Life is Too Short

After returning from lunch yesterday, I stopped at our office coffee machine for an afternoon cup-o-joe. A quick assessment of the coffee pot revealed a burnt, acidic aroma. The coffee had clearly been sitting there untouched for well over an hour.

Fortunately I had an epiphany a couple of weeks ago which prepared me for burnt office coffee. Life is too short for bad coffee. I retrieved the french press and bag of premium grounds from my office and proceeded to brew a bold, delicious cup of coffee.

My wife recently shared a conversation she had with another student teacher who had refused a job offer in Hawaii. I marveled that someone would turn down such an offer, but it was not until this morning that I finally put several pieces of information together.

Today is a Friday, but I decided to take the morning off from work. At approximately 7 A.M. I woke up; at approximately 8 A.M. I gave up on trying to sleep any longer. After playing briefly with our puppy, I enjoyed a three mile jog and a hot shower. By nine twenty I was sipping a latte and waiting outside the post office for it to open.

This turned out to be a minor, short lived irritant. Why could the post office not keep hours compatible with working folks? For a moment I contemplated lodging a complaint when they finally opened. The next moment, I had another powerful realization.

life is too short. Too short for bad coffee, and too short for petty grudges. It is too short for enduring unhappiness in ourselves or others, and it is too short for unrequited love. Life is too short not to take job offers in exotic locations, and it is too short not to enjoy. Life is too short to be right every time, and it is too short for regretting things that we have never done.

If we pursue happiness as a destination, we will almost surely fail to find it. If, however, we accept that happiness occurs unexpectedly as we experience new things perhaps we can enjoy more fleeting moments of happiness and fewer fleeting moments of irritation with stodgy institutions that open counterproductively late.

Bizarre MS Office Problem

Earlier this week, Microsoft Office stopped working on my computer.  The same thing happened whether I was using Office XP or Office 2003, and it was maddening.  While I might put on bravado and claim that I don’t like MS products, that’s pretty much a lie.  I pay $10 each, every month for my wife and I to have Exchange accounts.  If I’m paying for Exchange, I want Outlook to work too.

The error indicated that “Word [Outlook, Excel, etc] is not installed for the current user.”  So, I did some searching and found a whole litany of reasons why this might be.  After spending an entire week installing and uninstalling office multiple times daily I had decided that most of the “fixes” were simply superstitious coincidences.  Every time I saw a post indicating a fix, I wanted to scream “LIAR”!

My user account is an administrator account, so permissions seemed an unlikely culprit.  Oddly enough, though, the machine Administrator account could run Office.  Strange.  So, I created a test user with limited authority.  That user could also start Office.  Harumph.  My logical conclusion was that my user profile must be corrupt, so I reset my profile.  Still no dice.

The final step was to completely delete my user account and create a new account with the same name.  And (drumroll please….) it worked!  After reclaiming permissions on my original profile, I got my settings back too.

This begs the question “What’s up with that?”  What prompts a problem with someone’s security account?  Should I expect more shenanigans?  Perhaps.  In the meantime, I’m simply happy to have Outlook open and synchronizing in the background.

Honestly honey, it just followed me home!

My big surprise this week was supposed to be that my new business cards from Moo came in.  That really isn’t as lame as it sounds.  They are very cool cards, designed by yours truly.  Anyway, I raced in the back door and nearly broke my neck racing back out the front door to retrieve my cards from the mailbox.

The reason for the nearly broken neck was a very large box.  A brief review of the shipping label had my curiosity piqued.  Hmmm…Hobby E-Store.  There was only one thing that item that I could fathom might come from that store, and be the right size.

I wonder who might have sent such an incredibly cool toy to me without saying anything?  Thank you!

Notes after [trying] to fly…

I’ve had an E-Sky Lama 4 for a long time.  In the picture above, you might notice a lot of tape and aftermarket parts.  There is a really good reason for that.  I crashed it a lot.  In fact, I probably bought the thing two or three times.  By now, I’m pretty good at flying it.  I thought that transitioning to a collective pitch would be pretty easy.

I was wrong.  First, the Belt-CP is bigger.  A lot bigger.  That makes it scary for two reasons.  First, it will hurt more when it hits you…and it will hurt more when you buy new parts. 

Now, the other scary thing is that it’s a 3D helicopter.  That means that faster blades do not really equate to more lift.  It just means that the blades are moving faster.  You have to tell it how much lift to give you.  It doesn’t care for idly sliding sideways, the way my Lama does.  The slightest, tiniest movement on the controls sends the thing rocketing off in a different direction.

After trying to do a simple hover (in my very small living room, where there is no wind), my heart was in my throat and my pulse was in the range that I normally expect only when running away from rabid squirrels.

After a few minutes, I began to remember my humble beginnings with the Lama.  For several days I would get it an inch or two off the floor and then I would have to set it down because it was out of control.  It will probably take the same amount of practice with this helicopter.  The only problem is that I doubt Evelyn will sleep through the noise, or Aimee will permit me to fly it in the living room while she’s here!

By the way, if you’ve ever tried to fly a 3D helicopter on FMS…yeah, it really is that hard to fly one in real life!

SmartWool Rocks

Having never had a pair of running shoes that fit properly, I finally decided to visit a store which specializes in footwear. The obvious local choice was Playmaker's in East Lansing. A classmate from high school works there, so I asked for him when I went to visit.

Tony was happy to help, and after a few tries fitted me with a Brooks shoe. The fit was superb, owing in part to the narrow (B) width of the shoe. Something that had struck Tony was my recounting of the numerous blisters I had suffered while running. After finding the right shoe, he asked what kind of socks I wear when I run. "Cotton", I replied handily. He advised that I try a pair of SmartWool socks, and he threw a pair in with the shoes.

After running with the shoes and socks for several months, I can honestly report a 100% improvement. Until purchasing these shoes, I had never gone running without earning a blister. Since buying these shoes, I have never gone running and gotten a blister (my running journal is at http://coins.bimjournals.com/).

Last night I packed up my running bag, but couldn't find a clean and complete pair of my handy SmartWool socks. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to try the Pepsi Challenge between the cotton socks and the wool socks. It might be that my comparison was unfair, as I ran four miles last night (in wool socks) and two miles this morning. Perhaps the two runs were too close together. I don't think so, though. Although my feet aren't nearly as blistered as they would have been in the past, I can feel the distinct burn of rawness on the inside of my left foot.

My conclusion is that the SmartWool socks work exactly the way they are supposed to. By wicking moisture away from your foot, the socks are supposed to remain properly fitted to your foot and keep your skin comparatively dry. By the way, I have also been using these socks when I ice skate (I used to use polyester dress socks). They have worked as nicely for skating as they do for running.

A caveat: I have also tried using polyester socks for running. Believe it or not, they are also superb when compared to cotton socks. If you can get past the snickers when you run down the sidewalk in your black poly socks, give it a try. You may be surprised.

The Stigma of Failure

Peter Drucker once observed that "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."  Per usual Drucker's wisdom is timeless and on-point.  Why, then, do we spend so much time performing tasks only because we have always done them?

The typical answer to this question is laziness.  We are too lazy to question processes, and thus to improve them.  Laziness certainly plays a role in perpetuating inefficient, antiquated processes but there are more powerful elements as well.

A couple of years ago I took a hockey class.  The coach lined up several cones, demonstrated a skating pattern, and then ordered the class to skate the pattern just as he had.  We complied, each carefully skating the pattern in turn.  When we finished, the coach chastised us.  "That was all wrong." he declared.  "Not a single one of you fell down, and if you didn't fall down, you aren't trying hard enough!"

There are a lot of reasons for failure, but the absence of failure does not always indicate success.  It may merely signify a complete lack of effort.

There are both good and bad reasons for failure.  Good reasons for failure include trying a new process, or improving an existing process.  A good failure is one that is endured when a person works outside their comfort zone.  Bad reasons for failure are lack of due diligence and inappropriate planning.

Organizations wishing to improve themselves must learn that failure for the right reasons is an action that deserves praise, not derision.  Too often, employees are paralyzed by fear of failure.  They spend inordinate amounts of time justifying their decisions, or worse, they choose not to make decisions at all.  They are so terrified of blame that they abhor all things new or different.

Companies wishing to succeed must be willing to change.  In order to facilitate change, these same companies must also be willing to accept some level of failure.  Changing employee perceptions of failure is a long process that begins with changing the question "Who is at fault?" to "What have we learned?"

More Fun Than A Barrel Of Monkeys

In high school, I scoffed at the notion of taking shop class. Instead, I spent my time working on computers. That did alright by me until I decided to build a small jet engine, oh, ten years ago. It was then that I realized that perhaps I should not have scoffed so much.

By my reckoning, it will be approximately ten more years before I finish the aforementioned project, however today I reached a major milestone, thanks to the outstanding advice of my brother.

The plans call for a spun aluminum intake. At first, I didn't know what that meant. Once I discovered, I tried spinning some aluminum. Multiple times, as a matter of fact. The only consistent outcome was failure. Then Alan's sage advice rescued me.

Anneal the aluminum first. He was right. Along with that, I watched some very cool YouTube videos. I noticed that the "pros" don't spin very fast, and they use a lot of leverage.

I tried. It worked! When you look at the following pictures, you'll realize that I still need a lot of practice. That being said, I'm pretty happy with the "proof" of concept. With a bit more practice, slightly thicker sheet, and a new set of metal gears for my lathe...I might be on to something!

Clarification:

The pop can in the following photograph is simply to demonstrate scale. The raw material was a piece of flat aluminum sheet about 1/30th of an inch thick. The mandrill (form) is made from oak, and turned to shape.

I stand corrected!

I am shocked at three things. First, of course, being wrong. Second, five million people in Michigan voted! That's almost as amazing as the number of them that voted for the medical marijuana initiative, despite the terrible billboard mentioned below! 60%!

Unfortunately, I stand corrected on the post immediately prior to this one!