I'm a Poet....and I bet you didn't know it....

I am officially a published author! Yep, you heard that right. A few weeks ago, my company sent out an email to everyone telling them about promotion they are running. They are asking customers to submit their best cost savings story from using our software. The best story wins a prize. I saw the email and thought...I bet I could write a story...in fact, I bet I could even take it to the next level and make it a poem. So I threw together a little poem and sent it to a couple people in the company. Next thing I knew, I got an email back from the Vice President saying he loved the poem and wanted it published on our corporate website in the Breaking News section. Several other "high up" people were in the email chain and all liked it as well.

Fast forward to today....and sure enough, there I am, with my holiday poem..."front and center" on the page. Enjoy! (Click on image for larger view)

Here's the poem.... It's a little techie...but I think most of you will get it.

A Holiday Poem . . . Based on Reality

It’s true. Something very strange can happen to people this time of year. Without realizing it, they are guided toward spreading cheer. Recently, Solution Consultant Jason Suss, based at our Eden Prairie, Minnesota office, found his head filled with an IT holiday poem. He wanted to share his inspiration with everyone, so here it is!

Twas the Day Before . . .

Twas the day before "go live" and everyone knew,
If the code didn't work, their careers would be through.
The code was reviewed and load tests were started,
With every metric precisely charted.

The results came back and they were relieved,
For all of their functional goals were achieved.
Only one final approval to put it in prod,
The manager signed off and gave it a nod.

The final milestone passed, the end was in sight,
The new code would be loaded on this very night.
The files were moved and servers rebooted,
How critical this was, no one disputed.

The servers were up, the new version alive,
The developer got a well earned high-five.
But all of them knew of the true test on the way—
The real end users the very next day.

A voice shouted out, trembling with fear,
"It's 8:00 a.m. the users are here!"
Screens flickered on, the work day had started,
Bringing the new app into territories uncharted.

That's when it happened, their nightmare came true,
All the phones ringing, not just a few.
"It's broken, it's slow,” the end users exclaimed.
IT was speechless and feeling ashamed.

Fingers were pointed with language explicit,
‘Till someone shouted, "So, how do we fix it?”
The manager looked up with a confident glare,
"There's only one thing to do, we call Compuware".

The Rockstars arrived, with laptops in hand,
Reports were created and metrics were scanned.
"We found the issue," Compuware cried.
The manager jumped up, mouth open wide.

"We know that your team all had its theories,
But look at this screen, it's these four SQL queries.
Get rid of the * and add this new string,
We guarantee that will fix everything."

The developer ran off to make all those changes,
The manager handled the financial exchanges.
IT was full of smiles and cheers,
"Thank you Compuware, you saved our careers!"

"Wear" Did My Childhood Go...

So the other night I was thinking about all the funny things that I (and others) did as a kid. Whether it was eating play-dough...or paste, singing songs, funny rhymes, or insults and their rebuttals, it made me smile. Since it's been a while since I've made any T-shirts, I thought I'd use them as today's medium. I mean if you can't hang on to your youth...might as well wear it. Here's a few of my designs.



Go ahead, call me a name...

That's right my bouncy self makes me impenetrable to your insults...Elmer.




I think we all knew this one...

Hint, stay away from "around the corner".




This one is a little more obscure, you either know the song (and the hand claps or jump rope that go with it) or you don't.

Don't get it? I'll give you a hint, it's kind of like this...

"...She grabbed his dic.....tionary, where there are a bunch of words, the zoo has lots of animals that all make lots of tur...tles in the ocean, eat all of the sea grasses, but when they eat too much of it, it comes out of their as...paragus is a vegetable, it doesn't have a pit, but after you have eaten it, your pee will smell like shi...pments are delivered from the company Fed Ex, so send your girl some flowers and you'll probably have some se...cond hands on watches, they tick and then they tock, the women in the movies like a big and juicy Coc...ktails in the evening are a great way to relax, especially for the men with lots of hair on their ball sa...nta claus is merry, he'll deliver toys to you, but he'll skip right past your house if you're a coupon clipping Je...wBoy wrote this poem and he wrote it all so quick, he didn't even notice Schnoozle when she grabbed his...dic...tionary........."


Still stumped? Really? Fine, click here.

Blogetry in Motion...

Those of you that know me, know that I am a self proclaimed pizza snob. I am always on the search for the perfect slice. I even attended the International pizza expo in Las Vegas a few years ago. I think it's safe to say that I am a very dedicated pizza lover. Well, tonight we tried a new pizza place and it happened to be pretty good, especially for mid-west pizza which can be absolutely terrible. It was the inspiration for this post about pizza. Here goes:

We'll start with a little background. In my opinion, there are two basic types of pizza out there. There's New York style which is thin, a little crispy on the bottom and slightly floppy at the end when you hold it by the crust and Chicago style which is a thick, deep buttery crispy crust. Chicago usually has more sauce, more cheese and in some cases, the sauce is on top of the cheese. Chicago pizza is not my thing, I'm a New York style pizza kind of guy. Here's a list of what makes up the perfect slice.

• The first bite of the first slice should burn the little part of the roof of your mouth right behind your top two front teeth. This means the pizza is fresh out of the oven and has not been sitting around and reheated. The little piece of skin that dangles down for the next two days is a small price to pay for pizza perfection.

• There should be just enough sauce to very lightly cover the dough. Large globs of sauce should never spill out from the slice when taking a bite, that means there is too much.

• The sauce mixed with the cheese should give the area where the cheese meets the crust a nice orangey color. If it's a darker red, it's no good. Any place that uses the same sauce on their pizza as they do on their pasta should be shut down for pizza abuse.

• When holding a fresh slice the proper way, (with the thumb and middle finger below the crust and pointer finger above, bending the crust slightly) the bottom of the crust should stay flat until about 1-2 inches from the end where it should start to dip. If it dips earlier (or not at all), it's too crunchy, later, too soggy.

• Barbeque chicken, artichoke-sundried tomato-balsamic goat cheese, Buffalo Chicken, Thai peanut-sprout-zucchini, are not pizzas, they are flatbreads. I enjoy some of them, but don't consider them to truly be pizzas. Pepperoni, sausage, peppers, olives and onions are more traditional toppings. I however, consider myself a purist and almost always go with just pepperoni.

• Finally, pizza slices are triangles, not squares! Square slices are total bullshit and should be banned worldwide. I freakin hate that. There's no crust to hold, it gets it all over your hands and you always end up with those stupid little corner triangle pieces that are almost all crust. Pahhhh-tooey!

Now for the artistic component of this post. Pizza inspires me so much, that it brings out the very, very hidden sensitive artistic side in me. In honor of pizza I have written the following poem. While at first you may think it's a little on the "simplistic side", take a closer look. Yup, it's written in perfect Iambic Pentameter.


This poem's about the best food you can eat
The taste of it is one you cannot beat.

With cheese and sauce and toppings you can choose
"We're having pizza" is my fav' rite news.

That pepperoni on a mound of cheese
Just give another slice to JewBoy please.

A crust that's crisp then soft is where it's at
I don't want one that is too thin or fat

In summary, I'll tell you how I feel
I'd love to have pizza for ev'ry meal


You may be asking yourself why this type of poetic meter sounds familiar? Well, that's because it's what Shakespeare used in his plays and sonnets. You weren't expecting that level of sophistication from this blog were you?