February 2012
20 posts
Diamond head
Staring into the pacific, watching for the sun rise, I don’t think I’ve ever been so keenly aware of the trade off between day. The stars fade dissolving in the light of day as indistinct shapes resolve…
Ohh look surfers.
Fine Line
I believe that the The line between being “cute & sassy” and “obnoxious & rude” is rather fine. Sometimes I worry that my protagonist is the later and not the former. I worry that she is too like me. In real life I find myself tripping back and forth across that line like a drunk monkey with vertigo. ok I jest but I do find that the line transforms, vanishing and reappearing according to...
First World Problems – Off Topic
1. I’m concerned that by the time I achieve the perfect tan it will be just in time to make my East Coast friends jealous.
2. I need to replace my Café Grumpy Bourbon blend next week with Kona coffee… which I’ll be buying in Kona.
3. I suspect my jet lag is going to result in my waking up with the sunrise on the beach every day.
So yeah, I have no worries and if I haven’t told you a MILLION...
“I am no unique special snowflake”
Tentatively that is the self-deprecating heading of chapter one. Eventually L (my protagonist) will embrace and find power in the fact that she is both incredibly ordinary and utterly extraordinary - maybe she’ll even understanding what F. Scott Fitzgerald meant when he said.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still...
“If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to...”
– Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
Connecting with distant strangers
One of the joys of Sunday is lounging in bed with NPR. Today I woke up listening to an interview with Nick Kristof, Pulitzer winning journalist. I was hooked listening to his process, framing his stories, dealing with complexity, his observations writing to an audience, what they want, how they relate and connect.
Among many observations he noted that people want to help other people, but not...
On Being Blog: Helping One Person Matters More... →
beingblog:
by Shubha Bala, associate producer
“If I look at the mass I will never act.” —Mother Teresa
It’s hard for people to relate to statistics and big numbers when hearing about disasters and people suffering. The question for advocates, and journalists, is how big is too big? Paul Slovic says…
5 Career Tips to Survive Publishing’s Digital... →
This is a good article and appropriate to many industries including wannabe authors, entrepreneurs, marketers …
No parking slope
Ugh rushing to a 630 boot camp class in park slope is an epic fail in so many ways. 1. The failure to understand the complex combo of no parking / street cleaning signs 2. Seeing my car get towed and wrecking the last 20 mins of class anyway 3. The arbitrary and large sums amount that NYC charges for both towing and fines.
In my very weak defense my risk reward calculations are skewed when...
Mountain Pose
Tadasana is pronounced like it looks, “Ta-Da”-sana. Despite the exclamation embedded in its name, it is an understated pose. On the outside it is not impressive, it does not require the balance of a tree or crow or the flexibility of eagle.
But on the inside… you find legs, hips, tailbone engaged, grounding down into and up from the earth. I imagine tectonic shifts creating the mountain, creating...
“Only boring people get bored”
– Sometimes I wonder what I miss about my gramma, (not grandmother, grandma, gran gran, granny).
She wasn’t the most affectionate woman, but considering she lit one cigarette off of another, that was for the best. I suppose it was how she used to joke that beauty skipped a generation, which made me...
Body of Work →
Another reason to tumbl..,
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A Point for the Trekkies →
For my friend SOTW*, Bacon and everyone else who loves when science fiction, turns into science reality.
* (not be confused with SOTG)
Speaking of change...
This article suggests in-house creative teams are the bell-weathers of change. It makes sense.
The author goes on to exhort, “[In-house creatives] must be fearless leaders and seize [their] place at the corporate table.”
Too often I’ve seen leadership reduce this in-house service group to “order takes,” inhibiting if not squashing creativity. A missed opportunity on so many levels.
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3 months!
Woop! Woop!
January 2012
44 posts
“At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left...”
– H.P. Lovecraft
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did...”
– Steve Jobs, Founder Apple Inc.
“If there’s a book you really want to read, and it hasn’t been written yet, then...”
– Toni Morrison
Couldn’t agree more…
2 tags
Politics & Juggling
pol·i·tics \ ‘pä-lə-ˌtiks\ political affairs or business; especially : competition between competing interest groups or individuals for power and leadership (as in a government)
“I would prefer that [Boss Person] get to know me through my work.” I said this once in response to senior colleague’s question which to paraphrase was, “why aren’t you going up to said [Boss Person] and brown nosing...
Prioritization & Politics
I took a class on Public Policy in Business School. It was probably the best class I took because it applied pretty quantitative operational modeling to real world problems, stuff like how to set up a model to handle a terrorist chemical attack, effectiveness of AIDS prevention programs, recidivism in jails etc.
One of the earliest lessons we learned was how to prioritize. For example (I won’t...
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Seth Godin Gets Me.... →
This has so much synchronicity overlap with .. well pretty much everything, hence the reblog. His post is about caring and setting a standard as a comp advantage. I love the implicit validation for everyone who is driven by their passion.
I won’t bother to over explain because either you get it or it’s not worth it to me to try and teach you, at least not right now.
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That's A Spicy Meatball →
Follow the link and get the recipe for the spicy pork meatballs I had on Sunday. Delicious! Definitely going to make these (I may swap out my mom’s pickled hot peppers for the hot cherry peppers). … although upon further review it seems like the home version leaves out the crack I am pretty sure they put in the restaurant version.
Anyway I’ve noticed a lot of tumbling about...
What do you wish your [Client]* understood?
* In this context client can mean, internal or external client, your boss, colleague, teammates. People with whom you do work.
What piece of information is missing that would help you deliver the most value possible? Is it the use of a new technology, the adoption of a habit that has a positive networking effect, skill or simply the perspective of others up & down the supply chain and the...
Cheap Smart Phone? Something to look forward to. →
“When you know to laugh and when to look upon things as too absurd to take...”
– Generally, I like Eleanor but unfortunately the modern media has proven this FALSE.
Quo Vadimus?: Finally →
shoeshinebrewingco:
After years of prodding from friends and family I’m finally (with a ton of help) going to start a cooking blog.
For a while it’ll just be old pictures of delicious food I’ve made. Then hopefully more detailed descriptions of the food and how to make it. My good friend @keniehuber is a very…
Can’t wait… I will (graciously) volunteer to eat your brisket any...
No one can make you feel _________, without your...
Eleanor Roosevelt famously placed “inferior” in that gap– creating an empowering quote and touchstone for reviving self worth.
Remove the adjective and it still holds. Good or bad, we all have to acknowledge that ultimately we control and are responsibile for our feelings.
Awkward, Graceful, Cheap, Generous, Dirty, Clean, Prudish, Radiant, Dull, Sexy, Effervescent, Muddy…
Brooklyn Kitchen Blog →
Love!
Compelling SOPA youtube video →
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Stupid is as stupid does
Pretty is as pretty does
Pit ta pat pat
Rat ta tat tat
The rise and rhythm of
It is what it is
Cogito Ergo Sum
The obvious nailing existence
which is not obvious
But does signify
Blue Monk
A little something to get me in the writing mood.
“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent...”
– Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963
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Messages in Bottles/Chicken Scratch
Setting adrift ideas thoughts and hopes into the void into the sea into nothing, hoping daring dreaming for commonality connection love and more. Articulating questions for the universe to answer a leap a faith setting adrift allowing freedom when tethered otherwise by time and space. We are so much larger outside in seemingly only in combination. Manners dictate we not weep openly for those...
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True Love & Free Will
“I’ve skipped my first marriage.” I have said this more than once, which may mean I believe it.
So fine, I’m a skeptic. Marriage, true love and monogamy are fantastic constructs that we have been programmed into accepting, built upon medieval notions of property and the conflict between Western society’s use of male lineage and the fact that it is only the...
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Free Idea #3 - Portable Closet
I would like someone to develop an app** to which I could upload my wardrobe a la Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. (This could be done quickly if they could get smart tags and/or google image recognition tech stuff going).
I would also appreciate it if both established and “up and coming” fashionistas could have access to my clothing library and to mix and match… Living in...
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Bucket Lists & Limitations
I was reading killingcharlemagne’s bucket list, I think it’s charming and wonderful that many of his items are impossible (Learn Latin ha!) and I realize that my own list is oh so possible even probable.
I hate when I accidently apply limitations. Although I do love mentally tearing down those walls and exorcising them. And I do love checking off lists and suspect that this bucket...
3 tags
Don’t learn how to type…
My mom works for lawyers. Mary Jane, a senior and successful divorce attorney that had gotten her JD back when she was one of only 2 women in her class, said to me that she made it a point of never learning how to type. Her reasoning was this, if she learned to type she’d be asked to do secretarial work. Fortunately for her that gambit worked and she has been very successful.
From my worker bee...
Advice & Sanity
Sometimes the best advice you can give someone is simply validation. Confirmation that they are in an impossible situation (presumably one they have reasons to be in, e.g. a job or a greater goal). “No you are not wrong but there is nothing you can do to make it right now (or the cost to make it right is too high).” It’s not an easy thing to hear, much less accept. I doubt anyone who tumbls is...
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Link to "Quantified Self" →
Very cool … Data Analytics / Personal Organization Intelligence
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thoughts in my head
Forget about putting your characters through hell. I’m writing a section right now that is grueling… (my main character is miserable and is essentially being tortured.) It’s miserable and makes me really… uncomfortable. I’m plowing through it because… well it has to get done… but part of me really just wants to punch someone in the face.
I suspect that...