My afternoon

I love this landscape.

Acoustics

I have decided that I have an opinion about acoustics that for some reason wasn't there before. And that is a live acoustic with small, not too loud percussive sounds is more stimulating than the kind of quiet you get in some places where there's carpet everywhere and a kind of hush that eats all your thought processes. The kind of place where if you had chapped hands and you rubbed your fingers together you could hear that sandpaper sound. I would become more than stupid in that environment, I think I'd feel like taking a nap.

Plaster walls sound different than ones with sheet rock. A room has timbre.

I have a room in my house where the carpet got taken out and it feels clean now. Partly because of what it sounds like. Rooms with a dead acoustic don't feel tidy. They have the sound of stuff which which absorbs the energy in a room.

Next time you're in a space, listen to the room.

St. Olaf Reunion

So there are only two people in this picture from my 25th reunion I don't know.  What wonderful people.  Rob, Nancy, Kelly, Mary, Vaughn, Lisa.  You're great and it was so good to see you all.

Intuition

So I get back from vacation and at first I pretend to work and then eventually start to do actual work and I got that funny feeling that the problems I've been asked to solve aren't actually the real problems.  Vacation does that to you. See by the time they get to me they've been "talked about" and a funny thing happens when a group passes a thought back and forth in a room:  it gets uniform.  Business problems become communication problems because well, those business problems are just too big to grapple with and here's my favorite:  "the client isn't asking for that they're asking for this".  So I says to the group, "yes, but" and the exhale and tell me they need to get to work which is what I was trying to do with them.  

So much of what we do is often not what we ought to be doing.   Which blurs the line between real work and pretend work.

Countdown to Vacation

So what is the best possible vacation?  The one you need the most and oh, man do I need one. 

This is the first week of vacation where I am not doing any significant travel.  Like with a passport and something to convert electricity to 110 volts.  I'm staying nearby.

Friday, going to see Tony Kushner's new play "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism, Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures".  I just hope I don't feel like the stupid homosexual when I see it. 

Saturday will be my 25th College reunion and I know of half a dozen friends that will be there.  So that's fun.

Then I'm going to garden and do stuff like paint the shutters on the house.  It's like Zen.  You get into a zone and it makes you all peaceful when you don't think too much.

Annual massive party at a friend's condo for Monday Memorial Day Holiday.  Official kick off of summer.

Tuesday and Wednesday I'm going with one of my best friends on a road trip to Iowa.  To visit one of the premier pipe organ makers in the country.  This is exactly the kind of fun I like to have.  On the way home we're visiting an historical site of Native American spiritual importance.

And then I get to come home and paint more stuff.  And maybe go canoeing.  And cook stuff.

It's great when you have a chance to live your life a little.....

Being in the moment

All these people seem to talk about how difficult it is to be "in the moment".  I think it's sort of funny.  I'm in the moment plenty.  It's why I'm late to things.

I think it's a bit like this cat that comes and eats the birds in our yard.  She looks around, takes it all in, reacts to stuff and then occasionally formulates an agenda.  You can see when she decides that it might be nice to jump up into the open window I'm standing in.

I slam the window shut because I was in the moment at that moment.  No evil puss is entering my home.

The Garden Trout season

We cleaned up the perennial beds and I turned over the soil in the vegetable garden before the supposed rain was to come.  I'd say it looks good and I even have a blister on my hand-- it was dumb not to wear gloves. 

More importantly, trout season opened for the Southeastern part of the state.  Sort of sneaked up on me with the strangely cold spring we've had and, I realized, the lack of insects flying around the garden.  For some reason bugs now mean fish food to me.  

Sometimes people look at me and ask what on earth I'm thinking and I just say "nothing" but the truth is I'm usually connecting seemingly unconnected things.  Like bugs and fish.

Happy fly fishing.

Memes

I've gotten some questions about memes.  I will write about it.

Essentially they are culturally learned behaviors that are transmitted either peer to peer or generationally.  They can be learned by observation.  Like seeing someone do something on tv and then imitating it.

That's different than yawning which we all do innately.

Memes are bits of behavior that transmit culture.  If you can affect culture around a brand you have become very powerful.

More later.

Paper Shredder

I bought a paper shredder after work.  I came home, plugged it in and after figuring out the trick to turn it on I began shredding.  Old financial paperwork, some stuff that actually had my social security number on it, bank statements that I don't need.  

It was unbelievably satisfying.  Like I was moving on to a new era.  My shady past was behind me in what is so far three bags of paper--cross cut ribbons of incomprehensible jibberish erased any record of my financial fretting (I uselessly fret a lot).  It's like I never had  a care in the world.

Today I get to shred more stuff.  I have the day off.

Thursday ramble

I talk and write a lot about how stuff shifts before your very eyes.  I mean like the whole culture is on a hinge swinging, creaking and sometimes banging into into itself.  My client's needs are changing right in front of me and I have a front row seat.  I think the whole thing is quite grand but I'm not sure all my colleagues would agree.  They aren't sure how much to charge for some of it, aren't sure about whether this is a blip and things will just go back (not just people I work with, friends in industries outside of my own) and I can't remember a time since maybe 20 years ago when I remember hearing people make decisions based on fear--that kind of thing you do to limit the downside.  That's a depressing way to look at it and I just clamp my mouth shut when I hear it.  No amount of cheerleading is going to get anyone to look at maximum upside because when it doesn't magically appear you get a "see I told you" before your butt hits that Herman Miller chair.  

Good grief.  A man needs to dream.  Sometimes the "what if" needs to be a good thing.

Some others are embracing change--except for themselves.  "You all go out and do your work differently because I don't really want to" oh, and you're responsible for the profit/loss on this risky-ass venture. Here's your rope.  It's like the early 1980s all over again.  I've heard all these scripts before.  Like how art directors don't like the type that comes out of a computer and that airbrush retouching is so much nicer, so much more natural than a computer.   Anyone remember dye-transfers?  I thought not.  For the record, I thought they looked fakey and horrible.  I think trying something new is better than doing the same thing over and over and getting nothing.  

So I suppose if you want to want to learn how to adjust carburetors, someone could teach you.  In the mean time, I'm thinking this fuel injection fad is here to stay.

I feel this way sometimes when I am thinking up ideas.  You just don't know where they're going to live these days so you have to imagine them living everywhere and nowhere.   They need a thread that can tie them together and that can either be a "voice" that is so distinctive and unique that it could be no other or it can actually be a thing.   Like a gecko that represents a brand and gives it a voice or a visual that is unique.

Allow me to digress for a moment.  Things are either unique or not.  Something can't be more unique than another thing.  Friggin' little is unique in the commercial world.  So get over yourselves already.

I like this idea that you can come up with an iconic idea, an idea that represents something in a memorable way.  Something that makes memes (look it up, those are cool) and then takes those little things that string up a story, a narrative and help you shape an adoption of a series of thoughts.  You might reject the string or you might not but you will likely remember it better if it's tied to an icon.  Like a duck.  Or a dancing baby.  Or maybe just the color orange.

Not unique.  Not the most unique.  Just a killer meme.

The New 2010 Taurus | Ford Vehicles

The New 2010 Taurus | Ford Vehicles

Posted using ShareThis

youngnessness

Ok so I'm 48 tomorrow.  But I can still kick your ass, even though I never would.

It's bothered me all week and now quite suddenly don't give a crap.  Things are actually pretty nice.  This economic collapse has all kinds of upsides.  Traffic is actually lighter, customer service experiences at stores have been great and in the nervousness of the times my friends have made a special effort to stay close and stay in touch.  It's nice.  Yes, I occasionally have to work late, even a weekends on projects and most of my vacation was annoyingly peppered with thinking about and managing the finish of some illustrations.  The payback was I got to work with an amazingly talented artist in Berlin who I've wanted to work with for a long while and he did a fantastic job with the project.  I just printed them out and sat there on the floor with them feeling all glow-ey about the whole thing in spite of some pesky nitpicks in the background.  When that satisfaction goes away, I guess I'll be jaded--but I'm not--and don't have a coherent strategy to get jaded and all cynical.  A person needs a plan to get disingenuous because you don't start out that way and only sheer stupidness can make a person deeply angry.  Or mean.  Mean comes from fear.  Being either is not worth the effort and frankly is a kind of poison that the New Testament more or less warns us off of but since most Christians have little idea about any of that a person needs to just sort of avoid most of them.  How did I take that turn?

On another note, having gone to the auto show made me feel bad that I have only driven basic cars ever in my life and at the moment my Jeep is 4 years old and the floor mats, no matter what I do are permanently filthy.  They just make you want that new car smell instead of (this is possible) the smell of salty brackish water all over the bottom of your car.  

So I ordered full set of brand new floor mats for $90. 

Cheaper than a new car and just the sensible thing a 48 year old would do I guess.  But that's not till tomorrow.

Let's play an auto show game.

Name the cars.  Make and model.

oh, I have a blog

I will write more soon.  A vacation happened and now I'm all recharged and happy.  Took three trains to get to the east coast and visited Chicago and Washington along the way.  For the most part, the food and service on the train made me glad to travel instead of dreading the experience as I do with air travel.

That and you can see America's backyard all with a (plastic) glass of champagne.  Love it.

Twitter and Karl Rove

Karl Rove is following me on Twitter.  Well, I followed him first but I didn't expect to be followed back, nor do I expect my tweets to be paid any mind.  But the thought of a connection to someone with whom I probably mostly disagree with is an idea that amuses me and also makes me very happy to be living in a time where I have access to both opinions agreeable and disagreeable to me.  It's a great thing.  It's a good thing to have your thinking challenged as long as you know what you think or more importantly why.  The why part is the important part.

Why do I think what I do?  Good question.

before and after

Wicked fun with jackhammer.  I have yet to cut the floor and finish the trim out around the hearthstone but what a satisfying project. Mixing and pouring the concrete under the hearthstone was weird to be doing indoors and reusing the mantle from a neighbor's house that was torn down got the correct mantlepiece for the house, which is colonial.

Doing a project like this is in stark contrast to creating ideas all day.  You get done and you have something three dimensional you can touch.

Barred Owl

In a tree at home.  He eats mice that pass by.

In Ewigkeit

Sometimes you arrive at a day and look back at the other ones before and realize that something shifted behind you or underneath you and tomorrow you'll step into a new heading. Stuff moved.  Like groundwater.  It didn't mean to conspire-- and it didn't-- but sense that things that fail at the same time makes you look for connections.  But they do not breathe together and flipping things over in your mind is a waste of time.  Like being on an airplane where you can't actually feel that you are turning but the fact that the sunlight in the cabin is drifting slightly is all you need to see.  Not a sound, just this realization and a 'huh' in the back of your head.

So that was last week.  Last week was proof that nearly everything I touch, smell, experience and inhabit are grossly impermanent and rather don't conspire.  When all you read about is how wealth can evaporate and loss and change are rapid, you wonder what's left.  How far can it all go?  

What if I didn't have a house to live in?  

Will I be eating canned goods and living in someone's basement when I'm old?  

Why are the stores noticeably empty?  

Where'd all the bumper to bumper traffic go?

What if there are more cutbacks?

What if we both lose our jobs simultaneously?

What if the warranty had expired?  What would I have done with a $2200 repair bill?

How much would have those nine stitches on my face cost if I didn't have insurance?

What if.  What if.  They're always there for me, compulsive list maker, worst case scenario planner optimist guy.

Last Monday was Candlemas.  Half way between Solstice and Equinox, dark and light.  The candles,  a source of light, were blessed.  We commemorate Jesus brought to the temple and the Song of Solomon and Anna the old woman who stayed and stayed.  Waiting is a kind of toil. 

I like beeswax candles because little bees toiled to make them. It's even in the Exultet, those bees-- bringing the means to make light.

Creation toils. Anna toiled in her way and we do too except we're fooled by the notion that toiling results in a shiny reward in the end and if we've learned anything in the past six months, toiling does not result in an equal and opposite reaction of reward.  It isn't the point.  

In Ewigkeit.   In eternity.

I like how the thought of what does endure can be something comforting.  Toiling is pretty much a constant and how different am I than a bee?  I'm choosing then, to not conc

ern myself with candle making but to go headlong into the toiling.  Because I think when I can find those things that are eternally true, I sort out what I believe.  See, the consideration of "In Ewigkeit" leads me directly in a path beaming "Wir Glauben All an Einen Gott".  

And when you know what you believe, you're standing in a good place.  Dark behind, light ahead.

www.history.org

Counting down to vacation and then vacation meets CNN.  Turn on the tv tonight to see President Obama (God that was fun to type) giving a pointed and motivating speech about this stimulus bill to Democrats at an annual retreat in the tiny place we’re going for vacation.  He was speaking from Williamsburg, Virginia!  Oh happy day when we will be there too, less than a month until I’m out of this icy hell called Minnesota and into First Class overnight sleeper car service to Virginia.  Three trains, two days, decent food and spectacular scenery.  All with my sweetie of 19 years.  I can’t stop smiling thinking about it.

Pictures from London

A friend sent me these pictures of the snowstorm aftermath in London where travel has become problematic.  I suspect it will all melt eventually and just be wet and gray, if only that happened here.  Can you imagine if London had our winter?  Yikes.

Happy Birthday

Look who is 15. He's a little old man.

We love you little man.

thinking up new things

I have to think stuff up.  I have to think it up when I don't feel like it and it's almost always on other's schedules.  Which is probably good because you just tell yourself, I need to do this now.

A lot of this has changed for me over time and in coming up with volumes of ideas I've become more curious about how much effort should be spent defining the problem and how much is for  generating solutions to the defined problem.  Sometimes it's good to ignore parts of the definition you've been given.  Or ignore it entirely.  

Finding a third way no one had considered can come out of working hard instead of just thinking so much at the beginning.  Do something.

I used to be much more about defining the problem and now I'm not because often it's wide ranging solutions that lead to new ideas.  So I sort of define it a little and then start working.

Then you define it some more and work some more.  It's really hard to invent things and I think defining problems too narrowly never gets you to fresh inventions.

Just sayin'.

ample, lucky, old

I like how pictures change with words on them.  It's up to you to decide what they mean.  If they mean anything at all. 

facts, belief, knowing

I hate the phrase 'information overload'.  I don't know if there is such a thing because basically, I think people just shut it all off long before they get overloaded.  So I divide the information into a few categories those are my categories so they work for me and they are:  

1. information I might need and can look up later (mental note).  

2. information I can't be bothered with.  

3. stories I might pay attention to that change a belief.

Number one is easy and a person simply inherits the ability to either store lots of this kind of thing or they don't.  You remember where to look or you don't. I think we inherit a level of ability to memorize and categorize and then some things get in the way to diminish it so you can't remember where you put things.  Being distracted, emotional preoccupations, or the use of drugs and alcohol will eventually make a person not function at a very high level.  But I think you start out with a certain capacity and then life happens and you can either learn to learn or you sort of get dumb by accident, bad habits or laziness. Being able to solve problems means you can go in and recall things and then reorganize these ordinary facts in a way no one had considered before.  Kind of a big deal.  I think it's strange no one talks much about this, I think most people don't like to compare how well they function in this area because the educational system gives you your fill of it.  Except for "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" of course.  You know you can play it online now.

I'd say number two ranges from advanced physics to how to cook food I don't like and wouldn't eat and probably 97 percent of what I unknowingly encounter or simply don't understand in a day fits here, it beads up like water droplets that run off.  Might be willful stupidity on my part.  Apparently older people are less able to tune stuff out, they take in more information actually than younger people.   This is often mistaken for the inability to multitask.  The more you take in the more patterns you can see.  The more patterns you see, the better decisions you make.

Number one includes some big stuff.  Like fables, parables, stories, things alluded to in poems and my favorite: good advertising.  Well think about it.  You tell an associative story that uses everyday experiences to change someone's belief about a product or service.  How different is that than any other way we're sold a belief?

I mean there are some ads that give me reasons why I ought to think something is better and then there are the sorts of things politicians say to scare me into behaving a certain way and I just don't want to be argued into things.  You can't argue someone into believing something and beliefs are more powerful than facts.

So if you want a thing believed, start with a story a person can relate to that either applies directly to it or is around it.  Might just be pictures.  Or a film with no sound.  Or two lines of poetry that say something true.

Like Shakespeare: My salad days,  When I was green in judgement.

go.

I never said it would be a cold day in hell before I started a blog, but as it happens, it is cold and it's a kind of hell out there.  And so here we go.  I've got no plans to set out a 'brief' for this thing, I'm going to write about what I'm seeing and thinking partly because I have this sense that we're in uncharted territory or as that Rick Warren guy said in his invocation (more on this later I'm sure) we're at a 'hinge point' in history. 

So it makes sense to try to write about it.

I finally feel like the government isn't out to do me ill these days but I still have the sense that things got so bad so quickly that it isn't something solvable.  Especially by the government. Does this matter to just some guy like me?  Well, I think the election proved that it does.

The President posted a weekly address, this time by podcast on www.whitehouse.gov  and I'm so impressed to be able to watch it on my iPhone anywhere.  This moment in history in the palm of my hand.  Makes you kind of need to take a breath.  I mean, Rihanna on my phone is one thing, but the leader of the free world is pretty special.

It's such a time.  Tens of thousands getting laid off and then this thing on my iPhone.  It's hard to take in so you just mutely observe and hope you can hold some part of it in your head for later.  You have to love paradox to get up in the morning.

And I do.

I'm sick of filth and tired of sub zero temperatures