Since I moved to America almost all the elections around the globe that Americans care about have gone our way. With the upset on the Middle East over the Hamas victory in Palestine, what does this mean for the cause of democracy? Personally, I am strongly on the side of positive thinking. Hamas is both a humanitarian movement and a terrorist threat. Can the power of authority and the possibility of having to move into the limelight on the world stage change it’s tactics for something it strongly believes? This unfortunately rests on the shoulders of Hamas leaders, their platform has been their insistence that the nation of Israel is illegal and does not exist. What will transpire? How will the Palestine, Israel, and the world react? We certainly live in interesting times … what do you think?
One of the things I love about the weekend is spending time with the kiddliwinks. They love hanging out with Dad. I make a low carb quiche each week for breakfast and this week was adding some Olive Tapenade to the quiche for a little flavor before I popped it in the oven. I let the kids try the strong salty olives and sure enough YUM! they loved them!
As you may recall in a previous post, I have been using a Moleskine notebook and Retro51 Tornado pen for my Getting Things Done system of record. Up until now I have been totally torn by this combination. If I use the regular vellum/lightweight paper in the Moleskine the Parker Gel refills I use in the Retro51 bled through the pages (meaning I can only write on one side). If I use the thickers “sketchbook” Moleskine pages, the gel ink is great but the pages feel too thick for me (boy am I fussy). I like the gel ink, but the lines are a little thick for my taste (0.7mm). Now the Retro51 accepts Parker-style refills, and I have read about the Pilot G2 extra fine gel refills as good things to use in your Moleskine. Soooo after 3 months of futzing with my system I have finally settled on the right approach: Grided, lightweight paper Moleskine with my nice Retro51 fitted with a Pilot G2 extra fine refill. Now if anyone has tried this they’ll realize that those refils don’t actually fit the pen! So you have to remove the end cap and cut the refill down to size, then is works just dandy! So FINALLY I have something very close to the ultimate solution … the only open question for me is if the Levenger Circa system would work better for me (ah the eternal tweaking of the system, what would we do without it!)
I stumbled across this post on a million monkeys typing that really outlines a couple of things I’ve observed both with myself and my kids. As we get older our attention span shortens, I am personally struggling with internalizing the things I read, while I am great at finding them … it’s “learning them” that I struggle with. I read fast and don’t process well. I am exploring using some quiet time and using a new note taking method (paper, pencil, maybe Cornell) away from the distraction of a glowing screen.
With my kids their focus is competely different, Kylie is the focus machine, Hunter is the goldfish. I don’t know if that will change over time, or if this is something they have already (at 4 and 2) learnt.
So I saw a Simpsons episode last night where the US and Canadian border/coast guards are fighting over who will save Marge & Homer (who are about to go over Niagara Falls in a Moon Bounce). here’s my favorite quote:
U.S. Customs Officer: Beat it, you puck-slapping maple suckers.
Canada Customs Officer: Take a hike, you Shatner-stealing Mexico touchers.
I’m not sure why I loved that quote so much, it might have been the marvelous Canadian accent 
In other news, I finished Malcolm Gladwell’s – The Tipping Point, a facinating book on the idea of social change driven by connectors, salesmen, and mavens. He has some great examples of how fashion and trends actually happen. There is a lot of buzz on the net right now about how this applies in the online world, the push towards web2.0 and the idea of community based services. If you pull those things together there will be an inevitable crashing and burning of many of the community led efforts, only the strongest or “stickiest” in Malcolm’s new language will survive.
I just began reading “Guns Germs and Steel” which is a famous Pulitzer winning book on human history/evolution. I’m in the first chapter or two but the authors tone is getting to me, he seems to talk down to everyone: the reader, other scientists, and the world at large. Not sure it’ll be any fun reading a book written in that tone.
So this blog is fast turnign in to a restaurant review. This weekend (after much deliberation and planning) we finally met Mel’s friends Nate and Fatima and their wee son Ben. We all met at Jaleo in Bethesda and had a whale of a time. Ben is a sweetheart, and Nate and Fatima are great people. Unfortunately both Sharine and Jeff couldn’t make it 
We chit chatted about all the usual DC things, location, commutes, the Redskins, and of course the cosmopolitan nature of DC. However, we soon discovered that the kids quickly took most of our attention. Nate and Fatima seem like great people, he works at SRA and Fatima is an attorney for HUD. I think I’ll try to hook up with Nate for lunch sometime (if I ever make it back to Arlington) and chat about life in DC. Anyways, the food at Jaleo was as wonderful as ever and we totally pigged out on the Fixe Prixe Restaurant Menu. The funny thing is that the relatively limited choices on the restaurant week menu made things a lot easier to choose!
So I had dinner with a good friend and advisor last night at Acadiana. The restaurant is by the same team that did TenPenh and Cieba (both great as well) and was fantastic. It’s Restaurant Week in DC and we had the fixe price dinner for $30.06 which included: a delicious shrimp remoulade, a spectacular pan crisped roasted duck (with dirty rice, collard greens, cane syrup pepper jelly glaze) and bread pudding for dessert (remembering you Dad!). I am on a kick at the moment where I am thinking long and hard about who are my long-term career guideposts … I have a network of advisors that I keep in touch with at work, but beyond that … who can look from the outside in and give me some advice. Folks/friends back in NZ seem so far away and the folks I know in the states just don’t seem to be the right kind for long-term career advice. I know primarily younger folks who provide great ideas and input but aren’y who I envision might be able to advise me with years of worldly wisdom. Who is your mentor or advisor?
So when I first moved to the States it was as a NextStep/OpenStep programmer supporting Intel-based PCs. I always loved devlopment in that environment and have been resisting the tempation to move into the NextStep reborn Mac-in-world for a while now. I had been waiting for the magical Intel/Mac move for some time now hoping (against hope) that the new Intel Macs would come in at a better price point … woe is me! They are the same price, but “considerably better performance”. I just object to paying $1300 for a Mac machine that is the same processing power as a $700 PC.
So I am reading The Tipping Point – by Malcom Gladwell at the moment and one of the things he uses to describe “evolutionary” development of an organization is the magic of 150. Apparently there is an unwritten social rule that when groups get larger than 150 they become unwieldy, unmanageable, and fly apart. It occured to me that my company and the business unit I work in has reached the 150 person point and we are looking for how to scale beyond that. I wonder if this is the rule of 150 coming to bear? What should be done? Maybe it’s time to split into DoD/Intel and Civilian tracks of work. We already have this account structure so maybe the rule of 150 won’t apply to us, or maybe it only applies to BU-wide things.
So today we went to the grand opening of the Omei Wushu Center over in Traville Center. The kids from the center did the Lion Dance, then a spectacular 1 hour presentation of their Chinese martial art: Wushu. This included both bare handed and some grand exhibitions of sword and staff play. Kylie and Hunter really liked it, Kylie is so excited she wanted to sign up and we decided it couldn’t hurt! So she will be going to Wushu classes for the “Little Tigers” starting in the spring.
