Ben Benner’s Blog

I hope that everyone is having a Merry X-mas.

I helped the dogs, rabbits and bird make X-mas cards for Gina. The dogs got her a Starbucks gift card and the rabbits and bird got her an iTunes card. Lula wanted to get Gina a new car, but well Lula is a dog and in these tight economic times she just couldn’t get a loan. I mean, one of these days soon Lula’s modeling career will take off and she will be able to get herself the personal chef she has always been wanting.

Gina got me some clothes (which was cool, cuz I picked them out), she also got me CronoTrigger for the DS-Lite, and she got me a really swanky beard trimmer (my last one broke). Gina and I got t-shirts from my in-laws, Gina’s says that “Everyone loves an Italian girl.” Mine says “Italian, by marriage only.”

I also got a micro-copter (which is proving to be challenge to fly, but one I am sure I will master). Gina got a bracelet.

I got Gina an Apple AirportExpress, so that when she travels she will always be able to have wifi at the hotel. I also got her the latest book by the lady that writes the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling, I believe the title is “The Tales of the Beetle Bard”. It is a small book, I think she will likely finish it in a day (if she reads it straight through).

We were going to see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with Jeremy and Nichole. However, it would appear that the movie was TOO popular. For almost evey X-mas for the last 10-15 years I have seen a movie. But both Gina and myself cannot ever remember the theatre being as busy as the Cinemark on 1431 was this afternoon. Jeremy and Nichole got there earlier than us and managed to get tickets, whereas Gina and I didn’t get there in time. I called Jeremy when we got there, to see if they were already in the theatre or if they were in one of the various lines that were outside the theatre (one of which looked like it might have been coming from inside the building.

He said that they were inside already and that it was pretty full. I stood in line to buy tickets and overheard someone say with amazement “It is sold out.” I didn’t catch what movie they were referring to, when I got up to the kiosk myself, I saw the “Sold Out” label on the picture of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

I feel  bad that we were not able to catch the flick with Jeremy and Nichole. Hopefully, it is a good one. Tomorrow night Jeremy and I are going to see “The Spirit”, I am going to see if John can go tomorrow night. I think I will make sure we are there extra early, which should be easy since Jeremy and I are both taking the day off.

On a side note, it actually turned out to be a good thing that Gina and I didn’t get into the movie. Our “Rival 20 Quart (Electric) Roaster Oven” is amazing, it cooked the turkey to our amazement in about 1.5 hours. I mean it seems impossible to believe, but we reviewed various different websites to verify the necessary cooking time and temperatures (and to see if we could figure out the best place to put the meat temp probe).

The movie lasts almost 3 hours. This would have ultimately have meant that the turkey would have been way overdone.

Gina’s dad had told her earlier today that the roaster would could the turkey quickly, but he didn’t say it was going to cook it that quickly. I mean we had put the probe in about 1 hour in and it was already registering at 161 degrees.

Well, Gina just started cutting the turkey, so it is time to go.

Laterz

It has been said “It is better to be a pirate than join the navy.”

Notably, it was said during the movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley”, which Gina, John and I watched yesterday in the living room. Normally, this wouldn’t be remotely blog worthy.

This however was not a normal viewing. We watched it on YouTube.com, on the living room TV, via the S-Video cable on my laptop. The reason we had to watch it on YouTube, is because I apparently left the DVD disc in my old HP laptop, which is back at the office. (We had watched it a few weeks ago, late on a Friday afternoon at the office.)

But thanks to the miracles of modern technology, I was able to pipe the YouTube version out to the TV. The sound aspect was a slightly different story, I had to steal the sound system from my office computer. There were a few downsides to this setup.

The first downside, was that the 95 minute film was broken into about 10 parts, each being just a little bit less than 10 minutes each. This meant that after each part ended, soemone would have to click on the next segment, which was usually me.

The second downside, is that for some reason part #7 was missing, not sure why it was missing, the “video had been removed”. All the others were perfectly good.

The last downside was more of a minor, minor annoyance. Not sure that John or Gina noticed (or cared), but the dubbing looked to be a bit off. I am not sure if this was a combination of the s-video output or the videoes themselves. But the audio appeared to be about a half second ahead of the video.

The, next marvel of technology was that we all wanted to watch Hackers, a cheesy, yet classic techie movie. I love it because of the cameo appearances of Jolt Cola. Now, I still swear that we own the DVD of Hackers, but it could have been a VHS tape. Either way, we searched our DVD collection and could not for the life of us find it.

So we turned to the U-Verse’s video on-demand service. Low and behold, there it was for a mere $2.00, we could rent it. The movie started up almost instantly (not suffering from any of your usual “buffering lag” that you get when watching movies over the Internet.

I mean, the idea of a video on-demand isn’t anything new, cable companies have had the technology for quite some time. But overall the number of movies available have usually been limited and therefore only your current titles. The U-Verse video library has a wide variety of movies available, Hackers was made in 1995.

While, I am talking about this type of tech, I have to mention the recent addition of a marvelous feature to the XBOX-Live experience, Netflix Video On-Demand. Meaning that I can watch streaming Netflix videos through my XBOX-360. I have used the service to watch some silly TV shows (”Battlestar Galactica 1980″) and some funny movies (”War Inc”, and “Cash Back”). The quality was quite good, DVD level and I experienced no lag.

Earlier today we went and saw a fabulously funny film, “Four Christmases”. We went to see it with Jeremy and Nichole. I had been a little apprehensive about it recently, as I was afraid that having seen numerous trailers for the movie that I had already seen all of the funny parts. Nope, not in the least. If you haven’t seen the movie and think that from any trailers you have seen that you might be interested in seeing it, please definitely go and see it

Tonight we watch “Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day” via the U-Verse video on-demand. It was one that Gina and I had wanted to see in the theatres but had missed out catching down at the Great Hills Regal (which tends to show more of the art-house style flicks).

We closed out the evening with “Sweet Home Alabama”, which we have on DVD. It is one of Gina’s favorites and I have to admit I like it too.

Well, it is definitely time for bed.

Laterz

I only sort of wish I had a kite. It would be interesting to try to fly a kite off the end of the dock. It certainly has been windy the last couple of days.

I think the temperature on the thermostat here never read over 69F yesterday, today It hasn’t broken 65F.

Gina made breakfast this morning. I have to do the dishes, right after I finish this post.

We are pretty sure that we are going to head down state later today instead of Wednesday. I think we will be heading back to Texas on Friday morning.

The sun is peaking out from behind the clouds here and there while I am posting this, but the temp is just not hot enough to sit out and get a tan. Bummer.

We saw Hancock on Friday, it was pretty good. I really liked the first half of the movie, it felt very original but just as the storyline was getting good they started wrapping it up, they managed to keep the movie to an hour and a half, but in doing so the whole ending felt rushed.

The little theatre in Bellaire is really great. It has two screens. They had just done a fresh batch of popcorn so I had to get some. I have gotten into the habit of buying the kid’s packs, that way you get a little bit of popcorn, a small drink and some candy. Normally the candy is something really small and not always that great. However, the Bellaire theatre offered you a selection of candy from the bottom row, which was cool. They had a good assortment to choose from. I got peanut M&Ms.

I found out that the family that owns the Bellaire theatre, also owns the theatres in Gaylord and Petoskey.

The BBQ on Friday turned out really well, everyone really enjoyed the pork, coleslaw and chicken. Mary Wight brought over her famous spaghetti salad, it was very, very good.

Well, I better get the dishes cleaned up.

Laterz

A few years back an exec who was advising me on how to become an exec and leader myself told me that I should look to TV and movies for examples of leadership.

When I first heard this, I was a little shocked, but after a few minutes I thought of a few examples of leadership that I have seen in TV and movies. The immediate ones I thought about was the scene in Boiler Room where Ben Affleck’s character was telling everyone who was starting what was expected of them and what they could expect in very blunt terms.

Not necessarily what you would want on a regular basis, but the one scene has made me think about trying to be more blunt with the guys I manage. The next example I thought about was mentoring that Dennis Quad showed Topher Grace in the movie In Good Company.

The whole movie In Good Company, I think is a good example of how a leader should try to not only lead the team but protect them and assist when he can. It also showed a good example of the how expectations can vary by managers from different generations, albeit in a very stereotypical way.

But the one that I think back to time and time again, is Major Winters from the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. I have long had an affinity for WWII movies and shows. But Major Winters was a real person, and while I am sure HBO took liberties with some of the dramatic portrayal of the material, I really do believe that the people from that era deserve the designation The Greatest Generation.

You get to watch Major Winters (who started out as a Lieutenant in the mini-series) win respect of the men he led in Easy company. There is a point in the mini-series where they are in Bastogne and (I believe he was a Captain at the time) Major Winters wants so badly to go back out and lead the men out of harms way as their commanding officer was not doing what he was supposed to. That feeling that he needs to jump back into the fray, that he still cared about the safety of the men in that company, is impressive. I mean he had been promoted to Battalion Command by that point and was expected to organize the strategy for the attacks, not lead them.

The other thing that I recognize and that is talked about here and there is that Easy company would not have been as tightly nit (or physically ready) for the perils that they went through if not for Captain Sobel. Sobel galvanized Easy company, unfortunately he became the common foe. And if the mini-series accurately portrays Sobel, then the fact that he was removed as the commanding officer of Easy company was for the good.

But in the contrast you get to see what a bad leader is, Sobel who does force Easy company to become physicall fit, but does not think he needs the men’s respect. “You salute the rank, not the man.” is one of the lines you hear later on in the series after Winters is promoted above Sobel.

The other line I remember is “If you were in my platoon, I would tell you that you are a rifleman first and a radio man second.” This concept is one that I try to keep in my head, that within whatever department you are in or leading, the members (including the manager) should be able to perform the basic operations of the department. This can be hard to achieve, but it is something that I think is worth shooting for.

I would not be where I am Today if not for the fact that I am capable of doing a little bit of everything. Specialization is good, is NEEDED in many careers, but without a strong understanding of the basics, then you may find yourself “Over Qualified” or find that you have to rely on someone else to be able to perform your job duties (which can upset your timetables).

Another reason for bringing up the “rifleman” quote is because, in my current career role I don’t do a lot of programming anymore. To note I never had the designation of a programmer or developer, but I dabbled. But the fact that I dabbled I truly believe makes me a better manager. Same goes for managing the Sales Engineer (currently only one guy, so hard to say Sales Engineer Dept).  Having significant experience doing sales engineering I believe makes me a better manager of that process.

I have the Band of Brothers DVDs playing while I straighten up my office.

Gina (The Best Wife Ever) was kind enough to get me the DVDs a couple of years ago for X-mas, as I would usually watch it when it was on HBO or A&E.

Oh, last thing about Currahee, I would like to go there someday and run it, 3 miles up and 3 miles down. Mostly for nostalgia of watching the mini-series so much that I could run the same route that Easy Company did over 60 years ago. I have no idea how I would go about arranging that, but it is something that I would like to do in say the next 2 or 3 years.

I better get back to filing away stuff on my desk.

Laterz