A Farewell Fete

It's Wednesday already, a week since Terry & Peter hosted my "Retirement" party. I struggle with that word, I'm far from retired. Only from IBM and the only difference is that I get a little health coverage provided for a few years. The real difference is that I have time now and no shortage of things to fill it with. I spent part of yesterday just adding things to lists... how time flies!

Back to the topic of the party though; March 23rd, 2011 was not a very productive work day for me. In fact, I think I may have written all of one email that day. What I did was head out for a late lunch with the architects, our usual "last Thursday of the month Architects lunch" held at a different day & time to line up with the party. The date was picked about a month earlier when I had confirmation of my leaving and I announced it at that previous lunch. The 23rd was also the day our Ottawa office (Jackie) would be in town. Terry & Peter had even reserved the back room that day.

As luck  would have it, the day started with quite a snowstorm and it kept snowing all day. I had some people tease me about my control over the weather (reminding me about the volcano last year that kept us stranded in Belgium for an extra week) and there was some question about people being able to make it. Darryl took this shot on the drive in...


Lunch was pretty relaxed, everyone was in a good mood and hungry (since it was a late lunch most of us hadn't eaten). Here's a shot of Jackie and me, with Mike  & JC.

Terry spent a little time in the back room putting up some photos and trying to get the projector to work (he gave up on it, I'm glad : ) and as a few people started to arrive we all move to the back.

The first thing everyone noticed was the collection of photos he'd put up. I knew he was collecting photos from wherever he could get them. And he had a posted printed up of many of them, including baby and childhood photos he downloaded from Picasa.




As the afternoon wore on people kept pouring in, including a few surprises. One was Ralph Jones who had retired from SIS last year with over 40 years @ IBM. He had just gotten in from Florida and made a point of coming. Another was Doug Clark, who was my first boss. I was also pleased that many of the management team made it, including Pat, Greg and Tony. There have been other parties like this where none of the sr. managers showed up.

By the time Terry got everyone's attention to make a short speech Nada had made a quick count and thought there were over 70 people there. It sank in that I guess I did have a little bit of an impact on the place after all. And of course it felt really good that so many people would come out on a day like that.

It was also great that Andrea, Kayla, Steffan & his girlfriend Catherine came. The didn't know many people there, they came to be a part of the event though. And I got to thank the two people who are "responsible" for my working at IBM. Doug (who hired me) and Steffan. He was the reason I was looking for a steady job, which lead me to take the job at IBM (Steffan will turn 30 this year).

The owner of the bar also wanted to do something special, and stocked the bar with an extra bottle of single malt for the occasion. I really enjoyed the Oban later in the evening. Thanks Billy.

And thanks Terry & Peter... that was a great party. If you want to see the full set of photos, Terry has them up on his Picasa site.
https://picasaweb.google.com/iassist/20110323KraikersRetirementParty?authkey=Gv1sRgCNeItJKqrdua6gE#

Testing... yes, I think my eyes (and mind) are ready

I spent a little time on Sunday looking, exploring, walking and letting my mind enjoy simple thoughts. The ones that caught my attention were the result of the past cold days, and the effect of the wind as it splashed on the shore of the Leslie Street Spit. Here's a photo from my stroll, I'm interested in any and all feedback.

I wanted to put up my thoughts from the party last Wednesday, I guess I'm not finished digesting. I will add one teaser... this is a photo that Peter Mark took and it was Greg's suggestion to capture it, I'm glad he did.

On my right (left in the photo) is Doug Clark... my first manager, the one who hired me.
On my left (right in the photo) is Greg Pedlar... my last manager, the one who confirmed that I was ready to end my stint at SIS.
And yes, me in the middle. With a glass of Oban (single malt Scotch) that magically arrived.

It was a great party, I will get that story up soon.

Closed the previous chapter, this one is now officially open

Well, it's really here... the Next Chapter. All thoughts of IBM and SIS are part of a previous part of the book, no going back. And to honour the transition, I'll post here what I shared with my friends and co-workers as a "parting shot". My 2nd to last email from "olc@ca.ibm.com" (that ID has been mine since 1998 when IBM switched from VM to Lotus Notes... that's another story!). I'm sure that ID will be gone in a few days. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you don't need to know the insider secrets to laugh along.

I will add a separate entry about the party, with photos. And write something about the feeling of transition... walking out the door the last time was emotional, knowing a chapter was ending and a chapter was starting. One person in particular really got me, I didn't think ahead and was surprised when the moment came; that moment, those tears, made it really clear that the next chapter was now open. Thanks Nada.

For now, here's my "good bye" email... Mike B mentioned that he didn't have a copy of his so I wanted to make a point of keeping this so I (and anyone who's interested) can look back on it years from now. I hope you enjoy reading it.

And a bonus photo of what I left behind... this is the outside of my x-cubie :)

The subject lines is 
It's 42, accept it and move ahead
 
And the story goes like this... it was sent on Thursday March 24 2011, the day after the farewell party and the day before I finished.

Thanks to everyone who came out last night, I felt very honoured that you
made the effort... I guess I may have had a small impact on this place
after-all. I promise the next party won't involve a snowstorm!

Let me cut to the chase:
blog: nextchapter.kraikerphoto.com (Start on "The Idea")
business: kraikerphoto.com

Hi... still reading?

No, it's "only" 30 years (plus 4 days)... the answer is still 42.

42: The answer to that ultimate question of... life the universe and
everything. Go do the math, maybe Watson can help?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_to_the_Ultimate_Question_of_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything

42: "back in the day when..." when education was a part of everyone's
career in IBM, a course I took in mainframe technology was taught by
William Hardacre the 3rd and he published a set of common-sense laws. Law
#42 has always stuck and it lines up well (in my mind) with Douglas
Adams...

First say this mantra:
don't panic
take a breath, say it again.
don't panic
(it helped get me through these 30 years...)

Now google William Hardacre and find his 42nd law... good luck. It's more
obscure than Vogon poetry, not as painful though!. Law # 42 states simply:
"It depends"
His other laws are good too... worth a read (I've left them on the outside
of my cubicle)..

After you delete this email, I hope you'll think about what "it" depends
on. It's my opinion that you get to shape that space. For now, I'll wrap up
by sharing a few thoughts on what the past 30 years of "42" means to me and
you are invited to use, abuse, or ignore as you see fit.

People:
SIS has always been about the people.
This time has given me the opportunity to meet some of the most amazing
people I know, and I thank you (and big blue) for that. Wow. Having sorted
through my paper archives, I saw names like Otto, Huckfield, Hancock,
Goody, Ferrie, Koltowski, Crash, JD, Mark, Rick, and well... too many to
mention. Some have been gone longer than most of  you reading this have
been part of SIS. It's really unfortunate that this sort of history and all
the lessons learned aren't available to build on (IMHO).  Someone should
write a book on it... hmmm. At least there's a video.

People I've mentored who stepped up and took charge... I've been very proud
of seeing them grow.
People I've worked with who were dedicated without the burning ambition, oh
so very Brokerage! Anyone who's worked on a major conversion and burned out
getting the job done knows how important they were to delivering customer
sat. Merrill, Woody "Gumby", TD, there have been lots of highlights over
these past years. Perspective, yes... 42! I know it depends. I only need to
think back to the weekend we deployed trade innovator for the first time
and found that it wouldn't run on the target platform to remind myself.
That was a busy weekend as folks like Dave Witterick, Terry and Carson
worked to redeploy on some pSeries servers we "re-purposed". Of course it
was available Monday morning...
People I've grown up with as we all grew together... SIS has always had a
sense of family and community. I think there are still about 15 of us "old
timers" left, I hope you'll pick their brains while they're still there.

Places:
It really was good working downtown, being close to our customers and
interacting with them. We had a number of locations; when I started we were
in the Royal Trust Tower and then we moved into the new IBM Tower (that's
what 79 Wellington was originally called). When I started, we still did all
the printing and would pack up the reports into big leather bags for each
of the brokers. They would send staff down to pick up the bags @ 8:30 each
morning, quite a feeding frenzy. And the only time the 3rd shift crew would
need to wear a tie.
Opening up the Vancouver office was another one of those places... perhaps
there's an opportunity to win back some of those customers and open it up
again.
My favourite though was getting to work in Belgium for almost 2 years. Many
people don't know that SIS had a Professional Services division that worked
on opportunities around the world. You'll find implementations of our OMS
system in places like Milan and Amsterdam, and a variant of trade innovator
in Brussels. India, Hong Kong, and of course the States were all places SIS
was active.
Consumers Road... well let's just say I won't miss the food.

Accomplishments:
There have been a few over the years. I've mentioned being part of some
major conversions (I hope SIS can get back into that, it's exciting stuff
to bring on new customers!), and being part of the trade innovator team. I
also had the pleasure of bringing Canada's first online broker to the
internet when we released our NetAdvisor product in 1996 with TDW. Early
accomplishments include documenting the first successful DR Plan (1986) and
the one that everyone in OPS is very intimate with: Stream Split. It bought
us back hours in our batch processing window, which used to be very tight.
I expect that the idea of multiple streams will be around for a while...
And later accomplishments include building 300 servers in 6 months, with a
core team of talented folks. Too bad we never delivered the applications to
use them! (Yes, that was RVP... before nRVP, Plan B, and EVP).
Getting SIS to sponsor a "Bike to Work Week" event in 1990 was a nice
accomplishment too... thanks Ray.

the Next Chapter:
Many of you know I'm an avid cyclist and photographer. Over the past few
years I have combined those interests and started a personal business as a
photojournalist and photographer. I have been published in Velonews and
Pedal magazines, as well as a variety or websites covering bicycle races
around North America and Europe. I look forward to having the time to
devote to that and see how far I can take it. So starting in April, I'll be
traveling about in my old VW camper with a load of bikes and camera gear.
If you're interested in staying in touch and following this adventure, I'll
be posting to my blog (nextchapter.kraikerphoto.com) along the way.

I'm only retiring from IBM, I'm not the kind to sit around though... should
be fun!

So
my time here has come to an end and I'm moving ahead. Thank you for sharing
in the adventure, and I hope to keep in touch.
so long, and thanks for all the
hugs...

--
Regards, Peter Kraiker
------------------------------

-
studiofstop.com / nextchapter.kraikerphoto.com

Inspiring - The Inaugural Canadian Sidney Hillman Award

I had the honour of attending the inaugural Hillman Prize Canada presentation ceremony held at the Steam Whistle Brewery tonight. And I found it a very inspiring event, as well as timely.

The Sidney Hillman Foundation was established in 1950 in honour of Sidney Hillman (the founder and president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America). This American award has been handed out annually to recognize outstanding achievement from "journalists, writers and public figures whose work fosters social and economic justice". The list of previous winners is impressive; Woodward & Bernstein, Cronkite, Bill Moyers, far too many amazing journalists to list.

Thanks to the work of Alex Dagg (Canadian Director of Workers United) and Bruce Raynor (President of the Hillman Foundation) the first Canadian Hillman Prize was awarded tonight. The photo is of Mr. Raynor speaking to the approximately 100 invited guests. I only had my iPhone, so the quality is what it is.

The winner was Steve Buist from the Hamilton Spectator for his "Code Red" piece on the social fabric of the city of Hamilton and the impact of financial imbalance between neighbourhoods. Working with Neil Johnston they were able to map a number of health characteristics and illustrate them on an interactive map. One startling fact that was exposed: a 21 year difference in life expectancy from one end of the scale to the other. A generation lost, within a thriving city in a first world country.

There was also an Honourable Mention award given to the team of Tyler Walsh, Helen Fallding, and photographer Joe Bryksa from the Winnipeg Free Press for the newspaper and video pieces entitled "No Running Water". Their in-depth coverage of the effect of very limited running water in First Nation communities is both shocking and telling. It caught the attention of the judges who requested that an Honourable Mention be awarded.

I know I've talked about being a journalist (and I did cover events in the mid 70s for the Midland Times in addition to my cycle racing coverage) however my current thoughts of being a sports journalist covering bike races feels very small compared to the importance of the commentary presented by these talented individuals. I take it as inspiration, and look forward to seeing what I can do with it.

Thank you, Sidney Hillman.

Thirty Years

Thirty years ago today a guy by the name of Doug Clark put me on the payroll of IBM as an employee. I hear he will be at the party on Wednesday, I'll have to both thank him and tease him about that. That leaves the "plus four days" as my remaining time in Big Blue.

Thirty years is a long time, and it has me thinking about my father. He's been dead for over forty years however I remember when he had his thirtieth anniversary with Ernst Leitz Canada. In those days, a gold watch was the norm and I still have my father's. I will be taking it in to see if it can be restored, meanwhile here's a photo of it.

A final week, and then...

I spent the past couple of weeks winding things down, transferring "stuff" to people who might be interested in it and throwing out the bulk of it as it was only of interest to me (who needs a memo from 1982... don't ask why I kept stuff like that). It was quite a trip down memory lane and reminded me about a few of the things I accomplished and a few of the people I hadn't thought of in quite a while.

So now it's done, I really don't have much left to do at or for work. The meetings I have left are all social rather than business and the hardest task I have left is thinking up something to say as a farewell. I'm sure I'll need to say something on the 23rd (sounds like the party will be well attended). I am also looking for the words I want to use in a final e-mail. I've got a week to work out the kinks in that.

The other email I'm working on is the invitation to add me to various cycling websites and magazines as a photojournalist. That will go out this weekend, hopefully I'll start getting some interest. To date I have had 2 very interesting offers including one that will take me to the Tour de France in July... I very much hope that works out.

I have been asked if I've started using a different unit of measure for my remaining time and I suppose I haven't. It's still days and lunches. I have 5 more working days, 3 lunches planned and one open invite I will set up on that final day. What has changed in my planning. I have a trip to Asheville, North Carolina in mind to test out the camper and test out the legs riding in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Andrea is very excited by the prospect of getting in some early training, and the only challenge is which bikes to bring (trying to resist the urge to bring both road and mountain bikes). I expect it will be very easy to fill up my time, perhaps the unit of measure will be open days on my calendar?

I posted a question to a mailing list I belong to (for Vanagon owners) about good places to camp around Asheville and was thrilled with the response, good thing I have some time to go through all the info and pick where to camp. Curtis Creek and Davidson River camp grounds sound like good candidates (free camping always sounds good to me).

Re-branding

The road to this next chapter has been an educational experience... some aspects have been years in the making. One example of this thought is "Studio f/Stop", the name I picked to explore the world of photography for a second time. I've decided it was worth exploring. And that it's not worth keeping.

My original thought was simple... I know I will have a focus on bicycle races and yet I don't want to have a business name or website that limits me to that. A few people were very much a part of that discussion, it was good and useful and I have tried it for over 2 years. I wasn't confident enough to think my name could become a "brand" the way that Graham Watson is (and the select few who are active in this niche). I now think that name -- my name -- is an important part of what I'm trying to accomplish. people will like, dislike, admire, hate, and all the other possibilities. They will all be art critics, of my art... so I may as well put my name on it and get credit and criticism as it gets dished out.

nextchapter.kraikerphoto.com is part of this. And as of today (well, yesterday since I'm writing this very late) studiofstop.com now points to kraikerphoto.com. Later in the year I will drop the studio f/Stop domains entirely.

I am curious though... do people look around for other sites? I have a different thought when it comes to "kraiker" and so there is a kraiker.ca site that is very bare and yet very personal. And when I save on the charges for studiofstop.com should I use that to fund peterkraiker.com so it's not taken by someone else?

Where to draw the line...

Travel... not yet, "just" planning time

I am busy at work winding things up and down, transferring what I think is important to the people who will carry on the work I've been responsible for. I'm actually very busy with all of that, and I'm sure the next 13 days of work I have left will go by very quickly. I'm also getting a lot of lunch invites, which I'm sure will help that along!

Meanwhile, I'm working on my plans for next steps.
Step 1: get through to March 25th and complete all the tasks that need to be done.
Step 2: get a-hold of various people to see what business opportunities exist. I will start setting a schedule based on who is prepared to pay me to be "wherever". So far the best offers I have are in Europe,  perhaps Babe will get a European sibling...
Step 3: arrange to get Babe out of storage, I will want some time to drive and confirm everything is working right. So a couple of weeks of little trips while I wrap up things from IBM
Step 4: a trial run... a few days of travel, to make sure I've gotten all the kinks out. I'm sure there will be things I need to get, or want to adjust. I haven't tried packing for a trip like this since I took canoe camping seriously and that's been quite a few years.
Step 5: a multi-week trip, fit in around when I get steps 2-4 done. My target for this is May 1st. I've always had a soft spot for May Day since spending it in Oberquembach with family (Uli in particular). That's a story I should write... very very special to me.
Step 6: apply lessons learned, adjust the gear and packing as appropriate. Fix anything that isn't ready for an extended trip.
Step 7: see how step 2 is going, and get ready for something big. I imagine 3 months, perhaps longer. And that's where all thoughts of planning fall apart... I don't know yet what this step will actually be.

I have places all around Canada and the States in mind, if there's an opportunity or invitation. I do have invites to stop and visit along the way, there is something about the VW / Vanagon community that amazes me (yes, another blog entry for that on another day). Driveways to "camp" in, beers to celebrate with, suggestions on local hidden gems. I look forward to having the time to write what comes to mind and what is offered.

It will be interesting to see how this loose plan works out... I'm certainly excited at the prospect.

T - 22, the word is out

Rumours were spreading since I started telling a few people about my impending change and a couple of things were waiting for it to be "official".  Now those are set in motion.

The first being the invite email that my friends are waiting to send out. They had booked the party room at our favourite pub (Willie Stouts) the same day they heard and have been busy compiling mailing lists of people I've worked with over the years... there are a few!
The other is that I will need to get a big bin to put stuff in that I'm sure no-one else will be interested in. I have documents dating back to 1982 with names on them of people no longer with IBM and a fair number no longer with the living. I couldn't start on that without people asking so now that it's been announced I'm able to get started. I'm curious how much (or how little) will be of value to anyone but me. And I'm curious what few things I will keep as reminders.

For me, the joy of the job was the people I had the good fortune to work with. People like JDH, "Oggie" and Mark for example... all dead a number of years, all very influential in who I am now. And Denis, who is just too smart for his own good. Rick, Johns (JPC & RJC in particular), Jackie, Peters (SIS seems to have had a lot of Peter's over the years), Hec, JD, Crash,  and just too many to mention. Then there's the lunch gang who have played Hearts on and off for over a dozen years. And these are just the people directly involved in the little corner of that big multinational corporation; the early days of VM and messaging, TOOLS disks, through to the current collaboration suites has brought me in touch with folks like Chess, George G, Thorsten, Larry, Gregoire and many talented folks.

I'll leave off with that for now, just getting started thinking about people! I'll mull over this thread for a while... and look forward to seeing some of them at this party I've been invited to.

T -24, lots to do

March 1st, my last month of working for IBM has begun. It's a very liberating feeling.

And a little overwhelming.

I have lists of lists of things to do between now and the 25th and seem to be adding more to them at a rate that's faster than I complete them. Many of them are cleaning up, some are downsizing. And making travel plans... that's a list I'm enjoying.

Working on this blog enough to be satisfied it will work for me when I set off is one of the completed tasks though, I think it's ready for prime time. And I look forward to improving my writing skills, the technical documents I've written for work compared to the articles I wrote for VeloNews or PedalMag are worlds apart and I found it quite a challenge to bridge that gap last year. Another part of the adventure...