Almost Empty Musings

If I was a book...

2007-09-18T14:40:00.000-05:00

You're One Hundred Years of Solitude!
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Lonely and struggling, you've been around for a very long time. Conflict has filled most of your life and torn apart nearly everyone you know. Yet there is something majestic and even epic about your presence in the world. You love life all the more for having seen its decimation. After all, it takes a village.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

So I took the quiz and it labeled me as one of my favorite books. Not that I wanted to read it back in college. In fact, I think this book is part of the reason why I find Latin America more interesting than Africa. Just read this first couple sentences and you'll see why the book is wonderful.

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point....

Speaking in Public

2007-08-12T22:00:00.000-05:00

I am fulfilling one of my personal dreams by giving a speech this coming November. I am, of course, excited and a bit nervous, but with three months to prepare I should be okay.

If you are interested in gathering software requirements and happen to be in Chicago during mid-November then I recommend attending the conference. But most of you are neither, so I am just sending you the information because I’m excited about reaching a milestone.

Follow the links for info about my presentation and the conference.

In other fabulous news, Katie will be having her first birthday party next weekend. She is doing fabulous; just starting to eat real foods, learning to walk, and babbling bunches if still without meaning.

Family Networks

2007-06-04T10:05:00.000-05:00

Even if Friendster is no longer popular, social networks are still a big deal on the web. If you pay attention to "technology news" you have probably heard of MySpace and FaceBook; both are very popular and strive for a slightly different audience. LinkedIn is the biggest business social network; I have a page there and it is typically up-to-date.

But today I want to talk about a new online networking tool built around families, Geni. This is a new site and has lots of slick features designed to make the site quick, responsive, and easy to use.

What you really need to know is Geni.com is an easy way to communicate with and keep track of your extended family. It allows multiple people to add and update information in the same tree. For example, Kristi (wife) imported a picture of her parents and my brother, Jill (sister) added some information about an uncle and pictures about her in-laws, while Tracy (cousin) added the name of a new niece and my aunt's former husband. The site is real-time and you can get notices on updates daily, weekly, or never. The ability to add, associate, and label people in pictures works pretty well too.

Caveat: If you are a genealogist and really into maintaining good records about your family, you might not want to make this your primary source. While you can export records in GEDCOM format, you cannot import them. I would like a few more fields for maintaining data. I have yet to see a way to print customized reports or change the default view on my personal tree. If you are new to genealogy and looking for a good resource, I recommend Personal Ancestral File (PAF 5.0). You can download it here for free, and get a pretty good report generator as an add-on for less than $10.

It's about the story

2006-10-12T10:36:00.000-05:00

I found a great video on Ramit Sethi's blog, I Will Teach You To Be Rich. While he gives good advice about how to manage your money, this video--commercial really--is outstanding.

If you want proof that you stories can be told in seconds, it's all about the writing, that good stuff comes from surprising places, or even that I like to cry at the sappy stuff, then watch this video.

If you don't love this I think I might have to claim you've lost touch with that soft center of your heart.

I'm a Dad

2006-09-18T02:41:00.000-05:00

I'm a Dad. I like to think I'm a good dad, but I'm not sure. Many people have been telling me I will make a great dad for quite a long time, but I'm not sure. I doubt I can know if I met any kind of standards for years to come.

I can say, I do say, "I love being a dad." Really, I do. (But I do not have any shirts yet.) I cannot imagine living life otherwise now that I have a child. It is as if life before Katie, which was fine and good, was just a precursor to what I'm doing now. This is what I was meant to do. Here are a couple minor examples:

One
Jay came over Saturday night and we watched a Tennesee lose to Floriday. During the first half of the game I changed a diaper. It took me just a few seconds, and like every time I've changed Katie's diapers it just felt natural. Jay's comment was something along the line of, "That was amazing. It took me two years to feel that comfortable changing Conner's diapers." Now, I'm sure he doesn't remember life way back then all that clearly, but it was a very nice thing to say.

Two
Tonight Kristi said to me, "You love to feed Kaitlyn. It's so obvious to see when you're doing it." My mom has said similar things a couple of times. The truth is, I don't see it. I don't know I'm showing any special love to her. I just know, grok even, how to do it. I know how much to wake her, keep her alert, feed her, and even get her to burp when other people seem to be missing parts of the process.

I'm not sure how, but I know what I need to do. What I can do. What I should do.

Now, let me tell you another story about Jay. Kristi came out and the three of us were talking about having a child in the NICU. Jay & Jen's second son Ryan (now 5 years old and doing fine) was admitted into a NICU after first spending a couple days at home. As Jay told the story he didn't show a great deal of emotion, his voice didn't change inflection and his body seemed relaxed. But his left hand reached up and wiped away a tear that came to his eye as he talked about the struggle his son experienced a long time ago. It seems to me that this simple gesture, almost hidden, is one of those things that might by itself qualify Jay as a good dad.

And to all those Dads in my life who had a child in trouble, please accept my apology. I know so little about how to offer support now, and I knew much less then. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you.

Gifts and Sacrifices

2006-09-12T12:16:00.000-05:00

I am in the airport, on the way to work. Kristi and Katie are doing great, here's a picture we took a couple days ago. Aren't we lovely together?
I bought Kristi a "Mommy Gift" from Aaron Basha. She says it's extravagant (though she still took it) and I said she deserves even more than the extravagant gift. Don't you think my bride deserves everything for working so hard to give birth to something so precious?

Finally, I am starting to get mad about something. It bothers me when people say it's a "sacrifice" to have and raise a child. Maybe other people had some big sacrifice, but I honestly do not see that this is the case or even understand. I didn't understand this before, but now that I have a daughter it really gets under my skin. I realize this may be a small thing, but I don't like it.

It's like saying I made a sacrifice by not playing football in college. I could have been in the NFL making millions, but instead I have weekends off. Or I made a sacrifice by not becoming a beach bum, because now I have to work. Or I made a sacrifice by marrying my bride, because I'm not having sex with a model on the Mediterranean coast.

But Katie is not a sacrifice.

You can say she is a consequence of my love for Kristi, and our desire for a child, and a particular mating ritual (hubba hubba), and a small dose of a pill, and a bit of luck or blessing, Kristi became pregnant. As a consequence of the pregnancy we now have a lovely new addition to our family. But Katie is not a sacrifice.

You can say she is a new responsibility because I choose to raise her well and with love. But Katie is not a sacrifice.

You can say she is a gift, a beautiful and extravagant gift we do not deserve. A wonderful gift because my family--immediate and extended--are pleased and proud and blessed to have her grace our lives. But Katie is not a sacrifice.

I'm sure I could go on, but the plane's about to go and I have to sign off. Talk to you later.

7 Days in a Hospital

2006-08-26T23:39:00.000-05:00

Authors Note: This is the second post in a series about the birth of my daughter, Kaitlyn. The first post described the day leading up to her birth and can be found here.

Friday, Aug 18
Kaitlyn wasn't alive but a couple minutes when the nurses and attending folks informed me she would have to be taken off to the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

I follow Kaitlyn from the birthing room to a private little room inside of the dark and quiet NICU. I had to ask if I could hold her for a minute before they started hooking up leads and monitors. Begrudgingly, they agreed.

Thankfully, I was allowed a couple minutes before gently handing my baby off to others. I type this more than a week later and it still makes me sad to think I had to hand her to anyone but Kristi.

The first few hours after the birth consist of me escorting family members back to see Kaitlyn. We can only have two people in "The Unit" at a time. Throughout all the trips back and forth the nurses, and there were at least five that I saw, were trying to find a vein in Kaitlyn to administer IV fluids. Poking, and poking, and poking. Hands, legs, feet, arms. With every family member it's a new nurse trying a new spot. Sandy leaves the room. Barbara looks away.

They cannot find a good vein yet because she doesn't have much fluid in her, and they cannot put fluid into her until they find a vein. So they poke my baby again. They don't want to put the IV into the vein in her head unless nothing else works; it's just too disturbing for parents and relatives to see.

Kristi comes to see the baby a few hours later. It's after 3 AM I think, maybe 4 AM. Finally the IV is in. Our baby is on a breathing machine, CPAP. She has an IV with Antibiotics and saline fluid with Dextrose. A light and sensor combination is wrapped around one foot to measure 02 levels in her blood. She has three leads attached to her chest. Another one attached to her stomach; this one under a little gold duckie.

The problem, the key problem, is our baby is breathing too fast. Instead of 40 times per minute she is panting at 100 times per minute. Think of how exhausting that would be. I'm told she doesn't need extra oxygen, not yet, but she needs the breathing machine to keep pressure in the lungs so they don't collapse. Her blood gases are a little off too, but not enough we need to worry about them now.

I get to bed about 5 AM and wake about five hours later. I slept through the doctor visit, again.

She's stable. She needs the pressure for her lungs, but not oxygen; this makes the nurses happy. Her blood gases are better. We cannot hold her, not while the CPAP is attached. The day becomes a blur.

Saturday, Aug 19
Another late night, another late wake-up. Kristi doesn't feel good. Most ladies are told to walk around after giving birth (isn't that a funny phrase, "giving birth?"). Not Kristi; her blood pressure was 100 over 50 yesterday. It's still too low today. Instead of walking she has a wheelchair; without it, she would fall over.

We see the baby some. A few people stop by to visit, it's nice they could come by.

Kaitlyn is doing better. Blood gases are fine, the pressure in the CPAP has been reduced. Antibiotics and fluids are still being administered by IV in the foot. The culture they are growing to see if the antibiotics are even necessary is negative so far. We really aren't sure what the problem is.

The likeliest issue is that she didn't and cannot get rid of the fluid in her lungs. This will go away with time. The next likeliest issue is that her lungs are under-developed. This is seen as "probably not true" because she would be getting worse instead of better if it was true. The third potential problem is an infection, hence the use of antibiotics.

Sunday, Aug 20
We were given the orders from Kristi's substitute doctor, we can check out and go home today. With a baby just downstairs it's a mixed blessing so the question is when will we actually leave. We've talked with our nurse, Yvonne and she said something like, "It's Sunday until midnight, you can leave when you want. Let me know when you want to leave. "

Kaitlyn is doing better, thank goodness. The culture is negative so far, so we can stop the use of antibiotics. Also, she's off the CPAP (breathing machine) and just on a nose canula. That's the little tube they put under the nose to give people oxygen. So yes, she did not need any oxygen yesterday when she was getting pressurized air, but today she does. I'm not sure why that would be, but you've got to trust the doctors. The great thing about this change in air supply is we get to hold her now.

As you can see from the picture, Kaitlyn is under a couple of bright spotlights and wearing purple shades. The lights are how babies get treated for high bilirubin, the stuff causing jaundice in babies. For us this is caused by a confluents of events; a liver that is not completely developed (common in all babies), bruising from the birthing process (fairly common in natural births), lack of bowel movements (caused by the use of an IV instead of regular feeding), and random chance.

We left the hospital around 6:30 PM. Kristi's not feeling well yet and we're going home to rest.

Monday, Aug 21
Kaitlyn is still subjected to the lights and a nose canula. She's getting better, they have reduced the amount of oxygen they're feeding her through the canula and today we start trying to feed with a bottle. She was fed formula yesterday, but because of all the tubes and sensors it was fed directly through a tube into her stomach.

We spend all afternoon in Kaitlyn's little room and late into the evening too. Kristi is tired and should be resting, but she wants to be here, with her baby.

For dinner we at with a support group for parents who have children in "The Unit." We heard the stories of a children who "graduated." I cried as I listed to a parent talk about the joy of her daughters and the pain she felt when other people looked aghast at pictures her tiny babies. The struggle to maintain her relationship with her husband and Herculean effort to support and nurture her children. How she celebrated all the tiny victories of her children's growth.

I know so little about this kind of suffering. My girl will be home in a few days not a few months, and this gives me an assurance they can only dream about. I am, we are, even in this time of less than perfectness, still blessed.

Tuesday, Aug 22
I really like this picture. The expression is so cute. You can imagine she is thinking so many things. A developmental expert might tell me she's practicing her muscles, but to me she's a beautiful and inquisitive girl exploring her world.

We're doing well; the doctor is very pleased with our progress. I asked the doctor to rate how serious Kaitlyn's condition was on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means it's a very serious situation for the NICU. The doctor said, "Let me answer a different question. How concerned am I about her? Zero. I have no concern that she won't get better and be healthy." Wow, isn't that great news?

Since we are doing so well, that means we can go home somewhere between two and five or more days. The key is she needs to maintain her progress and have no new or reoccuring issues come up for the next few days. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Wednesday, Aug 23
Today we moved from The Unit to "Baby Steps." Baby Steps still requires people know the password to come visit our baby, but it means she is making lots of good progress. The big difference is that babies in the NICU are being monitored for their conditions, while over in Baby Steps the concern is maintenance and growth.

For us, this means we want Kaitlyn's bilirubin levels to decrease without use of lights or any other treatment. We also want her to continue to breath and maintain her heart without any problems occurring. Actually, it's okay if a problem occurs, it's that Kaitlyn needs to self-correct the problem within 20 seconds without any outside intervention.

As the good doctor said to me yesterday, they tend to over-monitor babies and this just induces more concern than is warranted. Babies at home have the same kind of problems, but without all of the fancy monitors they recover on their own and parents don't go through the heart-wrenching feeling when the monitors start beeping. The picture above is Kristi looking at the monitor when it beeped a heart rate warning. It was actually just a monitor issue, but it's hard to stop looking up when it's beeping about your baby.

Thursday, Aug 24
Maybe, just maybe, we can home tomorrow. We were told yesterday it would be Saturday at the latest, but this is getting better. In honor of the special potential the nurse suggested we give Kaitlyn a bath.

Everything went well with the bath and we only stayed at the hospital for a bit today (less than six hours). This is great because Kristi has not recuperated from the delivery yet. We're going to go home and get some extra rest. Not a lot of rest, but extra compared to what we've been getting lately.

Friday, Aug 25
We call into The Unit every few hours to see how our baby's doing. This morning when I called the nurse said, "She's doing great. The doctor hasn't written the orders yet, but you can take her home today."

I was so excited I almost told the nurse, "I love you."

We started getting ready to go to the hospital, but with the extra phone calls we started making it took a couple hours to get out the door.

Once at the hospital it took some time for the nurse and the doctor to get free enough to talk with us, but who cares? Really, we're going home today, why should we care about a few extra minutes?

And so ends our week in the hospital. And if you didn't know this already, you can click on the pictures above to see a larger version. Thank you all for your concern, thoughts, and prayers.

Introducing Baby Davidson

2006-08-16T23:08:00.000-05:00

We are proud to let you know about the birth of our beloved daughter,
Kaitlyn Leigh Davidson
Born Friday, August 18, 2006 at 12:13AM
Weighing 6 lb, 4 oz
19-3/4 inches in length

Author's note: The following story is the birthing diary I kept during our stay in the hospital. I finished telling the story of the experience, but some of it was not typed until after the event. At the end I was busy participating rather than typing. The story is continued in Part 2, talking about Kaitlyns time in the NICU.

Wednesday, 10:43 PM
We're at the hospital and Kristi has changed into a gown. Not the hospital gown, because the nurse has agreed Kristi can wear her own for the night. Tomorrow will be a different story.

The nurse's name is Caroline and she seems friendly. In fact, I have been very happy with every staff member we've run into here.

I'm running into a bunch of trouble with Cingular's wireless card so far, so we'll have to see how long I can keep the birthing diary going.

11:26 PM
Kristi has had a couple mild contractions, so mild she didn't know it until Nurse Caroline looked at the monitor and told us. Kristi's blood pressure is 146/83 and the baby's heart rate is steady at about 140.

Registration just called and I have to go down and fill out some forms.

Thursday, 12:10 AM
The contractions are coming pretty regular now that Kristi knows what to feel for (and I can see the peaks on the monitor). I'm sure this will make the doctor happy. In our meeting with the doctor she told us contractions prior to checking into the hospital would help the process go smoother.

12:54 AM
Kristi has given blood, she is hooked up to an IV with saline drip only (no drugs), and the good nurse Caroline is having her sign a whole bunch of consent forms. I also received instructions on how to read the little monitor and Kristi's contractions are running four to four-and-a-half minutes apart.

We have our first request for pictures, but even though I have camera, I do not have any software to load the pictures. This will be a text only story.

1:35 AM
Contractions are still going well, the nurse is asking a bunch of miscellaneous questions, and Kristi was just given Ambien to help her sleep.

So, in case you haven't figured it out, Kristi & I are in the hospital to deliver our first child, a baby girl. She is 37 1/2 weeks pregnant, which is full-term according to our doctor. Maybe later I'll write about why we're really here this week instead of waiting a bit longer for the blessed event.

Anyway, part of the "induced labor process" involves softening the cervix. For reference purposes, the cervix is generally thick and stiff like the end of your nose. During labor the cervix softens and becomes pliable like your lips.

2:58 AM
We've been watching some video tapes of I Love Lucy and Kristi has finally turned over to go to sleep. I just received this email from Martha

You two get some sleep. You've got a long day ahead of you tomorrow and then the first night with the baby. This is your last night to get some sleep, take our advise.... HIT THE HAY! It will be years before you get the opportunity again!

I've got some work to finish up so I'll be up for a bit more, but this is my last entry for the night. I'll talk to y'all in the morning.

4:20 AM
Kristi just paged the nurse because her contractions, which are now varying between every two and five minutes are quite a bit more painful. I finally convinced Kristi to accept some pain medication. She's worried about the baby, but it seems to me that she and the baby will be better if there's less pain.

She did fall asleep for a minute while I was typing, but then the next contraction started and ... you can fill in the rest of the story from here.

6:35 AM
Well the pain medicine didn't get administered until close to 5 and we've had a bunch of nurse visits since then. The pain medication has done wonders for Kristi and she has calmed down quite a bit.

The plan for when to introduce which drugs has been changed and the nurse has come in a half-dozen or more times since the medication started. The end result is Kristi has not slept for more than 5-10 minutes at a time yet. I'm done with my work for the moment, so I'll make the bed and see how much sleep I can get. At the moment, my expectations are pretty low.

10:10 AM
Quick update... I woke up at 9:55 and a bunch happened while I was sleeping. The doctor has been bye to visit while I was sleeping (an hour ago?) and she is expected back any minute. Kristi is dilated to 1.5 cm, the doctor can feel the babies head(!!), Kristi is 80% effaced (I'll explain that later), and when the doctor gets back she is going to break the water sac.

10:27 AM
The doctor is in the house...

11:45 AM - Quick
Kristi is doing great. Dilated to 3 cm. Epidural is in. She's about to take a nap.

11:46 AM - Long
I'll answer some questions from comments and emails a bit later.

Okay, so what's been happening since the doctor's visit? The doctor came in smiling and thinks Kristi is doing very well. The doctor said we're dilated to "a tight 3 cm." This is good because Kristi could not get an epidural when dilated less than 3 cm.

The doctor also broke Kristi's water during this exam. [Fluid was clear, which is good] The problem with this is contractions become significantly more intense (painful) after the water is broken. Pain before was rated a 5 or 6 or 7 before, it was rated a definite and tearful 10 after the water was broken. We only went through 3 or 4 contractions at the new, intense level before Kristi agreed to expedite the epidural.

Of course, it took some time to get the right people in the room and insert everything. Kristi did a great job and it struck me it must be more than the mind-numbing pain, but the whole idea that even as it lessens she knows it is going to come again in just two or three minutes. It adds a whole element of torture, the knowledge of impending pain, to the event.

During this period we also changed nurses from Tara to a tag team of Julie and ~~Krisha~~ Crisha (who is apparently still in training).

12:50 PM
I just had a mediocre panini sandwich for lunch. Kristi had a catheter inserted. She is only allowed to eat ice chips and popsicles, so she's a bit hungry right now.

Kristi's blood pressure is running high (143/72), but it is not very high compared to some of the peaks we've hit in the last 14 hours. Kristi has been hypertension medication for as long as I've known her to control her blood pressure. We spent a few night here in the hospital right at the end of June while she was 31 weeks pregnant due to her BP.

At the time the doctor was pretty sure we were going to be delivering the baby within days, a week at most. Of course the doctor's worry only added to Kristi's stress and BP, increasing the chances we would deliver early. To say I was frustrated at the doctor's mismanagement of Kristi would be a significant understatement.

Of course, it worked out okay in the end; by staying on strict bedrest Kristi was able to keep the bun baking for an additional six or seven weeks.

The doctor's due in a few minutes so I'll give you more info in a bit.

1:00 PM
Sometimes I look at her and cry. I really do love Kristi. I know it drives her crazy that I don't show much emotion except for when watching romantic comedies (we don't see commercials anymore since TiVo), but looking at her sleep now, or watching her walk down the aisle, touch me deep in my heart. I don't know how to express it, but the catch in my throat and the tear in my eye will have to be enough.

1:20 PM
Doctor update: Kristi is now completely effaced (cervix is soft), but she is only dilated between 3 and 4 cm. The doc upped the pitocin level to strengthen the contractions and increase the dilation. When asked when the baby would come the doctor said, "I have no idea." At least she's honest.

Next doctor visit will be a bit after 3 PM.

2:00 PM
Okay, time for a couple more updates. I forgot to tell you the doctor can feel the baby's hair. Isn't that just cool?

Answering some questions: The drug we were given after we arrived to soften the cervix is Cytotec (PDF alert). Typically women get two treatments of Cytotec, four hours apart. To our nurse's surprise the doctor ordered three treatments for Kristi. Due to "life happens," she only received one treatment and then went on Pitocin at 6AM when I was just going to sleep.

To the people asking if I'm a dad yet, the answer is "No." But you can bet your bottom dollar I ain't gonna be blogging in the middle of that. I love y'all, but I'll be busy holding Kristi's hand not typing about the actual birth. And no, I will not attempt to do both at the same time; don't ask.

It's funny, Kristi would never let me bring in a camera crew, but writing about for the experience you and your neighbor is just fine. She doesn't get how wide the reach of blogs are. (As an example, old friend Nnamdi sent email congrats from Africa.)

And for those of you who are new to this "blogging thing" I recommend you click on the comment link below. Doing this will let you read the comments of other people and enter your own comments. I do get your emails, but this post and the comments will survive much longer than my email archive. *sigh*

2:45 PM - Quick
The nursing team just came in to insert an internal monitor just to make sure they get accurate readings of Kristi's contractions and the baby. Everything is looking good and we have 5 cm dilation.

3:45 PM - Long
Hmph. About 3:10 the nurseing team comes rushing in and surrounds Kristi. She had 6 contractions in 5 minutes and the baby didn't like that. By way of communicating the baby drops her heart rate from about 140 to the 80s. Right away the team is cutting off the pitosin and adminstering a shot of Terbutaline, or Terb. The baby calms down right away and while blocking my view they have put an oxygen mask on Kristi.

Kristi is thinking I need to get my mind off this keyboard and onto her. I'm wondering where the doc is and the nurse gets her on the phone (but not the phone in the room; is this a bad sign?). While the team is wandering around the doc says she'll come by the room in 10-15 minutes.

Kristi is holding up well and I'm holding her hand. The contractions have not stopped, but they have started coming at a regular frequency. The baby's heart rate is good again.

After reviewing the situation the doctor says it's time to restart the Pitosin and build up the levels slowly. Dilated 5 to 6 cm, which isn't enough yet. (Did I tell you the goal is 10?)

And while typing all of this I've talked to Fred & Sandy. They're leaving our house and going to head this way. Kristi is feeling the contractions a bit more and they have sent in the guy to give her a booster shot through the epidural. They don't want to give too much because they want her to be able to push when the time comes.

4:30 PM - Misc.
Kristi feels like she has spent the whole day sleeping, but I know my honey, and this is not a good sleep. She is up every few minutes with a feeling, a pain, someone's entering the room and poking or rolling or somethinging her.

Kristi is starting to get a bit pissy about me blogging instead of giving her attention. I do jump when she speaks, but between the micro-naps and interuptions I do this. I am wondering if the typing isn't a substitution for feeling. If it puts off anxiety I'm okay with the swap; what did anxiety ever buy anyone?

Uncle Rick says the dogs are going to fall from grace, which is so true as to not be worth mentioning it. With the exception that Kristi doesn't realize it yet.

My mother called from Town East Mall. She may have gotten the directions to the mall from Kristi, but there is no chance Kristi gave these particular directions in relation to the hospital or the pregnancy. Maybe we shouldn't have given the directions out so long ago, but Kristi was trying to prepare her parents and mine.

I expect to see Fred & Sandy, Mom & Jill in the next 30 minutes or so. I know Sandy was worried this morning. She called right when Kristi was feeling one of the contractions where pain was dialed to 10. I can not yet imagine what it would be like to hear your daughter crying from pain in the background, but it gives me pause to even consider the thought.

The doc won't be back for another visit until 5:30 or 6.

5:50 PM
All the visitors are here and we're sitting around gabbing. Well, Kristi's half-asleep, but the rest of us are chatting away. The doctor's due soon. The 5PM BP medication is stuck downstairs in the pharmacy so the nurse is on an errand to get. Nothing big, just keeping you up to date.

6:15 PM
The visitors have gone off to have dinner and they'll come up for another visit afterwards. The doctor was here for about 10 minutes. Kristi and the baby are still doing great (her word), but Kristi has not dilated any further past 6 cm. The new order is to restart the pitosan (which I thought we did last time) and build up to the same dosage level we had previously. The doctor does not plan to be back for another 2-1/2 hours, but is somewhat hopeful the baby will arrive between then and 12 midnight.

Kristi is napping, and if the interuptions slow down a bit it just might be a good one this time. I probably won't post an update for a bit unless something changes.

6:40 PM
Just a comment, but it pisses me off when the nurse throws the door open and loudly asks, "How we doing?" Everyone tells us she should get more rest, but she is besieged by events that preclude a good rest. I know I am being protective here, but couldn't the nurse walk in and check to see if the patient is resting? And then maybe checking the machines and charts without waking her?

Author's note: The following two updates are recreations of lost updates.

7:30 PM
Hey, this new nurse, Amy, is all about the business. She just walked in and told Kristi we're going to have a baby tonight. Gotta change my shirt.

8:15 PM
We're gonna start pushing, might have a baby in two hours, gotta run...

Author's note: All the updates below this point were written after the fact. I've tried to keep the timline, events, and thoughts true, but I'll ask for a little forebearance if some unintentional license was taken.

8:20 PM
Dilated to 9 - 9.5 cm (still). The room is changing as they take apart the bed and get it set-up for delivery.

Q: Where's the doc? A: At dinner

8:45 PM
We're in a slight holding pattern; still not dilated enough yet. Seems like we're going to wait for 10 cm after all. Kristi is yelling at me about the computer, again. I wasn't even looking at it!

Q: Where's the doc? A: Dessert??

9:30 PM
Doc is in the house. We're close enough to 10 cm that the next time we have a contraction we're going to push.

9:50 PM
I can see why men were not allowed in here. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm trying to encourage Kristi, but I know her and she has already tuned me out. Really. Like she just put her hand over my face and switched half-way through the contraction to putting her hand across my throat. I guess she doesn't want my encouragement. :-)

10:15 PM
Uh oh. Kristi is ready to give up. She says it hurts and it's hard. (No shit, they call it labor.) They count to 10, or almost, because Kristi doesn't push past 6, sometimes 7 in the count. Seriously, she can do it, but they need to push her more. She won't listen to me.

10:30 PM
She hurts. She says it every time. The pain is up on her left side. They don't want to open another bag of epidural solution because is $500 per bag. Like I care.

I think you have to be numb to people's suffering to be a nurse. Really. They just don't seem to care about her pain. It's a practiced indifference. Like the rest of the day they were just acting when they acted concerned.

10:30 PM
We have another nurse. She's the head nurse tonight and I don't remember her name, but as far as Kristi's concerned, we can call her Nurse Ratched. She just had a talk with Kristi. Now my wife is pushing to 10, sometimes 11.

10:45 PM
Kristi wants Lee. Anything for Lee. She really wants some more drugs. The real issue is, if you make her too numb, she will not have enough control to push. Honestly, she calls for Lee like a lost lover. It's kinda funny.

11:05 PM
The doctor shows me the baby's head. It's sticking out and I can see her hair. I want to cry. This is so special. I cannot show my tears to Kristi; they'll distract her from pushing.

11:15 PM
The doctor plays with the baby's hair while Kristi is pushing. She's pulling little bits of stuff out of the hair with her gloves on. It's pretty funny.

I say it seems like time is flying. it does for me, this is exciting. The doctor and Nurse Amy look at me like I'm the spawn of satan. Kristi doesn't even notice me.

11:25 PM
Nurse Ratched wants to have the baby tonight. Apparently she promised this to Freddie out in the hallway. We went so long I kinda want 12:01AM. I'm not sure why, maybe because it's a cool time of day.

Doc asks if Kristi wants to use the vacuum to pull the baby out. Kristi asks me what I think. Nurse Amy asks me why I get a say in the matter.

11:40 through 11:50 PM
They just called in half the hospital. Two more people just showed up and started getting the baby bed with lights all ready with blankets. Here comes Lee, the doc makes him stand away and out of Kristi's sight (haha). Here's comes another one. This is gonna happen.

11:55 PM
We're going to have just a couple more pushes. The hospitals clocks are all off. They match the computers but the computers are slow. What the heck?

Friday, 12:03 AM
Let's use the vacuum. It's time to get the baby out.

Friday, 12:10 AM
"Get the camera, get the camera!" Everyone's shouting at me. I just wanted to hold onto Kristi. Damn, where's the camera?

Friday, 12:15 AM
I'm taking pictures with one hand. Holding the phone up (speaker-phone mode) in the other so the grandparents can hear the baby cry.

They can hear my baby. That's my baby!

Author's note: And thus ends the first part of my story. You can find the next part of the story here.

Almost Empty Musings: A New Look

2006-08-14T03:41:00.000-05:00

It's time for a new look, so Almost Empty Musings has undergone a facelift.

The idea comes from Thomas Marban, who has a great screen blog of more than 4500 different design ideas. I choose to blatently steal the new look from back-word. It's got a clean look and I thought I could handle the design implementation.

If you look at the bottom of the page you'll see I didn't quite couldn't figure out how to keep the whole menu / footer section centered. Please don't hesitate to drop me a line with the solution to my coding garbage.

Update (8/15): I still cannot get the menu below to operate correctly. (Apparently CSS doesn't handle three columns very well.) And in the meantime I've botched the Blogger header bar at the top of the page.

Update (9/18): I cannot take the unfinished design any longer. I've changed to a template available at the link in the page footer.

On Becoming a Business Analyst

2006-06-12T00:29:00.000-05:00

I have started a central resource site for requirements gathering and business analysis. You can check it out here: On Becoming a Business Analyst. I'd love feedback if you have any.

I have to say, if it wasn't for the latest client and the great fun I am having training their very first analyst, I'm not sure what I would be doing. I do know I am learning, she is learning, their VP of IT is learning, the organization is growing, and I am overjoyed. Seriously. Just read this quote the trainee sent me the other day:

I am so happy to be here and experiencing this sort of focused training on being a business analyst and determining procedures around requirements gathering and the SDLC. I have never in my 10 years in IT experienced such a level of dedication and focus towards improving the people and process in my job function. Merck and Lucent, with their large training arms, BA forums, and established SDLC processes, cannot hold a candle to what we are doing here. This training and discussion is so important for staff and process development and I cannot say enough how privileged I feel to be a part of it. On a personal level, also, I have never had coworkers and managers so invested in making me a great BA – thanks a bunch you guys and I will do my utmost to reach that bar and beyond!

A dozen years, an airport, and 263 feet

2006-05-27T21:16:00.000-05:00

Way back in college I was a part of Alpha Phi Omega. Purdue's chapter of APO was a great place to be. In fact, the only people I keep in touch with from college are all from APO. I would say I spent most of my time with four very different people; Linda, Jay, Chris, and Glenn.

Which is funny because Linda and I were both at PHX, or Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Thursday. She was catching a connecting flight between Lafayette, IN and San Diego on the way to see her husband Eric. I was catching a flight home to see Kristi. I just missed seeing Linda in person because the timing between her flight and mine was too close for the space between terminals 3 and 4. We gave each other a virtual hug over our respective cell phones and said "Maybe next time."

Tonight I got a phone call from Jay, which is surprising because we only talk to each other once a year or in the annual Christmas card letter. We've only gotten together a couple of time socially since I moved to Dalls, in part because the distance between our respective suburbs is pretty high. But I suppose it has more to do with him being a family man with three boys and me traveling for a living. Anyway, all that is going to change next month. It turns out he just bought a house down the block from us. It's a red brick two story we can see from our front yard, only seven houses away!

I suppose I should be on the lookout, because at this rate I might get to see Chris or Glenn real soon too! Hmm, I wonder when I'll be seeing Tommy, and Emily, and Doug, and Heather, and Derek, and Brenda, and Joe, and Jen, and Chris, and...

Post Script: Doesn't Lee live in Phoenix? Hmm, maybe I'll see him next.

Who's to blame?

2006-05-23T19:25:00.000-05:00

Steve Johnson, over at Pragmatic Marketing has a good rant about a poor software experience in Another negative development rant. And while I love the rant, Jerry Aubin does a great job pointing us away from the developer in his post, Are There Lazy Programmers?

For my part, I think Jerry came close to hitting the nail on the head. While I agree that things are broken and UX should be better almost everywhere, putting the blame on the developer is pretty close to a cop-out.

(Generalizing…) I think most people perform to the level they are expected to perform; certainly not much beyond that effort. In the business world, this is largely set by the culture of the department or company. Obviously Garmin has a different set of expectations for user interactions than other companies (let’s say Apple or 37signals). One of those other companies would demand more from the developer, dev manager, product manager, and the business sponsor. In the other companies the result for the consumer would be different.

While part of the reason may be economic (we certainly hope the analysis went that deep, though I often doubt it), it may be a culture (of laziness) starting in one of the “likely failure points in the chain before the engineer gets involved”.

Complaints as a service

2006-02-18T01:14:00.000-06:00

Twenty years ago I read a newspaper article about a woman who was making the equivalent of a hefty salary by complaining. She was a master of letting companies know where they did not live up to their obligations and in return she received lots of free products, refunds, vouchers, coupons, etc. As much as the article's author was pushing the concept of "spend lots of time bitching and you can free stuff," I recall her side of the story. She viewed her ~~complaints~~ comments as a service to the company; giving feedback when most people aren't willing say anything.

I was thinking about this last week when I wrote my complaint letter to Intermatic. While I thought it would be cool to get a free timer out of the deal, I already have a new one installed and it's not like I need a bunch of them.

I know it sounds funny, but I really thought a good company would value my problem as an opportunity. Unfortunately, most companies don't think of problems as opportunity. For an example of how most companies seem to handle issues, read Seth Godin's article about Jonathan Cruce's problem with VTech or his post about Shari's Berries.

Contrast that story with the following response from Intermatic:

Hi Jeffrey,

Thank you for your recent letter and picture. I am sorry that you are having problems with our timers. I would like to talk to you about the past and present timer you have purchased and I'd like to tell you about our new timer that will hit the market soon. I'd be happy to put you in my data base so that you will receive one of the timers complimentary.

Please send me a day time phone number.

Thank you!

Lisa Kosel
Customer Service

I was out this afternoon and missed Lisa's call, but the summary of the voicemail she left is I am going to receive both their latest switch/timer (different than the one I bought last week) and their soon to be released timer once it comes out this Spring or Summer. She also left me her direct line so she could explain the features of their soon to be released product.

And all of this is why I am now a big fan of Intermatic. If your curious, they also make Malibu Lights, the landscape lighting you can buy at Home Depot and Lowe's.

For new readers (should I get so lucky) check out the related posts where I complain about HR.com and then get a lovely response to my rant.

My new light switch

2006-02-11T16:23:00.000-06:00

I wrote a complaint letter today. I'll let you know if I hear anything back from them.

11 February 2006

Intermatic, Inc.
Intermatic Plaza
Spring Grove, IL 60081

To Whom It May Concern:

I just purchased and installed a new timer for the lights outside my garage (2 fixtures, each with a 60 watt Halogen bulb). The problem is, I did this just a few months ago and today I had to do it again.

I had an automatic timer for the lights and it worked for three or four years. The brand was not yours, but it worked just fine. Sometime last summer it bit the dust. I went to Home Depot, again, and bought a new automatic timer for my lights. I bought your timer, the SS8 model and I’m guessing this was in the early fall. I do recall remember it was a pain to install because of the space the timer took in my electrical box.

About a month ago, it broke. I tried replacing the battery, but that didn’t help it either. So I am once again trudging to the store (Lowe’s this time) to pick up a new timer. I would have gone back to Home Depot, but I don’t want to go digging for the receipt; without which it would take them a couple hours to figure out how to give me a partial refund should they even be able to find the item in their system.

If I had been sure the last model was from you I really doubt I would have purchased the new model, EJ500CL. I will say the install on this, the digital model, was easier than last time. I also thought the controls were easy to understand.

My problem is why did the first one break? Why did I have to go through all this hassle and spend another $24.98 plus tax? Even if I have the whole timing screwed up and it lasted a year, who cares? This is a product I expect should last at least 5-10 years without maintenance, repair, or replacement.

It seems to me this should really be your problem, not mine. I’m almost afraid because I ended up buying another of your products. You can trust me when I say that if this one goes bad I’ll be passing the word about this to everyone I can get to listen. In the meantime, while I wait to pass judgement on the new timer, is there anything you will do to alleviate my frustration?

Curiously,
/Signature/

On the plus side of today's experience, the reason I went out of my way to Lowe's in the first place is because I had received a $10 coupon in the mail.

So, I walking through the store, getting the new light and a couple keys made when I realize the coupon must have been that thing I thought dropped out of my pocket in the car. So I leave the stuff at a checkout stand, go digging under the seat to find the coupon, and discover it was $10 off of a purchase of $50 or more. *sigh*

Now I'm looking for grass seed, but I have to call Steve because I think I've got Bermuda grass instead of Kentucky, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, after upping my purchase to $50+ bucks I go back to the check out line to discover the coupon expired on February 5! Before I can say anything, another checker walks over starts punching buttons, calls a manager, and gets me my $10 discount.

Which all means I'm going back to Lowe's next time, because they know how to take care of their customers.

How to Save the World

2006-01-10T17:36:00.000-06:00

Wow. I really, really like this quote of T.H. White's Once and Future King, pulled by How to Save the World

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn--pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics--why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until is it is time to learn to plough."

I haven't figured out what my resolution will be this year (I've got some left, don't I?), but maybe I should try to do this, learn something everyday.

And as I was telling Spencer the other day, "No, people don't learn something new every day, but they should. And learning what happened lately to a movie or TV star doesn't count either."

Call the FBI, I've been kidnapped

2006-01-04T10:03:00.000-06:00

It is common to hear how pregnancy will cause emotional swings, but I had no idea what that would mean.

Sure, Kristi has been a bit more moody the last couple of weeks. As we talk she has fought a bit harder for ideas that seem a bit unreasonable. And yes, she has cried more lately. But it's all good. I love her, she loves me, we're going to have a baby.

On Monday I found out what all of the talk is really about because she really did go a bit wacky on me.

I was in the garage, selling some of the old Lone Star Games inventory to a local casino party operation (they will come and host a Casino Night event for your business or charity). We were outside quite a long time discussing business, chips, tables, etc. After loading up the first 17,000 chips and seeing them off I entered the house through the front door. I couldn't find Kristi, but I figured she must be in the bathroom. No big deal.

Boy was I wrong. It turns out she was simultaneously looking for me in the garage while I was looking in the house. When I wasn't there and the buyers were gone she figured it was because I was kidnapped. They must have wanted the poker chips, but didn't want to pay for them. So after taking the chips they decided to take me too.

At this point she comes stumbling into the house; trying to call my name through the sobbing. Hoping against hope I was still alive.

By the way, I was alive. I was just next to the back door, letting the dogs into the yard.

I must have related this story a half-dozen times or more, but I think it was probably William who told me the most useful information. "Jeffrey," he said, "it doesn't get any better."

A Very Happy New Year

2006-01-02T01:06:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone!

It's been a good year even though we didn't spend enough of it together. If you're on the list to get one of Holiday Greeting cards you'll note the absence of the traditional recap of the year.

I wrote the letter, but Kristi didn't want to send it because she thought it was sad rather than interesting. I personally think the year was filled with a number of interesting things even it it wasn't quite as exciting as some previous years.

We really enjoyed the holidays together, spending most of the time in pursuit of the simple things, like cuddling with each other on the sofa.

But boy, have things picked up and gone crazy since then! We've been open to having children for the last couple of years. So far, we've been pretty passive (not using protection), but we were not getting any traction this way. Kristi talked to her doctor in November and was put on a fertility drug to increase the chances of ovulating. If it didn't work I was going to ask my doctor to check my sperm. As luck and love would have it, I don't need to see my doctor. You see,

Kristi's pregnant!

So please, send your congratulations to me. And your condolences to her Honestly, would you want me to be your child's daddy? :-)

Actually, I've been thinking about how I wanted to raise my children for almost 20 years. I'm not sure any of the ideas are going to survive the first night, but I am very excited and looking forward to the first addition to our family.

I found the The Baby Name Wizard: NameVoyager a couple months ago and thought it was fun to see how the popularity of baby names has changed over the last 130 years. Now I plan to be looking at the site a bit closer.

IIBA Home

2005-12-20T16:14:00.000-06:00

I have joined a professional organization, IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis). I admit, this may mean very little to you, but since I'm going to start taking my career seriously it seems like a very good place to start.

And why not? After reflecting upon my first 39 years it seems like this is may be a good time to start get serious about my future.

History of the Alphabet

2005-12-18T13:47:00.000-06:00

Here's a quick, graphical history the alphabet and how it has changed over time.

What was the most important lesson you learned in 2005?

2005-12-13T23:49:00.000-06:00

I do not usually ask myself what I've learned recently (and this has probably been a shortcoming), but I saw a post on How to Save the World and it made me pause. Here's a couple things Dave learned this year:

17. People learn more from stories than from even the most brilliant analytical discourse.
15. Look carefully at the data before you jump to conclusions. The main reason for the recent decline in violent crime in America's cities was Roe v. Wade two decades ago and the increased access to abortion that it allowed. Not law & order, not more prisons and stiffer sentences, not gun control.
12. We need to find the things that are at the intersection of what we love doing, what we do well, and what is needed -- and then do them.
11. Always trust your instincts. When your careful rationalizations or your passionate emotions lead you to do something that instinctively seems questionable, you will probably regret it.
10. There's nothing wrong with the education system except for the teachers (we learn best by watching and doing, not by listening), the classrooms (the world is out there, not in here!) and the examinations (they are more likely to tell you what the students already knew than what they learned).
4. Frames matter. You'll never convince anyone of anything until you understand her frame of reference. And you'll never convince anyone of anything until she's ready to be convinced.
2. What most people want, women and men alike, is a little attention and a little appreciation. We need to be much more generous with these things, even more generous than we are with material things, and our knowledge and our love.

I'm not sure what I've learned this year, but here's my first item:

1. My wife is very generous.

Okay, I knew that one already, but what she made very clear this year is how much she supports me. First, I started a project in Austin that was suppose to last six weeks. It's nine months later and I am typing from a hotel room in Austin because I only go home on weekends. What started as a short-term consulting assignment has turned into a permanent position. While I am both glad and grateful to be working with Seilevel again, I only get to spend three nights a week in my bed with my lovely wife and outside of the coming holiday season, I expect this last another three to six months. And still she supports and loves me.

Second, Tony and I started a retail outlet in the Galleria Mall selling poker chips. While we entered this venture as a means to make money, all entrepreneurial ventures have risk. More than the potential risk, it meant the limited time I spent at home was occupied, very occupied. At first I spent spent 10-12 hours on Saturday and another 7-8 hours on Sunday. After a couple months I cut my schedule back to just one day per weekend. And still she supports and loves me.

I'm a lucky man. I guess that should be #2 on the list.

How relaxing

2005-12-13T00:12:00.000-06:00

Kristi and I had a great weekend. Seilevel flew Kristi into Austin for their holiday party. It was held at Carmelo's Restaurant and we had a wonderful time. The company sponsored a White Elephant Gift Exchange with some great gifts, including two iPods, an Ecosphere, and Roomba Red. Kristi did not get the very soft blanket she wanted (Thanks, Joy!), but she did get a nice scarf. I got the bonsai tree; well, seeds for a future tree anyway.

Not only did they fly Kristi in, they also put us up at the Omni Hotel in Austin. This was an experience in both good and bad customer service. First, we checked in and we got a room with two double beds on the thrid floor. They told us this was the only room available, but they did say that if there were any noise problems we should report them immediately and they would be kicked out due to the "No Noise" policy.

When we did have a noise problem and called the front desk they told us the noise was from the street and promised to send us some earplugs. As if this was going to make everything okay?!

I left the room so I could go down and talk to the manager in person. On the way I discovered the noise was coming from down the hall, not the street. The manager's response? "We have a function going on." No apologies. No promise to talk to the first idiot who lied to us about the noise policy.

Anyway, I stayed polite, if a little bit insistent and he finally found a large room with a really small bathroom. Honest. It was the Presidential Suite, with living area, master bedroom, kitchen, bar, and the smallest bathroom you can have while still having a shower, wc, and sink. (Well, a motorhome's bathroom is smaller, but not by much.)

So, despite the poor beginning and having to change rooms at 1AM, it worked out okay if only because we finally got a quiet space to sleep in a king-size bed. (Let's not talk about the drip in the bedroom ceiling, it didn't last more than 30 or 45 minutes anyway.)

Now Don't I Look the Fool?

2005-12-08T17:43:00.000-06:00

If you look just a tad further in the blog you will see I went on a good rant against HR.com.

It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see not one, but two responses in my email inbox today. Both emails were apologetic; one of them included some internal dialog about the problem and they were obviously concerned about the problem. And when I checked my voicemail I discovered I missed a call from them too.

It is now obvious I forgot my cardinal rule when dealing with people (whether an individual or someone working for a company). The rule is, "Interpret their actions through a veil of good intentions." Because in my rant I missed the obvious possibility that somebody just goofed. It was simple mistake and I jumped all over them before I had the facts.

I therefore offer one of the emails I received as proof of their good intent. More than that, I offer my sincere and abject apology for mistaking their intentions.

Hello Jeffrey,
Thanks for taking the time to email us and alert us to the link problem you experienced. I apologize on behalf of HR.com for the error. It has been dealt with and you now have access to the article.

It was a technical error on our part. The article had a future date on it and was expected to display but unfortunately, it did not at the time of the mailout.

I am very interested in hearing more from you regarding any other problems or concerns you may have had with our mailouts and our site in general.

Please feel free to contact me via email at any time at ____@hr.com or via phone at 905-555-0713 (my remote office)...I will be at this number for the remainder of the week.

Again, my sincere apologies. It wasn't our intention to restrict this article.

Kind Regards,
Belinda Pianezza
HR.com
Product Manager - Website Development and Content

For the pessimists out there, "Sure, the rule doesn't always work." But talking about the rule is really a matter for another post.

$crooge McDuck has more cash than Bruce Wayne

2005-12-07T16:33:00.000-06:00

Forbes has produced The Forbes Fictional 15, a list of our favorite characters and a discussion about how they made and lost their money.

Interesting to note Jed Clampett has moved up to 7th place on the list, while J.R. Ewing is no longer a member. They both may be in oil, but it's all about how you manage the company.

Personally, I'm glad to see Thurston Howell III is still on the list and disappointed Lucius Malfoy has worked his way on.

An open letter to HR.com

2005-12-06T23:50:00.000-06:00

I enclose, for your reading pleasure, an open letter to the management of HR.com.

Dear Ms. McGrath;

I’ve been reading your emails for years, at least three or four, and with a couple different email addresses. I have forwarded your emails to a half dozen or more executives at that many companies. I’ve saved (and recently lost in a poorly managed email system migration) a number of emails because I found them informative and relevant. I read fewer emails in the last year as you provided the “best of” series instead of new content, but I never threw your emails away without first taking a glance to see what (potentially new) information you had for me.

It is with great disappointment I opened today’s message under the following header:
From: HR.com [mailto:realityhr@hr.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 06 December, 2005 1:12 PM
To: jeffrey@davidson.net
Subject: Reality HR Interview with Arte Nathan of Wynn Las Vegas

I clicked on the link:
For All Members:
- View the entire article here.
http://redir.hr.com/c.asp?s=64832054&l=143244

and I discovered the article had expired for general members. Now first, I am guessing you think of me and my fellow general members as idiots, because why else would you tell us the article was available, but had expired within the first 12 hours? There are just too many vagaries in life to presume all of your members (or most? or any realistic sample of the population?) are going to read the article in something less than that time. So I therefore don’t believe the article ever was available to my class of your membership. Or second, maybe the article was expired and then we never did have a realistic chance to read the article and you don’t think of us as idiots, but as guinea pigs or rats in a maze.

As a small business owner I understand the need to convert customers who browse into those who purchase, and as a patron of businesses I know the only way this only happens when I find enough value to pay for the service and the service provider has earned and keeps my trust. You have, with the simple action of this link promising an article “for all members,” but then providing me with nothing more than the chance to buy I, betrayed my trust and lost my business.

I contrast your message with the emails I get from McKinsey or Emerald Insight, both of which clearly identify when content is part of a premium service and do not lie to me about article availability.

For years I have been a fan of your services, though I have never paid for them. While I cannot assure you any of the articles I forwarded were read or that any revenue resulted from my actions, I provided you one of the key things every business needs, avid fans trying to recruit new customers for you. Was the loss of my business worth what you gained by making this interview a revenue generating item?

Cordially,
~Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey Davidson

Integrity in Advertising

2005-12-02T03:08:00.000-06:00

In a fabulous new telling of a classic tale, follow the link to the new clip for an incredibly scary version of West Side Story.

Honestly, it's amazing how much editing can change a love story into something else.

I am reminded of the movie My Girl. It came out in the Fall of 1991 and was advertised as a feel good movie, building on the reputation of Macaulay Caulkin and his Home Alone movies.

The movie itself was not a feel good movie. It was a very touching story about a girl coming of age, dealing with her first period, her father's remarriage to a floozy, and the death of her best friend (Macaulay). I left the theatre screaming mad. Not because the movie sucked (though in my (incorrect) opinion at the time, it did), but because I was lied to. I was promised one movie and I got something completely and utterly different.

On SALE Now!

2005-12-01T11:14:00.000-06:00

As mentioned previously, we have closed the doors at Lone Star Games. And now that we are out of the retail business, we're trying to sell as much of our left-over inventory as possible. To do this, we are selling everything at our cost (wholesale + shipping), and without any additional markup. If you want to take advantage of this great offer, please check out our Going Out of Business flier.

Seriously, you will find great prices, and I will not mark up shipping costs if you live out of my immediate driving range. Please, do us a favor and take advantage of this great offer. We also have lots of card covers, a handful of books, and some open DVDs if you're interested into those items. (Just send me an email asking for details.)

And if saving money on great stuff doesn't motivate you... Please, help me make Kristi happy. Once I sell enough inventory out of my garage she will be able to get her car in from the cold.

Art Snob

2005-11-21T00:01:00.000-06:00

I have used up the last of my airline miles to get us a couple tickets to Denver, CO. Julie's husband, Alan is having his very first art show! We will be flying up and getting there just in time to see his debut. We'll also be attending their holiday open house on Saturday before flying home on Sunday.

In addition to the chance to support Alan, which I am estatic that we can even do, I also get to see pretty much the whole family this weekend. My sister Jill lives just a couple blocks away. My brother and Emily are flying up early on Friday. And my Dad and Debbie are coming in Thursday as a surprise. (No one is suppose to know about that last part, so don't tell anyone.)

The siblings were all together last year for Christmas, but it seemed a bit rushed and some folks were sick, so it wasn't quite the joy we usually have when we get together. I'm really looking forward to this trip, when we should have at least a moment or two together.

Lastly, with a bit of luck, Kristi and I will also get to see Rich, Carrie, and the girls too.

What I did last week...

2005-11-20T22:54:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I closed down our retail store, Lone Star Games. We sold poker chips. Now we are selling our inventory in an effort to recoup our losses. I'll certainly be writing more about this over the coming weeks or months, but for now just know that we gave it a good shot. While we are sad the retail venture did not work out, we do not regret trying our hand in another venture. It was fun, if expensive, and we're glad we once again put our selves, our effort, and our $ on the line. Like many have said before, it only takes once.

Since closing the kiosk I have seen a bunch of movies. On Wednesday I skipped the poker game to go see Serenity, a good western set in space. The story was enjoyable, the acting good, the writing (by Josh Whedon) very good (I reckon the dialoge was a bit western-like), and the spaceship almost looked like a horse. Rating 3.75 of 5

On Thursday I did play poker and came in fourth of 11 players. It was not in the money, but I did well for my $10 investment.

On Friday Kristi took me to see the wonderful biopic, Walk the Line. Absolutely engrossing story about Johnny Cash and June Carter. Everyone will likely see this movie and that is just how it should be. Outstanding acting and screenplay, probably the best movie I've seen all year. Rating 5 of 5

Saturday was my birthday (39) and we were going to go out with Tony and Emily, Mom and Steve. Tony took sick in the morning, so I cancelled our reservation at the wonderful Fogo de Chao (fo-go dèe shoun). We'll reschedule for the next time they are in town. And if you have never eaten at a Brazilian churrasco, you really should. Rating 5 of 5

Instead, if was a calm and lazy day, where Kristi and I took in two movies to celebrate. The first was Just Like Heaven, a light hearted romantic comedy. It's my favorite genre and this was a pretty good rendition of the standard plotline; boy meets girl, boy and girl argue, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl save each other, boy and girl lose each other, boy and girl end up kissing as the camera spins around them. Rating 4 of 5

After dinner we went back to the discount theatre for the R-rated comedy, Wedding Crashers. Most reviewers found it unsatisfying, but we really enjoyed. It was a bit raunchy, but laugh out loud funny too. Rating 4 of 5

And finally, today, we visited with my mother a bit (she gave me pumpkin bars for a present, a tasty treat I asked for ahead of time), went down to Cedar Hill where we saw Kristi's parents and relatives from Alabama, Rick, Sherri, and Matthew.

One of the funniest lines tonight was when Sherry said, "Tony never even updates his blog, I don't even know why he has one!" She was a bit upset by his disappointing writing schedule and I thought it very funny.

Now it's time to pack and go to bed. I've got to get on a plan in eight hours.

To Fuss or Not to Fuss

2005-11-19T13:10:00.000-06:00

I think about business problems all the time. Or at least I think in circles about business problems all the time. (There is a significant difference there, but that's for another post.)

And one of the things I don't think about anymore is "good enough." You see, in business, it is usually right to be "good enough" without being perfect. The arguement goes,

Become good enough, then introduce your product (service). Do *not* let the process stop, and keep improving your product, but don't wait until you're perfect or you will spend too much time on the little things that do not make a difference.

Some of you know this as the Pareto Principleor the 80/20 Rule, which largely states you should focus your energy where you get results rather than waste your energy where you don't.

All that being said, I am a firm believer in excellence, execution, doing things right, and maybe even karma (that's karma with a small-k, not Karma).

So it made me pause to read the recent post Do Fuss on the weblog of 37Signals.

Why? WHY? After all, “they” say …

“Don’t bother, it’s just a little thing!”

Well, if it’s just a little thing, then fixing it is just a small matter!

“It’s not worth the time, no one bothers with that.” (One of my favorites)

In that case, you must spend the time! Why … well … if no one else bothers with it, you probably just found your competitive edge!

And I completely agree with this too.

I suppose, deep down in my heart of hearts, I really want to be excellent in what I do. At least one thing that I do. And I believe, or I so want to believe, that being excellent, that fussing over the tiny details, that getting just a bit closer to perfection is not only worth it, but required. That doing my best in that thing will set me apart. Will prove I am unique. And will be rewarding.

FUN: I'm a genius

2005-11-11T12:12:00.000-06:00

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

The overwhelming power of nature

2005-09-16T20:06:00.000-05:00

The following pictures are ~~supposedly of the sky over Alabama as Hurricane Katrina came in If anyone can verify the truthfulness of this I would be very appreciative.~~ beautiful.

DeLay declares "I am a walking idiot"

2005-09-14T13:56:00.000-05:00

The Washington Times has a piece where the House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay states there is no fat left to cut in the federal budget.

This surely cannot be true, if only because of the $12 Billion we do not need in the latest Transportation Bill. But as I think about spending, I have to wonder if yesterday's post had the correct focus.

I think the federal government will spend billions of dollars on resurecting New Orleans. I believe this to be true because the administration is fearful of voter response if they do not make a big attempt to rebuild the city once called Jewel of the South. Voters respond to tragedy and this one, along with the continuing problems in Iraq, make for very poor approval ratings. The only way to fix public perception of President Bush and his management of the country in the immediate future is a strong showing of support for a new and invigrated city.

Is it worthwhile to spend the money? Good heavens, the congressional investigation alone will waste millions and I am sure the rebuilding will waste many times that. But that isn't really the issue because the federal, state, and local folks are going to be spending the money despite the questions of pundits. So, if we going to rebuild the troubled city, what should we be focusing on?

Should we focus on rebuilding the shipping industry even though it has largely moved on already? Or the tourism industry, which is not enough to keep the residents gainfully employeed? Or the gas and oil industry? Or another new high tech city, like I hinted at with references to Austin, Boston, and Southern California? Or the next Las Vegas, Gulf Coast style?

The first answers need to be about what the New New Orleans wants to become. And after deciding what the new city is to be we should talk about how to get there. I think my previous post will make the rebuilding easier and bring about more long-term changes, but maybe I jumped the gun on the questions we should be asking.

A Place Worth Calling Home?

2005-09-13T17:28:00.000-05:00

I've wanted to write about Katrina, but I wan't sure what to say. I still don't, but I'm going to put some of my thoughts down on paper (so to speak). I cannot speak about the tragedy with any authority, I am blessed more than I possibly deserve and I have no experience which might give me even a glimmer of insight into the human tragedy going on. I have frustrations about the response by local, state, and federal agencies, but what more can I add to what is already being said elsewhere?

I do believe New Orleans can be rebuilt and repopulated and have a resurgance it wouldn't otherwise dream of. To have this rebirth it will take a great deal of effort and money. The infrastructure requirements alone will require hundreds of millions (or should we just say billions?) and this will have to come from federal coffers. It has to come from the federal budget because no one can envision how it can be fully financed through the largely non-existant city and poor state governments. But more than the buckets of money required for infrastructure, the business and social aspects of the areas need to be rebuilt.

At this point I want to say I made a grave mistake early in the crisis. I called up a friend who was in real estate and I indicated I would be interested in properties that were going for firesale prices. I wan't that crude, but I also did not realize the true depth of the problem. This is a tragedy that will surely have many people take an inappropriate advantage of the situation, but I do not want to be one of them. On the other hand, I do not mind taking appropriate advantage of the situation. What do I mean by taking appropriate advantage of the situation? I mean, investing a real effort into meeting the needs of people in the devastated areas. I am not talking about a short term thing here.

To rebuild New Orleans, and many other towns along the Gulf Coast, it will take years of effort from hard working people. I can be one of those. I have thought, and mentioned to Kristi in passing, about moving the family to New Orleans. I am sure the area will be ripe with opportunity for me to start and run a business; a business that is a part of the community and provides services meeting local needs. This concept excites me as much as I am sure it scares Kristi.

Unfortunately, and despite the chance to be a part of New Orleans growth over a period of decades, I am not sure New Orleans is the place to go. I have three major concerns about moving to start a business in the Big Easy. The first is the legal system, the second is the historical environment, and the third issue is the population.

First. It is often forgotten, but Louisiana's legal system is based upon Napoleonic code and therefore unlike the other 49 states. While LA is changing some laws to meet the Uniform Commerical Code, the sytem works differently than I'm used to [Louisiana Law has a good short description of it].

My second concern is about the reputation of Louisiana and New Orleans; they are known more for being unfriendly to small business than for being friendly. After you add their historical issues of policital corruption, inept law enforcement, and decrepit schools and I'm not sure this is the place for my family or business.

But mostly I'm concerned about the long-term health (growth) of the city and area. Newsweek has an upcoming article on the steady exodus out of New Orleans over the last few years. I'm a firm believer you need good people to succeed in any venture and it's my proposition that the entire area needs good people to achieve success. I'm afraid the area does not have enough draws to keep professional people in the area.

So, what would it take to get me to uproot my family so we could move to New Orleans and start a business? It all boils down to building the infrastructure to support big business, ease the running of business, and drawing in potential talent to work and run those businesses. Here is the detailed list:

I want to see a federal commitment to rebuild the infrastructure.
I want the state or federal government to guarantee loans for business' building and rebuilding in Louisiana. Think of this as a localized SBA program for businesses of all sizes.
I want the state legistlature to make a commitment to helping business' become established. There are plenty of models for them to choose from in the other 49 states.
I want real attention paid to the corruption in the area. I don't care who becomes the watchdog--the FBI, Justice Department, SBA, Dept of Labor, some state agency, etc.--just make somebody responsible.
I want the local community to support the rebuilding of the tourist industry. Good dining and music help make a culture vibrant and I believe this will help draw and keep more population to the area.
I want to see a new university started. Southern California, Boston, Austin, and elsewhere have all achieved great things due in part to the number of quality colleges and universities. This is our chance to do the same for the "Jewel of South."

I expect #6 is the most controversial, but I suggest we need more institutions of higher learning to draw potential talent into the area. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest we have the first national university with a goal of being among the top 25 large learning institutions and top 100 research institutions within 20 years. The goal for 40-50 years should be Top 10 and Top 20 respectively. Great educational settings and a vibrant social scene (#5) will add to the long term probability of a good talent pool for business and civic life. This, and the legal structure which encourages business to prosper, is what will cause New Orleans to become a new jewel among cities in the U.S.

Finally! (part 2)

2005-08-13T00:30:00.000-05:00

[Ed. note: The following post is in response to Glenn's comments on my previous post, but it's so long—and significant to me—I moved it from the comment section to the main page. While the initial impetus was about smoking restrictions that failed in Cave City, KS and already enacted in Dallas, NY City, California, and even Austin, TX this is only part of the issue for me.]

I agree individuals have the right to smoke in their own home and their own car. I also agree with your unspoken statement, they have the right to allow others to smoke in their home and car and this is true whether or not they personally smoke.

I also need to say after years of thought I understand civil law to be a body of rules regulating conduct between “legal entities;” a construct able to sign contracts and own property (home and car), or make commitments and take responsibility, et cetera. The ability (or society’s permission) to do these things is part of what differentiates a child from an adult.

Part of my problem with your argument is you allow freedom for some legal entities (me) while also allowing for legislation limiting the choices other legal entities (businesses) on the very same issue. As a business owner I want to ability to serve my customers in the manner I see fit. As a legal entity I see this regulation as an encroachment on my rights.

As a business I can, and probably should, market my products to a specific niche. I should be allowed to choose the niche of poker players who smoke. Now maybe the niche is too small or cannot support my overhead. Maybe it's an untapped niche that will provide my grandchildren with wealth untold. If I make the wrong choice it is my responsibility to suffer the consequences of the decision. Either way, as the head of legal entity I resent the encroachment of the legislation disallowing my customers to smoke (a legal act, mind you) within my establishment.

As an aside, I want to say a couple other things about tobacco and smoking.

It is ridiculous for us to be supporting tobacco farmers with subsidies while concurrently restricting the use of their products due to safety concerns.

If smoking is truly bad for individuals and needs to be controlled then I am all for classifying it as we do drugs. Make it a controlled substance and pull it from the market. (Note: Cocaine is no longer a part of the recipe for Coca-Cola.)

But let me back-up a minute, because it is my statement this issue is just one item within a larger picture, and the picture is what causes a problem for me. As the conservative movement has taken a larger part of the political discussion they are restricting my choices by pushing more limitations into my life. This is in start contrast to what I see as two of our country’s greatest traditions: (1) allowing me the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness and (2) limiting government intervention into my individual pursuit. It is my contention this is a new version of the temperance movement, a failed attempt to legislate morality.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I've overreacting, but I think this is just one example of where the argument and pressure for change from voters is having an effect, and the end result will not be a better place to live, but a worse place.

Years ago I heard Bill Gothard and someone asked him about restricting cults, back when cults where a much bigger concern than they are today. In his wisdom he stated Christians should not work to outlaw cults. In my recollection he stated diversity was important, and moreover, outlawing cults would result in restricting religious expression and potentially outlawing the very religion his audience practiced. I don't see much difference between cults and smoking. And the restriction of either one is a dangerous road for us to travel upon.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Finally!

2005-08-12T09:56:00.000-05:00

The first half of this post is taken completely and without shame from BusinessPundit.

Cave City Takes a Stand?
Reason has a post about the defeat of a smoking ban in nearby Cave City, KY (better know as the home of Mammoth Cave).

Monday's vote against a proposed smoking ban by the Cave City Council benefits both local citizens and those across the commonwealth.

Mayor Bob Hunt, who cast the tie-breaking vote, made it clear that smoking bans threaten private-property rights and the choices available to consumers.

"I voted not to pass a ban because I don't feel like government should tell private business owners who help support the city with their taxes what to do about smoking," Hunt told the Bluegrass Institute. "I respect those people who see this as strictly a health issue, but I also respect the man who has invested in his business and is trying to make a living."

Louisville is supposed to vote soon on similar ban. I don't smoke. I never have. But I don't really support it either. People ask me if I want to go to smoky places. I don't want to. So I don't go. It's as simple as that. I've left bars because they were too smoky. If I go to the local comedy club, I go to the non-smoking show (which they were smart enough to offer).

I think smoking should be banned in places I have to go (government buildings, etc.) but private businesses can make their own decisions. Then I can make mine about whether or not I patronize them.

My comments...
This post strikes at the heart of the issue, not just the issue of smoking, but the deeper issue of where our society seems to be moving. While the issue typically brought up is one of second-hand smoke, the push for this type of regulation is much stronger than just protecting people who do not wish to smoke. Rather, this type of legistlation is one of our society's more recent attempts to answer how the law should protect people from their own choices.

Tobacco is controlled substance. By this I mean adults are able to purchase this item in the same manner they can purchase and use alcohol. Or pornographic materials for that matter. All are considered harmful, and some are proven to be bad for you in certain conditions. But all of these items are legal to own and use. Restricting our use of these items in private businesses bothersome. Not bothersome in a "irritant" manner, but bothersome in a "this goes against the principals for which we strive" manner.

I want my government to protect me "from enemies foreign and domestic," but I should not be restricted from making bad choices. I am happy to grant the government ability to protect others if I am a danger to them, but this is vastly different than protecting myself from making bad decisions. Rather, I want to be allowed—encouraged even—to make choices AND then learn how to deal with the consequences.

It is only be accepting responsibility for myself that I can grow and mature. Children who desperately need a caretaker do not make a positive impact on society but mature citizens can. Let’s start to pay attention to the what will help us grow rather than stilt us into thinking we need some big parent to tell us what we can and cannot do.

A Poker Story

2005-08-03T10:49:00.000-05:00

I was sitting at a poker table, playing $1-2 No Limit Hold’em. I was new to the table, only having played for 30 minutes. The action was pretty high and I had already bet away half my stack of $100 without ever seeing my cards through to the end.

When I was done to a measly $36 dollars I went all in and finally won a hand. I won a bit more over the next fifteen minutes, including one pot of $6 when everyone folded.

I played another hand, starting with J - 9 of hearts. I bet $20 and one person called. The flop came Q - 10 - 5. I checked, he checked. Fourth Street brought an A and there was no chance anyone was going to catch a flush. I bet again, $20. I checked my cards to make sure what I had. The other player called. Fifth Street hit and it was another blank (3), no good for anything. I bet big and with confidence. I push $50 in and the other player studies the board. He figures I have two pair and folds. I throw my cards out and say straight.

Of course, there was no straight. I only had four cards to it. But I thought I did, so I acted with confidence and won the pot. The table laughed and most of them figured I was stupid. Some of them thought I was bluffing. I let them think what they want, saying just enough to encourage both thoughts.

A couple hands later I’m sitting on over $170. I’m two from the button and the seat to my left has put in a $10 straddle bet. This is a bet you make before the deal. It means the minimum bet has moved from $2 to $10, and he gets the final option to call or raise before the flop. To make matters more interesting, this is the same guy I got my “straight” on and I’m pretty sure he’s steaming about my play.

I’m dealt a pair of twos and I raise from $20. Everyone folds but the guy who straddled. The flop comes Q - 2 - J, I’ve hit my set with three 2’s! It’s my read that he’s on tilt about my earlier play and he’ll probably want to run me off the pot if I show any weakness. I decide to check-raise him to get a bit more action. I check and he bets $30 dollars.

Wow, it worked! I say “Raise” and put my first $30 on the table. Hmm, how much more to put in? I say “50” and I start stacking my chips. Next thing I hear is him saying “All in.” I’m so excited my chest is thumping loud enough to hear over the TV on the wall and the people laughing at the next table. I say “Call.”

As he pushed me around early and then I bluffed on the straight he says “You got the Queen?” He went all in with just a pair of Jacks??

“Nope,” I say. “I’ve got the twos,” and then I throw them on the table. The guy who believed I was bluffing earlier starts laughing, the guy who is about to lose most of his stack is choking. He’s got a K - J, but even he isn’t all that hopeful. The next two cards are blanks. I tip the dealer, play one more hand, and ask for a rack so I can leave.

Some days are good days.

I am an Island

2005-07-27T13:11:00.000-05:00

CNET.com has an article discussing Top 10 Web fads, and #6 is Friendster. The idea behind Friendster is you link to friends, and they link to their friends, and those people link to their friends, and so on, and so on. Next thing you know, you're only Six Degrees away from Kevin Bacon

Well, there are a bunch of similar psuedo-businesses with the same concept of Friendster. One of these is LinkedIn; a version for professionals who want to expand their network online. One of the catches with LinkIn is that you have to be invited to join, which means you would always have some connections.

Well, Joe was talking about LinkedIn the other day and I thought I signed up for it years ago, but didn't do anything about it. Last night I took a few moments and decided to see if my memory was correct. I entered my email address, guessed at my password, and was let into the sanctum of LinkedIn, an invitation only service.

What I found out is that I had zero ( 0 ) connections. In a universe of people I was apparently linked to no one. It's like they were telling me to "Go Away. You're just not good enough for the rest of us."

This morning I told Joe the story and we had a good laugh. Then Joy came in and she had a good laugh. Next thing you know, they're looking up the lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel's "I am an Island."

Based on that, Joy took the time to compose a couple new verses, just for me. Here it is:

A summer’s day
In a bright and cheery July;
I am alone,
Gazing from my browser to the internet around me
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of blank screen.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship, linkedin causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Just so you know, I'm going to build up my network a bit on LinkedIn. [The island was lonely. :) ] Drop me a note if you want to be included in my journey towards the mainland.

Crash, doing it again

2005-07-26T23:59:00.000-05:00

Some of the regular readers remember me back when my name was Crash. Today, that's just what happened.

I was leaving work for lunch, trying to fit in a couple errands along with some quick bite to eat, when I had a fender-bender. I thought the person in the car ahead of me was pulling out into the street from the parking lot exit. I had almost come to a stop when I noticed she was turning into the street. I therefore took my foot off the brake and was looking left for oncoming traffic.

Apparently, she decided to wait and in making that decision came to a stop. Since I was expecting something else, I turned my head in time to stab the brake and think, "Damn, I'll never stop in ..." CRASH

It really was not a big deal. I was very worried about the person in the other car. Her name is Bethany, she was very polite and apologetic. Best of all, she was not hurt in any way.

After confirming she was okay and pulling the bumper panel of her car away from the rear tire I gave her my insurance info. I called the insurance company, she called the insurance company, they had someone call both us back, and it looks like everything is going to be just fine. Allstate is going to have her car inspected and repaired. My car has a scuff mark on the bumper, but is fine in all other respects (as far as I can determine). And it's possible our rates won't even go up. (I can dream, can't I?)

Power versus a To-Do list

2005-07-20T00:32:00.000-05:00

You know, it's cool having a real business. I've played at business so many times and in so many ways it was a bit depressing. I've said, "I've formed a company." My company has been able make a little money, even after paying expenses, salary, and taxes. But the truth of the matter is, it takes more than a couple words and a website to make a real company. It's not about the initial effort, it's about continued effort. When Tony and I formed Lone Star Games it finally got serious for me. And I love it.

My love for businesses comes from a few places. The first place is probably my love for a stage. Not the theatre, but I have always been comfortable in front of a crowd, and leaders get more attention than followers.

The second place is probably my long-term interest in power / leadership / management. I know the order of that may put some of you off, but this was how I was introduced to the concepts. In high school I read The Prince by Machiavelli. Then The Art of War by Sun Tzu. I found them interesting and I wondered what I would do with power. Then I studied leadership, and taught it. Then I went into management.

The third place is my desire to solve puzzles. Not that I care about games, but I like to solve problems; it gives my overactive and underutilized mind something to do. And whether it is because of the above or just chance, I happen to like solving business problems.

Now, I'm not claiming to be good in management, leadership, or power. I've had plenty of successes and more than most by many counts, but I've also learned what the truly successful do. And a few success is not in the same league as the successful.

Additionally, I've mellowed. Along with learning the difference between the desire for power and weilding it, leading and managing, motivating and exasperating, stellar performance and just getting by, I've also learned, and largely come to accept that as good (or lucky) as I am and as much as I want to exceed, I'm not great.

But I'm still fascinated by business, the processes that make them successful, and filled with the desire to achieve. And I've learned good systems are the way to take mediocre to outstanding. Combine that with hard work and a little luck, and you've got yourself something to be proud of.

Now that I have a going concern my nights are not filled with a wonder of what I would do anymore. I still want to hear about other people's business problems, because I like to think of solutions, but I don't need that to fill my time. With Lone Star I have plenty of issues to figure out for myself. And I need to do them right now.

For example, here are some of the issues on my plate. They are in no particular order, other than I need to get answers to them all with hours or days, and the item with the longest term still needs to have some action within the next two weeks.

hire another employee
make payroll
finalize product pricing
develop grand opening plan
market to APL and LPR
review schedule
write HR procedures
review register procedures
follow-up on procedures for deposits
re-write employee handbook
approve business flier
print stickers w/logo for shopping bags
develop sales script
learn new poker chip trick
select next mall to open location
order more product
negotiate shipping rates
update website
figure out online retail store
apply for rights to use CLC images
find local table manufacture
list Grand Opening procedures
borrow copy of standard lease for mall
and the list goes on...

Mark Cuban was right when he said, "You only have to be right once." And I'm glad to have traded in my early dreams of power for today's to-do list.

I've been busy

2005-06-11T01:52:00.000-05:00

Well, it's time to post a blog entry and let my readers know what's going on.

For those who don't know, I have been consulting since mid-March in Austin, TX. I am once again working through Seilevel, this time as a contractor. I am leading a small team that is gathering requirements to build a software program for Dell Financial Services.

On a typical week I fly to Austin on Monday morning and get to work by 9AM, stay in a hotel room four nights, and fly home to Kristi on Friday night. We spend three nights in our own bed before I wake up and repeat the cycle.

Kristi has been very supportive of me working Austin. She knows I like working, she knows one of the people I'm working with, and we're both happy I'm contributing to the family funds. Also, I like to travel and I'm half-way to getting back my Gold status on American Airlines, but there are times I miss Kristi, the dogs, the house, etc.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Lest you think I do nothing but watch the boob toob every night in my hotel room, let me tell you about a couple things I've been working on over the last few months.

First, my father and I flew out to California back in February. After the trip was over I said, "I had a good time, a very productive meeting on a potential (likely?) business venture." Now, after a very long time, I am willing to say we did reach an agreement and I am working with my father to help a small manufacturer bring his goods to the marketplace. I have some friends helping me build a couple websites. One is an online store for consumers, while the other website is only for retailers who want to purchase the items at a wholesale price. If you want to give me some feedback or help me test the online store, please leave a comment or send me an email.

Second, my brother and I are very proud to announce Lone Star Games! When we open next month we will have full line of high quality poker chips, accessories, and gaming supplies. We are currently in the midst of hiring our first employees. Our first location is at the very prestigous Galleria Dallas, and we are already dreaming of the next location in our little business empire.

Internet News

2005-05-12T16:35:00.000-05:00

A bunch of stuff happened yesterday, and I want to give you the updates in case you missed them.

First, Yahoo! Music has finally announced what I've been long awaiting. After purchasing and rebranding Launch, they now offer the chance to download about 1,000,000 (one million) songs. Rather than spend 99 cents apiece in iTunes, you can pay a montly fee and get everything for just that monthly amount. I guess it's like renting songs, and as long as you pay your rent, you get to listen to the songs on your various music devices. What's really cool is that the price is only $4.99 a month! This is a great price, currently causing Napster and Real to loose 20% of their stock value. [Co-workers have asked why I didn't short these stocks for a quick buck!]

Next, Mozilla's Firefox just released an update to their browser. Download version 1.0.4 for the newest security update. And if you use Firefox, you really do need to check out the Extensions for adding a great deal of flexibility to the program.

Lastly, Google bought dodgeball, officially entering the mobile social networking fray. This cool service allows you to hook up with friends by relaying a message from your phone to others you call friends, allowing easy coordination of who is going to be where. It also let's you know when a friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) is within 10 blocks of your location, let's you designate who you have a 'crush' on, so you can be notified when they are nearby, and more.

Microsoft had a couple announcements too, but they weren't about anything that I would consider internet related. But if didn't really seem as big deal unless you're looking for info on the next gen Xbox. According to Steve Ballmer, "You'll have to wait until later today for the name. Tune in to MTV at 9:30 eastern, tonight."

New phone

2005-05-08T03:49:00.000-05:00

Like most others on the planet, I am constantly on the lookout for a decent cell phone. No matter what we all have, there seems to be something missing. Some people are worried about missing a new game or feature, some miss a camera, some miss the ability to hear and be heard by the person on the other end. And lot's of geeks and business people just miss the bragging rights of having the latest and greatest.

Me? My phone misses the ability to stay ON. It turns itself OFF when I am hanging up the phone after a call. Not everytime, just often enough to play with my head.

Anyway, I found one of the coolest accessories ever made for a phone from POKIA. Seriously, I think I want this.

Free Superheroes

2005-05-05T21:00:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I collected comic books. I used to collect a huge amount of them, upwards of 75 titles at a time. I still have few thousand or more of them in mylar bags up in the attic. I don't pull them out very much, and not just because the boxes are heavy and buried under the Christmas decorations. I hadn't thought about it until I started to write this post, but I cannot even say I enjoy superhero-based movies anymore.

Hmph. It is a pleasant thought to think I have grown up enough over the last decade or two that I no longer feel the need to live vicariously through the cartoon characters of my past. I have enough confidence and control over my life and my destiny that I don't need the escape mechanisms of my childhood.

But, since Free Comic Book Day 2005 is coming this Saturday, maybe I'll step into a nearby comic book store and visit my old friends. They are literally giving away comics from a bunch of different publishers. The titles include special editions of Batman, Betty & Veronica, Ronin Hood of 47 Samari, Star Wars, Uncle $crooge, and others.

Heck, since they're free, it migh be worth your time to go by a comic book store and pick one up for your favorite neice or nephew.

Step up with Music!

2005-05-05T15:43:00.000-05:00

Kristi is a board member for Jacob's Ladder, a community organization that "strengthens families in the Dallas community by offering adults educational and interpersonal skills to climb the ladder to self-sufficiency." If you are available, please come to the 2005 Fundraiser, featuring the world-renowned Turtle Creek Chorale.

Mark your calendar for a special concert by the renowned Turtle Creek Chorale, lifting its voices to help Jacob's Ladder lift the lives of families in our community. In the quarter century since its founding, Turtle Creek Chorale has performed around the world for literally hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic patrons at venues like Carnegie Hall and the finest theatres across Europe. They have collaborated with luminaries like Dr. Maya Angelou, Liza Minelli, Marlo Thomas, Betty Buckley, Margaret Cho, Nell Carter, Michael Feinstein, Tom Wopat and Harvey Firestein.

Harmony has a double meaning when it comes to the organization, one of the largest and most successful gay men's choruses in the world. They use music to promote a world filled with harmony where people focus on their similarities rather than their differences.

The Jacob's Ladder concert May 15 will start with its mixed chorus, One Accord, followed by the famous Turtle Creek Chorale men's chorus.

For Tickets or Information, please call 214-827-7740.

My hometown rocks

2005-05-04T22:54:00.000-05:00

You can find anything on the web, including a ranking of the top 100 cities by the visual impact of their skylines. The top four cities are Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, and Chicago.

Speaking of the Windy City, I miss Fluky's, the great restaurants, the neighborhoods, family and old friends.

Other great cities on Jeffrey's scale (must have good food, neighborhoods, a bit of culture, and fun) include: Boston and San Francisco. I think New York, Atlanta, and possibly Denver might make the list too, but I don't know enough about them from personal experience.

Heap of Trouble

2005-05-04T20:26:00.000-05:00

**Not work safe**

I've never seen the program, probably because we have better TV shows here than they have in Canada, so it's not worth the time or trouble to import them from the North, but this one's a bit interesting. Embracing the oddity of British humour, the Zed skit, Heap of Trouble "shows the seismic effect when nine naked men come marching through" a typical neighborhood.

File under: Comedy, Experimental

Three masts and 29,687 square feet of sail

2005-05-03T01:58:00.000-05:00

I think I've talked about it before, but if I haven't, I'll say it again. Crusing is fine, but I'd rather go to Vegas. I love the first class accomodations, fabulous shows, and great restaurants, along with the freedom to sleep, gamble, and order room service whenever I want.

Most cruises are the vacation version of modern airlines. That is, if you've traveled by air lately you've noticed planes aren't much more than a mile-high Greyhound. Cruises are nice, but they're also a week-long trip on in a small travelling hotel room.

That being said, I like the idea of cruising, if I could find the right ship and service level. I think Sea Cloud II might be the ticket. Read The Wind in the Billows for why this is a not your ordinary vacation.

The Darth Side

2005-05-02T00:46:00.000-05:00

I'm not, despite allegations to the contrary, a big geek. That is, I don't salivate over whatever Star Trek show is on and I will not see the next Star Wars movie when it comes out this summer. I'm intrigued by Hitchhiker's Guide, if only because I remember the book was laugh-out-loud funny.

If you are a geek, and you haven't seen Galaxy Quest, you're missing the best version of Star Trek to never feature Spock.

And if you ever wanted to get a glimpse behind the mask, I truly recommend The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster. Start reading from the bottom entry up.

Not for women only

2005-04-26T17:00:00.000-05:00

Wow! I just found a great website/blog for entrepreneurs. Actually, re:invention is focused on female entrepreneurs and businesses, but the advice is rock solid no matter what gender you are. The site is innundated with some great links to other sites too. Click here to go directly to an archive of their weekly advice column.

The site took a long time to load for me, but I'm not sure if that is due to their code, my connection, or the blog server, blogspot. FYI, their "pro-women" theme/commentary will be seen by some as too preachy, but it doesn't take much observation to see it's a valid point that is underserved in our mass media society.

I'll be reviewing this a bit later for a couple of my ongoing endeavors and I suggest you do the same.

Play Google

2005-04-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

Here's a new way to waste time at work... Guess-the-google. You're shown 20 images and you need to guess the one word used to generate the images. My score after 10 tries was 198, which isn't great and a lot better than I expected.

The Calling Instinct

2005-04-25T11:42:00.000-05:00

I like to play poker. I enjoy the competition. I enjoy winning. I enjoy getting better at the game. My biggest problem isn't my tells, playing on tilt, or poor betting strategy. Rather, my problem is that I do not have any regular games with decent players, allowing me the chance to improve on these issues. That being said, I still manage to do a few things right and generally come out ahead. Take a look at this story about another guy who isn't the best at the table, but who still manages to do the right thing.

TV

2005-04-22T03:15:00.000-05:00

As currently I reside in a hotel room, visiting wife, home, and TiVo only on weekends, my TV viewing habits are all screwed up. So I wanted to let you know about what I look forward to watching. There are two shows I watch for great writing, the show TV Squad called "the most underrated sitcom on television," Still Standing and the best creepy writing since Buffy, Medium.

I do still watch West Wing, but that is more a tradition developed over the years than a testament to some of the recent plotlines.

I will give an honorable mention for two new shows bring back yesteryear. First, Ving Rhames makes a great Kojak, remaking the original Telly Savalas series. The other is Eyes, a new ensemble series that is "like Stingray meets Banacek, with a dash of Remington Steele mixed in...a real throwback to fun."

Rough housing in Austin

2005-04-17T23:48:00.000-05:00

My voice is hoarse tonight because after dropping Kristi off at the airport, I went to the Roller Derby. WOW, what a trippie experience.

If you didn't know it, roller derby isn't dead. I thought it died out 20 years ago, but I was wrong. In fact, it's alive and well. Tonight's match, between the Hellcats and the expansion team Cherry Bombs, was full of action and showed that there is an active fan base not only for the sport, but for specific teams within the sport.

Interesting tidbits:

A&E Television is filming a reality show / documentary ??? around the roller derby in Austin. (I had a rink side seat, so my Purdue shirt may be seen one day on a cable station near you!)
I was told famous Bay City Bombers used to skate on the track currently used in Austin.
The fans are much weirder than the rollergirls. For instance, the Hellcats mascot was in a collar and chain. You might know him as Leopard Larry (scroll down for a picture and clip).
Austin has a second roller derby league! Since they skate on a flat track (as opposed to a banked track), the game is slower and the leagues are not able to compete against each other.
Minor penalties may find a team losing points based upon the results of arm wrestling or a pillow-fight. I must say, it's obviously hard to have a pillow fight while wearing roller skates, because they all ended in a big heap on the floor.

How-to

2005-04-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

I stopped by a friend's place to watch my wife while they scrapbooked and watched soap operas. It must be love.

But seriously, I jumped on this laptop (owned by the afore mentioned friend) to give myself something to do while just kind of hanging out. Their internet browser was open to an article on Threesomes. After reading one woman's guideline all the criteria it would take to get lucky, I found a bunch more good writing by Margaret Berry and others.

Oh, and we are not available for threesomes, in case you were curious.

Visual Thesaurus

2005-04-14T19:26:00.000-05:00

I like a good dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus (original style only please), but I when I am using the laptop away from home I only have the stuff built into MS Word and Dictionary.com. Neither of which is bad, they're just not my first choice.

But I just ran into a very nice interface for the Visual Thesaurus by Thinkmap. They have both an online and desktop version and the interface is fairly standard and easy enough to use. The online demo is fun (but you'll have to have the latest Java Plugin).

I really like how it worked and I'd love to use it regularly. Unfortunately for me, the company wants to make money, and I'm feeling to cheap to plunk down the $ for either one. Maybe I'll start a donation link...

Man arrested for paying in $2 bills

2005-04-12T00:24:00.000-05:00

This shit really pisses me off. I guess I'll boycott Best Buy for the rest of the year. What a shame.

Back to the Basics

2005-04-11T23:56:00.000-05:00

Jakob Nielsen, one of the few people generally acknowledged as a web/usability expert, has a great post about real world problems based on Bad Design. This article is about life and death situations in hospitals, but he has previously dealt with annoying, if more mundane, issues surrounding automobile interfaces and remote controls. The point is, if you've got a product, you need to look at how the users interact with it. And if you don't, your users are going to suffer.

For more good info on the topic, check out Creative Good.

on drinking...

2005-04-10T23:32:00.000-05:00

I did some drinking recently, more than usual. Going out for drinks in each of the last three weeks is a big deal since my "usual" is drinking on a quarterly or semi-annual basis.

That being said, I like to drink. Quite frankly, I miss drinking.

It's a pleasant change for me to lower my filters a bit. To take a few moments and just exist in the 'there' and 'then.' It's more than I usually allow.

But I only like to drink in a group, a like minded group. I enjoy interacting with others. I like the twists and turns of a conversation during an evening at the bar. I have often found camaraderie over a pint or two and I treasure those fleeting moments.

Golf

2005-04-10T22:57:00.000-05:00

I don't play or watch golf, it has never really captured my interest. But I do like Tiger Woods. He shoots for and achieves excellence. How can you not like that?

So it was good to read Tiger has won his fourth Masters jacket.

"Ten majors is not that long a streak," Tiger insisted Sunday. "Some guys go without winning one all their lives."

He meant well

2005-04-05T15:17:00.000-05:00

Today, like many days, I saw a business process rife with potential improvements. I like finding these. I like fixing them more.

But the low point of the day came when a co-worker uttered the following statement,

I'd rather be wrong than foolish.

What a shame he managed to do both is so few words.

Alpha Gamma

2005-04-04T23:04:00.000-05:00

I recently contacted the Alpha Phi Omega's home office and asked to be put back on the list for thier quarterly newsletter. It came in the mail and I read the *entire* thing. Yes, my flight from Austin to Dallas was that boring.

Buried among the summary of 2004 National Convention was news my alma mater, the Alpha Gamma Chapter at Purdue won the Chapter of Excellence Award! Hail to Old Purdue!

Greedy violence

2005-04-02T13:43:00.000-06:00

I missed this back in February, but the Mr. Kamprad's Ikea store in London is still closed after the grand opening sparked a riot due to 6,000 folks fighting to get first day discounts. I understand the desire to get a good price, but a riot?!

It's stuff like this which distracts me at concerts. A large mass of folks, feeling good after a few beers or more just wanting to be lead.

April 3: Edited for spelling.

Border Towns

2005-04-02T13:11:00.000-06:00

A recent report by the Dallas Fed describes a couple interesting things. First, border town pairs between Texas and Mexico bring fairly significant benefits to the town on the Mexican side of the border, despite relatively high unemployment (due in part to the migration of workers from interior Mexico to the border town). But the pair on this side of the border does not experience the same rate of benefits.

The average per capita income of the four cities in 2002 was only $17,222, compared to $29,039 in Texas and $33,178 in the four large Texas Triangle metros. [DFW-Houston-San Antonio-Austin]

And for those who didn't know, maquiladoras is the name for manufacturing plants just across the border.

Pizza deliver... and other bad service

2005-03-30T23:52:00.000-06:00

I have little of real value to say, but I wanted to write that in the last month, both Pizza Hut and Domino's Pizza have done nothing but disappoint me. I know the pizza isn't the greatest, but I know what I should get. I also know delivered pizza is closer to warm than hot. But is it really too much to ask for them to deliver pizza to MY door and have change for a $20? Seriously! During the latest incident the delivery driver told me it wasn't her fault she didn't have change. Since she didn't have the change needed, and it wasn't my responsibility, I wonder who was in charge the operation?

The above was my whole message for the day, but then I had some more poor service. First, while talking to Kristi, Cingular Wireless decided to do some maintenance. Well, I'm calling it maintenance, but who knows what it really was? All I know is that I had full signal strength, and at 12 midnight, the connection was lost. I had full signal strength and I could not call out. I had full signal strength and Kristi could not call me. What's the deal?

After my 10 minute phone hiatus, when I could once again talk with my wife, I learned Comcast, another of the ~~jerks~~ monopolies in my life has just taken a couple of the channels we watch from basic cable package. Unfortunately, the Public Utility Commission of Texas does not regulate cable service. It's a shame, because between raising the rates annually, and regularly removing channels from the lineup, I'm getting completely screwed.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the economic desire behind the attempt to move me from basic (analog) to digital service. But I don't want the box and I reject their requirement of same just to watch TV. I'm gonna let them push me to buying a dish before I do what they want.

My new next phone

2005-03-22T18:37:00.000-06:00

I wanted to change the service plan for my cell phone a couple months ago because I wasn't using all my minutes on the old plan, so why waste the money? Unfortunately, Cingular Wireless is like every other cellular carrier, which is largely a pain in the @&%. To change my plan, I had to buy a new phone (!) and change to GSM, a service that provides a purely poor reception within our house. (I called to complain about it, but they had trouble hearing me and the connection was dropped before I could finish bitching).

To top it off, I do not like the phone I got, the Nokia 3120. I regularly have trouble hearing people when they are talking. A good part of the problem is how I hold the phone, and after three months, I still haven't had success retraining my muscle memory.

So once again I want a new phone. The things I want in a new phone are a great screen, cool programs, and maybe a camera. But more than my wants, I could really just use a decent interface to MS Outlook and I've had a client where cameras was not allowed. So I was pretty happy to see Gizmodo's description of the new Siemens SP65 Business Phone. It features

Bluetooth, Outlook synchronization, a reduced size memory card slot, and a 260,000 TFT display... It purposely lacks a camera in order to meet emerging corporate security and procurement requirements... Available next month, the phone offers 5 hours of talk time and nearly two weeks of standby.

Who could ask for more?

Yahoo! bought Flickr

2005-03-20T20:14:00.000-06:00

In my continuing vein of bringing you news about Yahoo!, I am happy to report they have just purchased Flickr. A website that allows you to post and publish your pictures online. I use the site to show pictures on this blog, which is really only the tinyest bit of what it's meant to used for. If you've got some photos you want to share, I recommend trying it.

Proud to be a U.S. Sailor

2005-03-20T19:45:00.000-06:00

I never talked about it much while I was doing it, but I served my country as in the Naval Reserves. I often dreaded going for my weekend duty, it was largely dull and uninspiring. I typically enjoyed my two-week duty away. Most of my fellow shipmates did not enjoy it because we were given work to perform during the day, but the truth is that the work was never hard or difficult. Also, it was a change from the regular job and you got to get away from whatever mundane things you did on a given day to try some new mundane things. To my mind, it was still a vacation I got paid to take.

But I have never been able to describe my experience or what life in the military was to someone who hasn't gone through the same. And there is no reason to explain to someone who has.

Today, someone else explained it for me! This American Life, possibly the greatest radio experiment on the air, is a teller of stories about a given theme. The themes vary wildly, and the chapters (stories) used to illustrate the current concept are very entertaining. Anyway, today's hour was about

Life aboard the USS John C. Stennis, an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea that supported bombing missions over Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Only a few dozen people on board actually fly F-18s and F-14's. It takes the rest of the crew - over 5,000 people – to keep them in the air.

Listen to this hour-long broadcast online for free.

I beg you to listen. This is the real story about the enlisted sailors, chiefs, and officers defending you and your freedoms. Learn about young folks comprising the best equipped fighting force in the world. It was an enlightening program. (Rebroadcast, originally aired March 2002)

Tax Deductions

2005-03-18T10:15:00.000-06:00

Wow, the government (IRS) allowed deduction for mileage is up to $0.405 per mile. And that was before we hit the new, record high for price of gas at the pump.

Something else I didn't know was that the mileage deduction for medical, moving, and charitable purposes is less than the standard mileage rate. Which just reminds me that I need to start tracking those.

Since we itemize deductions in our return, I should really start tracking this again. But it was such a pain to remember when to track mileage, I didn't keep it up.

Hey, does anyone know of a GPS system which tracks mileage of a vehicle and allows for a data dump? It would seem to me you could take a data dump, input some standard locations (doctor's office, work, charity, etc) and it could give an output of mileage for relevant trips. A few more details are floating in my head, but you probably get the jist of my latest brainstorm.

Editor's Note: This is not a new idea. There is both free software to download the data from your current GPS unit, and whole units dedicated to just this idea. So much for my "many years too late" brainstorm.

Yahoo! v Google

2005-03-14T08:35:00.000-06:00

Y'all know I love Google, and the money I made from their stock, but I'm rooting for Yahoo!. A difficult thing, Y! being burdened with a history of content and G striving to maintain its sleek scrappiness.

Both of them make most their money from ads, Overture and AdSense, to be exact. The former is doing great with larger ads and selling to corporate clients, the latter with smaller, text only ads and zillions of small websites. So even though they are in a fight to the death, each trying to out-earn the other on ad revenue, they are largely in two different arenas. (Makes the deathmatch more interesting that way, don't you think?) So I was interested to read Waxy.org this morning. Y! has some personnel who are apparently testing the next shot across the bow.

Univ of Colorado: Taking the easy way out

2005-03-10T01:53:00.000-06:00

On Monday I heard about the recent resignation at the University of Colorado while listening to NPR. I was a bit uneasy about the whole thing, but since I was on the way to see our accountant--and I knew how much we owe this year--I had a much bigger thing to be uneasy about and promptly forgot about the UColo problem.

But trust others to find the words I didn't even know I wanted to find. Vodkapundit summarizes my problem quite well.

Hoffman's administration was predated by Ward Churchill's tenure and the problems in the athletics department. What good does her resignation do? What message is it supposed to send? Why is she quitting, rather than doing a clean sweep of Athletics and giving Churchill the boot?

If the problem is the athletics dept (most of it is) and we've known that for the last couple scandals, the correct action is just that, *action*.

By resigning she takes the easy way out, hurts her career, the career of other female executives, and the concept of good management. It's time for leaders everywhere to stop whining about issues, reneging on commitments, and bilking others. Where has the willingness to act (responsibly) gone?

What I'm up to this week.

2005-03-09T16:38:00.000-06:00

Today is hump-day, that day half-way through the work-week. This week has been pretty good. Bullish Bob Bagley introduced me to Mike Nurre of Treadstone Partners at Kalachandji's Restaurant and Palace. If you're in town for lunch, and want to fill up on some good vegetarian food, I recommend it. The price is great, the courtyard is wonderful, and you'd never guess it was in a Hari Krishna temple.

Remember the business deal I mentioned last month, when I had to fly out to California? Well, I've been working on that. It's taking forever, and a major hiccup was thrown into the works early yesterday, but I think we can see a way through. It all stems from my thinking we had a mutual understanding of the services offered, when the understanding was anything but mutual. A (frustrating) learning experience.

And I've gotten two offers for short-term consulting work in Austin. One will only take a few days, the other will require six-weeks of onsite work.

Bentley & I went marketing this afternoon. I've been getting free lawn service from our landscaper for awhile now and in return I wrote a letter and distributed it to some homes a couple sub-divisions away. I took Bentley with me and he loved being outside today.

By the way, despite storms in the NE, here in Dallas the weather is sunny with a moderate breeze, the high was about 68 deg. I know this from using ForecastFox the super-cool plug-in for Firefox.

And, in the general recommendations column, I wanted to add the newsletter from Ask The Headhunter. If you're looking for a job, this guy gives some pretty good advice.

Tech stuff

2005-03-08T23:55:00.000-06:00

While rummaging through the web tonight I ran into Google's Cheat Sheet, offering a bit of help on refining your searches.

The provider of this tidbit was by Paul Begley's TechLog, a good resource for admin types.

Supreme Court

2005-03-06T13:06:00.000-06:00

Does anyone out there know a good online summary of US Supreme Court decisions and cases in their docket--for the layperson? I can find plenty of sites discussing the fine legal points and showing me the decision, but I'd like to get simple articles on what's being argued and decided. Then I can take the time to dig into more information if I really want.

In other news about the High Court, they recently decided to ban executions for minors. This article from the LA Times paints a picture of how the more liberal (and slim majority) stance is a good thing. In the heartland, we have this editorial declaring the Supreme Court is against democracy based upon the same decision.

Me, I'm just glad we are killing a few less people.

Consumption Tax

2005-03-06T12:47:00.000-06:00

I was happy to hear that Alan Greenspan

the Federal Reserve chairman, cautiously endorsed a shift in the nation's tax system on Thursday from one that primarily taxes what people earn to one that taxes what they spend.

Not that I think Steve Forbes is right about everything, but I tend to agree with the concept of a tax on usage rather than earnings.

Author's note: A bit more research showed me Steve's proposal was primarily for a flat tax (17% on more than $13k), rather than a consumption tax, though the two plans are often tied together.

Help from on high

2005-03-06T12:38:00.000-06:00

I have received word that Yahoo! Music, nee Launch, is going to start looking into the problems they have playing on Firefox. I cannot tell you how long it's going to take to fix the issues, but at least you can rest easy about it getting addressed.

Speaking of Firefox, has anyone seen good stats on it's market penetration? Does Google publish stuff like this, or Amazon? The stats from tech sites are not to be trusted; too many early adopters and too many Microsoft-haters skew the numbers.

It's all about the choices you make

2005-03-05T13:15:00.000-06:00

Today I was given directions to a bakery, but they were wrong. I was close and a quick call to Stein's Bakery let me know it was just a couple blocks over, but it got me to thinking...

Let's back up a few years; I've lost my wallet before. The last time I recall was during a cab ride to a job interview. I was running late because it was hard to find parking. I wasn't sure where the correct building was, and I really wanted to make a good impression. In my hustle and confusion I left the wallet in the cab, or it fell out of my pocket, or something.

I've also fallen and broken my arm. I was in the back of a pick-up truck, standing on a huge pile of pecan shells (used for garden mulch, it looks great) when I tried to jump off the tailgate. Now I had been warned the shells the were slippery, and I knew from standing up there, shoveling them into the waiting wheelbarrow that my footing wasn't great, but I tried to jump down anyway.

What's the point of these stories? It's to tell you I am not forgetful or a clutz. You see, while I have forgotten things, I refuse to define myself or be defined by others as careless and forgetful. Sure, I made a mistake and left or lost my wallet, but should that action define who I am? Similiarly, I have hurt myself, but that does not mean I have a severe lack of physical coordination. Rather, I made a foolish judgement and paid a price for it.

Who cares if you've been lost a couple times? Hasn't everyone? Maybe you do and maybe you don't have a bad sense of direction, but occassionally getting lost doesn't necessarily mean you need to be defined by it.

To me, we should be defined by our choices. More important to me than the lost wallet or broken arm was how I responded. I took responsibility for what I did, I didn't whine, I avoided blaming someone or something else. I tried to stay calm and I worked to replace or repair what went wrong. I tried not to make the same mistake in the future. If you're going to define me, use my actions after a mistake. See me when I'm working to fix a problem, optomistic of the future, and grateful because--despite all the mistakes I've ever made--I'm still blessed with more than most.

So, the person who gave me bad directions? She's not a bitch; she's not inconsiderate of my time and effort; she's not necessarily bad with directions. She's a human and sometimes she makes a mistake. Don't we all?

HOW-TO: Gmail

2005-03-02T10:30:00.000-06:00

Today we have a couple tidbits for those of you who want or use Gmail, the cool little online email service that could.

First, if you want a Gmail account, Isnoop has a gmail invite server. It's also a good place to send your extra invites if you have them.

Second, Engadget has how-to instructions for turning your Gmail account into a
personal file server, allowing easy access to your files from work/home/your friends house/etc. I've tested it, and it seems to work well. Please note, files need to be under 10Megs in size.

Albino Blacksheep

2005-02-28T09:35:00.000-06:00

This one is for your fun and enjoyment, or at least amusement and time diversion. Albino Blacksheep, is a collection site of well-done games, skits, and songs. I've tried a handful and all have been work-safe, with the *notable exception* that you should be working instead of goofing off with this stuff.

The FED discusses Russia's economy

2005-02-26T00:21:00.000-06:00

The local office of the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) puts out a bi-monthly bulletin (it's not big enough for me to call it a journal) and I was lucky enough to be given a hard copy. There are two things I found interesting. First, the article discussing Social Security and Medicare comes out with amazing timing, since it's at the same time President Bush is trying to sway the public opinion with his current push to change the system.

The other interesting item was an article discussing the massive improvements made in Russia's economy over the last decade. I think the following table conveys just how far they have come.

Russia Making Progress

Early
1990s
Early
2000s
Residential space per person
172 sq. ft.
217 sq. ft.
Percentage of housing with:

Running water
66
73

Hot water
51
59

Central heat
64
73
Percentage of people with:

Private-sector jobs
20
55

Television sets
37
64

VCRs and video cameras
0
20

Telephones
14
24

Cell phones
0
12

Personal computers
3
10

Internet service (at home)
0
4

Passenger cars
7
14
Russian tourists traveling abroad
1.6 million
4.6 million
Listed domestic companies
0
214
As percentage of GDP:

Market capitalization of listed companies
0
53

Value of publicly traded stocks
0
10

Bank credit to private sector
0
21

On a personal level, this table remindeds me complaining is an unjustified personal indulgance. Despite Russia's monumental progress in just one decade, looking their current conditions illustrates how U.S. citizens have so very much more than the vast majority of the world's population. All of which makes me want to ask, "By what standard does anyone in this country have the to complain?"

Sure, we want more. Sure, we need to work on improving injustice wherever we find it. But come on, our cars are better equiped than most of their homes!

Poker Night

2005-02-23T13:23:00.000-06:00

Here is a copy of the email I sent out today. If you're in the area, stop by!

Subject: Dealers, put your cards in the air.

Texas Hold’em @ Jeffrey’s House
Saturday, February 26

Starting at: 7PM
Ending whenever you win or loose it all

Well, it’s been too long since we played poker, so I’m happy to invite everyone to another night of fun, THIS SATURDAY.

Well be playing our typical $.50/1.00 limit structure, starting at 7pm. If you show up late, we’ll still let you play

I’ll have appetizers and a few beverages. If you want anything in particular, call ahead or bring it with you.

Editor's note: We had six people and a pretty good game that lasted until midnight. I was down a few bucks, but it was good to play. Thanks to all who came and those who sent regrets. The rest of you are bums and you know who you are. :)

This is a job for France

2005-02-22T17:31:00.000-06:00

Everyone likes to bash France, and it's hard to disagree with the statement "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordian," but maybe there is a use for them.

Look, they honored Jerry Lewis with the highest honor a civilian may have, the Legion d'honneur. I think it's time they honored one more of our national treasures; the man we all love and hate to admit it we love. The incomperable William Shatner.

All joking aside, I like the Statue of Liberty, French wines, champagne, and I enjoyed visiting Paris. Despite what people say, everyone was friendly the day I was there.

Harmless Addictions

2005-02-22T10:38:00.000-06:00

My mother has suggested that I have an addictive personality. That is, it is likely I will become addicted to some activity and repeat it, over and over again. She says it with some authority; they once bought a new computer largely so she could play Freecell. That was at least 7 or 8 years ago, and I know she was playing the game yesterday.

An old friend does a good job describing how he has survived addiction to a variety of computer games. While my particular poisons are not the same as his, it's a well written post about how we let our play time impact real life.

After you read Adam's post, read Real World Doesn't Use a Joystick by Wired. It's enough to make me glad own long running passion is freecell and backgammon.

That being said, I think I want to try Katamari Damacy.

Future News

2005-02-21T23:27:00.000-06:00

I have a new, personalized logo coming soon. Right now it's a great big charcoal sketch. I also have it in .tif and .jpg format, but the files are too large for me to open, and I don't have a program to edit it anyway. *sigh* But I'm getting some help for all of this lined up and it's gonna be great (in a couple weeks).

I also have a new resume coming. I have a draft and I'm pretty happy with it. The generic broadcast letter is okay too. I'll post a link after the edit is complete (later this week).

And I think a new business is coming, based upon last week's trip to CA. I have a couple questions that still need answering, but I put the optomistic odds at 65+% (within the next month).

And because I have rededicated myself to the job search, along with the new resume, I'm confident a new job is just around the corner (following interviews in March and April).

What's your (hoped for) news?

Commenting: New & Improved

2005-02-20T15:16:00.000-06:00

Howdy Folks!

My intrepid blog provider, Blogger (nee Google), has upgraded the comments feature. If you want to leave a comment on my page here, it is now much easier. First, the comments show up in a separate pop-up window. Second, and more importantly, you no longer have to register to leave comments with your name.

So, if you would, let's all test this! On average, I get 9 unique visitors a day, so if you have not left a post before, try to leave a comment so (a) I can ensure it's working and (b) I can find out who you are!

CLICK HERE to help me test this. Thanks!

Damn Politicians

2005-02-19T23:24:00.000-06:00

I was hoping to avoid political posts for a couple years, but some jerk in the Texas state legislature has inspired (driven?) me to make this post.

Basically, they want to restrict prosecutors from looking at violations by legislators. Isn't that convenient?

I might be dweebish

2005-02-19T14:14:00.000-06:00

I don't really think of myself as dweebish, or even overly geeky. I like to think I can converse with true geeks, but that my feet are firmly planted in the world of average folks. This may not be completely true. The clues have been coming on strong lately, like when Kristi says my jokes are just like an engineer's; long, dry, and not very funny even after the explanation. Now I'm really excited about a new Microsoft product, the upcoming Office Small Business Accounting. Have I fallen off the deep end?

Anyway, I like Quicken for our home finances. For small business purposes I like Peachtree a bit more than QuickBooks, even though I have the latter.

But this new accounting platform does a couple things I really like. First it looks and operates like my current Microsoft Office programs. Second, it is suppose to be a bit simpler to use (and shouldn't we do everything we can to make accounting simpler?). Third, it integrates with an upgrade to Microsoft Outlook 2003, something I previously expressed some love for.

Yahoo! Music

2005-02-18T00:12:00.000-06:00

My old favorite, and often plugged service, LAUNCHcast has been renamed to Yahoo! Music since the last time I hit their homepage. It still rocks.

And, you really need to keep checking it out, because I know something you don't and it's gonna blow your mind when this goes public. Trust me, this is much(!) bigger than when I told you Barry Manilow was going on tour months before you heard it elsewhere.

Now, if only they would fix the service so it could play via Firefox...

By request, here is the link to Firefox.

Home

2005-02-17T23:40:00.000-06:00

I am home after my trip to California. I had a good time, a very productive meeting on a potential (likely?) business venture, and the chance to see an old friend.

I want to send a big "Thank you" to Lendy and Cammie for their outstanding hospitality in San Jose (they put their guests up in a cozy cottage). Lendy and I have always enjoyed our conversations and it was good to see him and the family. We had enough time to enjoy some good food and the plans for their upcoming whole-house remodel are great. Oh, they also introduced me to the coolest little toy, 20Q , a fun game that even has a website.

Lastly, and by no means least, a huge thanks goes to Jim for helping me with my travel plans. In the end, I was in the air three times based upon four(?) seperate sets of reserverations, issued four boarding passes after being on stand-by for eight planes on seven flights (a couple with mechanical difficulty), and went through five airports so I could go the two cities for four days. Whew! Not only did he help me set everything up, he checked on my progress daily, called me, made modifications, ensured I was scheduled for the right plane at the right airport, et cetera. Thanks Big Jim!

Sitting next to Disneyland

2005-02-15T01:58:00.000-06:00

Today I write from sunny Anaheim, CA where I'm attending NRB, the annual convention for National Religious Broadcasters. The purpose of my traveling across the country is a business opportunity, but some of the participants were going to be here for the convention and I was given an access pass to the exhibition hall.

My father is also here and I've met a bunch of his friends and acquaintances. They are all very outgoing, so it's been a fun to flip the my internal switch and be "on."

The show itself is nice-very professional-and in years past I would have found some old friends from SpaceCom, but they are no longer uplinking religious radio programs. The evangelists and ministers, along with their support folks, are... interesting.

There is so much I could say, but I'm not sure I can do any of it justice, or that anything I write, whether positive or negative, praise or critique, would come out and still be honest. I am in interloper in a parallel world and I am not sure how to report on my experiences over here.

Old Friends

2005-02-10T21:29:00.000-06:00

One of the people I still keep in (loose) contact with from the old gang at Purdue is Emily (Swaim). Back then she was just Em, now she's Mrs. Damson. Kristi & I went to their wedding a couple years ago in Indianapolis and really enjoyed the ceremony and trip.

I thought about this last week because they gave everyone a home-made CD of music. The first track are some nice words from Emily and Mike, and the following is just a great selection of songs. I really need to bring the CD in from Kristi's car so I can listen to it more often.

This week I received a very different message from Emily. Her father passed away on Monday after trouble with his heart.

My dad had been fighting an uphill battle over the last several months. We thought that after he entered the hospital 2 1/2 weeks ago, that we'd be able to get him back into good shape, get him a new heart and get him back home. He fought terribly hard, but ultimately lost the battle yesterday afternoon. His heart was down to only 5% of it working, and it just couldn't keep up.

They started a Memory Page for him, an online 'life story' for those of you familiar with Em.

Our hearts go out to her and her family in this time of grief.

Amazon.com--Sell Your Stuff

2005-02-06T15:34:00.000-06:00

If you want to set-up an online store, there are competing opportunities from eBay Stores, Amazon zShops, and Yahoo! Stores.

If you don't want to go the trouble of setting up an online store, everyone knows you can sell items on eBay. It's a pretty simple process and if you have something other people really want, you can get a great price for your stuff. Also, it let's regular folks have the chance to earn a living off the wild-and-wooly internet without opening up a whole storefront (see above). But that being said, it's really just a way to have an online garage sale and I doubt any of my readers actually knows someone regularly making good money from eBay.

I have sold some of our stuff on eBay before and I used to take my books to Half Price Books. But I also got mad when I took my books there, I could take in 30 books and get back $4. I have taken three boxes of business books and been offered $20; it was depressing. And selling books on eBay seemed like a lot of work for just selling a book.

So, after years of seeing the 'Sell Yours Here' button on Amazon.com, I decided to give it a try. Wow! Not only is it super easy to indicate you want to sell something, the shipping is already calculated, the payment method is already handled, the money comes in regularly, and I sell more items quicker than I did on eBay! Honest, this thing really works. Take all of that, add in the fact Amazon.com sells much more than just books, and you've got a winning combination.

Network enhancing tool or just a toy?

2005-02-04T13:24:00.000-06:00

I want a good home office set-up. I also don't want to throw away money in large chunks and do not want to spend the time to set-up a linux server.

Anyway, despite vowing not to spend money on my little network, I sometimes peruse the market for the little nitches I want to find. I was really happy to find Axentra's new HomeSeries Net-Box. It combines a bunch of things I want, including a good network based hard-drive, wireless access router, etc. But it also includes lots of bonus goodies, including easy set-up of an email and web server. Now isn't that cool!

The other thing I want is a small printer server allowing me to connect to printers via both parallel and USB.

And a new computer, or course.

Boilermaker Football

2005-02-01T23:32:00.000-06:00

It was with a bit of sadness I read that Purdue's football recruiting class Ranks at #28. Which isn't bad when you considering the number of colleges in the country, but I sure would have loved to see a top 10 ranking. At least most of the Big 10 is worse.

Sexual neuroscience

2005-01-27T11:06:00.000-06:00

There is nothing we are not curious about, especially if the topic is related to sex. Recently, a serious scientific experiment was performed using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) on men while they were having an orgasm. The article at Mind Hacks includes the following salacious quote.

The participant's partner (who had the more difficult task by far) needed to be be able to make her partner ejaculate - while he was standing, being injected by radiation, watched by neuroscientists and, most importantly, during a precise 50 second time-slot.

With all credit to the women involved, 8 ejaculations were recorded from the eleven men who volunteered.

Amazing.

Good writing, great logic

2005-01-24T17:19:00.000-06:00

I"m not sure anything I ever write will capture the eloquence and logic of Judge Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat Jr. This great elocutionist once wrote the Whiskey Speech, and I'm not sure it could be improved upon.

And for good or for ill, I think many of the issues plaguing us today (censorship and decency, abortion, gambling, etc.) should be captured in a similar manner.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot what this was like.

2005-01-21T01:22:00.000-06:00

I am working again. Only for a couple weeks, but it's great to get back into the grove of things. Seilevel, those folks who let me go last year, have a short-term project beyond their current staffing. As a stay-at-home dogsitter, I was happy to jump for this opportunity at a little income.

Now I only need to accomplish three (3) things:

Do what they want, when they want it.
Do it so well they want me to do more.
Pray they get more work so I can do more.

Wish me luck.

Too much of a good thing

2005-01-20T23:55:00.000-06:00

The previoustly recommended Mark Hurst of Good Experience has an interview with Barry Schwartz, author of "The Paradox of Choice."

Q - What can customers do to avoid the paradox of choice?

Most importantly, learn that "good enough is good enough." It's what I call "satisficing" in the book. You don't need the best; probably never do. On rare occasions it's worth struggling to find the best. But generally it makes life simpler if you settle with "good enough." You don't have to make an exhaustive search - just until you find something that meets your standards, which could be high.

Yucky stuff on your computer

2005-01-15T19:25:00.000-06:00

I have three requirements for you if you are setting up a computer in your home.

First, you need a router. This is the small box that would sit between the cable or DSL modem and your computer. With it you can hook up more than one computer to the internet, you can get them to read files from other computers, and maybe connect to a printer or your TiVo. But *most importantly*, it is vital for protection from attacks from the internet. Honestly, if you do not have one, you should go out *today* and get one. Call me if you have questions about this.

Second, you need virus protection. I have used all the majors, but I am fondest of avast! antivirus software. I put it on Kristi's computer, it works great, and it's free to home users! You have to register once a year, but I have never received any kind of spam from them.

Third, you need something against spyware. I want to compare it to a mess you get on the bottom of your shoes when walking in the park. It's not immediately dangerous, but if you're not careful, the walk in the park can ruin your carpet and spyware can ruin your computer. I've seen it happen. The big boys are Ad-Aware and Spybot, but Microsoft just joined the party with their MS Windows AntiSpyware. It's still in Beta, but most everything is today. I've loaded it to compare with the other programs, and so far it hasn't caused me any trouble.

If you do not have these three things on your home computer, get them. If you have any questions, leave a comment. Please.

And you thought your mother was wierd

2005-01-07T01:37:00.000-06:00

In an amusing story on Reuters,

Owen, a one year-old baby Hippotamus gets close to his adopted 'mother', a giant male Aldabran tortoise at Kenya's Haller Park, January 6, 2004. The 120-year old giant tortoise living in the Kenyan sanctuary has become inseparable from the baby hippo rescued by game wardens, sanctuary officials said on Thursday.

My new knowledge

2005-01-06T22:02:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: Personal medical topic.
On a couple occassions in my life I have almost passed out. The events proceeding them have been similar, so maybe I can learn from the whole experience. The general pre-conditions for me are (1) lack of food prior to the event, (2) paying an extreme amount of attention to whatever I'm doing at the time of the event, and (3) usually, I've locked my knees, restricting blood flow in my body. According to proctologists, it is also relatively common occurance during exams given to patients.

It turns out I likely have a strong a vaso-vagal response. While the symptons are not always identical for different people, they typically include feeling light-headed, nausea, perspiring, fainting, and loss of bowel and bladder control. I do not feel all of these symptoms, but just a couple is enough; trust me.

Clinically, this is combined with an expansion of the blood vessels in the legs and loss of blood pressure, which means I turn as white as ghost. All of which makes it hard for Kristi if she happens to be nearby; she is understandably scared when I suddenly turn white, feel faint, and look like I'm about to become unconcious.

Apparently, the condition is not serious and there is no risk of health consequences. Even so, I have to agree with some of the folks who have discussed this online; being told to sit with your head between your knees just doesn't seem like an adequate medical response.

Additional links at: MayoClinic.com, Health Encyclopedia

In other personal medical news, I am going to have a colonoscopy next week. Goodie, goodie.

		Early 1990s	Early 2000s
Residential space per person		172 sq. ft.	217 sq. ft.
Percentage of housing with:
	Running water	66	73
	Hot water	51	59
	Central heat	64	73
Percentage of people with:
	Private-sector jobs	20	55
	Television sets	37	64
	VCRs and video cameras	0	20
	Telephones	14	24
	Cell phones	0	12
	Personal computers	3	10
	Internet service (at home)	0	4
	Passenger cars	7	14
Russian tourists traveling abroad		1.6 million	4.6 million
Listed domestic companies		0	214
As percentage of GDP:
	Market capitalization of listed companies	0	53
	Value of publicly traded stocks	0	10
	Bank credit to private sector	0	21