Old Fashioned or just Unfair?

Every year Administrative Assistant's day rolls around before anyone in my company realizes it, except for the owner. He is always on top of it and he always gets every lady in the company flowers and possibly something else. Last year he took every lady in the company out to lunch in a limousine.

I am glad he remembers this day, but I am not happy that he includes every lady in the company. In a few departments there are ladies who have equals that are men and the men are not treated to any gift. In at least one department there is a lady who runs the show and has men who report to her. Those men are not given any gifts. These ladies are not administrative assistants.

Is it just the owner's old fashioned way of thinking. A male chauvinist attitude that makes him do this every year? Does he think of every lady in the workforce as being a secretary? I don't have the answer, but I know if it was me and I was a female engineer or manager I would be very upset to receive a gift on this day.

We had a female engineering intern last year who gladly went to lunch and accepted the flowers, but did question why she was included. Obviously she was a little insulted, just not enough to refuse the gifts. When is it under appreciated male employee day? I am still waiting for my gift!

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Who is to Blame?

We all know that the economy has not fully recovered. Most of us know that the real estate market was out of control leading to the problems we are now dealing with. But who is to blame?

I think we are all to blame. The banks and brokers are the people who are most to blame, but home buyers deserve some of the blame as well. The Queen and I recognized that the market was out of control. We believed that home prices were artificially high and that the market could not support the prices for very long. Now, we all know that is what happened.

I now know several people who have either lost their homes or are going to lose their homes. Out of all of them, I only know of one of them that have lost their home because of a job loss. All of the others have just decided that they do not want to pay for their home any longer. They feel like if other people are able to walk away from their homes that they should be able to as well.

I guess I am old fashioned, but I believe that I signed the home loan documents so I should be responsible for paying the load back. My home is not worth what I owe at this point, but I am not in very bad shape. It is really close because we waited until we thought the market had adjusted properly. We miscalculated a bit, but I can live with it.

The problem with our society is that nobody wants to accept responsibility for themselves. There is always someone else to blame. We just need to accept our choices and take responsibility for our actions. Why are you bad America?

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Differences

The differences between each of us is what makes this world a great place. If we were all alike, then I would be bored. I enjoy learning about other people and cultures and how they live their lives. I don't always know why they make the decisions they do, but I try to appreciate them. Most of the time I do not even agree with the choices, but I respect them.

I really do try to no judge people, but sometimes people do make really bad decisions that affect others. In that instance, I believe that it is OK to pass judgement.

I think that the most glaring area where people make bad decisions is with parenting. The Queen and I are not perfect, but we have made every effort to raise our children right. When they were young, we followed them around and made sure they learned how to behave correctly in different situations. We did not allow them to behave inappropriately. If they did, we made sure we corrected that behavior.

It really drives me crazy when my kids are around kids who do not behave properly and their parents do not correct their behavior. I understand how my kids feel in this situation. They wonder why they are getting in trouble when they are just behaving like the other kids. So, the bad parenting does not just affect their own kids, but mine as well.

Again, I am not a perfect parent, but I believe that I try harder than most.

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Choices

We all make choices in our lives. Some of us make bad choice after bad choice and some of us just move through life oblivious to other people. Those people make selfish choices. Choices that bring them enjoyment, but don't bring anything good to society.

I think about these choices all of the time. I made some pretty big choices several years ago. I chose to eliminate some people from my life. I chose to focus on improving myself every chance I get. I chose to make decisions that bring good to society and everyone in it. I don't regret any of those choices, but I am reminded of them a few times a year.

Some of the people I chose to eliminate from my life are still involved in the lives of other people I know. A few times a year The Queen and I are invited to parties where these people are also invited. We have both decided to make the sacrifice and not attend these parties. We don't want to be around these people and we definitely do not want our children exposed to these people. It is hard, but I do not regret it at all. I am comfortable.

I like to have fun just like everyone else, but I don't need to have fun all of the time. I don't need constant entertainment to be happy. I can entertain myself most of the time with some reading or internet browsing. I am thirsty for knowledge. I am pretty serious about life most of the time. I like to work on improving myself and my family.

Most people do not think this way. A lot of people just want to stay out late drinking with the guys and bad mouthing other people. Trying to forget their lives for that night. I think that is ridiculous! If I have to forget my life, then I better be doing something to change my life so I don't have to try to forget it any more. Why continue to live a life that you want to forget? That just does not make sense to me.

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Inspiration

I have been unable to find the inspiration to blog for twenty five days. If you are a follower of my twitter feed, then you have seen a few photos that I have posted. Nothing has been written here though.

I can't say why I have not been motivated to blog. I do know that I have been unmotivated in every part of my life for about that time though. I think some of it came from tax time. Last year I had to pay quite a bit for the first time in a long time so I kept putting it off and stressing about it. I just finished my taxes at the beginning of this week and got a pleasant surprise. I am getting a refund. Time to pay off some bills.

I have not been very creative for the last month or so. Instead, I have been totally wrapped up in the Showtime series Dexter. I am not a subscriber, but I have heard great things about it. I decided in December to try out Netflix and I have been pretty happy. I started watching Dexter from the beginning and I am addicated. It is a great show and I totally identify with a lot of Dexter's emotions. It has totally zapped my creativity though.

I am going to start to blog and take photos again slowly and see what happens.

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Stop the Hysteria

There is absolutely no reason to rush out and buy potassium iodide pills. We are not in danger of radiation poisoning from the Japanese nuclear plant meltdown. You actually get more radiation from a brick than we are getting from Japan.

Relax and do a little research before spreading horrible rumors that whip everyone into a frenzy. A photographer in the San Diego area bought a Geiger counter and is posting the daily readings. So far, everything is normal. At the current reading, it would take 40 years to get the amount of radiation from one CT scan.

If anyone outside of Japan should be worried, it is the people who live in Denver. They are exposed to double the radiation of those in southern California every year. The Denver elevation is what exposes people to more solar radiation than at lower elevations.

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Future Employees

I spoke on a panel last night called "Building the Community's Work Force for the Future." I was asked to speak about the types of employees my company looks for and the problems we have with finding them. I discussed both the hard skills and soft skills we search for in a candidate. Hard skills being the experience and/or training that they need and soft skills being things like attendance, work ethic, etc.

I was on the panel with three other employers as well as a representative of our local community college. I was not that surprised that the biggest issues facing the other three employers were the soft skills. They just need to find people that will show up every day and work hard. Of course, they were looking for warehouse and production line people so they don't require many other skills. What I was surprised by was that one of the other employers mentioned that math skills were important for their employees. This company is a beer distributor, so I think a lot of young people would be surprised to learn that you have to have good math skills to stack cases of beer.

My company, on the other hand, does not have as many issues with attendance. We do have problems with work ethic. I think the most important assets for our employees are speed and accuracy. We need engineer, mechanics, electricians and machine operators who take pride in their work and have been doing the job long enough that they are fast. The lack of accuracy really bogs us down and costs us money with rework at all levels.

I don't have the answers to how we create a work force that has pride and a work ethic. That comes from your upbringing and early school years. Teachers today are so overwhelmed that it is not fair to blame them for this problem. It still must go back to home life. We have too many families with parents having to work more than one job to raise their family. This is even more problematic when you look at single parent households. It is almost impossible to raise a family today on one average income.

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I am an Apple Fanboy!

I find myself following today's Apple announcment live on Engadget. I think this makes me a fanboy. I woke up today excited about the iPad 2 announcement, but I am afraid it will be anticlimactic. I hope I am wrong.

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NYC Trip Review

We left for LAX on Friday evening and got to our hotel, Hilton LAX, by about eight o'clock. There was some conference going on about aliens, UFOs, meditating and other odd things. We had dinner in one of the restaurants before heading up to bed.

We had to get an early start on Saturday morning. Our flight was set to depart at seven forty-five. We took the hotel shuttle to LAX. The Virgin America ticket counter was a pretty cool experience. It is separated from all of the others and has some nice mood lighting. When we boarded the plane, all of the window shades were down and it also had some cool lighting. It was a great experience. I expected some very attractive flight attendants like something out of the movie Catch Me If You Can to show up at our seats, but that didn't happen. The flight itself was pretty uneventful.

We arrived at JFK at about four o'clock in the afternoon. We found a cab and departed for our hotel near Times Square. The cab ride was not very exciting and took longer than I thought it would.

We stayed at the Hampton Inn Times Square North because I have had a lot of success with the chain when travelling for business. They are all clean and most of them are recently updated. You also can't beat a free breakfast. Once we arrived at the hotel we freshened up a bit and then asked the concierge where we should go to find some local restaurants. He suggested restaurant row on 46th Street, so we headed out.

There were a lot of different restaurants to choose from. We ended up eating at Ristorante Da Rosina. They packed people into every square foot of the restaurant. The Queen and I sat at a table that blocked access to another table, but nobody cared. The food was good, but the restaurant was just a normal big city restaurant.

From there we walked up the street to the Village Pour House for some drinks. I asked for a local beer and the waitress told me they stopped selling them. Two beers later when we were ready to go she came back with some Brooklyn Lager. It was an OK beer, but I had already had to Blue Moons. From there we walked to Times Square to take it all in. It was an amazing place. I have seen it on TV and in movies, but it is something you have to experience. When I was in NY the first time, Times Square was still a seedy place that you avoided so it was nice to see it like it is now.

We decided to stop in to Planet Hollywood and have a drink like tourists do. We sat at the bar and ordered a couple beers. We started talking to the bartender, Josh from NC, and I asked him if there was somewhere locals hung out near there. He recommended Bourbon Street Bar & Grill. We finished our drinks and Josh gave us a few more recommendations. He also put our ten year anniversary on all of the screens in the place. I got a picture of that with my iPhone.

We walked back to 46th Street to Bourbon Street Bar & Grill. The Queen found us a seat that was right behind a bachelorette party. We ordered some drinks and some food, alligator sausage and chicken wings. We ended up talking to the girls at the bachelorette party and having a good time. We left the bar very late and walked back to our hotel.

We woke up late the next morning after our long day. We decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We ended up taking the subway there. I had never ridden the NY subway, so I had to do it. We ate lunch in one of the restaurants in the museum and then started exploring. There was a lot of stuff to see. There are several building facades that are inside the museum as well as a complete Egyptian temple. I really liked the museum, but we were still exhausted. We took a taxi back to our hotel to rest before going to dinner and a Broadway show.

We headed out to eat and I really felt like a hamburger. We ended up at Chelsea Grill in Hell's Kitchen. The Queen and I both had gigantic hamburgers and fries. The food really hit the spot. We walked a short distance from there to the St. James Theatre to see Green Day's American Idiot.

It was a small theater, but the show was fantastic. We both really enjoyed the show. It was a short show, there was no intermission, but it was great. We bought some souvenirs before leaving the theater. A lot of people were gathered outside waiting for Billy Joe Armstrong to leave, so we decided to wait as well. After about forty five minutes he came out of the theater. I got some photos of him on my iPhone from a distance.

After the show we wondered around Times Square again and started looking for someplace to get dessert. We walked over to Rockefeller Plaza and still couldn't find anything. We started to walk back through Times Square to our hotel and found Junior's Bakery. We got a slice of NY cheesecake and red velvet cake and headed back to the hotel. The red velvet cake was better than the cheesecake because it did not have a graham cracker crust. I started planning for the next day at the hotel. We both knew it was going to be a busy day if we were going to see everything we wanted to see.

We started out early on Valentin's day and met with the concierge to map out our day. We walked to Central Park and took a carriage ride through the park. Our "driver" was Colim from Ireland. We told him we wanted a fun ride with lots of information and he did his best for us. It was a short ride and we did not get to see much of the park since it was covered with snow.

Next we headed east to Serendipity 3. The Queen had to have their Frozen Hot Chocolate. We got there about an hour before they opened for the day and decided to move on and come back at night. We walked back toward Central Park and ended up stopping in Bloomingdale's for a bathroom break. The Queen ended up shopping some before we left. We hit H&M next and The Queen did some more shopping. Our subway stop was right outside.

We took the subway to the Empire State Building. We waited in line to go to the Observation deck. It was very windy up there, but I managed to get some good photos and we even had an employee take a picture of The Queen and I with Manhattan in the background. From there we walked to another subway stop and headed to Greenwich Village to have lunch.

The Queen had to eat at Gray's Papaya, so we went to the original in the West Village. It has been in several movies. We both got hot dogs with everything on them. They were really good and the hot dogs snapped with every bite. We walked around the Village for a while and ended up at the arch in Washington Square Park. The arch has also been in many movies, so I took a picture of The Queen standing at it's base.

We caught a taxi and headed to the South Street Seaport. We bought tickets to a water taxi ride on Pier 70. We past ground zero on the taxi ride, but didn't even know it until we were on the water taxi. There was so much construction going on that you could not even tell what it was. The water taxi took us along Manhattan on the East River and then onto the Hudson River. We came back down on the New Jersey side of the Hudson and then past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We then went back on the East River past Governor's Island and under the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges before returning to Pier 70.

When we got off the water taxi we walked to Wall Street and stopped briefly at Federal Hall and the The Stock Exchange before ending up at Trinity Church. We walked through the cemetery at the church and I took a lot of pictures. We then left and tried to catch a cab to SOHO for our dinner reservations. It was really windy that day and we had to walk for a long time before we found a cab.

Once in SOHO we realized it was early so we walked around some. We walked by DASH and decided not to stop in to shop. We ended up at some paper store and The Queen had a good time looking at stuff. We walked back to Osteria Morini just in time for our early reservation. The food tasted great, but the ambiance was a little lacking. The restaurant had rustic Italian decor and paper napkins and place mats. It also had some eighties music playing on the stereo. The food portions were small, but tasted great.

We caught another cab to Serendipity 3. We put our names in and had an hour to kill, so we went back to Bloomingdale's for another bathroom break and then walked around until we ended up at Urban Outfitters. The Queen shopped some and then it was time to head back to Serendipity 3. I ordered the peanut butter Frozen Hot Chocolate and The Queen ordered the regular. I am not a big fan of chocolate ice cream, but this tasted great. The Queen really loved it.

When we were done we walked back to the hotel and I picked up my tripod and we headed out to Times Square for some night photos. It was cold and windy outside and it was trying to rain. I got some nice photos and then we headed back to the hotel. When we got back we asked for some authentic NY pizza that would deliver to our room and got a recommendation from some of the employees at the hotel. When the pizza arrived I was disappointed that it was not the authentic thin crust. It was good, but not what I was looking for.

Tuesday morning we woke up really early and headed out to Rockefeller Plaza to try to get on the Today show. We succeeded! Al was the first to come out and shake our hands. He filmed some and then went back inside. About a half hour later, the whole group came out. Al, Meredith, Matt and Ann. I shook Matt's hand and got a photo of The Queen with him in the background. Meredith stayed outside and took photos with anyone who asked and shook hands with everyone. She was by far the nicest one on that day. I took a picture of The Queen with her and she told me that Meredith gripped her hand tightly and told her it was very nice to meet her. I didn't think she would have been the nicest one, but she was.

We went back to the hotel and had breakfast before packing and catching a cab to the JFK Airport. Our cab driver would not turn on the heat and even gave me a hard time about using my debit card to pay for the ride. He said if I used it I needed to give him a ten dollar tip and he watched me to make sure I did it.

The Virgin America ticket counter at JFK was not as cool as the one at LAX. We boarded the plane and headed back. Once at LAX we got our luggage pretty fast and went back to the Hilton to pick up our car. We were on the road about an hour after landing. Not bad at all.

When we got home, Chels and Meg were waiting for us. We gave them big hugs and started telling them all about our trip.

In hindsight, we packed a lot into this trip. We really only had two full days to see New York and we saw a lot. It was really fun and we both enjoyed it a lot. I would recommend a trip to New York to anyone.

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Am I a Negative Person?

I know I can come off as a negative person a lot of the time. I do not spend enough time telling people the positive things I like about them. I tend to focus on the areas that need to be improved. This is my focus on myself as well as others. I think other people sometimes tag me as being negative for this fact.

I am not a negative person, but I guess perception is reality.

One of my shortcomings is developing relationships with people. I have always been an observer. I am not the person that jumps right into a conversation. I would rather lay back and figure out exactly what is going on and try to determine what each person's motivation is. I enjoy listening more than I enjoy talking. I believe that this has made me a good judge of character.

I had a conversation with The Queen yesterday morning. She told me that she has not heard me say one positive thing about one of our girls in a long time. I got very defensive. I guess I have not been following my own advice of praising in public.

My only defense is that I have also not said one positive thing about our other daughter in a long time. I know that is not a very good defense, but it is all I have at this point. I really do need to work on building better relationships with people.

I think I do a pretty good job of this in my career. Although I have to have respect for a person before I build that relationship. I am not a two-faced person, so I cannot pretend to like someone. I can deal with them in a working relationship, but I will never pretend to like them.

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Great Advice

I am reading a book named UnMarketing. Yesterday I read what is the best business advice I have ever seen in print. It is something that I totally believe in and have been doing from the beginning of my business career. Praise in public and reprimand in private. Or better yet, assist in private.

As managers we need to focus on developing our people and making our companies great places to work. We can no longer expect our people to accept that they are lucky to be working for our companies. We must continually prove to them that our company is the best place to work. We must appreciate them and help them become better employees. If an employee fails, it is because of poor management.

I want to emphasis this fact. If an employee fails, it is because of poor management. Management either hired the wrong person because they do not have the proper interviewing or hiring skills or they failed to develop the employee. That is it! This is a pretty black and white situation in my opinion.

I am not saying that we need to pamper our employees and reduce expectations. Quite the opposite actually. I think we need to hold our employees to a higher standard, our standard. We should be performing our own jobs at a higher standard and that should trickle down to even the lowest level employee.

Sometimes there are external factors that come in to play and cause an employee to fail. A good manager will be aware of those factors based on the working relationship they have established with their employees. Once aware of those factors, a good manager will work to reduce their impact and get the employee back on track.

We need to stop propagating the us against them attitude and really start building teams. After all, as the old saying goes we are only as strong as our weakest link.

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The Cause of Human Suffering

According to the Buddha, the cause of human suffering is want. Not only is that true, but it is especially evident in our American society today. The current state of our economy has caused a lot of suffering. The whole problem started because of greed, or want.

If you look at most situations where there is human suffering you can link it back to some form of want. Whether the want is by the person suffering of the suffering is caused by the want of someone else. The want can be greed, power or just keeping up with the Jones'.

I have said before that we in the United States confuse wants with needs. I guess this problem goes all the way back to the time when Siddhārtha Gautama was alive, c. 563 BCE to 483 BCE. If we look back through history you can see that all civilizations confuse wants with needs as they start to peak and then decline. I believe that we are at that stage now. Unless something drastic happens to change our mentality, our country will begin a great decline and we will just be another country without power in the world.

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Why I Hate Nike

More than fifteen years ago I decided to switch my allegiance from Nike to Adidas. My decision was based on the fact that Nike uses sweatshops. I have been a loyal Adidas fan ever since. My only problem is that Nike has a lot of the sports teams wrapped up. Because of this I can't help but buy some Nike shirts to support my favorite teams. I hate it, but I can't help it.

My hate for Nike has grown in recent years as they have decided to mess with college football tradition and change uniforms. Now all they young kids are eager to see how Nike can change their favorite teams' uniforms. Nike's goal is to create more sales, which is genius from a marketing standpoint. I just favor tradition.

I believe they have stepped beyond what is appropriate with the University of Oregon. Their sponsorship of that team has created an unfair recruiting advantage. It is one thing for Phil Knight to give money to his alma mater, but it is an entirely different thing for his company to work for the university for free.

I hate Nike.

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Commitment

National Signing Day for college football was on Wednesday. This day has really gotten to be rediculous for these high school athletes. We have to remember that these kids are only in high school yet they are already being treated like they are superstar athletes. Some of them are great athletes, but they are still just kids.

In the last ten years or so more and more of these kids have been commiting to a school and then switching their commitment at the last minute. They cannot officially commit until National Signing Day, but they commit verbally as much as a year before they can make it official. Many times these kids who commit early change their minds and end up signing with a different school. That is not a problem unless they wait until the last moments to make that change.

I know that many people call college football recruiting a game, but there is nothing worse than a coach counting on a player's commitment and not recruiting other kids for that position and then the player changing his commitment on signing day. That leaves a hole in the coaches recruiting class that he has to scramble to fill at the last moment. That is what makes this a game. We are letting this generation of kids run this process with their lack of commitment and honor.

These kids do not need to commit to a school before National Signing Day. They can wait to make a commitment until they are sure of their decision and then stick with it. We are creating a generation of kids who will grow up thinking that it is OK to commit to something and then later not follow through. We are babying them. We are creating monsters.

There are a lot of people to blame for this problem. The media who is looking to capitalize on the popularity of college football any way they can. The college coaches who keep allowing and encouraging this to happen. The people that bear the most blame are the parents. We all know that our parenting skills have diminished as a nation. But to buy into the hype of your seventeen or eighteen year old kid is the most rediculous thing. Parents are supposed to have the level heads and help their kids make the corrrect decisions. By allowing kids to drop their commitments we are teaching them a lesson that will haunt them their entire lives.

We need to take a stand and become parents again and not allow our kids to run our lives. We need to teach them the life skills that will allow them to be successful. We need to create the next great generation.

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Citizen Revolt

We entered into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under false pretenses. That is a fact that we cannot ignore. Information was tweaked to support the position of those in charge. While I think that it was a good thing to remove Saddam Hussein from power, the reasons we did so were not correct.

I recently watched two documentaries about the war in Afghanistan, Restrepo and Camp Leatherneck. I watched them because I wanted to see what was going on there. I know that the documentaries can present information as the film maker wants it, but I think they did open my eyes.

Many Americans complain about our personal freedoms being trampled when the TSA gives us pat downs or full body scans in our airports. Conservatives are up in arms that the government is trying to force everyone to have health care. The right wing complains that we are becoming a socialist state and that our government is getting too big. Of course the right wing politicians don't want their jobs or the jobs of their friends eliminated, just the useless government jobs like social services and mental health. How would we feel if our country was occupied by a military force from another country?

Afghan citizens have to deal with the fear of having an occupying force in the ground all around them. They are pushed around and forced to answer to these people from another country. One thing that is repeated in both of these documentaries is that the Afghan people do not like having the US military in their country. They don't like the fact that they have to answer to our young military. I don't blame them one bit.

In Camp Leatherneck it is stated that it costs one million dollars per man per year to have our marines in Afghanistan at that facility and nearby outposts. I don't know how correct that number is, but that is a lot of money! If that number applies to all branches of the military in Afghanistan then we are spending a lot of money on a war that we should not be in. We are also losing a lot of lives that we don't need to be wasting.

The Republicans and Tea Party like to blame our national debt on Obama's "failed" programs. I would like to blame them. They love to say that they favor smaller government, but the military is part of the government and we are spending billions of dollars every year to have our military occupy Afghanistan and Iraq. Those billions of dollars could be used for programs here in the United States our to pay down our national debt, instead of being wasted.

I think we need to cut back our military spending significantly. We should keep the essential programs including DARPA and ARPA-E because their research has given us a lot of the things we use in every day life. We need to lose our belief that we need to police the world, it only makes other countries hate us passionately.

With the unrest happening in Egypt and other countries, now is the time to reduce our role in policing the world and the time to bring our service members home. We are supporting the Egyptian people and are saying that it is their choice to fight for democracy. We are telling them that we do not have a say, but we will support their decision. We should be doing the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq. We should bring our military home.

Here are some numbers to contemplate:





So the wars have cost us over one trillion dollars and our national debt is fourteen trillion dollars. We spend nearly as much on defense as we do on Social Security and Medicare. That does not make sense to me. These wars are not doing anything to protect us in our daily lives while Social Security and Medicare both do. Take a look at those websites for more information.

I would like to see us utilize Facebook and Twitter to insist that we end these unnecessary wars and focus on our population at home the way the people in Egypt have used them to tell their government that they are not satisfied. We need to rise up and take control of our country the way they have. Tell our politicians that we do not like the way they are wasting our money and our futures. We deserve more.

Use the hashtag #citizenrevolt if you want to see change.

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We Need Change!

My company is struggling with many issues. I could have told you a few years ago that this would happen, but nobody bothered asking me. At that point there were two people promoted to vital positions who do not have the skill set required.

I really do not know how the owner of the company is so blind, but he is. He loves to tell everyone that he can read people well, but he was sold a bill of goods by both of these individuals. His other major problem is that he does not like to get involved in the day to day operations of the company until it is too late. Everything is coming to a head at this moment.

I blame myself for this issue escalating to this point because I did not try to push for change. I don't mean to get those two people fired or demoted, but I should have pushed them for change and then tried to force them to stick with it. Some of their major issues is that they do not track the right information and they do not motivate their direct reports to do their job to the best of their ability.

Another major issues is that a few members of our management team are spending big portions of their day trying to cover for themselves. A few team up to cover for each other as well. This is bad for the company as a whole because we cannot progress if the issues are not being properly addressed. They cannot be addressed if nobody is aware of them and that is what happens when people cover for themselves and/or someone else.

I was not in the meeting when everything bubbled to the surface because I was on a business trip. I was let in on what transpired yesterday by our production manager. It is ironic that I was thinking about some of these issues and how to address them while on my trip.

In my conversation with our production manager I really tried to coach him on the things that he should be doing to improve is department and keep him out of the line of fire. There are four departments in our company that need a lot of improvement and his is one of those. His department is not the worst, but after the two major departmental issues are solved his will be next in line.

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My Photography Hobby

I read a blog post or article somewhere in which the author was talking about the number of photos he took last year. That prompted me to start digging into my own photo activity. This reminded me about my first digital photos that I lost due to a hard drive crash in 2002. I started taking digital photos in 2001.

That was the year Meg was born and the year I bought my first digital camera. It was a little HP point and shoot camera, but it did the job very well. That was the start of my photography journey.

When Meg was first born I took a photo of her every day wearing an outfit that was bought for her. I was in between jobs at the time, so I was home every day. That was actually a blessing in disguise as I was able to spend a lot of time with her and The Queen after her birth. I was also able to stay with her in the hospital when she went back in because of jaundice.

I am glad that I now back-up all of my photos to an external hard drive. I should really put it in my fire safe, but I don't do that yet. I was burning them all to DVD, but I stopped that when I got the external hard drive last year.

Here is a breakdown of the cameras I have used through the years:

2001-2003 - HP (Some more in 2005)(I also used my work FujiFilm in 2003)
2003-2006 - Sony DSC-F717
2006-2010 - Canon Digital Rebel XT
2008-2010 - iPhone 3G (3G, then 4 in 2010)
2010-Current - iPhone 4 (using Hipstamatic a lot)
2010-Current - Canon 7D
2010-Current - Diana F+ medium format film camera

Here is a chart of my photography numbers through the years (These numbers to not include all of the work photos I have taken using a FujiFilm and then Canon PowerShot G9):

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First Change of 2011

I bought the 4-Hour Body at the end of last year. I started reading it as soon as I got it, but I was moving through it slowly. I read Tim's previous book and found it interesting, so I thought I would try this one.

Tim says that you should not read the entire book from cover to cover. Instead, you should focus on specific chapters based on your goals. My first goal is to lose weight so I read the chapters that deal with rapid fat loss. On Monday The Queen and I started our new eating plan, the slow carb diet.

We have drastically reduced our intake of sugar and carbs six days per week. On the seventh day, we can eat anything we want. We decided that our "cheat" day will be Sunday and we cannot wait. We have been thinking about what we will eat that day all week. It has really not been that difficult for me to stick to the plan, but The Queen has been struggling a bit. She is sticking to it, but she is not very happy about it.

I have been on this eating plan for three full days and as of this morning I have lost two pounds. At that rate I will be able to drop about sixteen pounds in a month. I have not even exercised at all this week and am still losing weight. That just goes to show you how damaging carbs are to your waist line. The only exercise Tim recommends at this point is the kettle bell swing. I hope to start that soon.

I will be travelling next week for business, so I am interested to see if both The Queen and I can stick to the plan while I am on the road. I have been cooking all of the meals this week and don't know if she will stick to it while I am gone. Our goal is the The Queen and I to both look good for our trip to New York next month. We need to stick to it!

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My Year of Forty

This is the year that I turn forty. I never thought I would be this old, but alas it has happened. I don't feel old, but I guess I am by most people's accounts.

I decided a few years ago that I wanted to go out of my thirties with a bang. I fantasized about going to Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza, Tulum or even Europe. I wanted to do something big for my fortieth birthday. Well, I have come to the realization that I need to take it down a notch.

My company has had a rough twelve to eighteen months. My bonus last year was negligible and I most likely won't get on this year. That was the money I was hoping to use for my big adventure. This just means that I need to get more creative with what I am going to do.

We decided at the beginning of this week that we were going to go to Yosemite this weekend. Park admission is free and I have always wanted to go in the winter, so the timing is perfect. I have been doing some research to find out what I want to photograph in the park. I have read that everything is different when there is snow on the ground and I can't wait to find out.

We will drive up on Friday after school and stay the night at the Tenaya Lodge. Actually we will be staying in the cottages. That is where we stayed the night I proposed to The Queen way back when it was call Apple Tree Inn. Tenaya raised the prices substantially, but they say that they remodeled everything. I can't wait to find out if they are right. It was pretty nice before.

Next month The Queen and I are going to New York to see American Idiot on Broadway. Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer of Green Day if you didn't know, will be playing the part of St. Jimmy. The Queen has been a big Green Day fan for as long as I have known her. We even went to see them in concert at Pac Bell Park in San Francisco for the American Idiot tour. It was perhaps the best concert I have been to.

In June we have a few trips planned. I want to go to Yosemite again around my birthday and hike Half Dome. I think that is something that I will remember for a long time. It is not Machu Picchu, but it will do just fine. At the end of the month we are going camping at Dinkey Creek. We did that last September and it was a lot of fun so we decided to do it again this year.

That is all we have planned at this point, but I may try to lobby to go to the biggest trade show in my industry this year in Dusseldorf, Germany in May. I will just have to wait and see how the company is doing as the show gets closer. It only happens every three years, so it is a big deal.

It would be great to go to Mexico again, but the drug wars that are currently going on are enough to keep me away this year. I love visiting, but I am not about to risk my life and the lives of my family. I with they would just get the situations under control.

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Out of Control!

We, in the United States, often look at the messes in other countries and laugh at them. We believe that the struggles they have are because they are not as civilized as us. We believe that the things that happen there could never happen here. We are jaded. We are arrogant!

Politics in this country has gotten out of control. Obama was elected president based on a campaign of change. The people bought into this change agenda, even though we knew that it is virtually impossible to change politics in this country.

Obama and the Left pushed through health care reform, which I think is a good thing. I have said before that I don't believe health care reform was marketed correctly. It is really insurance company reform. The Right was angry and they got everyone all riled up about reform. The Tea Party started whipping everyone into a frenzy by making them believe that this was going to be bad for them. It was going to turn us into a socialist country. Even people on government health care, Medicare, were furious that we were implementing government health care. A lot of hate was being directed at the Left from the conservative Right.

The Tea Party gained some control back in the elections last year. The first agenda from the Right was to reverse health care reform. That is the last thing we need in this economy. It will cost us hundreds of millions of dollars to reverse what is already being changed. That money could be better used to create jobs for the massive number of unemployed workers this economy has created. Or, it could be used to pay down the deficit that has been increased in order to help spur the economy along. Instead the Right is forcing this reversal of health care reform as a direct attack on Obama and his supporters.

Sarah Palin created a frenzy in March of last year when she released her target map of congressional districts with cross hairs on them. The map pointed out districts that her and John McCain had won in 2008 whose Congressmen voted for health care reform. She created hate among her followers for anyone who disagreed with her and the Right. I believe that her and some other politicians from the Right have gotten out of control. They are not trying to solve any problems, they are just trying to force their agenda down the public's throat. And I think that there carelessness contributed to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. She was one of the Congressmen in the cross hairs and Jared Loughner, the shooter, took her words literally.

I don't blame them for the actual shooting as it appears that Loughner was mentally ill. What I do blame them for is dividing this country and creating anger and hate. They are just fanning the flames of unhappiness instead of trying to overcome the issues we are all facing and improving our situation. They are creating a bad culture in the United States and that can be blamed on poor leadership on their part.

You can look at countries as larger versions of companies and we all know how important culture is to the success of a company. Without a great, or even good, culture, a company will not thrive. It can limp along and be somewhat successful, but it will never be a great company. The same goes for countries. The culture of the United States needs a severe tune-up. We need to stop the hate and fighting amongst our politicians and focus on trying to make positive changes. I don't know if Obama's health care reform is the answer for the problems in the system, but at least he is trying to change it for the better.

We need our politicians to be leaders and focus on being positive and inspiring us to do great things. They need to help us embrace change and realize that it is necessary if this country is going to survive. We need to stop all of the hate and fighting and move forward so we can make this country great again.

Read this good article.

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