Rod's Floating World

77 Shadow Street - Dean Koontz

2012-02-16T15:58:00.001-08:00

Consider the boy, the songwriter's son, who dreams of being a hero like those in the books that he incessantly reads. Yearning to be a hero, to live a life larger than life, he is not less a threat to everything you believe than he is to me. By their nature, heroes leave outsize footprints, overblown and dangerous legends; therefore in a well-ordered and efficient world, there can be no place for them.
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When Mara Attacks

2012-02-12T08:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning T.R. and I were talking about G.K. Chesterton's "The Suicide of Thought". If you have never read the work, in his essays, you might find it interesting. There are also numerous websites that talk about the work. T.R. had send me this link, to the Snoring Scholar:

The Suicide of Thoughts on the Snoring Scholar

http://snoringscholar.com/2011/02/the-suicide-of-thought-thoughts-on-orthodoxy/

Which, combined with the conversation, started my mind thinking about it.

"Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation."

Well, that set off, in the course of the day, a full blown wrestling match with Mara. Running the full gamut of my activities and interests and the spheres of my life, Mara probed hard for weaknesses, looked for the chance to divert me from my course, to drag me, kicking and screaming, into the world of attachment. It was about a six hour battle, a constant running commentary in the back of mind as I moved through the day. When I recognized it for what it was - it ceased (which is the nature of Mara of course). All in all though, it was a pretty impressive wrestling match.

It was played out against the background of a pretty good day. I had breakfast with Tony, then we went and saw "Safe House" with Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, Brendan Gleason and Vera Farmiga. It was an enjoyable action adventure piece. From there, I stopped at OSH and picked up four new black t-shirts, then over to Santa Clara Billiards and shot nine racks of pool with Don (final score, Rod 7, Don 2 - but don't be impressed, prior to yesterdays session I'd lost 11 in a row). From there, we stopped at Thea Mediterranean in Santana Row for lunch, where I had the Salmonos Piaki, Eggplant Mashed Potatoes, Sauteed Spinach and Flat Bread with grilled lamb, cheese, tomato and spices. It was an excellent lunch. After that, it was home for a quiet evening and a great discussion with T.R., where we talked about my wrestling match with Mara.

This morning has been a good morning so far, I slept it, I showered, I drank coffee, I ran my anti-virus scans, I synched my iPod and my iPad (having completed loading all of my CD's onto iTunes). Now, I am about to head out and get some breakfast, then I am planning on a walk through of Fry's and probably a stop at Target to pick up some incidental stuff for my trip this week.

Sliding Into The Weekend

2012-02-10T17:44:00.000-08:00

Well, my scant entries this last week tell the tale. Work was assorted waves of chaos through the week. There was a project that needed to be done on a tight timeline and, unfortunately, too many managers and directors got involved and it ultimately contained four (that is right, four) complete cycles of re-work because they kept changing their minds on exactly what they wanted/needed to do. By the time we reached the end of the process it had taken far longer than it should have and irritated every one. I usually have an even disposition, but I was getting snippy as we got to the end of the process on Thursday. Even my patience was wearing thin.

So, it was nice that it was a short work week, with only four days. I was off today and had a pretty good day. I slept in a bit, I had breakfast, I went to a work teleconference and send some work related email, then I slipped out for lunch. After lunch I stopped at Old Navy and then Macy's and bought a new, middle weight winter coat. From there, I wandered through Valley Fair Shopping Center, stopped at the Apple Store, visited a few of the stores that feed my luggage fetish, then stopped and the bank, shot an hour of pool, went park walking and read "The Pink Institution", then met Tony for pizza at Mama Mia's on Hamilton. That brings us to this moment, right here, where I am sitting at home, writing this entry and uploading CD's into iTunes.

I have been working for a while on getting my entire CD collection uploaded into iTunes. I am on the last binder, and I would estimate I have maybe eighty CD's to go. Whew! That was a lot of CD's, but it will be nice to have it all available to me electronically via my iPod. In the process of loading CD's I ran across more than a few CD's that I haven't listened to, or that I thought I had lost. Listening to them has been fun. Annie Lennox's "Songs of Mass Destruction" pops into mind. Additionally, I bought Rachel Yamagata's Chesapeake last weekend and have had it in high rotation for the last couple of days (it played a role in keeping me from getting to snippy at work!).

I ran most of my errands today, so Saturday and Sunday, I really don't have anything I must do. As some point in the weekend I want to see a movie (Safe House, with Denzel Washington) and at some point in the weekend I want to do a load of laundry. I will be off to Maryland for a business trip all next week, so I am going to be able to skip the trip to the market for fresh produce and fresh meat. It is nice sliding into the weekend with nothing that must be done.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention - my novel writing went pretty well in January, with about 12,000 finished words and a lot of lessons learned. T.R. is writing a alternative type novel (a collection of flash and poetry) that I've been impressed by, and we are doing our best to encourage each other. Her work has is a very emotionally powerful true story, that I am already dying to read in its finished form. It is definitely cool to be writing. February, for me, has been nowhere near as productive, but I am hoping to make up for it this weekend, and probably while in flight.

Studs Terket on Work

2012-02-09T12:06:00.000-08:00

“Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.” Studs Terkel

Sharing Haruki on Sandstorms

2012-02-08T19:39:00.000-08:00

Things are hectic and busy at the office and spilling into the night, but I did want to share something T.R. shared with me yesterday, simply because is it very cool...

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”
-Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

A Rougher Than Expected Day

2012-02-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

Well, today at work they announced the reorganization. It was emotionally a rougher day then I expected it to be. I am going to spend part of the next couple of weeks working my way through the process of grieving, the typical stages of mourning and loss. Change can be difficult. I will write more about it later, but for now, I am glad the day is done. Perhaps I will be able to accomplish something tomorrow. Perhaps not.

All Weekends Count

2012-02-03T09:31:00.001-08:00

It has been a relatively fast week, as far as the passage of time is concerned. Friday rushed toward me on a bumpy path, but it is finally here. Because of the novel that I’ve started working on I am stirring some old memories. Last night, I dreamed of the first college I ever went to, the University of Minnesota-Morris. I hadn’t thought of that place in years (it was thirty years ago that I was there). My memories of Morris are mostly very good, though I was to young to appreciate the value of the place. The dream was just an ordinary dream. Thinking about it now though – what a journey I’ve been on in this life. From there is here has been pretty extraordinary.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with my friend Don, talking about engagement in life in general, about what it means. To me, engagement happens when you do things with a passion – whether it is work, art, relationships, life – whatever it happens to be. Don doubted that many people were engaged at all. My experience is about a 50/50 split. Some people are very much engaged in life, others no so much.

I told Don he was pretty cynical, to which he replied he was realistic. I told him that is what all the cynical people say. When I used the term cynical I meant it as “an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity and professed motives of others, a scornfully or jadedly negative comment or act”. It is easy to be cynical. It is harder to be an actual Cynic, but that is perhaps a conversation for another place and time.

Work went pretty smoothly, if quick, because most of the day was spent in meetings. I didn’t really accomplish anything. Thirty years into my professional career and I am firmly convinced that the value of meetings of more than a handful of people without a well defined agenda are basically a waste of time. Holding that opinion might make me cynical as well! I am looking forward to the weekend, though it will only be a two day weekend, all weekends count to the working man!

Dreams of Mara

2012-02-01T18:05:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a while since I sat down at wrote. The last weekend and the first couple days of this week were busy, starting from Sunday morning. Oddly enough, it was a very simple thing that threw me off on Sunday. I am a morning person. I am normally up and about by 5:30 a.m. or so. In the winter, I like to linger in bed. On Sunday, I actually slept late - I slept until almost 7:00 a.m.. From there, I went through my ordinary Sunday routine, except it felt as if I was rushed through the entire day. It felt like I was short a few hours all day - which I was.

Monday at work we were supposed to start the day with the director level meeting to discuss the new organizational structure and the changes coming down the road, but it was cancelled because the director was out sick. The meeting was rescheduled for next Monday. It was a disappointment, as I was waiting to get everything out in the open at work, so I could start working on the transition. This transition has not been handled well and it is frustrating to me. Monday night T.R. and I had a great conversation about simplicity and Mara and I went to bed that night and...

...spent the entire night tossing and turning in dreams of Mara. It was an unsettled night, between wrestling with Mara and thinking about work and thinking...and thinking...and thinking. Then, Tuesday in the office was mostly pure chaos with an assortment of unexpected things going wrong, getting tangled up, getting lost, etc. Late in the afternoon my team and I had a meeting with my manager to talk about the upcoming change and it got emotional (which I expected). We've been together as a department for a long time and as a result of that there is definitely a strong sense of bereavement and loss with the end of our own little era.

Today was not bad, as far as days go. It was brisk and busy and mostly productive and I reached the end of the day and was glad to come home. Here at home I am watching a few things off the DVR (Glee and Once Upon A Time) following a long, hot, soaking bath. I am looking forward to sliding into a slow evening, free from dreams of Mara.

The Sun

2012-01-27T15:41:00.001-08:00

I've been out most of the afternoon running errands and catching a movie, after having spent several hours this morning working virtually. It's a beautiful day here. The sky is a soft blue, there are some wispy clouds, then is a light breeze and the sun has warmed the day to the mid-sixties.

I saw "One For The Money" with Katherine Heigl and Joe O'Mara. It was a pretty entertaining adaption of the fictional character Stephanie Plum. I have no idea how close it was to the novels, but it roused my interest in them, so they've gone onto the reading list.

From there, I stopped at REI, Office Max, CVS and my haircut place for an overdue trim. I now look quite presentable. Now, I'm sitting in the parking lot at Holder's Country Inn about to grab dinner. Now.
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The Winds of Change

2012-01-26T20:02:00.000-08:00

I am coming to the conclusion that 2012 is already shaping up to be a year of changes and transformation for me, some planned, some unplanned, some intentional, some unintentional, some under my influence and some beyond the edges of my influence. For my part I am just going to try and embody this spirit:

Be in stillness like a mirror,
and in motion like the sea.

It's probably not going to be easy, but it is going to be a growing experience. (Growing experience may be code for "hold still, this is going to hurt".) Those changes were embodied in my day today.

I slept fairly well last night. If I dreamed, I don't know what I dreamed. I woke around 5:00 AM and ran through my usual morning routine. Unfortunately, I discovered I was out of coffee! Once the initial shock and trauma wore off, I substituted a cup of tea and was more or less content. I exchanged text with T.R. and attempted to sneak a quick call in but missed the connection, so I left a voice-mail. From there I saddled up and went into the office.

Today was a momentous day at work. Yesterday afternoon I had a meeting with my boss regarding the organizational changes that are going to be formally announced Monday morning in a directorate wide staff meeting. As part of the organization the remnant of my department, my three analysts, are going to be transferred under another manager.

The intention is to split the department along traditional lines - one portion is going to be focused on projects, new systems development, and change management. The other portion will be responsible for operations and maintenance and the user support activities. This is the traditional split of many IT groups. We were, for a long time, the exception, in that we were a full cycle organization - from idea to inception to implementation to full production support. Technically and operationally it was a good work experience, but like all things, it comes to an end.

My analysts are going with the operational portion of the directorate, and I will be going with the project portion of the directorate, as a Staff Analyst. I'm ambivalent but curious about the outcome of the change. I am well aware that part of me is in simple change resistance. It is quite possible that, six months from now, I will look on the split and change as having been a very good thing.

One of the most difficult aspects of my soon to be former position was that split - project work requires the ability to concentrate for long periods of time on a specific task or set of tasks, operational support requires a great deal of agility and the ability to move from one task to another quickly, in short fast cycles. So, in some ways, I have been moved to right when I want to be, work-wise. But, at the same time, that isn't going to stop me from being change resistance.

So, today I went into the office and spent the first two hours talking with my team and discussing the changes. We simply sat in the conference room with the door closed and I told them what I knew and what I thought. It was a good discussion and I think that, though there may be some rough spots ahead, I suspect the transition will go smoothly enough. I have good people and they are professionals and will rapidly adapt to the new circumstances.

There is definitely a feeling of loss though. We've been together as a department, with me as the manager, for about seven years I think. That is a long time in dog years. I've had a stable, highly functional department for most of that period of time. It hurts to let it go. So, I spent most of the day in meetings and when I wasn't in the meetings, I did the best I could to move smoothly through the day and start down the path of getting ready for the transition. The next couple of weeks will be all about transition.

So, layer on top of the changes in my professional life the changes in my personal life and it's going to be a year of changes. It will be interesting to see where I am sitting at the end of the year, once I've been through the cycle. I honestly don't know, but I am looking forward to it. Part of the change resistance within me comes from the challenges of transformation on a personal level. It is going to be an interesting journey. I am going to look forward to see where the winds of change take me.

Oscar Wilde - Lady Windemere's Fan

2012-01-25T12:58:00.001-08:00

But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely — or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

I happen to really like this novel and I think this quote sums up the heart of it very well.
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An Ordinary Monday Unfolds

2012-01-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

It's been an ordinary Monday. I woke up about 5:00 AM, took a shower, shaved, and had a light breakfast of Special K and Almond Milk, chased with a cup of black coffee. I had a morning conversation with T.R., then drove into the office listening to NPR. Once at the office, I went through my email, checked the calendar, and starting working on the variety of items on my plate. The morning was split pretty evenly between time to work and time to go to meetings. Lunch was a bowl of potato and bacon soup with a side of cottage cheese and a cookie. Then, back to the office. The first hour of the afternoon was spent working on a new project that just arose. The second hour has been spent on email. I have a window of about an hour and half up next, which should give me a little space for project related work, then a 2:30 PM one on one with my manager. In short, an ordinary Monday.

The Aftermath of Lunch

2012-01-22T12:23:00.001-08:00

An Apt Dream

2012-01-22T07:39:00.000-08:00

I am starting a pleasant Sunday morning here, following a good night of sleep, a strange dream, and a morning spent with T.R.. I've now run through the shower - with some emergency repairs in the middle of the shower. I put a new shower head on last night and it sprung a leak this morning, so I took it off and took a look at it and discovered that the threading on the new shower head was wrong, the original has a finer threading. So, I quickly improvised and put the original back on, long enough to take a shower. I'll do a more durable repair a little later in the day.

I had a dream last night that, on waking, I thought was entirely apt for work. I dreamed that I was at work, that it was a weekend or holiday and the plant was mostly empty, and I was driving to another building to pick something up. Only, we drove about half way to the other building and then parked and set out to walk. There was absolutely no reason to park where we parked, which was in the middle of a big empty lot, far from our destination. On waking I thought it was a pretty apt description of the work experience - pointless and empty wandering and choices made for no apparent reason. It was amusing.

So now, I am getting ready to start the day, sitting in the living room, drinking a cup of coffee and watching a DVD of Jewel singing songs from her "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland" tour. She is quite a talented lady, so I've been enjoying the DVD. I spent several hours yesterday (while doing other things) loading CD's into iTunes so I can move them over to the iPod. My intention is to simply load my entire CD collection into iTunes and get it all onto the Classic iPod I use. I am kind of looking forward to having all my music at my finger tips. I've had numerous iPod's over the years, but I never bothered to load all of my CD's up.

As I was going through the process yesterday, I discovered some CD's that I am not sure are mine (Big & Rich - really? Have I ever listened to Big & Rich?) as well as some slants to the collection that I wasn't awareness. I would have told you that I not a big jazz fan, in fact, yet as I was loading I think about a third of my collection is jazz and that kind of surprised me.

My plan today is a simple breakfast, then my friend Tony wants to see Haywire (with Gina Carano) and I am kind of curious about it. Though it is normally the type of movie that is low on my viewing list, I was surprised to see that several prominent critics gave it good marks, so I am curious about why.

An Unexpected Day of Underworld: Awakening

2012-01-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

Today was an example of the best laid plans going awry. My friends and I were supposed to get together later in the day and spend some time socializing and playing games, but B., who was hosting, came down with a sore throat and another friend T., had other things rise up that he needed to do. So, the rest of us met for breakfast at the Hickory Pit and then, from there, we went out and saw "Underworld: Awakening", the new action movie with Kate Beckinsale - and I have to say it was better then I expected.

Oh, there are not any Oscar's in its future, but for what it was it was a pretty straightforward simple piece of action-adventure, with the added bonus of the always beautiful Kate Beckinsale in spandex and a leather bustier. On the shallow side of the pond, how the heck can you go wrong with that? Well, you can of course, but in this case they didn't. Set the expectations low and enjoy the sights and sounds. Really, isn't that what most action adventures are supposed to be like? Turn off the intellect and watch the pretty people blow things up?

After the movie, a stop at the market to pick up odds and ends, then home for a quiet afternoon. I may, a little later in the day, run out and shoot some pool for an hour or so, but I haven't made that decision yet. For right now, I am settled in and doing incidental things around the house - and watching an older action movie - Relic.

Dreams Touch Old Places

2012-01-19T13:49:00.001-08:00

Last night I dreamed about a house I lived in during the 1980's. In the dream the house was being rented to a new tenant (oddly enough it was the actor Hugh Jackman) and I needed to clean some old stuff out.

There wasn't much there - a few boxes, some books on the bookshelves, and a few odds and ends. I was planning on boxing the stuff up and storing it in an old chicken coop on the property, on the far side of the stand alone garage. The chicken coop was dusty and filled with cobwebs.

That was basically the extent of the dream. That old house is long gone. It was torn down in the 90's to make room for a newer house on that particular piece of property, so it exists now only in memory, only in dreams. It was kind of nice to visit it. I have found memories from that time and place.
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Montana.jpg

2012-01-19T08:58:00.001-08:00

Why I don't live in Montana. (Picture courtesy of my brother.)

New Years Resolutions - A Quick Assessment

2012-01-18T12:36:00.000-08:00

I thought that this year, as a different approach, I would periodically assess my performance toward my New Years Resolutions. So, here is the first assessment:

-Be Deliberate: Far from perfect, but doing a better job as measured by the sense of presence and the sense of accomplishment and enjoyment during certain times and things. Still struggling at other times, still wrestling with the monkey mind, but all in all moving in the right direction.

-Read, Read, Read: Not as far as I would like to go, but moving in the right direction as well. Still a tendency to burn blocks of time doing nothing, however I have managed to fill a few of those blocks with some quality reading.

-Write a Novel: 11,000 words in, so moving smoothly there. Still feel the need to dedicate certain blocks of time to writing, certain blocks of time on certain days.

-Ride the Bicycle: So far, a dismal failure. I will have to work to move this one closer to front and center.

So, all in all, I would grade myself at about a B, with a need to pick it up to an A.

Subtle and Unexpected

2012-01-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

I snapped this with my Blackberry while in the parking lot of a Chinese buffet in Sunnyvale. A cool car - and I love the pattern cast on the pavement from the sun's reflection on the chrome rims. Subtle and unexpected.

Video Games Killed My Friends

2012-01-16T13:41:00.001-08:00

I actually had the Ruggles song running through my brain (Video Killed The Radio Star) and I thought it would be an appropriate title for this entry. I mentioned in an early entry that I had a bit of insight over the weekend. It was a sudden flash of insight based on a very short conversation.

I'd driven across town and picked up one of my friends for breakfast. My friend noticed that I was distracted and asked why. I told them that I was very contemplative and that my mind was whirring around certain things - one of them was the quote from Mary Oliver:

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life."

My friend responded instantly and defensively. "When someone asks me that question I respond "I'm living it, what are you doing?" The vehemance of the response caught me off guard. (I wasn't asking the question of my friend, but rather I was commenting on how it was the question that I was asking myself.) I let it slide by and went on to enjoy breakfast, but I kept thinking about it.

There was a time when most of my friends were actively engaged in life. They routinely "went places, met people and did things". But, and I partly blame aging, over the last couple of years that level of engagement has fallen away. For some of it, I actually blame video games. Now, this isn't an anti-video game screed by any means. I play the occasional video game and I enjoy them. (I am currently playing Skyrim when I am in the mood.) I play far fewer hours than my friends - perhaps two to four hours a week, if that.

Most of my friend play, conservatively, in excess of 12 hours a week, some of them a lot more. In essence, they play an entire day or two of video games. My hat has always been off to the inventors of video games - if you think about it from a pyschological standpoint, through the use of flashing lights and moving figures and imaginary micro-rewards and accomplishments, they've managed to convince millions of people to spend millions and millions of hours to sit in front of a computer screen and press buttons. Not only that, but they have convinced people to pay them for the privilege. Wow. (Hahahaha - pun intended.)

Somehow, I don't think that when we get to the end of our one wild and precious life, we're going to lament that we won't be able to play anymore video games. Or watch any more T.V.. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it is just a reflection of who I am and where I am going in my life but, there are plenty of other things I would rather be doing with my one wild and precious life. In the end, it's all a judgement call.

Attack the Block - Movie Review

2012-01-15T17:38:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting for a while to watch this movie. I heard about it last summer when I was down at Comic Con, it passed through the theaters near me without my being able to make over, and I picked it up on DVD the other weekend. Today, I had a bit of quiet time so I watched it.

It is pretty good - it is an entertaining little take on the alien invasion theme. In this case, the aliens invade a tough London neighbor where they run up against a bunch of local kids - who precede to kick alien butt through the movie. No Oscar's here, but definitely great light entertainment. I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to spend a pleasant pair of hours.

I've settled in for the evening, after a dinner of honey walnut prawns and Tsing Tao rice from Tsing Tao in Campbell, and I am watching the Golden Globe awards - which is a pleasant way to spin the weekend down. I had some insights today, but I am letting them stir around in there before I write about them.

On Any Ordinary Saturday

2012-01-14T07:25:00.000-08:00

A quiet, cold, and beautiful Saturday morning unfolding here in California. I stood in the bedroom for a while and watched the sun rise start. It looks like it is going to be a clear and blue day, with a brilliant sun.

Comcast came in yesterday morning and installed my cable modem (and phone). The installation went smoothly, though I ran into some problems trying to get my wireless-N router to work (it was a D-Link). Finally, after two hours of careful trouble-shooting, I narrowed the problem down to a hardware problem with the device itself, so it will be going back to the electronics store today. I popped down and picked up a Linksys and it was up and running within about twenty minutes.

The cable modem is nice. The speeds are pretty impressive, and I spent part of yesterday watching a variety of streaming videos simply because they streamed so nicely.

Last night I dreamed of house cleaning and computer cleaning, so I am going to take that as a sign to do neither today! (Gee, isn't it nice when signs are so convenient!). Seriously though, I have done a lot of house cleaning and a lot of computer futzing in the last couple of days, and I think my subconscious last night was telling me to set that aside for a while.

So, my plan today is pretty straight-forward. I am going to meet some of "the guys" for breakfast at the Hickory Pit in Campbell, then I am going to stop at Fry's and return the back D-Link modem. Then, from there, I may do a bit of wandering. If the day turns out as nice as I suspect it is going to be, I am going to try and spend a little time doing some park wandering, basic "get out and go" kind of stuff. Then, I may shoot some pool. I was also thinking about catching a movie, but I am not really sure if there is anything playing this weekend that is interesting to me. In short, I am hoping to have a very ordinary day.

Skunk!

2012-01-12T18:46:00.000-08:00

So, I was driving to work this morning and I turned the corner at Baylands Park and drove right into the wonderful cloud of...skunk! I must have missed the actual spraying by minutes as it was a powerful scent. I drove through it, trying my best to hold my breath. Then, I went to work.

We had a few challenges today, mostly technical, so that occupied most of the day. Other than that, it was a fairly productive day, a handful of meetings, a spot of work. some productive analysis related stuff. Then, when the day wound up, I walked out to the Saturn, jumped in and...skunk!

It wasn't very bad, but it was present and...well...present. I drove all the way home with the windows rolled down, then hit the inside of the car with some Ozium to kill whatever scent the skunk had left behind. It did remind of an event in my youth.

My family had a small hayfield just outside of town, right on the edge of town, and during lunch, myself and two of my friends left the school grounds and went over to the hayfield to wander around. While wandering we encountered a skunk. More importantly, we surprised the skunk. Never, ever, surprise a skunk. The skunk let go and nailed two of us (my other friend was far enough away he didn't take the brunt of it).

We headed back to school and were immediately excused from class. We were sent to the playground to wait for the bus home. When the time came to catch the bus, the driver put the two of us all the way in the back of the bus, with all the windows open, and all of the other students (about thirty) crammed into the front of the bus, as far away from us as they could possibly get. When we finally arrived home the driver made us get out of the back of the bus, through the emergency exit.

The moral of the remembered story is pretty simple. Never, ever surprise a skunk.

A Different Day

2012-01-11T17:50:00.000-08:00

Today was a different day. Work was pleasant, moved smoothly and was mostly productive. After the opening of the morning, rich with anxiety, I made the choices to settle the work day down and best I could and let the change anxiety wash away from me. The trick worked and I enjoyed the day at work. I had gone in early of course, given the early hour I'd woken up at, and consequently, a full day of work brought the day to an early end.

I came home, had a simple dinner, spoke with my parents on the phone, watched an episode of Castle on the DVR, and next I am going to take a nice hot bath and settle into a quiet evening. T.R. is traveling, so that portion where we talk in the night will be empty. I am sure I will spend it thinking of her. Otherwise, I plan on spending a bit of the night watching the DVR and just relaxing. Strange what a difference a different day makes.

The Challenges of Change - Part 1

2012-01-11T05:56:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned earlier that we're going through a period of high change at work and that it is stress inducing. The change continues - we're still in a holding mode waiting for formal announcements. I'm swinging back in forth in my moods. Yesterday was a classic example.

I was meeting with my manager who asked how I was feeling about the change. I have a certain curse that I cannot overcome, so I told her the truth. I told her that I was in neutral, in a wait and see mode, hoping that the changes would be changes for the better, but that I was terribly disappointed in the way the whole thing was handled. It has been very top down and it has invoked a feeling a helplessness, a feeling that I am unable to influence the change - rather than it being something I am doing and embracing, it is something that is being inflicted upon me.

Though it wasn't my bosses intention (I have a very high regard for my immediate manager and a tremendous amount of personal and professional respect), all the conversation did was get me ratcheted back up again. I accept the need for change. I accept that, as an individual, I can't always influence the change, but when you try and pretend to have a collaborative environment, but don't - that just gets me fired up all over again. For me, one of the great tragedies of the whole thing has been that, through six other directors over the course of twelve plus years, we've actually had a collaborative environment and we've gone through some tough changes. It has only been with the advent of this current director that the environment of trust and collaboration has been ruined.

I think it is a cautionary tale for management everywhere - a bad manager (or in this case a director) can destroy relationships that took years to build pretty quickly. Then the question becomes, can those relationships be rebuild after the damage is done? Who can say, but I definitely am on that journey right now.

As a result of the turmoil at work and a spot of inner turmoil in my personal life, I ended up spending a restless night. I went to sleep shortly after nine p.m. and managed to sleep about seven hours, but I woke up about four A.M. and laid in bed, tossing and turning for a while as I worked my way through the stress.

I think, when it comes to "bad changes", I am an advocate of the "rip the band-aid off" approach. Determine the reason for the change. Determine the specifics of the change. Communicate the change and the reasons for the change. Implement the change. Allow opportunities for honest feedback. Focus on building the "new relationships". Once we know what the change is going to be, we can react to it and make our decisions accordingly. It is the state of uncertainty that is so stressful.

As I am sitting here preparing to re-enter the working world for the day, I have a handle on the oncoming change again. Unintentionally, my boss send me cascading through the emotions associated with change by wanting to talk about it. Lets just get it over with.

A Very Modern Frustration With Comcast Service

2012-01-09T09:29:00.000-08:00

I thought I would take a few moments this morning, in the aftermath of my frustration, to comment on my very modern frustration with Comcast this morning. I took a vacation day so they could come through and install new internet and telephone service. Last week, they called to confirm the appointment. Sunday, they called to confirm the appointment. This morning, about fifteen minutes before the appointment window (8:00 - 10:00 AM) they called to confirm that I would be here. Then, about 8:15 the technician calls and cancels the appointment because they don't have the equipment (the modem) to do the installation AND that I need to re-call and re-schedule the appointment. Needless to say, I was a bit vexed.

Now, this isn't the fault of any of the individuals I dealt with - big corporations are impersonal and the people who work inside those corporations tend to be good and decent folks who are just trying to make ends meet, like the rest of us. This was not a person failure, but a process failure. They needed to have, built into their process, a step that confirms the necessary equipment is available prior to confirming the appointment. Much of my frustration would have been lightened if they had simply called 24 hours in advance to cancel the appointment and reschedule it. That they didn't is a failure of their logistics and customer service processes.

It irks me, since I currently manage a customer service desk, when a foreseeable failure of process (the presence or absence of a piece of equipment in the supply chain), isn't properly logged. With the power of modern computers it is pretty straightforward to simply a.) confirm the order, b.) confirm and tag the equipment, and c.) deliver and install the equipment. There are computers. There is no reason to match up the equipment to the order the day of the order delivery. That is just bad process.

Curse of the Wolf Girl - Martin Millar

2012-01-08T06:15:00.000-08:00

It was a beautiful day here in California yesterday. The weather was very nice for a winter day, blue skies and warm enough to be comfortable. I did my best to ease through the day - a lazy morning, lingering in bed, a hot shower, breakfast with friends at the Hickory Pit, a walk through at Fry's Electronics, a stop at the market, then over to Bob's to socialize and game through the day. After a pleasant and entertaining afternoon a quick dinner of potato pancakes and then home, for a bit of time online, then a good conversation with T.R.. I sometimes think conversation is a lost art form, the ability to talk about a wide variety of subjects intelligently. After the conversation, it was time to slip into bed and read a bit, then drift off to sleep.

That was the day, simple and enjoyable. I went to sleep about nine p.m., so I woke up this morning a little after five a.m.. I tossed texts back and forth with the brother and sister, then fired up the DVR to watch "Devil" by M. Night Shyamalan. I've had it on the DVR for a couple of weeks now by have never gotten around to watching it. This morning seemed like a good day.

I've got a stack of non-fiction books that I want to read through in the next couple of days and weeks, but, since I like to end the day with fiction, I had to buy "Curse of the Wolf Girl" by Martin Millar, the sequel to the most excellent "Lonely Werewolf Girl" that I had just finished. In fiction, once I get through with his one, I am going to switch to the last two books in the Hunger Games trilogy. Thinking about it, I do have some enjoyable fiction set up in front of me.

I haven't got any major plans today - breakfast, then a quick trip up to the Fry's in Sunnyvale (my friend Tony wants to get a movie that is on sale and of course, browse the wonderful electronic toys). As far as electronics are concerned, I think I am pretty well set for entering the coming year. After the run to Fry's (and probably this morning, even before I get started) I am going to spend some time writing the first draft of another chapter. I may do a load or two of laundry, but that is sort of an optional behavior. So, whoever you are and wherever you are, I hope you're having a good day.

Lonely Werewolf Girl - Martin MIllar

2012-01-06T20:42:00.000-08:00

I finished an excellent book today, Martin Millar's "Lonely Werewolf Girl". All I can say is the whole cast of characters is deeply engrained in my heart - but Kalix and Vex are the best! It's a wonderful little tale, rivaling "The Good Fairies of New York", another Millar book. If you're looking for an entertaining and endearing story, I can wholeheartedly recommend both books. Give them a try.

The Pleasure of Virtual Work

2012-01-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

I'm working from home today, waiting for the arrival of a package and a visit from the maintenance folks here at the complex. Still on the early subject of changing the energy of my days, working virtually today was a nice energy shift. I was pretty productive this morning and, overall, my mood was good. I am going to give some credit to the simple fact that my living room is a nicer place to work than my office. It is clean, it is modern, it is visually pleasing, and it is quiet. My equipment here is state of the art, modern and attractive. I think that makes a big difference.

Another thing that impacts the energy is, when working virtually, there is no need to go through the hassles of getting to work. No packing stuff. No commute, no hassles getting into the place, no interruptions and no intrusions. It all makes for a far more pleasant work day. As we go through this period of change at work, the reorganization, one of the possible positives for me is if I land in a position that allows me to work virtually more often. That would definitely land in the plus column.

Changes

2012-01-03T11:36:00.001-08:00

As I start the new year it's pretty clear to me that I need to make some changes and then consistently and persistently follow through with them. Oh, make no mistake of it - I've got a good life. I'd like to make the changes to make it better. In order to do this, I am going to need to start doing certain things - but I will also have to stop doing other things. It is going to require active awareness and engagement, it's going to require the shift to another energy level, and that is rarely easy.

There are two areas where I feel this need for change. The first, and perhaps largest, area is the work environment. I've mentioned before that I am very ambivalent about work as I enter the new year. Well, that ambivalence is quite present today, sort of an exclamation point on the previous observation. I am fairly certain that I cannot sustain the current course I am on. So, part of this awareness is an awareness that part of the challenge is me. I need to do things differently. I need to change those things that are within my power to change at work. Shift the energy level up and start changing.

The other area where I find a great desire to change is in how I am spending my recreational time. I'm simply not feeling satisfied with it. I am spending the coins of time, but I'm not getting the pay off I would like to have. Again, I simply need to shift the energy level and start changing.
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The New Year Dawning

2012-01-01T20:38:00.001-08:00

View from the bedroom window, New Years Day, 2012.

2012 New Years Resolutions

2012-01-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

After contemplation and discussion, I've finalized my 2012 New Years Resolutions - and here they are, short, simple, and sweet:

1. Be Deliberate.
2. Read. Read. Read.
3. Write a Novel.
4. Ride the Bicycle.

After a discussion with T.R. I dropped two of them off - I dropped being present and I dropped continuing on my journey of simplification. I dropped being present because, all in all, it is contained within being deliberate. I dropped continue on my journey of simplification because I didn't really need to make that a resolution - that is a journey, a set of choices, a lifestyle decision that I am continuing on whether or not I have a resolution, so no resolution is necessary.

So, whoever you are, wherever you are, I hope you have a year of love, compassion, and joy ahead of you.

Happy New Year

All Things Change

2011-12-30T07:35:00.000-08:00

I'd previously mentioned that we were going through a reorganization at work and that I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I've vented a bit about the poor quality of my current upper management (fortunately, my immediate manager remains one of the best I've ever worked for). Well, the "other shoe" has dropped and, absent some meetings to hammer out transitional details, I know no which way things are going to fall.

Overall, I am in neutral about the proposed changes.

I have some complaints - I think the whole thing was just poorly handled, I think it is an example of the tendency in large companies for the bureaucracy to win, and I have my reservations about the new structure in terms of business sense.

I have some positives - I have vented periodically over the years about the difficulty in my job of wearing two very different hats simultaneously (project management v. customer service) and the change will finally split those two tasks out, which is something I have longed for for quite a while. Second, I won't kid you that I didn't see it coming, haven't seen it coming, for the last couple of years.

I initial joined The Evil Corporation as a contractor, and then was lured to take a full time position with them because I found it interesting (something that drives me in almost all my job choices over the years - if you have to work, you might as well do something you find interesting). I spent the first half of my career as an independent contributor in a variety of roles, then was asked to take over daily operations of a transactional and customer service center when the organization had grown two unwieldy to be managed effectively by a single manager. When I transitioned into that role I never quite managed to shed my independent responsibilities and I balanced, sometimes well, sometimes poorly, between the two worlds.

When I initially took over I had sixteen employees - over the intervening years as technology changed, positions went away slowly and steadily, at about two year intervals. Sixteen, Twelve, Ten, Eight, Five, Four, Three. The changes were wrought by changes in technology (rendering some of the work unnecessary) and changes in business strategy (outsourcing transactional tasks to a vendor). I didn't always agree with them, but I understood them. Like the changes taking place now, I don't necessarily agree with them, and in this case I don't necessarily understand them from a business point of view, but I have long said that the greatest risk to my organization was the whims of upper management who simply wanted to do things differently.

Basically, as a result of the changes I will return to where I began, which is primarily project planning and analysis, as an independent contributor. I will no longer be a "people manager". (There will be no change in my compensation.) The handful of folks who still report into me will report into another manager (whom I happen to have a lot of personal and professional respect for), and I will become responsible for my own work again.

I am frankly, terribly ambivalent about it, and because of that ambivalence I wind up in neutral, waiting to see the operational details. Though I am entering the year in a very good mood personally, actively looking forward to the year, I am ambivalent about my work for the first time in twelve years. I'll watch and see how things unfold, hoping that the changes are for the better, doing my best to craft them in that direction, and I will see if the ambivalence fades.

So, we look at the New Year as a chance to embrace changes - that is the approach I am going to take. I am not sure what the New Year is going to bring, but I am looking forward to it.

2012 New Years Resolutions

2011-12-29T12:49:00.001-08:00

Okay, this are my 2012 New Year's Resolutions. In general, I like to keep my resolutions down to a handful of things, so I can keep them in front of me more easily. I find that if you have too many resolutions, you can rapidly lose track of them and they essentially become meaningless. These are not in any order or priority and I may adjust them in the next couple of days.

1. Simplify.

2. Be Present.

3. Be Deliberate.

4. Write A Novel.

5. Read. Read. Read.

6. Ride the Bicycle.

Now, let me expand on them a little bit.

1. Simplify

For the last two years I've been on a journey of simplification. I have been shedding possessions because I find that, the fewer things I have, the clearer I become. I definitely intend to continue on my journey down this path. I am not sure where it ends, but I am sure it is a journey that I want to continue. Specifically, I intend on simplifying in terms of continuing to shed physical things and attempt to simplify the internal things as well.

2. Be Present

I spent a good portion of 2011 in battle with the Monkey-Mind. All too often, the Monkey-Mind won and pulled me out of the moment - I lost the present to the future or the past. I am hoping that I will be able to win that battle more often than not in the coming year.

3. Be Deliberate

I very much want to make 2012 a deliberate year. I felt in 2011 that I was buffeted a lot by things going on around me, and that I made my own decisions that contributed to that sense of being buffeted. One of the ways that I see of getting past that challenge in the coming year is to simply be more deliberate - to do things with contemplation and intention.

4. Write A Novel

Pretty simple. Pretty straight-forward. I am going to write a novel.

5. Read. Read. Read.

I definitely intend on spending more time reading in the coming year. I love to read and I have the sense that I did not get enough reading time in 2011. So, 2012 is going to be the year of reading, reading and then some more reading.

6. Ride the Bicycle.

I have a perfectly good exercise bike that I ride regularly, but I do not ride it often or far enough. I am going to focus on riding the bicycle - more often and farther, over the coming year. It's an excellent source of both exercise and stress relief and I need to do it again and again and again.

Genius is Eternal Patience - Michelangelo

2011-12-29T12:19:00.001-08:00

Today is the last working day of 2012 for me. When I wrap up in an hour or two, I will have managed to make it through another year, with all the attendant challenges, incidents, accidents and opportunities. Looking back, though the work year had it’s fair share of challenges, it was all in all pretty good. It certainly could have been a lot worse.

I have a couple of points of irritation that I seem unable to resolve – the level of uncertainty is very high, my upper management can’t communicate well, the pace of change is hard and fast, and it is a continual struggle to get items into the hands of the groups who can actually resolve them, due to all of the preceding issues. Still, these are pretty much exactly the same problems I entered the year with, so nothing there comes as a great surprise.

Work-wise, I am glad the year is done and I am looking forward to the New Year, mainly to the things that I am going to do in response to this tremendous sense of ambivalence I feel toward the current work environment. Here at the tail end of the year there was a development that I personally considered heartening. After a year or so of being under the command and control of “The Children’s Crusade”, there was the movement of a VP into a key support role – and this happens to be a VP who has a tremendous amount of respect from me, both personally and professionally. I am not sure what impact it is going to have immediately, but I am looking forward to the impact of someone in the upper management chain who is both competent and compassionate.

So, with this tiny set of notes, I am going to close out the 2011 working year, attend a few more meetings, and then slip into the long four day weekend. I hope your working year was good and I hope your working year is also over!

"Genius is eternal patience." Michelangelo

Dreams, Trains and the Blues

2011-12-28T07:26:00.001-08:00

I had an interesting dream last night, with roots decidedly in the waking world. I dreamed that I was going to a blues club with two older black gentlemen, blues musicians by their cut and carriage. We were walking through an old train yard, since the club in the dreams was in some hidden corner of the rail yard. There was no narrative structure to the dream, we were just walking through a rail yard on our way to a blues club.

I've been obsessively listening to Adele's 21 in the car, a truly talented young lady and a great album. If you've somehow lived in a cave and haven't heard her, run, do not walk and get her album. Layer on top of that rich musical experience the movie "Hugo", which I saw last night at Cupertino Square and both of the fundamental elements of the dream are in place - great music and a train yard.

I did notice a similarity between this dream and the previous dream I recorded, and that was this - in both dreams I was walking in an isolated place, so there seemed to be elements of a journey through relative solitude. I am going to have to think about that for a while and see if any insight arises from it. Meanwhile, it is a blissfully quiet day here at work, and so far the "bridge week" between Christmas and New Years, when most of the company is no working, has been a very pleasant experience.
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I Dream I Am Walking In My Underwear

2011-12-26T09:08:00.001-08:00

Okay, I thought this was an interesting dream.

Last night I dream I was walking into my office via a secret tunnel that stretched underground the length of Sunnyvale-Saratoga road. This was a deep subterranean tunnel, far underground, sizable and made of vaulted concrete. I was alone in the deep stillness of the tunnel, lit in the amber glow of mercury vapor lights, cool but not cold.

I was walking through this long subterranean silence, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts and my employee badge. I had already completed my errand at the office and was on my way home through the tunnel, moving at a brisk pace, when I encountered a security guard, walking in the opposite direction, stopping to clock his rounds in the card readers alongside the many mysterious doors on the side of the tunnel. I nodded as I walked by and he simply stared, dumbfounded.

I continued briskly on my way and woke from the dream, amused and a little chilly, since it was cold outside and I'd gone to sleep with the thermostat turned down. I woke up long enough to kick it up a few degrees and then climb back into bed to resume my sleep. I woke and mulled the meaning of the dream.
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2011-12-24T07:44:00.000-08:00

I was a big fan of the books, having rabidly consumed all three in short order. Layer on top of that I saw (and own on Blu-Ray) the three Swedish movies starring the incomparable Noomi Rapace. With all of that in place, I was still looking forward to the American version, with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

So, let's cut to the chase.

It was an enjoyable movie. It was slickly shot. It was well acted. Ms. Mara created her own Lisbeth Salander, which was definite necessity. But, if you haven't seen it already, I would definitely still recommend the Swedish version. Rooney Mara did a good job with her portrayal of the character. But, I think for the duration of three movies Noomi Rapace inhabited the character completely. She was both more vulnerable, more believable, and more intensely sociopathic - in short, she broad a wider range to the character.

One of the key things I came out of the American version of the movie with was a difference in scope. The new version is slicker, it is more tightly shot, it is a much more beautiful piece of film and Mara and Craig are great. But, it is also a movie on a far more limited scope - fewer sets, fewer exteriors, fewer actors. Fincher glosses over a lot of the story, while remaining true to the core of it, and for me at least, that chopping off of the edges detracts from the scope of the story itself.

However, with all that said, I would still recommend the movie - it is a slick piece of entertainment and Lisbeth Salander is one of the great characters of the last decade, so though Rapace and Mara differ significantly in their portrayals of the character - both turn in excellent performances. I was curious, as I left the film, whether I would have felt the same way if I had seen the movies in the reverse order. Of course, the answer to that question is something I can never know.

So, with that quick review, I am turning toward Christmas. I have a good conversation with T.R. this morning, where she is nestled tightly in the bosom of her family across the country. I followed that up with a desultory conversation with my brother D., and then I've idled my way into the morning with black coffee and the morning paper. Today's plan is breakfast with friends, then a get together at my friend Bob's house, which will probably run into the early evening.

So, with that said, I wish you all a merry day before Christmas, whoever you are and where ever you are.

Semi-Random Thoughts on 2012

2011-12-23T10:32:00.001-08:00

- I want to make it a deliberate year, a year where I carefully consider and do the things I want to do.

-i want to make it a focused year, where rather than scatter my energies across a variety of things I pull in a tight focus on a few things that I can have a significant impact against.

-i want to make it a year of actively embracing change and new, different, and interesting things.

-I want to make it a year of slow and steady transformation.

-At the core of it I want to read more, write more, and ride my bike more.

-i want to continue on my journey of simplification, giving away half my remaining stuff and not accumulating any new stuff.
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End of the Year Thoughts

2011-12-22T13:46:00.001-08:00

I am sliding toward the end of the year here and I am starting to have end of the year thoughts. At this time I like to do sort of an internal review and summary of the incidents and accidents of the year before. I look back at the things that influenced me, at how they influenced me, and at any lasting impacts they might have had.

Its not a season of answers. It's more of a season of questions, a season of observations. Those questions and observations will be mixed together, sorted through, picked over and will eventually combine and take form as my resolutions for the New Year. I think they've already got their rough forms shaped out, but their finished forms remain to be polished.

I am looking forward to the New Year with a certain level of optimism, a greater level of optimism. Inside, I feel as if I am in a good place. I am looking forward to the New Year and what it is going to bring. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think I am going to try and make it a more deliberate year and a more focused year. With those two attributes as the twin pillars of a temporal and secular faith, I am going to focus on Cathedral building. I am going to direct thoughts and activities toward creating some grand.

Of course it is all deliciously vague at this point, but that part of the fun of it, part of the joy of it. There is where that sense of optimism is rising from. A sort of gleeful desire to create in the coming year. A sort of tantalizing sense of an impending and anticipated journey. That feeling of excitement when you're about to embark on a trip that you've been anticipating for quite a while.

It's a great feeling. It's a good way to end the year. It's a good way to start a New Year.
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My Tricks for the Common Cold

2011-12-21T20:05:00.000-08:00

We'll count that as the first cold of the season. I caught it from one of the contractors we share an office space with who came in Friday sneezing and coughing. (The contractors do not have sick time, they have one block of PTO (personal time off) they can use for vacation or sick time - consequently, in order to preserve their vacation, they will routinely come in sick. PTO is a classic example of a short-sighted policy.) By the time I went home on Friday I knew I was coming down with the cold. I went into denial for a while, hoping it was allergies, then slipped into the grips of the cold on Saturday and Sunday.

Now, here are the tricks I use to fight a cold. (Though, in all truth, they say a cold will run from three to seven days, and I don't know if any of the things I do make any difference - but, they do make me feel better, so I do them.)

First, stock up on Kleenex and blow your nose, gently, one nostril at a time. Repeat as necessary, which will be often. The nasal membranes create mucus to encapsulate the cold virus and expel it from the body, so let the mucus do it's work. This part is gross, and everyone will deny it (just as everyone actually does it) - do NOT sniff and swallow the mucus. All that does is spread the virus.

Second, gargle with full strength Listerine (or any other alcohol based mouthwash). Gargle frequently. This will help kill the virus. I have no idea if it actually does or not, but it seems to work for me.

Third, drink a lot of water to keep fully hydrated. Skip the juice, skip the soda, skip the tea, just water, lots of water.

Fourth, take a good nasal decongestant.

Finally, at night, I am personal a big fan of Nyquil.

Finally, sleep, sleep, and sleep some more.

Those are the tricks I use to battle a cold - they will not magically cure you of the cold, but they will ensure that it stays at a manageable level. At least it seems to work for me, and maybe it will work for you - one or all of the tricks.

Deliberate Things

2011-12-19T11:39:00.001-08:00

Time flies. A familiar theme of mine. The last week or so has basically flown by on the swift wings of many incidental things and few deliberate things. However, entering today, I feel as if I have accomplished the many incidental things and can comfortably move toward the few deliberate things.

Actually, sitting here, belly full of a mediocre seafood alfredo, I think that would be a good new years resolutions. To try and make 2012 the year of a few deliberate things. The only remaining question would then be - what should those deliberate things be?

I want to continue forward in the journey of simplicity. I want to spend more time reading. I want to focus more on work. I want to focus more on writing. Will that be enough deliberate things? Or too many? I suppose it is something I should deliberate on.
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Hard Choices

2011-12-13T19:57:00.001-08:00

One of the hard choices you may be call to make in the course of your career is "what do you do when you think your company is making a bad call". The exact circumstances can vary in a hundred ways, but the overall structure of it is almost always the same. The "Powers That Be" have reached a conclusion and announced a course of action and you have serious misgivings about it. They may be legal, they may be ethical, they may be strategic or they may be purely functional. You have a choice - and the choices is - what do you do.

I am not a plastic saint, you'll never see a statue of me mounted on anyone's dash board, but I do try to be as true to my own values as I possibly can. For me, that means I am compelled to speak up. Now, how you handle this type of event can have a big difference in the impact. Always start from the assumption of innocence - that the decision, whatever it was, was reached by a logical process and is driven by solid reasoning that you simply don't understand. Then, ask someone to help you understand the reasoning that went into the decision. If you approach it delicately, with a sincere desire to understand and that assumption of innocence several things may be the outcome.

First, they might actually be able to persuade you that it was the right decision. It is always possible, and indeed, often the case, that we don't understand things because we don't have the full picture. So, often enough, you'll discover it was the right decision. But, not always. Then, you have another decision point. Fortunately for me, right now, I am only at the first decision point. I became aware of a decision that was made at work and some actions that were implemented and they raised a pair of red flags for me. So, I documented when I perceived and what I understood, then contacted my immediate manager and asked for a teleconference to raise my concerns. My immediate manager agreed with my concerns and if facilitating a discussion somewhat later in the week between myself and the director who is in charge of the questionable activity. I have my fingers crossed that they can convince me that I am not quite understanding what I heard, and I freely admit that may be the case.

But, it could be that I understood correctly - and then we will land in a place where we have a serious disagreement. If that arises, then I will do what I have always done - I will push a bit harder. Fortunately, we are a large company and we have the mechanisms in place for just such a push. As I am going through initiating this whole process today, I couldn't help by thinking of Cersei Lannisters line "When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die". Whether I win or die in corporate terms I am always happy to be able to look myself in the eye.

Rod Recommends Books

2011-12-12T13:08:00.001-08:00

I was at lunch today with my friend Don and he expressed the desire to find some author he hadn’t read, who had a sizeable catalogue, so he could delve deeply into their works. When I got back to my office after lunch I quickly composed this list and sent it over. All of these authors have three things in common – I like their work, they have multiple books in print, and they are all genre writers, though they are in a variety of genres. In no particular order of importance:

Martin Millar (Start with “The Good Fairies of New York”, then do “Lonely Werewolf Girl” – and then, delve into her Thraxas series, under the name Martin Scott)

Neil Gaiman – one of my personal favorites. Any and all. A brilliant story teller. Start with “American Gods”.

Steven Pressfield – start with “The Gates of Fire”, if that one does hook you, nothing will.

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (both write alone, but together, they are awesome – the “Pendergast” novels, all 10 of them, are great adventure/thrillers with a science fiction/supernatural bent. Start with Relic, which is awesome).

Jack McDevitt (Science Fiction, start with “The Engines of God”, a very prolific author)

CJ Cherryh (fantasy and science fiction author, start with “The Gates of Ivrel” – she has a huge catalogue).

William Gibson (this is the guy who literally invented the term “cyberpunk” – start at the beginning with Count Zero.)

F. Paul Wilson (writes mostly supernatural thrillers, I am a big fan of his “Repairman Jack” series)

John D. MacDonald (this might be a little off kilter for you, but his series about the private detective Travis McGee is great – I devoured each one.)

Edgar Rice Burroughs (another hugely influential series in my late teens, that I have revisited several times over the years – read his “John Carter of Mars” series, start with “The Warlord of Mars”, there are about ten books, and a movie coming out from Disney this spring.)

And, I do not know if you are a short story science fiction fan, but if you are delve into the rich catalogue of Harlan Ellison, start with “The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart Of World” or “Deathbird Stories”, both collections of short stories.

Oh, and check the library (or Barnes and Noble) for Bill Willingham’s “Fables” – great story telling.

An Industrious Day Dancing With Dragons

2011-12-11T20:40:00.000-08:00

I was industrious today. It was mostly just the mood I was in. I slept in an hour or two, then showered and started the day. I ironed and folded laundry. I cleaned the bathroom. I cleaned the kitchen. I had breakfast with friends. I strung Christmas lights. I wandered Fry's. I stopped at the market for groceries. I watched two episodes of "Once Upon A Time", I shot two hours worth of pool. I had dinner at an Italian place (Mama Mia's on Hamilton). I visited with TR. Now, as the day winds down, I am going to continue finishing up George R.R. Martin's "A Dance with Dragons", A good day and an industrious day under the belt.

A Semi-Obsession With Time

2011-12-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

I spent another day semi-obsessed by questions of time. I have a prevailing sense that I do not have enough time, or that time is slipping through my fingers, or that I am not spending my time wisely. I am not sure what drives this semi-obsession - yeah, work is a little hectic and I am behind the eight-ball there, but really, almost no more that usual. In particular I have one report that I have to assemble and analyze and I just wasn't able to get to it during the week, and I have another small project where, basically, I am two weeks behind schedule - but that project is low enough on the radar that the only one noticing the slip so far has been me. It is that huge challenge I have at work being caught between the two masters - the short and immediate cycle of customer support and the longer and deeper cycle of project work. We're waiting for the re-organization shoe to drop and I'm hope that I will ultimately end up doing one or the other, so I can properly focus on it.

But this sense of time I have, it is more of a sense that i am not using the time I have wisely, that it slips away from me, that there are things that I want to do that I am simply short on time to do. I am well aware of the element of it that involves choices, but it seems to me that, all in all, I make fairly good choices. It is a puzzlement, that is for sure.

Other than my semi-obsession with time, it was a good day. I slept in, until about 6:45 AM, which is late for me, lazed through the early morning, then met my friends for breakfast. From there, I took a walk through the electronics store, the visited for a while, then ran three loads of laundry through, then socialized for four or five hours in the afternoon, then a dinner of potato pancakes and scrambled eggs, followed by the short drive home on a dark and cool night. All of that journey of the day brings me right here, right into this moment. I can here the clock ticking away the seconds as I sit here in silence, the clock ticking competing with the ticking of the keys on the computer.

I am not sure what I am going to do into the evening here, I think I will see what is on TV, then spend some time reading, then spend some wonderful time talking with T.R., and then just ease into a deep and rich nights worth of sleep. When I look back on the day I see a day well spend, balanced, productive, social and now reflective, so I am not really sure where the semi-obsession with time is coming from, other than - somewhere, somewhere inside of me, time is on my mind.

(The eye image is from http://www.arcus.org.)

The Pit and the Pendulum of Work

2011-12-08T16:11:00.001-08:00

To tell you the value of work, here is a simple truth. It is almost always better to end the work day than to start it. Today was no exception that rule. In order to attest to the truth of the observation I left work early to swing by the post office (both sending and receiving), and then grab a bite to eat at Holder's Country Inn on Saratoga. I'm planning on hash and Swedish pancakes.

Though I managed to do a couple of things at work today, I can't really lay claim to having accomplished anything. I worked. I gained a little ground and I lost a little ground. I did close out my I'm and ignore my phone in order to accomplish a bit and it definitely helped in making it a zero sum day. Tomorrow is the A Friday, which is usually productive for me, so I am hoping to make it that way.

All in all though, or work madness remains. Just in general companies need to learn to better identify bad leaders and get them the hell out of the way. My current director is, simply put, the worst I've had in my tenure with the Evil Company. Its like she has a need to do a little damage each day. Unfortunately, she is usually succesful. Its particularly frustrating because, up until this go round, I've generally had mediocre to good leadshership at the directorial level.

Ah well, so turns the world. The pendulum from good to bad and back again always swings. I am just waiting for this one to swing back, hopefully without being driven totally insane between here and there.
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The Day Paused

2011-12-07T15:13:00.001-08:00

There are moments when the working world, with all its hustle and bustle, pauses long enough to be enjoyable. I took my department out for a holiday luncheon today, to TaoTao on Murphy Street in Sunnyvale. TaoTao is always an excellent choice for lunch and the Tao Tao beef is a must have dish. The good part of the day is we were able to set aside the hectic pace, set aside the rapid change, set aside the frustrations and just have a pleasant lunch.

Other than that, it was a mediocre day, marginally productive, fragmented and interrupted. I managed to get a few items off the plate, but I am hoping to circle back around tomorrow and re-focus. I’ve got a big report that I am working on and I really need a few uninterrupted hours to work my way through it, but an uninterrupted hour is a pretty rare thing. A big part of the fragmentation of today was the semi-regular interruptions to deal with pressing issues as they arose.

My plan tonight is pretty simple. I’ve got a rib-eye steak waiting at home, I am going to pair it up with a salad, and then I am going to slide easily into the evening with some writing, some online shopping, and some time with TR, not necessarily in that order. I may even write another entry tonight, and I have some pictures from my last trip to South Dakota that I wanted to get loaded into Flickr.

The Synchronicity of Stones

2011-12-05T11:03:00.001-08:00

I had a flash of insight over the weekend. I was thinking about the challenges that I seem to be running up against in the last couple of months and I realized that I am struggling to keep things in perspective. I am letting small stones in the river detract from the beauty and experience of the river.

I feel as if I am living in a half-state. As if I am waiting for "the other shoe to drop", rather than just charging ahead and not worrying about that other shoe. It related back to my ongoing struggles with, with the sense that I simply don't have enough time.

However, wrapped in the realization of that, I also realize that I have all the time I am ever going to have - I'm just not spending it well. I keep letting myself get pulled into this half-state of waiting. And I am not really waiting for anything specific. I need to find within me that old source of reckless courage.

Along that theme today, as I was pulling together a quote related to work, I came across this in an act of synchronicity:

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein." -Life's Little Instruction Book.

Quoted on http://exploreforayear.com/clarity/45-inspiring-quotes-change

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The Descendants, Unknown, Dreams and January Jones

2011-12-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamed of iPads, iPods, and dogs. I don't remember the particulars of the dreams, but they were basically extensions of a conversation I'd had with T.R. before falling asleep. I must have been in a susceptible mood - next time that happens I need to turn the conversation to something more sensual! If I am going to get a dream implanted, it might as well be a good one.

It was a pleasant day yesterday - breakfast with Bob and Tony at the Hickory Pit, followed by a trip over to Camera 7 to see "The Descendants", which is an outstanding movie and will be a strong contender at Oscar time. It is funny, tragic, emotional, amusing and throughout very delicately done. If anything impressed me with the movie it was the delicacy of the performances by the cast, doubtlessly under the directors hand. The movie managed to be a slice of life that actually felt very much like a real slice of life. One of my complaints about slice of life movies is that they might be a slice of life, but they are rarely a slice of life of anyone I have every known. They are not slices of ordinary life, but slices of extraordinary lives that are pretending to be ordinary lives.

After the movie I stopped at the market to do a little some shopping, then came home and settled in to watch another movie, this time, one I had captured on the DVR - "Unknown" with Liam Neeson, Diane Krueger, Aidan Quinn and January Jones. It was what it was, which was an adventure/action movie, but it was also enjoyable. Liam Neeson is an incredibly charismatic actor and of course, if you put January Jones in a evening gown in any movie, I'm there. She is a stunningly beautiful woman.

Then, I wiled my way into the evening, looking at art over on Red Bubble, talking with T.R. and just sliding safely into the end of the day. I slept deeply last night, waking once at about 3:30 AM for no apparent reason, but quickly falling back to sleep. I'm now moving into an ordinary Sunday morning, conversation, shower, cup of coffee, packing my bag for laundry, making a blog entry. The plan today is breakfast, laundry, a few hours of shooting pool, and then coming home in the afternoon to put up the Christmas decorations. I might even put up the tree here before I go out to breakfast.

New Linens - A Poem

2011-12-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

The morning light
soft and pale
seeped in around the edges
in the living room
the clock counted the seconds
each an unfolding
I lay still
the sheets caressing
naked skin
I fell into the sensation
closed my eyes
let it swallow me
simple and sensual
each rise and fall
of my chest
the subtle, slippery, cool

The Turning Day

2011-12-01T14:29:00.001-08:00

A day can turn on a dime. Better to worse. Worse to better. Today was mostly a good day. Work was mostly productive. I've mostly enjoyed the day. So, in the end, I would call it a mostly day.

My folks are back home at the ranch, as of last night, a little sorer and a little wiser. Okay, I actually have no idea if they're any wiser. I'd always like to think so. I like to think we keep learning as we go through life.

Here at work I got a lot of task work done, weaving in and out of the mix of a working day. I am sliding into the weekend with a need to sit down and spend probably two to four hours writing email. I'd like to tell you I am going to get it done over the weekend, but that would be stretching it! I might get it done. My intentions are good. But, the best laid plans of mice and men...

I am going to slide into a three day weekend, so I am definitely looking forward there. I don't really have any major plans for the weekend, but I'm sure I'm going to figure something out. I want to spend a little time thinking about my new years resolutions for 2012. I've got a rough framework of ideas, but I still want to refine it a bit. I'd like to spend a lot of time in the new year reading and writing - both things I feel as if I haven't gotten a lot of opportunity to do in 2011.

We'll see what comes of that meditation. Meanwhile, I am going to wrap some things up here at the end of day and then head for home.
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A Knot Made of Whirlwind

2011-11-30T09:01:00.001-08:00

I have a whirlwind spinning in my stomach right now. A churning tightness that dulls the appetites and draws me out of the moment. It is a combination of high stress and a lack of sleep.

I've mentioned the work stress, spinning around due to the ongoing reorganization. There has been no relief there. It was hurry up and provide with input with no warning and then...silence. It's like the Indians waiting to attack. It's quiet. Too quiet...

Then, layer onto that the recent accident my parents had. In a nutshell - step dad fell asleep driving and crashed into a sign pole. Car damage, minor people damage.

My mom is hobbling around with a walking boot on a bruised foot.

My step-dad is still in the hospital with high blood pressure that they are trying to bring down, which may or may not have been related to the crash. It's possible that his blood pressure was already running high and it was the post crash visit to the ER that caught it. So, that family phones have been burning up and some crucial conversations are being held, unfortunately, without warning and sometimes in the middle of the night.

Then, finally, layer onto that personal problems arising because I simply don't have enough time to do the things that I need or want to do and because of my personal failures and weaknesses - and my stomach is tied into a knot made of whirlwind.

I am getting dangerously close to having a bonfire day. A bonfire day is one of those days where you take everything you own, pile it in the middle of the street, set it on fire and just walk away. I've done it (figuratively) twice in the course of my life. I'm sure I've got another one or two down inside me. But not quite yet...
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Cracking The Stress Nut

2011-11-29T09:39:00.001-08:00

Today's trigger was a computer application not responding when attempting to update tickets. Now, this is just a stress trigger - basically, it stops me from doing a task that I was attempting to do. It frustrates me because I feel under pressure regarding time and tasks.

Today, this layered on top of work flow interruptions where I was asked to assist other people in completing their tasks while I was attempting to complete my tasks. This highlights the dichotomy of my position, which is that I serve two masters - I have my project and task work, which requires the ability to work without interruption, and I have my support tasks, which require me to be highly agile and switch directions at a moment, often without warning. I often feel that I cannot complete both tasks and am constantly forced to choose between one or the other, which puts me into a "planned failure" mode that increases my stress levels.

So, in response to the firing of the stress trigger I took a walk outside and thought about the underlying root causes. There are two – first, there is a sense that I simply do not have enough time in the day to do all the tasks that are arrayed before me – both work and personal. Second, at the core of the stress, is the sense that I do not have the support of my upper management in attempting to manage my tasks and workload. I feel that they are so busy doing their tasks and workload that they are not interested in helping manage my tasks and work load.

That, in a nutshell, is my stress. This results in a highly frustrated Rod, wrestling with time and speaking of himself in the third person.

The Last Monday - With A Crash

2011-11-28T19:19:00.000-08:00

Okay, the first day back at work looked pretty much like this. E-mail, Meeting, Meeting, Meeting, Meeting, Lunch, Meeting, Email, Meeting and drive home. It was actually pretty productive for the first day back after a week long vacation - I didn't so much as get anything accomplished, but I did end the day with my arms farther around things then I thought I would and I will go in tomorrow with hopes for a better day.

I've decided to spend some time in the coming month to see if I can figure out what it is about my current work circumstance that has managed to get under my skin and vex me so much. I think there is probably a lesson to be learned there, something to be revealed in self-examination, so I am going to try and block out the time to focus on it in the near term. Work is work is work - and the stress is usually optional.

So, having made it through the first day, I am driving home and I get a call from my sister back in SD. It seems my parents were driving and crashed into something - my sister thinks they hit a sign. It did some damage to the car - to the hood and to the windshield, and though they initially refused the ambulance (and drove the car another fifty miles home), my sister did persuade them to go into the emergency room a little later in the evening. My sister can be pretty persuasive, even to recalcitrant and independent old-timers, like my folks.

My mother will be going home with my sister, and my step-dad will be staying in the hospital overnight for observation. My worry beads are out, but it looks like they made it through the car accident relatively unscathed. I've talked to my sister, but not directly to them yet, so once they are settled in, I will hopefully be able to talk to them tonight. If I don't get the window to talk to them tonight, then I am going to count that as a good sign.

So, all in all, it was a pretty eventful day, for the last Monday in November.

Traveling Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T15:28:00.000-08:00

I am in South Dakota for the Thanksgiving Holiday. At this moment, I am sitting on the couch in the living room on the ranch, listening to Hank Williams, sniffing the scent of fresh barley soup prepared by a professional chef and the scent of biscuits in the oven. That simple dinner is about twenty minutes out, so I thought I would pop online and make a quick entry.

I came back to the ranch on Friday the 18th and will, soon enough, be heading back to California. I like visiting here, it is always good to see my parents, my siblings, and any of my other relatives and old friends that I might stumble across - but, honestly, there is only so much to do in South Dakota, and all of it involves lots of driving.

On Monday, I was the parents driver, taking them into Winner (about twenty miles east) for a doctors appointment and errand running, then driving back to Rosebud (about forty miles to the west), and then back home. It was a fairly long day, but everything went pretty smoothly. Then, on Tuesday, I ran back into Winner to pick up the odds and ends for Thanksgiving Dinner.

We're going to have a small one, half a dozen people or so, and we are going to keep it simple and traditional - turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetables, corn bread dressing, and pies, lots and lost of pies. On Tuesday I picked up eight pies from the Winner bakery - two each of apple, cherry, pumpkin, and pecan. That is going to come out to about 1.8 pies per adult! It certainly could have been the all pie thanksgiving. I am sure they will try to foist one on me for the trip back to SD, but pies, in general, simply do not travel well! No matter how careful you are, at the far end, you end up with "the stuff that makes up a pie all mooshed into a container". Trust me, I've tried it.

So, I am spending the days as simply and quietly as I can, napping, reading, visiting, cooking, watching assorted things on television and listening to my folks listen to Hank Williams. And I am thankful, very, very, thankful, for every moment of it, in all it's simplicity and grace. So wherever you are, whoever you are, I hope you're able to find something simple and graceful to be thankful for.

Simple Cool

2011-11-17T08:38:00.000-08:00

A Shoe Falls

2011-11-15T17:30:00.000-08:00

What is the sound of one shoe falling?

In this case, it is the sound of officially getting the word at work that we are on the verge of a reorganization at the directorate level. The good part of the news is that we'll be reorganizing and adding staff, which is rare enough in this economy and contrary to my general experiences with reorganizations. The bad news is that I have no idea if they no what they're doing - and it has not been the most transparent or collaborative reorganization that I've ever seen.

I think I have a fundamental distrust of things that are done in secret, which probably stems from the influence of my youth that tells me "anything done in the dark is the devils work". So, the other shoe will fall when all the parts of the reorg fall, but rest assured that right now the potential, good and bad, is churning around inside my imagination.

Ending With The Brothers Grimm

2011-11-12T19:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I would call today an unexpected day. It contained curves and waves and ripples that I had not foreseen. Of course, the simple truth is, we lack the ability to foresee much at all. So, in reality, we pretty much only get to see what we see as it unfolds. Is that existential enough for us?

I slept pretty well last night, except for a strange dream that involved my microwave oven exploding, and I woke in the still and cool hours of the morning. I lingered in bed as long as I could, tucked in safe and warm, then ventured out for a cup of coffee and a simple bowl of oatmeal to start the day.

I ran into some strange problems with my computer in the morning and ended up having to back out some software installs and reinstall them before I managed to return it to full service. That was a frustrating way to start the day. From there, I met the guys over at the Hickory Pit for breakfast (a Western Sausage Omelet). We wandered the electronics store for a while, then wandered over to Bob's place, where we spent most of the afternoon, socializing amid imaginary errands.

A quick dinner and I was home for the evening. Once hear, I found a few more problems with my computer and did another reinstall on another piece of software, which corrected that. So, as off right now, it appears to be working correctly, though I am a little tired of playing with it.

After all of that, as I settled in for a quiet evening, I decided to watch an enjoyable movie on DVD tonight - "The Brothers Grimm", with Heath Ledger, Matt Damon, and Lena Headey. I've always enjoyed the film and tonight was no exception - a great little way to slide into the quiet evening. With the onrush of fall, with the early darkness of the evenings, I seem to be drawing a great pleasure out of the simplicity of quiet evenings at home.

I've tossed a couple of the posters from "The Brothers Grimm" up - if you haven't seen it before, it is worth catching off of Netflix or On-Demand. Personally, I own the DVD, but that is because I do enjoy the movie enough to watch it more that once or twice a year.

Tarsem Singh's The Immortals

2011-11-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

After a quiet and productive day at work I slipped out a little early and drove over to Mercado 20 to meet Tony and see Tarsem Singh's "The Immortals". We'd originally seen the previews and excerpts at a panel at Wondercon with the director, so our anticipation has been fairly high. We also saw a second panel at Comic Con, which kept the interest high. I count myself a fan of Tarsem Singh and in that aspect The Immortals did not disappoint.

It was a work of visual poetry, with a few clunks, as is wont to happen when you're out there trying to push the edges of visionary film-making. If you're looking for a classic retelling of the Greek myth of Theseus, you'll be disappointed. But, if you are willing to go to the movie, sit back in chair, relax, and let the director take you where he will, then you will enjoy the movie. Think of it as a visual feast and don't worry too much about the stories. Or that fact that, apparently, in the Greek world leaping high was a critical combat skill. Let the little details like that slip away.

After the movie we stopped and got dinner at Mexicali Grill there in Santa Clara. As usual, it was pretty good. We took a quick walk through Microcenter to look at games (Tony was looking for Elder Scrolls Skyrim, which was supposed to be released today, but they didn't have there).

It was raining pretty steadily by the time I started homeward so I was a little bit worried about the rainy commute - and that turned out to be a well placed concern. Just down Lawrence Expressway there was an accident - fire trucks, ambulance, police - which forced four lanes of traffic into two lanes. It was bumper to bumper and slow going until I was past the accident point, then it was a pretty smooth drive. I love the way the city looks in the rain, black and slick and shiny and clean.

It's a nice quiet evening here now and I am watching "Sanctuary" on SyFy, contemplating the evening. I'm planning on getting together with friends tomorrow for some socializing and some game playing, so I reckon I am looking forward to that. It is the last weekend before I jet back to South Dakota for Thanksgiving and a week long vacation. I am looking forward to the visit, though not necessarily looking forward to the traveling part of it. My sister is planning on meeting me at the airport on the 18th, and then my folks want to take me back up to the airport for the return leg of the trip, largely so they can go Christmas shopping and visit a nephew and a pair of nieces who live in Rapid City, SD.

TR is out with friends tonight, so my plan for the evening is a quiet and simple evening with the DVR and at least a couple of chapters in "A Storm of Crows" by George R.R. Martin

In Short, It Flowed

2011-11-10T19:19:00.000-08:00

Today was a much nicer day than the preceding two. It started with a morning conversation with T.R., moved smoothly into a brisk morning, a decent lunch, a short afternoon, a good visit to the eye doctor, and then a simple dinner. In short, it flowed. One more day to go this week and then the weekend is upon us. Tomorrow I am going to duck out of work early to see Tarseem Singh's "The Immortals". I am looking forward to it! The above still is Freida Pinto from "The Immortals".

One More Hour

2011-11-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been an interesting pair of days. I spent eight hours on Tuesday and another three hours today in a training class. Actually, the first eight was a pilot of the training class and the three were a follow-on to the training class, assembling and providing feedback. So, about two thirds of my working days has been consumed by this class/meeting.

I was deep in the hole today as far as email was concerned, but I was able to dedicate a couple of hours to it and get through about half of it, so I am hoping to be able to catch up tomorrow or Friday. I have some requirements I need to write and a request for a quote and both them are already behind the eight-ball. And then, tomorrow, I also have an eye doctor appointment in the afternoon - so my effectiveness tomorrow is going to be pretty limited as well.

Was it any wonder that I commented the other day that I often wish the day had an extra hour - just one, but that would certainly be enough to take a lot of time pressure off. For the immediate future I suspect that is going to be the reality of my working world - too much to do and not enough time, but I feel I am better equipped for it now. I give a lot of credit for that to the stress counseling I went through earlier in the year - I am more resilient and I am better equipped with the tools to handle the stress and to not let the stress get to me. But, whatever unfolds, I suspect it is going to be an interesting couple of months.

The Siren Song of Sleep

2011-11-08T20:38:00.001-08:00

The final hour of the day
winds
down
the old clock on the wall
counts, descending
the hours
the minutes
the tick-tock seconds
sprawled
on the old brown couch
in a spare room
lit by the squares
of the Italian lamp
the clock counts the beat
imperfect metronome
timing
the siren song
of sleep
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Random Thoughts on Training

2011-11-08T10:57:00.001-08:00

I am spending eight hours today in a pilot training class, the purpose of which is to review a technical training class that is going to be quickly rolled out. I'm personally not a fan of long training classes. From what I've seen in the years I've been working is that the shorter and tighter the focus of the class the more likely you are to actually attain the goal. Keep it simple, keep it simple, always keep it simple.

I'm already in the yawning stage, so it is going to be a struggle to see if I can make it through the back four hours of the class. I'm hoping to get a lunch break before too long, though I have a sandwich nearby. The class is currently bogging down in needless details. We've lost the bubble a couple of times because the momentum of the class gets swept aside.

Here are some of my random thoughts on training:
-Keep it simple. Try and focus on teaching people one to three things that they can retain.
-Keep it short. In the modern complex business world time is a premium. If your class runs long you're going to start losing people because they start dreaming about the other (more important) things they could be doing.
-Finally, keep the engaged by making the class as active/interactive as you possibly can. As specific questions of specific people.
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Waking Anxious

2011-11-06T07:31:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning in a place I don't like to wake up. Not physically, I woke up in my bed physically, so there wasn't anything unusual there.

No, I woke up in a state of semi-anxiety about work. Specifically, I woke up worrying about changes at work, uncertain of the direction work was headed in.

First off, I dislike waking up into the stress of the monkey-mind. That tells me that something is weighing too heavily in my imagination. It is not a pleasant way to wake up. I much prefer waking up well rested, peaceful, and contemplative. Today wasn't that day.

My challenge is this - I have environmental changes going on at work that I really can't do anything about. That feeling of powerlessness is what sends the mind on these long anxiety inducing guests, seeking some way to influence a process or a change that you really have very little influence over. I would not describe the feeling as a feeling of helplessness, but rather a feeling of powerlessness, a basic inability to influence a process.

Let me see if I can sum up the challenge in a nutshell. Of course, like most companies, we being impacted by the recession. Since I work for a government contractor, 85% or so of all our business comes from the federal government, so this tightening of the budget at the national level is rippling through our programs and projects. Consequently, for the last two years or so we've been in a constant state of re-organization, with a relentless emphasis on cost control and efficiency. This isn't a bad thing of course, it was what companies do, so there are no real new surprises there.

The problem, for me, arises in my own division. At the executive level all four of our VP positions have been changed out in the last two years - three of them came from outside of the company, one of them was promoted from inside of the company. I assume this is because at the very high levels of leadership it was decided that we need the influx of new ideas to deal with the new reality. That is understandable. That change has rippled down through the ranks, including the directors. Most of the director level positions are also filled with new people - some from outside, some from inside. So, we have had a pretty thorough change in upper management.

No, the problem arises, specifically with this - by misfortune, I've landed under a bad director. They micromanage, they flail about, they do not communicate well, and they do not engender any trust. And that is tough for me. I've worked for multiple directors over the years - some good, some indifferent, but this is the first director that I would truly call bad, that I would truly call incompetent. However, the director seems to be very good at the political game that is upper management. They get away with things that kind of amaze me.

Now, of course, I am not playing the game of corporate politics at that level. I really have no interest in it, I don't really see what the rewards are. I am content to be a program level manager, running my organization, working on specific projects and programs. My anxiety level is rising because I have no idea which direction this director is going to jump - on anything. I see a lot of activity, but if there is a strategy or a goal, I haven't seen it articulated in anything except the vaguest sense.

I am fearful that my organization is going to end up on the chopping block as a cost-saving measure, or get broken up and scattered about, perhaps with me ending up on the chopping block. Now, the weird that about this for me, the part that I need to explore internally, is I do not know what I am particularly afraid of this change.

I like to think that normally, I am not a change resistant type of person. I understand and accept that change and transformation are part of every day life. I've actually been laid off three times in the course of a 25 year career here in Silicon Valley, due to buy-outs and re-organizations. It happens. It is rarely personal. I'm financially well off, I have some fairly deep resources, and combined with unemployment benefits, it would actually be a long time before I had to worry about things financially, so I am good there. I am actually not even welded to my job - I like my job, don't mistake that, but I've contemplating quitting before, and within the last year.

So, in a worse case scenario, I get laid off. Now, I do have a bit of a worry bug about the people who work for me - I would hate to late them off into this economy, but I am not really sure I can do anything about that. And, I have laid people off before, a lot of people - they're good folks, I suspect they would all land on their feet, albeit a little slower than usual because of the economy, but the economy is in the slow grind of a recovery.

So, what I am questioning in myself is, where is this work related anxiety coming from? Other than perhaps just a basic, simple, self-indulgent, fear of change. I think that is what I am going to contemplate over the next couple of days, see if I can tease anything out of it.

The Rain Outside

2011-11-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

We're slipping through our first winter rainstorm here in this part of California and it has been nice. I slept deeply and late this morning, in part cushioned by the rain and the gray shadows of the storm. I am looking forward to another deep night of sleeping.

I had an incidental day today, full of incidental things, including seeing Johnny Depp and Amanda Beard in "The Rum Diary". As we came out of the movie I told my friend Tony that a good movie has the ability to make you laugh spontaneously and out loud, and "The Rum Diary" certainly met that criteria. There were several places in the movie that were laugh out loud funny, even though the movie itself is essentially a drama. It is a very funny drama.

We had a late lunch at Puerto Azul in Willow Glen, a good place for simple and tasty Mexican food, with an emphasis on seafood. Though, my choice was the Enchilda Mexicana, which was outstanding. From there, I ran another errand, stopping at the AT&T store to look into microcells (cool technology) and then over to Barnes & Noble to look at calendars and Christmas cards.

I came home, took a nap, a hot bath, spent some time reading "A Feast for Crows" by George R.R. Martin., then called my folks in South Dakota and discussed some of the details of my trip to South Dakota for Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to seeing family, but I wanted to make sure that my ride from the airport to the ranch was coordinated, since I have been left at the airport a time or two.

It is kind of a Catch-22 - my folks or my siblings like to pick me up at the airport because it gives them an excuse to go to Rapid City, but the same time I do not like to be particularly dependent on someone else for a ride (see previous comment about being left at the airport before). But, at this point, it looks like we have the schedule coordinated. Of course, that is subject to change without notice.

I seem to have come out of October with a bang, and I seem to be sliding into a transformational time as I move toward the end of the year - transformation and change always happen and sometimes they can be painful. We try and remind ourselves that we grow through the transformation, that change is generally a positive thing, but that doesn't make it any less painful.

We are human beings. We attach to things. We attach to people. Buddha tells us that all suffering is a result of that attachment. Obviously, I've got a long way to go before I can get detached, in large part because, quite frankly, I like being attached. I am not a Buddhist (though I am strongly influenced by zen simplicity), I actually think that attachment is necessary and good. Even when it involved the pain of change. It certainly makes me contrary.

Shadows on the Wall

2011-11-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

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Ordinary Tears

2011-11-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

I am become a creature of sorrows
Seeking stillness in the park
I hear starlings singing a song of loss
I am bereft and weep
I count the scars on my hands
From where I burned and was burned
My Catholic soul is crying "mea culpa,
mea culpa, mea maxima culpa"
The Buddhist voice whispers of
The impermanence of all
But there is no forgiveness no detachment
Only sorrow and dreams of sorrow
My ordinary eyes are wet
With ordinary tears
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To Fall With Grace

2011-11-02T11:50:00.001-07:00

I seem to be moving through a time of transformation and change. As I am moving through this I am suffering. I am suffering with rope burns from trying to control the wild animal that change can be and holding so tightly to a rope I cannot hold.

Transformation in myself.

Transformation in my relationship.

Transformation in my work.

I need to let go of the rope. The universe is shifting, seems to be dropping out from under me.

I need to fall with grace.

And as an amusing aside to this otherwise somber and reflective note - following a series of word related clashes with my ID*, I ruefully told an HR person that, as a company, we have an Ethics Hotline, a Safety Hotline, and a Waste/Fraud Hotline. We really need an Idiot Hotline. My HR responded "we would, but the phone would never stop ringing."

*ID - Idiot Director. May been an individual in charge of idiots, or an idiot themselves, or both.
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Sunt Lacrimae Rerum - There Are Tears Of Things

2011-11-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

The full quote is from the Aeneid - "Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt." or "There are tears of things and mortal things touch the soul."

The last part of October was emotionally laden. At one point in it, I joked, with my gallows humor, that October is a cursed month for me, a time of pain and loss, a time of change and transformation. This October was no different. In time I will tell you full story of the last days of October, but for now, I plan on reflecting deeply upon them for a period of time, to see what wisdom I can tease for them.

I have a tragic advantage when times get tough. I am, at my core, that tough little half-breed kid who grew up on the Rosebud. I have seen sorrow and the end of sorrow. I have a sense of perspective that puts my sufferings in the right order - I may have lost something important to me, but my loss was small compared to thousands of other people who lost far more on the same day, so, even though my days were tough, they could have been tougher. None of that lessons the pain of something, none of that dries the tears, none of that salves the wounds - but it is what it is. Karma. Action. Consequence.

I turn the page, I start writing the next story, the story of October. Life goes on, things transform and grow again. As Aeneas said in a time far, far rougher than mine - there are tears of things and mortal things touch the soul.

A Nice Slow Day

2011-10-28T14:19:00.001-07:00

I've done my best today to take the day as slow as I can here at work to try and attain some balance to the frustrating early part of the week. I got everything critical off my desk this morning and then deliberately spent the rest of the day doing non-critical things.

One of the things that heightens my work stress is the conflict between the ordinary things and the extraordinary things. The extraordinary things tend to bump the ordinary things out of the way, where they simple start to stack up because, even though they are ordinary, they still have to be done. We keep putting them off, putting them off and putting them off, with each cycle adding to their weight and urgency, until eventually they become extraordinary things in their own right. It is a vicious and all too familiar cycle.

So, today, as I often try to do on the Friday when everyone else is off, I tried, successfully, to reset that balance. I'd love to find some way to keep the balance from going awry to start with, but so far that magical solution has proved to be very elusive.

One of the things I did today was spend part of the day reading a wide variety of work related articles, on a fairly wide variety of subjects. I found some fodder to feed the thinking machine that is my brain.

Don and I drove up to Black Angus for lunch, where I had the filet mignon with shrimp and a piece of New York style cheesecake. It was excellent and we chased it around with some wide ranging and free floating conversation that started with memory and mid-life issues. I doubt we had any penetrating insights, but it was a good conversation all around.

From there I popped back to the office where I am winding out the day with about an hour to go. Then, I think I will head home and maybe start the weekend with about an hours worth of napping.
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Movie Review - The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

2011-10-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back T.R. recommended a movie - "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee", starring Robin Wright and Blake Lively. I set my DVR to capture it on Showtime and it landed there last week. Tonight was the first chance I got to sit down and watch the movie and I have to say - an excellent piece of film. Very enjoyable, very thoughtful and very insightful, with solid performances all the way around the horn, from the leads to the entirety of the excellent supporting cast.

Now, it is a slice-of-life drama, but the life that it is a slice of is an interesting life. I would definitely recommend it if you're looking for a good little drama. Both Robin and Blake are excellent actors, but there is something very subtle that Robin does that astounds me. Blake has a distinct smile - and someone, Robin, I don't know, co-opted that smile. There are scenes throughout the movie where her facial expressions - are Blake Lively's. It is a pretty astounding and subtle piece of acting.

My entire day at work was spent in a software training class that was good (I learned things), bad (technically challenged) and indifferent (a good deal of wasted time). I was glad to get home and have a baked potato and broccoli, kick back, put my feet up, and watch a good movie. Now, as the evening winds down, as the October sun sets, I am still sitting here with my feet propped up, drinking a mug of fresh green tea from Gort, my Keurig, and watching one of my guilty pleasures - "Ghost Hunters" on Syfy.

Fall Approaches

2011-10-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

there, inside the lush green
the turn of the season, cloaked
in rich burgundy, lush death
inside of lush death, the promise
of life again, three times
lush and lush and lush
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The Ghosts of Why

2011-10-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

Tuesday is generally better than Monday and that held true today, though I was struggling to stay motivated at work, it was a quiet enough day that there was room to work around it. I work for a very big company and I am constantly amazed by the difficulties we have sharing information. It is a wonder to me that any large company manages to stay moving in the right direction, must less be successful at it. I think so much comes back to the importance of communication - with it you are often successful, without it you are often not. Many times it is as simple as that.

It was nice to get home tonight - I stopped for a pizza from Pizza Chicago in Sunnyvale, then watched a slew of television shows that had landed on my DVR - Castle, Two and a Half Men, Two Broke Girls, and How I Met Your Mother. They managed to keep me company as I wandered through the pizza. My plan tonight is to do some incidental errands around the apartment and then read myself into the night with a little George R.R. Martin (I am nearly finished with "A Storm of Swords", the third book in the Fire and Ice Series, and all I have to say is "In the Game of Kings, you win or you die". That is quite a tale Martin has going there.)

I think I am deep in the grips of the Ghosts of October right now (not just in this moment, but in this week in general). There is a lesson of some sort there that I haven't been able to tease to the surface. I feel like I am fishing for insights. There is a big old insight laying there, still, deep in the depths, and I am using my best flies to try and lure it, slowly, to the surface. Like many fisherman I may spend all day and then ultimately go home empty handed, but the joy is often in the act of fishing, actually catching a big fish is the bonus.

I think the principal ghost that is accompanying me right now is the Ghost of Why? Wondering about the "why" of life. Why we do certain things. Why certain things happen the way they happen. Is there a meaning and if there is a meaning, what is that meaning. That pretty much sums up my mood tonight, as the evening slips over me, contemplating the Ghosts of Why.

The Monday Wall

2011-10-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

Lately I seem to be finding Monday's at work challenging. I think that, psychologically, I am seeing it as a wall that I crash into. Once I've gotten past the initial crash, I generally do okay - but that initial crash can be tough. I'd like to figure out a way to avoid the Monday morning crash. Sitting here in the near dark listening to the ticking of the clock the one insight I seem to have is that I am crashing into my own expectations.

I want to get a good start on the week on Monday morning. Recharged from the weekend, I want to dive into my tasks and make some headway with them, but it seems that I inevitably run into something that I do not want to do that I feel compelled to do, some incident or accident that I feel I have to respond to, that I feel I have to set aside my plan and react to some other event. That frustrates me.

There were two separate incidents today that made up the Monday morning wall. First, one of my analysts escalated a case of tangled records and after multiple attempts of explaining it to me, we had to sit down in a meeting and look at the actual records to determine how they were tangled and how best to untangle them. Second, just as I was joining one of my meetings one of my analysts interrupted with a complex question that I did not have an answer for. When I asked them to document the issue and send me an email, they decided to try and resolve the issue themselves, but only managed to make it more tangled. (And that one is still waiting for me to attempt to untangle tomorrow.)

I know that a lot of the source of my stress is the feeling of not having control over my day, and unfortunately there is quite a bit of truth in that. I do wish I had more control over my day as I am often dogged by the feeling that I am wasting a lot of productive time. I realize that is a driver that is rising out of me, from deep inside, but it is a real driver none-the-less. I hate wasting time at work - there is plenty of work as it is and every hour of wasted time is an hour we cannot get back and an hour that could have been spent far more productively.

The time spent trying to get over the Monday morning wall could definitely be better spent elsewhere. I don't have an answer tonight, but at least I have an awareness and with an awareness perhaps I can find an answer later.

Pool as a Metaphor for Life

2011-10-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

I was out this afternoon shooting some pool in Milpitas, when I got to thinking about pool as a metaphor for life. I'm not really sure what turned my brain that way, other than the Ghosts of October and an earlier conversation with T.R.. I think those two things put me into that mode. So, as an exercise, let's consider pool as an extended metaphor.

Equipment Matters: Anyone who has ever played more that a casual game of pool can tell you that your pool cue matters. It has to be the right weight, the right diameter, and the right length for you and for your body. All of that combines to put your into the right position for the pure mechanics of playing pool. Yes, you can play a good game of pool with less than optimal equipment - but good equipment matters. The same holds true in life - buy quality, quality matters.

Know the Table: Every pool table plays differently. They may be faster or slower, they may be more or less responsive, and the pocket can be tighter or looser. You have to adjust your game to the table, because the table is not going to adjust to you. The differences between tables can be drastic, or they can be very subtle. A table can add shots to your game or subtract shots from your game - they can make you think you are better then you are or worse then you are. So there are really two life lessons to be learned from the table - one, local conditions, the local environment, really matters, so pay attention to it, and second, those very same local conditions can throw your self perceptions off, so once again, be aware, be perceptive, pay attention.

The Break: Yes, there is skill involved in the break, but there is also a deal of luck. When it comes to the break in pool and the breaks in life, the best you can do is relax, breathe, and do the best you can. When the breaks fall your way be ready to take advantage of it. When the breaks don't fall your way be ready to take a deep breath, let it go, and focus on the game at hand.

The Game: Pool is essentially a very simple game. You win by sinking all of your shots. It is all about the basics, it is a game of percentages. So you focus on the simple things and build from the ground up. You have to make all the basic shots, you have to make them consistently, and you have to make them frequently. Life is a lot like that. It is all about the basics. Yes, you can sometimes make the fancier shots, the more complex shots, the more difficult shots - but if you miss the basic and simple shots, it won't matter. So in life, as in pool, focus relentlessly on the basics and make the simple shots.

Winning and Losing: When you play pool it is never about a single game - whether you are playing casually or tournaments, pool is very much about consistency over time. You will win some and you will lose some, but if you win more than your lose, you are ahead in the game. You'll have hot streaks and cold streaks and freaky streaks and every other imaginable streaks in between. They'll elate you and frustrate you. But it will all come back to consistency over time.

Well, that pretty much sums up my metaphor of life as pool or pool as life. Maybe there was a little insight in there, maybe not - either way, I have a good day shooting pool - and at the end fo a few hours of eight ball, it was 6 for me and 4 for my opponent - and consistency over time wins the day.

Two Simple Days

2011-10-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last two days moving through the world without purpose, doing my best to just flow. Friday was incidental errand day and Saturday was just Saturday.

I did things of course, but I did them in the simplest way possible - by virtue of just being as much in the moment as I could and moving from one to the next, sweeping the floor, to steal the zen saying. It was pretty nice.

I deliberately didn't write anything, here or elsewhere - I took advantage of the slow weekend to just set things down for a couple of days. I plan on continuing that into today.

Then, perhaps, at the end of the day, as the warm October evening slides over me, I may contemplate the days and see if there were any lessons hidden inside of them, hidden in plain sight.

Doors to Other Worlds

2011-10-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

Life amazes me. One of the things that constantly sends me into an awe is the sheer complexity of the world. There are lives within lives, worlds within world. A simple door can open into another world. There are places we pass by on a daily basis that, if we just stopped and went through the door, we would find ourselves in another world. It would be a world that existed in parallel with ours, maybe it will even share some traits - but it would be subtly, wonderfully, magically different.

This is the door to Sushi Totoro on Saratoga, one of my favorite stops after a long day at the office. My usual order is salmon sashimi, golden California rolls, and Philadelphia rolls. I usually chase it with green tea and accompany it with a bowl of miso soup. That simple door into an ordinary sushi restaurant is a door into a world that, for some people, simply doesn't exist. For others, it is a door into the center of their world. All in all, that is a pretty amazing thing.

Sun Dancer

2011-10-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

There is a place in the complex, near the western gate, where the autumn son reflects off a pair of windows and casts this image upon the sidewalk. It is ephemeral but beautiful while it is there.

I am sliding slowly into the evening after a dinner of teriyaki chicken and vegetables that was simple and tasty. I don't have anything planned tonight, I think I am just going to slide slowly into the evening, enjoying the end of the slow October day. I think I will find that comfortable spot on the couch and curl up with Coleman Barks.

This is an excerpt from his collection "Winter Sky" called "The Great Blue Heron":

Up the hill planting trees,
one dogwood, two flowering peach,
kneeling in the cool Easter dirt,
on the last one, devotional and vain,
why turn and look,
I don't know, but here's the biggest bird
I've ever seen, huge, bluish-grey,
stretching between hemlock and laurel,
moving slowly against the creekwind,
legs and body hanging almost straight down.

Tell Us About Yourself

2011-10-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

As I was driving into the office this morning, I was thinking about the process of job interviewing and a common enough question that is asked. "Tell us a little about yourself." In order to have a clear understanding about "who I am" when it comes to the working world, I can illustrate my approach by telling you, briefly, about three formative experiences in my young work life that I have carried with me across the years and through all my other work experiences.

The first thing to understand is that I was raised on a small ranch in rural South Dakota and it was there that my work ethic was formed. When you are a small rancher everyone is a "utility hand". Yes, you may have your assigned chores - but you are expected to do two things - you're expected to pitch in where ever and whenever you can, to help other people with their chores, and second, your are expected to do things that need to be done when you see them, whether they "belong" to you or not. This develops a strong sense of practically - a very pragmatic approach to work. It also develops a strong sense of self-reliance - you learn not to wait for direction. If there is a task in front of you, you do it. If you don't know how to do it, you figure it out. Those early work lessons have profoundly shaped my approach to work.

The second thing to understand is that, culturally, I am Sicangu Lakota. I was raised on the Rosebud Reservation and I graduated from St. Francis Indian School. My world view is that of a perpetual outsider. Yes I am American, yes, I was raised in America - but it was about as far from mainstream America as you can get. It has had a very powerful effect on my work ethic and my work product - as a perpetual outsider, I am not intellectually tied to the structures, processes, methods and assumptions of the western business mindset, though I understand them well. When I entered the working world I was very much a blank slate and over the years I have observed and absorbed many different things, many approaches, many methods, many philosophies. The combination of being a utilitarian and pragmatic outsider means I adapt "what works". I am not vested in "it has to be done this way" or "this is the way it's always done". This gives me a tremendous amount of flexibility.

The third thing to understand is that what I have always considered to be my first career was with the Bureau of Indian Affairs police on my home agency. Though its a long time ago, it had a profound influence in two ways that are relevant. First, it powerfully reinforced my sense of self-reliance, that sense that was formed early on. I am confident to the point of being cocky. I am most often sure of what I think, sure of what I do. I make quick decisions and I follow them through. The second thing I learned and had repeated reinforced in that formative work experience was the important of detail. The devil is always in the details. Success and failure are twin treasures buried in there. You can powerfully influence the outcome of any encounter, any incident, or any event by paying attention to the details and getting the simple things right. All complex problems are a chain of interconnected simple problems. You solve the complex problems by solving the simple problems. You keep the complex problems at bay by not letting the simple problems spin out of control.

Now, you might be sitting there wondering how this influences my leadership style and my managerial style. I usually separate them because the challenge of leadership is actually two challenges - the challenge of management and the challenge of leadership. It is possible to be a great manager and a poor leader, and it is possible to be a great leader and a poor manager, so it is best to approach them separately.

When it comes to leadership, I follow what I call the rule of bright lines. Leadership is essentially a very simple task. You have to do two things successfully - you have to draw a bright line from where you are to where you want your organization to go. Then, you have to draw a pair of bright lines that mark the edges of your organization, so that everyone within the organization clearly understands - this is where we are going and this is our area of responsibility. Then, you continually repeat that message until every one of your employees knows, by heart, where they are going and what they are responsible for on that journey.

When it comes to management style, I am an advocate of the expectation integration theory of management, which says, boiled down to its essential core, that the closer the expectations of the organization are aligned with the expectations of the individual, the more likely it is that the relationship is going to be successful for both of them, the classic win-win scenario. There is only one way to integrate expectations successfully and is through communication. Effective communication requires clarity, it requires transparency, and it requires a fundamental honesty at all times, even when it's painful. My expectation of my employees is that they are adults and that they are professional at all times, in all their interactions with each other, with vendors, and with customers. No one comes to work because it's fun. We are all here because, for one reason or another, we have to be. Forced association always creates a level of dynamic tension. Professional conduct is what smoothes the rough edges and can take work from bearable to enjoyable. In every organization I've ever worked in, good, bad, and indifferent, there have been productive gains to be found by simply clarifying expectations and smoothing out the rough edges. Work-wise, that is pretty much me in a nutshell.

What the Heck? October 17th Picture

2011-10-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

I was driving home tonight, stopped at a cafe to grab something to go, and looked down as I stepped out of the car. I saw the manhole cover said "Sanitary Sewer". I immediately thought "...and a sanitary sewer is different from an unsanitary sewer...how?".

A Fragmentary Day

2011-10-17T12:47:00.001-07:00

Monday, Monday, Monday.

I am in the shadow between lunch and my next meeting, having spent the lion's share of the day in meetings already - with two more to go - this is my chance to stop long enough to take a deep breath and contemplate the day. I have fragments of thoughts running through my mind today, without a coherent theme. So, I thought I would just record some of those fragments.

Fragment 1: I dreamed of zombies last night, so all credit and praise to the folks behind AMC's "The Walking Dead". Truly awesome television. The cast is truly outstanding - not a weak link in the chain, and the creative team is pulling together an epic little tale.

Fragment 2: Ahhh, the desktop support organization is the principle source of my frustration here at work. A pox upon their house! What vexes me the most is if they run into a problem with the slightest bit of complexity, they switch from "fix" to "dodge" as their mental state. If they expended the amount of energy on trouble-shooting and fixing the deep problems as they do on dodging them - they could probably fix them and have time to run to Starbucks.

Fragment 3: How can you possibly serve watermelon that isn't ripe and not notice it isn't ripe when you cut it and mix the salad? Hint - watermelon should not be solid!

Fragment 4: Midget porn stars and abnormal genitals. (Hahaha - that was a fragment of conversation with T.R. last night that I have been secretly laughing about all day.)

Fragment 5: I've had so many meetings on so many subjects today that I've given up on any possibility of having a deep thought today. Five meetings this morning and two more to go in the afternoon.

Fragment 6: Shortly after writing Fragment 5, I got completely sidelined by a great article on http://www.the99percent.com entitled "What Happened To Downtime? The Extinction of Deep Thinking & Sacred Space." that had been tweeted by the talented actress Meredith Salenger, who has an enjoyable little twitter stream.

And the point is?

The point is - it has been a fragmentary day.
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Wayfarers at Rest

2011-10-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

It was productive day today - breakfast with friends, repaired the updater and bios on a friends computer, helped another friend move the contents of his apartment from storage to his new studio apartment, had a late lunch at El Burro, circled home, then circled back out to pick up and deliver a mattress, then home for a hot bath and now relaxing into the evening watching the season premiere of "The Walking Dead". The day flew by quickly without a lot of time for introspection and that was pretty nice. My shoulder is mostly healed, though I was very careful not to strain it while helping with the move today. Today's picture is of my Wayfarers sitting on the bench outside of El Burro in Campbell.

Injuries, Dreams and Thoughts

2011-10-14T10:46:00.001-07:00

The Injury:

Sometime on Wednesday morning I pulled a muscle in my right arm, near the shoulder. If you stand facing forward it is the muscle you use to lift your entire arm by swinging it forward, the short head of biceps brachii. I did it either lifting and moving a heavy box, which twisted, or while opening a heavy door. Based on the location of the injury I suspect the box was the root cause.

Typical of a pulled muscle, it didn't start hurting right away. It was only as I moved through the day that it began to hurt and restrict use of the arm.

Wednesday it was sore. Thursday was the worst of it, where pretty much the entire shoulder hurt. I slept okay both nights, largely by virtue of sleeping on my left side (no pressure on the injured area) or my back (a small amount of pressure).

I've been treating it with ibuprofen and ice, which has imrpoved it. After a round of icing on Thursday night, the overall swelling was down enough that I am not able to put my finger right on the injured part - the short head of the biceps brachii - and able to tightly target the ice, which vastly improves the effectiveness of it. I am on the road to healing, though I suspect it will take a couple of days.

The Dream:

Then, last night, I added another violent dream to my October portfolio.

In the dream I was driving down the street when I got caught in traffic behind a cop car and a crazy person and traffic ground to a stand still. As he got out of the car, the cop gestured for me to remain in my car and walked over to confront the crazy person. Suddenly, that confrontation went awry.

The cop drew his pistol and trained it on the crazy person. The two of them began circling each other, until suddenly I was down range from the cop. I laid down on the seat of the car, trying to get as low as I could. Suddenly, a shot rang out and my heart leaped into my throat. I lay there on the seat of the car, not knowing what had happened, debating whether I should sit up and look.

Suddenly, the crazy person was at the car window, with the cops pistol in his right hand. He banged on the window with his left and gestured for me to open the door, intending to car jack me. I pushed the button to unlock the door and as reached down and grabbed the handle, in that split second I kicked the door as hard as I could with both feet. The door slammed into him, he staggered backward and fell.

I rushed out of the car, intending to run, when I saw that, on falling, he had dropped the pistol. He rolled over on his stomach and started crawling for it. In his rear pocket was a short, bloodstained, section of iron rebar, wrapped in friction tape. I figured that improvised weapon was how he had overcome the cop.

Realizing I had the upper hand I rushed him and knee dropped him in the center of his back, slamming him into the pavement. While he was stunned I pulled the rebar from his pocket. He rolled over on his back and we began to fight. The fight lasted for several minutes and moved up and off the street, onto the sidewalk, then down the sidewalk. He put up a serious defense, which I battered relentlessly with the rebar. After a few minutes, he decided to turn and run, which allowed me that clean shot at his head.

The first blow to his head from the rebar send him to his knees. The second blow laid him and the sidewalk. I dropped down on him and hit him three more times in the head. He lay there, limp and unconscious, blood streaming from his scalp lacerations, bright and red. In the distance I could hear sirens. I stood up, glanced around at the horrified spectators, tossed the rebar to the ground and leaned against a bus stop to catch my breath. The entire encounter had taken a few short minutes of all out desperation fighting on my part.

Thoughts:

I would not call this particular dream a nightmare, since I didn't wake drenched in sweat or shaking from adrenaline. I just woke up and thought "wow, what a violent dream". I am rarely sure what triggers such dreams or where their form comes from. The ghosts of October play a part in it I'm sure.
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Sinkhole Dreams

2011-10-13T13:47:00.001-07:00

I had a rather strange and vivid dream last night. In the dream I was driving up Lawrence Expressway, just north of Prospect, in rapidly moving flood waters about a foot deep. I was moving slowly and cautiously in my car and ahead of me, about a hundred yards, was a guy on a scooter, also moving very slowly through the water.

Suddenly, he vanished, disappearing into the water in the blink of an eye. A whirlpool surged to life where he had been and a sinkhole rapidly opened up under the pavement. A moment later a police officer on a motorcycle passed me on the right hand side, went around the whirlpool and came to a stop on the far side of it.

Then, in the blink of an eye he vanished as the sinkhole widened and became a roaring cataract of water. I pulled to the far right and drove up onto the shoulder, to get my car out of the floodwaters.

Then, I went to join a crowd of people gathering on a small hillock well back from the sinkhole. We stood and watched in awe and an incredible volume of water poured into the massive hole underneath the pavement, the roar drowning out all other sounds.

Moments later, I awoke into the still hours of the morning.
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Incidental Angels

2011-10-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

I've had this piece for quite a while. I found it at a junk store one day and bought it for the pure functionality - it sits on the table near the door and catches my keys at the end of the day. It is such a habit that when I accidentally set my keys somewhere else, even in plain sight, I have through finding them.

Being Catholic, I like the idea of angels, and I specifically like the idea of incidental angels - those angels that are on some other task, but with whom you simply cross paths, perhaps knowing, perhaps unknowing. I like to think they do simple and subtle things in our lives and then continue on their journey.

I watched a good movie last night - Julie Taymor's "The Tempest" with Helen Mirren. First, I don't think you can go wrong with any movie that stars Helen Mirren, and second, I've always like The Tempest as a story. So, when you combine the two, I had two hours of pure enjoyment.

All in all the last couple of days have gone well - work has been brisk and only mildly frustrating. It's been the usual source of frustrations for me - mainly circling around desktop support, or the lack of it. I feel for the individuals involved in desktop support, they have a very difficult job, but I don't have any real sympathy for the process we use, with the emphasis on closing tickets and not solving problems. I've ranted about it before, I am sure I will rant about it again, and most likely I need to just let it go - which I am continually working on. I've done a better job than usual this week, so I am kind of proud of myself there.

The Shoes of October

2011-10-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

As I was moving through the day today I thought of the subject matter for tonight's picture - my shoes. My trusty New Balance 407's. These are probably the fourth or fifth pair of 407's that I've owned - I routinely swap them out once a year, not because the shoes are particularly worn (though, I put on average a million steps a year on them), but rather because - I have this thing about shoes. I like them fresh and crisp. So, if you were wondering what it is like to walk a mile in my shoes, well, you can probably buy a pair and come pretty close to the experience.

Honesty, Social Networks, and Happiness

2011-10-10T13:49:00.001-07:00

If you read almost any "how to find a job" article these days they contain a cautionary tale about social networking, usually in the form of stories about people who lost their job or didn't get the job because of something found on a social network.

Let me pose a question. When you are looking for a job is it in your best interests that you be as honest as you can be in who you are? I would say the answer is a resounding yes. I am often driven by expectation integration theory, which holds forth that the more closely your expectations are integrated with another entities expectations the more likely it is that the relationship will be mutually satisfying.

If your social network presence, whatever it may be, is reflective of who you are, than having that information out there is only a good thing because it will add knowledge of otherwise unknown dimensions of you to the great mix that is the decision making process.

I'm not just talking about the benign things either - that you love to ski, that your favorite novelist is Isabel Allende, that you've watched "The Wizard of Oz" a hundred times and can quote great portions of the script. I am talking about the other parts as well - your hot tub, your love of dancing at crowded clubs, your anti-capitalist protest pictures, the beer and bbq fueled weekends with your friends from your last job.

These are all a part of you, you should not have to hide them, and if you do hide them - are you better off because you hid them or not? I would venture that you are not.

In almost all circumstances as you go through life there is a simple truism involved - by and large the more honest you are, with yourself or others, the better off you will be. Yes, there may very well be a short term cost - you might not get a job you applied for.

But the long term benefit will far outweigh that short-term cost: You will get a job where you are free to be you without worrying about how your life or your lifestyle rubs up against your job. That alone is worth almost any short term cost.
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The Dreaming Briefcase

2011-10-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

We carry things as we move through this life. Usually, we know what we carry, but every now and then things slip into our bag without our being aware of them. One of the lessons I have learned from T.R. has been the importance of periodically taking the time to do a self-assessment on many levels. I think that I am due for such a day.

A self-assessment like that is, at least for me, not an easy thing. I have a tendency to get distracted and part of that distraction is the psyche, twisting and turning, slippery and elusive, wanting to keep its own secrets. There is an art to revealing those secrets to yourself - a delicate art, one that can only be learned through repeated and dedicated practice. To sit, to contemplate, to turn Priam's Lens upon yourself is a powerful process. When I approach that period of self-observation, I have to be careful to clear those ready distraction from the way, as best I can.

I am not sure what I was thinking about over the weekend. I had a vague unsettled sense through the days, like there was something on my mind that wasn't yet ready to bring itself into full view. Even now, on Sunday evening, it is not entirely visible but I can sense it there. Perhaps it will come out tonight in a dream, perhaps it will not wait for a dream, perhaps it will spin around in my mind until it takes the shape it desires.

October is an introspective month for me, for a variety of reasons. I suspect that they are the Ghosts of October that are stirring inside of me, moving about, seeking their positions and preferences. Some years they are barely there, other years they are heavy upon me. This year they seem to be present but not overbearing. There is some truth to be had in contemplating in our ghosts, whatever they may be.

The picture for today is my briefcase, that travels with me to and from work carrying the necessities of the working world. I actually bought this particular style of briefcase after dreaming of it a few months ago. So, I suppose, in some ways it is my dreaming briefcase. I happen to like that idea.

Pieces of the Day

2011-10-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

No collection of "ordinary" pictures from my world would be complete without a picture of my beloved Crackberry. (Actually, it is a Blackberry Curve 8900.) The Crackberry is my constant companion - the only time I set it aside is when I decide there is a time for me to be off the grid for a while, otherwise it is almost always close at hand. I love the connectivity of the modern world and I often wonder (and T.R. and I have often discussed) what the future is going to hold, what the experience of that future would be like. It is basically beyond the edges of our comprehension I think.

Today was an interesting day on several levels. I slept well. I woke up about five a.m. and then managed to linger in bed as long as I could, which was until about six a.m. I watched "Nikita" on the DVR to start the day. I met the guys for the usual breakfast at The Hickory Pit, then circled home for a bit.

From there I went up to Edgie's in Milpitas and spent a couple of hours playing pool. While I was there I had a strange event. When it comes to stress I tend to carry my stress in my shoulder muscles and for some reason, as we got ready to play pool, I realized that I was carrying a tremendous amount of stress. My neck and shoulder muscles were tight to the point be being uncomfortable. I did some Tai Chi and some breathing exercises to let the stress out. They worked and by the time we were finished playing pool I had dropped the stress.

The strange thing about it is I really can't think of why I carrying the stress - perhaps there was something going on in my monkey mind that I was unaware of, something at the subconscious level, but it is hard to say. Don and I did talk briefly about the performance management cycle at work, which is always a stress inducer for me, but I am not sure that had anything to do with it. One of my brothers was texting me through the morning and he was off to a funeral, so perhaps I was carrying some residual stress because of that. Even now, here in the evening, I am not really sure why I was carrying it.

After the pool playing, I wandered home and took a short nap on the couch, which was nice. From there, I went to Mama Mia's on Hamilton and had a bowl of minestrone soup and cheese ravioli in meat sauce. It was very tasty. From there, I wandered home and tumbled into this moment, where I am currently writing this entry and watching some comedy with Rumer Willis (Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's daughter). It is - a typical teen comedy and as soon as I finished writing I will do some channel surfing and see if there is anything worth watching tonight. If not, then I will curl up on the couch and spend part of the evening reading.

On The Simplicity of Fall

2011-10-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful fall day here, nearly perfect. The sun broke free, the sky was a bright blue, the weather was temperate, with the slightest of breezes. I tried to sleep in, but had slept well enough the night before that I couldn't pull it off, so I had a lazy morning, then went out and ran a couple of errands.

I had lunch at the Race Street Fish Market (fish, scallops, fries, and chowder), stopped at Orchard Supply Hardware to pick up a couple of odds and ends, swung by CVS for the same reason, popped in for a massage at the spa, then circled home for a nap. Dinner was pancakes and fruit at Holders Country Inn.

I love these very ordinary days, especially in the fall. All of the beauty of the world wrapped in simplicity, or perhaps all the simplicity of the world wrapped in beauty. Either way they are tightly entangled. The artificial tree in the picture sits in my living room and is a splash of color. I have a mix of artificial and real plants in the apartment, to give that splash of color and add that necessary organic touch.

I Trembled

2011-10-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

the rain crashed
against the window
the clock counted
all the stolen hours
under your hand
I trembled
I twisted and I turned
tangled and burned
somewhere a lost guitar
played the songs of a thief
struck the seventh chord of lust
bound us together
written on the ribbons
woven in our limbs
all the ancient stories
all the sacred tongues
the rain crashed
against the window
the clock counted
all the stolen hours
under your hand
I trembled
I twisted and turned
tangled and burned

Though A Glass Darkly - Oct. 6th Picture

2011-10-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

My glasses (normally I wear contacts). They bring to mind one of my favorite passages from St. Paul:

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am also known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

I've always loved that particular passage because it speaks to me very clearly of the nature and power of faith. In this life our faith is imperfect, flawed. We live with the promise of the next life and the perfection of our faith.

Time Devours All Things - Oct 5th Photo

2011-10-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

"Tempus edax rerum" - Ovid (Time devours all things.)

This is my pocket watch. I alternate between carrying it and wearing my wrist watch. For reasons I don't entirely understand the pocket makes me more aware of the passage of time. It is as if the time that moves on the pocket watch is a more stately time, a more serene time.

The pocket watch also puts me in mind of one of my favorite short stories - "The Paladin of the Lost Hour" by Harlan Ellison, in his collection "Angry Candy". It was also a critically acclaimed Twilight Zone episode (from 1985). I like the closing narration:

"Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, time carries away the names and deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment. A blessing of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty: God be between you and harm in all the empty places you walk."

I often look at time as the true coin of our lives. We have second, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years - but we have them in a finite number. How we choose to spend time, more than money, more that any other thing, is what shapes our lives. Are you conscious of hour you are spending the coin of your life? Are you aware what you are buying? Is it worth it?

The Odds of Meeting Naps

2011-10-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

I slept late this morning. I am blaming part of it on the weather, which is cool and rainy. I am blaming another part of it on yesterday’s flu shot. I will blame a third part of it on “because I could”. The rain definitely has me in a lazy fall mood. I am currently in the office and I came back from lunch in a steady rain. It was nice walking across the parking lot with big drops of rain popping on my jacket. I love the sky, a broken blue lined with cumulus clouds, painted in shades of white and gray.

Work has been pretty good today. I started the day with a small avalanche of things, but managed to maneuver my way through them. I had a meeting cancel, so it is a two meeting day, which is pretty rare. On an average day I attend about five hours worth of meetings. The light meeting schedule means I’ve had the opportunity to make some progress today. I still have a handful of things that I need to work my way through, but the afternoon is mostly clear, so I should be able to make a little more headway.

I was joking with one of my co-workers today that, as a corporation, we could probably save millions of dollars a year if we could do just one thing – stay on topic in our meetings. When it comes to meetings, there are a bare handful of things you can which will vastly increase the value of your meetings. Let’s call them Rod’s Rules of Meetings.

Rule One: Restrict meetings to one topic.

Rule Two: Always publish an agenda at least one full working day prior to the meeting.

Rule Three: If you have hand-outs or presentation materials, distribute them with the agenda.

Rule Four: Only invite people who have a clear and compelling business need to attend.

Rule Five: Keep actual meeting minutes.

Now, if you can do even one of those five things, you will significantly improve the quality and content of any meetings you host or are involved in. And the odds are that I will nap in your meeting are much smaller.

Courtyard - Oct. 4th Photo

2011-10-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

As I approach my apartment from the south, I pass through a corridor that transitions into the open and very green courtyard. On certain days the air is rich with the scents of flowering plants, the heady and powerful scent of life.
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A Knife for October - Oct. 3rd Photograph

2011-10-03T18:27:00.001-07:00

This little item has been my constant companion for the last decade or more. About the only time it is not in my pocket is when I am on an airplane, and then, if I have a checked bag, it is in my checked bag. Growing up on a ranch in rural South Dakota a pocket knife was an essential tool. Though my knife no longer sees the heavy use it did when I was young it comes in handy often enough that it is never far from my pocket.

Today was a Monday at work. I started the day with a six thirty a.m. meeting about something that I really could do nothing about, but that I was involved in for more of an advisory role. I mostly sat in my La-Z-Boy, drinking coffee and listening. I think a surprising amount of management work is simply listening. Once clear of the meeting I moved pretty smoothly through an ordinary Monday, at times amusing, at times frustrating, but mostly just what it was.

I was thinking as I drove into the office that it is rarely work content, rarely even work load, that manages to get me worked up at work. Mostly, it has to do with work environment, with things that are pretty much well beyond my control and at the margins of my ability to influence. In that I am reflective of most of the working world - the greatest source of stress for a worker arises from the things they have no control over. Give a worker control over their working day and their stress levels drop rapidly.

With the early start of the day there was a corresponding early end to day, but we had a good shower going about the time I left the office and it was enough to snarl traffic pretty badly on the freeway, so I took surface streets home. It was smooth but slow. Once home I made a bowl of soup and a sandwich and had a simple dinner, then followed it up by watching a bit of Ken Burn's new documentary that is currently running on PBS - "Prohibition". It is interesting, but I keep waiting for some narrative thread to pull it all together. From there, I slipped into a nice hot bath and the conclusion of that bath brought me right here, to this moment.

If I had any insight from the day it would be that much of my stress arises from environmental issues, not work content or work load. I seem to get offended by the structural things, though I can manage the frictional things very well. Of course, the structural things are the things that are the hardest to do anything about. Those are the ones that I have to work on simply letting go.

It is my short work week this week, so I am already a quarter of the way through it. I have one major thing I want to do this week, which is work on performance reviews, both for myself and for my employees. As far as tasks are concerned, it is mostly writing. I just need to carve out some time to sit down and write.

A Confession and A Photograph for Oct. 2nd

2011-10-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

I am here to confess to a terrible sin. Given the slightest opportunity, given the weakest provocation, given a reason of any sort, no matter how fragile or flimsy and I will indulge myself in...reading. Hedonistic, unhesitating, opportunistic, sensuous, luxurious, passionate, all encompassing reading.

A book, whether fiction, non-fiction, poetry or any and all of them has the ability to transport me to another realm of the senses, where the real and the unreal mingle and we dwell in a world of almost limitless possibilities. There is a sweet surrender that takes place between the covers of a book, a total surrender to the will and the power of the author. I love it.

This photograph is part of my October collection, I have twin nightstands on each side of my bed. This is the one on the right side of the bed, if you stand at the foot and face the head. It serves as a resting place for the book that is read, even if only for a moment, as I fall asleep or as I wake.

If you want to make a small transformational change in your day, try this - place one of your favorite books, either new or old, next to your bed and immediately on waking, before you get out of bed, turn on the light and read a passage or two, then close your eyes and contemplate it for a while.

The book in current "high rotation" on my nightstand is "The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Onono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan." by Jane Hirschfield (Translator). If you are a fan of the beautiful simplicity of Japanese poetry, I would definitely recommend that you add this book to your collection. It was recommended to me by T.R. and I have been slowly devouring it. Some books of poetry are meant to be slowly consumed, so that you can truly savor each taste they contain.

October 1st Photo - Gort in Action

2011-10-01T07:45:00.001-07:00

As an exercise I thought I would take and post one photograph of one ordinary thing in my life for each day in October. This is today's photo - Gort in Action. Klaatu Barada Nikto.

The Simplicity Never Went Anywhere

2011-10-01T06:55:00.001-07:00

It's a soft and beautiful morning here. There is fog that will burn off as the day progresses. But, for now, it is a quiet and soft dawn. I woke up about six a.m., which is close to normal time for me, and have spent a lazy morning so far. I watched "Fringe" on the DVR. Last night I spent some time with T.R. and then slipped off to sleep after reading a chapter or two in "The Clash of Kings".

I don't really have anything planned for this weekend. Breakfast with friends in about an hour and a half, then probably a trip to Fry's, and then over to Bob's to wind out the afternoon with the guys. A simple dinner and then a quiet evening at home. In short, I hope it is going to sort out to be a simple and easy Saturday.

I got a text from my brother this morning, and he was commenting on missing the simplicity of the Saturday mornings, the anticipation and the excitement of watching the old cartoon "Space Ghost". I think the Saturday morning cartoon memory is one deeply ingrained in many Americans as a symbol of the simplicity of childhood.

Of course, as an adult, there is nothing to prevent you from having the exact same morning. I responded to my brother that it really is all about the choices we make. I would compare this morning with the simplicity of those mornings, all those years ago. You just need to make the choices to embrace the simplicity of life. That simplicity never went anywhere. You went somewhere. And maybe the cartoons changed. For instance, I am not watching "Space Ghost". I am watching the alluring Maggie Q. in "Nikita".