Author: marionvermazen

I am a traveler, hiker, avid reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, Spanish and French language student, knitter and genealogist. I am retired after working for almost 30 years in the Computer Industry. I live in Reno, Nevada with my husband Duke.

Stamps and the Largest plant

At the post office yesterday I bought a sheet of commemorative stamps titled "Wonders of America – Land of Superlatives". One of the stamps is of the Largest Plant, the Quaking Aspen. How is this possible? Lots of trees are bigger than the Aspen. It has been bugging me. So I just looked it up by doing a web search and I came up with this website. They say that "While it might look like a forest of aspens, they all share the same root system, so it is actually one plant! The largest such plant lives in Fish Lake National Forest, weighs an estimated 6,600 tons, and is the largest living organisms known to man."  Wow! I didn’t know that.

I love buying commemorative stamps. Alexandra Stoddard in her book Gift of a Letter  says that stamps are a poor man’s art collection. She talks about how much fun it is to go through her stamps and pick the right ones for a letter she is writing. It is true. I think about the person I am sending the card or letter to and I pick one I know they will enjoy. It is a very simple pleasure. I love the idea and have quite a collection of wonderful stamps.

Saturday by Ian McEwan

The book club book this month was Saturday by Ian McEwan. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve only read one other Ian McEwan book, Atonement, but I enjoyed that too.

Saturday is about a brain surgeon, Henry Perowne. Perowne and his family live in London.  Saturday follows him through one Saturday of his life. I couldn’t help liking Perowne and in a way I think I identified with him. McEwan is able to capture how nothing in life is black and white, whether it be the war in Iraq or the man with whom Perowne has a minor car accident.

McEwan’s ability to make you see and feel the place and the people is another reason that I enjoyed Saturday so much. I liked his descriptions of London, of his house, of the music his son plays, of his wife, of his daughter’s poetry and especially of his visit to his mother who no longer knows him. They were all astoundingly real to me.

I understand that McEwan’s early books where very macabre. I doubt that I would like them.  Saturday and Atonement are, on the other hand, warm and loving. They are the kind of books that stay with you and make an impression on your life.

Deja Vu all over Again

Talk about coming full circle. The PortfolioMinder group moved from Intuit building 3 to Intuit building 2 over the weekend. The strange coincidence is that I am now sitting about 10 feet from where I had my first office at Sun almost 20 years ago. Back then it was Sun building 2, part of the Sun campus, which is now the Intuit campus. Today was the first day in the new office and it brought back lots of memories.

One of the people who sat near me way back then was Chuq. He was a
interesting person to talk to then and as you can see from his blog he
is a still an interesting person to have a conversation with.

I’ve done lots of other jobs in between, but my job has come full circle too.  Currently I am managing a group of people who do customer care for Intuit and twenty years ago I was managing software customer care for Sun.

Of course a lot has changed in twenty years too. When I started at Sun my daughters were 2 and 5. Today they are both college graduates. I’m older too of course but it sure doesn’t seem like twenty years!

One Year on the PortfolioMinder Team

Claire Giordano wrote a great post about habits and getting back in the habit of writing blog entries. I know I really want to start writing regularly again. My excuse is that I have been incredibly busy at work. At first I wrote "I’ve been busy at the new job" but I can’t really say that any more. I’ve been at Intuit a year now. It has been one of the busiest if not the busiest year of my working life. When I look at our progress on a day to day basis it seems slow. But when I look back over the past year the PortfolioMinder team has accomplished a lot. We  launched PortfolioMinder and are supporting automatic downloads from Schwab and TD Ameritrade.  We are building a customer base and most importantly we are learning a lot about the financial adviser market.

I am especially proud of the customer care team and the support we are providing. Since I am the Customer Care Manager for PortfolioMinder I may be biased but I think the support team we have created for PortfolioMinder is awesome. The team is a virtual team who are mainly financial planners and are located all over the U.S.  The expertise we are developing and the understanding the team has of the needs of advisers is very special. I really enjoy working with this team of great people.

I often think about what it takes to develop habits. In addition to getting back in the blogging habit I would like to get in the habit of lifting weights and exercising daily. I have been in this habit in the past but I let it slip. I really need to focus again on what is important. Exercising must certainly be on that list. I don’t understand why it is so difficult.

Ronni Bennett wrote about habits today in her Time Goes By Blog. She recently moved and says that moving spurs you to change your habits. I wonder what else is a catalyst to changing habits and what catalyst I can use.