A Goofy Foot in Mouth

I believe in saying hello or hi to people that walk past me. I just like being friendly with strangers.  I don’t want to stop and talk or be creepy, I just want to express the notion that I see you and hope you are having a good day.  I little smile, head nod, or the actual spoken words just seem to make the world more pleasant when you aren’t overtly ignoring the person 3 feet away as they pass you by.

I understand that some women don’t like to say hi to men because the general scumbag types interpret that as an ‘opening’.  So some non-intentional rudeness in the world is understandable.  Rob B used to talk about “the mutual interest wave” where two exercisers of the same discipline, always acknowledge the other.  Runner, cycler, roller-blader, the motorcycle low-wave…whenever you feel a kinship with the person heading the opposite direction, you have to say hi.  It’s an unwritten rule.  I have to admit that when a mutual-interest person ignores me, I actually feel slighted.

I also like saying “good morning” to people in the office when I get coffee and first walk in. I know that everyone thinks I am an anti-social jerk, and while I don’t necessarily want to be friends with people I see as I walk by, and I certainly don’t want small-talk, I do think it’s important to acknowledge all of them equally.  Kids, colleagues, support staff, and other workers not part of ‘fido’… I say hi to them all.

But in my limited travels I feel I have to point out some generalizations.

1. People in the south are the nicest and ALWAYS say hi
2. Local islanders (Caribbean)  are nice, but that might be commerce based
3. New Englanders are a mixed bag.  Unpredictable
4. Older people tend to be friendlier
5. French-Canadians are the absolute worst (sorry Derik)

I don’t care who you are or what you do, saying hi is the polite thing to do, stop ignoring me 🙂

Let me say this as clearly as possible, I will never support Trump.

• I will not vote for him as the lesser of two evils
• I will not vote for him just to be against Hillary
• I will not vote for him to blindly support the party
• I will not vote for him because he happens to be right about a few problems concerning the nation
• I certainly will not vote for him because he won a plurality of votes in the primary
• I will not ‘rally around the presumptive nominee’
• I do not believe he can ‘evolve’ his policies

I will support Hillary by actually voting for her as the surest way to ensure a racist, misogynist, hate-mongering, xenophobe is not the next President.

• I believe in country before party.
• I believe in country before person
• I may disagree with Hillary’s policies, but she will not be an embarrassment to the country (truly think about the word before you disagree with me)…(too late, you didn’t)
• I don’t want history thinking that Moron Trump represents the view of our party
• I believe in the long game, and showing the shallowness of the support for Trump and his ideals, is the only way to save the party

Sometimes you have to sacrifice a rook and this election is that sacrifice.  While Hillary may be a conniving politician, being conniving is not the same as a con-artist.  What politician is not conniving?  Yes it is refreshing to think that someone can be successful for NOT being that conniving pandering politician.  But if you just listen to what he is actually saying, you have to fear MORE the impact he will have on the nation, than you fear 4 more years of partisan stagnation because Republicans are once again relegated to being obstructionists.  That is the smarter bet.  Take the hit.

I hope that I have made my position here as clear as possible.  Over the coming years I hope to be in a position to run for office and I do not want to have to defend my support for Trump.  Since the beginning I have been against every policy and pronouncement he spews on the American people.  I have not wavered.  I will not budge.

#NeverTrump

A few weeks ago I ran a 5k as part of a fundraiser for some friends. I perpetually have the goal to get under 20:00 but have never done it.  My best yet is 20:06. This course ran through fields and forest so I knew I would be slow.

Near the end I came up on some kid, low teens I would guess, running ahead of me.  He seemed so bothered that I caught up that he sprinted ahead.  And then he ran himself tired and would walk.  I caught up.  This happened twice.  The third time I caught up to him was at about the 1/4 mile to go mark, when I normally push it. I said “OK pal lets get” and started running hard.  About half way to the line he caught me and passed me.  I finished about 15 feet behind.  He collapsed and I walked over and gave him a fist bump.
My overall time was in the 22’s. So I was not proud.  But what really got me was that 10 years ago I could have smoked this kid.  I could actually notice how much slower I have gotten over the years.  My stamina is at an all time high, but I really am slow.  I knew it would happen.  And to some extent I have felt it even before now.  But it was really strange to feel it so quantifiably and in the moment.  Getting old sucks.

I just got to see and be part of a whole auditorium of parents and students stand up and cheer for a music teacher leaving for a job closer to home. That was pretty cool and moving. 

I never really thought about what “A Crucible Event” was before I signed up for one.  I have been following the SEALFit training regimen for about 2 years now.  I have read the descriptions about the single and multi-day camps but I didn’t really get what it meant.  Coach Divine describes it as something that fundamentally transforms your life.

Signing up for 20X is a commitment in itself.  Besides the cost, knowing that you are asking to be put through serious stressful conditions for 13 hours, is significant.  For me, that meant that my life changed to adapt to what I knew was coming, over the past few months I amped up my training.

But the biggest change came during the day of the event and reflecting on it driving home.  I left the house at 4:40 for a 1:20 drive to Kingston, MA and Crossfit Kells.  I parked, did some ROM drills to loosen up, got changed into BDUs, boots and my t-shirt and headed in.  I stretched out maybe 5 minutes before the coaches started up.  This is 6:30 am.  The pre-event emails were in my spam folder so I didn’t really see them until late and I didn’t really get all the nuances, which was about to be made clear to me.

One guy in the front row had written his name on his t-shirt instead of “STENCIL”ing it.  Oh shit.  Coach Jim let into him first thing.  Coach Kyle then came up to me and asked what I didn’t get about the word “stencil”.  I just screwed up coach.  Great.  Within 5 minutes I was the class idiot.  One other guy wore a brown t-shirt instead of white and he got more shit than us.  A few people didn’t wear belts.  A few others were late.  “All buttons buttoned, all snaps snapped, all belt loops hooked and all shirts tucked in.”  We would hear it all day.  We even got good at inspecting each other.

A few warning messages not to be weak and then we were off.  The first evolution was a 45 minute plank.  Not some BS on your elbows crap.  But in a “leaning rest” position, which meant the upper part of a push-up.  I’ve done a few minutes before, but nothing like this.  What was I going to do?  I’m going to collapse.

A bunch of guys dropped their knees.  I never touched mine once.  Oh I moved my arms and did a stretch in a downward dog position and an arch, and I cheered on everyone as much as I could.  But somehow I found the strength to suck it up.  Porter couldn’t get the music to work from Coach Jim’s phone and so for each 30 seconds that it wouldn’t work, we added a minute.  We got to 53 from the music ordeal and then a few more minutes of punishment near the end because of some other screw ups.  At 60 minutes, we could get back to our feet.

We then took off for some running around the neighborhood.  We warmed up a bit and then Coach Chris (ex SEAL) told us to stay within 6 feet of him and he took off at a fast pace.  On the whole of the day, I was always around 12-17th in order of finishing stuff of the 35 that showed up (42 signed up and paid).  When some got too far behind and we didn’t go back to help them finish up, we did burpees.  “100% effort.  100% of the time.”  A few guys would put their hands on their hips and then we would do burpees with our hands in our pockets.  Hitting the deck on your chest was rough.  But getting up was harder.  It became a theme all day.  The Coaches would add burpees that we owed them for each infraction and then take a few off if we did something well.  By the end of the day, we owed 580.

We got back to the gym and did a fitness challenge.  Everyone had to do 15 pullups; full drop, no kip.  I did 14 and then slipped off the bar.  My swim buddy did 13, but put his hands on his hips and so we did 30 burpees together.  Next was a timed run.  It was supposed to be a mile but the Kells crew told us two laps was .9 miles.  I came in at 6:04.

Next we packed some gear in our rucks and boarded a bus.  On the drive we were told that we needed to memorize the poem Invictus and it would be quizzed.  Now I suck at memorizing and we all chanted it on the bus a dozen times.  I stared at the words over and over.  If someone gave me the first words, I could finish the sentence, but I just couldn’t remember the damn thing.  And then I actually read it and listened to the words.  I could tell you what every line meant from memory, but I could not memorize it.

We got off at a public beach and headed down with rucks and a “weapon” which is a 4′ by 2″PVC pipe filled with sand.  We stowed our gear, drilled on being neat and organized and headed to the surf.  Arms linked, fully dressed we took 1 step at a time into the 54 degree water.  We got all the way to our chest/necks and stayed there for a while keeping the weapon out of the water and then headed back to our rucks.  “Don’t shiver!”  We then proceeded to become “sugar cookies” and then ran back to the surf.  Sand and then wash it off, over and over, that was fun.  Make sure your swim buddy is covered head to toe and face.  We loaded trash bags with 20 lbs of sand, added it to our rucks and then held it over our heads until it was obvious we had at least 20 lbs.  When I got home at night, all my wet gear I carried in the bag and the sand weighed 38 lbs.

We then started a series of “good pace” jogs on the beach and would jump in the water every once in a while for good measure.  Then we would run in the surf.  Downward dog, head on the ground with surf submerging your head.  Situps in the surf.  Pushups.  Don’t Shiver!  All with the packs on, we even did this crazy thing with rolling over backwards, pack on, touch your feet to the ground over your head while in 1′ of water.  We were frozen but were having fun.  We’d laugh and joke together.  Don’t let go!  Don’t break the chain!  On your feet!  Drop!  Feet!  We helped each other each time.

Next we ran games where each boat crew would compete against the others.  “Pays to be a winner”.  Proud that our boat crew won 2 of the 4 challenges and so we got to warm ourselves while the others hit the surf.  We ran some sprinting races and I always seemed to be 2-3 out of the top 10 for skipping more surf torture or “water appreciation” as Coach Chris called it.  At one point I got dizzy, and almost passed out.  I didn’t break, but I worried that my body did.  The best part was our inability to count.  We were in 4′ of water, arms linked and all we had to do was to sound off by whatever count the coaches said and we could get out of the water.   3-6-9-12… never ONCE did we make it.  We could do ones, twos, and fives; that was it.  Man we killed a lot of time in the water with that one.

We did some more beach drills and then ran for the buses.  100% effort.  100% of the time.  Do not walk.  Do not put your hands on your hips.

The bus took us to the Marshfield Fairgrounds where a horse show was taking place.  The irony was not lost on me as Haley was in Deerfield.  We got some calories and water and tried to get the sand out, while on the bus.  We did a ton of log work.  Holding that thing over your head was exhausting, but just when I thought I couldn’t do it anymore, somehow my body kept my arms up.  My boat crew won the team race and we also won this crazy tire challenge that the coaches were particularly proud of their creativity.  We ran 100 meters and grabbed a bunch of old dirty car tires that were in a pile for probably years.  The water in them was brown and smelled nasty as it splashed while we ran back to the start line.  We stacked them over one of our team-mates Michelin-man style, flipped him on his side so the tires were upright and then rolled the tires with him inside 200 meters down the field, tagged the coach, rolled 200 meters back, stripped off the tires and sat down.  All the while making NASCAR motor sounds as loud as we could.  We were in second place out of the gate but managed to catch up and win that one too.

On the bus ride back to the gym we had some sandwiches and more fluids.  I partnered with a guy who worked at the gym and we did a team Murph with our packs on, switching responsibility for every other set.  I did 5 pullups, he did 10 pushups, I did 15 air squats, he did 5 pullups, etc.  20 rounds.  Before we started the coaches challenged us that if we could sound off by 3’s we only had to do a .5 mile run at the end instead of 1, but if we screwed up, 2 miles.  …63-66-69-71 oh 72 AAARRRGGGHHH.  I sucked on the pullups, but I kicked ass rucking out the miles with my pack.  We finished 6 and 7 at about 43 mins.

The day was getting late.  I have seen a false summit before.  Eric and I had one on our hike of Mt Toll and while that was hard on me, I never really experienced it like this.  Coach Kyle led us on a 25 minute yoga session to calm our bodies and relax our minds.  The coaches started talking about handing us our completion pins and then, “Hands on hips?!?  Are you fucking kidding me?!?!”  Bear-crawl your asses outside and line up.  Burpees.  30- ok that’s a lot.  50- we gotta be done right?  75- holy shit.  100- I might die. 110 we finally stopped.  The whole time the coaches were spraying us with hoses and dumping ice water on us.  Next came at least 60 by 4 count flutter kicks.  It still hurts my abs to sneeze.

Finally we did this pushup in a line where you put the feet of the guy ahead of you on your shoulders so that the only thing touching the ground is your hands.  After a few tries we got it right and earned the right to file back into the gym.

Thank god a few guys had the poem memorized.  One led the whole group in reciting Invictus in perfect unison.  Somewhere there is video of it, I got chills.  We screamed it a few times.  And so I was transformed.

Out of the night, I did not cry aloud, my head was bloody, but I do not fear the years and I reject the horror of the shade, I will figure out how to write my scroll because…

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

Thank you Coaches Chris, Kyle, Jim and Abram. Thank you Boat Crew 3 – Murphy.

Hooyah Crossfit Kells 20X

So why not. Everyone is prognosticating, so should I.

Hillary will take the nomination and right before the convention, someone on her staff will float a rumor that she will name Kasich as her running mate. Kasich will say some nice things but it won’t come to pass. Those of us rational republicans will vote for her because the country and the office is more important than a person or the party. Hillary will be the next President in an electoral and vote count landslide.

If Trump does win (heaven forbid) it will be with Newt Gingrich as his VP. I don’t think they will win. But if they do, here’s what I think will happen.

• Since Trump is on the ballot, the Senate will flip to democratic control
• Within 100 days there will be some sort of constitutional crisis, because Trump will try to do something that is illegal. When pressed on the issue, he will hold press conferences yelling at the press and stage rallys and say that the people are with him. He will not give in.
• The senate will acquit Trump
• The house will stay republican, but with Paul Ryan and Newt pushing the issue behind the scenes (palace coup), Trump might actually be forced out of office (ok I am dreaming a little here)

Kelly Ayotte will lose in NH as part of republicans losing the senate because she will get cornered on her waffling of support for Trump.

All of this republican insanity will spur Josh Rutstein to run for some elected office, brandishing the “rational republican” mantra as a way to bring the country back to civility.

The hills are alive, with the sound of …Griswald    – Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

I am a huge fan of John Gorka.  He is a pretty good musician, but an exceptional song writer and singer.  His voice is amazing.  Turns out that Gorka’s on-stage schtick is almost identical to Tommy Smothers, which isn’t as funny as the crowd thinks, but I listen for the music, not the jokes.  By sheer luck, I happened to be reading the Derry paper on Friday morning and saw that he was playing that night at Tupelo.  If you haven’t been there, it’s an awesome venue.  Old converted barn, maybe 250 seats, great acoustics, intimate setting.  The best part, and another reason I love NH…it’s BYOB.  So I picked up a ticket.

I got to talking with a couple next to me during intermission.  They had seen him before and asked how I got turned onto the music.  Here’s where the story gets a little…nerdy.  I used to listen to a podcast called Home Theater Geeks.  During one episode the MC, Scott Wilkinson, interviewed Mark Waldrep, the founder of AIX Records.  During the interview, Waldrep had talked endlessly about a recent HD recording session with Gorka.  And that’s how I learned of this semi-famous folk singer from New Jersey.

Waldrep is a pioneer in recording music in high def, which is categorized as anything above 96 kHz/24-bit which is the DVD-Audio multi-channel (>= 5.1) standard that came out in 2000 after the success of DVD-Video.  That quality is also achieved on Bluray disks for the audio component and why Bluray movies sound so awesome at home.  To put this in perspective, your old school CD records only 2 channels (left and right, aka “stereo”) at 44 kHz/16-bit.  Trust me, anyone could DEFINITELY hear the difference.

This got me to thinking about why audio quality today has taken such a back seat to convenience.  The codec that chops even more of the CD quality music to fit on your iPod, kills the sound.  You lose a ton of the high and low.  And yet kids are buying $200 Beats headphones and listening on their phones walking down the street.  I can only assume because the devices have a label with “Dr Dre” on it.  That is crazy.  It’s the very definition of “putting lipstick on a pig.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love the convenience of thousands of songs on a phone/iPod and being able to stream lossy compressed audio over internet sources.  But there are times when I want to sit in a comfy chair surrounded by really good speakers cranked really loud, sipping a glass of whiskey or scotch, my eyes closed and actually enjoy the sound of the music.  There is so much great music out there, I don’t know why no one wants to buy equipment to actually enjoy it.  Yes convenience is great, but for me it is also about the experience of the music itself, not just music as part of some multi-tasking effort when focused on something else.

Try it sometime.  You might be surprised.  Maybe if Julie Andrews had been recorded in HD, I would be so enamored that I wouldn’t have Chevy Chase stuck in my head.

Whenever things start going bad in a program, typically there is a big strategic meeting (usually offsite) and we talk about the future and all of the big strategic things that need to change.  But I have never heard of any big strategic meeting that didn’t have at least a 30 minute session of looking for “low hanging fruit.”  It’s the stuff that is easy to do, the no-brainers, easy wins.  When all you do is send lawyers to Washington, they don’t see anything as easy, so they never even look for low hanging fruit.

I have respect for people in any generation that are suspect of technology.  They fear the unknown.  But sometimes you need a smack in the butt and told to get your ass in gear.  The image above is from a story on Ignites (Financial Times).  Some retiree has multiple DC retirement plans all recordkept by TIAA and is insisting that he not only continue to receive paper statements, but that he wants his paper statements his way.  So what does he do?  He sues.

Hey Congress, this is low hanging fruit.  This guy is insisting that his plan is being over burdened with mailing costs because his 15 separate statements are mailed in separate envelopes instead of all combined into one.  He estimates that if there are 1 million other people like him with 15 separate DC plans, all on the TIAA platform, that the total net cost is $60m.  Sounds like a great idea, let’s break it down.

No way are there 1m people with 15 plans on TIAA.  Wikipedia’s entry says they managed 3.9M participants in total a few years ago.  So 25% of baby boomer teachers that historically worked their entire careers with very few employers have 15 plans and are all insisting on paper statements?  I can’t imagine that one.  But I’ll cave to the fact that maybe there is $10m in waste on paper statements.  The dev project to fix the combining of all that information, plus the QA, UAT and rollout planning would cost $2m.  I know that sounds insane, but that’s just how these things go.  Trust me.  So is a 5 year payback on something that is a a downward trend anyway (receiving paper) worth it?

You already missed the point.  And so did Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D. NY. UCLA, admitted to Bar in 1991) when she blindly forwarded his letter to the DoL, thus triggering this mess.

See the problem isn’t in just fixing this whiner’s request, it’s the need to fix the system.  And Senators have that ability.  They can fix this mess by mandating that all participants switch to email confirms (zero cost) within x years.  Included in that should be some money for local communities to run tech training for these people so they aren’t scared of the future.  That has multiple benefits.  If the problem is high cost, then fix the problem, which includes the myriad ERISA-based ambulance-chasing lawyers filing class-action lawsuits every 5 minutes.

Washington needs people who know how to see and fix problems.  It’s not hard to do.  Watch any news program, pick up any publication.  The ideas for low hanging fruit are everywhere.  At least fix the easy stuff and build trust to get at the hard stuff.  Now if you excuse me, I am going to file a lawsuit against all the knuckleheads out there who insist on the paper phonebook that keeps landing on my doorstep (soaking wet) every year.  And there is some more low hanging fruit.

The other day I listened to some commentary from David Brooks about Trump.  He has been predicting a downfall for over 6 months.  I’ve been writing that Trump is disgusting for a while now.  For some reason, everyone thought he would implode and now it is too late.  No one ever formed an argument against his irresponsible antics.  He embarrasses the office of the President.  He is a disgrace to the country.  If it comes to it, I will vote for Hillary.

But I wanted to focus on why this happened and I am pretty sure I know why.  Gerrymandered districts have been making the country more extreme and partisan for a while now.  But the Iraq war and George Bush started a new phenomena.  Obama’s election took it one step further.  ‘Hatred’ for a politician seems to have gotten to a level that make it impossible to simultaneously disagree with a person, and yet formulate a solution to a problem through policy.   I think Obama is completely unqualified for office.  But I have seen interviews and I think he is a good man even though some people were misguided enough to put him in the White House.  Regardless, I still want the office to do its job.  John Kasich, Newt Gingrich and the ’94 Republican revolution class, enacted the Contract with America in 100 days.  It doesn’t even matter what the 10 ideas were, they were ideas!!!  They disagreed with Clinton, but they actually passed bills, there was positive action.  Seeing government actually working for the people inspired confidence that coupled with Windows 95, built our modern economy.

And here is where the problem began.  The Tea Party came in with so much hatred for TARP, ObamaCare, bailouts and all the rest of the liberal agenda that it decided to stop everything.  Say no and only no.  A disagreement on philosophy resulted in complete lack of action.  62 Repeals of ObamaCare and not one, not even one bill passed to try to chisel away at making it a decent law.  Cross boarder state competition?  Nope.  Tort reform?  Nuh uh.  Means testing?  Of course not.  A majority in both houses and not one positive idea passed.  Fear of a Tea Party revolt from a bunch of crybaby freshman crippled government.  In 1994, Kasich talked about entitlement reform, imagine what the budget would look like today if we had done it 20 years ago.

All this “no” and “one term president” and “repeal ObamaCare” frustrated Americans so much that 40% of Republicans just want someone that can get things done.  For some insane reason they think Trump can fill that role.  The 30% that still want to do nothing vote for Cruz and the other 30% realize that we need action, but Trump is an idiot- so we splinter.

What does that blowhard master of intellect offer us for action?  On healthcare – He “won’t let people die in the streets”.  Who is dying in the streets?  If you go to a hospital the Hippocratic oath mandates that you receive care.  In a hospital.  The single most expensive delivery vehicle for health care.  So he of course wants people to go to hospitals instead of dying in the streets.  Great solution to runaway costs, do what is even more expensive.  He wants to treat our vets better.  Come home from your service and the Donald has your back.  But while you are in the field, be sure to ‘bomb the hell out of ‘ women and children and families and then waterboard and “go beyond that” with torture.  I’m sure that is a great way for a soldier to want to serve their country.  Honor Duty Country.  Yup.  But thanks Trump, you definitely treat the military better.

Go build that wall, cuz Trump knows how to build stuff.  Right, he builds the most expensive apartment high rises and casinos.  Stuff that has zero price elasticity, yeah you are the guy I want spending my money.  Oh sorry, good thing the Mexicans are going to pay for that wall.  See how that deal goes for you.  Oh yeah and you go on negotiating better trade deals.  Because we definitely don’t want cheap oversees labor to keep the price of flat screen TVs, cars and cell phones low.  We want to pay top dollar for all that stuff, just like your apartment tenants, because you sure do understand that market.  And speaking of markets, they love it when you say you will be “unpredictable”  Definitely.  Stability is so stupid when you have a ton of cash.

So thank you Tea party.  You proved that doing nothing is a viable strategy to make Obama 100% ineffective since the ACA.  You won that battle.  And you convinced people that since you would do nothing in Washington, that NO politicians can.  Which leaves only violent narcissistic billionaire racists who objectify women and immigrants as the only people that are even capable of governing.  Yeah yeah that’s it.  Give us the angry guy over there with no ideas who hates everything.  Because hate is an awesome political strategy, isn’t it?  We hate Obama.  We hate Hillary.  And that guy makes fun of her and he has the best zingers.  Hire the orange skinned raccoon who says the same sentence over and over again, he hates what I hate.

When I was in college, a mentor taught me a lot about the world of business. He taught me subtleties like how to make your boss look good, how to lead people to the action you want them to take and how to read a person by the watch they wear. The latter of course turned into a shared affinity for watches. I remember one time, he was giving me tips about wearing a suit, tricks for keeping the collar stiff, your jacket pressed, etc. This was before my 3 year stint as a road warrior; those lessons were invaluable for packing a suitcase. It was wisdom that only years of experience could impart.

As with all things, mentors give us lessons that we never really understand until much later in life. He was probably about my age when I got this tidbit, but it has stuck with me for 25 years.  We talked about how when you wear a suit, there is an unwritten rule that you really need to be at a certain level, you need to command a level of stature, before you can acceptably wear a handkerchief in the lapel pocket.  He told me, “You aren’t there yet, but you’ll know when.”

My entire career I have felt that I was at that level, and I always used this as an internal barometer/metaphor for my career.  I always argued with myself that I just hadn’t been given the opportunity to exercise it.  Turns out that I really wasn’t there.  Over the past few years, now I know.  It’s the ability to walk into a situation and know how to take charge or be respectful when someone else is and be part of the team.  How to see opportunities for triangulation.  It’s knowing that if there is a subject in my wheelhouse, I don’t need to prep to present the idea.  One of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes is “People who know what they’re talking about, don’t need Powerpoint.”  It’s so true.  I work best when I am listening to the audience and giving relevant answers to pointed challenging questions, using context, career experience and humor to bridge a gap.  When I am asked to follow a script, it inevitably goes worse.  When you are confident that you can stand at the front of any room, then you are there.

Over the past few weeks I did Peak Pitch, a ‘marketing’ trip to NC, crafted multiple solutions to business and design problems and have worked to reformulate our entire delivery model.  I highly doubt that anyone working with me would would question my abilities for what I do.  People don’t believe I can do other things, but that is a different story. 🙂

I finally understand, and now I know.  Too bad I never wear a suit anymore.