How He Lived

In the movie the “Last Samurai”, in the final scene Capt Algren is presenting a samurai sword, to the Emperor of Japan, that belonged to the last samurai – Katsumoto. The scene ends with the Emperor saying to Captain Algren “Tell me how he died.” Captain Algren responds, “I will tell you how he lived.” Let me Tell you how Curtiss lived.

First I must say, we are not a close family. There aren’t daily phone calls or emails or letters. There are status checks once in a while. I believe there are a multitude of reasons for this. No regrets, it is just the fact that we aren’t a close family.

When four boys and a girl are raised in a three bedroom house, and transported in a two door coupe (Ford), you spend a lot of time together. Living on the edge of town, we became our own community. Once we traveled to Blue Hill Nebraska. We weren’t really headed to Blue Hill, we were headed to Hastings, but the car that had two adults and 7 or maybe it was 8 kids in it broke down. This cadre of 9 jammed into a Chevrolet Corsair with another adult (we found the owner and the car in a haunted house) and went to the nearest town of Blue Hill Nebraska, where we spent one of the best days of our lives. The 5 kids and two parents also crammed into the Ford Coupe with make a circuitous loop through Colorado, to Arizona, New Mexico and back to Kansas.

Now throw into these adventures the fact that these kids, Don, Iris, Curtiss, Myself and Brad are basically 1 year apart on birthdates. Looking at the five of us, in retrospect, there were 5 totally different kids. An outdoorsman, a hippie, a family person, a nerd and a mad scientist. Curtiss was a mad scientist. Who else would buy a device for listening to a baby’s heartbeat to see if it could do something else, or a oscilloscope so he could watch sound, or build electric motors from nails and copper wire, or crystal radios from scraps. Curtiss was willing to try something cautiously, and fix anything.

We were a family. We were raised to believe in God, and know the difference between right and wrong. We shoveled the neighbors sidewalks when it snowed, at no charge to the folks – because that’s what Mom said. We learned it is great to give, and good to receive, and there are some things you shouldn’t charge other people for. We were taught to do more than was asked, and expect little in return. We got hurt, we got tired, maybe we went hungry once in a while, but that memory didn’t stay. We were the benefactors of gifts and love from many people in our hometown of Beloit. We sang in church; with 5 kids we were the choir sometimes. We sat in the back pew of the Evangelical United Brethren Church where Dad taught us how to sew our fingers together with needle and thread. You have to have thick calluses on your hands to do that.

I think that we saw so much of each other, and that we spent so much time together, fighting, laughing, playing around and horsing around, that when we started leaving home we were glad to say goodbye and begin new lives and new adventures. From that point on, our mother was the glue that bound us together. She was the clearing house for information as we moved about the world and about our lives. When mom passed away, Iris picked up the responsibility, but her health now prevents any routine interaction with us. So once in a while, I did a communications check, and our lives continued, not dependent on any other, but tied loosely to each other.

By the time Curtiss left home to go join the United States Air Force he had started to form his view of the world, as he learned in our little town of 4000. This would is very black and white, right or wrong, good and bad. A man’s word was his bond. He traveled the world. He was an electrical guy that repaired power grids in Taiwan after a typhoon. He was a Red Horse, and Prime Beef engineer – these are the quick responders when a AF Base has infrastructure issues, and they usually end up helping the locals as much as they help their own. Later in his career he became an electronics engineer. He retired from the military and took on a new career, which was simply a civilian job that was similar to his military job. He married Cathy, and they raised two children, Steven and Debbie.

Curtiss could complain with the best of them, and many conversations with him were kind of one-sided. If Curtiss said he was going to do something, he did it. If you crossed Curtiss, you knew it. If you had a question Curtiss had answers. Because we are not a close family, there are many many things that I can’t tell you about Curtiss. Like his RV adventures. You need to talk to Cathy, Debbie and Steven to hear those wonderful stories and find out what other great things Curtiss did.

When we were young, one of our grandmothers use to tell us that no man ever walked on the Moon, it was a Disney movie. Curtiss and I once discussed that she thought this because she had seen so many inventions in her life, that it wasn’t plausible to imagine another new invention.

In Curtiss’ lifetime he saw the invention or creation of:

Space Travel

Teflon

Modems

Lasers

AstroTurf

ATMs

Televisions

Kevlar

Solar Cells

Airplane Black Box

Fiber Optic Cable

Pull tab tops

8 track tape players

Compact Discs

Cassett

VHS

BETA

DVD

Huggies/Pampers

Glen Elder Dam

MTV

Mobile Phones

Portable calculators

Electric Typewriters

Personal Computers (32 MB of storage)

Liquid Crystal Displays

Plasma Displays

Leaf Blowers

The Internet

MRIs

CT Scans

POGs

Ipods

Disco

Digital Cameras

Thumbdrives

And so much more.

In years to come, many will never know how Curtiss lived, they will see only some memorial, But if you listen closely you will hear the echoes of his voice as he made his opinions known.

If you look close, you will see his footprints where he stopped to help.

If you open your heart and soul you will feel the breeze of change created by Curtiss’ life.

Every meeting has a goal

If you don't know what you are going to get out of a meeting, if you can't measure the benefit of the meeting, in a positive way, then you shouldn't have the meeting. This does not mean you won't or don't need a weekly staff meeting, it means that there is intent to your meeting, and a desired outcome. Meetings to hand out awards are good, meetings to hand out punishment, might happen once in a while - There is a reason for public hangings!

I have worked for individuals who measure the effectiveness of a meeting by how many people attended, how long the meeting lasted, or how many actions were assigned. What individual thinks that assigning work (actions) is a positive result?

A meeting shouldn't be such a waste so many peoples' time. In one of my jobs the average cost to the customer for the talented support was about $2 per MINUTE. If you have a two hour gathering (I'll avoid using the word meeting, because of how I define a meeting) of 40 people, well lets do the math $2 x 120 min = $240 x 40 people = $9,600. Using a most simplistic approach, the results of that meeting should be worth $9,600. If all you do at this meeting, is assign actions items to the attendees, then you have a multitude of problems. 1) For $2 a minute those folks should know what they are doing and you shouldn't need to tell them; 2) You have wasted two hours of their time, two hours that they could have been doing their jobs; 3) You have wasted two hours of your time, time you could have spent hiring competent people.

If you want to be effective, you need to decide for each an every meeting (inlcuding a single meeting between two people) what is your desired outcome. You should have a measurable outcome. Early on in your development as a leader you should write down your goals before the meeting and review them after the meeting, until it becomes second nature. Do you have a weekly staff meeting? Is it effective? Does something get accomplished as a result of each meeting? Is your meeting short enough? Short Enough? Don't I mean long enough? No, I mean short. I learned that no single topic during the staff meeting should last longer that 3 minutes. If it takes longer than 3 minutes, then there needs to be a separate meeting to address the issue. At the 3 or maybe 5 minute point, everyone in your staff meeting has been exposed to the issue, and all the discussion is now moving in multiple directions and those members of the staff who just have to say something will add, but won't add value. Those that don't care are tuning out. You are losing control of your meeting and your agenda/goals. Table the issue and have someone organize the right people, place and time. As a matter of practice I try to keep all my meetings to 40 min or less. I schedule an hour, I start on time and I work to finish early. So what do I want from my staff meeting? I don't want a single topic to dominate the meeting. I want everyone to have a chance to say what has been important to them in the previous week, what's important to them this week, what is important next week, what is there Number 1 priority, where do they need help, and I probably have some specific topic that might need addressing. With this simple approach you will get a very clear picture on whether or not your staff is headed in the correct direction, if your team goals are being realized, and when. If the most important item on you goals, isn't mentioned, then you have not effectively communicated with your team.

What do you really want?

General Dynamics is actually several companies traveling in a general direction with little or nothing in common. I'm actually employed by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems. For the past several years I have been a GDAIS employee working as a subcontractor to GDIT (General Dynamics Information Technology) who was working as a subcontractor to Northrup Grumman who was working for a US government organization. Well, GDIT and GDAIS were arguing amongst themselves, end result is that GDAIS is no longer a subcontractor to GDIT. Simultaneously, I'm no longer helping a US government organization. I'm "sitting on the bench". I'm on overhead. This is not necessarily a good place to be in these economic times. I spend my days looking for internal job opportunities and working on proposals for new work. I'm not worried, yet. Next year I'll start to worry.

In the mean time I'm doing one of my volunteer things. Several employees of GDAIS support social organizations. We do this by reviewing resumes for people who are looking for jobs. I usually enjoy resume reviews. More often than not, I believe I can add some value to the applicants efforts.

My biggest complaint, when looking at a resume is the objective statement. I would like to see an objective statement, but the statement I see needs to have substance. "I would like a job in a technology company that applies by skills and talents." Bullshit. If this is the verbose piffle you are going to write, don't send me an objective statement. If you send your resume to GDAIS and your talent and skills are driveway repairs, who are we kidding. Your objective statement doesn't need to say you want a job. I figured that part out on my own. What do you really want? Do you want to be as a system administrator in a position that provides potential for future management or leadership? Do you want to be an illustrator? Do you want to pave driveways? If you are an expert at driveway repairs, and you have great references, there is a chance I can find a job for you at GDAIS, but it won't be repairing driveways. So, you better have an idea about what you want to do, and put it in the objective statement. You can start by reviewing the job sites of companies and learn their lingo. GDAIS has facilities people. They get folks to repair driveways, drywall, move desks, etc. If your resume indicates you can work on your own at any task with minimal supervision, then I might get you into this job.

How many resumes do you have? I have one resume that I hand out at the local job fairs. It is a grocery list of positions I've held, success stories by $$ value, as well as training and specialized skills. It gets responses. When I see a specific job I want, I rewrite the resume and "tune" it to the job. If is is a job in Defense, then I emphasize my military background. If it is a job in Intelligence, I emphasis my intelligence experience. I also emphasis different parts if the job is technical versus managerial. Right now, I have 8 different resumes that I have submitted. I only expect the resume to get my foot in the door. I have to sell me.

Selling me involves researching jobs before I go interview. I do an search on similar job openings and look for key trends. I search openings in other companies to find key information. I call friends and ask them if they know what the job is, what happened to the last person, and how is the company doing with regards to their customer? Even in D.C. the community of my skill holders is relatively small. There is information to be had, if you look for it.

OK. That's my 2 cents for today. I need to go search the GD website for openings. I don't have the desire to rant about HR today, maybe some other time.

At Last

At last (insert Etta James singing "At Last" or Cyndi Lauper) the deck/screened in porch is done.  The company did a very good job.  The only exposed wood is the framing.  The decking, screening and railing are all composites.  The doors are aluminum.  The builder even  put screen underneath the deck so the bugs couldn't sneak in.  There is a screened in area, an open area for the barbeque (on the right) and there are lights on all the steps as well as lights over the doors.  The down side is we signed a contract in April and it was 15 weeks before they even started.  I thought we were in a slow down.  You'd think that they could provide a dozen people to do the work.  We had one or two.  I'll admit they had a task because they had to build it over a sunroom.  I don't think it should have taken 3+ months to get started and 3+ months to build it.  What I should have done is included a performance clause.  My hindsight is perfect.   A performance clause wouldn't have gotten the deck done earlier, but I could have financially punished them.   Each of the doors have dog doors.  There is a fan in the screened in area. There are motion activated lights everywhere.  The step lights are on a timer.  This deck should last at least another 20 years.  The last deck lasted just over 22 years.  The deck wasn't done for summer, so we'll have to enjoy the fall and barbeque until the first snow.  

The End

I created a Facebook page. What a fascinating concept. A giant billboard on the highway of life that many people drive by and say "I know that guy!" Such an occurrence happened when LuAnn saw my Facebook page and sent me a note.

Some background is necessary here. LuAnn's family and my family spent lots of time together, in Europe, camping. We were supporters of the Boy Scouts of America, we had kids in scouts and we were leaders. LuAnn's husband, Andy, was a riot, a hard worker, and a good, very good, friend. On one occasion our families were touring the castle Neuschwanstein in Germany, supposedly the model for the Disneyland Castle. http://www.castles.org/castles/Europe/Central_Europe/Germany/germany7.htm
The castle is huge. We were strolling through the kitchen, the area where the maids/butlers, whatever stayed, and I noted that the maids had a long way to go when the king wanted some coffee. Andy stated - "It would be a long way to go for a quickie!" Andy's son, Andrew queried, "What did you say dad?" Andy then had the stark realization that he had been overheard and was on the verge of having to provide a class in sex education, in the midst of a tour with a bunch of American and European tourist. Andy tried his best to stave off the inevitable by saying "Nothing", "never mind", and "it doesn't matter". Andrew persisted and when Andy quit acknowledging the question Andrew stated, "I know what you said Dad, you said Cookie!" What a great laugh we had over that for a long time. I loved asking Andy if he had gotten any cookies lately.

Fast forward to 10+ years later, Andy was a regular addressee on my emails that go out disseminating jokes. Andy didn't answer those emails, few people do. Every now and then I'd send a "comms check" and Andy would roger up - nuff said. My last comms check was in the spring of 2007, and Andy roger'd up.

Last week LuAnn saw my Facebook page and sent me a note asking about my family. I gave her the update and asked how things were in Texas (which is where they lived). LuAnn broke the news to me that she and Andy had moved to Utah in the summer of 07 to take care of family. Shortly after that Andy got sick and passed away in the winter of 2007. The sorrow that flooded over me is unmeasurable. Andy was like a brother in so many ways, and in some ways better than the brothers I have. The Internet and Facebook is a curse. I could have been ignorant of Andy's passing, and ignorance would have been bliss compared to the sorrow. We have lost one of those people who made a difference in the lives of the young.

Now what do I do? Do I delete Andy off my joke list? Should I keep him on it hoping he still gets to enjoy the joke about the monkey and the cue ball? I wonder if there are cookies in heaven. I use to be a Bob White, a good old Bob White too,.....

God Bless Andy Andreassen

Translating by Google

A friend sent me a link to watch a video - the short film winner at Cannes 2008 http://en.zappinternet.com/video/nilSqaMboM/HISTORIA-DE-UN-LETRERO-THE-STORY-OF-A-SIGN . I started watching the video and there is a sign in the video that says "estoy siego". Being the ugly American that I am, I only speak,read, and write one language. So I hopped over to Google and fired up the translator. Input = estoy siego request translation from Spanish into English. Response= I'm Mowing. That made no sense to me. I watched the rest of the video and they put in some sub titles. Back to Google to resolve the mystery. Input = estoy ciego (which is different than what is written on the sign) - request translation from Spanish into English. Response = I'm Blind. So siego=mowing and ciego=blind. Who knew? Nice video. I don't think it was a winner, but it is nice. Why doesn't the guy in the nice suit leave money?

Discrimination

I have no eye hand coordination. At the tender age of 10 my parents signed me up for Pee Wee baseball. The first time I got hit in the face with a thrown ball my teeth cut through my lower lip and it took 3 stitches inside and 3 out to patch me up. After that, in addition to not being able to catch a ball, I was afraid of the ball. I was such a crummy player that when the other team didn't have enough players for the game I was assigned to the other team. I always ended up in left field. When balls were hit towards me I would run to the outfield, to get away from the ball. I'd wait for the ball to hit the ground then I would run up, grab it, and throw it to third base. The team I was playing for was pissed because they thought I was trying to make their team lose. My team was laughing in the dugout because they knew I couldn't catch the ball. That pretty much ruined me for team sports. With that background, I never developed eye hand coordination or decent reflexes. Now I sit in my cave with an XBOX 360 trying to survive in on-line play such as Call of Duty 4. The verbal abuse I get is pretty stiff ( I now know what PWND means - pronounced POWNED!!!). I've gotten to the point that I unplug the headset and turn the TV volume off and shout "F" "U" at the other players - they can't hear me. Today my son introduced me to a neat song, it is a song from an XBOX game "PORTAL". If it weren't for my son I'd never hear this song http://vimeo.com/1612411. Why? Well you have to finish the game to hear the song during the credits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RthZgszykLs . With my eye hand coordinatin I'm lucky to finish my beer, I'll never finish the game. Sometimes life sucks. Baseball sucks. I am glad I have a son and nieces and nephews to enlighten me. I don't think I needed to learn PWND.