Harmony

Again the topic of harmony is on my mind. I’m re-reading Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, and one of the differences between Martians and Humans is the Martian inability to endure disharmony. They ‘discorporate’ at the sort of argument some of us have daily. That started my mind down the path.

The harmony I seek, both professionally and personally, is very much like a dance. Dance partners become good and great dance partners through the practice and education. Both know the moves, they learn each other, and they gain an ability to adjust to the real world challenges of the dance floor. The lead has the advantage of knowing what’s coming and the added responsibility of deciding what’s next while executing the current steps. The follow is allowed to focus on the now, but often doesn’t know what’s next. In the case of dancing, the follow must also dance backwards, often in heels.

In my work I often focus on root causes. There’s no point in mopping the wet floor if the leaky pipe isn’t fixed. It occurred to me that most of my own emotional disruptions and are symptoms of disharmony. Often the disharmony is a gap between the world I desire and the world as it is. For example, before I shifted jobs, I was often frustrated by how long it took and by what I perceived as a lack of progress. Another example that no doubt is common in the human experience is the desire to spend more focused time with people I care about. One great advantage of being happily married and living with one’s spouse is this disharmony is relatively easy to fix or avoid with at least one valued relationship. – as an aside, I imagine for many couples, that is enough. We’ve all seen the pairings who drop out of social circles after they’ve found one another.

It’s also frequent that the disharmony is a concern for losing something in my current life that I’m attached to.

I had a lot more to say about this, but I’ve lost the mental thread for now...

Personality Test - INTJ

I just took an internet version of the Meyers Briggs.  It says I'm an INTJ:  Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging

From what I've read, it seems to fit pretty well.  Yep, I'm a systems thinker, have had to learn to express my vulnerabilities, and I'm not great at that even now.

I'm better at small social niceities than most INTJ's; I scored somewhat balanced on the Introvert / Extrovert scale, and especially balanced on the Thinking / Feeling scale.

Volunteerism

Our new president has me thinking about volunteering.

I know I'll have to be kinda picky or else I won't have fun and I won't stick with it. What follows is just the beginning of my considerations:

What I don’t want to do:

Volunteer for my employer
Sort (or do anything with) children’s clothes
Dispense juice and cookies to blood donors
Cold call anyone
Go door to door

What I want

I want to do something fun, or something mundane with fun people
I want it to feel meaningful
I don’t want to get stressed out in that ‘bad stress’ way

Bonus:

I can use and improve my professional skills along the way

Charities or Non-profits I’m Interested In

Northwest Harvest
ACLU
Democratic Party
Planned Parenthood

University Honda/Yamaha Closes?!

According to the Seattle PI and to the company's own website, University Honda on Capital Hill, has gone out of business.

Not only did I purchase all of my gear (helmet, jacket, pants, two pairs of gloves and some miscellaneous other stuff) there, they did the maintenance on my bike last year. I fully planned to go back when my mileage hits 4,000. I was always treated well there.

It's also going to be damned inconvenient to go anywhere else. Hopefully this will open the way for some new motorcycle business to move to the Hill; really though, I don't want a new one. I want my old motorcycle shop back.

Fiscal Conservatism?

Does anyone else get the sense that the fiscal conservatives have all retreated into hiding? I don’t understand the nuances of all these bailouts, but I do know that the federal government is borrowing a lot of money and giving it to companies in crisis. So far, I have little faith that an injection of cash is all these folks need to right their ships, and the distribution of cash has, as yet, included little in the way of governmental oversight.

How are we going to pay for this? Is throwing money at our problems going to pull us out of this recession?

The other problem I have is that I don’t really understand what we’re getting for our money. I understand President-elect Obama has public works projects planned, and that’s grand. What are we getting for the $350 billion already distributed? I understand that it’s supposed to strengthen our banking system, blah blah; that’s not much to hold onto though. It’s a little abstract for me, and it feels like we’re throwing that money into a pit. And in that pit is an ancient cash eating dragon.

Some Libertarian voices have questioned the constitutionality of November’s bailout, and I guess that’s something. Normally the only thing the Republican Party is good for is keeping the recurrent liberal impulse to throw money at problems in check. I don’t see that tension right now, and I’m concerned.

BSG, the Obsession

I’ve slipped into a Battlestar Galactica related frenzy. Part of me regrets ordering season 4.0 from Amazon; they weren’t delivered until Monday. That left me five precious evenings to rewatch those episodes before the second half of the final season kicks off Friday night at 10 p.m.. Unfortunately, Monday is also my D&D night: no watching that night. I also have plans Friday evening right up to premiere, and we have a friend coming to dinner tonight. These are all good things mind you; the unfortunate part is the synchronicity of it all. The reality is, I won’t make it through them all in time, and that’s okay. I feel worse for the first time viewers I know who are trying to make it through ten episodes in order to synch up with the rest of us for the series’s final push.

I also picked up the BSG soundtracks that were missing from my collection; they all now live happily in my iPod. We also have a some folks coming over to play the board game (of which I’ve written previously) on Saturday – let me tell you, trying to fill up all six slots for that game is trickier than it sounds. I have a long list of folks who have expressed clear interest, but I can’t invite them all. I only have the one board. Naturally, I’ve received a handful of varying degrees of ‘tenatively yes’ responses as well. Juggling all this reminds me of trying to staff a restaurant or something. It’s all very complicated.

As I re-watch the first half of season four over a short amount of time, I’m reminded of Return of the King. Both have a lot of ground to cover in a relatively short amount of time. Neither is prepared to hold anything back when it’s all said and done. This leads to fluid storytelling that drifts from the kind of focused narrative we’ve come to expect. While each episode does have a beginning middle and end, one leads directly into the next. None are truly self contained.

This all works better when you watch them consecutively, with little break in between.

I also realize now that I may have been a little drunk during my first viewing: the accompanying whiskey is part of the experience for me. Trying to keep up with Tigh or Adama has gotten me into trouble before... (well, the red wine I had with dinner earlier that evening also had something to do with it).

It also occurred to me that I’m every bit as obsessed with BSG now as I was with Star Wars from 1979 to 1995, or Twin Peaks from ’95ish – ’97ish (that was an all video experience). It’s fun!

Hawk on Fence, adendum

The hawk I saw on my fence is a Cooper's Hawk, my father informed me. He knows a lot about wildlife.

Ideas Buzzing

It’s been a weird time in Seattle. Building in the background is the ongoing financial crisis (when can we declare a moratorium on the phrase, “in this financial climate”?), and an ongoing gang war between some South Seattle and Central Seattle gangs. Shootings have become frequent, some within blocks of our home. Then came two full weeks of snowy, city paralyzing weather, followed by flooding. This flooding was serious enough to close off all major land routes into the region and disrupted supply chains.

Piercing
Pain was comparable to the novocain injection during wisdom teeth removal (by the way, if the injections to prevent the ‘actual’ pain hurt that much, how painful must the tooth removal be?)
The piercer had a very professional and mellow affect. He was exactly the sort of person I hoped for.
The bleeding seems to have stopped; I don’t see any other oozing; so far, so good! It’s still tender, though.
My perspective on bacteria has changed; I’m very aware of cleanliness when it comes to the area near my piercing now. I don’t want an infection!

D&D 4th Edition Character Concept – built around chain weapon (flail) which has ‘reach’ property. I’m thinking warlord, to focus on keeping control of adversaries, preferably staying out of melee range, and adding entanglement, if possible. There must be entanglement rules in there somewhere.
The idea is inspired by the Uncanny X-Men comic from 20 yearsish ago when the Reavers ambushed Wolverine in Australia. They defeated him by staying at range with bolos and chain weapons. This concept may work better with a fighter. I plan to get the Martial Powers book soon to help sort it out and to give me new, fun ideas. I see that Clerics also have the ability to push baddies around, and have some advantages with flails. It occurs to me that there are probably several workable characters behind this concept.

Jazz Singer – the old version – shot when blackface was normal! Interesting how the version from the 80’s with Neil Diamond had its own, very different blackface scene.

Hawk on Fence

Hawk on Fence
Originally uploaded by modernkutuzov

This hawk appeared briefly this morning. I wonder what it is.

Major Goal Achieved

As of January 2nd, 2009, I became officially and completely 'bad debt' free.  We still have a mortgage (well, technically two mortgages)...  I've carried a balance of some kind for...  well, my student loans started racking up in the fall of '94.

It looks like I made a math error and I have a $50 credit on my personal line of credit.

First Activity of 2009

For my first notable activity of 2009 (aside from feeding the cat, making coffee, surfing the internet and tidying up from last night's party), I arranged appropriate transfers to pay off the last of my credit card debt.

2008 Round-up

10 years at Children’s – from long haired, bearded part time temp, to buzz headed, tie wearing consultant.

Marathon training – I didn’t admit that I was training for the marathon until nearly the summer, but I started running to my schedule in March. I kept to it, and only missed a few days over those eight months. Prior to this, I had never run eight miles before.

Trip to Denver – I think this was the first time we’d spent an entire night apart since our wedding. Since then there have been a few other sleeping apart occasions, such as:

K’s 40th birthday / N to Baltimore

WoW – I quit around the time that N started raiding. I would not have predicted this two years ago, or even at the beginning of the year.

Colville / Northport – We stayed at Benny’s in Colville for a few days and then the Bed and Breakfast run by Art and Nina in Northport. It was a truly amazing week.

D&D 4e & group – I was one of many to return to the game with the release of the 4th edition. I soon found a solid group and continue to play weekly.

BSG – Season 4.0 and board game. On a related note, I’ve made a project of converting my friends to gamers and intermingling gamer friends with non-gamer friends.

More motorcycle – sometime during the year I realized that I’m not as freaked out by riding on dark, rainy, trafficy nights.

Sports in Seattle – The Mariners were the first team to lose over 100 games while spending over 100 million on payroll. The Sonics moved to Oklahoma City. The Seahawks and Huskies lost 12 games each. While I don’t care about Cougar football, it’s worth mentioning that they lost 10 games.

Growing friendships – It’s been a good year for making new friends and further developing older relationships. Examples include B (& J), L, M and probably T. At the same time, other friendships have faded.

Isolde’s decline and death – this was a sad and difficult time.

N starts bicycling – it looks like her new bike won’t arrive until 2009, but she took her borrowed bicycle to work many times during the summer.

New job – Hurray!

Halloween – dressed up & went out!

N’s Dad’s illness – we were particularly worried about N’s Dad there for a few weeks. He seems to be back on the upswing now and is at home again after a lengthy stay inpatient and in rehab.

Thanksgiving with N's Mom and N's Mom's husband– our first time hosting a major holiday!

Marathon – 3:47:27!

Snow! We spent a lot of time cooped up in the house, but it was kinda nice to laze around during the Christmas week.

Fifteen Years Ago

Fifteen years ago, I was in Mogadishu Somalia.  Christmas dinner was underwhelming (Thanksgiving was much better, probably because we were several miles closer to the kitchen then), and my tank broke its track while turning to avoid a camel.  That was a hassel.

This year was immeasurably better, even though I lost at Scrabble and we're pooping out early.  But then, for someone to win, someone else has to lose, and I think pooping out early on Christmas is pretty normal.  

There's frequently, if not always an odd wind down there.  After the gifts and food, the holiday energy is usually expended.  People usually drag themselves home in the early evening with nothing much to do for the rest of the night.

Snow and Wii in Seattle

For the most part, discussing Seattle's series of snow storms has started to bore me to death, so I won't go in to much detail here.

I'm cat sitting for a few days, and this has given me a mission every day.  Rather than sitting here and going stir crazy, I've put on my snow boots and jogged the 2.8 miles up to my friend's house, fed his cat, played his Wii and then jogged home.  It's been a nifty work-out.  Since I'm not 'in training' for any big upcoming events, I don't mind the variety.

Yesterday I played some Rock-Band.  I particularly focused on the drums, and now I understand a little better what it takes to be a talented drummer.  It is very rewarding to play drums for the Rolling Stones.  Another benefit of the game is that you learn the songs in a way that non-musicians rarely manage.  I'm familiar with some of the transitions to Gimme Shelter now!

Today, I focused on Resident Evil 4.  Like Rock Band, I'd never played any of the franchise before, let alone on the Wii.  It was definitely a rewarding experience.  Like before, the learning curve was notable.

I had been under the opinion that the Hi-Def TV should come before the next gen game system on our luxury purchases.  That may be true, but having just played the Wii on a normal TV, I'm not sure.  More reflection is required.

BSG the Board Game; Humans Win!

My wife and I played The Game again on Saturday, and I have a few observations.

The playing time is listed as 2 - 3 hours.  So far, I don't think we've finished in anything less than 4 hours.  Our playing times have probably been stretched for two reasons:  we're all still negotiating the learning curve, and every game has included at least one new person.  Similarly, we're still working out the best strategy for both humans and Cylons.  Thus, games take longer as we flail around trying to kill each other.

Again, the Cylons nearly manged to get all the humans into the brig.  This time, there were two humans, one cylon and one cylon sympathizer.  The unrevealed cylon was loaded with skill cards and nearly pulled it off.  I was playing Bill Adama, and even as I saw it happening, I couldn't even try to put him in the brig via the Admiral's quarters.  Instead, I managed to grab the presidency (through sheer luck of a crisis card), and found the Quorum card that allowed me to imprison the 'unrevealed' cylon.  The Quorum deck also allowed me to release my cohort so I didn't have to lead the fleet alone.

On reflection, I think the unrevealed Cylon player's strategy was valid, and came damned close to working.

The fleet also jumped early several times.  This underscores the fact that humnas must use the 'add 2 to dice roll' cards on all important die rolls.  We lost 3 population at least once, but we also caught a break at least once, which allowed us to keep jumping.  I also used the 'Motivational Speech' Quorum card in conjunction with the +2 roll card at a crucial point.  We had 1 motivation and 1 fuel at the time, near the end of the game, and would have later lost.

The last thing that helped us win was the not particularly focused strategy by the revealed Cylon at the end.  Had he focused on getting the Centurian boarding party to the end of the track, again, I think we would have lost.  Instead, he barraged the Galactica with the basestars. 

We're all looking forward to play with more experienced players.  Can the humans win throughthe  optimal play of equally experienced players?

Seahawks Beat the Jets

This game felt special in several ways, for one main reason:  this is Coach Mike Holmgren's last home game as head coach for the Seattle Seahawks.  It also happened to be against Brett Favre, former protege of Holmgren's.  It also happened to snow throughout.

The players wanted the win; the defense played very well.  Seneca Wallace ran the offense efficiently and played a tight game.  Yes, he could probably start in this league.  I don't know that he would ever be a great starter, but he's at least in that John Kitna / Trent Dilfer range of competant professional quarterback.  Plus he's more athletic than either of those guys, which gives him a definite edge.

Anyway, it felt good to have an important game to watch.  It was great to have your team play well for an important game.  And, quite importantly, it was great to win that game.

I'm not ashamed to say I was crying (yep, tears flowed) as Coach Holmgren took his walk around the stadium; thousands of us stood and waved or applauded.

This is the sort of experience that makes me treasure my season tickets, even during a 4 - 11 season.

Photo Credit

Schmap.com found one of my pictures on Flickr from our 2006 honeymoon in Maui and asked to use it for for their travel guide. See the Napili Point entry.

Christmas Prep 2008

Every year I have some trouble or other getting everything done for the holidays. In addition to the challenges shared by every other gift exchanging person, both of my parents have birthdays within weeks of Christmas. My mother was born on December 8th, my father on January 6th. As a result, I barely get through Thanksgiving and I need to get her card and gift mailed; just after New Year’s I have to gear up for my Dad’s.

One major piece of best practice is to take a day off early during December, and use that to get the majority of planning and shopping complete. Since that allowed me to finish nearly everything, my stress level is lower, and I’m free to enjoy the next few weeks.

For the first time, Nora and I set an explicit dollar limit for our gift exchange; that helped too. Now, I don’t need to wonder if I’ve done enough.

I’m actually looking forward to getting a tree. That doesn’t happen every year.

Marathon Emotions

Running 26.2 miles is, on a whole, an emotional experience. It started half an hour before the race as I looked out across Memorial Stadium, and my mind drifted forward to the finish.

There were many more moments; since I tend toward the emotional in situations like this, when people lay it all out, give it their all, while others cheer for these, their temporary heroes.

During a long run, you have to be careful. The energy burst from a wave of emotion can drive you up and over the steepest hill, but it will also bury you if you let it. Trust me on this: I lived it during my 21 mile prep run two months ago.

The tallest roller-coaster high came around mile 17. I was fully in the long distance fragile haze of ups and downs, and had recently (a mile and a half prior) seen a friend while listening to “Flying High Now.”

Anyway, it was a period with a moderate number of spectators, and a mom had her four(ish) young kids lined up, watching the race. They were very interested; she coached them all to hold our their hands for high-fives. Excited, I angled over, smiled and delivered high-fives. I was careful to hit all their hands: it wouldn’t do to miss one, not at all.

A moment after, the “Stone Cold” Steve Austin kicked in; another moment later, I had tears flowing down my face, and I angled to the middle of the road, away from other spectators. It was too intense for me, I couldn’t be anyone else’s hero that day.

I don’t think I can properly express how honored I was to have four little fans who cared enough to get high-fives. I wonder if this is something they’ll talk about, or if they’ll even remember. Somehow, I don’t think that matters.

Seattle Marathon Pictures

More at http://chadsmarathon2008.shutterfly.com/