracking, constant email and message board contact, innovative competitions -- these things are not the norm of the DB (though they should be). It takes a lot of hard work and efort to track member activity in an excel sheet (kinda). It takes a ton to be active on IRC, Email and the message boards consistently. Most others just don't do that. It's too hard (not really though). When you do what the others don't, you set yourself to a higher standard and make your mark as an exceptional leader.

It doesn't always have to take a boatload of time to do what others don't (like five minute). Saying thank you consistently or not being an asshole when it's obvious that a miscommunication has been had -- these are easy things that others just don't do. Responding to your email when you get it rather than procrastinating or submitting to that competition that has been an abysmal failure because of low participation -- these things that others don't do can set you apart easily if you do (Yes! I will participate in Jac's "Draw a sweet buffalo" competition!). And what's it really take? Not too much time on the small things. For most of us, it takes not procrastinating (don't watch Office Space for the 103rd time). It takes recognizing when we can do a bit more and doing it. It takes a drive to excel.

So the lesson is simple here. If you want to excel, if you want others to look up to you, and if you want to feel a better sense of accomplishment...do what others don't.

And that's the word.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The MT/miniGJW</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

If you haven't heard yet, Kir has been on a bit of an unexpected and definitely unwanted LoA. His RL job is working him 2x as much as normal -- not good when you want some free time.

This has put a big damper on some schedules, including the miniGJW that Kir has been working on. I am not exactly sure what was left to finish, but I think he was almost ready to run it. I'm hoping now not to put it off for much longer when I get back from my Honeymoon.

As for the MTs, I will try to get the entries from Kir and have them graded. Please submit to Kaiann's topic in the meantime.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Development Server</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

I had some sweet news from my web hosting company the other day. They upped my disk space and bandwidth. Now I have 20GB storage and 200GB transfer a month -- like 95% of available for DB use. The best part of their upgrade though was that they have given me another MSSQL database to work with.

That means that We can finally have a development database. Right now, as we build scripts, we have to test them with real dossiers. You will see, for instance, Pyralis regularly demote himself to an APP so that he can test whatever it is I'm working on. We won't need that anymore once I get the development database up. We will be able to work and test out of a development folder and just copy over finished files to the live area. It will make for much easier code testing.

So that's sweet. Also -- since I have a lot of space, don't hesitate to ask me for a subdomain. I'll hook you.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Function re-write</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

Like I've illustrated in a couple of past reports, the SCL staff has been working hard to make the website a little friendlier to improvements. Rax did a ton over the past two weeks in re-writing our function library. Now it's all pretty, standardized and commented. The next task is to start transferring old files over to the new standards. Should take a bit of hard work, but I think it's doable. After that, we plan on doing a full-revamp of the site security system and a bunch of other random things. Rax has a full list and a priority set for different projects. Things are looking good code-wise.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Next Week</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

I will not have much time tomorrow for anything, and Friday I leave at 9 AM for Florida. This is probably my last piece of communication you will get here. Until the 25th of March I will have the most limited of email access and emergency cell phone contact. Kir, Pyr and FF all have my # if I am desperately needed (aka, the site goes down for a couple days).

While I am gone, please be on good behavior. If something erupts, just wait till I get back or work it out yourselves. Kir is still a bit out of commission, so FF is in charge. Pyralis can speak for me on projects.

Have fun without the Jac for a week!

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Sarin Transfer</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

This subject was brought to my attention in two clan channels this past week. I'm not sure what brought the subject up again all of a sudden, but I was asked to give an explanation as to why Sarin is a DJM, so here we go.

Our current policy on EH transfers is to take the rank that a member had before the split and evaluate from there on a case-by-case basis whether that is the right transfer. Generally, the members that have come over since we started this policy have kept their pre-split rank.

That policy, however, was not in place when Sarin transferred. When he came over our policy was to accept the rank if it seemed to have been earned through merit, but to disallow transfer of any merit medals.

With both policies, I look into and ask around about the member in question to make sure that they are of sound character and to see whether they deserve what we give them. With Sarin it was obvious that he is an exceptional leader, and I was ok with his rank transfer. It seemed to have been earned through merit (unlike some EHDB promos that are earned through sending an email once a month) and he wanted nothing to do with his old medals. I allowed the transfer.

Now, you are free to disagree with that decision -- I knew at the time that some people wouldn't be happy about it. But, it is a decision that has been made and I'm not going to revisit it. I think Sarin is worthy of his rank.

Please note, however, that shortly after Sarin transferred, we did revisit our policy and changed it. As more and more members from the EH started coming over, we felt that the new policy would suit us better. While Sarin is grandfathered into the old rule, new EH transfers will be looked at from their split rank forward. When a split rank is not available or is so low as to be negligible, we will look at the merit of their EHDB rank and determine what is best.

Please email me with any questions or concerns on this issue.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The DV Update</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

Same as last week: Ziltopia is having some trouble getting me the files for the DV. My apologies for the delay. Regardless of when this DV comes out, the following one will be released on April 12 for our anniversary.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The New DC</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

With Spears stepping down and Anshar stepping in, we have for the most part completely renewed the membership within the DC. Kaiann is the only DC member who has significant DC-time under his belt. The other members have all been recent appointments. This is a far cry from six months ago when the DC was filled with members that had basically been there since the split.

I think this new set of faces is adding a lot already. The DC members are energized and have been working hard to bring positive change through their positions. I am pleased with their progress so far -- Kaek, Rax, and Muz have all done outstanding things in their first weeks and months -- Anshar has a ton coming. Beware of the new DC -- we bite.

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BIG PROPS

--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Props</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

<center>- Props to my travel agent for getting me a trip to Europe -

• Congrats to Strategos on the SB! -

• Yay for Anshar and Spears swpping spots! -

• Yay! Impetus got a lightsaber! -

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