Enthusiasm

Well, I think I might end up blogging more often. Tonight, I finally got myself a smartphone and it’s got a really nice sliding out keyboard. I got a worpress app installed and BAM here I am blogging again in over a year. Lol.

So there goes my posting 3 times a week blown right out of the water. Missed 2 whole weeks of blogging due to my vacation.

We went on a big hiking, fishing, photo safari, camping trip for my birthday and since then we’ve been playing catch up. All the while the guild has not been doing well and I’ve been struggling to get us back on our feet. It’s been going ok, just not the sunshine and rainbows I had hoped for. Aric and Amanda ended up leaving on me which ended up being a pretty devastating blow to our raid force.

Anyhow the highlight of the month definitely was our trip and sadly so much happened including a 3 mile hike through the blue basin, catching 18 fish, and generally having an amazing time… I just am having a hard time with blogging about it all after our vacations. So one idea I had was that on future trips I would blog every night with the digital video camera and post those blog postings as video blogs when I get back. I think that approach would definitely keep things moving so that way I don’t so easily fall off the horse when I go on vacation. In general I’m going to try to include more videos in my blog. I’ve been getting a ton of high definition video in the last year since we got the video camera and I’d love to share them with everyone.

I know I’m blogging a lot about WoW, but a lot of stuff is going on right now w/ the guild, so I feel I need to for my own sanity and record keeping. Will be blogging more in coming weeks about birthdays, vacation, more boating, and fishing.

Well, last night after 2 attempts, we downed Sindragosa. Honestly she felt… almost easy. First attempt 15%. Second attempt was flawless, smooth. Well executed on everyone’s part. Then we moved onto Lich King and again two attempts to get past phase 1. One for learning, discussion, then we got it down. Took a couple more attempts to get phase 1.5 smooth and take us into phase 2. The rest of the week the focus will be mastering phase 2.

To be filled out.

Well as predicted, Wednesday we one shot Sindragosa then since then we’ve been doing attempts on Sindragosa. This includes apparently tonight. Upon Ray and I long on, ready to do ToGC, we find out that we’re A. continuing attempts on Sindragosa and next week we are extending the lock out so that way if we don’t down her tonight we will down her on Tuesday and focus all next week on Lich King.

Kinda crazy, not usual fair for the guild, but I like it. I also like that other officers took charge a bit on the decision making on all this. My hope is that Gnar performs well. He’s only been back for a week now after being gone for close to two months.

OH, also our boat arrived yesterday. Tomorrow we plan to be out on the water trying out for the first time and I have a fly fishing class I’m going to. My goal is of course to improve my casting so will focus on that. Goal of boating is just getting used to the new boat and developing systems operating and using it with Kerrie.

The guild is definitely back to performing again after last week’s cleaning of the roster. Last night we did 9 of 12 in about 3 hours. This was one shotting the first wing, one shotting the entire plague wing including Putricide, then the two shotting princes and queen in the blood wing which for about half the people was their first times. It was a great night. We had some healing learning curve on Dreamwalker, but they are going back in tonight and should down her and do attempt on Sindragosa.

My current hopes are that we should be doing Lich King next week.

So over the weekend, focused on 3 main things. Fishing, entering Geo-cache entries from our Astoria trip (57 of them plus TB’s), and spending time with Kerrie and the rest of my local family at a memorial day BBQ.

Saturday was an homage to fishing. It was Kerrie’s first fishing trip with her own licence and new 2-6 lbs micro action fishing pole. We spent the morning cleaning and then headed out to Harriet lake, picking up the Oregon / Washington National Forrest annual pass along the way. We got some stunning views and I think in a way the drive was almost as enjoyable as the fishing. Estacada lake especially looked beautiful as we wondered about how awesome it would be to have our first boating experience there.

When we got the Harriet, it was crowded and tiny, so we continued forth to Timothy Lake. I quickly got my bearings and then we settled in at the usual doc spot where Dad, Ray, and I used to fish. We got setup, tested our fish finder finally (yeah it works), and then started fishing. The day started off slow, but once they started biting we landed 6 fish in pretty short order. After we got home at almost 10:00, I cleaned and prep’ed the fish for Sunday night’s dinner. Sunday Kerrie cooked them bone / skin on, I cleaned them off the bone after cooking, and man was it good eats.

Oh and I’m never going back to Faraday. That lake sucks.

So after the massive guild kick fest on Tuesday (which I blogged about on Wednesday), one shining light on the guild was finally the return of Gnarsokar to our raids!

After a grueling month and half of dealing with a semi-serious medical issue, my brother is back in tip-top shape. We did IceCrown Citadel Deathbringer through Putricide and not only did he do good, I think he played better that night than he had before he got sick. He and everyone else had a really great time. I think it was a good morale boost for the guild. I hope that next Tuesday goes as smoothly so we can keep up the good momentum.

There comes a time in every leader’s carrier that they need to make a decision for the betterment of the company, that there needs to be large firing of employees. Sometimes that’s because you have a large division of “Eeyores” which are bringing the “Tiggers” down, sometimes it’s just a large group of individuals who are under-performing and affecting the high performer’s performance, and sometimes it’s just a cultural issue where you have a large group of people who have created a cultural subdivision in your organization that makes the culture what you don’t want it to be. It’s interesting that I had this conversation recently with one of my x-bosses about how to deal with people who persistently Eeyores and dragging down the organization. He gave me examples of new CEO’s or other change leaders who tried to change things through good leadership alone, but at some point you have to cut your losses and remove those who aren’t following your leadership.

So after months of work trying to lead cultural change from casual / unsustainable organization to a more performance based / sustainable / great organization, I finally gave up and removed those who were dragging behind and pulling down my change efforts. It wasn’t easy and there were some people that I had a hard time even authorizing their removal, but as discussed with my officers and our core members, it needed to happen. I still have a sense of regret from what had to be done, but I think some quick wins and success post this action will help us all get over the emotions that’s hanging on us after this large the wave of removals.

My hope is that Friday we will make some good positive movement. We’ll see.

Saturday I was in the “Gentleman’s Edge”, which by the way is a fantastic barber shop run by one man and has been doing so for over a decade. Isaac knows how to cut hair like no one else I’ve even seen and frankly I wouldn’t go any place else for a hair cut. On top of that the Gentleman’s Edge is a fun little nostalgic place with old stuff on the walls, sports car, motor bike, and pretty much lots of guy stuff all over the place. He also has something always on the TV in the corner of his shop playing a race, car auction, or something else related to motor sports (sometimes other cool guy programming)…

Plug for my barber aside… he tells me that I should talk with his brother. I call him, leave a message, and figure I might hear back from him. Wow was I underestimating the response I’d receive. He sure did call me back and after an honest candid conversation I think that it’s a good fit. We will be getting together for lunch some time soon (either Tuesday or Wednesday). I have a lot of hard questions to ask him. I want to make sure it’s the right decision.