What is the drumbeat of your life?

This week is my last week at Nikon.  It has been a great ride for me.  I've been a contractor, field service engineer, program manager, interpreter, project manager, people manager, been on committees and helped roll out initiatives.  Now that it's drawing to a close, I'm looking at the transition and realizing things about myself.

Today, just about 5 minutes ago, actually, I was talking with a colleague about the future.  He knows I'm leaving, of course.  It occurred to me everyone I know has a drumbeat - it's that thing that is always in your mind.  No matter what.  Without pause.

For one person I know, it's always, "How badly can this go wrong?  And what do I do if it goes terribly wrong?"  I know people who always seem to be simmering/angry.  The first thing they always say is to point out a problem.  I know people who always have a vacation on their mind, or a hobby.

My drumbeat is "What's next?  What can I do now?"  No matter how far along I am in something, there is always something else to do, something else to learn.  With work effectively wound down already, my next thing is a bit of a balancing act:

1) discovering the next turn on my career path
2) doing and learning the things I haven't had time to learn or do
3) filling the idle time with productive work

I want to learn how to draw.  Painting would be cool, but just to learn how to sketch is a valid objective for me.  I want to learn kanji better, and improve fluency in business Japanese, particularly finance.  I want to spend time composing and arranging music.  I want to spend some time with my piano and guitar.  I want to finish my grandfather's biography and build on the research into his wife's side for a book on her family.  I want to finish a multitude of projects around the house.  And I want to repair my 3 RC airplanes so they fly well again.

When I get a spare moment, during my commute to work, or between turning out the light and falling asleep, or at moments during the day, my mind instantly fills with these things.  Which should I do?  And in what way?  And how do I balance that with all the other things?  Which is the most important?  How will they impact my family's life?

I think it is this drumbeat that defines my outlook the best.  I am an incurable optimist.  I always see the opportunity beyond the challenge in front of me.  And I truly, truly (for good or ill) believe I can accomplish just about whatever I want to.  And I have always had a list 3 miles long of things that I want to learn and accomplish (do you hear that Spanish and Estonian?  You're on my list!).

What is your drumbeat?  What fills your mind in those idle moments?  This is important to know on a conscious level.  It's important enough to your subconscious mind that it (whatever it is) is always there.

Now, excuse me while I spend some time on a bicycle, update my resume, do some laundry, and then go caroling.  What's next?  I can't wait!

I love flying RC planes.  I don't love crashing them.  The two actions go hand in hand however for a still-learning hobbyist like me.

My 2 little planes have both had/are due for a fuselage replacement.  They've already had an assortment of minor repairs, and replacements of tails and wings.

Today's big news is the re-introduction of the Super Cub to my hangar.  The fuselage has been cracked in half 4 times, and everything except for the wing and electronics and fuselage had already been replaced.  I started gathering parts almost a year ago, and a few months ago was the final straw.  I was flying my FrankenCub with its 4th set of custom landing gear, hit a power pole, and crashed 25 ft to the ground.  She was not going to be repaired this time.

Luckily, by then I already had the motor, servos, speed control, receiver, and propeller.  A new fuselage, tail, landing gear, and motor mount, and I could get her airworthy again.  2 weeks ago I had all of that stuff on hand.  This week I have been doing the physical reconstruction - removing some unnecessary interior foam, mounting the motor, do a small mod to the battery box to accommodate the larger batteries, installing and adjusting the tail and landing gear.  Last night, I finished the soldering.  This afternoon, I did the final checks and adjustments - rough and fine correction of the elevator and rudder via the push rods and servos, and caught a reversed servo which would have been catastrophic had I missed it.  And, on a lark, I added a bomb bay door.  It's not operational yet (no servo installed) but it is hinged and ready for action.

The final configuration for her maiden flight was not ideal but reasonable.  I didn't have the electronics velcroed in, but otherwise she was shipshape.  She was no longer my FrankenCub; she was my SuperDuperCub.  The maiden went pretty well, considering this was the first plane I ever built from the ground up.

Problems: CG was too far forward.  Control surfaces were set up with too small throws.  She was unexpectedly heavy.  The motor mount may be too far pointed down and right.  I suspect this because when she was under throttle, it was hard to get her to go up.  When I killed the throttle, she glided very nicely.  So it might not be a weight issue at all.

Good stuff: The rear wheel was almost perfectly straight.  The brushless motor performed as advertised.  She can take off literally like a rocket - straight up.  Stock full throttle is less than half throttle with the new setup.

Next steps: fix control surface throws (done), redo motor mount to straight setup (I have the mounts, just need to use them).  Set up CG after motor mount change.  Yeehaw - flying time is here again!

The Beauty of a Deadline

My barbershop quintet just pulled of a nice performance last night. It was not perfect; there were moments of "what was that?" along with "Ooh, that was nice." Perfectly acceptable for our debut.

We had been discussing and planning and putting off this performance for about a year. I had a terrible work and travel schedule in 2010, and it just didn't work. In March this year, we settled on a date range and venue. In early May, we booked the date. Magically, committing to a date crystallized a lot of things.

"Axel F" would not be ready. "Ward, the Pirate" would not be ready. "Old Man Noah" needed some notes fixed. And so did every other song we were targeting, except for "Wings". Our concentration improved, rehearsals became much more focused.

We're a very democratic group, and rely mostly on self-correction. If I'm missing notes, it's my job to say so, stop rehearsal, and get them fixed. I can also work on them at home if I have a piano. From time to time, some notes will be consistently missed, and then someone else will point them out, and get them fixed. We don't spent much rehearsal time working on blend or diction. I don't think we purposely ignore them; we all just assume that everyone else is ok and doing his best.

A concert deadline changed that entire dynamic. We're comfortable enough with each other that we don't get offended when corrected. And we started doing that more. We started spending more effort on diction, taming the volume to help blend and pitch. We made some decisive changes on dynamics to give the music more shape. And we were able to hit 10-15 pieces of music in a rehearsal, instead of the usual 5 or so.

Our musicianship improved. Our focus improved. And the final product that we put out is worthy of a listen.

In the end, the deadline pushed us to bring our product from 85% polish to 100% polish. We could no longer ignore the unfinished bits and pieces. For an amateur group like ours, that made all the difference.

What's next? Preparing for another concert, of course. We already have the venue and parts of the program chosen. This one will be better. You'll find information on us and upcoming events at www.themorningstars.org.

Part of the Adult American Experience

I spent my childhood from 4-12 years old on 2.5 acres in rural Oregon (Barlow, to be exact). For a few years there, my parents had a large garden. The whole family was supposed to weed it. My dad was going to school at the time, and mom was supporting a family of 5 on a bus driver's income. Money was tight, and I suppose that was a pretty good reason to have a garden. I don't think that idea crossed any of us kids' minds, though.

The point is, I hated the garden. The sunflowers were pretty darn cool, but nothing else was worth caring about. The weeds grew, the veggies did ok, but it's because Roundup doesn't even kill things in this state. Everything grows in the Willamette Valley.

And now, I am proud to day that we have had 4 blueberry bushes for 6 years now. They hardly produce anything, but they are all alive. We have had 2 columnar apple trees for 5 years now. They were just about 2 ft tall when we planted them. Now they are 10 ft tall and are loaded with fruit. So we don't kill everything we try to grow. But our gardens have been a couple attempts that did not end well.

This year, I got the best spot in the back yard. The spot where the weeds grow fastest. And I tilled it and planted. Now I have sprouts and seedlings, which I now water with a soaker hose that I bought so they wouldn't die from the heat like our last garden did. And I am thrilled that they are mostly all growing.

The sweet cuc isn't too healthy. I'm hoping it recovers. The zucchini below seems to be a favorite of the slug population. This hill has lost its seedling leaves completely. The other 2 hills are fine, though. I'm hoping this one recovers.

The pumpkins are doing really well. I don't know what we're going to do with 4 pumpkin plants worth of stuff, but I expect we'll do something with them. The muncher cucs are don't too well, either. I don't know what their issue is. It may be that they are planted in a spot with too good of drainage. They seem to whither quickly. But they are looking better now than they were 5 days ago.

The yellow squash at the bottom appears to be happy, just not as robust as the zucchini or pumpkin. None of the cantaloupe have sprouted yet. Hope I get some - it's the only sweet thing I planted this year.

Disneyland et al: a trip report

Itinerary:

On Friday, we loaded up our SUV with snacks, clothes, kids, and DVDs and drove to Bakersfield. The next day we slept late and wandered down to Dolphin's Cove in Anaheim. We stayed there for a week - 2 days at Disneyland, 1 at California adventure, 1 at the La Brea Tar Pits, 1 in a limo in Hollywood, 1 at Universal, and the last we just left and drive down to Sea World. The next day we spent at Legoland, and after the park closed at 6, we drove to Sacramento. We got home Monday night at 10.

Playful impressions:

Our kids, as a group, were not overly impressed with anything except Legoland. Disney stuff was cool, but the coasters were too scary for the boys, and the boat rides were too tame for the girls. But - with boys aged 5 and 9 and girls aged 11 and 6, we never had to chase a wandering child, had no crying breakdowns in the parks, and lots of laughter all the time.

Our kids determined our schedule. We (Katrina and I) set a target for the time to leave the resort. When the kids were done for the day at the park, we left. That usually meant we spent 5 hours in the park and a total of 1 hour commute time. We would come home, the kids would play on the Wii, we'd have dinner and then once the sun was low in the sky we'd go swim until 9. This worked for us - no strollers, no lockers, and only 1 meal out a day. The kids were happy, and as long as Katrina and I remembered that the trip was for the kids to be happy, and they didn't care about riding every ride, we were happy. I left my laptop at home, Katrina brought her netbook, but we were plugged into the kids almost all the time.

Tips for travelers:

1) Stay local, preferably by somewhere served by an ART (Anaheim Resort Transit) bus. They are reliable, operate whenever the parks are open, and are cheaper for a family of 6 than parking at the Disney parking lot.

2) Get a place with a kitchen. Goodness, how nice. Breakfast? No hour long ordeals at Denny's. We bought some milk and cereal, and the kids were happy. Christian and I made french toast a few times. Dinners were pretty simple, too - a casserole one night, baked potatoes and baked bbq chicken another, takeout Chinese that lasted for leftovers for 2 days. Saved us a bunch of time and frustration (hungry? Get a hot dog from the fridge, kids!) and money, too.

3) The So Cal pass is great. We got 3 days at Disney, plus 1 each at Universal and Sea World for what ended up being about $30/kid/day. No trouble at all.

4) The kids each having their own DVD player in the car was fabulous. We had a 15 hour day in the car on the way down, and everyone was happy. Jake watched Empire Strikes Back 3 times in a row. We got the Phillips, for about $60 each. They're really nice units.

5) Fanny packs rock. I was used to going to grown up theme parks with Katrina, where everyone takes their backpack and leaves it on the far side of the roller coaster. At most of these places, you just keep it with you. With a fanny pack, the kids pack their own snacks, and when they're gone, they're gone. Easy. They aren't heavy, they aren't large, and they aren't expensive.

6) Old kids are awesome and fun. If you are going to Disneyland for the kids, don't take them young enough that you need a stroller. If you are going for you, whatever you want is cool. Our youngest was 5, 43" tall. He could ride almost every ride, walked by himself almost all day, and was able make good souvenir decisions with a little guidance. And he was happy. We did theme parks with babies (4 and 2 years old) and it just wasn't very good. This trip was great.

Impressions of parks:

Disney California is a great park. It reminds me of Disney Sea in Tokyo more than any other park I've been in. The fit and finish of the areas are pretty holistic, with the very notable exception of the disgusting lagoon at Paradise Pier. It's really gross. They've got to find a way to make it not look diseased. California Screamin' is also one of the best coasters I've ever ridden. Fast, lots of vertical, very smooth. When the park is completely built out (there are at least 3 major construction projects underway right now) it will be awesome. Food vending is well thought out, there's lots of open space, and there are some really good rides for everyone.

Disneyland is what it is. I'm not a huge fan - Thunder Mountain is a great ride, Space Mountain is a great ride, but I'm not impressed with the layout, the attention to detail in the different areas of the park, or the food. The food situation is especially bad here. Little shade, few places to sit inside, and little open space. In early May, it's not crowded at all. The summer would be horrific.

Universal Studios was my personal favorite. The Studio Tour is a must-do. It's fantastic. Amazing. 45 minutes of information and entertainment that's exciting for adults and not too scary for the kids. The shows are incredible, the rides are great, and the staff is amazing; really friendly, helpful, kind, all that stuff. They seem really happy to be at work, more so than anywhere else we went. They made the difference for me.

Sea World was really great, too. The mix of shows, zoo exhibits, and rides was a good mix for our kids. It's unfortunate that the best stuff (the Beluga, Dolphin, and Shark encounters) are so much extra. We knew about it, but did not plan to do it. We still had a full day, but if we go back with teens, we'll definitely do one of the extra things. The shows were great, too - the Sea Lion show was the best. Great theatre.

Legoland was the kids' hands-down favorite. We walked in, and spent 45 minutes building cars right away. Then 45 minutes looking at mini USA and the Star Wars models. Then we rode 1 coaster, ate a decent lunch, and split. Aria and I did the Knights Encounter which was really interesting and cool. Katrina took the other kids and did some other rides that were great. We finished the day with the kids shopping at the Lego Store there; each had saved enough for the end of the trip to buy something there. Everyone left happy.

The Limo ride was partially a gift from the grandparents. We were thinking of themed dinners and things, and as we flipped through the brochure, we saw a full-page ad for personal tours. I looked at Katrina, and told her I had never been in a limo. She said she hadn't either. So we brought the decision to the kids, and they thought it would be cool, too. So that's what we did. It was great - in 5.5 hours, we were picked up from the resort, taken to a good spot to see the Hollywood sign, spent almost 2 hours at the Kodak Theatre and walk of fame, drove around to see some celebrity homes and movie locations, and went home. Overall, less than the price of theme park admission, we did all the sight seeing stuff, and got to relax, too.

Great vacation - as good as our big road trip in 2008 to ID and UT or our almost-family vacation to New York and DC last year. No more from me on the topic - Katrina's got a lot more going up on her blog, I think.

Ruminations on a weekend without Katrina

I love to be with my kids. They are some of the kindest, funniest, smartest, awesomest people I know. And when Katrina is gone, I get them all to myself. She left after lunch yesterday to do some dry pack canning and work on a project with my mom.

I love my wife. She is a marvelous woman - great at being a woman, helping me be a man, and she's possibly the best mom I've ever met. And I never can seem to get much done when she's home. I think I realized why this weekend. It's because when I am home, she is more free to work on her digital life - the scrapbook, her budding interest in photography, blogging, etc. Which means that she is in the office most of the day. But I like her. And I gravitate to be near her. And there is nothing that I must do that is in that office, just someone I need to be with.

So the best way for me to get things done is to send her away. She asked if she could spend Friday night away, and I immediately was excited. After some more thought, I asked if she could spend Saturday night away as well. She said she could.

"Aha!" I thought to myself, "I can do some things that take longer than an hour without her knowing!"

So I made a plan - I'd set a reward in front of the kids with some clear requirements to get the reward, I'd help as much as was reasonable, and if they earned it, fine. If not, fine. Not my issue.

Requirement #1: clean the kitchen. Our kitchen is almost always usable. But things tend to collect here and there: school papers that haven't been returned, printed recipes that aren't in the book yet, crayons, napkins that haven't gotten back in the locked cabinet. That's not just us, right? So clean the kitchen meant that every single item that did not belong on the counter went where it belonged. Mopping the floor was not part of it. The counters would be cleared off and wiped clean.

Requirement #2: clean the garage. Enough that Katrina can park in it again. Which means, once again, sorting through a lot of things that have accumulated in her parking spot.

Requirement #3: complete phase 1 of a project she would enjoy when it was complete. This shall remain nameless for a little while. But I was confident she would love the result and that the kids and I would have a blast doing it.

As soon as Katrina left and the kids were all home from school, we had a pow-wow. I laid out the requirements. The reward would be a trip to the Portland Garage Sale at the Expo Center. I asked if they wanted me to push them. Nobody said yes. One kid said she wanted me to push some other kids. So that was it. We had a LOT of fun on the project. I'm confident the finished project will be fabulous. I just need another 10 hours here and there to complete it. We all had a lot of fun, and even the little guy stayed with it until the end.

Then it was time for cleaning. I was busy until 9:30 at night cleaning, making dinner (cheeseburgers and home made fries), and the kids worked until about 6. I thought somebody would konk out around 9, but at 10:45, all of them were still up and busy. So I send them to bed, played some football, did some laundry, and slept around 1.

By that point, the kitchen was done, and the garage had seen some major improvement. I figured the kids had an hour left in there, and it would be done. We all woke up around 8. I had breakfast, showered, and the kids, without a single word from me, got busy on the garage. 20 minutes after my shower was done, the garage was done. They got dressed, put something solid in their tummies (breakfast had been brownies I baked at midnight), and we took off about 11. The garage sale was pretty awesome. We're going back next year with a larger budget. The kids were patient, spent their $5 wisely, and even the little guy stayed right with me the whole time. No wiggling engaged in, no discipline needed. Awesome.

After lunch at our favorite locale hole-in-the-wall buffet, we've been hanging out. The kids made a stop-action Lego movie, and I'm about 10 minutes away from putting our attic stairs in. The hole in the ceiling is prepped, the measurements for how it will fold down are done. I just have to lift it up there and screw it in now. Then clean up, of course. The kids have 1 room to clean, and I have a couple loads of laundry to do to finish off the night.

And then, hopefully, I can finish another milestone or 2 before I collapse. Depends on that ladder, which is a must-do.

Triplett History: Finding my grandfather

Family history on my father's side has been easy - I saw a book that went back 200 years when I was in high school. Never thought much about it. Recently, I have done a lot of research into my mom's side. My maternal grandmother's ancestors were easy. My maternal grandfather's were not. Today the pieces come together.

First, the information I had 2 weeks ago: Born in 1903 in Poulsbo, WA, real name unknown, orphaned at 9 years old. That's it. I've been back and forth with my uncle a lot the last few days, and many things came up:

my G-grandfather's name was John Franklin Triplett. He died in 1916-17 in Spokane in a car crash. My G-grandfather and G-grandmother's marriage was a second marriage for both of them and he's the only child of that marriage.

Today, I spent the afternoon with my mother teaching her about the research I've done and how to do some of it herself. New things: my grandfather gave my grandmother a Bible in 1954 with his parents' birth and death dates. My grandfather has a couple half-brothers who died by drowning in the 1920s. My G-grandmother's full name (including her married name from her first marriage).

So - this morning I was able to search through Washington State's vital records and find John Franklin Triplett. He died in Spokane in 1917. I ordered his death certificate. This afternoon, after learning my G-grandma's name, I looked through the census of 1910. There they were: John F and Martha Triplett. 2 sons in their 20s, 1 son who was 11 years old. All born in Missouri. It matches a 1900 census I had seen before.

To sum up the information I have now about my grandfather: my grandfather's name was not Francis or Jack. It was John, like his dad. He was born in Nov, 1898, not 1903. He was born in Missouri, not Poulsbo, WA. He was orphaned at 19, not 9. He did not spent his childhood on the streets.

Next steps: marriage certificate for the G-grandparents and birth certificate for my grandfather. I call him little Johnny for now, until I see his birth certificate and know what his full name was. The trail is no longer cold. This 1/4 of my family tree will soon be filled in.

Glenn Family History, First Edition

So I've been working on the Sults, my great-grandmother's parents and immediate family. I thought, "What about Joel P Glenn, my grandma's dad?" So I Googled his name and Idaho. And immediately there was a page about him. Turns out the guy who lives in the house Joel built in 1910 is a big history guy in Council, Idaho. And he's published stuff.

So Joel went byJoe. He was a good singer. A bass, it seems. He and Cora Belle built a house in 1910 and lived there until 1924, when they sold it and moved to Toledo, Oregon. It's a few miles inland from Newport. I don't know why. Maybe feeding their 14 kids and keeping them sane all winter in a 24' x 24' house proved too much for them. "Let's go somewhere where we can let them play outside all winter, Cora." "Sure thing, Joe. I'll stop sharpening the butcher knife now. I won't be needing it after all." "That's good, dear."

Back to digitizing documents now - double-checking dates and names from hand-written records so I can roll it all up into something easy to digest.

Also - Sult update - I found where JT and Ann's homestead was. It's on the corner of Nasi Ln and Farm to Market Road between Roseberry and Donnelly. That creek right there is Boulder Creek.

Sult Family History - JT and Ann, part 1

I got bit by the family history bug, and now I'm infected. My grandmother is Amelia Kathryn Glenn. Her mother is Cora Belle Sult. Her mother is Grace Hall, her father is Charles Sult. Charles' parents are John Theodore Sult and Ann McCormac. The only history I have of my family that is written down is of JT Sult, Ann, their kids and grandkids. I have the family tree for the Sults, but I want to fill in their story. Since I have a start, I'm going to share what I've got, how I found it, and I'll add as I find more information.

This is from my mom's cousin, who gave a hard copy to us years ago. I took digital photos at my uncle's house last summer, and now I'm typing them up so they can be shared by the whole family. Here's the first part of it.

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John Theodore Sult and Virginia Ann McCormac were married at her home in Linn County, (Mound City) Kansas, April 25, 1878. They moved to his farm in Wilson County, near Fredonia, where the three oldest children were born. They sold the farm in the spring of 1885. Levi McCromac and J.T. Sult bought 150 head of cattle and prepared to go West.

In April they were ready to start from the home of A.J. McCormac, with Ann driving the team of mules. While they were loading, the team became frightened and ran, injuring Ann so that it was imp[ossible for her to make the trip. J.T. and Levi started on, leaving the family with her parents. They went as far as Kingman County, where his sister, Mrs James Reese, lived.

In July, twins were born. J.T. came back in the late summer and moved the family to Kingman County, where Laura May died, Nov 25, age 4 months. The next spring the family, with Theodore Sult, a nephew of J.T. started West again, with Ann driving the mules, J.T. the ox team, and Levi and Theodore the cattle. That summer they traded “old Bob” for Topay, a young filly, so that Charley, age 7, could help with the cattle. (Topay became a family institution; all the children and several grandchildren learned to ride on her. She finally died of old age about 1911.) They spent that winter in Wyoming, near Bushnell Creek, about 65 miles from Cheyenne. There was good open range here, and they bought hay for the cattle during the worst of the winter.

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Here's some more stuff I figured out by looking at birth dates, maps, and place names. Mound City was founded just 20 years before J.T. and Ann were married there. We don't know why they moved West. When Ann was injured hooking up the horses, she was 6 months pregnant with twins. They moved West in spurts - leaving Mound City for Fredonia (90 miles away) then selling the Fredonia farm and moving back near Mound City. Then JT headed 241 miles away with the cattle while waiting for Ann to heal and deliver their twins. When they left Kansas for good, they had 4 kids, the youngest was just 9 months old. It took them 2 years to move - 1 summer to get to Wyoming, another to get to Western Idaho.

I have more bits and pieces, but I'm going to add them as I go. For any family members, I'll be adding things in Google Docs, and I'll share them all with you if you're interested.

Allowing natural growth

We have 4 awesome kids. They came in pairs - older 2 separated by 2 years, then a 3 year gap, then the younger ones separated by just 16 months. Since our younger kids were born, the other kids have been the "big kids".

That changed tonight, and the story to how we get there is instructive, I think.

It is true that people become who you expect them to become. We expected our big kids to be good examples, responsible and kind, etc. We expected our "little kids" to not be as advanced. Of course they would be behind the big kids, but it was clear that when we were dressing our 4 year-old girl and her big sister was dressing herself at 3, that we had given in to what someone called the "soft bigotry of low expectations". Compound this with the fact that our little kids were the littlest kids we got to be around. They were the only ones we got to snuggle with, who said funny things, who needed help putting on their seatbelts.

Of course, it wasn't them that needed the help. We needed to give the help. We needed to feel needed. And it was all of us - parents, older siblings, grandparents. We all conspired to keep our little kids little.

Well, our little girl started kindergarten and turned 6, and she was having trouble adjusting to the big wide world. We started to make some conscious changes to our expectations of her and how we served her. Today, some things came to a head. I turned the corner by my bedroom door to find her sitting on the floor crying. The exchange went something like this:

L: Dad, it really hurts my feelings when people call me little. It's a little bit of an issue.

T: I'm sorry sweetie. Who does that most? Is it mom and I or the older kids?

L: It's mostly you and mom and the older kids and everyone.

T: Well, when we need to say things like, "get the car seats for the younger kids", what should we say?

L: I just want to be big, because I am big.

T: Okay. So do we call you and your little brother the big kids and the other kids the old kids?

L: (smiling) Yes. I would like that.

I thanked her for telling me her feelings, and promptly spread the news around to the rest of the family.

What is particularly salient about this event today is that she felt something, told me, figured out what she wanted to make it better, and was able to have a good conversation with me about it to find a solution. I didn't have to draw it out of her. It was her initiative. It is the most grown-up thing she has ever done. And I'm proud of her for it.

Bye bye little kids. I think my next opportunity will be in about a dozen years when the grand kids may start coming.

On being sacked but employed

Firstly, don't worry - I'm not demoted, or in any way in danger of losing my job. It's not like that. So now that you aren't worried, here's a little something about what's going on in my work life.

For the last 10 months, I've been working on a major project for the company. I could see that it needed to be done, it was on the periphery of one of my areas of responsibility, and it looked challenging. So I started asking questions and doing things to move it along, and soon found that it was "my project". I worked with a lot of people on 3 continents to get the project going. Some had expertise, some had logistical responsibilities, some had oversight of one aspect or another and had to buy off on technical decisions. I was genuinely busy and doing something important for the company.

During most of these 10 months, I was doing my "day job" for a couple hours a day, and spending the rest of my time on this project. Since September, I've been on the project 40-70 hrs per week, averaging about 60 hrs per week for that period. It's been busy. I haven't been able to help out at home like I like to, volunteer at the kids' school like I like to, or have any hobbies at all, actually. Even the men's group I sing with fell down the priority list. And forget about going on a date with my wife.

So in January, the time came to execute on the things I'd been preparing for since last April. We had answered the technical questions, prepared the documentation, completed training, identified and acquired the tools needed for the job, and now it was simply a matter of manpower. How quickly could we get the job done? We thought we had a good schedule, but it turned out to be inaccurate. 2 weeks ago, it become apparent that the job took a lot more manpower than I had planned. So the schedule slipped. Badly.

And my boss came to town, pulled me into a conference room, and told me I was no longer the project manager. My review would suffer, but that's all. I still had a place at the company, I just would get to focus on my day job more. Somebody new would be the project manager.

So - I lose the prestige and visibility of running the project, but I no longer have to work 70 hrs a week. And there's no change in pay. Hmm. Not so bad. On the one hand, the thing I want most in my workplace is to feel like I'm making a positive difference. And I was doing that. I made a mistake, sure, but I had made a lot of good decisions beforehand. And I was not going to be able to walk away from the project. I was too invested in it, and knew too much about it to simply hand it over. So I'm now a major support person for the project - I monitor what's going on, take care of a small subset of tasks as my specific responsibility, ask questions if they need to be asked, and answer questions when I am asked. It's still a full time job for me, and it's not all sunshine and roses for the new project manager, but I'm no longer nauseous with worry. It's no longer my problem.

It's an odd place - I'm very disappointed in how it worked out. I think that given what I knew at the time, I made a reasonable set of assumptions. I did due diligence to check those assumptions, but no one who could have improved them gave me any feedback in time to affect the outcome. At the same time, despite the disappointment, I got to go hiking with Liberty instead of working on Saturday. And I can sleep well. All in all, I'd have rather had both worlds, but given my new set of realities, it's certainly not all bad. Lemonade from lemons.

I learned some very important things about myself and my work world from the experience. Not appropriate for this forum, but important for me and my future.

Book Review: Son of a Witch

The sequel to Wicked is not its equal. Neither as imaginative nor as gripping, it is nevertheless an excellent reading experience.

Either Mr Maguire had a singularly lonely existence, or he chooses to make his protagonists exceedingly lonely. Liir, the protagonist in this book, is monumentally a loner. More so than his mother ever was. Part of this is his personal feeling of separation - never knowing who his mother was, growing up without any real friends in a mountain castle. Who wouldn't feel out of place in the Emerald City if they grew up in such a solitary situation? But part of it (and this is the best part about the book) is Liir's very conscious self dialog about his own nature. Is he a success? A failure? An obedient servant of the Empire and thus not accountable for what the Empire requires of him? A murderer of children? A magician? Is he even whole?

In a very opposite way to most of the mass-market fiction I read, Liir is very humanly messy. He does not come forth out of the author's head fully formed, a la Zeus or Harry Potter. He's a mess. And it takes him the entire book to get a handle on where to even start with defining who he is.

The book moves along pretty well. Maguire is not bound to put a certain amount of chronological time into a certain amount of pages. There are minutes that take a page, and 9 months that take 20 pages. He slows the book down when the action requires it. Takes some getting used to, but it's very pleasant. And Liir, overall, is a likable character. I wish the best for him, and feel for his background that leaves him so poorly prepared for life among other humans.

The book has 2 major flaws in my mind. One is my puritanism coming through: sex in these books is casual in every sense of the word. Commitment and sex do not go together, fidelity is not something any character strives for. If a spouse is faithful, it's simply by chance. This is not the way the world really works, is it? I don't think it is. But why Maguire chooses to separate commitment from sex is beyond me. I think it's an affectation of this type of fiction, and it saddens me. The other major flaw is that key plot elements just seem contrived. Princess Nastoya knows that Liir can help her, but how he ends up doing it is flagrantly contrived and completely unnatural. "It's the end of the book, and I have to have Liir help her, how can I do that in 5 pages?" Frankly, the whole Nastoya subplot was poorly executed. But this idea of fate pulling the strings and characters unknowingly doing what fate has decreed for them robs the characters of some of their nobility.

A good book, one which makes one think. And that's good, because you then have to sift out the moral issues from the writing issues, and come to a better understanding of the piece as a whole.

Now I need to check out the 3rd installment and complete the series. Time to see what the Thropp 5th Descending will do.

Book Review: Wicked

I have been building a library since I got a paper route at 12 yrs old. I lugged everything around for 20 years, until I did a purge 2 years ago. I'm more careful now, both in what I buy and what I keep.

That said, I'm a sucker for well-bound books. And I'm a sucker for cheap. And I love musical theatre. So I've been curious about Wicked for a long time, and when Borders had both Wicked and Son of a Witch bound in 1 gorgeous volume for about $10, I couldn't resist. A year later, I've finally finished one of them.

Wicked is set in Oz, during the reign of the Wizard of Oz, and follows the antagonist Elphaba (later known as the Wicked Witch of the West) from her birth to her death. She was born to the family of a country preacher just after the Wizard came to Oz. Frex, her father, was out preaching a lot and her mother was lonely. It is quite certain early in the novel that Frex is not her biological father. She grows up as a misfit - her green skin is unique, her personality too individualistic and honest to fit in with the Munchkin country folk. She spends time in the marshes, in the land of the Quadlings, where the father of her half-sister was from. She spends time at college, grows in horror at the authoritarian regime of the Wizard, and is a thoroughly likable character. Mostly.

The book is gritty. It does not shy away from discussing the nature of evil, sex, infidelity, forgiveness, family drama, murder, civil rights. Main characters die. It is not meant for kids. It is not excessively vulgar, either - if you watch basic cable, you see and hear worse things all the time. But it is an intense, deeply reasoned, and richly imagined book. The plot lines are interesting, if ambiguous (not The Unconsoled, but not Harry Potter, either), the characters are drawn complexly, and the many ambitious plot lines come together quiet well considering that the author has to contend with Dorothy's entrance at a critical juncture in Oz's political history.

Flaws? It's got some. Glinda is not as fleshed-out as I'd like. There's a lot more to her than we get to explore, which is a pity. The book spends a lot of detail on important period in Elphaba's life, and then it moves 7 years. For the way the story is told, it works. This one book really could have been 7 books for all the detail and complexity happening in it. But the one thing that I hated about it, absolutely hated, was that Elphaba's transition from a complex person to someone full of malice is not given adequate treatment. For 95% of the book, she is a sympathetic character, trying to help others and make the world a better place, to fight against the despotism of the Wizard, and never a powerful witch. In the space of 10 pages, she is transformed to someone who sends crows to peck a little girl's eyes out. It's not believable. It's awkward. And it's a shame, because the book is otherwise amazing. Start the transformation 50 pages earlier, and I forgive you, Mr Maguire, but in this form, the ending needs work.

I loved this book. And I'm glad I have the sequel, Son of a Witch, to keep me occupied from time to time when I can spare a few minutes.