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Well, I am once again firmly entrenched in ennui. You'd think that someone who wants to change the world and has a plan (a plan!) would be a bit more excited. Maybe I should be. But I'm not. I was excited earlier. I'm not all that jazzed about organizing a few hundred people across the world. Except of course that I keep on doing it. I think I lined up a contact in Thailand over coffee this morning. I will probably have to develop him. Jerry Sternin did some work there that would be relevant. I'm probably the only person in America who can line up a candidate for a Thai effort in a small coffee house in northwestern Indiana. Maybe tomorrow I will get the ideas for the higher education effort lined up while visiting downtown Chicago.
Today is JMMJ's birthday. He's probably the coolest guy I've ever met. Happy 36th, amigo.
Galactic Greg's is always happy when I remember your birthday.
UPDATE:I will take this moment to add a picture of the happy birthday boy, enjoying a pint with the village lads. It always makes me cry.
Starbucks has arrived in Valparaiso and even though it is inconveniently located, it will thrive and in the end drive the old downtown coffee house out of business. Starbucks, while not necessarily making decent coffee, does do several other things right.
When I lived in Chicago and worked out of home office, I used to like getting out and doing some work at a local coffee house. I remember going up towards Lincoln Square and stopped in at their coffee house. (Not the french bistro: different beast in my eyes.) I went in and got a cup of their finest.
The shop was one of those that appeal to the artist posers. The peope working the counter were complaining about their dank possibilities in getting roles this week. The shop was painted in dark colors. A lot of black. The help were surly, much more interested in their discussions than getting me coffee. All in all, it was a very depressing atmosphere. And I actually like the artists I know. I have friends who have sung leads on Broadway; written plays and screenplays, novels and short stories; hung at hip galleries and toured nationally. I'm not artist averse but this place just gave me the willies.
A few months later, a Starbucks opened down the street. Like all Starbucks, you might call its decor "artistic chic": cool without being too young. Something anyone who wasn't really an artist would be comfortable in. It was warmly toned, a fireplace in the center, well-made couches and chairs. It looks like what yuppies think "artistic" looks like. In that, it doesn't confront anyone. It's there not to make a statement but to sell coffee.
[ Continue reading "Why Starbucks Will Run Our Local Coffee House Out of Business" ]The Atlantic had an interesting article this month by William Vaughn Moody about how our IT jobs are all draining into the far east.
We are doing all we can to make our people still poorer, to work for still lower wages, that we may undersell, not only England, but India; for to succeed we must undersell the cheapest ?
...the time is not far distant when the textiles from the Chinese machine looms, iron and steel and cutlery from the Chinese furnaces, forges, and workshops, with everything that machinery and cheap labor can produce, will crowd every market. The four hundred millions of China, with the two hundred and fifty millions of India,?the crowded and pauperized populations of Asia,?will offer the cup of cheap machine labor, filled to the brim, to our lips, and force us to drink it to the dregs, if we do not learn wisdom. It is in Asia, if anywhere, that the world is to find its workshop. There are the masses, and the conditions, necessary to develop the power of cheapness to perfection, and they will be used.
Oh, wait. Got the year wrong. It's from 1879. Yep, them Asian tricksters sure going to undercut us square-dealing Americans. Any time now. Yep. Gonna happen. Yessiree. Any day now.
Show someone that you care.
Return his phone call.
Quickly.
I'm at the Panera South Veterans' Parkway, enjoying their WiFi a lot more than the mediocre americano (oh, for Intelligensia! but the Coffee Hound doesn't have wireless...). Some women at a table three meters away are talking loudly. One was telling another how she still remembers how another returned a phone call (before they knew each other) in five minutes!
A recently reported study said that people believe that folks who return their messages quickly care more about them.
So call back. Right now.
While researching information on W.L. Gore & Co. (makers of GoreTEX and number 199 on Fortune Magazine's Top 500 Privately Held Companies), I stumbled across The Rantings of Eric Nehrlich. What a blast! Eric seems to be about 30 and is already talking about things I didn't get to until I was at least 32! He's got some interesting comments on management that
Eric's interesting. I'm going to send him some information on programmer performance that he may not have. (Which I have now done. Horray for me.)
I've decided to take on creating new social structures through social experimentation in order to change the world. It's taking longer than I thought it would to formulate the initial work statement, which is really hacking into my writing time.
I'm pretty sure I can turn the world on its ear for a $1B and fifty years. May be necessary.
Amazing! You can read the entire first Dancing Elephant Press issue (first series) of Paul Grist's Jack Staff over at Image Comics site. Yes! The entire first issue of Jack Staff is online. Just scroll down the page to the middle or so. The first Image issue is also available online, so make sure that you see the Dancing Elephant issue first! Not that it will make a whole lot of sense anyway you do it. Jack Staff may be the only super-hero comic I can stomach these days. Grist achieves a more grown-up story without resorting to irrelevant "adult themes".
Also, while over there, take a look at Age of Bronze, Eric Shanower's surprisingly accurate retelling of Homer's great epic. O, Helen! Alas, Paris! Although you may not like a good deal of what he portrays, most of it fits with the current understanding of ancient Greek culture. I've been pretty impressed: it made the cut to my pulls.
I haven't updated the old reading list for awhile so I reckon I'd better get to doing it.
That's what's on the reading list. On deck include Buber, Denial of Death, Walt's God, Habits of the Heart, the rest of Powell's Dance to the Music of Time (I've got 10 books left), and Tim O'Brien's stuff. I've just got to get a life. Plus Game of Thrones and sequels, the last Laurie Garrett book, War and Peace and the entire midsection of Dickens's output.
Yep. I was about to make a quip about Lee Iacocca's leading Chrysler into being bought out and found the report in SF Chronicle carried the whole Iacocca Endorses Kerry story.
This actually does not make me less likely to vote for Kerry, although it should. It certainly doesn't make me more likely to vote for him.
Of course, the SF Chronicle article also has the requisite moronic posturing from the nominees. John Kerry gave us this eloquent sophmorism:
"I will be a president who actually believes in science,'' Kerry said, bringing the crowd to its feet. "This is your future, and I will let science guide us, not ideology.''
Um, isn't letting science guide you an ideology?
The President Bush was at least as ridiculous.
In Washington, Bush touted his plan to make high-speed Internet access available to every American by 2007.
Kerry, not to be outdone, joined in on the Bodaciou Broadband Bandwagon.
This can only be surpassed by Speaker Newt Gingrich's "A laptop for every student! An office suite on every desktop!" speech. And Gingrich is definitely one of the brightest bulbs to leave Congress lately. I love hearing him on conservative talk radio because he consistently has a much more nuanced opinion than the host would like. I suspect that Senator Paul Simon (may he rest in peace) would have the same humorous effect on Air America Radio.
Thank God for thoughtful leaders even if you disagree with them. I mean, listen to what Gingrich said on Meet the Press on the 5th:
[ Continue reading "Giant Ego Endorses the Richer Candidate" ]You know, I got a great recommendation from Glenn Mehltretter and Michelle Malay Carter of PeopleFit and I don't post anything new. What a waste! Well, in my defense, I've had nothing of any value to add to the RO discussions.
I did have a great series of conversations today with Mark Van Clieaf, he of "let's pay CEOs for doing real work rather than the operational work we holding them accountable for nowadays!" The conversation ranged across a large organizational landscape, and truth be told, my mind is full and I have to rest up. And I had to clear up my taxes situation this morning. And I have a big appointment tomorrow at an old client, who asked for me by name. I'd be thrilled, but it's writing software systems documentation and I quite simply don't know that I'm even qualified any more. I will probably scope out the work and call an old pal who is still in the business. I think they will like him. He's a very odd person in dress and some manners but very thorough and talented.
Anyway, I went to library to find some reading materials. They have one (One! Just one!) book by Fritz Lieber, the great speculative fiction master. I remember having a conversation with a guy at the old south Toledo SF/comics shop about him. He called Lieber the true writer "high science fiction", and even wrote a masters thesis in English about him. The rest of his recommendations have turned out well — I especially liked The Mote In God's Eye. I can't wait to start in on whatever the title was of the book. While there, I also grabbed a reprint (1 of only 80 printed!) of a Dorothy Sayers novel. Early 20th century abounded, apparently. Plus the complete recording of Gilbert & Sullivan's something or other and some Carter Family recordings. I can't be sure, since she has commented on her family's coal mining heritage, but I don't think any relationship to Michelle, mentioned above.
I should get a Business category for anything that talks about my general business stuff. Anyway, I've been talking to the IEEE chapter down at my client site. There are excellent opportunities to do a talk with them on Healthy Career Choices. Of course, because I would be doing it and not Glenn or Michelle (those gracious powers of PeopleFit who put it together), it will most likely be called "Why You Hate Your Boss (and why your boss also hates you!)". Catchier title.
I was going to do a series called "Why You Hate Your Consultant" and talk about some issues that Peter Block raises. But now I can use the Jaques angle and get deeper into it.
I've been avoiding doing the work on getting these lectures going up here. I was inexplicably thinking that no one wants to hear me. (Sob! Sob!) Not true: these IEEE chapters are almost starving for decent talks. Mine is funny and informative. Of course, with the emphasis on being entertaining to engineers. That's harder than you would think.
Thinking that you are bothering your contact is true in any sales, I think. At least for me. I have only just recently figured out that if the client has a sticky problem that you can solve, you are manna from heaven. OK, not manna, but at least a high quality rain in a dry spell. They want to talk to you. If they don't, let them say no as quickly as possible.
I"M BORED!!!!
So, let's go see what the Painting Fool has been up to! (...and her many cool friends, of course!)
Dawn Wheat, my favourite young painting fool, has progressed since I last bought anything from X-ray influences through ancient boats (very, well, Samurai Jack) to whatever you call what she's doing now. Windows? Curtains? I was Dawn's deacon in Chicago — I was the Deacon On Call for the professional artists even if they had "day jobs" — and have the big honor of being the first person to greet her in Chicago. She drove all the way in from Someplace In Iowa to attend one of our Arts Ministry events. It may have been David Morgan, who would later be instrumental in getting L a fellowship. Great to have connections.
Anyway, Dawn was just a kid barely out of college from the farms and hoping to find a Christian community where she could be a professional artist and not have to paint Jesus all the time. Or be a Painter of Light (poor sot: that always made me think of the Angel of Light, a nifty biblical reference to the devil). Anyway, she came, I did the rounds of meeting all newcomers and viola, in a few months we had a new member.
She's an amazing artist. I've watched her work progress and I've had the great joy of listening to her talk about her work. L and I had her over several times, L being the resident art historian and all. There were others who were more successful at the time, but I always thought that there was something about her work that said that she would either be famous or have died too soon. She has the whatever-it-is-that-takes-to-make-it, that special way of combining a unique view of the world and dedicated skill to create new. We also had the pleasure of spending some time with her again while at the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing. Turns out that her fiction writing is also good.
Don't you just hate these wonderfully talented friends?
Awhile back, Russell Mann wrote something on grace that I commented on. He and I probably have the same sentiment about grace right now. As someone who has recently been hit full in the face by grace (an experience where I was a complete jerk and the response was to love me in a powerful action, which undid me and redeemed my life in the momen), I wanted to continue this conversation. Or perhaps simply ramble mindlessly about something I am truly unqualified and unworthy to comment on.
I've written on grace before — it's a powerful thing, you know — and I've even been called someone who "gets it", high praise indeed. I'm simply someone who desperately needs it all the time. This is about my own need for grace.
The doctrines of grace are tricky, at least to me. But I wonder if my own problems with grace stem from a very particular problem, a confusion of the duties of my role as a Son of God with the duties of the Church, or my role in the Church.
Writing about ancient cities in Turkey has led me to do some other reading, which led me to the Llanos de Moxos of the Beni in Bolivia. It's amazing: a massive culture that stretched around the size of the Midwest of America but that not too many people talk about.
Science had an interesting article about William Denevan's work in the Beni.
There's also an interesting article on Kenneth Lee, who discovered the Llanos de Moxos while working as a Shell geologist/wildcatter. It's an interesting tale of a lifelong obsession. My brother would love it: he's a bit of the type and would probably give his eye teeth to go there and see these giant causeways and raised fields. Lee dedicated his life to these massive earthworks he saw from the air. He dedicated himself to documenting these works and speculating about how a great culture, almost as big as the region's current population, could have existed in the Amazon basin, with its very poor soils and rough conditions. His speculations have been shown to work, in the present if not the past. Very interesting story about one man who decided to change the world around him by bringing the wisdom of the past into the present.
The same site has another article (different version) on Kenneth Lee's legacy in the Beni. Unfortunately, word never really got out as to what the findings were that came out of the local region: