rest in peace, baby mommy loved you more than anything ever invented ever ever. i love you.

Posted by sarah ann at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

i've taken a 30 day leave of absence from work. the stress of the last few weeks has taken it's toll on me in ways i didn't think imaginable. so this is day 1. i am going to try to write as a way of dealing with the grief of sanger's illness and impending departure from this earth. afterall, this site was originally going to be about our adventures together. i'm sad that it took until now for me to get serious about it.

sanger has a nasal tumor. it was diagnosed almost a month ago. it is on the right side of her nose, under her eye and extending up between the eyes. it is cancer, although the type was indeterminable from the biopsy that was taken. i have decided not to treat it. sanger is nearly 13. chemo and radiation would only extend her life by 2-3 months. what kind of quality of life would that be? so i decided that we would forgo treatment (surgery is not an option) and let things progress as normally as possible.

since then, i decided to put her on steroids in hopes of relieving the inflammation in her snout to allow her some comfort when sleeping. the drugs have done a pretty good job of that so far. the bleeding had been minimal up until about a week ago. over the last week, she has suffered two bleeds that make me so panicky and anxious that it's nearly impossible to do anything except sit with her.

so that's where we are.

after a horrible friday night and saturday morning with sanger's bleeding pretty much out of control and me hysterical by the thought that this was it, i decided to make the call to the vet. sanger's vet, dr. tessano was not in that day. to me, that was my sign that it wasn't time. we took sanger to crissy field and she swam and swam and swam some more. she also bled and bled and bled. bright red, iron rich, creamy blood. but she didn't care. people would walk by and say, "your dog's nose is bleeding!' and i would just look in their eyes and say, "i know. cancer". some people would just keep walking, some would stop to ask questions, the real dog lovers would return my gaze and say with kindness, "you poor dears. i'm so sorry.". one woman stopped and said, "anything you want" when sanger came up and tried to rub her bloody face on her leg.

a sneeze in the car on the way home resulted in blood splattering everywhere, including all over the passengers. it is a pretty traumatic little scene, my beautiful black dog with a face full of blood...

once we got home, i gave sanger a quick bath in the parking lot and then brought her back upstairs. after 36 hours of no sleep, my girl was zonked and the bleeding let up enough for her to nap for several hours. sunday she seemed more like her old self. i had to pick out the dried chunks of blood from her nose so she could breathe, but once i did, she seemed to feel better. good enough for a walk around phoenix lake!

it took sanger several hours to get out of bed this morning. i had to pick her up to get her to come downstairs for a potty walk with me. once we get going it's fine, but words are not enough some days. she refused breakfast. i fed her about half from a spoon before she pushed my hand away with her nose. she's currently napping on the cool kitchen floor. it is such a beautiful day, i'm considering driving over the mountain to stinson, but she can't really swim there so it might be best to just head back to crissy field for the afternoon.

my anxiety creeps in and out. i felt pretty good yesterday. today when i woke up, i didn't. i felt panicked and scared and alone and worried. i feel exhausted. i feel sad. i get upset thinking that i almost made a decision on saturday that was not the right decision. not knowing what the decision will feel like when it's really and truly time is killing me. everyone says "you'll know". will i? i thought i knew on saturday. i'm afraid to make the wrong choice. i'm afraid that i will be this sad forever. i am afraid to loose my best friend.

Posted by sarah ann at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1. The quality or state of being actual or true.
2. One, such as a person, an entity, or an event, that is actual: “the weight of history and political realities” (Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.).
3. The totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence.
4. That which exists objectively and in fact: Your observations do not seem to be about reality.

There are no facts, only interpretations. ~Friedrich Nietzsc

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. ~Democritus

To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, but to imagine your facts is another. ~John Burroughs

How reluctantly the mind consents to reality! ~Norman Douglas

After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident, you begin to worry about history. ~Author Unknown

and my favorite...

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures. ~Jessamyn West

spending a lot of time contemplating reality lately. and what i've come to realize is that the mere fact that some try to impose their reality as fact and absolute totality is absolutely the most insane thing eve in the entire world amen. i'm mean, really? how do you have a discussion with another who believes in absolute totality of their reality? you don't. you end up trying to go along with their beliefs until you can't anymore. or you begin to hate them for it. or both.

i may be stubborn but i stick to my values and my beliefs and i can even try it your way for while. but if you can't try it mine, then i'm out the door. it's called "meeting in the middle". i give a little, you give a little and hey look at that, we've figured out a way to compromise!

my dad surprised me the other day. he told me that he knew my most recent long term relationship wouldn't work not because of all the reason i sighted but simply because i am a giver and he was very clearly a taker. i asked him what he saw specifically that made him come to that conclusion and he simply replied "reality".

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Posted by sarah ann at 03:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sarah A. Perry
Managing Software Projects
Class #2 Homework
June 8, 2009
Wideband Delphi
1. Wideband Delphi is a consensus-based estimation technique for estimating effort. It was derived from the Delphi Method, which was originally developed in the 1940’s by RAND Corporation as a forecasting tool. The Wideband variant of the Delphi Method was developed in the 1970’s and was further refined in to a “repeatable process” the 1990’s. It is called Wideband because compared to the earlier versions of the Delphi Method it involves greater interaction and more communication between participants.
2. Two characteristics of the Wideband Delphi method are as follows:
a. You must have a vision or scope document to start using this method.
b. Your team must work together well, as the discussions can get heated and a team that already has friction will find that they run into many disagreements that are difficult to resolve.
3. Two strengths of this method are as follows:
a. This method results in improved effort estimate accuracy. A common problem with estimates is that the estimator does not fully understand what she is estimating and has not fully explored any assumptions. WB Delphi addresses this problem through discussion of assumptions and adjusting the task list (and therefore the effort estimate) accordingly.
b. Stakeholders, users and managers (“observers”) are encouraged to attend these estimate sessions. Assumptions tend to be problem areas and are generally discussed at a level that is understood by observers. Observing these sessions encourages a mutual trust between the technical team and non-technical team and results in an increased stakeholder sense of ownership of final estimates and will generate a greater understanding of how the engineers work.
4. The only weakness I could detect with the WB Delphi method is because you are dealing with human beings who have thoughts and feeling and the method is consensus driven, it is possible that a single team member will disagree with the team’s estimate of a task and will continue to disagree through the course of the project. This can be especially dangerous if the disagreement is over a task being assigned to that team member. This can cause dissension among the group and while there are steps the PM can take to dissolve the matter, you still run the risk of not being able to reach a real consensus.
5. A PM creates an estimate group consisting of a moderator (generally has no stake in the outcome) and between 3 to 7 estimators over a wide range of a project team (managers, developers, designers, architects, QA engineers, requirements analysts, technical writers, etc.). “Observers” are also encouraged to attend (stakeholders, managers, end users).
The vision and/or scope document is reviewed by all members of the team and then they meet for a “Kick Off Meeting”. The moderator explains the method to any new estimators, reviews the goal of the session and then the team discusses the product in development and any assumptions. The team them brainstorms a task list of 10 to 20 major tasks. These tasks become the top level of the WBS (work breakdown structure). The team then agrees on a unit of estimation (days, weeks, lines of code, etc.). The moderator gathers the list of assumptions and tasks generated in this meeting and then distribute them to the team. The team then does “Individual Preparation” and estimates the level of effort (not calendar time) for each task and adds any tasks or assumptions that might have been missed.
The team then has an “Estimate Session”. They begin by discussing each estimator’s additional tasks and assumptions and discuss whether or not to add them to the WBS. Once the final task list of the WBS has been agreed upon each estimator lists a task and their estimated level of effort. The moderator will collect the forms and tabulate the results on a whiteboard. Each estimator calls out clarifications or changes to the task list and changed tasks and newly discovered assumptions or questions are raised. The group resolves any brought up issues or disagreement and they are recorded on the task list. The group then revises their initial estimates and the moderator updates the plot. The moderator leads the team through several rounds of estimates to gain consensus on the estimates. The estimation session continues until the estimates converge, the team is unwilling to revise estimates, or within a two hour time frame.

The PM and the moderator work together to gather the final results. The PM resolves any remaining estimate differences and generates a final task list including level of effort. The PM also creates a spreadsheet of each individual team members final estimate, providing a good report of best and worst case scenario for each task.

A final meeting is held to review and decide if the results are sufficient for further planning.

6. In a forum on different estimation methods, one user noted that Microsoft teams are actively using the WB Delphi method, but I do not know how reliable of a source the user was. Several other articles I read mentioned that this method has proved to work very well in smaller software companies and was also particularly useful in web design and development firms.

Posted by sarah ann at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

i've been the girl so in love with a person incapable of giving me what i needed out of a relationship that i not only went back to him over and over but i gave away every last shred of my self-esteem to keep him.

i've been the girl who not only suffers through an unhealthy, demoralizing relationship but then goes back to it in hopes that time spent apart has inspired him to love me enough to change...or at least try.

and guess what? IT HASN'T.

admitting that is hard. it's step one in getting over you and i swear to god i will get over you or i will die trying.

the rules for day one:

cry. a lot.
no retail therapy.
no isolating.
watch the weight.

game on.

Posted by sarah ann at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)