Category Archives: Miscellany

Walking slooowly toward the door

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In grade school I became adept at timing a trip to the pencil sharpener (located next to the classroom door) so I arrived exactly at 3:00 p.m. and could bolt at the first sound of the bell and be the first one out the door.

I began a similar slow shuffle this week by announcing April 1, 2013 would be my last day of full-time employment at the company I have worked for the past 29 years.

Yes, that’s a lot of “notice,” but I won’t be 65 until next March and want to be sure to qualify for some of that great public health care for which the US is known and admired.

And there are a few things to hand off. Shoot, it’s going to take weeks to remember where I hid the master list of all the passwords for the company websites I’ve been tending.

I’m making an effort to not think of this move as retirement but haven’t come up with the right word. Sabbatical suggests I’ll be coming back to a full-time gig and that’s not likely. Freelancer has a sexy ring to it but sort of implies income. I have no interest in “consulting” anyone. So far, I like my buddy George’s suggestion: Soldier of Fortune!

The list of things I won’t be doing is pretty firm. No RV. No vegetable garden. No cruises.

“So, what are you going to do?” is a common question.

“I have no idea,” is a troubling answer for folks who have known me as a hopeless workaholic. And I understand their concern. I always insisted I would work until I dropped. This new let’s-see-what-happens Steve is a new and troublesome persona.

After driving the MINI Cooper that first time, I said, “Yes! No more cars that aren’t fun!” That’s sort of how I’m approaching this next chapter. Only fun and interesting stuff from this point on. (Not that making banners for the company websites wasn’t fun)

What bothers my friends, I think, is my lackadaisical attitude about this transition (metamorphosis?). I’m making an effort NOT to plan the rest of my life. I’ve come to believe such planning is folly (Planners scoff at this kind of talk). Planning is important, I suppose, if the outcome is important to you. But I’m trying accept any outcome (I’ll let you know how that goes).

As I walk verrry slooowly toward the pencil sharpener, I’ll probably share some of what I see and experience along the way. And I’m counting on those who have made the journey and bolted onto the playground to pass along their advice. I’d especially like to hear suggestions on interesting things to do, placed to go, people to meet. I might even take on a project or job along the way. (Will work for free if I can do it the way I want. $100K if you want to have some input)

T-shirt slogans by Scott Adams

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  • Goals are a form of self-inflicted slavery.
  • I’m not lazy, I’m useless. There’s a big difference.
  • I can no longer resist the urge to text while you talk.
  • You might want to pick a defense that’s less checkable.
  • I tried to read your email but the signal-to-noise ratio was too low.

 

Bruce Sterling’s State of the World 2012

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“The mid-century will be about “old people in big cities who are afraid of the sky.” Futurity means metropolitan people with small families in a weather crisis.”

Future Change as Seen by American Right-wing Talk Radio (2011-12)

  1. Existential threats to the American Constitution. Mostly from “Sharia Law,” which is sort of like the American Constitution for Moslem Islamofascists.
  2. Imminent collapse of all fiat currencies, somehow leading to everyday use of fungible gold bars.
  3. Sudden, frightening rise of violent, unemployable, disease-carrying “Occupy Wall Street” anarchists who are bent on intimidation and repressing free speech.
  4. Hordes of immigrants being illegally encouraged to flood the polls.
  5. Lethal and immoral US government health-care.
  6. Radical Gay Agenda / Litigious Feminazis (tie).
  7. God’s Will. Surprisingly low-key, considering what an all-purpose justification this is.

“I’ve got a soft spot for chemtrail people, they’re really just sort of cool, and much more interesting than UFO cultists, who are all basically Christians. Jesus is always the number one Saucer Brother in UFO contactee cults. It’s incredible how little imagination the saucer people have.”

“Space Travel people. There’s no popular understanding of why space cities don’t work, though if you told them they’d have to spend the rest of their lives in the fuselage of a 747 at 30,000 feet, they’d be like “Gosh that’s terrible.”

“Transcendant spiritual drug enthusiasts. You go into one of those medical marijuana dispensaries nowadays, they’re like huckster chiropractors, basically. The whole ethical-free-spirit surround of the psychedelic dreamtime is gone. It’s like the tie-dyed guys toking up in the ashram have been replaced by the carcasses of 12,000 slaughtered Mexicans.”

Original discussion on the Well.

P. O. Box: Fighting spam

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I rented a post office box this week. The smallest size. Costs $42 a year. The post office is just a couple of blocks from The Coffee Zone, my morning hang-out. My plan is to check the box on Saturday mornings. If someone needs to reach me more often, there’s email.

“Home delivery” for us has been a box at the entry to where we live. Every night Barb brings up all the cataloges and 3rd class junk mail that cannot be stopped. Nine of ten pieces go into the trash. Nothing –absolutely nothing– needs to be delivered every day.

So I pursaded Barb to let me rent a PO Box.

The USPS will forward 1st class mail to the box but not the junk (“You’ll want to let them know your new address,” reminded the carrier.) Uh huh.

I’m unclear if all of the 3rd class spam will find me. I assume it will. The spammers just pay USPS for sticking some shit in my box. I got the smallest box in an effort to make it harder for them. If the piece is too large, they leave me a note and I can pick it up at the front desk. Right.

I don’t feel like I am giving up any convenience and I will have at least the illusion of some control.

Kevin Kelly: Found Quotes

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My thanks to Kevin Kelly for finding and sharing the following quotes:

“The core function of memory is to imagine the future. Memory is not designed to perfectly replay past events; it is to flexibly construct future scenarios. “– Tali Sharot, The Optimism Bias, Time, June 6, 2011

“It is said that we are all three different people: the person we think we are (the one we have invented), the person other people think we are (the impression we make) and the person we think other people think we are (the one we fret about).” — Stephen Bayley, The Gentle Art of Selling Yourself, March 4, 2007

“In attempting to construct such machines we should not be irreverently usurping His power of creating souls, any more than we are in the procreation of children. Rather we are, in either case, instruments of His will providing mansions for the souls that He creates.” — Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, 1950, p. 444.

“Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? Rather, the round globe is a vast head, a brain, instinct with intelligence!” – Nathanial Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables. Chapter 17.

Speak when spoken to

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I am clearly incapable of remaining silent for 24 hours. I fantisize about this from time to time but can’t summon the will to try it. So I’m wondering if I could go for a day only speaking in response to a direct question. No follow-up queston, I remain mute. I could puss out by allowing me to ask a direct question.

I’d really like to see a transcript of everything said to me and by me for a full day. I’d go through it line by line, deleting stuff that didn’t need to be said. You know there wouldn’t be much left.

Somewhere in the archives there’s a post in which I speculate a word rationing plan. I get 1,000 words alloted for every 24 hours. My iPhone app counts my words and gives me updates on remaining. Once gone, can’t talk. Have to rely on 100 pre-recorded phrases to interact with others. Would the quality of my discourse go up given such a limitation?

Stay tuned.

Your business card a billboard for your brand

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“In my universe a powerful brand should be able to explain their mission in a single paragraph–the fewer words, the better. But what most brands forget is that their business card is indeed their ‘napkin,’ a blank canvas enabling them to communicate the essence of their brand (or fail to do so).

We live in a super-cluttered world where no one has time for anything. We’re bombarded with text messages, TV commercials, billboards and online ads, and so companies need to know what they stand for. It’s a fact that you cannot remember more than three television commercials in a row, let alone recall the design of your average business card unless they manage to rise above the cacophony and stand out in a way that’s completely relevant.”

—Fast Company

nd.

Tree house tea house

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Takasugi-an, a tea house in Chino, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. The angle makes this look a little more perilous than it is. But still, you gotta really want some privacy to go up there for a cup of tea.

I love tree houses (but who doesn’t) and look forward to the next Tree Houe Project on the Prairie Garden Trust (next spring I am told). Check out more photos of the tea house.