Work Work Work - Day 3

Today was all business.  Okay, maybe not ALL business, but I didn't see any sights, so I didn't have any pics.  This morning, I decided that instead of running, I would do some tai chi.  First stop, the luxurious fitness center.  Nope!  No room for tai chi there.  So far, the only thing that place has been useful for is a drink of water.  I went up a floor to the conference area.  One of the hospitality staff came by, so I asked him if I could do some tai chi there.

"No.  We've got a group coming in here in five minutes."

Dang!  They start early around here.  Next, I found myself out in the car park.  It is underground and had the faint smell of diesel fuel.  There were comings and goings during my workout and I got some pretty strange looks.

Breakfast was pretty much the same as yesterday, but I did have the beans on toast today.  I suppose I could get used to it, but nothing beats a Snickers bar and a Coke.

The remainder of the day was filled with briefings, software demos and round tables.  Interestingly, none of the round tables where held around a round table, but we did have some interesting, if inconclusive discussions.

I'm currently reading a book entitled Human Interations: The Heart and Soul of Business Process Management.  At the mixer after the sessions, I had a chance to meet Keith Harrison-Broninski, the author.  Turns out, he loves jazz and funk.  There was some overlap between our favorites, but we both have a bunch of new music to share with each other.

Tomorrow is my big day.  I'm giving my presentation.  I think I recruited at least two attendees, so I won't be completely alone unless they change their minds.  Then, it's off to Amsterdam on the Holland Hook!

Day Two - On the Ground in London

Now that I've shifted my internal clock, I see London as a human rather than the walking dead.  My day started like any other, which surprised the hell out of me.  I thought for sure I would wake up at some stupid hour and curse myself, but I woke up at...7a?  How is this possible?  Sleep deprivation the day before - works every time!

Since I didn't have any official business until 9:30a, I decided some early morning exercise would be in order.  They have a lovely fitness center here at the Park Plaza Victoria.  I jumped on a treadmill and started to run.  After about 30 seconds, I found myself saying, "WTF!"  Here I am in London and I'm running in front of a video screen.  So, I shut the thing down and headed outside.  I started down Vauxhall Bridge Road towards the Thames.  I figured I can't get lost running down the street the hotel is on.

Along the way, I passed the morning commuters on their way to work.  There were also many children in their cute little monkey suits on their way to school.  Some of the older kids were enjoying an early morning fag while waiting for the bus.  Some things are the same everywhere.   At 5P a pack (that's over $7.50 for us Yanks), it's an expensive way to kill yourself.

When I got the the Thames, I decided to turn right and run along the river.  This turned out to be a good move because I didn't need to stop for cross traffic.  Apparently, I was the last person to figure this out because there were lots of runners along the river.  Some of them had packs on their backs.  At first, I thought they were doing some sort of special training.  Then, it dawned on me - they are running to work.  I hope they work alone for their coworkers' sakes. As I stopped to turn around, I looked across the river and I swear I saw the factory from the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals album.  No flying pigs, though.

Upon my return, I, unlike my working class counterparts, showered.  Breakfast consisted of English bacon (looked like overcooked ham to me) with pineapple on it, fried potatoes with mushrooms on them, grapefruit slices and juice, a croissant, and tea.  I could have had beans on toast, but I'm saving that one for another day.

I enjoyed some nice sessions of the conference I'm attending, the details of which I will spare my readers.  It was fun meeting people from around the world.  I talked with people from Sweden, Germany, Canada and, of course, the U.K (England and Ireland - no Scots yet).

After an overpriced scotch (getting warmed up for Scotland) at the hotel, I was joined by my friend Larry from Ann Arbor who was recently transferred by his employer, Google, to London.  We enjoyed dinner at a local Thai restaurant.  The food was quite good and the portions where characteristically European, which probably explains why the obesity problem isn't quite as bad here, although it's the worst in Europe according to the morning talk show I had on earlier.  The restaurant was staffed by the most beautiful Thai people.  Only in one of the greatest melting pots on the planet could you field such a first rate home team.  I imagine an advert for Thai people and having 200 show up from which they selected only the most fit.  Try that in Detroit.  I don't think so.

Tomorrow is the first REAL day of the conference.  I'm hoping to see actual sites after the day's events.  Buckingham Palace is apparently only a few blocks away, so I would probably be soundly chastised for not not at least stopping by.

Day One...Or Is It Two?

Well, I managed to fake myself into believing that I had a good night's sleep on the early evening red eye to London.  I expected that my arrival at the airport would be met with some of Britain's famous queuing.  The sign said E.U. travelers to the left, everyone else to the right.  The right has a six or seven rows of switchbacks full of people and then the line took off down the hall.  So, I headed down the hall.  When I got to the end, I discovered another hall full of people.  So, I headed down the hall.  When I got to the end, I discovered another hall full of people.  So, I headed down the hall.  When I got to the end, my friggin legs were getting tired, but I had one more hall to traverse.

An hour and a half of queuing is enough for anyone.  Yet, I was convinced that I had more queuing to do at baggage claim.  I was wrong.  Apparently, the baggage checking chaps had popped out for some tea.  I knew I should have brought that raw beef with me.  Oh well, maybe next time.

After hauling my bags around the terminal a bit, I found the shuttle kiosk.  The gent told me that I could expect a 30 to 40 minute wait for the shuttle to arrive.  To my surprise, it was more like 30.  However, we had to wait another 15 minutes for them to round up some more passengers and to plan their drop-off.

If you've ever been to Heathrow, you may know that there are four main terminals.  Fortunately, we only picked up more passengers at one other.  Only a short fifteen minute drive.  I learned several things after this. I learned that on Sundays, because the traffic is not too bad, they fix the roads, which makes the traffic bad.  I learned that if the driver needs to deliver his passengers to six different hotels and you are going to the last hotel in the route (contrary to the 10 minute planning session's suggestions), you are looking at a drive of over two hours.

I learned that if you try to buy a SIM card at the airport, you will pay ten pounds for it, whereas elsewhere it will be free.  I learned that rates vary from 30p/min to 10p/min.  And, most importantly, I learned that if you want your new phone to work, you need to turn it on.

As day one (or was it two) wore on, my fake job on a night's sleep was beginning to wear thin.  After wandering around the neighborhood for awhile, I decided it was time for dinner.  I think there was a good Indian restaurant somewhere (the concierge put an "X" on my map), but I couldn't find it.  I did find Victoria Station.  They had a genuine Cornish Pasty stand, so I enjoyed a lamb and mint pasty with some potato wedges.  After that, I needed a nap.  I've managed to stay up until 9:45 local time.  I'm going for 11p.

Tomorrow is day one of the conference I came for.  http://www.irmuk.co.uk/bpm2010/ if you care to have a look.  Hopefully, I will meet new people and create some stories to tell.  Until tomorrow.  By the way, pictures are being posted on Facebook.  If you're not my friend, you don't get to see them.

World Traveler - Finally!

I've always been fascinated with the world, but I haven't actually seen much of it.  This Sunday (local time), that is about to change.  I am finally going to get off this continent.  Don't get me wrong, North America has been and always will be my home.  But, sometimes you've just got to go have a look see for yourself.

I will be going to London first.  After a quick stop in Amsterdam, I will be joined by my wife for some time in Scotland.  From the pictures I've seen, it looks like a beautiful place.  In my experience here in NA, pictures rarely do the actual view justice.  I will be posting some inadequate pictures on my Facebook page and I'll put a few here, too.  I will not be tweeting.  Frankly, I think tweeting should be left for the birds.

After Scotland, we are going to visit some friends in southern Spain.  They promise to give us the grand tour, which will include Gibraltar and a bit of Morocco.  That last bit means we will actually get to land on two separate continents.

I will be using the blog here to comment on people, culture, drugs, architecture, music and bad customer service.  I hope that my little travelogue will be slightly more interesting than the typical offering as it will contain some of the far reaching philosophy that my 5 - 6 regular readers have come to expect.  Since most of you are friends and family, you got more of it than you wanted even before I started blogging, but...tough shit.  That's me and that's what you get.

See you on the other side of the pond.

Outside In From the Inside Out

Governments ultimately exist for one reason – to control their people.  Citizens expect their governments to take care of them in certain ways, but this only represents the “obligations” of government, not their reason for existence.  I have written elsewhere about the nature of power and the type of people who seek it, so I won’t belabor that point here.  Suffice it to say, governments are controlled by people who seek power.  Power means control.

The challenge of any fledgling government is to decide how to gain control of the population.  The most common choice is by force.  Most governments are born out of violence, so why not ride the horse that brung ya?  Maybe after a few generations, if some other group doesn’t seize power by violent means, a government will decide to settle down and take a more egalitarian approach.  But, the goal never changes.

In authoritarian regimes, the people know what to expect from their government.  They usually know the truth about the brutality with which their government dispatches control of what gets said and what gets done.  They may not like it, but as long as the government has some means to avoid wholesale revolution, who cares?

Democratic regimes, on the other hand, face a more daunting challenge.  How do you control your population without pissing them off?  The answer is: disinformation.  All a government needs to do is get their citizens to believe what they want them to believe.

I know you’re probably thinking that something like this couldn’t happen here.  You’d be wrong.  I took a mini survey around the office for a couple weeks; asking anyone if they had heard of Noam Chomsky.  Nobody had.  More people have heard of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  They have something in common, they are (or were) considered to be the leading dissident by their respective governments.  Solzhenitsyn was a Russian dissident.  Noam Chomsky is American.  Sozhenitsyn spent years in a gulag.  We don’t do that sort of thing here in the good ole U.S. of A.  So, Chomsky is allowed to roam “freely” and speak his (considerable) mind.  And yet, you’ve probably never heard of him.  How is that possible?

Because our government doesn’t want you to know about him.  His ideas are subversive.  He believes that our government should not engage in terrorism, incitement and unprovoked acts of aggression.  Our government believes otherwise.  So, when our government takes provocative actions that go against the common beliefs of its citizens as to how our country should operation on the world stage, those actions are either covered up or obfuscated to the point where the news reporting is unrecognizable compared with the reality.

Where is Noam in all this?  Oh, he’s blogging and speaking to anyone who will listen (check out www.chomsky.info).  Who will listen?  Because he is banned for all major news outlets, the government can brand him as lunatic fringe or a conspiracy theorist and people will believe them, when, in fact, he is a brilliant academician who cares about truth and justice for all (just like in the pledge of allegiance to the Flag).

Like most citizens, you probably don’t care about all this as long as you can enjoy a comfortable lifestyle free from undue hardship.  Meanwhile, thousands suffer and die by the hands of our regimes, because the puppet masters think that’s how it needs to be.  One day, maybe we will wake up and decide to give a crap about the truth, but for now, most of us are content to live in ignorant bliss.  After all, if you believe the truth about the actions of our government, you may need to do something about it.  And that’s a bunch of effort we can all just do without.  Meanwhile, we’ve got blood on our hands.  The only thing separating us from having to live with it is our ignorance.  So, don’t read too much of what Noam Chomsky and his kind have to say.  It will only upset you.  We now return you to your government’s bullshit, already in progress.

David Sedaris, You've Been Found

Well, I haven't blogged in awhile.  I either I haven't been inspired or I've just got too many things going on.  But, since writing about my struggles to purchase a David Sedaris ebook, I have made some progress on this front.  Finally, Borders came out with an eReader for the Blackberry.  Sure enough "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" was on the list.  Imagine my joy!  I bought the book and started reading it.  The Borders eReader isn't near as good as Mobipocket eReader, but it is functional.

Then, I decided to get a Droid 2.  I really love my new Droid.  It does a lot more than the Blackberry.  To my pleasant surprise, Borders has and eReader for Android as well.  When I installed it, I pointed it to my existing Borders account and -- BINGO!  My book showed up in the list.  I expected that when I opened it, my bookmark would not be available and I would have to find my place in the book.  I was right.  What I DIDN'T expect was that this would be the case EVERY TIME I OPEN THE BOOK!  Who releases software like this?

I cannot imagine how anyone could let this happen.  This is a "give them the razor, sell them the blades" scheme. If the razor is no good, you're never going to sell any blades.  So, I'm reading "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" from the inside out.  Or, maybe just in some strange random pattern.  I've honestly lost track of which chapters I've read and which I missed because I'm returned to random pages every time I open the book.  I came up with the brilliant idea that I would just finish a chapter each time I read the book.  But, even the table of contents navigation takes you to random pages

Thank god that there's a version of Kindle for Android.  For a minute there, I thought Borders was going to get my book business away from Amazon.  Not going to happen.  I'm all about supporting Michigan companies, but they must earn my business before they get to keep it.

Ground

Religion is an important part of many people’s lives. I could carry on with some diatribe about the evils of religion, but you’ve heard all that before. I’d rather talk about the essence of all religion. At the heart of any serious religion is:

1. Truth
2. Justice
3. Peace
4. Love
5. Tradition

I would contend that it is that fifth element that causes most of the ruckus. If you strip that off, you’ve got a nice looking package. If someone came to my door offering to sell me a world where everyone was honest, moral and wanted peace and justice for his or her Earthly cohabitants; I’d spend everything I had to get it. But, alas, that ain’t gonna happen anytime too soon. On the other hand…you never know…stranger things have happened. Why, just tonight I saw what I would estimate to be 80 mph winds – blowing the rain so hard that it seemed to atomize it at one point.

That wind reminded me why religion exists in the first place. We all feel in our hearts, there is something greater. For most of human existence, the “something greater” was unknowable. However, as mankind evolves, we grow ever closer to unlocking all the secrets of our multiverse (thanks Michio). Enlightened spiritual paths have encouraged the interconnection of science and “spiritual” belief. For, if spirituality is a name we give to the great unknown, then it only stands to reason that the more we know, the less there will be to “believe in.”

This does not mean that we will eventually eliminate spirituality because we have inherited the capabilities or humankind’s early representations of “god.” Oops! There it is. It took me three paragraphs and a list to get to…it…er…him…er…. Nobody ever accused me of being too succinct (except maybe my poor wife when she catches me in a grumpy mood). Yes, this blog is ultimately about god. Since god is god so god does not have an appropriate pronoun for god, then god will just have to be god all the time, rather than wrestling with inappropriate pronouns. Fortunately, I am going to stop saying god over and over again and start blathering on about what the underlying essence of the universal meaning of god.

Just as we broke down the base components of all religions (with the possible exception of #5), we should be able to breakdown the components of god. Hmmm! Tricky. Well, I can only think of two that strike me as somewhat universal (at least widespread): Immortality and omnipotence. Now, these are two ideas that lend themselves very nicely to science.

Immortality is simply the mastery of time. Once a civilization achieves this level, growing old and being terminated by an event in a single point in the endless streams of time becomes a thing of the past. Krishnamurti knew that there was a core of reality that he called “ground” because there is nothing lower level. It is in…er…at…dang! There’s a preposition problem now. I guess it’s an occupational hazard when you talk about fundamental shit (now there’s a good universal pronoun). But, I continue to digress… Ground is where everything comes together – that which connects everything in the multiverse. We’re talking the convergence point of all space and time and any other shit we don’t know anything about yet, but will find out about later.

Omnipotence is all about power and energy. Michio Kaku talks about the multiverse in his book, Hyperspace. He also discusses the significance of using individual power consumption as a consistent measure of the technological evolution of an intelligent species from anywhere in the multiverse. The underlying principle is that as a species evolves, its per capita consumption of energy increases dramatically. Even in our own time, if you compared the average daily individual power consumption of a wealthy person with that of a poor person in a poverty stricken area of the world, the difference would be dramatic (Google it – you’ll see I’m right). Imagine the power we will wield in 1000 years. How about 10000 years? It’s easy to presume that, as our understanding of the way everything works expands, so will our ability to harness ever expanding power sources. Today, we can tap small sources of energy or we tap a small percentage of large energy sources. If we don’t kill ourselves (or get blown off the planet by some geothermal cataclysm), we will someday be able to harness 100% of the energy from a whole star – individually! Now THAT’S some juice!

If you could harness that much power, you’d be able to reassert matter and energy to form any combination of…uh…stuff you wanted. And, if you lived on the ground, you would harness 100% of the power of the multiverse. You’d be god. By then, you’d know it, too. Science and spirituality converge! We’ll probably fuck it all up somewhere along the way. Oh, well – maybe I should just keep the faith.

Backfire!

In a small enterprise, the leader can hand select each employee.  If she is a good judge of character, she will select wisely and the enterprise will prosper.    Being prosperous seems like a good thing, but like most good things, it comes at a price.  The price is loss of control.  Prosperity brings growth.  As any of my readers know, I am aware of the Small Giants phenomenon, but most enterprises choose to grow to whatever degree their prosperity will take them.

As long as the right people are selecting the right people, the only thing that prevents the organization from taking care of customers is lack of empowerment.  This leads me to a story of a complete breakdown of both, brought to you by our friends at DirectTV.

To start with, I’ve been a loyal DirecTV customer for many years.  Since I live out in the boonies, I don’t have much choice in the matter.  When it first started out, DirecTV was rough around the edges.  However, I noticed a significant improvement in performance over the years.  The frontline people seemed to have enough empowerment to satisfy a range of situations.

Behind the scenes, the management of the firm has decided to play a nasty little game with their value conscious clientele.  Here’s how it works:

1. Customer calls disconnect group and says he’s quiting
2. Customer service rep asks “will you stay if we give you $10 off?”
3. “No.” says the customer.
4. “How about $20/month?"
5. “Throw in six months of Showtime and Skinimax and you got a deal."
6. “Done,” says the rep.

Then, six months slip quietly by with only a $2.35/month rate hike.  BAM! The bill jumps up $20 per month.  So,  this process repeats until someone, in this case – me, gets fed up with the game and just wants the price drop “forever.”

Now, you have some grasp of my state of mind when I began my fateful call.  Oh, one more thing:  It seems that DirecTV really appreciated my patronage, because they not only sent me a postcard offering me a free movie, but they also posted the offer on their website.  The postcard apparently had some mysterious instructions on it, but frankly, when I saw the offer online, I threw the postcard out.  The instructions (condense to the essentials) were as follows:

1. Select a movie from the designated channels
2. Watch the movie
3. Your account will automatically be credited

This seemed pretty straightforward to me, so I watched Invictus (pretty good movie).  Now, it just so happens, this all happened in the same month after the last six months had expired.  So, when I found the charge for the movie on the bill with the post-special deal rates bringing the damages to just under $90 (with no Internet service), I was ticked to say the least.

I start out going through the regular drill.  My objective is to bring my bill back down into the low $50’s.  We were just coming up to step #5, “Jane” offers me a different package that will get my rate where I want it.  

“I’m on the site now, tell me where I can see the channels,” I ask.

“It’s not on the site.  It is a special package for [customers who bitch up a storm],” I paraphrased Jane.

“How can I see what channels this package has,” I asked?

“What channels are you looking for,” she asked?

“Cooking?”

“No.”

“SciFi?”

“No.”

“Comedy Central?”

“No.”

“I want to cancel,” I proclaimed.

“You have a two year contract, so you will need to pay a prorated termination fee for the time between now and Nov. 1^st.”

“Alright, I’ll take the crappy package! But, you need to take the $5.99 charge off my bill for the “free” movie you offered me.

“How did you hear about the movie?  Did you get a postcard, Jane asked?

“Yes.”

“Did you follow the instructions on the card?”

“I used the instructions from offer on your website, which I am looking at right now.  Let me read it to you.  It says watch the movie and you’ll AUTOMATICALLY credit my bill.  Where’s the credit?”

“Yeah, but if you got the postcard, you gotta follow those instructions.”

“Are you authorized to give me a credit?”

“No,” responded Jane.

“I want to speak with your supervisor”

“Sir, you cannot…”

“I’m not talking to you anymore.  Get me your supervisor.”

“I will need to put you on hold for 3-5 minutes.”

“Fine,” I said.  I said it again five minutes later and again five minutes after that.  At the end of the third five minutes, I’d had enough.

“The supervisor is still busy, do you want to wait some more?”

“What if I don’t?”

“You can call back later.  We’re real busy right now.”

“How is that my problem?  You should have enough people to staff your peak periods effectively.”  I don’t think she grasped this aspect call center design.  “Fine, just do what you’ve got to do.”  After I hung up, I immediately called my bank and restricted their access to my bank account, which they had been tapping monthly for many years.

So, this thing is not over, but they will need to call me to settle up.  My guess is, they will turn it over to a collection agency eventually.  They will call and threaten to report me to the credit bureau, but not before I make them leave several messages.  Only then will I negotiate a substantially reduced settlement, which I will have the satisfaction of knowing also cost DirecTV the cost of the collection agency’s fee as well.

If I were consulting with DirecTV, I would charge them $250 per hour to tell them how to avoid this situation.  As a customer, I offered it up for free, but alas, there’s nobody listening.  Well, if DirecTV loses customers one at a time, it will be awhile before they start faltering.  Online options continue to expand.  DirecTV’s failure in both the personnel and empowerment categories will continue to haunt it.  I will be haunting them for a little while longer.

The Trouble with Sheep

Who runs everything in our world?  Answer:  people who really want to.  What do these people all have in common besides wanting to run things?  They want power.  Power provides control and people who want power want control over their lives.  Chances are, they’re obsessed with control.

What causes someone to become obsessed with control?  Most likely, it was a lack of it in their youth.  They probably had the sense that they were being treated unfairly and there was nothing they could do about it.

I’ve known many people like this.  Most of them become so obsessed with control that they end up annoying the hell out of everyone around them.  They end up getting sidelined, so massive frustration and a sense of helplessness ensues. The others have enough smarts and/or self awareness to harness their energy to gain control of something: a business, a community, a country.  Are these the right people to be leading us?  No! 

I have been a student of leadership for a long time.  I have read numerous books on the topic and observed great leaders when I have found them.  Most great leaders are pushed into leading by people who want to follow them.  Others choose to lead because they have become fed up with bad leaders.  Whatever the reason, they are easy to spot:

1. They have a strong sense of humility
2. They always value the contribution of their team more than their own
3.  They are great judges of character and care deeply about the people around them
4.  They have tremendous generosity
5. They have a strong moral code that is immutable

Most people are neither great leaders nor control freaks.  They are sheep.  Sheep believe what they hear.  They would rather accept as truth the word of people they trust than do the research to confirm or refute their claims.  Sheep don’t do the homework that is required in order to formulate an informed opinion.  And, once they’ve chosen a shepherd to follow, it’s hard to move them to another flock unless you can find a way to cut them from their herd.

Great politicians are sheep wranglers that can cut the herd.  This is a skill distinct and separate from being a great leader.  In all likelihood, these skills are largely mutually exclusive – meaning, it is unlikely that we will ever have great leaders running our country or even our states.

If we had fewer sheep, we could spot the wranglers and great leaders…and know the difference.  But, alas, we have too many sheep.  Sheep get the shepherd they deserve.  The global problems we face grow increasingly intractable.  We will need real leaders to fix them.  Unfortunately, there are too many sheep.

Why We Remember

Well, it’s time for another blog entry and with Memorial Day upon us, I thought I’d provide my usual unusual spin on usual events.  Memorial Day is supposed to be a day to remember all those who have fallen in battle defending our…wait a doggone minute.  What were they defending?  I suppose it depends on who you ask and what, specifically, you ask them about.  Inevitably, we’re talking about war here.

People die in battle because someone started a war.  Yes, I said “some-one” started a war.  It’s always one asshole whose mother didn’t love him enough when he was a child that gets things rolling.  Okay, I confess that I’m no expert on war, but I’ve been in lots of meetings.  Meetings are where wars get started.  A bunch of men (and maybe one or two women) get in a room and try to answer the question, “what are we going to do about those bastards?”  Their choices:

1. Wait them out

2. Talk to them some more
3. Try to isolate them and make their lives painful
4. Kill them

Sometimes, the men have tried 1-3 and they haven’t worked...yet.  They could go back and try this “diplomatic crap” some more or they could adopt the posture of the ornery buzzard who said, “patience my ass, I’m gonna kill something.”  Usually, there’s one MF in the room that is lobbying hard for option #4.  He’s the one with the bad mother.  I’ve never met Dick Cheney’s mom, but she should be ashamed of herself.  She and Donald Rumsfeld’s mom must have shared a lot of notes.

So, I think we should remember the fallen on Memorial Day.  We should remember the fallen moms and dads whose wonderful offspring decided it was a good idea to send other parents’ offspring to some foreign country to die.  The other parents went to all the trouble to raise up dutiful good little sheep, only to have them led by bad wolves to an untimely death.

Sometimes a bad actor gets control of a war machine and the rest of us need to stop him.  But, sadly, we get the government we deserve, so any country that allows a bad actor like that come to power, probably deserves to have their cities destroyed.  We elected Cheney and we were fortunate enough to escape with the loss of only three buildings.  Sad as the event was, it probably could have been worse.  Actually, it’s not really over yet, so maybe it will be worse.  They’re still killing our people on account of the events of 9/11.

I know what you’re thinking.  “Tom, how can you possibly blame US (take it any way you want) for that?”  Answer:  our enemies hate us.  They need us to be evil in order to show their allies that we must be stopped.  When a couple evil dudes like Cheney and Rumsfeld (not to mention Rove, Crystal and Wolf) come to power, it’s like ringing the war dinner bell.  Any fool with a plan knows that any provocation is going to be responded to with plenty of bombs and troupe movements.  I’m no soothsayer, but when Cheney got elected, my very first thought was, “okay, when’s the war?”  You had to know there’d be one.  These guys live for it.

Clinton was a pot smoking hippy.  He actually stopped a war that two other madmen were waging.  If you ask me, we could use a few more pot smoking hippies in power.  Or, women.  Have you ever heard of a woman starting a war?  I’m not saying that a few didn’t get talked into it by their male advisors.  Imagine this scene:  a room full of men and one woman.  She happens to be the one in charge.  We’ll call her Margret.  All the men are saying, “Maggie, don’t do this, we haven’t exhausted all diplomatic measures yet.  Give it more time.”

Maggie: “Fuck time.  I want those sons ‘o bitches dead! Now go start a war.”

I doubt it.  Oh well, until the world is run by hippies and women, we’ll probably have plenty of new heroes to remember next year and next year and next…

Enjoy the cookout! 

Energy

I’ve been thinking a lot about energy lately.  My chronic neck pain was being more…well…chronic than usual.   I happened to be going to see my doctor anyway so I asked him what I should do.  I should explain that my doctor is no ordinary licensed drug pusher.  He is a certified homoeopathist, which means that he much more apt to offer an herbal remedy rather than a pharmaceutical one.  Moreover, he’s more likely to order some diet or lifestyle change that anything.  I think most of his patients ignore him when he does this, because he always seems a bit surprised when I follow his advice.

Back to my back.  So, I wanted to address my pain and I asked him if I should see a chiropractor, acupuncturist or a masseuse.  He suggested the masseuse, which seemed like a win for me because I love a good massage.  It so happened that of one of the two people he recommended I had already sampled the work on one of them.  She does Shiatsu massage, which (near as I can tell) means that she combines the concept of acupuncture with massage.  What the hell does that mean?

The Chinese have the theory that there are energy lines that run through the body.  These lines deliver information of a sort to the cells that control body functions.  Sometimes, these energy lines get blocked.  They can be blocked by emotional issues, physical conditions or even spiritual distress.  Basically, if your life gets out of balance in any way, you can suffer energy blockage.  When this happens, bad things happen:  illness, pain, stress, emotional discomfort.  Chiropractors, acupuncturists and masseuses all use different techniques to free trapped energy.

The western medical world has heretofore considered energy medicine quackery.  In the last 10 years, the evidence has been mounting against this view.  The tide is beginning to turn.  Energy medicine is on the rise.  What will it all mean?  People figured out how to manipulate the body’s energy along time ago, but they have never really understood what’s going on at the cellular level.  Now, for the first time, we are exploring all the scientific nuances of the nature of energy’s role in bodily function.

It’s hard to imagine what we will ultimately learn about the body’s energy.  Is there just one type of energy in our bodies or are their multiple types?  If we manage to develop equipment that measures one or more types of energy in the body, will we be able to use it to measure that same type of energy elsewhere in the universe?  If we can, where will it show up?  Will this open the door for understanding the fundamental nature of energy any better than we do now?

Our first experience with energy was fire: fire from the Sun and fire from the Earth’s core.  Our science is pretty advanced when it comes to thermodynamics.  But, are there other, non-thermal, types of energy out there?  Our sense of touch allows us to sense thermal energy, but what if there are other types of energy that our five senses don’t offer any access to?  How can we experience anything in the universe for which we have no sensory apparatus from which to extend our perception?

Some people claim to be able to see auras around people’s bodies.  Maybe our brains have untapped sensory capabilities.  The good news is that we seem to be on the path to discovery.  Hopefully, it’s just a matter of time before we find something.  How exciting would it be to live in a time when the fundamental nature of the universe exposed and the very foundation of our beliefs were altered?  I hope I last that long.  That’s why I’m going to let energy medicine practitioners help me along – however primitive their craft.

Postscript: I am finishing this blog at 2 am in the morning because we lost energy in the house and I had to get up to switch us to our backup power.  Oh well.

Whitehall Weekend

Last weekend, we stayed at the White Swan Inn bed and breakfast in Whitehall, Michigan. It told our hostess, Cathy, that I would blog about it. I usually don’t carry on in my blog about my every day experiences because…because I want my blog to be different than all those other blogs that carry on about every day experiences. So, I’m not going to ramble on about what we did or how crappy the weather was on Saturday. It’s not my style.

Instead, I’m going to talk about passion. There is nothing finer in life than crossing paths with someone who is doing what they are passionate about. I don’t care if it’s a hardware guy, like my friend Mike at Stadium Hardware in Ann Arbor, who is the greatest hardware man I’ve ever met, or Cathy at White Swan Inn, who has spent god knows how many years collecting lamps and paintings, and umbrellas and…well whatever she can find that has a white swan on it. These people love what they do and they pour themselves into it in a way that can’t help but create some enthusiasm within the people they cross paths with.

I’m not sure that Capt’n Ron, Cathy’s husband is all that passionate about the B&B business, but he sure is passionate about boats. He’s launching a new career (pun – as usual – intended) as a charter boat captain. But, his passion for boats is clearly not new. I saw some of his handiwork making model boats around the house. They were quite remarkable. I asked him if he had ever had a commission and said as a matter of fact, he is working on one right now. He disappeared into the basement and returned with printouts and plans and the hull of an unfinished work. He explained his process and how he only builds models of real boats that have some history. He had an article about the boat he is currently building. He didn’t know if we wanted the level of detail he offered of how he makes boats or not. I don’t think he cared. As it turns out, we probably didn’t need the details, but I did enjoy his passion.

I enjoyed watching Capt’n Ron enjoy sharing his passion. I think it is infectious. As a business person, I think that companies run by leaders with passion, tend to seek out employees with passion. This creates companies like I wrote about in my Small Giants post. When I need services, I always look for people who are passionate about what they do. They just seem to do it better than people who aren’t. Even if they don’t, I still like the idea that they care more about it.

Cathy asked me if we had any dietary restrictions when I made the reservations. I told her that Susan is mostly vegan and that I need to keep an eye on my cholesterol. She made a special breakfast the first day that addressed both of our concerns. That day, Susan mentioned in passing that she likes beans for breakfast. Next morning – you guessed it – we had beans on the menu. That’s not just customer service – that’s passion.

David Sedaris, Are You Out There?

David Sedaris is one of my favorite living humorists now that Douglas Adams is dead. Good humor is like good scotch. It has a little burn and a subtle complexity that makes it great without hitting you over the head. David understands this. The first book of his that I read was “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” I had already heard his pieces on NPR and was a big fan, so when I saw the book on sale at Borders, I jumped at it. I was not disappointed.

I won’t bore you with my rendition of what is so funny about his books; just buy your own copy…if you can. Oh, for you luddites, buying a copy of Sedaris’ books should be easy. Hell, you can find them in any second rate bookstore. But, god help you if you want to get a copy for your non-Kindle ereader. I’ve got Mobi Reader on my Blackberry. I’ve read a number of books entirely on that little screen that everyone says I’m crazy for using to read books. Hey, my eyes suck and I don’t have a problem with it, so get off my back!

The Mobipocket eBookstore is very easy to use and your books are always right there (unless you delete the wrong file off your Blackberry and then you seem to be screwed). So, there I was, clicking the Buy button on When You Are Engulfed in Flames. The screen tells me that I already bought the book and that’s why they are charging my credit card $0. I’m thinking, “Bonus, a free book!” Then, it asks if I want to download it and I’m thinking, “hot damn, here it comes!” I’m thinking wrong. Nothing comes, except a message telling me the book is not actually in my library like that lying sonofabitch screen I saw before.

No worries, I spend the 20 minutes hunting through the site for a way to complain for help and send a message to the support center. Two days later, I get a response from Amazon. Seems they bought Mobipocket eBookstore. The email says (I’m paraphrasing here), “you stupid idiot. You obviously don’t know how to use a computer or do something so simple as to log into the correct account to order a lousy ebook.” I emailed them back to tell them that I only have one account, so I don’t know how I could have gotten the wrong one, but they must not have liked my tone, because I never heard back from them. A couple weeks later, after they cooled off, I emailed again and explained in minute detail everything they needed to know to conclude that I wasn’t a stupid idiot after all. They responded that the $0 thing was their way of saying, “even though the book is listed as in stock on our site and you can download the demo to preview the book, we don’t actually sell it.” Great.

No worries, my Mobi Reader supports many bookstores. Turns out Franklin.com has When You Are Engulfed in Flames on their site. So, I bought it. It cost $20, but, hey David, you’re worth it. After an hour of struggling with some really bad instructions and unintuitive interfaces, I finally got a message on the screen telling me that that I had an Error -1: Retailer not authorized. Hmmm…they took my money…they said I bought the book, but I couldn’t download it. Maybe, in the end, I am a stupid idiot. So, I humbled myself and emailed for support. After two days (this seems to be the ebook industry’s idea of “acceptable support turnaround”) I received a reply (paraphrasing again), “geez we are so sorry, but we don’t really sell this book, but don’t worry. We’ll give you your money back in a week or two.”

So, David, I know you hate technology and you’re probably behind this evil plot to rid the world of “e” versions of your book, but c’mon, give us technogeeks a break. Some of us actually have a sense of humor – or at least appreciate a good one when we see it. Lighten up!

Goodbye Ernie

I’m sure there are a lot of folks blogging about Ernie Harwell today. Millions of people knew Ernie. Most of them thought they just knew him from his work because they had never met him in person.  They were wrong.  I started my adult life in the radio business. I did some time at WPON in Pontiac. My desk was at the front door, so I was the person who greeted anyone that showed up.

One day Ernie and George Kell came in as guests for one of our talk shows. While they were waiting to go on the air, Ernie started up a conversation with me. He asked me what I did at the station and how I liked it. He told me a story about his early days in radio. To be honest, I can’t remember the story. I was mesmerized by how exactly like the Ernie Harwell I knew from the Tiger broadcasts he was like in person. I couldn’t believe that a man could project himself so accurately while doing play by play and talking shop about baseball on the air.

If you didn’t meet him, you’ll have to take my word for it – he was the friendliest, kindest man I ever knew for five minutes. Yesterday was the bottom of the ninth of the last game of the last season for Ernie. The planet is a little darker for his passing. So long, Ernie.

One Foot Out of the Jungle

We like to think we’re a species that has evolved beyond the others in the animal kingdom.  I was watching The Day the Earth Stood Still (the remake) last night and it reminded me of the general lack of social evolution that has gone along with our incredible rise in technical progress.  Michio Kaku talks about the four stages of development that a civilization can pass through on their way towards omnipotence.  He says we’re part way through stage zero, the first.

The key measure of development, according to Kaku is the amount of power per person that is available.  By this standard, we have made great strides in the last 100 years.  But, giving people more power for personal use could result in a lot of destruction when people are not evolved enough to be nice to each other.  Fast forward another 100 years and imagine that each person has access to enough power to destroy the planet.  In our current state of development, what are the odds that some emotionally disturbed individual will take advantage of the opportunity?  Further, what are the odds that our emotional development as a species will advance significantly in the next couple generations?

Our future is pretty bleak when you look at it this way.  We still need violence.  Most people enjoy watching “other” people go at it.  There are many among us that like to “go at it” themselves.  Whether it’s a good game of tennis or a boxing match, the object is the same – to beat your opponent.  Why do we need it?  We are designed to deal with threats.  Fight or flight strategies are hardwired into our old brain.  Excluding the last couple thousand years, most of our existence has been spent dealing with daily threats.  Our ancestors had environmental, animal and competitor attacks on a continual basis.  Their adrenaline was flowing on a daily basis.

Now, we hardly ever have these types of threats.  So, we need a way to create the situations that our bodies crave.  We take our violent pleasure from video games, movies, sports or just good old fashioned beating the crap out of each other.  It’s hard to see where it ends.  Some people reject violence.  They’re in good company with people like Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela to name as comrades.  Maybe the fact that we celebrate people that have stood up against violence and hatred is a good sign.  Maybe we can pull back from the brink before our power gets the worst of us. 

Small Giants

This week, I had a chance to listen to Bo Burlingham of Inc magazine speak about his latest book, Small Giants. It’s about great companies that could have grown to be big, but decided to stay small and pursue other goals. As is so often the case when I’m confronted with a new concept, it got me to thinking. We all run a company called “me.” Me, Inc. must deal with the same issues as any business. What is the appropriate profit margin? How much debt should we take on? What sort of capital investments would be prudent? How many work hours should we expect per week?

Some people feel like these decisions are made for them, but they’re not. No matter how trapped you feel, you’re still free to do whatever you want. I know, you’re thinking, “right Bellinson, I’ll just tell my boss that I’m only going to be working 40 to 45 hours per week from now on. That’ll go over real big.”
I say, “Why not?” The worst thing that can happen is that you’d get fired. The best thing that could happen is your boss would say, “okay.” The most likely thing to happen would be that your boss would say, “quit screwing around and get back to work.”

Getting fired seems like a pretty daunting prospect, especially in these times. There are people who live on the streets by choice. They have given up material things in exchange for the right not to work. While that is certainly a long way to fall, it can be done. I’m not suggesting that you should follow suit, but if you had to work at a crap job for awhile, in order to create the space to find a job worth your full passion, maybe it would be worth it? Ultimately, the consequences of trying to build the lifestyle you want and failing might not be as bad as never trying.

It has been said that in order to rebuild a life, first the current one must be torn down. I believe there are two ways to go about it: incrementally or with a big bang. Personally, I appreciate the safety net of the incremental approach, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fantasize about the big bang. So, what is the “incremental” approach, you ask? Always upgrade your skills. I have a variety of activities that I enjoy. In each one, I strive to be better. Some of the activities I enjoy also provide me with an income. It stands to reason that as my skills improve, I get better – and people are almost always willing to pay more for better things.
It’s not always enough to do well; you also need to know how to sell yourself. I have quite a background in sales, so I am comfortable in the lead sales position for Me, Inc. People who aren’t will need to be that much better at what they do to get noticed. Everyone should learn to sell themselves.

I could rant on incessantly about everything “I think” you should do to make yourself “better.” What would be the point? We all need to decide for ourselves what our path should be. I just think that it’s a shame when people don’t even choose their path. They just let their parents or someone else put them on a path and they float along on that path without ever examining whether it is the right one for them or not. Worse yet, those who know they are on the wrong path, but don’t have the courage to change it. I say, take the jump. You probably won’t fall near as far as you think and you are much more likely to rise in the long run. Going up?

Fair Play

Last Sunday, the weather was beautiful and I was committed to taking full advantage of it. Me and my pal Kase decided to take in some sunshine and park scenery while playing some disc golf. In case you didn't know, disc golf is similar to regular golf in strategy. However, instead of clubs and a ball, we use mini Frisbees that serve as both. And, instead of a hole, we use a basket with chains to help the disc fall into the basket. I noticed that the sport seems to be growing every year. Today, the course was quite crowded, so we had to wait out turn at many of the holes. The good news is that we were sitting around at a beautiful county park on a near perfect day.

When I got home, I didn't want to be in the house, so I turned around and headed right back out for a little bicycle ride to the store. In the Summer, I like to ride my bike to the store as much as possible. Sometimes, I even ride to work. Besides being excellent exercise, it uses zero emission green energy – me!

Too many people spend too much time sitting in front of their computer screen. Between McDonald's supersized meals of fat and sugar and home entertainment, it's no wonder we have such a serious obesity problem in this country. Summer is coming! Everyone should eat some fresh fruits and veggies grown right here in Michigan and get out and do something in the beautiful weather. I know I will.

My Reach May Surpass My Grasp

For the last couple days, I've been working on a post about "Life After Money."  I don't know yet whether I can finish it or not.  It all comes down to evolution.  Can homo sapiens survive long enough to get both feet out of the jungle?  I'm an optimist.  I think we can, but I suspect we'll wipe most of our population out at some point along the way.  We have slightly more emotional maturity than a gorilla and less than a bonobo.  However, we find ourselves in the possession of increasingly powerful forces.  We're like a child with fireworks.  Will we grow up before blowing off a limb?  It may be part luck that decides the answer.

My post about what life could be like depends on us not killing ourselves completely, but it will probably require us to blow off a leg or two.  Why?  Because people are problem solvers.  We don't like to rebuild things.  We'd rather just patch them up.  We'll keep patching up our broken way of existence until it falls completely apart.  Then, and only then, will we consider rebuilding it.  It seems like a high price to pay, but maybe it is just the nature of who we are.

Keep watching for that post.  I may just finish it, but probably not before I finish filing my dang 2009 tax returns. YUK!

The Case for Space

People really seem to like capitalism. Even relatively poor people like it. I think they feel that if others can make it big, as long as the system is in place, maybe they can too. They wouldn’t want capitalism to be replaced by something else before they got their chance at fame and fortune. Sadly, the system is stacked against them. Anyone with lots of money knows that it takes money to make money. What about good ideas, you ask? Good question. The answer is: you’re going to need to sell your “good” idea to someone with money. And guess what? They’re going to make more off your good idea than you will. Yeah, yeah, there are exceptions, but the system grows more stacked against them as the wealth and power in the world gets more and more piled in the hands of the few.

Am I bitching about rich people? No. Hell, just read my last post – I’ve got nothing but respect for rich people (in general). Nope, I’m just pointing out that capitalism is probably here to stay until the whole thing falls apart. It will fall apart, too. It’s inevitable. Okay, so I had better explain that one. Let’s look at some facts about capitalism:

1. Capitalism is based on a consumption model – people make things and other people buy them
2. The success of capitalism requires continuous growth in consumption
3. Consumption requires resources
4. This rock we call Earth has finite resources
5. When growth is no longer possible, capitalism fails

There is a solution. It’s called space. Basically, we need to get off this rock. This task will require vast amounts of resources. The more we deplete our finite resources, the less able we will be to accomplish the task. So, we had better start soon. Oh, but there’s a problem – no return on investment. The largest companies in the world are publicly held and anyone who studies those companies knows that they operate on a quarter by quarter basis. Their stockholders demand it. Hell, if a public company plans out six quarters, their stock price will probably go down. The return on space initiatives will be measured in years of not decades. So, the obvious choice to spearhead such an effort would be the government. Awe! Too bad. They’re out of friggin money. Why? They spent it bailing out an already failing capitalistic system.

We live in interesting times. The inevitable failure of capitalism could open doors to massive initiatives like space colonization. Or, it could lead to something less positive, like war, famine and widespread poverty. Jeff Bridges played an alien being in a movie called Star Man. He was trying to understand the word “beautiful.” When he finally figured it out, he said “you humans are beautiful. You are at your very best when things are worst.” That could be good news.

The Cost of Money

Money is a burden. I know, I know, you wish you had that sort of burden. Think of money like having pets. If you have one pet, there can be great enjoyment and the care of the pet takes up a minimal amount of your time. But what if you have three pets? Now, you spend a lot more time caring for them and, the odds of one of them being sick goes up. Ok, let’s say you had 50 pets. This is a full time job. You will even need to hire people just to help you care for all those pets and now you not only have to worry about the pets, but also the people taking care of the pets. Are they doing a good job? Are they stealing the pets?

Money is just another high maintenance possession. If you own a home, you’ve probably felt the stress of the possibility that you won’t be able to pay the mortgage. Imagine that your mortgage was $50 million. If you are unable to continue earning the income you need to support that mortgage, the loss could be devastating. People at that income level can fall very fast and very far.

To me, the best situation is like I always say about pools. The best pool is your neighbor’s. Sure, you don’t get to use it any time you want (unless your neighbor is really nice), but you get to use it once in awhile and you don’t have to care for it the rest of the time. I have a few family members who have a lot of money. Every once in awhile, they let me take a dip in their pool. I am forever grateful for their generosity and also for sparing me the stress of worrying about all that money.

So, next time you come across a rich person, who is living in the lap of luxury, tell them, “I feel your pain.” Hey, rich people need love, too.