Enabling Do-Not-Disturb on my iPhone 6!

For those of you who know me well, you know that I work flexible hours and prefer a later schedule in life.  In general, it's rare that I'll be in bed before 2am and even more rare that I would be up before 10am on a daily basis.  I maintain a pretty regular sleeping schedule for both weekdays and weekdays and I almost never set an alarm clock.

I'm thankful that I have a job that allows me to work a flexible schedule, but at the same time if my job needs me earlier in the day, I will make myself available.  One way of maintaining a flex schedule is leaving my cell phone on while I sleep so that my manager can contact me if they need me early in the morning.  However, it's challenging when someone else contacts me while I'm sleeping and being a light sleeper, if I receive a text message I will wake up from hearing the sound.  It's analogous to someone calling you at 4am in the morning if you usually get up around 6am...

In the past I had to tell my friends not to text me before 10am, but it would continue or happen with new friends who didn't know this.  Fortunately for people like me, there is a Do-Not-Disturb feature with iPhone 6 (or maybe it's just the iOS, whatever)!  I started using it and it works perfectly!

"Do Not Disturb" is accessed via Settings and I've set mine to automatically enable between the hours of 2am and 10am, my usually sleeping period.  One thing I had trouble with is making it so that just a select people (like my manager or my family) can contact me.  The default options are Favorites, No One, and Everyone.

 

So I found this app called "Groups" that is free and you can make groups and add contacts to them.  I created one called Emergency and it is now an option that is selectable.

Already Do-Not-Disturb has helped, as I received a text from my friend on the east coast at 4am but didn't hear it. So wonderful!  Sleep (especially uninterrupted sleep) is so invaluable for a stress-free life.  Thank you iPhone!!!

Raytheon Basketball A-League: Playoffs!

NEW UPDATE ON 11/10!

Last year, Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson invited IBM to play in their basketball league.  Raytheon is the largest employer in Tucson, supplying over approximately 10,000 engineering-related jobs.  Their basketball league is therefore a formidable one that must be separated into 3 leagues: A, B, and C.  In 2013, Raytheon invited us to be a team that plays occasionally teams from both A and B league.  We were simply a filler team and thus they asked us not to send an all-star team and implied that we wouldn't be eligible to actually win their tournament.  As such, we sent an average team and went about 50% playing mostly teams from both A and B league.

This year, Raytheon told us that there was a full spot open in A League, their highest league.  There were no restrictions this time, so at IBM I invited everyone who wanted to play a chance to play, and we ended up sending a lot of better players this time around.  The A-League in Raytheon is still very challenging (I'd say it's as good as your average city league) and the challenge most of the season has just been having all of our players available to play each night.

Tonight begins the 3-week single elimination tournament in Raytheon Basketball's A-League!  We'll already be down one key player, which makes it tough, but it's now win or go home.  Good luck to team IBM representing in the Raytheon League!

FIRST ROUND RESULTS:

Unfortunately, team IBM was not only without it's starting power forward but also it's starting point guard on this night, leaving us without 2 of our top players and scoring options.  IBM fell into a double-digit hole in the first half.  A good run by yours truly hitting three 3-pointers in a row cut the lead down to single digits with minutes to spare, but the opponent hit their free throws to close the game out and IBM lost 44-54.  Thus ends our run in the Raytheon A-League. :( It was still a lot of fun for me to be able to play alongside my friends when I don't usually get the opportunity to!