Category: Uncategorized

  • 3 Reasons Your Story is Important to Me

    This post is in response to Chris Brogan’s post and challenge about the importance of story in our lives. 

    A few month’s ago when I was at a crossroads in my life I watched a video that posed several questions.  To me the questions were so profound that I wrote them down and have pondered them many times since.  The question are:  What is my calling?;  What if my calling is my story?; and What if my story is where I am right now? 

    When I first had these questions posed to me through the video I had 2 reactions.  First, “cheezy” and second, after they lingered a while, was “wow”!  The second question was a bomb shell for me.  What IF my calling WAS my story?  You’d think at 43, that I would have all of life’s big questions answered, but what I find is that the farther I go down the trail of life the more questions I actually have.

    What if my calling was my story?  What if I was not only the narrator, but a character in my own story.  What if I was also a co-author, not just in my story, but in the stories of others and vice versa?  These were all questions that came to mind as I pondered the my own emotional and intellectual response to the initial questions.

    So why would your story be important to me?

    First, it is in hearing other’s story that I realize that I’m not that unique and yet still uniquely me.  We are all travelers in this life, sharing similar experiences and yet we have very different responses and outcomes.

    Second, by the mere fact that you are reading this, our stories are now intertwined.  Maybe not like a best friend, husband, wife, son, daughter or someone very close to us, but we still are connected.  I have come to realize that MY story is not just my story, but the coalescing of my story with those around me as well.

    Third and by all means not last, your story and you are important to me.  Every person is truly valuable and when one single story is not heard we all suffer loss.

    I hope that this post along with Chris’ in some way inspire you to realize that you have a story, it’s important and you get to co-author it.

    Have a great day and make your story great.

  • Neon Sign or Cairn?

    Are you a neon sign or a cairn?  Right now you’re probably saying to yourself I know what a neon sign is, but how does it apply to me and what in the heck is a cairn?

    Let me start with the cairn.  A cairn is a small or sometimes rather large pile of rocks to intentionally mark something.  In the past they were used to mark graves or for religious alters among other things.  Today, hikers the world over know them as the universal markers to help keep fellow travelers on the trail.
    Cairn

    Neon signs are used to catch someone’s eye.  They say, “hey look at me”.  Sure, they are neat to look at, but they can be incredibly obnoxious too.

    Neon
    Cairns just set there silently pointing the way.  I remember one time while climbing Long’s Peak there was a stretch of basically thawed tundra just prior to the “Boulder Field” and it was very easy to lose the way.  It would be hard at this point to get truly lost, but it was easy to lose the exact trail and if it were not for cairns strategically placed I might have wondered considerably off trail damaging the pristine fauna that is so precious to hikers like myself.

    Both neon signs and cairns provide direction and both are useful and needed.  But, I find all too often that we are acting like neon signs when all that the world needs is for us to be cairns.

    So are you a neon sign or a cairn?  Does your function or role demand one or the other?  Would you rather be one vs. the other?  Let’s discuss.

  • IPv6, say what?

    Well, not that I need to restate this, but as you know I'm a geek and as I write this I know that probably only two or three people that will read this will get it.  That's okay, because really you don't need to know.  So Joy, Logan and any other geeky friends that read this enjoy the video.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y36fG2Oba0?wmode=transparent]

    I love the original song and the rewrite of the lyrics only add to my fondness.

    What is IPv6 you ask?  Simply put, IP numbers are like street addresses or phone numbers for the Internet.  IPv4 is the current version that the Internet works off of, but as you may have heard the Internet is running out of addresses so a new system needed to be developed to accommodate for the increased number of web enabled devices.  There are other features of IPv6, but we don't need to go into that detail now.

  • How to Train Your Dragon

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKiYuIsPxYk?wmode=transparent]

    How to Train Your Dragon was a great movie.  3D IMAX was fantastic.  With today's sophisticated (well maybe) movie going audiences it is difficult to please all in the same family, but this movie succeeded in this feat, at least for my family.  It has it all, Dragons, Vikings and fighting to please the young and old boys and a central female character that is tough yet still feminine for the little girls, and of course, lets not forget mom it has a great story line and even a little romance thrown in.  I must confess though, that I not so secretly love dragons and would have watched this movie even if it had terrible reviews, but the fact that it had great reviews and fulfilled on its promises made the $60 for a family of 4 for movie tickets a little more palatable.  The flying sequences are very well done, especially the opening dragon fighting scene when we are introduced to the type of dragon known as the Night Fury. Gerard Butler, does an excellent job as the father of the main character, Hiccup, and the Viking chieftain.  I never have figured out the whole motherless little children, most often a little boy, with the big dumb disconnected dad underlying theme of so many children's movies, but that's another discussion on social psychology theories for another time.

    Don't take my word for it go see How to Train Your Dragon and let my know if I missed the boat. 

  • Humans Are Like Windows

    Bsod_small

    No I don't mean like "windows to the soul" or like a pane of glass.  I mean like the Windows that we PC users have all come to love and hate.  If you've ever used Windows for any length of time you've experienced the dreaded "blue screen of death".

    So, how are humans like Windows you ask?  Great question.  Be honest now, when you get that blue screen (to MS's credit I've not seen it in a very long time) you immediately crunch down on that power or reset button as fast as you can and never even try to understand what the dying last words of your operating system were.  What just happened?  Well, my mantra is "that's Windows", but something did actually happen to cause the dreaded blue screen.  It's likely that even if you did take the time to read the problem it would not be intelligible.  I'm fairly technically competent, build my own PCs, a little programming, network my home etc. and I can't understand what they mean half the time.  I've been on the phone with Microsoft support for 2 hours once and they couldn't even figure it out.

    Each time a blue screen occurs a log file is created of what is usually referred to as the "stack dump".   A stack is basically a set of instructions, commands, calculations or other that are held in memory awaiting to be run.  A stack dump then is when this set of instructions gets written to the log.  A software engineer can sometimes look at this dump file to determine what caused the error to occur and possibly diagnose the situation.

    The problem is that many times these events seem random.  Have you ever been in a relationship or conversation with a person and all of a sudden they blow up on you.  Well, you've just experienced the human blue screen.  Unfortunately, we don't write our stack dumps out to a log file.  Many times the error that Windows shows is "A fatal exception has occurred." luckily the errors we as humans make are rarely fatal and there are chances to repair any damage done.  Sometimes with Windows the best fix is to just wipe the hard drive clean and start all over with a fresh install of the OS.  Obviously, we can't do this as humans.  Memories get moved from our RAM (short term memory) to our hard drives (long term) and they are stuck there forever.

    So what do we do?  Do we have to go around walking on egg shells to avoid those blue screens.  Of course not, but it's always nice to remember that we are all humans and like PCs sometimes we can break.  Value the relationships we have – defrag the relationship's hard drive once in a while.  Uninstall old junk – hurt feelings, even old friends we really don't need; make room for new fresh programs and hardware – friends, activities and hobbies that are not damaging. 

    There you have it, humans are like Windows.  I don't know what I'll do when we all go to Linux or a quasi OS like a browser.  We won't have those same problems, unless of course that browser is made by Microsoft.

    Do you have any of those human blue screen moments?  Share your thoughts and experiences.

     

  • I’m a New Dork

    If you're my friend you already know this, but just in case you don't.

    It's been confirmed I AM A DORK.  A New Dork to be exact.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exmwSxv7XJI?wmode=transparent]

  • Humans are Analogue

    This is the first in at least a two part series of my analogies of what humans are like (as if we didn't already know).  It's at least two parts, because that is how many ideas I have floating around in my cerebral soup right now.  If one of my two neurons fires between now and when I get finished with the first two, who knows something else might get spawned.

    From Wikipedia:  Analogue electronics (or analog in American English) are electronic systems with a continuously variable signal, in contrast to digital electronics where signals usually take only two different levels.

    When you read the definition did anything jump out at you?  It did me.  As much as my wife would like to think I can turn on and off my emotions like a robot, I can not.  See, we humans are analogue creatures.  We are constantly receiving a continuous variable signal.  Digital circuits are On or Off.  Of course, with today's technology we've made digital circuits mimic analogue circuits, think old school radio knobs vs. pushing the button to turn up your MP3 player's volume.  The problem and it can be a big problem, just ask Toyota, is that with digital circuits sometimes they don't respond the way we want them to.  They forget their programming and there's no graduation, it reverts back to On or Off.

    Human interactions involve a huge set of variables or input.  We are constantly taking in data.  Sometimes it great, kind, loving words from our kids and sometimes it's negative self talk or our boss ripping our head off.  

    So, what's my point?  Well it's simply this:  we are analogue; we have an infinite number of thoughts and potential reactions for any given situation.  The next time you're in a conversation or discussion and don't get the reaction you thought or wanted remember that it's not all or nothing.  Maybe the person didn't understand something or maybe they had a bad day.  It may have nothing to do with anything that was said.  If we'll all just give each other an extra dose of grace my guess is that we'll have less misunderstanding and hurt feelings and more fruitful relationships.

    Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know your thoughts.

  • I LOVE This & You Will Too

    Seriously, they have way too much time on their hands, but I love this song and the video.

    What say you?

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w?wmode=transparent]

  • Are we too complicated?

    If you spend any time with me you’ll come to realize that I love movies.  Old movies, new movies, DVD’s, movie theater, I just love the medium.  I’ll watch almost anything as long as it’s decent, but bad movies are bad movies no matter what genre or budget they had.  I can cheer triumphantly at a great sports movie and I can laugh until it hurts at a good comedy.  I can even shed a tear with the best of them at a good romance or moving drama. For me, movies stimulate my thoughts and emotions like no other art form.  Of course, being a guy and somewhat of a geek (okay, really geeky), sci-fi, war or action adventure flicks tend to be at the top of my list often.  One genre that you’d think I’d get tired of quickly (with a 5 and 6 year old) are children’s stories, but I don’t.  I actually really like them.  I often find that children’s stories have a very simple profound wisdom that as hard as directors try to top it in complex themed mature movies they never can really get past the essence communicated so wonderfully in so many children’s movies. 

    My Top 5 feel good personal growth movies are:

    5)  Toy Story 1 & 2 (& 3 in anticipation)

    4)  Wall-E

    3)  Land Before Time

    2) Cars

    And ….

    1)  Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

    We, as adults, tend to over complicate things.  I don’t know why, because really when you get right down to it things can be pretty simple if we’ll let them be.  That’s why I love the movies I listed above.  They are all about personal sacrifice, love for one another, courage and so much more.  If you’ve never seen these movies or it’s been a while take an evening and sit down and watch them.  You won’t be sorry and maybe, just maybe, they’ll make your top 5 list too.

    So what would be your top 5?

    P.S.  I would have added Horton Hears a Who, but I already had 6 movies in my top 5 so I didn’t want to completely blow it.

  • Oh, ‘dem Sweet Beignets

    Some time ago Chris Brogan wrote a post, that I'm still thinking about partly because I love beignets and secondly I tend to be slightly OCD (just kidding, I think) and can not stop thinking of something until my thoughts have run their logical course.

    Chris' post was about doing one thing very well and I have to say that Chris is correct, not every brand is built on a single solidly identifiable widget, but many are.  It doesn't mean that you have to be one dimensional.  It is important to have a few complimentary products or services.  Maybe one of the best examples that I can provide is from my previous life as an adventure racer.  Our team was made up of four individuals and we often had special duties that we elected to fulfill for each race.  My role was second navigator and pacer.  For some reason I have an odometer built into my brain that can get you to your destination within a few meters of the actual spot and I can also tell you what pace you are walking and running.  Many runners I know have that same sense so I'm not that unique, but I could do that at night, on a trail, in a dark forest with a combination of walking running and still get the team where we needed to be.  I say this not to brag, but simply to point out that I had a "brand" of being a great pacer so guess who got that job every time?  Sure, I did and that's okay, because I really enjoyed it.  I could have done other things like navigator, encourager, transition help or one of the many other "jobs", but I did one thing very well and concentrated on that.  Of course, we were a team so we all helped out doing whatever it took to be successful, but we also had 1 or 2 things that we specialized in and that made our team function well.

    So what's your specialty?  What widget do you make or piece of insight that you can bring that is uniquely you?

    Thanks,

    Mat