Adventures In Pediatric Dentistry

Had a little bit of excitement last night. Just as my wife and I were about to go out (and moments before the babysitter arrived), Jenna, our soon-to-be-four-year-old daughter, did a face plant on the kitchen floor and halfway knocked out her front tooth.

Ouch.

So, we called the dentist and he agreed to meet us at his office (it was about 6:30). We called the babysitter and asked her to come a few minutes early. Then off we went to visit the dentist.

After applying some numbing gel to the gum, he gave the tooth a little wiggle and out it came. Jenna said "ow," the dentist said "done," and we were on our way home with the tooth securely held in a little pink treasure box. No tears, no problem. I was impressed.

This adventure wasn't entirely unexpected, in part because Jenna seems to have a knack for banging herself in the mouth. She also has a "special" (i.e. extra) tooth that's been growing in for a while now, pushing the recently departed front tooth to the side (and eroding the root). So, the dentist warned us a month or two ago this sort of thing might happen.

And last night, it did. I think I had a harder time than Jenna did (I don't stomach dental procedures very well - ugh - but I don't think Jenna noticed daddy's weak knees). She was very brave, very cooperative, and very, very excited about the prospect of the Tooth Fairy coming to visit.

This morning, she proudly showed me the quarter she found under her pillow. "The tooth fairy gave this to me because she loves me and thinks I'm beautiful," Jenna said.

That's so true, kiddo. That's so true...

Crazy search engine

Check out Google's latest competitor: Ms. Dewey.

Cooking with Rachael Ray

Another favorite, frequently-used Christmas present is a Rachel Ray cookbook. I've never actually seen her show, but after buying one of her cookbooks for someone else, I had to go back to the bookstore and get one for myself (using a Barnes & Noble gift certificate Santa brought me...).

I made spaghetti carbonera last night - haven't had that since I lived in Italy when I was a kid. Tonight I'm planning an Indian chicken dish (chicken tikka, I think?). I've really expanded the range of spices and ingredients I'm buying and using. It's a lot of fun exploring and experimenting with new foods, flavors, etc.

Yum-o!

Great Coffee

One of my favorite Christmas presents this year is a cool little italian-style stovetop espresso maker. It's supposedly a "3-cup" size, but I find it's just about right for one smallish serving.

The coffee it produces is dark, rich, hot and tasty. I love it.

I don't use it everyday, 'cause it does take a bit longer and as I said, it makes a smallish serving. But on the weekends in particular, it's a great way to start the morning.

Holy Cow It's Cold!

Wow. My little thermometer in the bathroom window said "-0" when I got up today.

That's right - not just zero. Negative zero.

I think that's where all motion stops, right? Winter apparently decided to make an appearance this year after all...

Culture Change & Shocks

There's a fairly well established sense that in order for leaders to help bring about meaningful innovation, organizational success, making a difference, etc... they have to start by instituting some sort of culture change.

As I began thinking about this, I came up with 3 categories of things that bring about large scale, enduring culture change:

New Blood

Time

A Shock To The System

But, New Blood is primarily a special case of Time (particularly in the case of a new generation). And both Time and New Blood are basically forms of shocks to the system. Which gets me down to one category.

So... after quite a bit of thought and conversation with lots of smart people, I've come to conclude that cultures change when there is a Shock To The System. Such as:

1) An influx of immigrants (Ellis Island, Irish Potato Famine, etc)

2) The arrival of a new generation

3) The march of time (measured in decades - see #2 above)

4) The discovery of gold, oil, etc

5) A sudden attack (9/11, Pearl Jarbor, etc)

6) A new tech breakthrough (fire, aircraft, iPod, etc)

No doubt there are other types of change-inducing Shocks, but the point isn't to create an all-inclusive list. I wrote all this to ask the following question:

What sort of shocks to the system can a leader introduce, in their attempt to create positive culture change?

I'm still thinking about that one...

Ambient Findability

Just recieved a copy of a book titled Ambient Findability, by Peter Morville.

It's all about how people find their way through an age of information overload. It looks awesome.

The tag-line is "What We Find Changes Who We Become." I think that's an interesting thought.

Can't wait to dive in!

Painting

A few years back, I taught myself how to draw. My objective was to be able to sketch a face that looks reasonably like the face I was doing the sketch from. It was a lot of fun, and I eventually got fairly decent at it... and once I hit that point, as is my habit, I set the pencils aside and moved on to other things.

I've always wanted to learn to paint - and even went so far as to buy a bunch of brushes, paints, books, etc right around the time I was doing the sketching. I dabbled with the paints for a little while, but not very much (particularly compared to the pencil sketches). Pencils were just so much easier to carry around. Eventually, all my painting stuff all got misplaced or put away and generally forgotten.

In 2007, I'm going to re-engage with the paint. Watercolors, to be precise (and I seldom am). Now that I've got an office with a door that closes, I'm planning to spend at least one lunch-break each week, playing around and seeing what sort of marks I can make on the paper. The above shot is one of my first attempts.

Blog As Memory

In the past few weeks, I've used this blog as an external memory jogger about half a dozen times. When did I read my book at the kid's school? Where was the book reviewed? Where's the link to... whatever?

It reminds me of something Eric Raymond said in The Cathedral and the Bazaar: "Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great tool lends itself to uses you never expected.”

Blogs, in my opinion, are truly great tools... and they certainly lend themselves to uses I didn't expect.

Scribd - check it out!

I was recently invited to participate in a beta test for a site called Scribd. It's a site that lets you share and find documents online, and I've uploaded both The Boomer Sisters Meet Champy and Meet The Boomer Sisters.

It would be cool if you click on those links (at least one of 'em) and give me a vote... And maybe even upload a document or two of your own!

GK Chesterton's autobiography

I'm reading the autobiography of one of my literary heroes, G.K. Chesterton. It's a witty, insightful, amazing book, and I'd like to share a few excerpts with you. Here's the first line:

Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am firmly of the opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874...

Later on, talking about some stories and pictures he created with his brother when they were children, he writes:

"we never thought of doing anything with them, except enjoying them. It has sometimes struck me as not being a bad thing to do with things."

In a chapter titled "How To Be A Lunatic," he wrote a line that I will someday use as the introductory quote to my own autobiography... assuming I ever get around to writing one:

"When I look back on these things, and indeed on my life generally, the thing that strikes me most is my extraordinary luck."

This next quote made me think of my own little writing career, and the entirely unsuitable (& deliberately unsuitable) things I tend to submit for publication:

"What is really the matter, with almost every paper, is that it is much too full of things suitable for the paper."

And finally, here is a little bit of poetry he wrote, which makes me laugh every time I read it. It is actually the refrain to a longer ballad, which was inspired by a dinner party he attended, where he accidentally broke "an ordinary tumbler." The story of the broken glass quickly blossomed into a legend where the glass became "a vessel of inconceivable artistic and monetary value..." I love the fact that he wrote a ballad about a dinner party mishap.

Prince, when I took you goblet tall
And smashed it with inebriate care,
I knew not how from Rome and Gaul
You gained it; I was unaware
It stood by Charlemagne's great chair
And served St. Peter at High Mass.
I'm sorry if the thing was rare;
I like the noise of breaking glass.

Iraq Question

Can anyone tell me whose interests are served by keeping Iraq as a united country? I'm afraid the answer is the US, not the Iraqi's...

As I understand it, modern Iraq is essentially an artificial state, created in the aftermath of WWI. You don't need to pay much attention to the news to know that the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis don't like each other very much. I wonder if they might get along better if they each had their own places.

The Kurds basically have a semi-autonomous state already. I realize Turkey might get nervous about an independent Kurdish state on their border, since Turkey currently contains what is arguably Kurdish land.

The Sunni - Shiite balance of power in the region would no doubt be changed if Iraq split into a Sunni state and a Shiite state... somebody would end up allied with Iran, no doubt. Would that be worse (for the US) than what's happening now?

Of course, the big question is how to split the oil revenues. That's the question now, and that would be the question if Iraq became 2 or 3 new countries.

It's all quite messy, to be sure, and it's hard to predict exactly what would happen if they were allowed to split up. Ultimately, it's really too bad so many people in Iraq would rather blow each other up than co-exist. Maybe it's time to send them to their own corners, to cool off a bit. They could leave the reunification option open for the future, but it seems like it might be a bit premature to do it now.

But as I said, figuring out how to share all that oil would be difficult...

More Photos

Just some more fun photos - I've been playing with my cell phone lately.

My Gaelic Storm t-shirt

A close-up self portrait in the car.

This morning's sunrise, from my driveway

Ice Circles

I saw this partially-frozen puddle in the parking lot and it sort of grabbed my attention. Does anyone have an explanation for these rings? Any theories?

I'm guessing it took a few days for the rings to develop, as the puddle froze overnight, then lost some water during the day(evaporation or ground absorption), then froze again overnight.

In any case, it's cool to look at...

Rogue Leader

I snapped this photo of a page from Wired magazine - I like that it not only says "Rogue Leader," but also "Play games."

LOAC Training

I recently completed my Law Of Armed Conflict training (it's an annual requirement). One paragraph in particular jumped out at me, and I wanted to pass it along because, as my friend Gabe would say, it's so dang awesome:

What should you do if you think you've been given an illegal order? First, ask for clarification. Maybe the order was unclear, or you didn't understand it.

If you still think the order is illegal, try to get it withdrawn.

If that doesn't work, you must disobey it.

Happy 2007 everyone!

OK, I'm back! There's so much to catch up on, so much to blog about, and so much coffee to drink (I got a lot of coffee this Christmas. A s-s-s-s-s-serious lot of c-c-c-co-ff-ff-ff-ee-ee-ee. Bzzzzzz!).

Just a few quick notes:

1. Congrat's to my great friends Chris Quaid and Michele Weslander, on their wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and a fun party afterwards, and I'm so glad I was able to attend!
2. I am renewing my usual New Years Resolution: Don't Hit The Ground Running. That is, I plan to ease back in to my usual pace, rather than go from zero to 60 in one day (or one week). Wish me luck...
3. The Gillette Fusion is the best shave I've ever had (got some in my stocking). Now, I'm not particularly picky about razors, or even really interested in them, and I'm not a metrosexual or anything, but doggone, that's a remarkably close shave that lasts all day. Their website is interesting - not sure whether I like it or not, but it's interesting...
4. G.K. Chesterton's Autobiography is amazing (no surprise there). It's funny, insightful, easy to read, engaging, and everything you would expect a book by GKC to be. Other great reads lately: A Wrinkle In Time, The Starbucks Experience, Finding Serenity, and Beggars In Spain (sorry - you'll have to find your own links).
5. My second children's novel, The Boomer Sisters Meet Champy, is finished and in stores now. Well, it's in stores in Plattsburgh NY, where most of the action takes place. Getting it into other stores is one of my other goals for 2007.

I hope you all had a great holiday season, and I look forward to continuing this blog conversation in the months to come!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

This is probably my last blog post of 2006. I'll be back in the swing of things on January 2nd, and I'll see you there!

I hope you all have a happy, safe, peaceful and joyful Christmas season!

(this painting is by John Howard Sanden)

Boomers #2!

The second book in the Boomer Sisters series is now complete and ready for purchase! It's titled The Boomer Sisters Meet Champy, and you can get your copy at RoguePress.

In this story, the girls are hunting for Champy, the elusive creature rumored to live in Lake Champlain. They literally get to the bottom of the lake's mysteries (and I do mean literally). Along the way, there's comedy, peril, adventure, mystery, science, gardening, and - of course - the quirky Uncle Q. There's also a computer named Pistachio, an injured loon, and a secret elevator that takes you to a secret laboratory. Who doesn't love that!

Along with being a fun mystery / adventure story, this book is also a commentary on the nature of faith and the value of mystery... but not in a heavy-handed way (I hope).

It's generally aimed at kids in the 2nd through 4th grades, but younger kids (and older!) will probably enjoy it as well.

Enjoy!

Latest AT&L - Quaid & Ward Profile

Everyone's favorite defense acquisition magazine, Defense AT&L, just posted their latest edition (Jan/Feb 07) online. This month, instead of an article by Quaid & Ward, there's a pretty cool little "Meet The Workforce" profile of us.

Fun!

An Inconvenient Truth

I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth movie last night. I thought it was really good, despite the unnecessary (& incongruous) vignette about Gore losing the 2000 election.

The film certainly simplified some of the science and some of the data, and not entirely in a good way. This oversimplification was probably necessary, of course, given the limitations of the medium and the need to present a story in only 2 hours, but climate dynamics are actually more dynamic and mysterious than the film would indicate (although Mr. Gore did use the word mysterious once, describing climate behavior, which I thought was very good).

But, despite the oversimplification, it's still a good & important movie. The data he presents was compelling. He does have a tendency to make subjective judgments ("this is high" - but compared to what?) and weak comparisons ("Earth's atmosphere is thin" - again, compared to what?), but setting aside these and some other rhetorical flourishes, it's pretty clear we are putting too much pollution into the air. We could & should pollute a lot less. Our pollution is affecting the environment in many bad ways. Those points are hard to argue with.

I would have liked to hear more about the earth's tendency to regulate & stabilize itself. For example, increased CO2 levels & increased temperatures will lead to increased plant growth. And what do plants do? They absorb CO2 from the atmosphere - so more plants equals less CO2, which should have a cooling (& stabilizing) effect. Check out Daisy World for an interesting model that describes the impact of biodiversity on environmental stabilization.

One other point: correlation does not prove causality. That is, just because two things happen at the same time, doesn't mean one caused the other. For example, monkeys eat bananas. Monkeys have tails. Therefore, eating bananas makes you grow a tail. Silly logic, right? I'm not saying Mr. Gore fell into that trap, but in the movie, he didn't fully demonstrate that he'd avoided it. He probably did avoid it - I just would have liked to hear him mention it.

There's a lot more that could be said about the movie, positively and negatively. The bottom line is that it's a good film. You should watch it.

Blogger Etiquette

I'm still sort of new to this whole blogging thing (aren't we all?). So, I'm coming to understand the still-developing etiquette about blogging, and thought I'd pass along what I've learned. Let me know if I missed anything.

1) If you're a blogger, blog. Don't post something once a month and expect people to keep checking, just in case today is the day. Post something several times a week (daily is best, of course). In other words, go big or go home.

2) If you're a reader, participate. You don't need to leave a comment on every entry of every blog you read, but please do make it a point to leave at least an occasional comment, even if it's just "Good point" (for a clever post) or "LOL" (for a funny post). Nobody likes a lurker. (def lurker: slang term for a person who reads a blog regularly but never leaves a comment").

3) If you're a blogger, reply to the comments people leave - participation works both ways. If someone leaves a comment on your blog, the polite thing to do is acknowledge that comment (Thanks to Trevor Gay for setting a great example of this).

OODA Loop!

One of John Boyd's better known contributions to the world is the Observe - Orient - Decide - Act loop, also known as the OODA Loop. It's become a pretty important concept, for both business and military strategists. I ran across an actual OODA Loop while driving on Maxwell Air Force Base, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Being the Boyd fan that I am, I naturally had to turn my car around, find a place to park, walked over with my camera phone, and snapped this picture.

Finding this street sign was, hands down, the highlight of this trip.

Peril

I'm reading a book titled "Finding Serenity," about the (now cancelled) tv show Firefly. Great show, great book. One line from the director, Joss Whedon stood out in particular:

"Take characters, give them peril..."

He didn't say to put characters in peril. He said to "give them peril." I love the idea of peril as a gift. It really is. A lack of peril makes you soft, in real life as well as in fiction. Surviving peril puts a spring in your step, and makes you proud & confident. Perils strengthens people and bonds groups together.

My girls are taking ice skating lessons. This past week, they weren't quite off the ice yet when the hockey players (who have the rink after the skaters) came on. To make a long story short, the hockey boys knocked some of the skating girls down. They got pretty close to my girls. Bethany stuck close to her little sister, to help keep her safe. Afterwards, she said she stood up as tall as she could to help protect Jenna. I'm so proud (and so is she).

Yes, I'm pretty peeved at the hockey coach & the boys. Yes, I'm going to talk with the coach (I wasn't there at the time). No, I don't want this sort of thing to happen again. But the fact is, the experience wasn't all bad...

A thing worth doing...

G.K. Chesterton observed "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing poorly." It's one of my favorite (and most often used) GKC quotes.

Today, I heard a new twist on that line: If a thing is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well.

I like that. Being good at irrelevant or pointless activities isn't something to be proud of (and yet, we so often are!).

I wonder what other observations or twists you, my faithful & well-groomed readers, might have on these quotes. How else can we finish the sentence "If a thing is / is not worth doing..."?

I await your responses...

DaNoTyMo Finished!

Whew! I've finished typing The Boomer Sisters Meet Champy. I know, I'm cutting it pretty close if I want to get it under the tree in time for Christmas. Doing the final copy editing and typo-hunting now, and plan to place my order in a few days.

I'm sure the Christmas version (for family) will have a typo or two in it... but I plan to get those all figured out before putting it in stores.

More to follow...

On The Road (again)

Sigh - I'm taking a little trip to Alabama, so my blogging will be light (if at all) for a few days. I've never been to Alabama, so I'm curious to see what it's like, but I really dislike traveling, particularly so close to Christmas.

But, at least it's a short trip.

Peace!

Movin' On Up...

Got my official assignment notification this morning... I report to the Air Force Institute of Technology on 21 Aug 07, to begin 18 months of full-time student-ness. Very exciting!

(DaNoTyMo Update - I'm into chapter 11 now, approx 15,000 words. The end is almost in sight!)

New version of Blogger

I just transitioned to the new "beta" version of this blog. The only difference most of you will notice is the ability to add tags to the posts - which should make it easier to find stuff. I don't imagine I'll go back and tag all my previous posts (maybe just the Simplicity Cycle ones), but I'll try to add tags from here on out.

Boomer Update

Book 1: I just received my first copies of the illustrated version of Meet The Boomer Sisters. It looks fantastic! They really did a great job at the printers, and I've already delivered a stack to the local toyshop. The toy store lady said my book has sold faster than any other local author's book she's seen. Cool!

Book 2: I'm nearly at 14,000 words (typed) on the second Boomer Sisters book. It's not going as fast as I'd hoped, but I'm confident I'll get it done & edited in time for Christmas (but just barely... and only because Lulu is so dang fast).

Connections...

I'm baaaaaack!

Just returned from a little roadtrip to the Boston area. Had a great time, lots of meetings with fascinating people, but no internet connectivity. All in all, quite worth while.

The first guy I met, at a company called Continuum, turned out to be a Clarkson grad, just like me. He said (among other things), that he would like to do some work with the Army's Soldier Systems Center, in Natick MA.

The second guy I met is a professor at Olin College. Guess where his wife works? Yup - Natick's Soldier Systems Center. So I'm going to introduce the two of them. And the professor used to work at Disney's Imagineering shop - so he knows Danny Hillis and Bran Ferren, the two main dudes at Applied Minds, which is the company doing the development for my Aristotle project. The professor said he's looking for better software development methodologies.

The third group I met with (the next day) mentioned a programming language called Water. It's a new language optimized for rapidly prototyping XML Web services, and apparently you can learn it in about 15 minutes. Don't know for sure if it's what Olin needs, but I'm definitely going to pass it along.

The only way all these connections could have been better would be if I'd done my meetings in reverse order, and been able to establish the connections on the spot.

It's a funny world.

Fear...

"Fear is a form of incompetence."

True? False? Discuss among yourselves - leave comments here...

Dano's Tymo Update

Dan's Novel Typing Month (Dano Tymo) update: I got into Chapter 7 this morning. Wordcount: 9246 words.

whew, are my fingers tired...

Post-Oil Era, part 2

Based on a comment my earlier posting received, I wanted to clarify that when I talk about the "post-oil era," I'm talking about the demand for oil drying up, not the supply.

We will figure out how to run our cars on something else, whether it's batteries or hydrogen or biodiesel. My prediction is that Western countries will lose interest in oil (at least as a motor fuel) long before the middle eastern wells are empty.

And if we go the electric vehicle route, I wonder what all the gas stations will do? I suppose we could just turn them all into Starbucks...

Boomers Illustrations

Thought you might like to see some of the illustrations Mandy did for the Boomers book. You can peruse the entire thing by clicking the Preview link at Rogue Press.

Major Book News!

Three exciting developments in the Dan Ward Publishing Empire:

1) I finished The Boomer Sisters Meet Champy. That's right, today is the final day of NaNoWriMo, and this morning at the breakfast table, I wrote those two magic words: The End. My second children's novel is now complete (at least the first draft). And since I did it by hand in a series of spiral notebooks, Dan's Novel Typing Month (DaNoTyMo) begins tomorrow. Not nearly as exciting, no doubt, but fun in its own way. My goal is to have it typed, edited and polished in time to upload it to Lulu and get some copies to put under the Christmas tree.

2) I finished the illustrated version of the first Boomer Sisters book, Meet The Boomer Sisters last night. It's got a new cover (shown here) and a series of amazing illustrations, compliments of the talented and generous Mandy Hoelmer.

3) The local toy shop called last night to say they were all sold out of Meet The Boomer Sisters, and could I please confirm my address so they can mail me a check, and could I please bring by some more copies soon. I told them I'd not only bring some by, but they would be the new, illustrated version. If all goes well, I might even be able to get some copies of Boomers #2 on their shelves before Christmas. We'll see...

So - exciting stuff. I wonder what's going to happen next.

In Bubble Wrap

How could I leave In Bubble Wrap off my list of Must Visit sites? I get an email from them every day, with an opportunity to win a free book. I've won three or four by now, most notably The Apple Way and More Space. I think I got my copy of Ricardo Semler's The Seven Day Weekend from them too, but I don't recall. It's WAY easy to sign up, and like I said, you have a chance to win a new cool book every day.

It's actually a pretty interesting way to publicize a book. Authors / publishers provide IBW with 20 copies of the book to be given away, and the In Bubble Guy sends an email out to loads of people... generating buzz, awareness, interest, etc.

Also, I just found out that IBW's first offer ever was for Sally Hogshead's Radical Careering. IBW is related to 800 CEO Read, which is another pretty cool site.

Bad Design Kills

A very funny, somewhat informative site about the impact bad design can have - on presentations as well as systems. I mostly like the name: Bad Design Kills. Too true!

The Middle East in the Post Oil Era

It's going to happen. Some day, sooner or later, we're going to shake free from our dependence on oil. We'll figure out how to run our cars on hydrogen, solar power, electricity, or some other sort of non-petrol fuel.

What happens to the Middle East then?

I wonder how much they're doing to prepare for that day. Maybe they're all over it, and I'm just not in the loop (it's possible). What I do see is Middle Eastern countries spending millions (billions) on gilded hotel lobbies, swimming pools in the desert, and other silly, trivial consumables. If you ask me, they should be building technical universities, learning to write software, design things, build things, etc... Otherwise, once we kick the oil habit, they're stuck (and it's going to happen, sooner than they think).

Why do I care? It's not entirely altruistic, I admit. I care because chaos in that part of the world tends to have an impact over here. And as Tom Peters said in a similar topic, I'd rather have a million well educated, employed people in India (doing "our jobs") than a million starving, angry people in India, looking at us.... Same goes for the Middle East.

There Must Be 15 Ways To Leave Your Laptop

Joel On Software is a very cool resource for anyone who wants to read intelligent, insightful, memorable articles about software design. Joel is funny, engaging and mercifully brief. His stuff always references software, but I think the design principles he addresses apply across a wide field of work.

His most recent article looks at the 15 - count 'em, 15 - ways to shut down your laptop. His point? That's about 14 ways too many. Here's an excerpt

Inevitably, you are going to think of a long list of intelligent, defensible reasons why each of these options is absolutely, positively essential. Don't bother. I know. Each additional choice makes complete sense until you find yourself explaining to your uncle that he has to choose between 15 different ways to turn off a laptop.

Naturally, this made me think of my Simplicity Cycle. Specifically, it made me think of the Region of the Complicated, and of all the rationalizations we make on our journey to that space. Every additional piece of complication can be justified and defended... but in aggregate, these little decisions lead to confusion, frustration and unhappiness.

Read his article. It's short, easy to grasp, and definitely worth the time.

NaNoWriMo Update

I finished Chapter 15 this morning. The girls were in an experimental sub, looking for Champy (the Lake Champlain monster). Things went wrong, they ended up at the bottom of the lake, the lights went out... etc, etc... but at the end of Chapter 15, they were back on the surface, safe & sound. The story is almost over...

Casualty Count Update: For those who are keeping track, pen #3 bit the dust over the weekend. I sat down and literally wrote the first two letters of a 3-letter word (I believe it was "she"), when the ink just stopped coming out.

NaNoWriMo Update!

I wrapped up Chapter 12 this morning - left the two main characters in a certain amount of peril (and it's just going to get more perilous before it's over). I estimate there are three more chapters left. I'm cruising along at better than the 1/2 a chapter a day pace I needed to finish all 15 chapters in 30 days. We'll see what sort of impact Thanksgiving has...

BTW, the illustrated version of the original Boomer Sisters book is coming out soon too, probably right around the same time as this second book is finished. So... if you've got elementary school kids on your Christmas list, I know of two books you could pick up, coming soon!

My Online Life

What did we do before the internet? Who cares. Here's a little peak at some of my favorite internet goodies - the stuff I use every day.

Gmail! It's the first browser window I open each morning. Whoever invented webmail is a genius. Whoever designed Gmail is a double genius.

Bloglines! My second stop is an RSS feed to help me keep on top of a whole set of blogs. My list includes daily updates from The Creative Generalist, Dilbert, and a few of my friend's blogs (i.e. Trevor Gay's Simplicity blog).

Tom Peters! I like to read his stuff in full-screen (& leave comments), so I don't have his blog on my Bloglines list. I just go directly to the site. Same with Hugh McLeod's Gaping Void blog.

Pandora! It's an online streaming music feed, and I've created a handful of "stations," depending on the type of music I'm in the mood for. I have it on almost all day.

Rocketboom! The coolest video blog (vlog) out there. Mostly internet / tech trends, but plenty of other cool stuff. The host Joanne Colan has a delightful british accent...

At some point, I usually check some news sites, like CNN or Drudge (though I'm less impressed with both of these sources lately).

Blogger! That's where this blog is hosted.

What's on your list of daily must-reads, must-use, or must-access?

Timing

I just discovered that if I save a draft post, then finish it a few days later, it is posted to this site under the date it was begun, not the date it was finished.

So if you scroll down a bit, you'll see a new post titled "Why I havent' been fired." I started it two days ago but didn't click "publish" until this morning, and rather than putting it on top of the stack, Blogger hid it below other bits I'd posted over the past few days.

I'm sure there's a way to adjust that (other than deleting it and re-doing it fresh)... but for now, I'll just point it out.

NaNoWriMo Casualty Count

As I wrote the first half of chapter 10 this morning, my pen ran out of ink. That's the second time I've killed a pen while writing The Boomer Sisters Meet Champy during this Novel Writing Month. I think it's some sort of personal record.

The last time this happened was on an airplane two weeks ago. I had to borrow a new pen from the flight attendant so I could write chapter 6. At least this morning I was able to grab another one right away, and didn't have to wait for the drink cart to make it all the way to the back of the plane.

I may not have an accurate word count, but my pen count is up to two now.

Integrity & Loyalty

Pfc. John J. Jodka III was sentenced to 18 months for his role in the killing of an Iraqi civilian. He was the youngest and lowest-ranking member of a squad, other members of which are facing quite severe penalties.

On the radio this morning, Jodka was described as "feeling torn between loyalty to his squad and his own integrity." In Iraq, he chose loyalty over integrity, with disaterous results. Back in the states, however, he was quoted as saying:

"I decided to plead guilty because in the end it was the right thing to do," Jodka said. "I had to weigh in myself the need for truth as opposed to the loyalty to the squad I had bonded with in Iraq."

I have long contended that loyalty is overrated, and I'm glad to see Pfc Jodka was eventually able to recognize that there are higher virtues. Loyalty is good, but it doesn't trump things like honor, integrity, justice, etc. Loyalty in service of integrity is powerful and positive, but when divorced from integrity, loyalty can be downright evil.

I hope this case gets people thinking about the real meaning and proper role of loyalty. I hope the USMC (and others) will make it clear that moral actions require us to demonstrate loyalty to truth and loyalty to justice, ahead of loyalty to individual people.

Fit Is Go!

We picked up our new car yesterday, and I'm totally loving it. It's a Honda Fit, and I'd never even heard of such a thing until about a month ago. The color is "Nighthawk Black Pearl," which makes me laugh.

It's zippy, roomy and supposedly gets great gas mileage (hard to tell - it's only been two days - but I guess I'll take their word for it).

You can do all kinds of cool things with the seats, including laying the front seats completely flat and turning it into a bed-like interior ("refresh mode").

The 7 year warranty means I'll probably have this car until I'm ready to retire from the AF. That's a strange thought.

NaNoWriMo Update

I had a GREAT time writing this morning. Lots of pieces of the story came together, scenes I hadn't expected, character & story development jumped to the next level, and the whole thing continues to surprise me... I think it's my favorite chapter yet.

I usually wrap up by 0700 and head in to work - today I didn't leave the house until 0730 (gasp!). I'm still writing it by hand in a spiral notebook, so I don't have a word count, but Chapter 9 is now 90% finished (I expect to have somewhere around 16 chapters). I probably won't get around to typing it until this paper draft is finished.

NaNoWriMo rocks!

Why I Haven't Been Fired...

While I was at Death Valley with the Association of Managers of Innovation, someone asked a wonderful question after my presentation: "Why haven't you been fired yet?" I've been thinking about that one a lot, and I'd like to share my answers - or at least, my best guess at an explanation for how I've managed to avoid getting the axe.

1) Luck. I'm genuinely lucky, and can't take much credit for many of the good things that have happened to me. I seem to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time, meeting the right people, etc. Tom Peters explains the dynamics of getting lucky much better than I can.

2) I've had some really great bosses (you know who you are). I refuse to be badly managed, and when I have a bad boss, I've managed to move on rather quickly. It's my life, so I try to make it a point to hire good bosses and fire bad ones. Which leads to number three...

3) Moving Target Theory. I don't stay in one place very long, partly because of the nature of my business, and partly by design. Moving Target Theory is my buddy Quaid's attempt to quantify and define the mechanism which has saved our butts on more than one occasion.

4) Great customers. When the chain of command is throwing daggers my way, it's helped to have customers who were willing to step in and say "This guy is helping save lives, rescue hostages, etc, etc."

5) The Rogue Program Manager's Art of War. More wisdom from my buddy Quaid, these 8-and-a-half axioms form the basis of our manual of arms for the Global War on Bureaucracy, and they help keep my biscuits out of the fire.

6) The truth is, I have been fired. Well, not really, but I once had an annual performance review significantly downgraded by a powerful dude (my boss's boss's boss's boss...). He was unhappy about the fact that a different division had recruited me away from his division. I am prouder of that review than almost any other. There's something profoundly cool about being punished for doing the right thing, and that review is a professional battle scar I carry gladly.

7) Paradoxically, I can't be fired. Sure, I can be removed from a job, passed over for promotion, kicked out of the service, court-martialed, etc... but short of putting me in jail, I will always be able to continue with my career, regardless of the specifics of my job. To paraphrase Obi Wan, firing me would only make me stronger.

Freedom & Integrity

At a recent meeting (which will remain anonymous), someone said something along the lines of "Well, that would be the smart thing to do, but we'd get in trouble for doing it..."

For the sake of argument, let's grant the validity of that negative fantasy (i.e. we'll be punished for doing something smart). Even in that unlikely case, I think we should still do the smart thing, the right thing, consequences be damned.

The funny thing is, the consensus in the room was that since "we'd get in trouble," the smart option was off the table. The group quickly moved on to the dumb options. It wasn't a question of wanting to chose one's battles carefully. It was more like a desire to avoid all battles in the first place. Nobody questioned what type of trouble, how much trouble, or even whether the trouble was real.

Frankly, it disgusted me. I expected more fearlessness & courage, more creativity & energy from that group than I saw that day. I expected more integrity. Like I said, I was disgusted.

I believe we always have the freedom to do the right thing & the smart thing. We may suffer unfair consequences for doing the right thing. People might think we're fools. But nobody can force me to violate my own convictions. We can ignore corporate pressure if we choose to do so. We can trust our own judgement, if we're willing to pay the price. The alternative is, in my humble opinion, absolutely unacceptable.

The old advice to "pick your battles carefully" has been twisted and misapplied by timid, fearful, cynical bureaucrats. They're not picking battles at all. They are simply protecting their own interests and sacrificing the interests of their customers, subordinates, supervisors and organization. I'm not saying we should fight every battle that comes along... just that we should probably stand up for Truth, Justice and the American Way more often than we do.

The truth is, you probably won't get in trouble for doing the smart thing... and even if you do, at least you've done the smart thing. That's worth something.

If you're working in an organization that punishes people for following their convictions and using their own judgement, I've got one word of advice: Run!

As Sally Hogshead pointed out in her book Radical Careering, "Being in a crap job isn't your fault. Staying in a crap job is." (Radical Truth #19)

Be Kind...

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."—Philo of Alexandria

(found this on Tom Peters' blog this morning & wanted to pass it along)

Short Downward Flights

I recently acquired a copy of a book titled Progress in Flying Machines, by Octave Chanute.

As you might guess by the guy's first name, he lived a long time ago. He was born in 1832, and came to the US from Paris with his parents at the age of 6.

He published Progress in 1894. The Smithsonian Institute recommended Wilber Wright read it, as he and his brother began their pioneering work.

The US Air Force eventually named Chanute Air Force Base after good old Octave. (My dad was stationed at Chanute for a few years, when I was a kid, and I have many fond memories of that area. The base was closed in 1993).

I mention this because, aside from being a fascinating look at the history of failed attempts at manned flight, there's a very funny line, describing the aviation experiments of a French locksmith named Besnier. He designed the clever contraption pictured here, and Chanute said he "took short downward flights aided by gravity."

Short downward flights aided by gravity? I think there's another name for that: falling.

The Rules of Jazz

I heard a thing on NPR this morning about jazzman Ornette Coleman. Apparently he's quite the avant-garde musician, and a controversial figure in the jazz community. He's got a new album out called Sound Grammar, and it sounds like it's quite good.

One line from the radio piece stuck out to me - enough that I wrote it down in my notebook while barreling along the interstate:

"He was accused of arbitrarily breaking the rules of jazz."

Wow. That accusation alone makes him my new hero. I aspire to be accused of arbitrarily breaking the rules of jazz. Someday, if I manage to live up to the Pirate-y, Rogue-ish, status-quo-defying standards I'm aiming for, I hope someone says the same thing of me. To "arbitrarily break the rules of jazz" is a remarkable feat.

Someone Keeps Stealing My Letters!

RocketBoom recently mentioned this hilarious website. It's basically a virtual refridgerator door, covered with colored letters which anyone can move around.

The thing is, everyone else on the site can move around the same letters you're moving around. So you might try to spell something, only to have a critical letter swiped by someone trying to leave a message of their own.

Of course, some people write bad words :( but their letters tend to get swiped pretty quickly.

The fun isn't limited to writing your name. I saw an impromptu contest where some people were trying to move all the letters to the right side of the screen, while some other people were trying to move them all to the left side. I assume someone started with one side, and someone else (or more than one someone) started doing the opposite. That made me laugh, 'cause I knew there was no communication between them other than the movement of the letters.

I tried sorting the letters by color, and was immediately countered by people trying to keep it mixed up. You could also try finishing someone else's word, preferably turning it into something other than what they were obviously writing (i.e. if they've got "LOV" and are moving an E into place at the end, add a G to the front and turn their LOVE into GLOVE). Trust me, it's hilarious, but maybe you had to be there.

No doubt there are lots of other games & contests you can play. I just think it's interesting to watch what happens when people come to a shared space like this, with their own agendas and ideas. What would you do?

Giant Monkey Wrench Hits Fan - Outcome Uncertain!

You wouldn't think a weekend would get in the way of writing, but it managed to. We went to New York City to visit my Mother-In-Law. Had a great time - saw the Bronx Zoo, which was fantastic.

But I didn't get much writing done. Like, maybe a page. I did manage to do a little research, but research isn't writing.

And this morning, I overslept a bit. As I've probably mentioned, most of my writing occurs at 5am. So I didn't get any writing done this morning.

I'm sure I'll catch up, but yikes - I've got some real catching up to do!

Imperfectionism

Last August, I wrote an article about Imperfectionism for Rogue Project Leader. Imperfectionism is a positive, enthusiastic and productive philosophy, and I wanted to pass it along to any of you who didn't catch the original article the first time. Here's a short excerpt to get you started:

It's amazing how much you can get done in a short amount of time if you don't care whether it's perfect or not. No doubt that sentiment will amuse some readers and disturb others, but I've found it to be true.

As several of you have surely noticed, I am quite content to create things with flaws, mostly because I know I'm going to do so whether I want to or not. That is, I am content to create what I can create, and I try not to insist on that which cannot be done. My satisfaction is based on the presence of something good, not the absence of all flaws.

I just feel bad for perfectionists. They deprive themselves of so much happiness by focusing on the bad rather than rejoicing in the good.

I hope you all enjoy the Imperfectionism article, particularly my NaNoWriMo friends out there, who are elbow-deep in highly imperfect novels. Keep writing!

It's a beautiful thing, this imperfectionism.

Proximity...

It's been said that possession is nine tenths of the law. It hit me the other day that proximity is nine-tenths of leadership.

That is, if you're in a situation that calls for leadership, don't worry about whether or not it's "your job." You're there, so do something.

The other implication is that leadership is nine-tenths proximity. If you're a leader, it's important to be around...

Boomer Sisters Book Review

I recently got a copy of "Book Banter," a publication of the New York State Reading Association (thanks, Mom!). In the Summer 2006 issue, they've got a very nice review of Meet The Boomer Sisters!

I'll skip their plot summary and just get right to the good stuff:

The moral of the tale is quite clear and will be perceived even by younger readers, but the "lesson" doesn’t overwhelm the entertaining narrative. This is an interesting and well written book, by a promising new author. Meet The Boomer Sisters will be enjoyed particularly by Middle Schoolers and should make a great read-aloud for Second and Third Graders as well.

Not bad for a 30-day project, eh? Sure, I did a few minor edits and tweaks after the month was over, but they were mostly fixing a few typo's. Nothing substantial.

The point? People can produce stuff that's worth reading during NaNoWriMo. (And you can publish them in time for Christmas at Lulu.com). So, to all my fellow NaNoWriMo'ers out there - keep it up! You can TOTALLY do it! And if you're writing a kid's novel, I look forward to reading NYSRA's review of it next summer!

And to those who haven't yet joined in the NaNoWriMo insanity, there's always next year!

Good Writing

A thought for my fellow NaNoWriMo'ers...

"It has often been said, by numerous experts in the fields of writing and communication, that good writers should always endeavor to, when ever possible, omit any and all instances of words which are unnecessary, for the sake of the clarity and quality of their writing projects."

- or -

Omit unnecessary words.
-William Strunk

Simplicity Cycle Update

I recently came across something called The State Explosion Problem. Basically, it says the state space grows exponentially with the number of components.

In other words, adding pieces increases the range of possible "states" very, very quickly...

In the framework of the Simplicity Cycle, this describes life in the Region of the Complicated. Once you hit the critical mass of complexity (found in the Region of the Complex at the center of the chart), any further increases in complexity result in a decrease in goodness - movement up and to the left. I think the State Explosion Problem helps to mathematically explain why that's the case.

On the road

I'll be on the road for a few days, so I might be blog-less for a day or two. I'm actually working on the illustrated version of the first Boomer Sisters book at the moment, but I'll leve you with this thought for today:

Before answering the question "What would you do for a million dollars?" maybe you should ask yourself "What would you do with a million dollars?" (otherwise, you might end up hitting a target and not knowing why).

My favorite answer to that "with" question comes from G. K. Chesterton (of course). He said something along the lines of eating, drinking, and throwing the rest of the money around. "I don't mean give it to charity. I mean literally throwing it around." (he might have said "tossing" - anyone want to find the actual quote?)

Pow! Right Between The Eyes!

One of my favorite blogs is The Creative Generalist. Today, he posted a link to Andy Nulman's blog about surprise, titled Pow! Right Between The Eyes!

What's that, you ask? A whole blog dedicated to the experience of surprise? Wow, that's sort of, well, surprising...

Yes! It's wonderful, chock-full of observations like Surprise Shocks Euphorically.

Everyone's a kid at Disneyland. Duh, I know, but he builds it into an insightful perspective on the importance, effect, and value of surprise.

Check him out...

Intimidating

I'm chugging along on my NaNoWriMo project, and still making good progress... but this morning, I began to realize how much larger this novel is going to be than what I'd originally imagined... and how inadequate & incomplete my plot outline is. There's a lot of stuff happening in the story which didn't make it into my thin little outline... and I imagine I'll have to redo the outline entirely before too long.

Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just write.

In any case, overwhelming & intimidating tho it might be, it's still a lot of fun. A lot of work, yes, but a lot of fun.

NaNoWriMo Update

Finished the first draft of Chapter 2 this morning. No word count yet - it's all still in a notebook.

I'm really enjoying it, and the story is surprising me already. I'm working off an outline I put together a few weeks ago, and am already diverging a bit from it. Specifically, some action I planned to include in Chapter 2 has been pushed back to Ch 3... and some new stuff has been introduced that I'll have to work in somehow.

Very exciting! Very fun! More to follow!

Clap Hands!

I'm really digging Beck's new song Clap Hands, after seeing him perform on SNL last week. Sadly, the YouTube clip of the SNL performance was removed (doggone copyright law!), but this clip is pretty good too. The SNL one was better, 'cause it occasionally replaced the performers with marionettes of the performers, ala Team America. Enjoy!

NaNoWriMo starts!

It's November, and National Novel Writing Month has begun!

At some point in November, I'm sure I'll blog about a different topic, but today I just want to say: Chapter 1, draft 1, is complete!

Chapter two, draft 1, begins at lunchtime...

No Feet...

When I was at RPI last week, I stopped into the restroom to, ahem, have a rest. Upon completion of said rest, I noticed a sign posted above the sink. It said: "Please Do Not Wash Feet In The Sink." Some joker had penciled in "You are not at Union College," but as far as I can tell, the ban on feet washing was serious.

Even setting intercollegiate rivalries aside, I think it's a darn funny sign. I'm thinking of posting a few around here, in a similar vein. Maybe one near the water fountain (Please Do Not Wash Your Hair In The Water Fountain). Maybe one inside the locker room door at the gym (Pants are mandatory beyond this point).

There's so much potential for humor here... I'd love to hear your ideas (or better yet, I'd love to see photos of signs you've created and posted in your place of work, community, etc).

Happy Halloween!

NaNoWriMo Starts Tomorrow!

Ladies & Gentlemen, start your writing engines!

Tomorrow, November 1st, is the start of National Novel Writing Month. I plan to spend as many waking moments as possible working on my next Boomer Sisters novel (The Boomer Sisters Meet Champy). The plot is laid, the pencils are sharp, the notebook is waiting... and I'm very, very excited.

I'll probably blog less during November. I'll probably be slower in responding to emails. I'll probably sleep way too little and drink coffee way too much. We all have to make sacrifices for our art, eh?

Novel #2, here I come!

Time

You can't save time
(where would you keep it?)

You can't make time
(from what would you craft it?)

You can't find time
(where would you look for it?)

You can't steal time
(from whom would you take it?)

You can only spend time
You can only spend time.

- Dan Ward

If in doubt...

I read Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void blog every day. I link to it less frequently, because he is profane as often as he's profound. His main claim to fame is drawing little cartoons on the back of business cards, and he's also written two essays which I find particularly insightful: The Hughtrain Mainfesto and How To Be Creative.

Every once in a while, he creates something that really grabs my brain. Today's words-only cartoon (above) sort of jumped out at me, so I figured I'd pass it along. This cartoon is another of my favorites:

Cats & Meat

Sheikh Hilaly, Australia's top Muslim cleric, got a lot of attention recently for comparing women who dress immodestly to "uncovered meat." He apparently got a bit of criticism two years ago when he apparently glorified martyrdom and called the 9/11 attacks "the work of God." Sounds like a real nice fella.
Now, I'm all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, and I understand the news media isn't perfect. Maybe it's all just a big misunderstanding and his comments are all out of context. Maybe. Plus, he supposedly apologized for the comments, and has been suspended from preaching for 3 months. That sounds too short to me, but I'll take it...

I'm a little bit curious why nobody is complaining about his comparison of men to cats, as if we are all driven simply by our appetites. I think that's more than a little insulting, and I think it has something to do with the fact that Islam isn't about redemption & re-creation, but instead is theologically focused on repression. At its core, Islam's perspective on humanity is that we need to be controlled, rather than set free. I think that's pretty awful.

The whole hijab thing seems more rooted in a (negative) belief that men can't control themselves than in a positive appreciation for modesty. I'm all for modesty, and I believe there's something wrong with dressing like the cover of Cosmo. But the head-to-toe black covering isn't about modesty. It's about externally-imposed control (on both women and men), because self-control is basically impossible (according to Islam). Thus the restrictions on men and women socializing, women driving, etc. It all says people can't be trusted, and that says a lot about Islam.

In a Ramadan sermon last month, Hilaly said sexual assaults might not happen if women wore a hijab and stayed at home.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem," Hilaly said, according to a newspaper translation.

Ohio - Here We Come!

I just found out that I was selected to go to the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) for something called Intermediate Developmental Education (IDE). It's a 12 month program where I'll get a masters in Air & Space Systems Engineering. Whoo-hoo!

It's an exciting opportunity, and I'm glad the AF thinks I'm worth the investment. The only bummer is the report date is 21 May... and our kids school year doesn't end until late June. So, we'll have to see what we can do about that. I would be a lot more excited if the report date was August, but we'll make it work, I'm sure.

So, it'll be interesting to be back in school again, and doubly-interesting to be at a large base for the first time in... well, for the first time ever. More to follow, I'm sure!

New addition to Simplicity Cycle

I recently came across the phrase "premature optimization" in an article about design and programming, and I realized the concept is reflected in my Simplicity Cycle, albeit unconsciously and not explicitly.

Those who aren't familiar with it might want to check out The Simplicity Cycle Manifesto at ChangeThis.com. Or just read this post and maybe you'll pick it up as we go along. Or maybe the diagram above will suffice.

Here's what I've learned: The journey along the Complexity Slope, from the region of the simplistic to the region of the complex, involves increases in both complexity and goodness (now don't you wish you'd read the manifesto?). At some point in your design (or learning, creation, etc), you reach a critical mass of complexity, where any additional increase in complexity lead to a decrease in goodness. At that point, the optimal path forward along the goodness axis requires decreases in complexity - the Simplification Slope.

But what if you peak too soon? What if you begin doing synthesis too soon, before you've generated a sufficient foundation of complexity? Premature optimization... and less goodness than if you'd have achieved if you'd increased the complexity sufficiently.

Of course, those who were already familiar with the Simplicity Cycle's concepts probably understood this as soon as they saw the diagram. The rest of you might need to "increase the complexity of your understanding" first, by reading the Manifesto, and then you'll be able to put it all together into something simple and elegant.

AFROTC @ RPI

I'm posting this entry from the Air Force ROTC detachment at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) - Det 550. I just finished presenting my Radical Elements briefing to 45 cadets (of which nearly half were freshmen!). I love being on a college campus again, and any opportunity to interact with cadets is always a blast! Haven't done the briefing in a while, so it was nice to have a chance to do it again.

RPI is about two hours away from my house, and the class started at 0800 (I showed up at 0730 to set up & meet some people). So, it was a very early morning, followed by a long, dark drive (in the rain, no less), and worth every minute. I'm heading off to grab some pizza with some of the cadets in a little while too, for a more interactive discussion about the AF & technology. Too fun! Wish I could do this sort of thing every day.

Boomers on Lulu Frontpage!

The nice people at Lulu encourage writers to submit photos of themselves with their Lulu books, which then get displayed on the Lulu front page (on a rotating basis - it's a different shot every time you go there).

Well, I sent one in, and they used it! That was a nice surprise. If you want to see it in the original setting, go to Lulu.com and keep hitting the refresh button on your browser until this shot pops up.

Enjoy!

Subversive Children's Lit Week!

I am proud to announce that this week is Dan's Official Subversive Children's Literature Week (not to be confused with National Subversive Children's Lit Week, the existence of which I'm too lazy to confirm by googling it).

Here's how it works - acquire some subversive children's literature (see the list below for examples) and make it available to children of your choosing. For maximum benefit, you might want to consider donating it to a library (school, public, etc), but this is also a good time to do some early Christmas shopping for the kids on your list. It's really that simple, and I hope you'll really do it (and at these prices, maybe even buy more than one)!

Some books you might want to consider (complete with links to Amazon's page):

The War Between The Pitiful Teachers and Splendid Kids, by Stanley Kiesel. $3.45 used at Amazon

Frindle, by Andrew Clements. $0.83 used at Amazon.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain. $1.38 used at Amazon

The Wonderful Flight To The Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor Cameron. $0.49 used at Amazon

The White Mountains, by John Christopher. $1.69 used at Amazon

And of course, I'll include Meet The Boomer Sisters, by yours truly. Sadly, it's not available on the used market yet, but for this week, I'm marking it down from $13.95 to $11.95.

One or two of you might be asking "What's so subversive about these books? And what's so great about subversive literature?" I'm glad you asked. These books are all designed to make people think. They encourage questioning of the status quo. They are great stories, well told, of people who dare to be themselves and who help other people on the journey. They are full of love, self-sacrifice, creativity and imagination. They do wonderful things to people who read them.

Tell a friend... (and leave a comment!)

Death Valley Photos

Some shots of my recent trip to Death Valley, CA

Editing RPL Year 1

This is a little embarrasing (but not really). I was flipping through a copy of RPL Year 1 the other day, and discovered a dozen or so editorial flaws. Nothing huge - just stuff like a missing tab here and there, a missing blank line between paragraphs... that sort of thing. Like I said, nothing huge, but enough of them to be irritating.

So I just fixed as many as I could find, and sent the updated file along to Lulu. Anyone who buys it from here on out will get the corrected version. Unfortunately, I just sold a handful of copies at the AMI workshop, so they all got the version with the flaws (sorry, guys!). I'm sure they'll all be collectors items in the future, like that upside-down airplane stamp. Yeah, right.

Anyway, the one saving grace in all of this (aside from the book's future value) is that one of the first articles in the book is the one about Imperfectionism, where I explain that I am content to create things with flaws. Whew - got myself off the hook there, right? And of course, this is one more reason I love publishing at Lulu - the ability to correct flaws (large or small) quickly, easily and immediately.

A Beautiful Tolerance For Incomprehension

On recently re-reading Meet The Boomer Sisters to my girls, I found myself worrying a little about the vocabulary. Did I use too many big words? Was this something kids can really understand? Did I inadvertently go over their heads (I mean, accidentally go over their heads - inadvertently being perhaps a too-big word).

Today, though, I read a fantastic article in the online version of Good magazine, which put my fears to rest. The author, Michael Silverblatt, explained

"The art (as opposed to the technology) of reading requires that you develop a beautiful tolerance for incomprehension. The greatest books are the books that you come to understand more deeply with time, with age, with rereading."

He goes on to explain that it's good to read stuff you don't understand at first blush... and to stick with it, continue reading & re-reading it over the years. That's the path to deeper understanding, and incomprehension is a big part of it (so is perseverance, of course). He writes:

The clearing of the fog of incomprehension is the yardstick of growth, every kind of growth...

This left me quite comfortable with what I wrote & how I wrote it. It also emboldened me for the second Boomer Sisters book, which is in the works. I'm going to go ahead and use the best words I can find, even if they are unfamiliar to the average 2nd grader, trusting in the power of a child's imagination to beautifully accept the incomprehensible bits (if any).

Association of Managers of Innovation

I had a pretty amazing time at Death Valley this week (anyone miss me?). It was for a meeting of the Association of Managers of Innovation (AMI), which is associated with the Center for Creative Leadership.

There wer loads of interesting presentaitons (including one by yours truly). Dr. Rodrigo Jordan Fuchs, a remarkably accomplished mountaineer from Chile, talked about summiting Everest and leading the first expedition to traverse the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica. Prof Bobby Bradford spoke, sang and played the history of jazz. We even got a tour of an inactive Borax mine, and yes, it all connected back to innovation and management. The weather was perfect, the views amazing, and the food... well, the food was just OK, but nothing to complain about.

The best part, hands down, was meeting all the people. They were from a bewilderingly diverse set of industries, from building supply companies to cheese companies, from defense to innovation consulting. The were, without exception, warm, generous, enthusiastic and fun to talk with. The group included a large percentage of women, and we even had some international participants, so it wasn't just the usual group of "old white guys." Saying good bye took nearly half an hour and involved way more hugs than I've ever received at a conference or workshop... and this was my first time meeting these people.

To top it all off, I got to see my old friends Gabe, Joe and Bridget in Vegas on my way home. I'll share some of the stuff I learned at AMI later (and maybe some photos). For now, I'm just reveling in all these new friends.

Travel Schedule

I thought I should mention I'll be on the road next week (16-19 Oct) and probably won't be able to post anything new until next Friday (20 Oct). I'm sure both my readers will manage to survive a few days without me... :)

Joyful Jubilant Learning

I've got a post at the new Joyful Jubilant Learning blog - sort of recycling some of my Simplicity Cycle material, to be honest (call it "rebranding" maybe?).

I signed up to participate with the Joyful Jubilant Learning Network (JJLN) a while back, and agreed to do a posting today, in part because it was one of the latest available dates and I wanted to give myself as much time as I could. As it turns out, coming up with this post was even harder than I thought it would be. Maybe because there are so many things going on (blogs, books, etc), maybe 'cause I'm watching too much TV and turning my brains to mush, or maybe some other mystery reason.

What ever the cause, I'm not complaining - I actually enjoyed the fact that it was hard. It was a stretch. It's been a while since I tried to write something that didn't come easy. I'm not sure it was my best work ever, but I suspect I'm better for it... and hopefully readers will find it useful (if only because it'll point them to some of my better stuff).