a short trip through time

so here i am in the room where i grew up; years 1-18. It is like returning to the fortress of solitude, though someone came in and removed any shred of anything that was mine. Which is totally fine. Anything that i own is 64 miles north west of here in boxes in a garage. Which is all good. I'm trying to get things figured out, and i am here to help my mom deal with knee surgery and some recovery. So it all kind of works out. I have gotten a lot of work done, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

In addition to a bit of solitude and head space to get things figured out, we took a trip to santa cruz on sunday for breakfast, and then over to capitola for some coffee, and thus my trip thru time. There were people everywhere, and i realized that Warf to Warf was being run this week. I am setting a goal to try and train and run the race next year. It is a pretty easy race, and the logistics are pretty easy to put a team of people together to run the race. We'll see if i can stick to it enough to actually get out there and run. I like the idea of it. something to shoot for.

The last time i had been at mr. toots was sometime around 1990. Homework, college, notebooks with paper. Pictures are for Nootsmack...since we shared this space in time...though we never really knew it. Nothing has changed there really, at all. It was summer there, and it was comforting. I have forgotten what summer looks like at a beach where it actually gets warm.

I live at the beach, and we wear sweatshirts and pants all year long.

As i sat in starbucks today, i began to realize the difference between here and there. People out in the burbs slice one of two ways: altered or utterly destroyed. At home everyone basically looks the same. I haven't determined which i like more. I certainly don't think one is better than the other. Here has a certain entertainment factor. it is fun to see the differences in people.

Obviously people watching is a bit of a sport here.

People stare down here. Maybe they recognize i am no longer part of the hive. I have been stared at more in the last 3 days than in the last 3-5 years. it was making me uncomfortable, do i have something hanging from my nose, or did i drop latte on my shirt. Nope. All good. Just people staring. happened in capitola, happened at the gas station...just odd. People were shameless about staring.


at some point i must review the technology that enables my ability to work consistently anywhere.

The world has changed dramtically since my last trip to mr. toots. from 2007 to 1990 and back in under 5 hours.

BART Station of Broken Dreams

Maybe it is just this week. Who knows. I think i am just done with human contact for one week. see how i bounce from one extreme to the next.

I'm starting realize that i am alone a lot more than i am with people, and this is sometimes not by choice. my friends, a lot of them are flakes...if i don't call, im, email, etc...nothing but fucking crickets.

Can things always be at some sort of imbalance like that. maybe i am asking and expecting too much out of people that have their own deal going on. Probably.

I have a problem with equality. I want to be returned the same amount of attention and care that i try to give. That probably is the heart of the unreal expectation. I don't aways want to be the first to pick up the phone to call, or to send an email, or to make an invitation.

At some later date, i can give my other half's perspective on this with me. i assume that she would say that in our relationship she is the one that is always making the first call, email, invite, evite, etc. She's probably right. This maybe the fundamental flaw in that particular relationship. Sometime i think hu(man)s are like dogs...they learn by example, and when the rules of engagement are set they respond. Maybe my friends are the same way. Their expectation is low, so they return low effort.

Again, all over the map. no answers.

I walk alone.

watcher

My sense is that my blog has been found, watched, and forwarded. Which is fine. I guess i will live with the potential judgement.

This blog while public - it isn't exactly accessible unless you specifically know how to get here. I've done nothing to introduce anyone to this space. I'm not trying to make a public statement on me, my life etc. I decided to experiement with writing and have a place to collect my general thoughts. That said, i have nothing to hide. my thoughts are my thoughts.

If you're reading and you know who you are, go ahead and send me an email. Clearly you would know how to reach me. I'll add you to the contributors to add comments. It can be a dialog.

here today goon tomorrow

Have you had the occasion to see someone daily in their "environment" and then be surprised when you see how different they are in another environment? The hair comes down, the clothes are different, even how they carry themselves is new. The resulting feeling that you didn't actually know them, or what you thought you knew about them has now been changed in some subtle way. Maybe, you like and/or respect them more.

I had a couple of back to back situations like that tonight, i'm still processing how i feel about it.

Situation A is one that i am well acquainted with. I have a friend and longtime coworker that I can never get a read on. We have a lot in common (like we are both overdriven only children), we challenge one another but have always generally gotten along. There was a time when we couldn't see eye to eye on the overall direction of the company we worked for. Sucked because we were both part of the corporate management team. Our area of murky has always been around the same topic, how do we combine our talents into something that makes sense as a business...or should we even work together again? It's lots of talk with no immediate action. i personally have tried to get this person to come up with a reasonable scenario where we might try to work togehter...it never happens. i think the most frustrating thing has been the dance that is necessary to even have the conversation. I approach, throw out what I am trying to do, i get a response...which is always less than clear, and we start again. Refine, approach, or get taken to a different approach. Wash spin soak, repeat.

Tonight was different.

Maybe there is general frustration on his part, or maybe we have just grown tired of the dance, but there was a level of shared honesty that was surprising. I guess it made me see this person in a whole new light. It was almost as if we finally acknowledged a mutual respect for one another that said "finally, we are equal. finally, we might be able to figure a way to work together"...and maybe we are friends with mutual respect. i recognize after all these years, someone i had always called my friend might actually my friend. I didn't want to say goodbye but i had to. i was late for another dinner.

Situation B, I got to my next dinner meeting 25 minutes late. Not really my usual (for business), and this is not a person who is really tolerant of late...or at least that is what my experience has told me.

It got worse as i couldn't find where were supposed to meet in the restaurant. The place was jammed with people. It took a phone call and an IM to figure out where i needed to be. I was surprised by the reasonably warm reception, as if the wait was not completely annoying. Am i misjudging everyone i "think" i know?

Maybe.

Some superficial aspects. I think what I enjoy about these events is the ability to see someone in a casual environment dressed the part of casual. I don't typically get to see this, but i have to say it interests me. conversation seems less stilted, conversation flows, more laughter, and the movement; even the walking is just a little different.

Then there is just the general demeanor of the interaction. Nothing fake, no posturing, and generally just the laughs. Even the serious parts of the conversation were a bit more comfortable. I'm not editing. Strange, i feel like i do edit a little here and there.

Lastly, things i have generally found less than desirable i see in a different light. If clothes make the (wo)man, are flip flops some kind of strange salvation from the bonds that we impose upon people that we think we know...and in some senses may not like. i have a hatred of flip flops, but in this strange reversed world i enjoyed the entire scene. Can environment be the cause? Or is it generally that this is the other side of a human that we don't often see?

I don't know.

What i do know is that i like seeing the other side. It may all go away tomorrow, and be reset to the strange relationship that we had at work (it usually does), but for a few minutes over drinks and dinner i got to comfortably laugh with someone that I at one time held at arms length.

Along with this comfort may have brought out some of my honesty, and that honesty may have some costs associated with it. My personal situation is a bit of a mess right now. I discussed some of this openly, and while i was taking in this friendship i may have inadvertently changed the dynamic of the dinner. Hopefully not the friendship.

I have no way of really knowing, but it is was somthing that i thought was a possibility. Kind of sucked to end my evening that way, but it gave me something to think about.

I'm going to hang on to the more positive side of these exchanges.

Okay let's do the math:

1. i might have another decent business opportunity (plus)
2. i might get to work on products with someone i respect (plus)
3. i have to figure out how to integrate my ideas and the other people's ideas into something that works for everyone...and some people may not agree with these mutual ideas (equal)
4. i may have over-shared details about my crap personal life (minus)
5. maybe i look less than stable (minus)
6. i got two hours of the most non complex highly functioning (deep) conversation that i've had in a few months (big plus)
7. i found a larger area of common ground (plus)
8. i saw something beautiful (plus)
9. i got the opportunity to laugh with a couple of people (plus)

I think that is a better average in the plus column.

I want more of that.

in other news: i am yet again fighting with my other half. I feel like an ass because i let her lead me into a place where i fought back. I was hurt and it made me attack instead of just ignoring the whole thing.

This is the reverse of my drinks and dinner situations from tonight. I think i see the issues and the person as clearly as I can. Unfortunately there aren't a ton of things that surprise me about my relationship in a positive way. I long to feel positive about the relationship. I want to go back to sitting across the table and being impressed by the person who i share a huge chunk of my life with.

It is having an impact on me, in all aspects of me life. I don't want to be nagged, i don't want to be critical, i just want to take in life, and enjoy things with the person I'm hanging out with. I want to laugh and have deep conversation i can care about.

It really is that simple. I know that given enough time the probability of being content with your relationship drops to 0, but aren't there things that we could do to at least prolong it. I've been married for 5 years, but we dated for 12 years prior....there are a lot of people who have done this for a lot longer.

Does it really just end up being the same camel hair coat and strappy shoes strewn all over the back seat of the car, or are people really different enough that someone could hang out with someone for 16 years and still derive interest, comfort, laughter, and ideas.

I would like that.

a quick trip to golden colorado

Cheap Beer and Interesting Food
















Ok, so a few things to know about Golden:

1. You can see Denver from there but it feels about a million miles away.

2. There are really excellent river sports there.

3. The food is a bit like one giant pub. I really wanted to avoid anything fried when i got back to SF, unfortunately the first thing i did when i had free time was head to Royal Exchange with the kids and eat....pub food.

4. Golden is like an extremely old, small, college town. Kids running around until 1 am on a sunday, etc. The benefit is that you can serve a table of 5 a round of drinks for $7.50 at most of the night spots. Not a bad way to spend $7.50 on a Sunday night.

5. Lastly, and maybe most interesting, everywhere we went we were given bottled water. Ummm, aren't we always told that Coors tastes so good because of the water in Golden? What happened?

The Coors Brewing Company












Well it was interesting if nothing else. Who knew that the Coors brewing company pushed out 1.8 million gallons of beer a day. That's enough to get the entire bay area drunk for a few hours every day.

The interesting thing about the actual plant is that it looks like something out of Soviet era Russia. It was extremely drab, huge, and cement. It was interesting to see something produced on such an industrial scale. I wonder how long that will continue. Long live Banquet Beer. Oh yeah, that Blue Moon we all like so much...Coors.

I bought a hat.


The Kong Company


The actual purpose of my trip was to meet a new client: the KONG Company. They are truly a great group of people. They have a wonderful product, and dispite not selling out to the man they have had sustained 25-50% growth over the last 7 years. They are currently not returning a call from WalMart. They think it might actually change the business in an unhealthy way. They want to think about it a lot before selling anything there. I think that says a lot. In a lot of ways I aspire to be like them in business. Let's take a few minutes to look at what they have going on there:

They have been in business for 30 years. The basic "KONG" was really nothing more than a bump stop off of the rear end of a Volkswagen from the mid 1960's. The founder owned an auto repair shop in Colorado. People kept breaking into the place, and it was suggested that he get a dog. Simple enough. He added Fritz (an ex-police dog) to the operation and the place was more safe less theft etc. Problem was that Fritz has a problem with chewing things around the place. Some things that were useful to the business, and some things that were bad for the dog (rocks, sticks, etc.).

One day Joe decided to throw Fritz a part from the Volkswagen. It was a bumpstop attached to it's mount. The rubber was natural and it wouldn't harm Fritz, and the interesting thing was it was pretty durable. Fritz was unable to chew through it, and this kept him entertained.

Thus an idea was born.

They had their ups and downs and the company did some business with vets and trainers. Their early success was with people who really knew their animals. An itnteresting situation started to unfold, everyone loved the product, the company made a great product, and the employees loved the work...these people are true animal people...no one was really a business person in the sense of process, marketing, accounting, growth plan etc. At this point the KONG company had a real threat of extinction. Think bank with locks and chains for the door.

The founder Joe, decided to get together with a friend of his John. John was a successful business person who had taken other companies and turned them around. This did provide some level of discomfort for the old timers around the company. As it would with any business that is run like a family. John began making changes, and the changes to the company really worked. As the people around the company began to see that not only was the company stabilizing, but it was also growing, they began to give over some trust to John, Joe, KD and the other leaders that were running the place.

I think the one thing that intrigued me was that they managed to keep their culture in tact while becoming a moderately large company.

The other thing that really impressed me was that there was some amount of controlled chaos. There was no secret formula to their success and they knew it. They didn't claim to have all of the answers, and they didn't act like they were indestructable.

They acted like they were human. I had not seen that in a while in a business setting. There was clearly some tension around having the outsiders from San Francisco there, talking about information architecture, and better product stacking. Our questions made some people really bristle. The interesting thing was they were pretty forth coming about that.

To get them to work with us, we will have to get them to trust us. A concept that i am not only comfortable with, i actually really love. It is a challenge, but it is also an invitation to something bigger. It is the opportunity to form a relationship. We were there for two days and i found by the end that the exchange of ideas was more interesting and developed than the day before. One of the designers from the group that is probably most skeptical about us actually said thanks for taking the time to meet with them, and for the thinking around their problems.

That meant a lot to me. Not in an egotistical way, i feel like a lot of what we do is common sense. These guys were certainly very smart, intuitive, and extremely motivated, they just need a different perspective from people who are just a little bit more removed.

A ray of light in an otherwise gray 3 months in my business world. Skeptics who might actually be able to trust. Hmmm...what an interesting thought.

I look forward to working with this company to solve some interesting problems. I think they are giving us as great of an opportunity as we might be giving them.

Let me close this little trip diary with a word about...


United Airlines

I am so amazingly disappointed with United. Yawn, so what else is new right, or join the club.

They did not assign seats until we got to the gate. Umm, hello if I wanted to fly Southwest I would have flown Southwest. Or if I am flying UnSouthwest, atleast charge me a Southwest size fair. I think i have enough United miles to fly to europe at this point, and I think i might actually be willing to pay another airline to assign me a seat, or let me pick my seat...and maybe feed me.

In my particular case on Tuesday they just refused to give me a seat assignment until 5 minutes before the plane took off. I was the second to last person on the flight. I was not standby, but they sure made me feel that way.

The people at the gate were rude, and the maintenance guy was on the jet way talking to some other boarding passenger about how awful it is working for United, and how he would be working there until the day he died. Great. makes me feel really comfortable that this guy who sounds like he works for the whale is the dude securing the luggage, checking the tire pressure, and making sure the engine stays tacked to the wing. Excellent feeling.

Not to mention, damn, what does that leave me feeling about their company.

The flight was miserable, and there was about a 30 minute span that I was convinced we were going to die. Not their fault, but the entire thing left me stressed out and unhappy with them as a company.

It was an interesting way to spend a couple of days away from home. I felt like i learned a lot.

pink martini interlude

Okay, so i have always loved their music, but i have never seen them live. The concert i went to was at the San Francisco Symphony and it was amazing. I was already addicted to their music at home, in the car, on the track, and on headphones. Seeing them backed by our symphony was unreal. Some of the pieces were so moving and beautiful it almost hurt. Sounds odd to say. I guess their music has meaning to me because it has gotten me thru things, it has highlighted events, and it has been on when i have done some of my best thinking. The opposite of the last post can be said about this small space of time in my life. I'm amazed by some of the things that humans are capable of. If you ever need a ray of that beauty i would highly recommend their records. Play loudly when you are by yourself.

There was a nice dinner before and a great desert after. I highly recommend the Alamo Square Seafood Grill for dinner, and Sauce for desert. Thank you Susana and JB for the excellent eating places. We had these amazing little doughnuts and other assorted deserts. Very yummy. I like Port.

madge, i'm soaking in it, OR "not that i condone any isms; in my opinion isms are bad"

Okay, so i'm washing dishes this morning and i'm thinking to myself...darn why are my hands not getting pruned up? Wouldn't you know the scrubbing bits in the nondescript smart and final washing up liquid has Palmolive in it. I guess i was soaking in it.



I'm often asked why i don't care about doing a mound of dishes and i think i finally know why, one, it gives me a feeling of completing something. A task, something unsightly gets cleaned up, the kitchen and sink are once again anew. The stacks of dishes are back in the cabinet and a slight bit of order has been restored. Two, my mind starts to drift while i'm working, but it drifts in a structured way. Once the order and organization of the dishes to be washed has been established my mind keeps working on problems. Sometimes it is shelving in the garage, sometimes it is cash flow for my company, and sometimes it is trying to wrap my head around the state of in between in quantum computing. F, 1s and 0s, you now have a 1 and a 0 at the same time to play with.

I've been told that the positive ions released from the flow of water near you is what helps clear your head, mellow you out, and make you think. I guess a similarly semi-scientific explanation for why we get good ideas in the shower. Interesting, or not really, but maybe there is something to it.

So there I am washing dishes.

I started thinking about work. Why do some situations work while others completely fail? I think i must have been thinking about a nootsmaak post about body count and hammers. My thinking went something like this:

Companies fail because the people inside become more and more worried about their own skin and what they themselves are getting out of the situation as they move up in the company. I saw this as i got a glimpse at being promoted, at first it felt good, then it didn't, then it was scary, then i wished i could go back to being a cog. Really the entire time i was a cog, i didn't realize that until i left. While i was there, i ACTUALLY started to care less about what we were REALLY doing and i cared more about protecting the things that i was supposedly given. Examples: where i sat, who worked for me, and whether or not they were talking to me or going around me, my budget, my portfolio, my visibility to those around me and those above me. I also worried about what that group over there was getting that i wasn't. Why do they get to make a decision and I don't. Why can't i be a part of that, why can't we work on that together, but i don't want you to waste too much of my time...because I have all of this other crap to worry about.

Meanwhile someone is showing up to their doctor's office and the damn doctor needs to wait 30 minutes to verify that you can have a boil lanced or some such thing. That feels like failure to me.

It happens in small companies as well. Three partners sitting in a room, a challenge comes up about one's value over the others. "I'm just looking out for the business, and for me." Yeah, sure, better to have yourself taken care of while the other people languish, and again, let us not forget the work dynamic, the skills set and value that those original partners saw when they went into business together. Nothing like eliminating one third of your work force and expecting the work (but also the profits) to be split between two people. Hmmm, someone want to do the hours calculation on that one? I wonder how much my hourly rate really could have been then? Infinite hours into finite dollars seems like an increasingly small number...but then again what is my time really worth. (See previous entry about time slipping away. It was nice discovering Fiona Apple 7 years later. I can overplay her albums now.)

So i have been snapped back to my dishes thinking about those two situations, but what brought me back to the sink was the fact that I was now thinking about the quickest way to process these dishes so i could leave the house as quickly as possible to go to a banana republic and buy jackets. Meanwhile the sig other is still passed out likely in some sick, or at least still feeling sick.

Now i'm zoning out on the suds and the crazy guy across the street, i don't trust, fixing the car of the incredibly rude woman who lives around the corner, another neighbor i don't trust. Hmm, maybe some of the problem is that we don't think favorably about the other humans around us and as stated in both work situations, can cause us to think about only ourselves and not about the people around us, the people we work for (clients, or end users, etc.). Can we broaden our thinking enough to remember why we do what we do. It isn't because we want a more attractive website, it is because we actually want someone to be able to access their health care, or that research paper. Without them, we don't get paid, we don't have a business. So screw your portfolio, it won't matter when we can't come to work. Last thing, is the problem of trust.

First a disclaimer: i am not a socialist, a communist, and i certainly wouldn't call myself sensitive to the human condition, and while not a baller or an actor, or a politician...i'll certainly own a little of i've got to get mine syndrome. Though my Benz doesn't role on 22's...it's still a Benz, and the other cars aren't much less fancy. It's also not like i don't burn more than my share of carbon, cash, caffine, etc. I guess I am just saying, is there something just a little bit moderate?

And wait for it...

The big discovery of the morning dish washing: human beings are incredibly selfish. They worry about themselves first, and their 'needs' are what they solve for first. I think i have fought my entire life to be less self absorbed. Holy crap we are fighting the core of our existance. Something that massive seems a little hard to deal with. Certainly not going to get solved here, because i am down to martini classes and swizzle sticks in the sink.

Oh crap one more disclaimer: trust is earned. I recognize that, i truly believe that, but bottom line, when that trust has been earned, trust those around you...unless you start seeing the corporate card come back with charges to the intercontinental and they are the only one who doesn't travel for business...or in this case live 5 minutes from the expensive hotel. That is another topic all together.

And a break, have to go get some toast for the sick sig, other. The groaning is breaking my concentration, wasn't i trying to get to a banana republic to buy a jacket. crap.

Okay, non readers this is lengthy, and I am getting to a point somewhere here, but i really do have to leave the computer...to be continued after some toast and some consumerism.

Next chapter: I can't believe it's not butter, and we weren't trusted to do our jobs. Will i actually be able to pull my own head out and care about the person i share a house with? Who knows, and does anyone care?

i guess it is still july 7th

I just wanted to add a photo as i was thinking about it.

I'm pretty sure this is why i quit working for a large corporation. I couldn't deal with this level of uniformity every day. I felt like i was seeing the exact same thing every day. I don't deal well with uniformity. I kept asking myself those questions...what does it all mean. I just wanted to see the wall as a wall, not some symbol of my daily grind. IT MEANS NOTHING, it's fucking tile. It just looks cool. Stop overthinking it, god, Bechtel put it there in the late 60's bubble tile is bubble tile...they use it because it resist grafiti. It's not laughing at you.

worst good bad day

I have no idea what just happened. It has been an extremely strange day. I started out getting up late but managed to get a fair amount done. Amazing since the last place I worked didn't really allow me to get much done. I quickly became confused, confusion turned to inaction, inaction turned to a trip to nowhere to get auto parts to fix my non-functioning car which turned to failure, which turned to an arguement, which turned into Wii and drunkeness for one of the two people that live here, which turned into puke, which turned me into a nurse. Here I am sitting in the dark in front of the same giant screen in the same template, typing away.

I'm frustrated, and I am lost.

Today, like most days was supposed to be different. I had a set amount of things i needed to do, i was supposed to get my butt to the track, get some practice, and get home. It all kind of fell apart. Now I know that nothing ever goes as planned, but my problem is i count things. I count good days, i count happy times, and I count my frustration. I add these things up every now and then and I make determinations about my life.

What didn't happen today...

Problem is I tend to lose track of whole sections of my life. My 20s are completely gone, i am missing huge portions of the last 15 years. It's like someone hits me in the head and I blank out for a few years. Then I wake up and realized i missed stuff. I can tell you where i worked, what projects i was on, what kind of car i drove and where i drove it to and from daily, but I can't tell you much else. There are whole periods of my life in rough 3-4 year intervals that I have completely lost. Now in my late 30s i'm worried that I am losing time again.

Problem also is, I am lazy. My current relationship is going on 18 years of on and off old, and if i do the math i would say the bad days are out numbering the good days about 5 to 1. The 'worst' days are beginning to gain on the bad days. I know, I know, rub some dirt on it. Relationships take work. True. This must be the oldest start up type relationship in the history of strange relationships.

I feel like i should be doing something else. Problem is what? See lazy. (look for quote later about strappy shoes and camel coats). I couldn't choose a healthy relationship if it was the only box on the ballot, and i have the hanging chads to prove it.

See lost.

I know that none of this makes me at all special, and i think being cognizant of that, says I am growing. I used to think i was quite alone in this space, and it made me feel sad, but special. Turns out there are a lot of people close to me that are in the exact same spot. I have no idea how my father stays married to my mother, they are going on 40 years. That said, i look around and i do see good examples of how real relationships work. My oldest friend has been married about 4 years and they have a truly great relationship. It is a real relationship, with ups and downs...but they still do things that I haven't done in years (hold hands), (talk), and possibly spend time with one another where a chore is not involved.

The other person who inhabits my house is a good person. Smart. Cute. Driven. Clever. Sometimes mean and insensitive...but i can appreciate their club.

Tired.

First post. Sorry it isn't exactly exciting. I guess when i get comfortable with the fact that this is out in public, and still no one is going to read it will i be able to be more open.

I hope to figure it out. I feel closer than ever, but i'm sure it will continue to vex me. Stay tuned and find out.