O-Dark-Thirty

Communication is hard to do well. Speaking is a poor imitation of thinking, so I'd rather be silent. Sometimes we have to communicate. There are certain basic principles for ensuring that we understand and are understood. Listen Actively For some reason people think this means to interrupt and complete other people's sentences. It doesn't mean that at all. It means keep your mouth shut and your ears, eyes and mind open. Show the other person you understand that they have strong feelings by listening to what they feel strongly about and why they feel that way. Yes, they might be saying something you disagree with, perhaps to a large degree. But you have to listen to understand and you must try to hear what they mean . One of the smartest things I ever heard anyone say about communicating was to start with the sentence "I agree with you" and then listen carefully for where you have common points. Be Heard Now you have the chance to be heard. ...

I like routine. Doing the same things in the same order at the same time every day is soothing to me, and almost vital to being functional and productive. That's one of the reasons that thoughts of retirement frighten me a little. It's one of the main reasons that I have such a hard time going on vacation. I'm much more comfortable in a vacation tour, like the trip we took to Israel. Everything was scheduled. If I can't have routine, a schedule is a nice substitute. Current society celebrates spontaneity. I have a tough time with spontaneity, unless it's scheduled in advance. Here's my morning routine: Wake up about 5AM. That can vary, but usually not by more than fifteen minutes. I don't set my alarm clock any more. Even my subconscious likes routine. Take care of bodily necessities. (You figure that one out.) In this order: apply deodorant, brush my teeth, fill a glass with water, take my pills with a few swallows of water, p...

I admit it. I talk on the phone in my car on the way home from work almost every day. I do it hands-free, of course, and wouldn't even consider talking on the phone if I didn't have some sort of hands-free device. For the longest time I simply used my upgraded Apple™ headphones, the ones with the soft earpieces that should have been included with all their phones. For the last month or so I've been using my new Bluetooth™ LG HBS730 (yeah, I mentioned it in the last post, too). I discovered I like not having wires. So I usually talk to Darling on my forty-minute commute home. What does this have to do with electric cars? I don't have an electric car. I have a white 2003 Toyota Camry which I bought at CarMax (and then removed the "Max" part of that). I like my car. It's getting a little old but it runs well and I'm comfortable with it. Darling would like me to get a new car. I don't really want one. As I explained to her, if someone bump...

I know that I have a couple relatives who read my blog regularly (thanks, ml and my great kids and my awesome brothers and Wes) but I am pretty sure that's about it. I don't understand the stats page for Blogger, so I think what I'm looking at is probably the number of times I log on and correct typos.  I don't think I'll create a big stir if I simply quit posting on my blog. I won't entirely quit. The original schedule of posting on Prime Days just isn't working for me right now. I don't know what the issue is, exactly. It feels as if there are dark clouds hanging over my head, and I don't know exactly why. So I'll try to post once or twice a week. Maybe I can get past this cloud that hovers over me. Even my happy place (Costa Rica) isn't very happy right now. I finished reading both of Nadine 's books and decided I really like the luxury of the USA. I wonder if I can afford retirement here, though. We all wonder that, don...

Wow. I don't have notes for 17 stages. Years ago I read an article titled "Star Wars: The Magic of Myth" and very much liked it. After that I gathered some of Joseph Campbell's books and read as much of them as I could absorb. He's prolific and my attention span is like the lifespan of a gnat. I don't recall much of it, but I ran across some notes I took. Here they are. Star Wars is a “hero’s journey” as defined by Campbell. I always thought of it as a space-based western, but westerns are really our USA hero myths (which is why they are so popular around the world, I suppose). In Star Wars, the story of space faring pilots and their daring escapades is based on the hero's journey, which is an ancient form of mythology. ~*~ Now let me shift gears and try to explain my personal definition of mythology in human culture. We start with history, inevitably written by the victors. If the losers write the story also, the better story usually survi...

I love writing and prefer fiction. So if I think of heroes, I don't immediately think of real life, but of fictional heroes. One of my favorite on-line writing haunts is currently Writers Write . Not too long ago they posted a list of Six Type of Courageous Characters . When I wrote about leaders I began to think of heroes. Writers Write says there are six types of bravery that create fictional heroes: heroic, steadfast, quiet, personal, devil-may-care and frightened. In my life I have met many of each of these kinds of brave people, and they are all heroes. The heroic ones are usually easy to spot. I know soldiers who labored to save others, at great risk to themselves. My Dad and brothers fall into this category, as do all the service men and women I have encountered in life. This includes police and firefighters, but doesn't end there. Thank you all. The steadfast ones are trickier. I know a few people who are missionaries in far away countries who could be arr...

My eye caught the headline of a Forbes article about résumé s ("sometimes spelled resumé or resume" according to Wikipedia, so I'll just stick with resume, since that way I don't need to manage that odd little accent mark) . I massaged my resume, beat it up, stuffed it into differing formats, and pummeled it to fit specific job niches, all in an effort to perfect it so my reader was impressed. I'm better at writing short stories. I'm good at what I do, but I'm not good at advertising how good I am. I am famous (infamous?) among my peers for some of my strengths. Excel is one of my major strengths, and I am often asked to help with data problems. (Here at work I am part of a group of people considered SMEs, Subject Matter Experts, for both Excel and Access.) People think I will whip up a brilliant Excel macro to handle their data manipulation (and I can and have) but quite often I can resolve the problem using well-handled functions directly in the s...

A friend of mine sent me a new joke which is currently going around the Internet. Having discussed some of our concerns about health care here in the US as we age, he found a new plan for me. You're a sick senior citizen and the government says there is no nursing home available for you. So what do you do? Our plan gives anyone 65 years or older a gun and 4 bullets. You are allowed to shoot four Politicians. Of course, this means you will be sent to prison where you will get three meals a day, a roof over your head, central heating, air conditioning and all the health care you need! Need new teeth? No problem. Need glasses? That’s great. Need a new hip, knees, kidney, lungs or heart? They’re all covered. As an added bonus, your kids can come visit you as often as they do now. Who pays for all this? It’s the same government that just told you that you they cannot afford for you to go into a home. Plus, because you are a prisoner, you don't have to pay income taxes anymor...

The Tragedy of the Commons One for all - that way is best. Take what I need and leave the rest. The commons had what we could take. They overlooked a key mistake. I did not need the golden ring, or any other golden thing. But they enhanced my mental health, and raised my group's entire wealth. Now they say there's not enough. Some took too much of all that stuff. The commons theory, well, it's done. Not one for all, but all for one! Tragedy of the Commons is recognized as far back as the writings of Thucydides and Aristotle (really! - see the Wikipedia ). Basically the problem is that individuals take care of their own property and view their own interests ahead of property that is held in common or shared interest. Go all the way back to early village agricultural days and see how the example works. Some of the villagers have cows. Since everyone in the town benefits directly or indirectly from the cows (they get the milk or buy the mil...

Escalation Archetype You know you did it. Yes, you do. You hit me hard. I hit you too. Then you hit me with your fist. I almost laughed, since you almost missed. I cracked your head with a brick. You smacked me hard with a stick. There wasn't much that I could do. I found a branch and hit you too. Then you hit me with your car. I limped away but not too far. I found a truck and went for you. But you were gone, and we were through. Of all the system archetypes I see escalation most often. I talk about it so much that escalation has even become dinner table talk. Darling recognized the signs in a conversation we had with another couple a few nights ago. "Ah," she said, "that's Escalation Archetype." As I previously posted, to fully understand an archetype, you should know the behavior to expect, and (since we're talking about systems), you should at least look at a causal loop diagram. The Causal Loop Diagram G...

I really like systems, and of all the courses I took to get my Master's in Studies of the Future from UHCL and Dr. Peter Bishop, the study of systems was my favorite. What Dr. Bishop said at the beginning of class was prophetic. "Once you learn about systems, you start seeing them everywhere." I do see them everywhere. I even did a study, my very favorite paper for class, to see if they were everywhere! Okay, they aren't, but they sure feel like it. (Do you get the sense that I run my life by feelings?) There exists a collection of System Archetypes which help show patterns of behavior that occur frequently in life. An archetype is defined as an original model you can use as the basis for an analysis. (That's a little clunky - go look it up here .) The ten standard System Archetypes are (in my own order): Escalation Tragedy of the Commons Success to the Successful Accidental Adversaries Shifting the Burden Limits to Growth (aka Limits to Succes...

Project management seems like the next big thing. For a while it was LEAN and LEAN Six Sigma, a combination of LEAN and Six Sigma, which are both process management/improvement disciplines. In 2007 I actually took the Green Belt courses in LEAN Six Sigma from Villanova U . I learned a lot, mostly terminology. A lot of it is common sense, which isn't common. Process improvement is still very important, though I'd venture to say that most of the low-hanging fruit is already plucked. That means improvements are harder now than they were. I'm interested in Project Management, so I joined the Project Management Institute (PMI). Anybody can join, evidenced by the fact that they let me in. I thought about becoming certified, a Project Management Professional (PMP), but I don't meet the requirements for the official certification. I'll get to that in a bit. Still, I took the company classes. Taught by PMP volunteers in the company the information is a vast storeho...