be better

i have been a grumpy bastard for much of 2013.  not every day, not all the time, but enough that i am sick of myself on a semi-regular basis.  i realized this morning how close i am to the end of the year, and that this is a good chance to do something about the self-loathing.  i need to make myself some promises for the coming year.  next week a new year begins and i need a framework to work towards my goal.

some points to note.  i almost never make new years resolutions.  they seem forced and fake, picking something to do to change yourself ... yeah right.   if you wanted to be that way, wouldn't you be already?

people choose things that they have always wanted to do and have never done.  "write a novel" ... when you have no history of writing is a pretty big jump.  they have no idea of the time and effort the resolution would take because they have never done anything like that... any resolution you make while blind to the effort it takes is destined to fail.  rule #1, nothing you haven't done before.

people also choose things they don't really enjoy.  a smoker who has smoked for 20 years should not be thinking about giving up smoking; unless there is something else they want even more ... like living after their second heart attack and signs of lung cancer ... then again, if they really love to smoke, leave them alone, they love it, and have been looking at the pictures on the pack for long enough to have thought about what their lungs look like ...  rule #2, pick things you actually enjoy (or have strongly enjoyed in the past).

what about having failed at it in the past ... i have an issue here, i have decided to lose weight before, last year in fact, not at new years -- it wasn't a resolution, it was a plan... and i failed, miserably ... self-delusion is the driver for too many when they make their resolutions, they just don't appreciate the limits of their ability to change.  rule # 3, try to not make the same resolutions you have made and failed at the past.  if you do repeat, find a way to change them to make them achievable.

the other thing people do is take on too much at one time.  the ability to get through something difficult is both the strength of conviction, and the level of strain someone is under.  get someone stressed, or tired, and will goes out the window.  comfort behavior kicks in, and the bad comes on like a warm blanket ... so, don't take on too much.  allow yourself rest and reward between stressful events ... rule #4, don't over due your commitment.

sounds good right?  i have clearly given this thought and do know how to set reasonable goals... i need to find things i really enjoy, i have been successful with before, focus on the ones that will really make me happy and make them achievable both in number and scale...

and in that vein i have decided to go with 10 changes, the first two are elements of the same goal of getting my fat-irish-ass back to a shape other than round.  the others support other themes.

1. exercise almost every day (run a 10K by the end of 2014)
2. eat to live, instead of live to eat  (lose 50 lbs in 35 weeks)
3. use kanban to plan work and home
4. use moleskine to-do to track days
5. actively code
6. call all three kids 3 times a month
7. call mom once a month
8. motorcycle at least once a week
9. travel to focus on sanity
10. be sociable, delay the misanthrope tendencies

you don't like that, you think that is too many things to focus on?  maybe i need to be more selective and find achievable goals.  these are too tactical for you, huh?  hmmmm, lets summarize these up into their themes.

• get fit
• be a better manager
• be a better father/son
• relax and enjoy life

yeah, i didn't go with a list like this in the first place because of the lack of SMART goals.  this is the middle of review season, and goals are due in a week or two, how can i go with a summarized list that doesn't give me a structure to measure against ... the original list of 10 each had fine grained steps below them, steps that were suppressed for brevity ... that was a good thing right ...

you want more brevity?  now that we are summarized to themes you don't really care about any details ... these themes are all about one thing; driving the grumpy bastard down the road. 

if you don't care about the details at all, you just want a single simple goal.  how can i boil this down to something concise... 

okay, here this is it:

• be better 

that is a goal we could all embrace for 2014.  you do your part, i'll do mine and we can get together at the end of the year and see how we have done.

gibbs rules

i watch NCIS ... it's not my favorite show, but it is on the comfort list.  i have other shows i definitely like more; mostly with protagonists who are more moody or clearly broken than this show.  this is a feel good, team work, do the right thing, what ever it takes kind of american show.  at the center of it is leroy jethro gibbs and the set of rules that have become known as gibbs rules.

gibbs rules are not unique, most american kids grew up hearing some subset of these from our fathers, coaches, uncles and grand fathers.  some of them come directly from john wayne who taught us to "never apologize mister, it's a sign of weakness", stays on the list of most men; although the better of them break this rule when needed.

having a personal set of rules is part of getting older.  it's a sign of maturity that you have learned so many lessons you need to write them down, or are willing to share them with others.  a personal list may have come with hard lessons, but the lessons are not shared, just the rules.  everyone needs to learn their own lessons, but when they do that's when they might remember someone saying words they didn't really understand at the time.  rules are just words until you have the context to put them in.  some people might be able to follow rules without the lesson, but i need to feel the bruises before i learn the lesson.

in an effort to remember and share, here is my personal list of rules:

1. family first
2. secrets are not secret if anyone knows
3. everybody lies
4. balance requires flexibility
5. to remember it, write it down
6. don't assume, check; then confirm
7. listen, hear, think then talk
8. when in doubt; don't
9. never go anywhere without a knife
10. make a mess, clean it up
11. do what you are, use your strenghts
12. team, corp, god, country
13. it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission
14. bend rules, don't break them
15. swim across a riptide
16. don't apologize; it's a sign of weakness
17. when you are sorry, fix it 
18. if it doesn't hurt, it's not worth the effort
19. you want it, you carry it
20. wanting it is not needing it
21. you need less than you packed
22. carry on, or be left behind
23. slow is smooth, smooth is fast
24. you don't need to to outrun the bear, just the other guy
25. when the map doesn't match the mountain, believe the mountain
26. never swim alone
27. lead, follow or get out of the way
28. promises made are promises kept
29. what is measured improves
30. delegate, trust, then monitor
31. hire, train and get out of the way
32. see one, do one, teach one
33. elegance is engineering without extras
34. nothing lasts forever, enjoy it while it does
35. always be ready to walk away
36. when the ride ends, get off
37. shake hands when the game is over
38. there is always someone better, work harder
39. easy is boring, hard almost never is
40. just good enough usually isn't
41. bad things happen, wear a helmet
42. if paying for it takes longer than the enjoyment, its probably not worth it
43. you don't know enough, keep learning
44. you are going to be wrong, get over it
45. when you're wrong, don't be the last to realize it
46. when you see a contradiction, check your assumptions
47. simple is best, correct is better
48. fear helps you focus, keep moving
49. happiness comes from inside
50. its all about the love

this list is neither complete or finished.  i am hoping to keep learning my lessons and growing the list when new bumps teach me things.  some of these lessons go back to a very early age, some are newer... all are part of me now.  i own the rules, because i have the memories, the scars or bruises, that back them up.

as i type this i am thinking about standing in the kitchen and holding e back from the stove.  i was taking bread out and he wanted to help.  i told him it was hot ... he didn't listen... i stood back and watched him reach out to the door again... the shocked look on his face said it all, he had just learned to not touch the hot stove.  his eyes accused me of burning him and is said, "i told you not to do it, did you learn a lesson?" ... i don't think he even remembers this moment of my sideways parenting.  i wonder if he has a rule that applies?

i mentioned that gibbs is not my favorite character, but a number of my rules are close to his.  one of mine is a direct copy, including the number.  after quoting it to angel too many times to remember, she has just begun to remember it.  now is not the time to change it.

gibbs rules are part of his teaching of staff.  i am not sure how many of my rules any my staff have picked up over the years.  what is more important is that they have rules of their own.  everyone's rules are their own, or should be if they are going to be actually appreciated.

these are mine, if you want your own, remember rule #5.

collective intelligence

as a software engineer who works in the e-commerce space, i am not usually impressed by the positive ways a site works.  most sites are no more complex than an insurance salesman who takes their customer though a long profiling exercise, in an effort not to select the right product but to know how to best pitch the basic set of products he would have suggested before the interview.  there is one site the continuously impresses me, amazon the largest ecommerce site in the world and the one site that seems to be able to anticipate my interests pretty well.

i got to thinking about this when i saw the suggestion for the movie "in the line of fire".  clint eastwood plays "frank horrigan", a secret service agent with a long history and a jaded past.  through the movie there are scenes with a small hotel in DC i stayed in long long ago, and another in the westin bonaventure in LA where i stayed only long ago.  i begin to empathize for some of what clint's and john malkovic's  (the assassin, mitch leary, horrigan is trying to stop) are feeling as they play their cat and mouse.  they both have are aging and have histories that drive them.

horrigan, like many of the eastwood characters over the years, delivers great one-liners as the action unfolds.  one is, "i know things about people", which he uses through-out the film to explain how he can read into the behaviors of the people around him.  the other is after he tells a female agent (renee russo) that her character is window dressing out to court the female vote, she asks him what demographic he represents and he replies:

let's see... white, piano-playing heterosexuals over the age of fifty. there ain't a whole lot of us, but we do have a powerful lobby.

this always makes me wonder which demographic i represent.  the same thing that happens when i use amazon, which tries to know me and compare me to others to help make suggestions.  the idea is that the collective intelligence of the crowd being the best indication of the behavior or desires of the individual.  if others like me enjoy things then i should too.  but to be good at this they need the ability to put people into the groups and then use what they know about all the people in that group to make projections on individual behavior.

the ways you know things about people are to ask them questions and then to watch their behaviors.  amazon knows where someone lives if they have delivered purchases.  from this they get a zipcode that ties into a demographic sample, telling them the income level, ethnic profile, education level and political party affiliation if not of the individual, than the community around them. all good information, but not as good as the actions of the individual.  i for example are not a good match of either of the places i live; well maybe expat-malaysia but not exit-8.

so they also watch what someone does.  what does the user view?  what do they buy?  what items do they put into a wish-list? or what do they rate, even if they didn't buy it on the site?  this has all become standard ecommerce marketing behavior.  smart engineers use huge amounts of data to target people because they "know things about people".  apple uses former purchases, and itunes match information to make genius recommendations.  look at yours, mine are spooky good at knowing what i like.

all of this has me thinking, what do you need to figure other people out.  i know you start by asking questions, and then you watch behavior.  if you believe the house-ism that everyone lies, then you need to consider that too.  people may lie, they may spin, but if you watch carefully and use enough data, you can figure them out and be able to make projections.

so, what do you ask first?  how much data do you need?

what would you need to figure me out?  what about the first 30 buckets i would put myself into?

• male
• late-forties
• european-american
• liberal-arts education
• deep reader
• software engineer
• fallen catholic
• ENTJ
• east-coast
• traveller 
• asia
• father
• married and divorced
• libertarian free-thinker
• triathlon
• lifeguard
• inked
• beach-bum
• craft beer
• ethnic food
• non-halal
• cook
• leatherman
• iphone
• macbook air
• crumpler
• evolutionary theory
• anthropology and psychology
• politics and economics
• open-sharing

maybe i cheated keeping the list to 30 by doubling up a few, but there is the behavior you need to watch.  those are the clues on what is important and how life is approached.  i wanted to go back and reorder things.  it felt like there might be a ranking inherent to the list, but i didn't reorder because this is the way it came out of my head.

as i look at the list, i realize that if i met a new person on the beach i would share most of this, the rest they might be able to see if they looked.  but is this enough for them to know things about me?  could they make a projection on my interests?

apple knows the shows i will buy.  amazon can suggest books and music to me.  but if asked, which demographic would i represent?

let's see... white, open-minded metrosexual tattooed book-worms near the age of fifty.  there really aren't a lot of us, and i like it that way.

small world

after breakfast today i went for a walk on the beach. the waves here crest quickly and break close to the shore. there are strong tides and the beach is marked with the red flag that warns that it is closed for swimming. as i looked down the beach there were a few people bobbing in the waves on the miles long beach, but it was otherwise nearly deserted. i thought about the european sailors who would have seen this beach for the first time from their boats. how could they have seen this and not swam ashore to stay and frolic in the waves? maybe because they had seen so many other beautiful beaches ... okay, but why would they ever go back to england?

i have used the word paradise a few times in this blog, and there really are places in the world that are as close to paradise and one could get. but if you needed to go out and find a place to live, where would it be? as i sit under palm trees and listen to the waves coming ashore, washed in warm tropical sun, i wonder why anyone would select a location that involves the harshness of my childhood winters. i remember making angels in the snow, but i also remember falling on my aching ass because i did not break the ice on the stairs when my father asked. we are not really made to live in those conditions, being iced is not a good thing.

the selection process had to be easier when the bounty sailors looked ashore to tahiti. an open culture, an established trading system for necessities, chiefs who welcomed the ferengi ashore and offered them land and status to stay. but the modern world is more difficult. travel is fast, and information travels faster. we can watch the events of a far off situation unfold from nearly anywhere in the world. the world is smaller, with more options.

as you look over the world, where would you pick to live? bali is nice, but has no economy beyond tourism; with crazy traffic on anything including a motorcycle. amsterdam is nice, love bicycles, but needing to speak anymore dutch than i do would hurt. goa sounds nice, european influence and a desire to not be called indian, but i would spend all my time searching for the bridge that marie died on.

i don't have an issue working on my spanish, but don't really want to learn portuguese, i have had my fill of fringe languages. finding somewhere with english as a common language would be great in fact.

i prefer it socially relaxed, there has to be no issue with alcohol and pork; in fact a strong beer culture with tasty IPAs would be great. a cosmopolitan environment, that looks beyond color and orientation is a must in fact. it must have a newport-quality arts culture, so i can walk into galleries to poke around between the beach and coffee in a cafe. the closest i can come up with is bondi beach. the beach is nice, i would love to join that lifeguard club on the west point (the first official live saving club in the world), book, record and surf shops and great food all around; relaxed people playing between the flags.

there is also something i like about living in a place that was established as a penal colony, and that was a favorite destination for troubled irish to be deported by our engles overseers. the downside is cost of living, it feels like the overseas alternative to moving to venice beach. but venice has native burrito shops and quality medical care easily available, while NSW is still sadly behind the times in modern beach side comforts.

i was thinking about a house somewhere in baha california. buy a piece of beach, put up a doublewide and have a boat to take tourists out during the season. i have never been a fisherman, but i used to row so the other guys could catch off the "ship of fools", this would be the late-adult version of that. good weather, spanish and english, slow paced. it all sounds good, but how do i get back here and see the andaman sea again? how do i get back to bali and visit my ubud auntie friend who sells me batiks. she smiles as soon as i walk up, and gives me a hug. can i decide to leave that behind?

it's too early to come up with a retirement plan. i should just go back to the villa and read my book on born liars. the book talks about how lying helped drive the explosive evolution of humans over our cousin primates. it argues that we needed to learn to lie to compete in ever larger social groups. humans are known to have evolved to live in groups of 150, and later into villages of 1,500, this is significantly larger than the other higher apes groupings. lying helped us do it, driving our need for larger brains and the ability to project ahead.

but our world is much larger now. we have so many options, to travel, to meet and know others, to experience cultures. i am watching the sun drop towards the horizon, and i am so glad i am here. this trip was taken because i missed the US and needed a break, but if i said i was ready for a change and knew how to make it with a perfect choice... i would be lying.

if asked right now, i would think of cousin avi and say, "yeah, don't go to england"

prosecuting gandhi

when i was younger i considered a career as a lawyer. my liberal family would have hoped that i would become a defense attorney, maybe not a public defender, but someone who would stand up for the accused and provide them with the best defense possible. the problem i had with this was the collection of friends i had as an early teen. they had provided me with the insight that most of those accused were guilty. rather than getting guilty people off, i wanted to help put them away, protecting society from the mayhem.

growing up with near-hippy parents, and wanting to be the protector of the conservative social order could sound strange. but having lived in a chaotic situation, you begin to understand why rules are put in place. as one of my college professors said, "there are lions and there are lambs, you need to decide which you want your children to be". i somehow grew up with the shaggy hair, and protective demeanor of a shepard dog. sitting on the hill, watching the flock and ready to intervene to keep the lambs from the lion.

but when i came time to go to college, i did not find a pre-law track, i went education. i believed it would be better to intervene earlier, to teach the lambs to think for themselves rather than needing to be led through life through fear of the shepards crook. none of this turned out as planned, i never taught, i found a path that allowed me to design and build automation rather than social systems. but as the years have passed my desire to tightly control has been replaced with the original freedoms of the liberal environment i developed within.

spending 4 years watching the cloistered monastic communities of my university years struggle against the modern realities of the post-enlightenment years, trying to reconcile a conservative framework with the the entitlements and opportunities of the educated futures they were building, convinced me that closed was not the way for me. the portraits of human greatness ended with mahatma gandhi, the father of modern india and creator of non-violent civil disobedience called ahimsa. reading the material, brought into sharp contrast how a conservative regime can be overcome by allowing them to attempt to strangle freedoms from their people.

the intervening years have allowed me to learn much more about myself and the the world than i ever could have known during college. i have resisted change myself and felt the irrationality of trying to hold back the tide. i am currently witnessing change similar to the 1960s collapse of the conservative order of post-WW2 america. a country pushing itself in two directions at once, and feeling the tension of straining against itself.

i am very glad i didn't become the protector of conservative order i thought i wanted to be in my youth. embracing the liberalism of modern-life has given me the opportunities i have so throughly enjoyed. i once said i was not a role model. at the time i was quoting charles barkley without thinking about the new role i was taking on. a life and a half later, i recognize that i am a role model, but maybe not the one my early conservative self would have expected.

there was a story in the journal a few months ago that discussed a new book on gandhi. the title of the book is great soul, the message is that gandhi was a complex man who lived in a time when the modern world was evolving. he is also a man who embraced a celibacy while married to a woman, wrote letters to a man describing him as the love of his life, and who lost close associates from his inner circle based on his "experiments" of sleeping naked with young girls. the book only focused on these points by publishing gandhi's own words, and never drew conclusions. the book, of course, caused strong reactions from those who have put the man on a pedestal and refuse to accept him as a man with personal demons.

the issue with taking a conservative view, and attempting to defend it, is that new details come to light, and you are forced to square them with an out of date set of believes; this can cause intense pain. conservatism comes from the latin conservare "to preserve", while liberalism comes from the latin liberalis "of freedom". as the world opens up, and conservative threads continue to unwind, those who give themselves the freedom to learn and experience life are in a better, less painful, position. they are not trying to hold back the tide that is coming no matter how hard they resist.

gandhi more than the symbol, he was a man and lived a much more complex life than we were led to believe. that does not diminish what he accomplished or change the freedom he brought to his country. there is no reason to prosecute him today for the life he lived then, but there is also no reason to shy away from understanding what that life was. understanding is always better than ignoring, it gives you the freedom to adjust to the new realities.

why preserve an out of date view? its like last weeks fish, the smell isn't going away no matter how much you try to cover it up and if you continue to feed on it, sooner or later you are going to wish you were a vegetarian.

naked pool

this vacation is coming to a close. we are on day seven of the get away to get away tour. i have only called work once, i have done email a few times, but i have been happily disconnected from the internet most of the time. i have lost one almost completed book, and read parts of three others. we have had drinks at sunset every single night, and then snuggled in with dvd series. but the best part of the vacation was the single element required as we searched for villas. it is the element we loved last summer in thailand, and the one i will miss the most when it is not available. it is the part of asian top-end resorts i have come to love, the naked pool.

when we checked into our third resort, it was quickly noticed that we had no view. the room was great, big bed, wonderful bathroom, a bathtub outside that was placed into a pond with plants, fish and very loud frogs. there was a sitting area on the other side with grass leading to a high stone wall that ran all the way around the villa. the villa sat on a terraced hill, following the contour lines of rice padi's surrounding the resort. it was very quiet and secluded, facts that called out as you looked at the long still lap pool outside the rooms wall of windows.

last year we had gone to thailand and barely left the resort. the spa, the bar and wonderful chef who made yummy beignet in the morning and quesadilla at night were all good. but the room with the private walls and swimming pool were the draw. throw in an outside shower and a open air bathtub and you get a glimpse of a vacation for the rich and famous. now mix in a gentle zen spa vibe, service with asian distance and someone you are comfortable with and you get to a holiday that sends the stress of life far, far away.

so as we searched for villas for this trip, we had the single requirement. a naked, sorry private, pool. we ended up with the first room surrounded by rice padis and over looking at the beach, but set to the side of the resort with walls on three sides for added privacy. the second room had walls ten feet high all around, with added height in areas that adjacent rooms second floor could look down into the pool. clearly added to ensure privacy for all. and now, this room again with high wall, but without the views the site had talked about. i asked the butler showing us to the room and he explained. other villas have a view of the jungle and river bottomed valley, but these are the rooms they put the "private" guests in. i made a face and he explained.

some of the guests are so famous they can not check in under their own names. if they were in the other rooms there would be people with cameras in the jungle trying to take pictures of them. these rooms are built for them, to ensure their privacy, and to allow them to enjoy their vacations. the vision of a someone checked in as "anna scott" who had come to be the most famous recreation of "eat, pray, love" needing time away from the paparazzi snapped into my head. i was not sure how i felt about staying in a room that a runaway bride may have stayed in, but the pool awaited.

the next few days were a cycle of swim, outside bath and overall relaxation. if a star did stay in this room, i hope they were smart enough to relax in the pool and tub. i had painfully sad visions of someone not being comfortable enough to fully enjoy the freedom.

i was taken back to my penultimate summer on the cape, when i tried to motivate a midnight trip to the beach for a natural swim. that attempt was sadly not shared, new england puritanical mores winning out over newport hippy culture. but all was not lost, i was able to correct the misjustice and teach the love of freedom a few years later in borneo, when we left the rainforest music festival, dodged a guard, abandoned the half uptight, and played in the south china sea.

but here i was, far from the house in truro, paparazzi safely walled out, with the most relaxing trip of all time quickly slipping away. it was time to fill the tub, and do some laps in the pool while the water ran.

as auntie ann used to say, of course i was wearing a suit, my birthday suit.

being good

a few weeks ago i woke up in a hotel room and wondered how i had gotten there. as i laid in bed and felt the soft sheets around me i knew i was not home, but i did not remember where i was. i was alone, i was happy and i had a simple night before, spending the night at a friends wedding then returning to the room to read a book in the bath. it might sound boring, but it was the night i wanted to have if i was being good.

being good is something that is subjective. those two little words can mean completely different things. i am sure the asians sitting around me as i type this have as many views on what it means as there are people in the room. the malay guy with the shaved head, intense stare and tattoos might disagree with the malay girl at the register whose name means abstinence. then again, maybe they completely agree but i doubt they would both admit it.

that afternoon i was waiting for my car at jockey parking after lunch. there was a little malay boy standing near me. he was with his mother who was waiting for her car. as we waited, he noticed me and looked at his mother. he pointed to my tattoo, and she shooshed him a bit embarrassed that i had seen the exchange. they were clearly upper-class, and i assumed were exposed to the more cosmopolitan sides of KL. i assumed this based on location, dress and the fact that this kid was openly cheeky, not the average shy (if not functionally mute) malay kid.

this is when the kid dropped his water bottle on the ground and kicked it towards me. mom was horrified, and apologized as i picked it up and handed it back to her. i told her it was not an issue, and said hi to the kid. she handed him the bottle and he stepped closer to allow his little arm to hurl the bottle directly at me. this was the moment i knew i liked him.

we had a few more minutes of mom trying to suppress this kids clearly natural behavior. he threw the bottle, kicked it and laughed the entire time. the fact that i was smiling and laughing at him might have added fuel to the fire, but i think he was capable of this without my encouragement. my car came first, as i got in i heard the mom say the still strange, "say good bye to uncle". as i turned i saw him watching me from behind his mothers legs. i waved and said, "be good". i saw him smile with that same twinkle in his eye my grandmother used to talk about. i wondered if he understood exactly how i meant the advice.

as i drove home i was thinking about this kid and what he will mean to the country. he and the other kids in malaysia are the future. the country is changing, becoming much less shy, at least here in KL. the children are the next generation to come into power, if they do not all leave as part of the talent diaspora, they will be the ones demanding the ability to be themselves. is the country ready for the future behavior of this less than shy generation.

when i got home i walked into the elevator and on the next floor up a chinese family came in. they had a kid of about the same age with them. he had a french school shirt on, so i said, "bonjour monsieur" to him. he smiled and laughed at me. we had a short conversation until we got to their floor, as they got out he waved to me and i said "be good". this was not the same encouragement as before because i didn't see any of the natural readiness to challenge in him, but it may have been more subtle advice. as the doors closed i heard him say to his parents, "that is a nice man". i wondered how many people agree with that.

when it comes to being good, i know i do not agree with the people around me. being good includes being yourself and using your skills. if you have the ability to think or be different then being good is exercising those abilities. in this case, less is not more. working hard to allow yourself to be as good as you can is easier and more fun than working to suppress your natural self.

as i think back on when i came to believe this i keep hearing coach toppa say, "look good, feel good, be good". being good for that group meant going out and beating another team into submission. it meant competition and success, it did not mean gentle or shy discussion. toppa taught us that "three, three, tackle to tackle" anything was allowed. this is a box around the ball where the substance of the game happens, its where most people ignore because its messy and active, but this is the box that i learned to be good within.

here is too hoping these kids find a way to get out of their box, and to be good while they are within it.

most alive

being away from your home country forces you to try to stay connected with the cultural events you are inherently missing. the superbowl was this week, other than having a raving packers fan in the office, and calling my son on the drive to the office on monday, i would never have know; or honestly cared. but other events and ideas happen back in the land of the free and i feel the pull of desire to share them. this is how i get pulled into reading articles on sites like good.is

living in malaysia takes away my ability to think about the best beer in each state, but i can read an article that maps the best beers of my home country. it points out that 78 percent of the beer sold in the US is produced by busch, coors and miller brewing companies, but the fact that we have a map with 49 great breweries, spread evenly across the country, does warm my heart. it also made me happy that smutty nose, harpoon, flying dog are all on the list, but gives me ideas for reasons to try new brews the next time i am back.

while i was reading the site today i saw the community discussion, when you do feel most alive? read the aswers that people left, they were great. those leaving comments were honest and open. talking about moments in life that are personal, but which do make them feel fully alive. this is something i miss about the US, those types of conversations, and here it is in an online forum.

as i read the article, i thought about it for myself. what moments make me feel fully alive?

the first thought was of driving in malaysian thunderstorms. speeding up the roads to KL, with rain sweeping over the road, other drivers making erratic lane changes and entering curves like those on the MEX or Sprint just a bit too fast for the conditions. in those moments, retaining control as the fear of slipping off the edge of the road kicks in. i feel a rush and then the relaxation that comes when the wheels straighten out and the stress passes. it's the moment after the near loss of control that feels the best, that is the moment of success.

this happens in other situations also. work, thankfully, has plenty of chances for almost crashing. last year while we were trying to go mobile, we had black screens of death, fears of apple rejection, risks of selected tools -- i felt alive and well. it reminded me that life is too short not to do the things that you love. the day the app went live, i was swimming in a private pool in thailand and i knew success was worth the effort.

the moments of life which are the best are those where i pushed into a risky situation, took a chance that others would shy away from, felt the pressure rise, felt the rush of excitement and the eventual relaxation when the pressure has passed. the moment some call "la petite mort", a short period of melancholy or transcendence as a result of the expenditure of the life force, is what makes me smile. it gives me joy and is worth the stress that brings it.

does this make me an adrenaline junkie? i don't jump out of airplanes, rob banks or other self destructive acts. but i would love to run with the bulls, want to surf really big waves again and tend to be dumb enough to take on a challenge for the pure enjoyment of doing it. i also have lived a life with enough excitement to know that it's the thrilling moments i must continue to have. those are the events i am craving almost unconsciously as i realize the speed has picked up and the roads are wet.

the slower moments, the comfortable times, enjoying the feeling of safety, softness and warmth are great, but the short, sharp shocks of life are the times i am most alive. can you imagine living life without those? many, many people do, they keep the speed down, the lid on and the doors closed because its safe. safe is what my mother told me i would not be if i kept climbing to the top of the tree so i could get my head above the leaves. i wanted to look around, she told me i was foolish.

she was right, the next day the branch i was standing on broke and i fell towards the ground. i bounced off of limbs as i crashed towards the ground. a larger branch broke my fall before i hit dirt. i was a 8 years old and i felt how close i had come to killing myself. i was scared and realized what i had done. i scared myself enough that i never went that high in that tree again.

i still remember how good it felt to have my head above the top of the tree's leaves, that bright sunny day when i went higher than anyone else, higher than they thought i could. the bruises were worth it, because i had lived. i know i am not going to climb a tree and get my head about the top today, but it feels good to have the memory and know i did it once.

i never told my mother i had reached the top, she would have beaten me for being successful, and how could that be a good idea.

one word

i started today in a semi-strange mood. it seemed like things were just not clicking, the timing was slightly off, and i wasn't really sure why. the skys were dark and grey for the third straight day. for the second day in a row it was raining, which for KL is a very strange. the upside was that the weather allowed me to take a jacket as i left the house, something the normal tropical heat of KL elmininates as a choice.

my day typically starts with a stop for coffee. the past few months i have settled into a routine of going to the starbucks close to my apartment. i take the time to drink espresso at the bar before i head off to the rest of my day. as i walked in the door today i saw that my favorite barista was there, a malay girl in tudong who appears to harbor libertarian feminist views. knowing the conversation would be interesting, i smiled as i walked in.

she asked me how i was as i moved over to the bar, and i said, "i am happy i get to wear my raincoat", showing the jacket off as i settled in. this was when she asked the first question, "can you describe happiness"? such a simple question, one which i have been thinking about alot lately, but how can you describe a state of mind? happiness is different for everyone, it even changes as you go though life, so how do you explain happiness to others?

i had spent most of saturday watching movies. i thought "eat, pray, love" would be an uplifting film for a rainy weekend. julia roberts is usually fun, and i expected something like "under a tuscan sun", with the plumbers and the bright colors of italy. in the end, the movie felt too surface for me, as though the distance liz kept from those around her limited the viewer from connecting to the film itself.

the one moment of happiness i did see in the film was when liz ate simple a bowl of pasta in italy. it was a moment that represented her renewed hunger for life. the passion for enjoyment, and the fact that she had found it in a simple pleasure that she was enjoying alone was not lost on me. these thoughts had flashed into my mind when i heard the question, but before i could answer a second question came, "what is happiness, in one word"?

this one had me stumped, i had this great image of living in italy, learning the language, exeriencing the culture, hearing the sites and sounds of the people and having a glass of barbera d'alba and a delicious bowl of pasta dressed in tomato basil on the table in front of me. but how would i decribe that in one word?

it did get me thinking again about the elements of happiness. to be happy i would suggest someone do the following:

• spend time with the people you love
• find space to be yourself
• be successful in the things that matter to you
• live in a safe place
• eat good food
• feel your body move with vigourus exercise
• know you matter to others in the world
• accept yourself and others as they are
• forgive so you can move forward
• be as good as you can be
• safely indulge your vices
• travel the world as widely as you can
• learn something new everyday
• feel nature around you
• relax enough to focus on nothing

now that i have a list what can i do to boil this down? this is a pretty complex set of values that i am suggesting someone have to allow happiness. i also know this list does not fit everyone. this is a list that suits me, and it specifically excludes the need to be sure about anything or to have the answers to big questions. both are things i don't see as possible, and having them would not give me anything close to pleasure.

the word i got to standing in starbucks was "relaxed". in some ways i meant this as a lack of fear, guilt or anger, and in others i meant the actual ability to simply slow down and do nothing more than feel the wind and sun on your skin. a moment of quietness for the mind, soul and body, a moment that stretches into the next, without stress or pressure. a moment you can share with others or enjoy yourself. that is happiness for me.

in "eat pray love" liz learns the italian term, "dolce far niente" -- the sweetness of doing nothing. and that might sound like what i mean by the above, in fact at times that might be exactly what i mean. but happiness is not about doing nothing, it's about doing everything, at your own pace and in a way that taps into your passions and brings you joy.

i think i chose the word relaxed because of the times i was not living. i was too worried about the past and the future. that led to not lving in the moment, which was a life that was not lived. i am happy because i accept the world and who i am, i hope others accept me in return. for anyone who doesn't, well my father had a saying for that too:

"fuck em if they can't take a joke" -- that sounds harsh, but then again my father did know how to be happy.

mediocre meritocracy

a friend of mine asked me to review the college transcript of a family member recently. the question was, what should the family member do for work now that they have graduated college. i remember being in my early twenties and questioning what to do with my career, so i was happy to take a look and see if there was a direction that jumped out. i wondered how it would have gone if someone had looked at my transcript long ago and helped me decide what to do. is it possible to see a future by looking at the numbers on a page, numbers that tell very little of the story of the real reasons for the grades.

as i reviewed the grades, i had to wonder why this person stayed in the program to begin with. it was clear they did not like the core curriculum, and might have done well to find a degree that held more passion for them. i asked about this and was told, they were "assigned" this degree. i was not able to figure out who had done the assignment. this was clearly not something the student had wanted. it may have been parents, and i would not be surprised if the school or the government overall had taken it upon themselves to select a future for this young person. the truth was that the student and the program were clearly a mismatch, one that sadly will probably never be corrected.

as i graduated high school, i had few plans beyond going into the marine corp and flying helicopters. one rainy summer afternoon i went to see the recruiter, a squared away marine that impressed young men in all the ways that motivate them to sign on the dotted line. we talked about why i wanted the program and what i hoped for in the career. he told me that to fly for the marines i needed to graduated college, if not i had two choices, enlist and hope to work myself into officer candidate school, or go into the army and fly as a warrant officer. neither of these were choices i was interested in, i had a vision of what i wanted and i knew i needed to adjust to get it.

as i slid into the drivers seat of my old junky car, i knew i needed to take a direction i had not anticipated. i decided in that moment that i was going to college, i would get the degree i needed to qualify and i would make my dreams happen. from there it was a series of conversations and quickly made decisions that pushed me down the road of life. i selected my college because someone told me i couldn't get into his school, and if i did get it i would not survive the first semester because the school had a policy of over accepting and then weeding out the freshmen who were not committed enough to work.

i began freshman year as an education major, with thoughts of following george, dave and barry into the classroom and onto the field as i had followed them into the water. i dropped the major after a conversation with the department head. a conversation that focused on the question, "what do you want out of life?" my honest answers led my advisor to suggest i leave his department and find something that would allow more freedom and challenge.

my plans came to a crushing stop when the tractor jumped forward and pinned both legs between it's bucket and the curb i was standing in front of. it took me over a year to get back on my feet and begin to rebuild the legs. they quickly broke down and i had to accept that my future was once again not going to be what i expected. i would not join the second PLC group i was assigned to, i would not take the guaranteed aviation slot, i would not wear the uniform.

i was now qualified to do almost nothing. i had dual degrees that had taught me to think and learn, but no skills that made it clear where i was headed. i liked to debate and with a mixed sense of need to break and enforce rules, i decided i needed to go to law school and become a lawyer. i had no schools in mind, i had not worked directly towards this in college and i was sick of being a student. i wanted to do something, so i decided to work for a few years to allow me to travel and experience the world.

i was quickly consumed with work, found my way though three completely different jobs inside of one company, fell into a position doing software engineering and mixed the ability to think fast, communicate clearly, do just in time learning and allow my hubris to drive me from one risk to the next. i took no time to travel, i worked and worked and kept saying next year would be the year i took time and relaxed a little. but next year had new challenges, another chance to work on something new, and those drove me forward, up and over the bubble; directly through crashes that could have derailed me if i didn't take the turns as quickly as they came.

along this whole course i am sure people tried to give me advice. after moving to malaysia my ex-wife was talking to my mom, when mom expressed reservations about me being on the other side of the world my ex-wife asked why she had not told me that directly. "what is the use, you know him, he is going to do what he wants to do and doesn't listen to anyone". when i was first told about this conversation i almost got upset, mom had given me her best wishes and i felt as though she had lied to me. but i also realized she was right, and if she had told me she was worried i would have moved anyway. i had taken another turn when it came, stopping or backing up was really not an option.

i have enjoyed all the success i have had. there have been some major bumps on the road, ones that have caused damage, but allowing someone else to tell me what to do would not have helped me. i was the only one capable of making my choices. if i had listened i would be like the student who had listened, i would probably be in a life that i did not enjoy and would always wonder what else would have happened if i had made my own choices. "take the safe course" is what most advice boils down to, how boring is that. that is where you end up with a world of mediocrity.

this brings me to the advice i will give, its one of the pieces of advice my father gave me that i did listen to,

"whatever you decide, be the best you can be"

phase two

when i first started this blog, i wanted to talk about the new things i was experiencing with each new day in a foreign land. i have now been in malaysia for almost five years. i still experience new things, but most of my days come without surprise. i have been there, i have done that, i have gotten the t-shirt. maybe i need to find a new focus for myself or my writing.

some of these feelings of change may be related to changes in how i feel about the state of the state. when i first came to asia, i had high levels of guilt for getting out of dodge. i had left a party because i was shown the door, but leaving was a purely selfish act. i did it to get away and put the mess behind me. i did it to stop from making an even bigger mess; but that is another story.

as i left the country, i talked to friends on the phone while standing in the airport. i spoke to others while waiting to board the plane, but the last conversation i had was with myself as the plane began to take off. it was a rainy day that matched my mood; cold, windy and gloomy. i had spent all day dreading and second guessing this take off. the moment was now here and i needed someone to tell me it was okay to go forward rather than back. i was worried i was making the final mistake of a series and that this one would seal the future.

all of the actions and decisions leading up to the moment had brought me to this conversation with myself. i had allowed those i cared most about to close the door on me, and now i was hopping on a plane and heading for a far off land. i felt as though i was abandoning those i had promised to never leave. i worried that i was making the worst mistake of my life. but i knew i had been unhappy for a long time; that happens when those around you are unhappy and you blame yourself. i knew i needed a change of time and space, and i needed to be able to recover from the past few years.

i sat back in my seat and watched the rain stream down the window. it drew lines that i could almost feel; it clouded my vision and carried my eyes downwards. the plane was climbing off the runway now, there was no chance to turn back, the streaks were blown back off the window by the rushing air and i imagined the past mistakes being blown away with them. the future was the now; i had been saying for years that one day i would be happy, and i had no excuse to not do that now.

as i realized that i was committed to this change of location. i was going to live alone, travel, learn new things and meet new people. i missed the people i was leaving. i felt a hole in my chest from the space they used to fill, but that space would need to grow over and be filled with something else. i knew i needed to embrace this, because there was really no other choice any more.

i instantly felt better, but with lingering guilt for choosing happiness. this was the instant the plane burst out of the clouds that had covered my day. sunlight broke over the wings and bright blue sky filled the air. as we continued to climb, the fluffy white clouds stretched as far as the eye could see. the next 30 hours would be spent flying to the other side of the world, but the path looked soft and comforting as i looked into the future.

that was the moment i began to accept the changes that had been forced on me. that was also the pivot moment for me accepting that many other changes would also need to take place. some i have liked, others not. some things have been tried, and reversed because they were wrong to try in the first place. others have been tried and will never be forgotten because they were wonderful and i was blessed that i was given the chance in the first place.

that gapping hole in my chest has healed over. i have built up the scar tissue needed to cover it over. it would be cliché to say that asia has changed me. the truth is that i think i have figured myself out in the past 4 ½ years. i am more comfortable with who i am. i have found the ability to be completely independent and lost the guilt of youth. i have also lost the guilt i felt for coming here. i needed to leave the party, and i am glad i did.

it was good to find a quiet place to find myself.

toppatha muffin

i was watching sea-angel eat a muffin this morning, it was wrapped in a tall sheaf of paper and was presented as one cone like shape. the comment was that the muffin was strange, the fact that it was pink was enough for me to know that, but it was the taste and shape that caused the comment. it made me think of the top-of-the-muffin episode from sienfeld, part of which was the hint that taking the top of the muffin, the part most agree is the best, and leaving the bottom is a sign of upper-class greed and veblenish conspicuous consumption.

i have recently made a change in my morning habits. i have stopped stopping for a pancake and a series of chawan kecil and have replaced that with a faster stop for bungkhus caffeine in the malaysianized-seattle style. along with my americano i have found a banana chocolate chip muffin is the perferred source for morning calories and taste. but i have also found that much like the second round of espresso at the bar, the bottom of the muffin is just too much.

i love this muffin, it's better than the muffins starbucks has in the US. those are overly sweet or sadly low in fat and taste. starbucks here is also sadly halal. this is strange to me given the clientele in my sbux who are almost exclusively chinese and expat. the store i am going to is one of the first sbux in the country and has a small but loyal following. i have tried to argue the logic of catering to the market and providing something in some locations that will make the customers you have happy, while not impacting those you don't have. maybe i need to do some market surveys to prove the point, someone needs to lead this charge.

the muffins are good, but just too much. i don't want them smaller, but i have not figured out what do to with the bottoms on the days that enjoyment is second to calorie control. i was reviewing a document with someone, and offered the bottom of the muffin. as a gentlemen, i could have offered the top, but i did not expect acceptance of the offer, and the top is honestly why i purchased the muffin. there was acceptance, with a questioned look of "just the bottom?" she then proceeded to finish the bottom with a gusto and clear appreciation for the sweetness.

so this is the question i have been going over in my head? is it better to offer to share the bottom of the muffin or to suppress the pains and keep the bag closed until you are past the difficult point of sharing what might not be seen as a genuine offer. my grand mother would have said that i should have offered to top of the muffin and eaten the bottom. i could have, but the thought of passing on the top and taking the bottom would be all the more painful if the top was then brushed off. offering to share comes with the triple risk of acceptance, displeasure or rejection. we are taught that acceptance of an offer is a good thing, but when the top of the muffin is involved, do you really think that is the case?

the odd taste and shape of the pink muffin is clearly that there is no depth of muffin culture in the country. a few malay-ified chains are bringing muffins in, but the roots of this penetration are not deep enough for people to know the difference between good and bad. the choke hold of paper wrapper had done the ultimate harm of making the entire muffin into the less prised "bottom-of-the-muffin". the bakery has come up with a way to counter the culture of gastronomic greed that comes from focusing on tops which have naturally exploded out of the pan and cooked with wider exposure to the ovens heat. these higher demands produce the better quality of the exceptional tops.

the cramped version we saw was sadly malaysian. kept encased in paper, hidden from the heat, not allowed to expand and grow beyond the restrictive wrapper. no one in an open and honest environment would actually want a bottom only of the muffin, and here we have the clear example where rather than having the exceptional allowed to show itself, all are being kept in the lowest common denominator restricted space.

if you won't help me get starbucks to carry a breakfast sandwich not built on chicken hotdogs, please help me with this. let people know that malaysians will not except bottom of the muffins only. help create a culture where its acceptable to have tops and bottoms.

if you help, i will listen to my nana and be more open with my muffin. i won't just offer the bottom, it will be the fair (or at least game theory based) "i split, you pick", or even the other way around. team work is needed when dividing the top of the muffin.

shyness is nice

sometimes you realize you just have a different world view.  growing up half a world away, being older and more weary than most of the people around you, and having completely different music in your head can show you how true this is.  have you ever found yourself singing a song in front of someone and realizing they have never heard it? the person listening in may never have heard the band or song, they have no idea the singer was influential in your life, or the generation you came to age within.

this just happened to me, i am sitting at a table in a crowded cafe.  there are people all around me, there is music playing over the noise of conversations, kitchen sounds and staff saying "hi, good afternoon" as people walk past the front.  i heard a song this morning, and went to wikipedia to look up the band, that led to youtube and the song again.  the smiths are one of those seminally important bands for a kid that grew up in a preppy town, attended a preppy college and found alternative music during the anti-alternative years of the reagan administration.

the sounds of morrissey's lyrics and johnny marr's guitar are both haunting and comforting when they are viewed from the time and distance of maturity.  the intelligence of the prose were mulled over so many nights ago; they came at a time when life had a narrowness that was just beginning to be opened by books.  they are now viewed by experience.  a song like cemetery gates with lyrics that invite you to come together with

A dreaded sunny day, So I meet you at the cemetery gates

Keats and Yeats are on your side, While Wilde is on mine

is perfect for the liberal arts major who is being shown the classics for the first time.  gone are the pop artists of youth, the world of substance is opening.  with it you find a band that makes you feel that intelligence and passion are both allowed and normal.

now add to that songs like girlfriend in a coma, that taps onto an emotion that anyone going through early adulthood will have felt, 

Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know - it's really serious

There were times when I could have "murdered" her

(But you know, I would hate, Anything to happen to her)

i can remember singing this as loud as possible in my dorm room, feeling the depth of the emotion, enjoying the fact that someone else could feel it just as clearly as i did.  that someone in the world had put a voice to the emotion.  i have sang this same song again over the years, but maybe never as loud.

other songs just make me smile, no matter how many times i have head the words i break into a grin and love the fact that morrissey could be comfortable enough to record some girls are bigger than others.  the oblivious to shame song that starts:

From the ice-age to the dole-age

There is but one concern I have just discovered :

Some girls are bigger than others

Some girls are bigger than others

Some girl's mothers are bigger than other girl's mothers

and then ends with the offer of a lifetime:

Send me the pillow ..., The one that you dream on ...

Send me the pillow ..., The one that you dream on ...

And I'll send you mine

songs like this can make you feel good even at times when you might need to be more guarded and aware of your surroundings.  like driving back from a late afternoon family gathering when you reach for the volume button to turn up the beat to sing along with the band.  it is common for the kids to hear morrissey's lyrics; they have grown up with them.  most of the car sings along as a happy reflex, done without a second thought; until you realize the kids have been joined by your mother in-law.  she is sitting behind you and is clearly wondering why you and your nine year-old daughter are so happily crooning these lyrics of comparison.

but the song that made me smile today was ask.  i am close to sure it is one that the pretty chinese girl sitting next to me had never heard before.  the half turned head with the hidden smile, one meant to not be shared with her lunch mate, was just for us.  the words that had come from my laptop where:

Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you

From doing all the things in life you'd like to

i did not understand this song when i first heard it so long ago.  i needed to see more of the world, to meet more people with different world views.  doc savage was trying to teach us about the world he had seen, but we were unable to grasp what he was saying.  even with the smiths to back up his stories, we didn't have the experience or openness to accept the message.  as i look over and see a smile, so many years later, the next verse comes across so clearly:

Coyness is nice and coyness can stop you

From saying all the things in life you'd like to

something permanent

yes, it's done. i am now one of those who are inked. the design is maori, the pain was less than i expected, the final result is not what i visualized; but it is something i like. the major question from people has been, "what does it mean?" getting to an answer that satisfies is not that easy for me. i suppose that's because the real meaning of the tattoo is not visual, it is not a function of the tattoo, but it is a function of what it represents.


i had said for years that if i found a design i liked, i would be fine with getting a tattoo. someone close to me would remind me that ink:

1. is not a common expectation for upper management types
2. is not something my preppy irish catholic style embraces
3. is known to be toxic; and can cause health issues
4. can not be easily reversed, even if it is later desired

this list makes me smile, both for the advice and for the ability to transpose these same reasons on other acts that people may choose to indulge and hide.

now the fact that i have done things like begin to shave my head for the pure reaction and enjoyment of it, or move to asia following a decision process lasting 3 seconds, its clear that i have the capacity to go in a direction that others don't expect. but shaving my head and living in the east rather than the west are both choices which i could reverse just as easily as i have made them.

as we were finishing the tattoo, my leaning artist asked why i didn't ask her to create a tattoo that told a story. the options she suggested were icons which represented my family, the kids and my ex-wife. i smiled weakly and decided not to explain that in many ways the images were tied to them already. but the language of the iconography is simply not something a travelling maori would be able to read. the ink is deeper than that.

i spent 10 years as a temporary worker, the day to day expectation that unless i excelled i would be expelled was the driving force to focusing on delivery. making sure i exceeded expectations so that i was in control of the decision on staying or going was core to my professional-life. we did it all for the passion of delivery, openly chanting to our clients, "it's all about the love!"

those days ended years ago, it is no longer all about the love. the love has grown old and passed. the ability to control the departure was removed. folding up shop and moving on was destined to happen. giving up the rooted life for one of travel and change was a reaction to the shifting of soil that had eroded and wasted down into the passing river of time.

now i live in a country that is not my own, i am learning a language that i will be able to use with almost no one outside this country, i have an apartment and car which are not the ones i own 12,000 miles away. i have added weight to the baggage i would now need to fill to move on, but books, t-shirts and guitars are individually light, even if the aggregate mass is not.

but, i now have something that i will carry with me. i was required to sign a contract saying i understood this could not be removed. i allowed a stranger to pierce my skin and inject permanence into me, creating scars that show. openly placed where i can not hide them from others, a signal that my time in asia has been real. i now have a dark band of scars on my arm which i might be able to cover, but which are clearly there any time i expose myself.

i have embraced the permanence that i have been unable to see as a part of myself. the clean white pallet has taken its first marks. these lines, curves and points may not be quickly readable by others, but they are for me. as my skin continues to leak excess ink, as the colors begin to fad with my personal pigment, as the image settles into its long-term state, i am reminded that not everything is temporary.

the next questions is where will the next permanent scars come from.

random things

i know this is out of character for my blog, but people have been sending me these on facebook so i got to thinking about my own list:

• i was conceived on the beach i later worked on
  
• my grandparent’s opposing religious views factored into my existence beyond the first trimester
  
• i once hid under my bed so i didn’t have to go to kindergarten, a full police search was conducted of the area
  
• at six, i ran away from home by climbing out my window; i walked 2 miles to my grandmothers, crossing a highway to get there
• i was asked to leave the cub-scouts because i was an over-achiever; i finished the project and demanded something else to do
• i was late for my first communion mass because i walked myself to church too slowly
• in fifth grade i was a crossing-guard, the US version of a school prefect
  
• my basketball career ended in 6^th grade when i found out i could not go left; not being able to shoot or jump might have been an issue later
  
• i passed algebra and geometry, but learned no math; i did it by inductive reasoning
  
• my worst subject in high school was typing; my teacher told me “whatever you do, don’t take a job that involves typing”.
  
• i was traded off a beach softball team, and put in charge of the keg, when kristin libby came to the game late.  she was the girl i was semi-secretly in love with in elementary school; she was also a much better softball player
  
• i nearly drowned twice as a child; once was the most amazing sensation of my life
  
• i saved all three of my siblings from drowning, my brother needed mouth to mouth; that was the day i decided i should be a lifeguard
  
• i saved four other people as part of the job, one was another member of our staff who tried to do a rescue without a torpedo, i didn’t know it was him until i pulled his unconscious body to the surface
  
• i selected my college because someone told me i wouldn’t be able to get or stay in
  
• i did more work in the first week of college than my entire high school career
  
• a nun in college called me a heretic; she was absolutely right
  
• i very loudly told the same nun she was a bitch in a crowded hallway; i was also right
  
• i have liked strong women since the morning a girl kicked my ass during a swim test; she knew i thought she was weak and made me suffer for it
  
• i graduated in 4 years; but by the end of the first semester i knew i would succeed, so i relaxed and enjoyed school
  
• i accidentally received a dual major from a school that does not give them
  
• i have done the heimlich maneuver three times on choking victims; twice they were complete strangers
• i have destroyed 4 bikes by being hit by cars over the years; i slid a foot from a tractor trailers wheels a few years ago when i crashed my bike during a rain storm
• i was three weeks from the paris island, and my plan to fly helicopters for the marines; when i was crushed by a tractor and broke both legs
  
• i took an accounting job as break from education before law school; coding killed law
  
• i became a software engineer because i didn’t want to be a manager
• i once offered a friends wife my services as a birth partner, he was scared.  i added USD 10,000 to the offer because i wanted the experience; she said no
• i started a consulting company with two partners, bought one out, brought another one quietly in, but i realized i had lost them all so i shut the company down
• our company motto was, “it’s all about the love”
  
• the fastest i have ridden my bike (down-hill) is 62 miles per hour; you should have seen the expression on the face of the driver in the car in front of me
  
• my favorite smells are baby heads and labrador paws; one of them reminds me of smart-food popcorn
  
• i own 5 guitars and can barely play; i keep saying this is the year i will learn
  
• i was happy with my spanish in college, my grades were three D(s) and a C, that C was SWEET!
  
• i want everyone to speak one common language; i am hoping we can agree on spanish
  
• i travel and have complete conversations with no shared language; i later remember it all in english
• i feel more like a european than an american; but i am home when i get to the US
• i am looking for ways to gain dual citizenship within the EU; the irish descendant program failed, ideas are welcome
• i love bruxelles and hope to live there someday; sydney loses only for lack of french speakers
• after living outside the US, i can see why people dislike americans; bad PR
• my grandfather was a member of the PGA and owned a golf course;  i don’t play
  
• i have been in asia for three years and have not been to thailand; i refuse to go alone
  
• having barbeque pulled pork, fresh beer and a dog are the things i miss living in a muslim country
  
• having my kids sleep over is the thing i miss the most about the US
• a nightmare for me would to be without a book; this is much scarier than being naked
  
• i have three hand phones in my messenger bag today; my forth is in my office waiting for me to take it to the US
  
• i tend to buy things in pairs; books i wish i could buy by the pound
• i have three laptops; one for work, one for personal use, and another just for pictures and music, i keep the count stable by giving the kids one when i buy another
  
• i have the best office in our company; it was constructed for the former prime minister of malaysia
  
• i added a video conf, running machine, guitars, computer books, and a pull-out sofa; all of which mahathir didn't have when he sat in here
• my allergies taught me that we crave things that are bad for us; you would think my catholic education would have done that

the fact that these are more or less in chronological order should tell you more about me than anything in the list.

dreaming again

i told someone last week that i didn't dream.  it has been years since i stopped.  i went from vivid, colorful, lucid dreams i could control and later remember, to no dreams at all.  the stop was sudden, and tied to other events in my life.  i have always understood the correlation, and have just come to accept the fact that my dreams had left me years ago and that i was now simply living during the day.

my former night-times where not an alternative life, but they were an enjoyable piece of who i was.  i can clearly remember dreams which i had as a child.  i remember when my dreams switched from black and white to color.  i remember when i began to control my dreams, changing their flow if i did not like the direction in which they were headed.  i had pleasant recurring dreams, the nocturnal version of re-watching favorite movies.

i have mentioned that i do not dream, and people have told me that i was but i was not aware that i was.  this sounds like a zen question concerning a tree falling in the woods.  with the tree, it fell even if no one heard it.  with the dream, if its not experienced it doesn't exist.  you can't find the dream laying on the floor of your subconscious rotting away covered with moss and insects.

one of my friends in the US just told me about the new drug she is on to improve daytime balance.  the side-effect is a decreased night time balance in the form of nightmares.  being as strong as she is, she is keeping a journal of the negative images.  if i know her at all, she will embrace the nightmares and understand them before she allows them to scare her away.

so i have been living with the acceptance of life without dreams.  i missed falling asleep to images of random video as i drifted off to sleep.  my compensation was to fall asleep on the couch, dvds left running.  the downside was waking up hours later, and realizing i had not rested because i had been listening to the sound of the dvd menu looping over and over every 17 seconds.  my own form of auditory induced apnea.

but i have dreamt for the past 6 nights.  vivid, wonderful and comforting dreams.  it is like an old friend returning and giving you a hug.  you welcome them back and want to hear all the stories they have to tell.  i am waking up with new memories that haven't happened in the real world.  it doesn't change the fact that i am happy to have them.

someone told me that dreaming is the process of forgetting.  others think that dreaming is the process of cementing long term memories so they can be retrieved later though association.  both theories work for me, the former is a garbage collection routine, the latter an offline update of a non-clustered index.  the software engineer in me is fine if its either or both.

i am just glad those night time cycles are again being put to good use.  i am not speculating on the deeper meaning of dreams returning after the absence, but i am happy to have the garbage collected and to have my indexes updated.

last lecture

i was talking to a co-worker a few weeks ago.  she asked if i had read the last lecture.  i had never heard of it, and she told me it was a series of lectures that carnegie mellon does with its professors.  they actually call it the journeys series, the idea is for a professor to give a lecture on any topic they want to, but to bring a life lesson to the audience.  the lecture is to be something they can leave for the others.  the conversation was out of context and was not really clarified, but it was clearly a suggestion.

i spent the afternoon catching up with another friend yesterday.  the conversation left me with questions of on connections, purpose and legacy.  i felt a nagging emptiness; a feeling that there should be more to my day than lunch and a trip to the mall.  where was the purpose and greater direction that i craved?  i had eaten lightly during the meal, and i felt a craving for more.  but i knew it was not food that i wanted; i was looking to be filled in another way.

i needed to go to the mall for two children, boys on different continents who had asked me in different languages to replace now-broken presents from the past.  each were asking for the same re-present, and in both cases i was more than happy to provide.  adding a trip like this to my day was a gift to me, it gave me something outside of the empty KL weekend.  i am a parent to one of these boys, and a surrogate of sorts to the other.  in KL children i don't know strangely call me uncle.  in belgium i have a child to whom i am an adopted uncle, he naturally calls me by my name.  in the US i have children who thankfully call me dad.  i miss this odd collection of family, and sending presents is a tiny symbol of regret for not being there.

family first, even when the family is 6 or 12 timezones away.  changing my day, adding a trip and purchase knowing a smile will result is more than enough to get me going.  

as i walked, i thought about the craving, i thought about the distance and the desire to get there.  it was then that i realized my thoughts had taken me in the wrong direction.  i was going on the same old road which was in the wrong direction.  i shook my head and knew i had to turn around and change direction.  this is the benefit of having a map in your head, you can see landmarks and realize where you went wrong; you can adjust and recover.

before i went to make the promised purchases, i went to the best bookstore in the country.  last weekend was spent in malaysian and malaysian-copied border kedai buku, but i was drawn to the top-floor japanese store that i love. i spent an hour walking around and snatching up titles.  i looked for a few books which i couldn't find, i forgot to look for others which might have been there, but i found 9 books covering eclectic subjects.  i took titles on badly behaving saints, beautiful people's procreation, matters of culture, history of god and a little bit of politics.  as i walked to the register, i was counting the books and calculating the cost.  i wondered if i was taking too much.  the aching in my arms might have been a sign, but the woman in front of me turning and saying "you sure like to read!" made it clear.

as i shyly looked down and thought of something to say, i picked up "the last lecture".  i remembered the question, and realized the suggestion made in a quiet and indirect way mattered.  i turned to the woman who had just commented on my full arms and asked if she had read it, she said, "no, but i saw the video, ... what a sad story".  i cried last week watching a movie of a dog's life and its inner meaning to his family, i wondered if i needed to consider the life of a man.  it wasn't a choice, i just added it to the pile of thoughts.  this small book completed the filling of my bags.

i took my purchases, went to do my re-present collection and decided to have a delicious dinner with my books.  i drove over and took three in with me.  the other two were to ease into the life lessons that a last lecture would bring.  once i started reading, there was no stopping.  randy pausch wrote with openness and clarity.  he was writing to give his children memories and lessons when he would not be there to give them personally.  thankfully, those lessons have been shared with all of us.  it's a book that i will hand to people i care about.  it is something you share with people you love.

i finished the book today and immediately had two thoughts, the first was something i already know, but sometimes rationalize away, "there is no time worth wasting".  the second, is the real lesson of the book, "the person next to you is more important than you are".  you need to live your life for them more than yourself.  it is easy to allow prior hurt, current anger or fear of the future to cloud your ability to live.  i closed the book and considered those two lessons.

in this short and fragile life, being able to smile is just not enough.  it takes getting up and moving to begin to live.

lowered expectations

i was talking to my ex-wife last night.  there was a moment years ago when she saw me doing something out of character and based on the strained position we were in, she asked me if i thought pretending to change would make a difference.  this came a year after i thought i had begun changing in significant ways.  the question was an accusation of lies which were not being told, and a confirmation that at that moment nothing would be enough change to matter.

to be fair, there were times in the past where i should have been happy and i was not.  i merged a cynical world view, an expectation of doom and a desire to control things which simply could not be controlled, into a poor-fit in our american family dynamic.  on one of our first dates she asked why i always expected something bad to happen.  she asked me to accept that trying to let good things happen would allow them to happen.  i took a deep breath and made a decision to try.  years later, much happiness had come from that decision.  i had just done a terrible job of saying thank you.

a few weeks ago i was sharing the sight of a famous landmark with someone who enjoyed it as much as i did.  she looked at me and told me the man in her life had taken in the same view and had been disappointed by it.  he did not think it was worth the praise it receives; it did not meet the expectations he had in pre-viewing.  i looked at her and smiled.  this was the second time i had seen it, and like the eiffel tower blinking at night, sunset on the ocean, pastel streaked sunrise from 40,000 feet or the birth of a child there was simply no way i could be disappointed.

we discussed why we enjoyed the view so much and why others would be disappointed.  it hit me that it wasn't the view, it was what someone brought into the view.  like reading a book you have read before and hearing a new message, like looking at a painting of the ocean crashing onto the beach and sensing the feelings of the men impressionisticly standing on the beach, the viewer is a key element to the interpretation of a moment.  you bring yourself into the act of enjoyment.  your "world view" matters as you view your world.

events which would have frustrated me years ago, moments when i would have been bored and distracted are now those that i miss the most.  i hate the fact that i didn't enjoy them while i could have.  i allowed myself to fast-forward through times that i now wish i could return to and slowly savor.  the big events are the times that people remember, but it's the small events that i have come to care the most about.

the difference then is that i find i now enjoy small things as much as large.  when this started i realized that the sound of a bird chirping, the bright taste of my morning caffeine jolt and warm feeling on sun on my arms had new found pleasure.  when you slow down and enjoy things that you used to take for granted, you begin to see that very few things can be taken for granted.  

i was watching a DVD last night and a small scene unfolded, as it ended i realized that three months ago i had stood on the exact spot the actors were in the scene.  i had been there and i had shared the moment with someone i could reach out to and share the joy of recognition.  this tiny scene meant something to me that i brought in myself.  something the production company never could have added.  i brought good and happy thoughts unrelated to the scene that was written.

i have changed.  i now have lower expectations, and the lower the expectations have become the more i have learned to enjoy the small things that happen around me.  even the things i don't like, i now try to find some way to enjoy.  just understanding that before the changes began i could have had a reaction or felt frustration, now i enjoy difficult moments with the zen appreciation of not allowing a negative response to replace the good-vibe.

pretending to change was never the plan.  the change happened much like time and pressure crytalizes carbon to diamond, and i have learned to enjoy the sparkle of the post-pressurized me.  i used to say, "expect the worst, enjoy the best".   as i look back, it's clear how that world view could impede a happy life.  but, that is no longer the way i look at the world.  the worst things that could happen did; and i am still standing.

i can now happily say, "enjoy what life brings you", to do it you need to see the diamonds in the rough.  

chapter two

ahhhhhhh, its 10:30 pm and i am not at my desk.  i know this sounds like something that should not be a surprise but… well over the last year this is far from the norm.   i realized last week that i had gone to dinner two nights in a row.  during dinner time, we eat dinner without doing email.  we sat and talked about work, life and balance.  as i took in the relaxed surroundings, i saw a smile and realized change had happened while i wasn’t paying attention.  the previous chapter had come to a close while the next sat distantly in the future.

other than taking time off, sitting in a different café, eating a lot of mexican food and losing focus during a lull in the action, nothing had just changed.  change has been happening for months, or years, but at some point reality becomes clear even if you are not focused.  losing focus might have been the catalyst that allowed it to become clear. 

it could have happened laying in a jacuzzi with broken jets, or it could have been sitting in a cramped airplane seat, but the reality hit sitting at a table down under and just looking up.  location did not matter, the change could have been realized anywhere.  the reality is, if you are focused, change is constant and continuous.  change is everywhere.  

earlier tonight i wrote my annual-review.  it’s a process many dread, and one i enjoy.  51 weeks out of the year, we are looking forward to our most pressing issues.  we focus on our to-do lists and we push to get things done while trying to create some level of balance among the demands of life.

for one week year, we look back and document our accomplishments.  we consider our faults and plan our future.  as a manager, i get to help staff to construct and accomplish goals of their own.  while doing this, i am able to take some credit for their accomplishments.  as i write my personal work-review, i realize my peers are writing theirs, and we are all making a case for the coveted slots at the top of the performance bell curve.  our manager will look at our documented accomplishments and those he identifies as his own will get higher weight.

this is part of the review process, it's built in and productive.  as an individual you get a chance to highlight the positive things you have done, as a manager you get to share those positive things, and to look at a wide group full of success and consider which are important and which to reward.  how would things be if we were able to do this in our personal lives; to sit and have a structured review?   

before i grew up into the corporate world, i was a well-paid itinerant worker.  my job was like that of the tomato pickers who come over the border from mexico into the southwest of the US.  i was foreign to the firms i worked in.  they had no reason to care for me as a person or to develop my skills, i was paid for my work and sent on my way.  if they let me work today i was a success; if they told me i wasn't needed it was because someone else was capable of doing my job.  being ready to be sent packing with nothing more than fruit-stained hands was part of the drive to succeed; and never getting a formal review was part of that life.

i now work where i have the chance to be reviewed, while in life i am living as a consultant.  i go to interviews and take on short-term gigs, but finding that permanent role is elusive.  i have considered that i am negotiating a too strongly, but trading independence for security is not my goal.  finding the role that fits and will last to retirement is; that cannot be compromised.  fit requires connection and communication, but i also need fair and honest reviews.  otherwise it is better to spend time on the bench and wait for a future opportunity.  

this new year will be a new chapter for me.  it will be because i have done a review and realize there is room for improvement.  it’s a down economy, but opportunities will open up.  the question is if it does begin to open up can i pursue it?

step one; find time for dinners that are not spent with companions in other timezones who want to fight about things that don't matter.  it’s time to relax and do things that do matter.  there is a review coming next year and i need to exceed expectations in during review.

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as i began reading what i had written i got a call from the US.  i was asked to join a conference call that is about leadership.  i said no, but i am going to call in.  first i need to pay the check and head for the door.  so much for relaxed.

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