A Goofy Foot in Mouth

We saw the announcement of an historic framework… for discussions… for a plan… for a deal… for peace with Iran this week.  Regardless of where you come down on whether it will work or not, I’d like to point out some interesting facets of this whole topic.

The Obama administration’s foreign policy is based on the notion of engagement (Cuba, Russia, Iran) and the idea that we can eventually talk our way to peace.  This is in contrast to the post 9/11 policy of the Bush administration’s adoption of the Jewish commandment zachor to “remember” or “never forget”.  Which translated to a policy of confrontation whenever there is doubt that someone might possibly have bad intent.  Or the Clinton strategy of quasi-appeasement as a path to peace (Somalia, Yemen, North Korea, Palestinians).  One strategy may or may not be better than the others on a whole host of measurable outcomes.  I’m not here to argue that.

But let’s examine Iran.  There is talk that this deal is the first step towards bringing Iran into the league of civilized nations such that it will have a positive effect on the rest of the Middle-East to transition into peaceful coexistence with Israel and other Arab nations.  Wasn’t that the utopian goal for establishing a democracy in the just liberated Iraq?  It’s deja vous all over again.  Except this time we are negotiating the change, rather than imposing it by force.  You say tomato…

What I find interesting is the arrogance by the left that a diplomat (Hillary, Kerry) is inherently more qualified to do the work of nation building or coalition building than a grunt.  The State Department is assumed to have the ‘peaceful’ solution.  I will use the Garner Plan as a use case in this regard.  Never heard of it?  Neither had I, but it’s really interesting.

Jay Garner was a retired Army three star who was appointed to lead the post war reconstruction efforts in Iraq in 2003.  He started his career with an enlistment in the Marines.  Not very academic beginnings.  Oh wait, he did his undergrad at UPenn and grad school at Harvard?  hmmm.  So his ‘plan’ was to just kick out the top guys in the Iraqi government and hold elections as soon as possible.   Granted, there were some problems with his selections for the interim leadership.  But after his ouster I think this sentiment summed up what would have been an empowering strategy that might not have led to the sectarian morass of today.

I don’t think [Iraqis] need to go by the U.S. plan, I think that what we need to do is set an Iraqi government that represents the freely elected will of the people. It’s their country … their oil

Contrast this with Garner’s successor Paul Bremmer (Exeter, Yale, Harvard) who entered the foreign service and State Dept almost straight out of college.  Upon arrival in Iraq he did the following

• Renamed the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance as the Coalition Provisional Authority.  “Authority,” great choice of a word.
• Ruled by decree, the first of which was to dissolve the Baath Party
• The second was to disband the military
• Then he decided that the CPA should write a constitution for the Iraqis.  Brilliant

Consider those actions vis a vis another great quote from General Garner,

…as in any totalitarian regime, there were many people who needed to join the Baath Party in order to get ahead in their careers. We don’t have a problem with most of them. But we do have a problem with those who were part of the thug mechanism under Saddam. Once the U.S. identifies those in the second group, we will get rid of them.

I was listening to the SEALFIT podcast and Commander Devine was interviewing Congressman Ryan Zinke (also a former SEAL). This was the first time I had ever heard talk of the Garner Plan.  They were discussing observations from their time in Iraq in ‘03-’04. Some great insights in a very fast moving conversation,

• “when…you force into unemployment, the thousands of …military…”
• “The people who know how to shoot the guns to put them back on the street with no food, was not a wise decision”
• “…Those same soldiers, that obeyed orders all the way up, and all you had to do was replace the speaker at the top…”

It really got me to thinking about how we approach the world. Most soldiers respect other soldiers. They share a common understanding for the awesome responsibility that governments place on them. Regardless of their association with a government, they share that same basic foundation and philosophy.  Diplomats always talk about “finding common ground” and “shared interests” to “build bridges”. I remember thinking at the time that it was a great idea to cut all of that Baath crap out of the government and start from scratch. How stupid was that.  Looking back, I recognize the limitations in my experience base.  Much of that is my lack of personal military service.  I don’t have the knowledge of what war is really like, how chain of command effects your decision making process on the battle field.  But soldiers know this.  And I bet a number of them with that experience know that as long as there are clear orders from above, most Iraqis would have been happy to find a new way to continue serving their country under different leadership.  I bet there was a certain soldier who told his bosses that too.  Wish they had listened. I wonder why some people find it so hard to believe that not only do soldiers have brawn, but they are usually pretty smart too.

Many of you that tailgate with us know this story, but my dad recommended that I write it down before I forgot.  So here goes.

When the Tailgate Box was first released, it was all white.  And sitting in the back of my truck, it looked like one of those old fashioned ice delivery trucks.  So Sam started singing “Ice Shack baby” and soon that is how it got its name.  Most all of our nicknames start with a stupid story like that.

November 2, 2014.  Pats vs Denver.  Game time = 4:25 PM.  I still had a few things left to do on the Box and Sam was going to help me, so I stayed at his house and we got up early to work on the box, figuring we would hit the road around 10:00AM.  It was really cold and windy and was hard to get things done.  I wanted to rig the grill lighting so we could see what we were cooking after the game.  Everything goes well, we load the truck, head to the game.  Great tailgate (as always) and a win over Peyton Manning too.  We hit the road about 10 PM headed for home.  In the front seat is Sam Nelson, in the back is Ed Kelly and John West.

It’s very windy and I am driving in the low 70’s.  We are headed north on the Everett turnpike in Nashua at about 11:15 PM.  I feel a big gust of wind, the truck moves in reaction in a way I haven’t felt before.  There is a strange crack sound and as I look in the rear-view mirror I see the box flying through the air out the back of the truck.  I am told that I yelled “Holy Fuck!”  At which point Ed woke up.

Now let me just say in my defense that there were two small screws holding the box from sliding backwards out of the truck.  Because it weighed at least 800 lbs loaded, I never thought anyone could physically steal it and since it is framed over the wheel wells, it would only really slide a few inches backward until it hit the steel frame and stopped.  I NEVER considered the aerodynamics of something so big as being able to generate enough lift to pull it up 8 inches, sheer the screws, and then float out the back of the truck.

So all I could picture as I look back on the highway is the big rig about 1/4 mile behind me, smashing this giant wooden box on the highway and like in the movies, it shatters in a million shards.  The box was framed to be light-weight, so there is not a lot of structure to it, I tried to frame it as smart as possible using the interior dividers as strength members.  But I did worry about the 3 car batteries and 2 propane tanks and cornhole frames and generator and some poor old lady driving along, hitting the thing and getting hurt.  By the time I could get to the right lane and pull over, we were at least a half mile up but could see the big white box sitting smack in the middle of the highway which was 5 lanes wide at this point (between exits 4 and 5).

I bolt out “we gotta go get it.”  The guys were not as convinced, and hinted at leaving it.  But I have a decent amount invested, I wanted to at least try.  I tell John to call 911, we head for exit 5 to loop back.  While we are heading south John tells us that the 911 operator says that at least 10 calls have come in for a “refrigerator” on the highway.  I get off at exit 4, head to the north on-ramp and see a local cop in a Ford Explorer getting on the highway.  I try flashing my lights but he continues on.  We catch up to him on the highway and he flashes on his blues pulling right up behind the box, providing cover.  We pull up along side in the breakdown lane.  All of us are amazed, “Holy shit, no one hit it!”

I yell to the cop who had rolled down his window, “That’s mine, we are going to come get it, ok?”  He yells “Go ahead”.  The 4 of us then run out into the middle of the highway and I tell the guys that we can push it to the side of the road.  4 grown men lean into the side of the thing…it doesn’t budge.  Wow this thing is heavy.  There was a lot of colorful language.  We get all 4 of us on one side and start to ‘spin’ it, one end at a time, for the side.  As we move it and progress slightly forward, the cop is moving with us, providing cover.  Later we would joke that it was like playing Frogger with cars zipping by at full speed.

We get the box to the side, the local cop takes off because a state trooper pulls up.  This guy must have thought we were all nuts.  He never asks our name, but already knows that we are coming home from a Pats game.  We unlock the storage doors and start unloading everything onto the side of the highway.  This includes my large plastic bin FULL of empties, because well you know, I have to recycle them.  Sam’s grill tray is partially broken and it falls off as he lifts it out, smashing himself in the face (black eye the next day).  We get all the heavy stuff out and I tell the guys that we can lift the front and I will back up to the box, lay it on the truck and then all 4 of us can lift the back and hinge it forward sliding it over the wheel well and then back in place.

Believe it or not, the plan works flawlessly.  The trooper held the flashlight for a while while we put all the crap back in and then went back to his car, I think he was cold…we certainly were.  We load everything back in the box and then I throw 3 ratchet straps over the top, because now I am paranoid.

This whole episode only took about 45 minutes and as we got back in the truck to drive on, it was so surreal that we kept saying, “Did that really just happen?”

A few days later, I finally had a chance to assess the damage. The 42″ tv cracked, but special thanks to the crew that chipped in for the new one.  Sam’s grill got dinged.  The frame of the box had a few cracks and scratches, but since it landed square on the highway and just skidded, it was actually ok.  One of the cracks was from where I ratcheted the strap down so tight that it cracked a piece of the frame…oops.   One of the batteries cracked a cell.  Everything was jumbled around, but no bottles in the bar broke, all the electronics were fine, and the other two 32″ tvs were fine.  I was amazed.  We all praised my “Built in America craftsmanship” and the “Flying Ice Shack” lived to fight another day.  I thought it was poetic that the next week was the bye week, and then we had an away game.  I guess the whole team needed some time to heal up for the playoff run and Superbowl victory!

Go Pats!

I wrote about the first tailgate box a while ago.  And yes, it has been almost a full season since I built the second one, but I still wanted to talk about the process.  I think the tailgate box is a perfect metaphor for Agile development.  I admit 100% that building 2.0 last summer was not a good use of my time at a point when I could have been doing other things.  But it provided a nice escape from a lot of troubles at work, and I needed the distraction.  It was a great mental focus.

Tailgate box 1.0 was MVP.  We learned a lot from that experience.  Mostly that it was too small, we needed bigger TVs and that it has to be completely waterproof.  Even with several point releases each season, we new an upgrade was needed.  And so, we also added several items to the enhancement backlog: a bar, better storage, DVD player, internet TV, louder stereo, better lighting, etc

Over the 2013-14 season I knew I was going to rebuild the box in the off-season.  I was anxious to begin.  But the knowledge of the new box, didn’t detract from the customer experience with v1.4  I even got a pretty early start in June.  But as summer wore on, I got behind.  I remember the night before the first game, Tay and I worked her JROTC fundraiser at the racetrack and I didn’t get a lot done.  As they say, you go to battle with the army you have, not the one you want.

I ran my electronics smoke test a few days before, but the development delays meant that we went live missing a lot of functionality.  There were only 2 TVs.  None of the piping for the gas lines was in, nothing was painted, the storage area was incomplete, no lighting, the doors had no brackets to stay open.  It took several games to get these items corrected.  But even now I still haven’t finished painting and need to build shelves in the storage area.

My customer (me, the crew, our fans) really want the full functionality to be complete.  But it’s not like they got nothing.  We delivered a major new release with working functionality that far surpasses the previous version.  Was it everything on the list of requirements?  No.  But that doesn’t detract from the user experience: More functionality can only enhance the user experience.  As a product manager, I made choices, given limited resources and timeline, of what would be delivered on opening day.  The rest of the items got prioritized on the backlog, based on what I learned from actual usage those first few production cycles.  As an example, because it can get a little breezy in the fall, a good system for holding the doors open got moved to the top of the list.  As a result of high winds on the Middlesex Turnpike, we added backup strapping capability.

No one, I mean NO ONE complained about the 2.0 rollout.  I was more critical on myself than anything.  I had more fans than ever coming over to take pictures, ask questions and get ‘the tour’.  The Tailgate Box is not a life-critical endeavor.  It may be customer facing, but my customer understands that perfection is impossible.  The reason is that my customer has come to expect limitations given their limited resources/support, despite the fact that the Doctor insists it was a “group effort”.   They accept this and work within the limitations.

It could be argued that the tailgate crew is my ‘internal customer’.  These guys are definitely on my team.  We work together and in fact, when calamity arose (see Flying IceShack post later) they rose to the occasion and increased their funding to help address a near fatal system crash.  I find it amazing that no one would question these general attitudes, yet reality is a complete juxtaposition at work.  There, my internal customer suddenly isn’t on my team.  I never feel we are working together for a shared goal.  We may talk a good game about managing the backlog, but the minimum threshold for go-live is always near perfection.  We never discuss strategies to go live with minimum capability.  In theory, we could roll out less than the original spec and still have meaningful functionality.  But you better believe that if something is on the requirements list, we won’t go live until it is complete.  No one ever thinks to just accept a limited roll-out and learn as a team from what we experience.

I don’t know why attitudes and norms that you live on a daily basis (ie in a parking lot) are suddenly invalid in an office.  It makes no sense to me, especially when you literally are on the same team.  I have had plans for Tailgate Box 3.0 (new platform= ambulance) for a while now, but that doesn’t mean that v2.0 is complete crap.  It doesn’t detract from existing functionality or make 2.0 ‘unacceptable’.  And in fact, there will be a 2.1 dev iteration before the start of the next production cycle.  The following items made the cut, if you would like something else to be considered, please email me.  No planning poker is necessary 🙂   But you know what?  If I miss a few things, life will go on, the box will still be rockin and no one will be disappointed at the tailgate.  Go Pats!

• Shelving system and storage for items in the back
• Re-Rig 3rd battery and secure mounting system
• Charging wires
• Easy-on/off and storage system
• Through-bolts to connect to truck bed
• Painting with logo
• Misc fixes for flying damage
• Glare and protection shield for 42″ TV
• Rain shields for speakers
• Bar utensils
• Propane piping
• Inside lighting
• Storage doors for DVD cabinet
• Satellite Dish

I just finished reading Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown.  If you ever want to be inspired by someone who pushed the limits, read this book.

Adam Brown was a kid from Arkansas who played football in high school but was a little lost after graduation.  He started a relationship with the wrong girl and she turned him on to drugs.  He eventually became a crack addict.  His parents applied the toughest of love, and called the police to have him arrested for a felony.  After jail, he found God, the woman of his dreams and a friend’s father to vouch for him so he could enlist in the Navy.  He then became a SEAL.  During training a sim round grazed his eye, rendering it blind.  Adam taught himself to shoot off-hand, completing the NSW sniper school left-handed.  A Humvee accident shattered his shooting hand and so he trained himself to complete CQB also with his left hand.  He was selected for Green Team and with only one eye and his non-dominant hand, completed the course and joined DevGru.

If that doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what will.  Instead of care packages, Adam asked his wife to send him shoes and socks which he handed out to Afghan children; over 500 pairs with the help of their church community.  Some of the other stories from Adam’s life are just as incredible.  It was uplifting just to read them.

The reason we know all of this is that he specifically asked that his story, including the bad parts, be told so that people know that you can turn your life around with the help of God.  Some of this was detailed in his CACO order.  I never even knew this existed, but soldiers  actually write down how to plan for their deaths, should the worst happen.  A Casualty Assistance Calls Officer is named, the person who delivers the news to your family.  Every soldier I have known or spoken with, always refers to their duty as “doing their job” or “going to work”.  Imagine what it is like going to battle and thinking of it as just another day at the office.  I still haven’t even written my will.

Adam wrote several letters to his family in a journal his wife asked him to take to Iraq/Afghanistan.  Two entries got me to thinking about some things.  The first was after the Abu Ghraib prison incident when Adam worked as an interogator in another facility.

I want you to know, as you read history and opinions in school about 2004, that going to this war was right…We are harder than anyone at these detention centers and let me tell you, we treat these guys with the utmost professionalism…I fight for people’s freedoms, not to take [them] away…As a Christian, one assumes great compassion…This is the American soldier…If your mom and I ever teach you anything, I pray it is at least to show all people courtesy and respect.  The truly courageous and powerful never have to prove it.  It is always shown in their actions.

While serving in Afghanistan…

From everything I’ve read, seeing these kids, including girls, playing, tells me we are doing right here.  I have not gotten a single sour face from any of the locals, and I don’t see fear in their eyes.  I’m sure I will learn more over time…but we have restored their dignity, and their lives …the Taliban had taken that away.  Kids, I am proud to be here doing what we are doing.

Today at work I spent the day trying to explain how to operate a computer system I designed to a group of users and operators.  I then spent a few hours trying to figure out how to make a certain financial model roughly 1% more accurate.  We actually have HR people that work to find ways that our jobs can be more rewarding.  When I think about what Adam did, and what I do, I can’t help but recognize the simple truth that there really isn’t much that can be done to make me proud of my job.  And yet they try.  And they spend a good chunk of money on it.

But what amazes me is this reality: We are all shareholders in the corporation America.gov  We continue to vote for an executive team hell bent on bankrupting our investment.  But no matter how awful they are at their jobs, they somehow manage to hire, train and employ the single greatest team at the subsidiary Defense.mil  These professionals perform at an extraordinary capacity, despite working for a group of incompetent blowhards.  The worst part in all of this, is that half of the shareholders directly disapprove of the work their company does so well.  Imagine going to work everyday and being told that what you do is not worth your time, effort, passion and commitment.  How much would that suck.

The US Military defends freedom and protects Americans.  They do that so well that we have been able to expand our scope and branch out into other markets.  We are the number one in our market, with a commanding market share.  When you are that successful, shareholders should recognize the value of their investment.  If they can’t, then sell.  Go find another investment.  The men and women of the armed forces deserve to realize the satisfaction of a job well done without being told by their supervisors that their work is unimportant.  What Adam taught me, is that service to your country is not a ‘duty’.  It may be your calling, it may be what you are passionate about, it might even feel good to do that work every day, to see the value of your contribution.  If you feel that passion, no one, no matter what their job, deserves to have that spirit squashed.  This shareholder says thank you for contributions, keep doing what you do.

 

 

A few days ago I saw a story on Ignites (Financial Times) that Snoop Dog had been recruited by a group that is trying to convince people to “unload” gun company related investments from their retirement accounts. I am actually a Snoop fan and like his music. I think he is a pretty talented rapper and has some good lyrics and even cited him as an example of rap with “character”. I can do this even though I fundamentally disagree with his excessive use of the N-word because his music makes him a good musician, but not a good role model.  You don’t praise someone for advocating violence and disrespect.

But my reason for writing this post has nothing to do with Snoop’s talent or style, it has to do with hypocrisy. You can’t use your identity to profess an idea as noble, while espousing contrary ideas as a part of your identity. ESPECIALLY when your identity is the only reason someone asked you to espouse the idea.  Check out some of Snoop’s lyrics.

One gun is all that we need, to put you to rest
Pump pump, put 2 slugs dead in your chest
Now you dead then a motherfucker, creepin and sleepin
6 feet deep in, fuckin with the Pound is
Suicide, it’s a suicide
–From “Serial Killa” 1993

Prepare for a war, it’s on, I’m head huntin
Hit the button, and light shit up like Red Dawn
Peep, the massicre from a verbal assassin
Murderin with rhymes packin Tec-9’s for some action
–From “Doggy Dogg world”  1993

Me and my cousin Corleone we run downtown
Murder’s an everyday thang in the city
Where you gotta plot chips, jag robberies and do in its
Tanadian Nay, the charge of the weapons
Hit from verandahs and do a thing unexpected
So we plan a plot with an Uzi and 10 shot
Buck em till they all drop,circle round the block
Let em have it as soon as they come out
Unload on their ass, commence to takin them out!
–From “Downtown Assassins”  1996

What you aint heard why I ride for these niggas, I die for these niggas
Do a drive by with my forty five cause I’m down with these niggas
–From “Down 4 My Niggas”  1999

See me, I’m bout my money my paper I’m bout my dollars
Poppin collars with this mac and this slack and these two revolvers
–From “Wrong Idea”  2000

Later in Snoop’s career he seems to have become a little more enlightened, like he actually believes that the glorification of gangs and violence is not longer really all that admirable.  But I have never seen him condemn his music as something like youthful misguided exuberance or use any language that made you think he might have regretted it or learned a lesson that he now wants to impart on his young loyal fans.  He somewhat tried to disassociate his older music by recording under a different name “Snoop Lion” but his public persona is still Snoop Dogg. 

From his new thinking, the best line below is about how the bullet isn’t the fault, but the shooter.  And that even while he advocates against guns, it’s people -no not the gun on its own- but people that “didn’t listen”.

I know that somebody died, somebody’s child
Some people ducked down and some people hide
Some people just cannot react in time
Bullets do not choose a victim
It is the shooter that picks them
They just cant wait to get you in the system
The district attorney could use a conviction
Told you no guns and then you didn’t listen
–From “No Guns Allowed”  2013

Isn’t it great that this comes from the guy who was acquitted of murder in 1996 not because he wasn’t in the car with his bodyguard who killed someone, but because they followed the victim to a takeout restaurant, picked a verbal fight with the person and fired at the victim when he reached for his own gun.  ie Self-defense. 

But just 2 years before this newfound disapproving opinion of gun use, look at how he explicitly looks back on his youth.  Is this really the guy you want as a role model who released this gem of nostalgia?

The hood raised me, gang-banging made me a bully, ya dig
Burnt out and any party we at, you know it’s turned out
The people talking the rumours
Now what you heard about?
How I spend 100 thou gettin’ purped out
I’m strapped up, I keep a pistol for these suckers tryna act up
They know I’m famous like I won’t get in the streets cuz
–From “Raised in Da Hood”  2011

So those of us that want to own guns for self-defense and want a healthy industrial complex to enable our right for self-defense are wrong, but Snoop can be ‘strapped’ because he is scared of his rabid fans? Does that sound right? Sounds like a lot of hypocrisy to me.  Maybe over the last few years Snoop has given up his gangsta ways and really believes he should just smoke pot to replace the violence of his past.  But without moving away from the violence-glorifying public persona that built him up, I still can’t buy into the idea of Snoop as any sort of advocate for anti-violence and certainly not an effective spokesperson for an attitude that is suddenly anti-gun.  What you say and do stays with you; if you build a persona around a fake or ‘stage’ name, then all of that baggage comes with you.  Stick to rapping.  #UnloadSnoop

This Hillary email thing cracks me up.  “When I got to work as Secretary of State…”  Yeah ALLLL those years ago.  It sounds like the dark ages of green screens; it was 2009.  “I opted for convenience…” good thing she took her role so seriously cuz she is what, only 4th in line of constitutional succession, yeah nothing really sensitive or anything like that.  Was her account ihatemonica@gmail.com ?  Come on really?  What pisses me off more is the sheer incompetence of the reporting of this issue.  No one can call a computer geek to help ask some simple questions about the “email system” ?

I work in a financial services company and our security “when I got to work there in 2003” was a hell of a lot tighter than the State Department. Good thing those guys aren’t sending communications about state secrets.  What director of IT lets a lawyer from Arkansas run their own email server for official business?  If she did send ‘internal’ emails from this machine, how did they ensure security?  We run trainings every 5 minutes about security and using personal resources for business. I have to ‘attest’ to policies each year.  You’re telling me that the Secretary unilaterally disavowed this kind of stuff?  Why is this State Department computer geek not on TV with his/her right hand in the air?

And why is it coming to light now? If you get an email from nocigarsforme@clinton.com or whatever she used, would you answer it? And if her extension is @state.gov then a government employee was supporting this machine?  She said it was in their home, guarded by Secret Service.  An Exchange server needs lots of support, who was doing it?  Who was the IT tech?  What is his security clearance?  What was the backup policy? Who did the endless Microsoft patch upgrades?  Was the hardware upgraded?  If so, where is that old machine? What was the disposal policy?  What was the encryption algorithm?

If Bill or Hillary maintained the machine themselves..big props. That requires some technical skill.  But is there really no congressman computer geek anywhere on an oversight committee that will ask these questions?   The Secretary of State communicates with Congress all the time, no one noticed the sent-from address???  She said that all of her official emails printed out to 55,000 pages.  So she printed it.  On paper.  What Democrat is ok with that much paper being wasted and I am sure photocopied?

Let’s do some simple math.  If you are SecState for a few days over 4 years, that is roughly 800 official working days.  I will exclude weekends, but we know she is emailing constantly, because there are a thousand pictures of her staring at the Blackberry.   I will be overly generous and say, half of those are original emails from her at 1 page each, so that is 27,500 emails.  This is way overstated, because the role of Secretary is all about gathering information and processing it before sending communications.  But I digress.  Of the rest, they must be incoming single emails or part of a thread.  Now if you have ever printed an email thread, you know that each time you see the email, it retains the prior string.  My 12 year old daughter knows that.  Also, that means that your inbox was hit multiple times for the same email.  So let’s discount the rest of those emails by a factor of 2.5 average printed pages per email.  That makes another 11,000 emails for 38,500 in total at my very conservative assumptions.  That translates to 48 emails per official work day. Really? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???  The Secretary of State of the most powerful nation in the world only receives 48 emails a day?  I do 50 before 10 am and I only communicate with a few countries.  Imagine having contacts in every single country on the planet, how many emails do you think you would you get?

What moron only has 1 email account?  So Hillary never set up anything on Yahoo or Gmail?  Did she use her Senate created account for the 8 years there?  She said the server was set up for the Clinton Global Initiative.  That started in 2005.  She was Senator from 2001-2009.  If you do personal stuff on your work account, you better know that it will be read. If you do business stuff on your personal account, you better know you are going to get fired.  And if you don’t know that, then you are certainly not in touch with the American people or reality.

I guess what might scare me even more than Hillary’s arrogance is an interview with Lindsay Graham this past weekend on Meet the Press.  A probable presidential candidate actually proudly admitted that he had NEVER sent a single email.  He then snarked that he would gladly turn over all of them. In an age of technology where we need leadership to make sure we maintain a dominant position in tech for the coming decades, do we really want to elect someone who hasn’t done the single most basic facet of internet use possible?  What a joke, I think South Carolina should “Exchange” him.

I should probably do a little 2014 wrap up before listing out goals for the new year.  It was probably the worst year ever, culminating in a life changing event that left me fundamentally shell-shocked.  I will write about it at some point, but not now.

The year started off promising.  I got my MVP/Promo video created and was really feeling good about a lot of things in life and with where I was going.  I took a new role at work, had a nice trip to Ireland and shortly thereafter, things started heading downhill.  In July we took an amazing vacation to Belize and things were looking like they might actually turn a corner and get better.  I was checking email in Belize and could tell that as soon as I got home, everything would start to suck, and sure enough it did.  I am positive that work led to most of my misery, as the stress destroyed everything in me, that is me.  I started working 80 hour weeks, traveling to BOS and generally feeling dreadful about everything.  Even with a ton of support all around me, the year, my outlook on life, and my sanity spiraled downward culminating in the tumultuous Q4.

So with that I am using the new year as an arbitrary fresh start.  I think I missed last year but I am going to start to list out my goals each year.  Here we go….

• Fix stuff and finish projects
• Blog 50x
• Surf 5x
• Hike at least half of the 4Ks in NH
• Hike Long’s peak
• Get involved in TAG
• Ski 20x
• Join a hat league
• Finish tailgate box
• Build a camping rig for my truck
• 8 miles in 1hr
• <20 min 5k
• Meet the SeAL standards
• 165 lbs
• Murph in 60 mins
• Pitch idea at work.  New role
• Small model working prototype TMZ
• Acadia trip with girls
• Hug the girls more
• Find peace

Yes that is an ambitious list.  But I am tired of not getting things done.  So I will set my goals high and see what the tide brings in.

Growing up my dad had this philosophy that 90% of fixing broken stuff, can be done by taking it apart, cleaning it up and putting it back together.  Magically it would work again.  This has held for pretty much my entire life, and I would bet that the percentage is accurate.  When I opened the pool a few months ago, the filter was not priming itself, so I took it apart.  Given that the motor is 11 years old, I figured that I would take it to the shop to see what a new one would cost.  Better to replace it at the beginning of the season while I had it apart (took about an hour to get it removed).

Free plug and recommendation to The Swimming Pool Center in Hampstead for what happened next.  I showed the guys the pump and asked about replacement.  $350…wow.  But I wondered if I just replaced the seals, is that worth it, given the age of the motor?  According to these guys, unless the motor is whining (bearings) they last forever.  So $8 later and another hour of cleaning the gaskets tracks, inserting new seals and lining with special grease; the motor is back in and roars to life with more pressure than I have seen in years, and it is self-priming again too.

As a kid, I took everything apart.  Owning a landscaping business, I pretty much had to clean the tractor all the time.  Who didn’t take apart their Atari 2600 almost daily to try to get the games to stop freezing?  Cleaning the chain on your bicycle, oiling the derailer.  Cleaning the plugs and then the throttle plate of a carburator.  Everyone changed their own oil and brakes.  That’s what you did.

No one does that stuff anymore and kids can’t even fathom the analytical skills necessary to start a project.  An iPhone is intentionally made not to be taken apart.  Electronic fuel-injection?  No way is Gumout going to help there.  The sad part is that tools are so much better now.  There is a YouTube video to fix ANYTHING.  When I used to take apart cars, I would take Polaroids and use a sharpie to number the pictures so I could remember the steps to put it back.  A roll of 10 pictures cost like $20 and the quality was shit.  That pic above was from my phone and I can zoom to see more than I can in real life (without glasses).

Can we quantify in the macro sense what is happening to the world now that no one ever tries to fix anything?  Why bother, when replacing the item with something Made in China is probably cheaper than your time spent fixing it?  I know I have become the old fogey I used to rail against as a kid, but I think the principle is bigger than people comprehend.  Kids have no ability to break down physical tasks step-by-step and devise better systems for accomplishing a goal.  My personal triumph is when I had the epiphany to tape screws to the cement floor and number the masking tape.  First out, closest to object.

Life is not an X-box game.  When you take down the enemy bunker, you just try different strategies until one works; the game determines success.  That is not analytical.  I know that within the next 25 years we will have self-driving cars.  And then my mantra that everyone should know how to drive a standard transmission becomes even more moot.  But I just can’t believe we aren’t setting ourselves back as a civilization by not learning the skills necessary to observe something broken, devise an approach and try to fix it.

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes…

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

Try it today, just take something apart, clean it up and put it back together, the world will be a better place.

I am not sure exactly when this started, but many crossfit gyms will gather to do the Murph workout on Memorial Day, and so will I. Special thanks to Phantom Crossfit for letting me come hang out with them. There are a lot of ‘named’ workouts. Fran and Angie are probably the most famous. But on Memorial day we do Murph to honor LT. Michael P. Murphy (SeAL) who was killed in action on June 28, 2005. The movie Lone Survivor with Mark Wahlberg tells the story and is widely credited with being factually accurate.

Per his friends, Lt Murphy loved this workout, which was originally named Body Armor –

Run 1 mile
100 Pullups
200 Pushups
300 Air Squats
Run 1 mile
…wearing a 20lb vest

You can divide up components. Last year I did 10/20/30 for 10 rounds and hit 56 minutes, without the vest. This year I am going to do it right, and will wear my vest.

This is my little way of honoring those that have fallen to give me the freedom I enjoy today. Then I plan to grill, drink beer and sit by the pool, because what else honors being American on Memorial day and the life we enjoy from their sacrifice.  People make fun of grilling on Memorial Day as a cliche.  But you know what?  If we didn’t practice the act of enjoying our freedoms, there would be no sense in having freedom.  There are those that sacrifice to provide it, make their sacrifice worthwhile.  It’s no different than shaking the hand of a serviceman and saying “Thank you for your service.” 

I encourage you to participate and sign up with the larger effort here -> http://themurphchallenge.com  You can also donate to the scholarship fund, http://murphfoundation.org  The latter is really easy, at least do that one.

I remember being an FNG straight out of college and thinking I would rule the world within a year. I remember pushing hard and wanting to do more. What happened to that ethos? Every kid straight out of college today has zero ability to think for themselves. I thought it was me at first, but many I talk to lately observe the same reality: College grads are stupid.

This makes me think about the startup scene, where there is so much activity in what would seem to be the only area of growth in the economy right now. A few observations:

1) So many of these newbie grads need to go through an accelerator program to gain basic skills
2) Corp training programs are necessary for any corporate exposure
3) Grads have zero ability to write. I see “KK” vs “ok” as an example. What the f is that? Abreviating “Okay” as “OK” at least saves two keystrokes. Kids are so stupid.

These are all logistical examples of how kids can’t think. But when I think back to my own experiences and eagerness straight out of college, what I now realize is that kids lack context. Context is only created by years of experience. Experience lets you tell stories of things you actually did, not read about in a case study or some silly role playing classroom excercise. People communicate by context, by sharing war stories, by establishing common ground based on what they have done. A doctor can share experiences with an electrician (ie problem solving) and reach common ground so that they can relate. But any newbie has no frame of reference to establish any sort of reference, short of sports that is.

Everyone has ideas. Many are good, many suck. But what is important in the business setting is the ability to convey those ideas. The smartest FNG under the sun will fail if she can’t relate those ideas to customers, partners, developers, employees and managers. It just never works. Context creates the ability to connect.

Now that I am older I finally get it. I walk into seminars or meetings and meet new people all the time. Inevitably my ability to work with them is predicated on building common ground. I do this by getting to know them, know their resume/background/life and then sharing stories. I then use these “social bridges” when we need to work together. These bridges form the conduits by which team dynamics create a network whose abilities are greater than the sum of its parts. Relationships are everything. They are built on shared experiences. Without experience, how do you build?

Yes, being old and telling old timer skinny ski, green screen, impact printer, DOS 5.2, floppy drive, rotary phone, UHF/VHF, carburetor stories matters. It matters a lot.