By the time I get to Phoenix...

Well... Chandler actually...

I'm heading down to our Chandler offices for the first full, in person, meeting for our new, now fully reorganized, uber-architecture group.

We architects used to all be in one group; matrixed out to the various lines of business, with shared management responsibility etc... etc...

Unfortunately, this resulted in diffuse goals and objectives, and diffuse accountability; such that no-one could really be held accountable, there was no transparency etc...

About three years ago, we reorganized for "direct accountability" so that each of the lines of business had their own architecture group aligned to them. We had our own management, and were separate form our lines of business, but out goals and incentives were aligned with the line of business.

Which worked great from a service delivery perspective; but in the larger view served to fragment our infrastructure and information governance and practices even further.

It just got too expensive.

In the meantime we had two other reorganizations and a major merger.

Now, we've reorganized again, as one big architecture group again; but this time instead of matrixing us out to the individual business lines, we will be operating on a consultancy model. Our management will be central, our tasking will be central, and our incentive structure and objectives will be central.

In theory, this will be the right compromise between diffuse incentives with little accountability, and direct alignment with the individual groups at the expense of the enterprise.

In theory.

We've been busy pulling this off ever since last August; and now we're mostly done,  it's finally time to all meet up in person.

Yay.

Actually I'm happy to meet up in person; since as of today I have only actually physically met ONE of the people on the team I've worked with the last almost four years, nevermind the rest of my newly reorganized team.

So, we're having our meeting in Chandler on the 19th and 20th. I'm flying in on the 18th in the afternoon/evening, and leaving on the 21st in the morning.

Thankfully, because I am disabled, with limited range of motion in my knees, corporate policy allows me to travel business or first class, on direct flights; and to rent a full size car, van, or SUV (already booked, just waiting for the expenses to be signed off).

Even better, the time zones and scheduling are working with me not against me, so I get to have half a normal day on each day, with a full nights sleep, and with plenty of time to get to and from airports etc...

So, it should be a pretty relaxed trip.

I'm going to take the opportunity to meet up with friends, visit my mom in her new assisted living facility, and get in some face time with my team mates.

Still have to put up with the joys of traveling in todays air travel quagmire, but at least its first class. You're still in a cattle car, but at least it's a more comfy cattle car and the food sucks less.

It's frikken January, WTF?

It's 82 frikken degrees on my front porch right now.

The "official temp" is only 74, but my neighborhood is usually 5 to 10 degrees above the "official" temp for the area.

That might be because the "official temp" is taken from the top of a 10 foot high post over a bunch of ground vegetation on the top of a several hundred foot high hill.

Just maybe.

Meanwhile, it's still 20 below in Alaska, and most of southwestern Washington is under water.

The weird thing about Arizona

A couple days ago, the temperature dipped down into the low 30's; and I thought maybe we might actually have a late fall/ early spring (we never actually have winter here).

In a little under ten and a half hours, it will be January 2009; and right now it's 74, bright and sunny out, and I have a very confused bee buzzing around my head.

The low tonight should hit somewhere around 45.

One of the interesting things....

about living in Arizona, is that at 4:30pm on New Years Eve, the temperature can be 78 degrees... as it was today.

The previous evenings low having been 37 degrees...

Gotta love that desert eh?

It appears my ACs mammaries have assumed vertical orientation

And it's the hottest couple days this year so far... Hell, it's 8:30 at night and its still just under 100.

The official temp today was 102, we saw 106 here. It's supposed to be 103 tomorrow; which usually means we'll see 108-110 on the ground (official temperature is taken 10ft off the ground over grass, not head height over pavement).

Oh, and the kids aren't with grandma this weekend.... great fun.

Update: Well, when it was still over 90 at 11 o'clock I decided not to take matters lying down... basically because I couldn't stand lying down.

So, I got out the tools and the flashlight; traced the problem down, and came up with a workaround.

Basically, after the condenser iced up earlier, the compressor wouldn't re-start.

I checked the switches, fuses, and lines; and they're OK. I'm getting juice everywhere, and the switch wire is getting a pop when the thermostat kicks in.

So, knowing the common problems, I start rapidly kicking the control switch a few times, until I hear the thing restart.

Anyway, I may have a dead bearing, a dead spot on the compressor motor commutator, maybe some bad brushes or some bad wiring; but I'm thinking the most likely problem is a bad solenoid.

Thing is, the "diagnositc" technique I used will get the damn motor turning with any one of those problems.

If you've got an intermittent wiring fault, or slightly dodgy brushes or commutator etc... then kicking the juice over a few times like that will jump the arc, and maybe kick the motor into life. If you've got a bad bearing, the quick hits from the motor can kick the bearing loose. If you've got a bad solenoid, the rapid switching can also slam the solenoid into action.

Of course, if it's any of those things, it's going to happen again; and eventually that won't work... or may even start a fire.

So, I'mna have to get somebody in and check things out, fix whatever the problem is ( may be wrong, but I don't think so) and to do a recharge to keep the damn thing from icing over in the first place.

Oh and in my inspection I discovered the foam insulation on the outside cooling pipes (what carrys the coolant to the air handler from the compressor outside) has dry-rotted or been rodent chewed off, so I've got bare uninsulated cooling pipe out there. Must be doing wonders for my efficiency...

Yeah I'll be fixing that tomorrow... or later today I guess (it's just before 1am right now).

February 5th...

And it's frikken 88 degrees out. I actually turned my AC on a couple times over the last few days.