I’m happy to report that I no longer suffer from milk acid.

Perhaps I should explain. Last week at my osteopath appointment — and everyone should visit an osteopath immediately — the miracle lady asked me what types of ailments I’ve been having above and beyond the trouble that I was having with my back from my bike accident. I told her, half jokingly that I thought I was coming down with a case of carpal tunnel because my forearms ached after long hours in front of the computer. She wasn’t convinced, and unable to tell me what she thought the problem could be in English, she could only literally translate the Dutch expression, which I believe was “Melkzuur”, she said I had “milk acid” in my muscles.

Of course! Milk Acid. I should have known. But my friend Wikipedia states that “Contrary to popular belief, … increased concentration of lactate does not directly cause … muscle soreness.”

But you know what? It has been a full week since my appointment and I have not had any discomfort in my forearms. For something that I generally feel every day, I’m convinced that her magic worked. Before I send flowers though, I’m going to wait it out and see how I feel in another week or two.

And the best part? There is no temporary license. I will not be legally able to drive the whole time they fumble around with their procedures. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

After taking months to get the car inspected and registered, I thought that I was in the clear (I will most certainly post more details on this in a future posting). I already expressed some of the challenges opening a business as a non-Dutch speaking, non-Citizen. In that case, I can simply put my ambitions on hold and start a business in about 5 years. In the case with my license — no matter how inconvenient it will be over the next 6 weeks — I have no choice.

And get this — the town told us I need to come with my US license. That’s it. We asked them directly what we needed to bring. Of course, knowing how Belgians operate, my wife did a bit more digging. It turns out that we also need to bring some passport photos, my resident card, and 16 Euro. Thanks Mrs. Town Hall Worker! I may have just been dumb enough to come with my license and a smile, only to be turned away — and likely to have to take yet another day out of work.

I should say that when the government says it takes 6 weeks, it will likely take 3 months. Here’s how they do their math: The “6 weeks” will likely start when the right person assigned to the task actually starts working on the task. As I have seen, this could take a few weeks for someone to even look at it. Then, there are vacations and holidays. These periods do not count, so figure in at least 2 or 3 weeks for that. Then, inevitably, there will be some commotion that will need some official response or document. Who knows — they’re likely to give me problems about a speeding ticket from 5 years ago. Ugh.

The painful part about this system is that it promotes breaking the law. Do you honestly believe I can go without driving for 6 weeks (i.e. 3 months)? I have 2 kids; I work in Brussels. The train workers strike all the time (another annoyance here in Belgium). So when there is a strike, am I to just take a holiday?

If they can manage to get this done within 6 weeks, not only will I be amazed, but I would also call it a Christmas Miracle and post back here just how wrong I was.

When I first moved to Belgium, I knew that starting a new business would be more difficult than in the US. Boy was I wrong! It can be damn-near impossible! I’ve been reading a short introduction to starting a business in Belgium. The book is aptly titled “local knowledge guide to setting up and running your business in belgium”. A bit of a long title, but it matches the process.

For most businesses, the government boasts that you can start up in about 3 days. This assumes, of course, that you have all your paperwork in order, you know exactly where to go and who to talk to, and you know exactly what questions to ask. For a foreigner, all three of these conditions can be tricky.

Then there are more issues to overcome. For an SPRL(U) — the popular private limited company — you need 18,550 Euro in capital to start (an SA, a public limited company, needs 61,500). Depending on where you plan to run your business, you’ll also need to have all your documents in either French, Dutch, or German. As I am only learning Dutch, I would need a lot of help establishing the paperwork for the business. Not to mention that the details of all the social laws are only available in Dutch or French. This would require me to not only rely upon, but to trust, another party with ensuring that I meet all the requirements, file all the right reports, and pay the right fees and taxes.

There is also a potential issue — which should be a minor formality and nothing more — about proving your competence in basic management skills. I would think that my BA in Business Management would be an easy score. But after reading about some of the horror stories online about other non-EU folk trying to start a business, I’m not so sure. Non-citizens also seem to face additional difficulties, although I’m not sure what they are (likely some procedural red tape).

In the end, I’m looking at about a 5 year wait. By then, I should a good understanding of the Dutch language, my citizenship, 5 years of managerial experience, and money in the bank. And in the meantime, I can simply freelance, provided my income is low enough.

My sister-in-law and son, this past Sunday, built a killer snowman. As I watched from the warmth of the living room, through the large plate-glass sliding doors, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the quality of snow falling from the Belgian sky. Don’t be mad at me though. I fell off my bike last week and was nursing a bum knee (a likely story).

I honestly thought that my snowman-building days (or at least watching others build snowmen) were over once I moved to Belgium last winter. I honestly thought that good quality snow for snowman-making was something we could only look forward to on our winter trips back to the US.

Pleasantly surprised is an understatement. I grew up playing in the snow — red fingers, icy feet, runny nose — so to see my son (who is 3) out there braving the wilds of nature to roll some frozen water around the yard was great.

Kudos to his aunt who did all the real work. She was the muscle behind it all. But I must say it took quite a bit of coaxing for her to create a 3-balled snowman; she was happy to make a short, fat two-baller. In the end, Mr. Dingledobe (ok, I just made up that name now) had 3 parts, a carrot nose, walnut eyes and buttons, and two sticks for arms.

I’ll post pictures as soon as they become available!

So I’m standing in a long line at the ING cafeteria for lunch today. The line next to me (equally as long) had to close due to a malfunction in the cash register. Ugh. All those poor buggers — close to 30 people I think — left standing dazed and confused, unsure if they should get out of their dead line and head to the back of mine, or if they should hang tight for the register to get fixed.

But then something magical happened. A guy ahead of me in my line let the first guy in the dead line cut him. Then the guy behind him did the same. And so on.

There is something poetic about two long lines of hungry people merging together before you; a giant, human zipper. It didn’t bother me one bit that I went from 10th to about 20th in line.


But some people just don’t get it.

Four women in the dead line were gabbing away (in French, so I have no idea if they were discussing national security or nail polish) next to me. It was my turn to perform the zipper move, so I let the first of the gabbers cut me.

And what do you think happened? Gabby #2 proceeded to follow her friend close behind not letting me in!

So what do you think I did? I dug my shoulder between the birds, looked at Gabby #2 square in the face, and in my best Rhode Island accent asked: “Evah hear of a zippa?”.

She looked confused. Either she didn’t understand me, or she didn’t know what a zipper was. Clearly, her and her friends were not paying attention. Or maybe they were being arrogant, or playing the “I’m a woman, so you need to be chivalrous and let me through” card.

What is this, high school? Must I be courteous in the face of such blatant disregard for the zipper?

I felt proud of my actions and I also take comfort in the fact that I would not have hesitated to do the same if four burley maintenance workers tried pulling the same. Burley #2 would have gotten an earful!

Reporters Without Borders recently published their Press Freedom Index for 2008. I saw a report the other day on al-Jazeera’s English news station. The results of the list — which I recall seeing several years ago with the same reaction — are surprising. Most notable is how low the US is on the list, with most of Europe coming in before it. The report on the Index’s website says:

Two aspects stand out in the index, which covers the 12 months to 1 September 2008. One is Europe’s preeminence. Aside from New Zealand and Canada, the first 20 positions are held by European countries. The other is the very respectable ranking achieved by certain Central American and Caribbean countries.

In addition to the above, I selected a few of the countries that I thought stood out.

• 1 Iceland
• 7 Belgium
• 13 Canada
• 20 Germany
• 25 United Kingdom
• 35 France
• 36 Bosnia and Herzegovina
• 41 United States of America
• 46 Israel (Israeli territory)
• 92 Congo
• 103 Turkey
• 119 United States of America (extra-territorial)
• 132 Malaysia
• 146 Egypt
• 151 Zimbabwe
• 156 Afghanistan
• 161 Saudi Arabia
• 166 Iran
• 172 North Korea

You can read how the statistics were compiled here. You can also get the full report here. What do yo think? Are you as surprised as I was?

Man I’ve been busy! Not only has my posting been limited in the past 3 weeks, but almost all of my extra-curricular activities have been put on hold as well (it feels like months ago I last played my guitar). There are a few things going on currently. Topmost on the list is the rollout of the first real significant upgrade to our DW/BI Project here at ING. When I mull over the “feature” list, it amazes me how our team of a few developers and analysts (all quant’s), and 2 contractors (an SSIS developer and a QA Manager) got it done. What’s more, it looks like we’ll be right on schedule with the release with a few days to spare. Of course, I hope now I haven’t jinxed us!

I joined this project in mid-stride back in January when I was hired as an external consultant. I was coming over fresh from the United States, to a new and exciting land, Belgium (where the waffles are hot and the chocolate is worth dying for) and a new industry, financials. After a year and a half in healthcare at Cardinal Health, I felt I was ready to enter the financial world — particularly investment management. And so I joined the quant team in the quantitative research department at ING Investment Management.

I was hired as a BI/DW consultant (functioning primarily as an Integration Architect) and was immediately charged with supporting the in-place data integration (ETL) processes for the then un-released DW/BI system. I began my work by documenting (some functional, bust mostly technical) the entire system. In a few weeks I had uncovered many issues and offered a long list of improvements to the team. Many items on my list were directly related to many of the ETL Subsystems that I’ve been discussing. Taking these to heart, we began the long process of refactoring, renaming, and redeveloping some of the processes that were in place. The focus was on future maintainability and performance. I’ve chronicled some of these in a few of my recent posts.

In addition to this, I slowly took over the project management duties and have now been managing the development activities for the entire team. By mid-summer, and due in part to several converging circumstances, I was hired as a full time member of the quant team. Now, my stake in this project’s success is even greater!

I expect to be just as busy over the next two weeks as the final touches are added to this release of the project. I’ve also started to compile a list of “lessons learned”, most of which will be relevant-enough to share with you all. I think that some of these might surprise you!

This week I’ll continue my posts on the ETL Subsystems. I’ll also likely start working on another article for Advisor (topic yet unknown). Lastly, planning for the next release of our DW/BI system is already underway, with development starting as early as November!

PS: If you ever find yourself feeling a bit overwhelmed or too engaged in your work, I highly recommend re-reading Walden (ahh, come on — everyone’s read Walden, right?!?). It has always managed to level me, reminding me how important it is to just sit back and relax once in a while.

I dislike wearing suits.

It used to be that I could code in my favorite Phish t-shirt wearing sandals. I had a key instead of a badge, and lunch usually meant a few greasy pizzas or clam cakes. In those days, my attire only meant something if there was an off-site or if clients were coming to visit “the shop” (which was a tiny building several miles from the heart of the big city). I could easily bounce back and forth between long and short hair and between full beard and cleaned-shaved. Ahh… those were the days.

Now I work in a major international city for a rather large bank. I code in a suit when I’m not in meetings, wear nice shoes, carry a badge, and eat salads and yogurt for lunch. *sigh*

To be fair, I enjoy the new challenges and the big city. And if wearing a suit on occasion is a consequence, I can live with it. So while a suit is not fully mandatory, I still wear one at times. Here’s why:

1. It easily puts me in line with the dress code
2. Dressing is simpler in the morning (although sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get the perfect knot in my tie)
3. My wife tells me I look great
4. Dressing down on Friday never felt so good
5. I look more important than I am
6. I feel more important than I am
7. My jacket flaps behind me in the wind when I ride my bike to the train station, which makes me feel like a super hero with a cape

Other than those fantastic reasons, wearing a suit is a real drag.

(I do admit, there is something rather Monty Pythonish about wearing a suit on a bike. I bet I look pretty silly to the folks driving past me. But riding my bike gives me more than 30 minutes a day of much-needed exercise, and on top of that, the price of gas here in Europe would blow your mind!)

As you may know, last weekend I bought my first Mac. In a week, I’ve made a ton of progress and am starting to feel rather comfortable with the new OS. My first impression remains strong: The Mac is awesome. It takes fewer clicks to get things done, it is faster than PCs of equivalent power, and it is much more intuitive. There are still a few things to do, like check with Adobe about cross-platform upgrades of Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Acrobat.

I have, however, managed to place one very important piece of the migration puzzle: Getting FoxPro up and running.

Virtualization

To get Windows running on the Mac, you basically have two options: Dual boot via Boot Camp or use Virtualization. Boot Camp was not a great option for me because I want to work in the Mac and share items between the Windows install and OSX. For virtualization, I seemed to have three choices: VirtualBox by Sun, VMware Fusion, or Parallels Desktop for Mac.

Reviews for Parallels were slightly better overall, and I got a recommendation from a colleague, so I went with it. For less than 100 Euro, this software is simply incredible. Installation was as simple as downloading and running the installer. These were the steps I took:

1. Downloaded the latest version from parallels.com
2. Double-clicked “Install Parallels Desktop”
3. Went through the Wizard, clicking Continue through each step
4. Accepted the terms of the license
5. Selected my Mac’s HD for the install destination
6. After the install finished, I moved the icon to the Dock
7. Started the software and from the Help menu clicked “Activate Product”
8. Entered the activation code that Parallels sent me via email
9. Clicked ‘New’ from the File menu to create a new VM via the OS Installation Assistant
10. Selected “Windows Express Installation”, Next
11. Selected “Windows XP”, Next
12. Entered the XP product key, set some basic settings, and gave the VM a name
13. Chose to allocate more resourced to the VM than to Mac OSX
14. Clicked Finish

Next, I installed Windows XP Professional using the new VM window created by Parallels. This was the fastest XP install I’ve ever done. Not only that, but the entire process was the same as if I had been on a PC (just in a window — which is a bit ironic). When Windows booted for the first time, and I heard the familiar Windows theme, I felt a sense of cool calm overcome me. This was going to work.

Ejecting the CD

During install, I had to insert my Windows 2000 disk (I have an Upgrade copy of XP Pro). I think it took me about 30 minutes to figure out how to eject the XP Pro CD from the Mac! Here’s how I did it:

1. Right-click on the CD icon in the footer of the Parallels Desktop window
2. Choose ‘Disconnect’
3. The CD drive will re-appear in OSX’s Disk Utility application, where it can be ejected.
4. Right-click on the CD icon in the footer of the Parallels Desktop window to reconnect when ready

When the VM is running, it ‘owns’ the CD drive. Because I was installing XP Pro, I didn’t have any obvious way to eject the disk. There’s no button on the Mac and I wasn’t yet ready to straighten out a paper clip! The above steps are a bit of a hassle, but certainly doable.

Two-times the Charm

Of course, I had to do it all twice (my fault). I have an XP Pro version 2002 CD without any Service Packs. After Windows installed, I went straight for Windows update and let it install SP2. It failed with some read errors and then Windows would no longer boot. So, I deleted the VM and started over. No biggie. This was easy. This time, I installed SP1 and then went straight for SP3. That worked and now I’m golden. After getting all the other updates, I was ready for the Fox.

Installing Visual FoxPro v9

Ok, so there was nothing to installing FoxPro. I literally put the CD in, installed the prerequisites, and then VFP. No surprises, no issues, no problems. I ran some basic checks and so far everything seems to run fine. I’ve yet to do any development but if I have any issues, I’ll be sure to report them.

I recall at FoxForward 2007 seeing a few Macs. If you’re using VFP on your Mac — let me know about it. I’d like to know how you’ve done it (Boot Camp? VM Ware?) and if you’ve encountered any issues.

Lord Voldemort

Lastly, I’ve named my XP Pro Virtual Machine “Lord Voldemort” of Harry Potter fame. My entire home network is named after various Harry Potter characters. I named my iMac Dumbledore.

This seems totally appropriate.

I have officially crawled out from under the rock and joined the land of the living. As a proud owner of a new iMac I feel both unshackled and invigorated.

For the past 10 years I have been convincing myself that I needed a PC and Windows (before that, I didn’t really take the Mac seriously). For one, all of my desktop development was in Visual FoxPro and .NET. Secondly, since my desktop applications were designed for PC users, I felt that it was important for me to have and use PCs (and Windows) like my clients. I would be developing in and using the environment that my users did, giving me more comfort and confidence when helping them use the software. But now that I’m involved strictly in Internet development and data warehousing, I no longer can justify the need for a PC; I simply do not have as much contact with my end-users as I used to.

My first order of business: I’ve got to set up a virtual machine on my iMac so I can install VFP9, .NET, and SQL Server. I may explore some other options, including Remote Desktop (or maybe VNC) into my PC, but I believe VM will be the best route. I’m dead set against having two computers on my desk at this point. The iMac just looks cool and I don’t want to cramp its style with my ugly PC box.

It is likely going to take me a while to get fully set up. I need to repurchase some of my key software (I need upgrades in all of them anyway): Dreamweaver & Photoshop CS3, Office 2008, and something to replace my old version of Cakewalk Pro Audio. And now that SQL Server 2008 is released, I’ll likely get that installed as well.

So today I am wearing jeans and a faded (but once pleasant) button-down shirt. No tie, although my shoes are nice and I am wearing dark socks. A few others around me are similarly dressed, which is typical for summer Fridays. Then there are those who are in full suits, as if preparing for a job interview or some important sales meeting. Others are in suits but without tie which is in-and-of-itself a very strange practice; I call these “half-suits”.

You can draw two lines in the sand separating all three groups of Friday dressers. You have the “workers” – those actively engaged in business operations like myself; the middle management-type who are no longer “workers” and who aspire to delegate more and more activities, you know the type – it’s just like them not to wear ties with their suits; lastly, there are those who on the one end of the spectrum make only infrequent strategic decisions of the C-level type and on the other end those who work for mostly commission and must rely on their superior charisma (and sharp suits) to get ahead.

My colleague and I are working feverishly at the moment to improve the performance of one of our BI applications: A process we hope to improve from roughly 15 minutes to about 7 minutes (so half-suit and full-suit can have more time at the cooler). In addition, I am troubleshooting a foreign key violation in one of our ETL loads, and my partner-in-crime is hunting down the results of some replication testing in our production environment. Meanwhile, a full suit is currently browsing an online golf store; the half-suits are centered around the water cooler.

This, symbolically, highlights the problems with business and IT alignment in general — especially in large organizations. I find that IT is normally of the first variety – willing to dress down whenever possible to add a little comfort to an otherwise fast-paced existence full of responsibility and accountability. Dressing down in no-way implies a dress down of activities or a dumbing down of skills.

As you can tell, this is a bit of a rant and a fallacious attempt at tossing my colleagues into generalized buckets. But one thing is very true: business and IT need to get in sync. I would like to think that my team is above average in this regard. The immediate team consists of business and IT personnel - all of which are fighting for a successful project.

‘d like to hear your thoughts on this matter….

In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the kind of thinking that occurs in about the same amount of time it takes to blink: Rapid Cognition. The brain has an ability to make excellent or devastating decisions in a fraction of a second. In some cases, if we relied more on this part of our brain for decision-making we might all be better off. In other cases, not thoroughly thinking through a decision could lead to disaster.

I’m posting about this book here because I think that the basic ideas holds true for any type of development project, whether it is a vertical application or a data warehouse. I couldn’t help but relate the material to my work with business intelligence and data warehousing applications in particular.

Malcolm claims that “we have come to confuse information with understanding” (page 264). How many times have you heard the phrases “information overload” or “analysis paralysis”? In fact, that is one of the problems that data warehouses are trying to solve: Get the right data to the right people at the right time to help them make better decisions. A “better” decision might simply mean making a decision with less information, less noise, and less bias. Don’t throw the album at the CEO, give him a photo.

Thinking too long about complex matters often leads to paralysis — or if you’re lucky, some sort of compromise that weaves in and out of your 3-page long pro and con list. Conversely, making snap decisions on simple matters can lead to equally bad results. A good rule of thumb is that if the matter is simple, think about it. Spend time on it. Make a good decision. Do this when you buy a new dishwasher, if you’re deciding what to feed the kids for dinner, or if you need to hire a new employee. For more intricate and complex matters, like asking your girlfriend to marry you, rely on rapid cognition to deliver an appropriate amount of insight without all the noise (the “she doesn’t dig sci-fi, but she does like roller coasters” back and forth in your brain might take years to sort out). Your brain’s rapid cognition center will automatically filter out the noise, make a good decision for you, and in the end, you’ll be happy with yourself moving forward. Do you really need to think long and hard about getting out of the way of a speeding bus? Should you go on an impulse-shopping spree?

Malcolm doesn’t talk about this, but I think that regret comes out of making bad choices after thinking too long and too hard. You end up making some sort of compromise, when you knew exactly what you really wanted in the first two seconds. Think about some of your greatest regrets. Before you made the fatal compromise or decision, the one that you would come to regret, did you think long and hard about it? I have a silly monkey tattoo on my ankle that I thought long and hard about getting. My gut told me no, but here I am more than 10 years later not too happy with my decision.

Blink and Bloomberg Professional

Yesterday I attended a training session for using the Bloomberg Professional data service. Within their training, they talked about their Launchpad desktop application. This got me thinking about Blink and data warehousing.

Launchpad allows you save any number of functions that are specific to your business needs so that you can easily get to them again (sort of like your Internet Favorites or Bookmarks). With thousands of functions, I’m quite sure that Launchpad was well-received. But on a deeper level, Launchpad gives brokers and researchers the ability to make better decisions faster. You now have a filter. Not as fast as a blink of your eye, but close. You can get lost in Bloomberg Professional and spend hours upon hours achieving absolutely nothing. Is this the cost of research? Or is it that we need more filters? As Business Intelligence professionals, application developers, and solution providers, we must start thinking that “Less is More” and start giving our end-users access to new brain functions.

Scorecards, dashboards, and aggregations are great examples of initiatives that are in this arena. But it isn’t so much about the latest tool or interface, it’s about a mindset. It’s about providing decision-makers with just enough information to “thin-slice” a situation or condition and make an approriate decision to gain some business advantage. Malcom talks a great deal about thin-slicing and provides several great examples of how it works.

Recommendation

Tipping Point was a better read and seemed to have a better direction. In fact, I was wondering throughout Blink what Gladwell’s real point was: Should we or shouldn’t we rely on Rapid Cognition? He added an Afterward some time after the book was first published and this actually tied his thoughts together. Without the Afterward, I would have been thoroughly disappointed.

That said, this is a good book that got me thinking (not so rapidly, though!) If you liked Tipping Point, this is another book with a subtle social message (that involves screens, women, and large musical instruments — now doesn’t that make you want to go out and get it?).

More importantly for me, it has given me a bit of a push into a different way of thinking about business problems, data as an asset, and decision support.

You can get Blink here from Amazon.

Buses 79 and 21, to be exact.

I attended a business event with my colleagues at our new offices in the Tractebel region of Brussels. From Troon, which is where I am currently stationed, Tractebel is pretty far. The only way to get their aside from driving is by bus.

So I logged into the SNCB (b-rail.be) website and planned my route. I like their site, it makes it fairly easy to get from place to place in Brussels. I wish they had some better mapping, but no biggie.

After I got my route together, I took hold of my jump pass and hopped on the 21. Totally uneventful except for the fact that it started to rain. It always rains when i head to a work event *sigh*. Next came the 79. Again, totally boring. But this time, at least, the bus was pretty much empty so I had more room to sit and relax. There was a pretty interesting fellow with his seeing-eye dog. I really have no idea how that works. This man, using his dog as a guide, walked right over to the open doors of the bus and up into it without troubles. He then went right over to a seat and sat down. How did he know some old lady wasn’t already sitting there? Certainly his dog couldn’t relay that info.

Anyway, I sat through a DRP (disaster recovery plan) and Business Continuity presentation from a colleague that was both very interesting and thoroughly boring. Later I ate some oddball Belgian food then got a ride by new friend Frank to Central Station.

So there you have it. The most mundane adventure yet. I hope to have more interesting things to say… at some point… hopefully…

So I had an aha moment the other day while in Amsterdam. I was talking with a new friend about the Dutch language and he said something that really made me stop and think. For all my life (well, for as long as I could count to at least the number 13), I never questioned where the “teen” came in. We go from twelve to thirteen to fourteen and so on. I reasoned that “teen” was just a better and more fluid way of saying “ten”. Thirten and Fourten just don’t sound as cool.

But here is the aha. Ten in Dutch is “tien”, which is prounounced like “teen”. Also in dutch, numbers are built backwards (which I am still getting used to). So, for example, the number twentytwo in dutch is translated as “two and twenty”.

Just like our “teen” system! Three and ten, four and ten, five and ten, etc… Get it?

I feel so much smarter now. It turns out that our “teen” system is likely a derivative of Dutch and/or Germandeveloped before 900AD. Real linguists out there will know for sure. But I don’t really care about the specifics!