Penanoid

Sometimes, people get possessive over stuff. I am not talking about greediness or envy, or anything that would fall into the "seven deadly" category. It's like when a kid gets a new toy for Christmas, or when a person gets a new car and won't even let their significant other drive it.

I admit that I am pretty particular about the stuff that i use. I am writing at least part of this on my iPad mini I got for my birthday a couple of years ago. I use it basically everyday for something. I do most of my reading on it, as well as some basic web stuff that I don't necessarily need my computer for. It isn't the fastest tool for writing, but works well enough when I travel and don't want to pack my laptop on a flight.
My day job is as an engineer for an aerospace company. I am a Mac user at home and use a PC for my work stuff, so I needed to have all of my different productivity tools set up so that they would sync between both my work and home set ups. I have one of those jobs where ideas, thoughts and action items come to mind, even when I am not in my office. They come leave my mind as quickly as they get in there. It isn't just work stuff that this happens to. The idea for this post came to my mind as I was walking from one production area to another while I was at work. I would rather capture the ideas and process them later than hope that I remember them when I am at a good place to write them down.

The Fisher Space Pen with a standard size business card for scale. 

A tool that I use everyday is the common pen. I have to sign documents, write down changes to manufacturing processes as well as take notes in meetings. Me without a pen is like a mechanic without a screwdriver or a doctor without a stethoscope. For my most recent birthday, I got a pen from my family. It may sound simple, but my wife shares my particular bent toward being specific about my tools. She is also really particular about her pens, so she gets my quirkiness. I got a Fisher Space Pen for my birthday. If you are interested, please take a look at the link. I picked the pen, not just because they write upside down, or because they don't leak, but, because it closes up small. I can put it in a pocket in my pants and not feel it stab me in the leg.
The thing about a small pen though is that it has this magical power to disappear. I start and end my day with a clean desk, but as I get going on a project and I have drawings and specs on my desk and on the computer screen, it isn't hard to set a work order down on my pen and not realize it. I found myself to start to worry about losing my new birthday present. It is not a Smeagol kind of worry. I will not refer to my pen as my precious, but, I got it from my family, so it has some significance to me. I found myself getting penanoid about losing my present.
I think this is a feeling that most people get. It probably isn't about a pen, but it could be a family heirloom, or a gift from a relative that has passed away, or an award from a hard fought competition. I am not advocating that people should be possessive about their stuff, far from it. I like my pen, but I love my family.

2015. Wow, that was fast.

It has been a really long time since I published anything here. I have seen it written in a lot of places that a person writes what they know. There are some interesting challenges in finding things to write about when you are not allowed to talk specifically about two of the biggest areas of your waking life. About five years ago, my wife, and I became foster parents. Over that time span, we have had 19 kids come into our care. A lot of them have been infants with all different kinds of medical needs. Most of them went home to their parents, or other family members. That is, except for four of them.
At the end of October, my wife and I adopted 4 girls and our forever family has grown in a very short period of time. They have all been with us for quite some time and we have treated all of the kids in our care as though they were ours, but these four will be with us forever and share our last name. Nice thing is that, I can talk a little about them if I choose to without getting in trouble. I am not turning this in to a parenting blog, but I can refer to them as I write about the occasional family adventure.
As far as work stuff, I spent 7 months taking classes on export law compliance. I was not able to find any blogs or podcasts on the subject and I can totally understand why. Unless, it is something that you have to work with on a daily basis, it is the kind of thing that would put a person to sleep in no time. I have discovered the cure for insomnia.
In between work and kids and life stuff, with a little bit of sleeping in between, I got serious about running and started to do it on a consistent basis.

What scared me straight?

What put reality in my face and cause me to take some changes seriously?

It was the scale.

Our scale is not something special, or unique. It doesn't yell at me like a drill sergeant and call me names. It just sits there. I stand on it and it tells me a truth that I could not ignore. In June, it told me that I was really close to being 300 pounds.  Between that and the size of my pants, I knew that I had to change things. I was getting ready to adopt four children and I knew I had to make sure that I was around for them.
So, it started. I started. I started to get up at 4 in the morning. Every day. At a time, when rock stars are starting to think about the second party of the night, I was thinking about the road ahead of me. I realized that running was going to be the easiest form of exercise for me to take up. I live in a small community and there were no gyms any where near me. I could swim in the lake, but I didn't want to be mistaken for a wayward walrus. I do have a bike, but it is in need of some repairs. I had the shoes, the clothes and found the time in my schedule to make it happen, so, away I went.
It started slow. I did more walking than running. The key for me was being consistent. get up at 4 everyday and putting the miles in. I also setup a play list on my phone to listen to during my run. I think a lot on the road in the morning and I needed to have something else going through my head than my day ahead. Over time, I worked and I got to the point where I was running more than walking. Later it got to where I was running the whole thing. I now running the whole thing for about 3.5 miles every morning. Some days, I feel like going farther and I have a route in my neighborhood that gets me there.
I have come to really enjoy it. For some people that my sound like crazy talk, but that is where I am. The girls, except for the little one, came out with me on Thanksgiving morning. They did not go as far as I did, but it was more about the memories than the miles. I had fun with it too.

This mornings run was my longest of the year at 6.27 miles. I even went up this intimidating hill for the first time that is behind our house. It is something that I am going to have to spend some time in 2016 getting stronger at.
I want to get back in the habit of writing here too. Two term papers a week for 7 months as well as my normal work kind of pushed away any fun writing, but I feel like I have something to say that may help someone and I won't find my voice if I don't start talking.

Happy 2016 everyone!!

Fitbitten!!!

About a month ago, my wife and I each bought a Fitbit. I realize that I probably am a bit late getting on this bandwagon. The fact of the matter is that I spent a bit of time researching personal "metrics" devices for a while. After talking to some of my friends and my wife's friends, and polling Facebook, I decided on a FitBit. But what kind? I have so many things that I am keeping track of and have to remember to put in my pockets everyday. With that in mind, i decided that something that I didn't need to remember to shove in a pocket and take out to avoid putting through the spin cycle. With that in mind, I chose the FitBit Flex.

It wears just like a wristwatch. Unfortunately, it looks a bit silly on my wrist next to my regular watch, so about the only time that I wear the two at the same time is when I am out on a run. I have just been using my iPhone as my watch and just wear the FitBit. Most people I know most people use their mobile device as a clock, so this isn't a big thing to work with, however, I am use to wearing a watch and I lost count of how many times I have looked at my FitBit expecting to see what time it is. Maybe that is something that can get worked into the next iteration of the device. (Hint, hint FitBit).

As you can see from the chart above, I have become somewhat FitBitten. I doubt that I am the first one to say that, but, I am going to go with it. The bar graph shows how many steps I took each day for the first month that I had the device. Seems unreal to me that I traveled almost 132 miles on foot in one month. 

The business productivity expert, Peter Drucker, said "What gets measured, gets managed." I have found this tool to be great for measuring more things than just my activity. I can manually input what I eat over the course of the day into the FitBit Dashboard as well as how much water I drink. The biggest challenge I have with this is figuring out how to accurately account for dinner. I think I may actually be calculating high for that. 

The other thing that this FitBit Flex tracks for me is how I sleep. It measures restlessness as well as how long I sleep. I just need to tell it when I go to bed and when I wake up. I have a moderate case of sleep apnea and this really tells me if my CPAP machine is doing the job or not, besides my wife telling me when I have kept her up with my snoring.

Part of my day job is looking at things from an efficiency standpoint. Doing things in the least amount of time and with the fewest possible steps. I have found that with my FitBit, I have taken the time to walk down to a work area to talk to a coworker, versus sending and Email or calling them on the phone. I think this interaction actually helps get work done a bit faster and clearer with the direct conversation versus trying to interpret the subtext of an email. 

Overall, this has been a great tool for me to make more intentional decisions about what I do, how I get there and what I put into my body. Now, if only I can stop looking at it to see what time it is.

What tools do you use to keep track of your day? Your goals? Your Fitness?

A Powerful Lesson from an Unexpected Place

Today, I was in a conversation with some people about work assignments and performance goals. One of my coworkers was venting about some performance goals that were assigned to him. He said that he thought the goals were “impossible” to achieve. Then my mind, for just a moment, went long ago to a galaxy far, far away…

I have been remind of scenes from the Star Wars films as I go through life. As a parent, husband, or even an employee, there are life lessons in those movies that come from the most unexpected places. I was reminded on an iconic scene in the Empire Strikes Back, on the little, swampy planet of Dagobah.

I feel like the part of the movie that I am referring to will be familiar to most people who read my blog. If the Star Wars movies are something you have yet to experience, I think you will get my point just the same.  

Coming back to Earth, my coworker who thinks that the goals that have been put in front of him are impossible. So, he as already set himself up to fail in his mind. Instead of using his mind creatively to come up with ways of meeting this goal, he uses it to fill him mind with doubt. It is that doubt that will defeat him if he cannot see the need to overcome it.

Since I became a manager, I have been researching a lot about leadership and one subject that I have seen little to no useful information on is how to lead a procrastinator. That is because, there is no way to effectively make a procrastinator not procrastinate. Regardless of how this ends up, I have learned a lesson from this that will help me keep my own attitude in check.

Goals

The year 2013 is in the books. There is a common thought that goes through our culture about making New Years resolutions. There are all kinds that people try. While the options are totally up to the individual, there are some common ones that are often picked. Some people decide that it is time to stop smoking, or lose weight, or learn something new. The common driving force that I see in all resolutions is that people see in them selves that there is something that they are unhappy with and want to change.

I personally am not a resolutions kind of a person. I don't see the value in waiting use a new calendar as a trigger to make a change. I like to think that I am more of goals kind of a person. A goal is just a valid to start in the middle of March as it is in the beginning of January.
In 2013, I set for myself some goals that I wanted to achieve. I am happy to say that I successfully achieve one of the goals that I set out for myself. You read that right, one goal.
At one time, I would have found myself thinking that being 17% successful would be pretty disappointing. This is a line of thinking that I am making a conscious effort to avoid. I have come to think of it as sort of an eighth goal. Not really a goal in the sense that I have not come up with a way to measure it. I can define it, but not gage it. I have written before about goals. It has been a long time and I think that my real understanding of what constitutes a goal has changed.
The Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, from Star Wars Episode I said it well when he stated "Your focus determines your reality." Inspiration comes from all different kinds of sources. The recovering perfectionist inside of me would have preferred to go 7 for 7 this year, but, having completed one goal is better than not finishing any. I can focus on what I might have classified as failures, or I can be pleased with the success. Focusing on the success will drive more success. I may be tempted to say to my self that I cannot run a marathon, but, I can look back on what I did achieve and remind myself that I did accomplish something, so there is a precedence  for success. 
Another way of looking is, I already have some 2014 goals laid out in front of me.

Digital Detox

While I was on vacation this past week, I decided to go on a fast from social media. This is a scaled down version of something I did around Easter back in 2012. Back then; I stayed off of social media for the term of Lent. My goals were more around experimenting with self-discipline. This time around, I just needed a break from all of the different sources of input. My day job is very e-mail dependent and it seems like I can’t look at my phone without seeing a notification that someone posted something that Facebook wants me to look at right away or that there are 10 new emails that have come in since the last time that I looked.

The idea of a digital detox is not something new or I can take credit for coming up with. I was somewhat relieved that I was not the only one who felt overloaded and needed to unplug from the Internet. I have read a number of posts from people who talked about their experiences with getting away from it all, 21^st century style.

I started with the day before my family and I were scheduled to head off to one of our favorite places to camp. It is a place that my wife and I have been to nearly every summer since we got married. The start to my media fast was not as intentional as it would seem. With all of the stuff we had to do to get ready to go, I accidentally

left my phone in my car for a while after running errands. I am not sure this is something that only I experience, but, sometimes, I get these muscle spasms in my legs that feel like my phone is ringing on vibrate mode. I didn’t realize that my phone was not on me until I had one of those muscle spasms.

One of the great things about this camping spot that we go to is it is truly out in the middle of nowhere. Cell phones do not work and I think that any Internet access that the local business may have has to be by satellite. That was the easy part of the fast. Nothing like being cut off that makes it easy to deal with internal temptations. The real challenges came when we got home.

We came home after camping for three days. The plan was to leave the following day for another campground after we took care of some appointments. The plans were changed around completely after my wife got second-degree sunburn the day before we came home. She was in no condition to try to camp anywhere else after that. After we decided to cancel the second trip, we still decided to make the rest of the week a staycation. This is where the real temptations started to kick in.

             It was really challenging not to stop and look at Twitter while I was balancing or bank account or peak at Facebook with the movie that the family was watching was paused for a bathroom break. I was able to stay away from it, but it really showed me something about how these little programs and devices can be real distractions from living out live if we let them.

            All told, this is something that I recommend that everyone try to do, even if it is just for a long weekend. The day that my fast ended, I got on to Twitter to see at least a dozen comments on my feed about people being upset that a different person has been chosen to play Batman. I think I ended my fast too soon.

Unintended Legacies

A pair of shoes that my brother designed in the memory of Dave,

I am writing this post on 8 November. Normally, I dont get that specific on my posts. I like to think that when something is written doesn't have any bearing on the content. My post this time is a very rare exception.
For the last eight years, today has been a difficult day. I share this with others who had a the opportunity to cross paths with a rare individual. Today is the anniversary of the death of Marine SSGT Dave Ries. Dave and three other Marines in his unit were killed when a cowardly terrorist put a road side bomb in the path of their Hummer. I could write a lot about him and what made him so memorable. As I sit here writing with a 6 day old boy asleep in the bassinet, I have thought about the kind of legacy that we have the potential to leave without even knowing it. While there are three kids who had called Dave "Dad", I dont think Dave ever thought about where he had an impact on people. Do any of us really think about that?  Maybe it is good thing that we don't think about things that far ahead. We would stop being ourselves and act how we think we want others to think of us. A legacy only really comes from who we are. It comes from how genuine we are. It is too bad that it takes painful events to remind us of this simple reality.