An Evening Quote

"He's one of those crazy liberal democrats that secretly is a closeted republican."

Denny Crane, Boston Legal

I laughed at first until the question echoed back...."is this me?"

Ex-Lax for Writers Block

I'm not writing much these days. Well, I'm blogging, but I really don't consider blogging as *writing*. It's more like a stream of consciousness thing where I can talk and express myself, chipping away at the boulder in front of me. There is this story that my mind to comfort me during this time...it goes something like this....

A man was told by God to push on a rock, and as an obedient servant of his Lord he got up each morning and began to push on the boulder with no success in moving it. Undeterred he did this every day for years. Years turned into decades and finally after the man had filled out, his arms and back rippled with muscles and his legs we like unmovable tree-trunks. In frustration he knelt down and prayed "Why? Why have you asked me to do this impossible task. I can't move this rock." The Lord, answered his obedient servant in loving dulcet tones. "Dear child, I told you to push on the rock, not to move it. Look at yourself. You are strong and you are determined. Now you are ready for that which I have prepared for you to do."

Only I know that this writers block isn't a huge trial before me and I'm tired of blogging in hopes to chip away at the mass to either find a vein of weakness and destroy it or chip away at it to be able to pass it. However, my favorite chisel and hammer are gone - Money. I don't *need* money to write, in fact, that's one of the things that I truly love about it, I can write with out any electricity at all. But the ability to buy research materials, to go to restaurants that provide the food that I'm writing about or just to do something that broadens the senses and quickens the mind is what money provides at a time like this.

106 Days and counting.....I think this is the stress that the block is made of. I'm worried that the fiction isn't strong enough to be believable, that the spell I wove with the words isn't strong enough to bind the reader to the page. Which stress bleeds over to the present project...what if I'm not making a cohesive tapestry and it's just a farce that I'm acting out to my own humiliation. I'm going to try and lull myself into a safe state of denial and try to believe that it takes publishers 150 days to read a manuscript and then, after that day, I can start to worry. That puts my fretting off until December 21, 2006. I think, no matter what my finances are, I should have a celebration. That is if I haven't heard back yet.

3 August 2006 & Counting......

Okay, I know it takes a long time for people to read a manuscript, and I know the longer it takes for the publishing house to review it the better it is for me....well as a writer any way. I'm frazzled....I anxiously peer over a half a block when I'm driving home hoping to not see a box on my door step, my heart races every time I see the Fed-Ex truck pull up in front of our town-house when no one is expecting anything only to have my heart sink to my colon when he is just checking his route in front of our house before he goes onto the true recipient of his delivery.

I'm not whining per se.... well, yes I am. But I've been very lucky in this process so far. The first time I sent out House of Dragons I got a six week turn around and a "Thanks but no thanks" standard letter. Well, not even a standard letter. It looked like it had been written by the high school age temp-receptionist with aspirations in engineering. But that's fine. I sent it to Desert Books thinking that out of loyalty I should sent it to the church's official book publisher before I started to farm it out to other people. So, I polished up my tarnished hopes and sent it out to Covenant. They just wanted three chapters and would call me if I tickled their fancy further. And, in this case I did. I got an e-mail request for the remainder of the manuscript. However, in about six weeks after that I got the three chapters I had originally sent them back. I think they might be a little too conservative for what I wrote. Or, they just don't have the bandwidth and or need for young adult fiction. It took a few weeks to pull my courage up to send it out again.

This time, you'd think I'd feel more hopeful. I mean, common, on my second try I got passed the first and second gates of readers. But I'm more stressed than ever. Maybe being unemployed has something to do with it, I dunno. All I know is I want to know NOW. Granted, it's only been slightly over three months since they had it. The note they sent me that said they would be reviewing it said manuscripts take considerably longer than their music and art submissions (which take up to 6 weeks), but this is twice that. Either it's going through the ranks, which is a good thing, or the initial reader is tripping over his lips as he reads.

I have been praying that they are going to take it, but if they don't, then I have another publisher all picked out to send it to. They have an established young adult line of books posted on their website, so I could only assume this is an area in which they want to expand. Unless their young adult fiction isn't as profitable as they would like it.

You know the joke/prayer "God grant me patience, RIGHT NOW!" and the axiom, I can wait for anything as long as it happens right now....that's what I feel like. My editor (God bless her!) assures me I have a marketable product. I just need to keep sending it out until someone accepts it. In the mean time I need to work on The Song of the Righteous (working title) is ready to go shortly so I can have two out there.... Hopefully increasing my odds.

Be the change you want to see in the world...

I just finished my sisters penultimate paper for her MBA degree with UofP. It is based on Stephen R. Covey's Principle-Centered Leadership and I thought I'd share it with you. The notation of the book isn't in the ABA style they require and, as she put it, there are some run-on sentences, which isn't bad for a first draft for me. I just love the metaphor I used to weave the information through to create a complete vision. My final statement feels more like a personal mission statement after reading the book. A book which I highly recommend.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Ask any person in your organization who they truly think the center of the universe is, and they will tell you they consider themselves to be its center. They’re right! To bring into harmony all these stellar bodies into harmony, one must look to the stars to gain guidance. Copernicus said in his book Derevolutionizeu Orbium Caolestium the following; "To ascribe movement to the earth must seem absurd to those who for centuries have consented that the earth is placed immovably as the central point of the universe. But I shrink not from any man’s criticism. By long and frequent observations and by following a set of fixed principles, I have discovered not only that the earth moves but also that the orders and magnitudes of all the stars an spheres, nay, the heavens themselves, are so bound together that nothing in any part thereof could be moved from it’s place without producing confusion in all the parts of the Universe as a whole." What Copernicus sought and achieved in science Steven R. Covey seeks to achieve in his highly effective Principle-Centered Leadership for managerial leadership. Through is "true north", "inside-out" approaches he is making the leap that the problem in the organization isn’t with ‘them’ but with ‘us’ and in order to bridge the gap between theory and practice we must discard the outdated and useless maps of the past, start at the top of the organization re-aligning values to basic and true principles starting from the inside of each individual in the management team and then working outward. Then, when the big bang of a paradigm shift happens all members of the organization will dance in harmony like the celestial bodies – even down to the Pluto’s of the group – and your organization will be ready, willing and able to chart new courses and follow new and exciting horizons into the future.

Covey has proposed that instead of having a value driven organization which can range from the basic "Carrot-and-Stick" approach of managing employees and customers to out and out intimidation tactics for production and control will work for a short period of time with, at times, devastation consequences on the organization, employees and customers. By shifting our organizational centers (see fig. 1) from flawed values such as profit, supplier, employee, owner, customer, program, policy, competition, image and technology, principles that develop security, guidance power and wisdom we un-moor the potential in ourselves as well as our group and organizations.

Figure 1. (pg. 24)

Covey is fond of his "Six Days of Creation" (pg. 79) concept where just as the world was created in six days, each day needing completion before the next could be started, so are we on an emotional maturation process. Just as you canÂ’t have oceans before you have land, you canÂ’t expect to achieve emotional maturity without going through each of these steps more completely explained in his renowned book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He makes five simple suggestions to put us squarely on the path for emotional maturity, propelling us from whatever "Day" weÂ’re at into the continuum of where we need to be to start garnering the traction needed to make the shift necessary for success. "If we will do the following five things, we will have the strength to be strong in hard moments, in testing time.

* Never make a promise we will not keep

* Make meaningful promises, resolution, and commitments to do better and to be better – and share these with a loved one.

* Use self-knowledge and be very selective about the promises we make

* Consider promises as a measure of our integrity and faith in ourselves

* Remember that our personal integrity or self-mastery is the basis for our success with others." (pg. 77)

It shouldnÂ’t be surprising then that the first section of the book is dedicated to the readers and how he can change his behaviors and re-aligning ourselves to the basic principles. His statement on these principles are; "Natural laws, principles, operate regardless. So get these principles at the center of your life, at the center of your relationships, at the center of your management contracts, at the center of your entire organization" (Pg. 17) Pay close attention to the order in which he lays these out for the reader 1) life 2) relationships 3) work 4) organization. You canÂ’t create a principle centered organization without becoming and staying a principle centered person and practice principle centric values in your life. His axiom on the cover of the book "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime." Other urban philosophers have expanded on this notion to, "Â…Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime, unless he doesnÂ’t like sushi, then youÂ’ll have to teach him how to cook. (Auren Hoffman, Herald Philosopher). Even better is "Â…Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to sell fish and he eats steak." (Author unknown). But no matter how you bate the hook, you have to know how to catch fish on your own before you can hope to teach others. Some arenÂ’t going to like it and you will have to teach them how to cook it until itÂ’s palatable and some will run with the concepts and eat steak the rest of their lives, to extend the metaphor even further some will reject it all together because they are not ready for this next step in business or their lives and you will need to cut bait and run. This brings us to the first principle in CoveyÂ’s thesis. Through use of natural governing principles that we have all grown up with in life such as practice what you preach and donÂ’t preach as practice, do unto others as you would have them do unto you not do unto others before they do unto you as the hallmarks of most, if not all moderate Judeo/Christian, Islamic and Buddhist sects. Honesty, fairness, integrity and having an "abundance mentality" (pg. 40) but most importantly realizing these changes need to come from the "inside-out", are the guideposts that help us navigate the possibly lethal mistakes of the past.

With all things in life, one must start with the first things first. John Adams, our second president of the United States was fond of saying, "There are only two people of worth in the world. Those that have commitment and those that require the commitment of others." Dictionary.com defines commitment as: 1) the act of committing. 2) the state of being committed. 3) the act of committing, pledging, or engaging oneself. 4) a pledge or promise obligation. 5) engagement; involvement. 6) perpetration or commission, as of a crime. 7) consignment, as to prison. 8) confinement to a mental institution or hospital. The first three definitions are commitments centered on correct principles and the last five could be the consequences of not being thusly committed. To gain a commitment from a loved one, friend, co-worker, peer or boss one must first prove themselves capable of making and keeping commitments. As you build your capacity for commitment your cache of trustworthiness will increase. Building and keeping trust among people is essential to healthy and lasting relationships in life and in business. Personal integrity is paramount to human development and positive growth. Rogue stars in history has shown us that people with great commitment centered on unnatural principles have done great things with devastating consequences. Hitler was able to unify a disjointed Germany only to have the repercussions rippled through history and the pain and agony he unleashed is still felt today. Kidder Peabody imploded after 100 years of business due to a paradigm built around employee bonuses and when a rogue broker took advantage of it through bond price manipulation. Correct principles are the endowments of empowerment, the fish, and once we have them we can teach other, if by example alone, how to launch themselves into a greater understanding and a greater fulfillment in their personal and business lives.

In our solar system all the planetary masses and their sub-masses revolve around the sun, so it is in an organization. The problem with introducing this new paradigm into the workforce and not have it treated like the other programs that have flown through the organization like bright and shiny comets. Your staff has worked hard in the past to learn the new-and-improved vocabulary, push the philosophies like intrusive salesmen, even in the extreme create a cult around nothing more then a quick-fix or band-aide for a chronically acute unnatural principles. In the end these comets leave no more effect on the gravitational entropy in the organization than a comet does. The twinkling dust in their wake settled into files and aphorisms that end up being bandied around in a cynical game of verbal hacky-sack by your ever diligent but uninspired employees. Changing an organization to principle centricity isnÂ’t a fly-by-night concept and usually requires an assiduous application of patience and understanding. However, once the management team has successfully changed their direction, the organizational entropy well stem and then stop. Start with the mission statement. Norman Vincent Peal wrote "Change your thoughts and you will change your world." Such with the mission statement, it is the agar in which the Oranizations culture is grown. Once the organization as a whole has an idea of the newly charted course, it is a well prepared field to institute the following guides to help with the cultivation of a principled centered organization. "Security" (pg. 57) for employees through a set of procedures and practices, is the foundation on which to start. Next is "guidance" (pg. 57) by both example and through a compass aligned to the "true north" (pg. 92) principles. All this taught through the auspice of an "abundance mentality" will endow each employee with confidence and empower them to act as an individuals and as an invaluable part of the team naturally quashing any rivalries that might have existed under the old paradigm. Then finally, when these principles are at the core of the driving fore will the true adventure of problem solving through the universe of commerce and the synergism of personal and professional fulfillment of everyone on board will be the fuel that moves the organization to seek out new life and new opportunities. To put it simply, a mission statement for change if you will, commit to be the change you want to see in the world.

Why does it always happen....

The democrats are finally starting to find themselves in a comfortable lead until one or more of them have to open their mouths in an attempt at humor or a statement of fact and throw everything that has been earned into the toilet and ALWAYS days before people go to the poles? Common, Sen. Kerry, did you have to share that joke on TV? I get the joke, I understand where you are going with the inference but you don't EVER pick on the military in a time of war.

If I might admonish the Democrats to remember one thing until the end of the mid-term elections is to shut up and take a page from the Republican playbook (or rather buzz word book) STAY THE COURSE.

Chess As It Applies To Life

I have come to realize in my travels on this earth that life is a lot like a game of chess. Yes, you can play it like you would a game of checkers, and your outcome would be the same as if you'd played a game of checkers. However, I don't think the person that treats life like checkers is too unhappy or to surprised when life kicks the crap out of them. But in life, as with all things, if you take the time to think even a few moves a head, trying to bate fate into doing your bidding, life takes on a whole new intensity that makes even the mundane pawns embrace a unique and tantalizing dimension all their own.

This analogy/simile/metaphor came to me when I was trying to figure out my mom and trying to see her life through her eyes without anger, without frustration, without the general feelings of being manipulated so completely by her. Yes, the old feelings that keep me from moving my pieces on the board of life in a more energetic fashion. Part of this also happened because of a game of chess my nephew challenged me to the night before I wrote the enlightening journal entry. I watched as he used his pieces and made bold, sweeping moves over the whole board. Very brave, very ambitious and very much who the man he has become. And then I looked at my side of the board. My king and queen were carefully guarded by a rook, a bishop and a host of pawns, only moving when absolutely having no other option. I lost, mostly because I have too hard of a time to disengage my brain from the now and from the mire of the past to focus on the move I'm making, let alone try and figure out the next three or four moves in advance. But I feel knowing this about myself is a piece on the board of life and I am learning to use it as a tool.

How does this impromptu game with the boy work into what I was talking about before and how does my mother play into it? Simple, we are all playing chess, only not against each other or fate, but with Life. We are each in our own game, and no one can play on someone else's board. We can combine forces at times and seek out help for our moves, but ultimately, the choice to move, to capture or to sacrifice a piece is sole our own. It is a game we are going to lose, no one gets out of this life alive. Mom, to me, is a woman that has few pieces left on the board of life. A few pawns and her king. She's within two moves of getting one of her remaining pawns to Life's side of the board to liberate her Queen or Rook, but Life keeps her in check. She keeps trying to out maneuver his pieces, but with the ability to move only one square in any direction, only to be put in check on his next move frustrates her and stymies her, but she doesn't declare defeat and lay down her king. Life on the other hand still has almost all of his pieces in play and has a sweeping vista of the board, any plan made by her is perceived and countered several moves in advance, though with the stealth of a jaguar so she doesn't know she has been thwarted until it's too late. Though she has sacrifices a lot of her men in the cause of her children, expecting to have them charge in and not only save her but rebuild her army with their own, but like I said before, we can't play another persons game. Her gambits are too easily spotted and, when offered unsolicited, go unused when offered in order to protect our game.

It is a sad, sad place to be in at her age and I feel a sence of meloncholy for her situation at times. But I, like her, are powerless to do anything about it and strangely enough, that is comforting. This new vision of Life and her role with it has helped me understand her better. Though I can't add pieces to her board to ameliorate the pain and frustration of always being put into check, I don't fee guilty because she doesn't have the pieces on the board any more, nor do I allow her to make me feel like I owe her something because of it. I never asked her to cash in her retirement any more than my sisters asked her or required her to cash in her retirement in order to support them or give them what she thought she wanted them to give her in return. Reciprocity isn't a one to one, dollar for dollar commitment on this temporal plane. (I know it would be nice if it was, but it's not.) I do what I can, the sisters do what they can, but it will never replace the men she sacrificed, it will never give her the full range of the board again. She doesn't have the pieces to plot behind so now when I see that she has finally caught on to the multi move gambit it is just behind her eyes, visible for the world to see, and frustrating for her daughters who sees it and have always been powerless to stop her maniputlations in the past. Now, I don't see them as manipulations, per se, I see them as the desperate attempts of a woman trying to regain control of a board she hasn't seen from corner to corner in several decades. And my heart cries for her.

Age Classifications

After many years of human observation, I have concluded that there are new classifications for age beyond the numbers.


Ages 10-20 (More actually 16-20) - Hip
Ages 21-30 - Cool
Ages 31-40 - Retro
Ages 41-50 - Vintage
Ages 51-60 - Antique
Ages 61+ - Relic.

Someone who is hip is on the bleeding edge of now. Not only do they converse in their own improvised language, their sense of style is uniquely theirs. Even if they copy their style from someone else, it will be another cool hipster in their age group.

Cool is just that. You've claimed a stake in a transitory world. You sit back and enjoy the Retro's eyeing you with envy and the Hipsters consider you traders to the ethos you once clung to.

Retro is more of a reactionary age. You have the pressure of being an "adult" (whatever your definition is for that term), you are stifled in your job and you are continually looking back to your Hip and/or Cool days longing for those expansive moments in the sun where they one monthly payments you really had to worry about were your car, rent and your CD club membership.

By the time you reach your Vintage years, you are more secure with yourself. You have a handle on where you are and more importantly, where you want to be in the coming years. You have fully blossomed into a rich bodied soul that you could never have fathomed in your Hipster or Cooler years.

Antique doesn't mean broken down or unusable. At least not in the general sense. You might get pushed out of younger crowds because of your penchant for imparting your wisdom on unwilling ears, hearts and minds. Like most antiques, you aren't really used for that much any more, at least not until you are found by the right collector and then you find yourself truly being appreciated

Relic is a time where people seek you out to hear your wisdom because you have proven to them that you can still be cooly hip with the retro lingo and the vintage glow. You have come full circle and you can see from your vantage point that what effects the hipsters, the cool ones, the retros, vintage and antiques is the same, just the names have changed.

Yosemite Memories I

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took when I had a break and went to Yosemite...ALL BY MYSELF. It was glorious. I got to watch TV when I wanted to, I ate what I wanted to, and surprisingly enough, it was actually good-for-you food. Mostly just meat and frozen veggies. (The fresh ones freak me, it's like I can hear them cry out in pain when I cook them.....Not really)...But I digress.

I took a tour with one of those bus tours and this is one of the places we went. I'm sure it's one of those pictures that every tourist has in their album, but I think mines special. It was at the beginning of April, a time when I thought it would be rather clear, and according to the weather, it was supposed to be, but instead it snowed. For those of you who don't know me, I have been in the snow maybe three times before this picture, and never when it was actually snowing. That is the freakiest thing I had ever seen. I bought a special hat to wear so I wouldn't get sunburned on this trip, instead the brim worked as a snow catcher and the cute festive cherries on the ribbon ended up with their own little hillocks of snow on their cheery red sheen. I think this picture really shows that. It shows the water running, the green of the trees with the snow heavily sprinkled with confectioners sugar. The bare tree, it's fingers stretching in the spring is starting to show it's green finery for the coming Spring. In the background, if you look closely you'll see the stone masonry work of the footbridge, adding just a touch more of texture to the picture. At first blush you might miss it because it's obviously made from local and natural materials, but it just sort of sets off the picture. Well, in my humble opinion.

A Moment of Perfect Silence

In the midst of all the hate, destruction and profound confusion a community mourns. Ever weary of the public eye on their private life they strive to keep to their standards, which includes inviting the family of the man that killed their five young girls to be with the families as they all mourn their collective loss. What an example to the people of the world about healing, about hating and about true Christlike love. Though their bucolic lifestyle might never be the same after this tragedy, they've done everything they can to show that even in the maelstrom of bullets and TV cameras, love truly can be the best weapon of choice.

Hope in Hell

Our purer essence then will overcome

Thir noxious vapour, or enur'd not feel,

Or chang'd at length, and to the place conformd

In temper and in nature, will receive

Familiar the fierce heat, and void of pain;

This horror will grow milde, this darkness light,

Besides what hope the never-ending flight

Of future days may bring, what chance, what change

Worth waiting, since our present lot appeers

For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,

If we procure not to our selves more woe.

John Milton

Paradise Lost