Reader Pulse - Middle Age Dude?

So far this blog thingy has been pretty much one sided. I'm OK with that, but now is your chance to chime in. View this video by a Middle Age Dude (MAD? - no relation to MAG) and comment or vote (or both) below:

This Middle Age Dude

Curing Repetitive Task Existence (Part 2)

I promised in my last post to reveal how a greeting card changed my life. No, I didn’t use it to fend of an attacker with threats of a paper cut. Speaking of crime and greeting cards, I once heard that almost all greetings cards are written by inmates of our penal system. Think about that next time you’re at the grocery store buying a card: “Happy Birthday Billy, I couldn’t write anything myself, so I paid Luther at the State Penitentiary to write this card for you while he was on a break from making Shivs. Have a happy day! Where’s the cake?”

I received an accordion style birthday card when I was 8. It was printed on very heavy paper with each page containing a cartoonish picture of stereotypical men’s jobs of the 70’s: astronaut, football player, doctor, scientist, etc. I can remember placing the card on my wooden headboard opened to the page with the crazy-haired scientist surrounded by bubbling test tubes and Bunsen burners. I would look at that crazy scientist inventor guy at night and think, “With science I can change the world”. The question is: Have I done it?

Good question. Even though I’m reminded of a certain president that twisted the definition of words to try and save his ass, marriage legacy, I can confidently say I’ve changed the world, maybe not exactly the way mini-MAG thought, but in ways that satisfy me (and if you consider Computer Science a science). And that’s the key with our jobs isn’t it? I tell my boys that they should do what they love first (are there video game playing jobs?) and success will be the natural outcome when that is the focus.

Having to spend eight hours a day doing something unsatisfying will kill your soul faster than green grass through a goose. If you’re in this situation and want to cure RTE at work here’s what MAG recommends:

1. “Quit your job” is what the Oprah and Phil’s of the world would recommend. So easy to say when you have millions in the bank and a sporty chick-magnet mustache. MAG tends to be a little more practical. Simply change what you focus on at work to bring the things you love into your position (or change position). If you should have been an artist than doodle in meetings form an Art Committee to “spruce up this old place with some art” or start an art scholarship fund paid for by your company.

2. Challenge yourself at work to do those things that don’t come naturally. Not a public speaker? Volunteer to give a presentation on wicket manufacturing. You may hate it, but at least you’re not bored.

3. Teach or consult. MAGs have lots of experiences and are dying for opportunities to share them (yawn). There are groups of people called students that will actually pay to listen to MAGs pontificate about the time you stole that cow how to knock on doors and sell wickets at the “C” level.

4. Bring your work home. Huh? Simply do the things you love at home. At night when the kids and wife are asleep write about being a middle age guy (sorry that’s taken*)…or if you are secretly an audio-video (think high school A/V guy) geek, create the best home entertainment system in town and be sure to take your time to make the projects last.

5. More…there have to be tons of other ideas, feel free to contribute your comments below.

Remember: Employee of the month is a good example of how somebody can be both a winner and a loser at the same time.

* MAG is always looking for contributors to contribute.

Shameless Plug: Fun Things For Work

Curing Repetitive Task Existence (Part 1)

I received an e-mail on Wednesday morning from one of those impossible to cancel joke-a-day services. Between the myriad of ads I found the following gem:

A man is not old until his regrets take the place of dreams - Yiddish Proverb

For some reason, I couldn't get this phrase out of my head. I had a hard time clearing my mind of the word Yiddish too because it sounds so funny and I have to assume means sort-of-Yidd.

By the end of the day, my brain had connected this proverb with a video I'd seen recently. It's called Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. I'm not a huge fan of watching an hour+ long video on the small screen, but you also can catch it on PBS (I've not been a huge fan of PBS since they jumped the shark by outing Sesame Street's Snuffleupagus in 1985 and stopped showing Monty Python reruns). I've included the video below, but you may want to get a little back story first.

Part of the challenge of being middle age is keeping yourself challenged. Not to get too scientific, but humans have one of the highest brain to body mass ratios (Mice have a higher ratio making it ironic that we experiment on them). The big brain is good, allowing us to become more efficient through repetitive experiences. I can now get the boys to bed in under 10 minutes, cook dinner for them in 8, and fall asleep on the couch in under 10 minutes (quicker if my wife has the remote). However, the big brain is also bad and can lead to RTE.

MAG's Theory of Repetitive Task Existence (RTE): As a brain protection mechanism, repetitive task experiences lead to Groundhogs Day syndrome. This syndrome is characterized by waking up with a strong feeling of deja vu.

To cure myself of RTE I went back to the basics. What did I really enjoy doing when I was a kid and what dreams did I have? Notice that this is NOT a (Bucket) list to check off before you wake up (?) on the wrong side of the grass.

We don't often think about birthday cards when we pick them out. Find the right age, see if it's funny, and buy it. However, in my next post I'll share how a birthday card changed my life and became a dream of mine.

Shameless Plug: All Things About Dreams

Soggy Cheerios, Dodi Al Fayed, and Character

There are four events that I can remember where I was, who I was with, and what I was wearing. Only my wife knows exactly what I was wearing the other days of my life. In order of memory burn-in intensity, these are:

1. 9/11
2. Princess Diana's car crash
3. O.J.'s run from the law
4. O.J.'s verdict

Someday I'll be eating my breakfast through a straw, wetting myself, and mumbling about Dodi Al Fayed. I can joke about this because I have the get-out-of-offending-people's-sensitivity card; Alzheimers runs in my family. I'll have a blog December 17th on Alzheimers.

He can run, but he can't hide. O.J., after all, occupies two of my top four memory slots. He's back in the news again. This time on "trumped up charges" of kidnapping, brandishing a gun, and stealing his own sports memorabilia. I didn't validate these charges on the Internet fact checking thingy so don't drop them into water cooler conversations yet.

When I think of O.J. two visions stream through my head like "All Night Long (All Night)" by Lionel Richie after my high school senior year prom. The first, of course, is O.J. jumping over the railing in the Hertz commercial and the second is the O.J. in Naked Gun 33 1/3 when his character, Norbert, has a 70's flashback complete with an extra large afro restricting passage through the door. Why do I bring this up? I want the old O.J. back: sports superstar, bad actor, and all around nice guy to play golf with. BTW, the Naked Gun series is on my list of all-time best movies for Middle Age Guys.

Was O.J. any of these things? It's hard to argue about the sports superstar and bad actor, but would he be fun to play golf with? I bet any person who steals satellite t.v., sports memorabilia (allegedly), and killed his ex wife (civil case) cheats a ton at golf. My dad once golfed with a potential business partner but decided against it when he noticed the man cheating at golf. Can someone's character allow for cheating at golf and not infiltrate other aspects of their life? I think character is like an eggshell, once cracked the whole egg weakens. These days MAG can only dream of real eggs, cholesterol's a little high lately.

My dear friend Conan O’Brien sums it up nicely: "Earlier today, O.J. Simpson was charged with 11 criminal counts, including kidnapping, robbery and assault. Afterwards, O.J. said, 'Wow. Now I really have done it all.'"

Did O.J. do it?

Shameless Plug: All things O.J.

Helping Hand or Lawsuit

I just returned from cleaning up my sister's basement which pulled in about four feet of water over the weekend. It turns out the condo next door's sump pump wasn't working at all requiring her pump to do double duty trying to evacuate water from both basements. The neighbor had about four feet of standing water with no way of lowering because they shut the power off to the condo, which of course included the power to the sump pump.

My friend Jay lent me a monster pump and PVC (they were out of large diameter hoses at the stores) to help out my sister. After about fifteen minutes of PVC assembly water was flowing like a fire hose.





There were several men in the neighborhood who strolled by with their coffee and said "Wow, that's quite a mess you have there". Then they would chat with my sister, who they know is unmarried, and watch me carrying item after item out the door to the driveway by their dry feet. I envisioned these men coming to a horrific crime scene: "Boy, that's a nasty bullet hole in your head - sure looks like the Cubs are going to win today, huh?"

The real hero was a neighbor named James who could have stayed inside out of sight, strolled by with a coffee, or ignored my niece's plea for help. Instead, he chose to help his neighbor. James and I worked together walking through nasty water and carrying load after load of heavy, water-logged furniture to the curb. This probably took about 30 minutes of his time to make a positive difference in his community.

During the afternoon a police officer came by with a flier which revealed that the creek had crested and the water would soon go away. Apparently this was a revelation of some sort and needed protection being delivered. The remaining 3/4 of the flier detailed a list of items including: electrical, furnace, air conditioning, plumbing, and major remodeling / demolition work that homeowners MUST obtain a permit from the city to have before any work could begin. The permits, of course, are for the resident's protection. Surely this wasn't some kind of not-so-subtle attempt to remind people there is yet another expense and process that MUST be completed to start any kind of repairs on their demolished, smelly property, was it? And exactly where was the offer to help from this town to its residence? Well, it was at the very bottom of the damp paper. There was a delightful little URL people could go to for assistance: http://www.fema.gov/ Hope you saved your computer from the flood, you'll need one to get help nowadays.

On the drive home I called my brother Steve who's a sheriff's deputy and member of the Army National Guard. We talked for a while about how the town leaders missed a great opportunity to make their community better. What if the policeman had actually asked if there was anything you needed help with? What if off duty firefighters, engineers, city council members, and building inspectors just asked if there was something they could do for the people who, by the way, pay their wage? What about giving high school students the day off if they would help bring basement garbage to the curb? "Oh MAG (Middle Age Guy)", my brother reminded me, "What would happen if one of those people tripped and fell going out the door of someone's house?" Darn, he had me again - I usually don't have to be reminded that lawyers have ruined everything including helping others.

Shameless Plug: All Things Flooding

This Just In - Flash Flood Warnings

Issued by The National Weather ServiceChicago, IL 11:06 pm CDT, Sun., Sep. 14, 2008
... THE FLOOD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1000 AM CDT MONDAY... FOR NORTHERN BENTON... PORTER... LAKE... JASPER... NEWTON... LA SALLE... WILL... KENDALL... KANKAKEE... GRUNDY... LIVINGSTON... IROQUOIS... NORTHWESTERN FORD... LEE... DUPAGE... DEKALB... KANE... COOK... SOUTHEASTERN OGLE... SOUTHERN LAKE AND SOUTHEASTERN MCHENRY COUNTIES...

Above is the just published Flood Warning from the National Weather Service. After producing its typical Flash Flood Watches for the past three days, the NWS has pointed out the obvious with this new alert. Too late, damage done. Most people were caught off guard by this flood because of serveral problems with the NWS.

1. The NWS doesn't grade its flash flood watch reports. On the internet we are constantly bombarded with flash flood watches, alert, and other warnings by the NWS. I see red so often on the weather.com web site that I stopped clicking on the links. The other day there was a red warning for high UV content. Believe me, I'm all about sharing information, but is this really an alert? Is this a case of the government agency crying wolf to prove its worth? Wouldn't it be great if flash flood watches came with a grade, like a hurricane? I think that would have helped more people prepare for the worst rain storm to hit Chicago in 30 years.

2. More often then not, these alerts include almost all of the counties around Chicago. Check out the list above - twenty one counties are listed. Most people have grown sick of waiting to see if their county is listed. The more counties and area that is covered by a watch, the less people feel the warning or watch is meant for them. The green area on this image is the Flood Warning area. Note that it includes all of Chicago. What are 4 million people supposed to do with this information?

3. Warnings vs. Watches: I would bet that less than 50% of adults can tell you the difference is between a Tornado Watch and a Warning. Change this to something people understand immediately and you'll probably save hundreds of lives next year. How about a Tornado Sighting and Tornado Possibility? Ask a five year old what these mean and I bet they get it!

Shameless Plug: All Things Flooding

Flood Time in Northfield Illinois

While the U.S. focused its resources and efforts on Huricane Ike, Chicago was flooded when between 6 to 12 inches of rain fell in a 24 hour period. Tens of thousands of homes were flooded.



As you can see from the video my eight year old son Chris had a lots of fun playing in the water. Most of the adults in soaked Chicago didn't have that much fun though.

With the Middlefork branch of the Chicago River in our backyard, we feel blessed to only have water in our crawlspace, garage, and laundry room. The crawlspace damage is severe requiring insulation removal and mold proofing. That's not too bad considering our tiny ranch house actually became an obstacle in the river's path and the river ran right around it.

My wife and I chose to move our family here and the river wasn't secretly placed in our backyard one night while we slept. We knew the risks and accepted them. Since we're in the flood plan and flood way, we pay more a thousand dollars a year to FIMA to live near the beautiful, yet dangerous river. That thousand dollars isn't too much for piece of mind.

There is no incentive for FEMA to fix flooding problems, in fact they make laws and strickly enforce them prohibiting protecting property in the flood plane from flooding. Yes, FEMA prohibits us from protecting our property from flooding. We can't put up a sea wall or grade our backyard to keep water going down the river. We can't add soil, rocks, or other "permanent" fixtures that are below the 100 year flood level. Insurance isn't protection, never has been, never will be. If FEMA doesn't protect us and they won't let us protect ourselves, then who will? Couldn't FEMA apply some of the billions of dollars they collect for flood insurance to dredge the river bed and use the extracted material to create a natural berm along the river's edge keeping the water in the river? You have to ask why FEMA doesn't want to solve the problem and why they prohibit us from doing so. Is it easier, cheaper, and most importantly more self-sustaining to watch the water rise and pay for clean-up?

When we purchase our second home and had some water damage after the first heavy rainfall, I just couldn't believe a 103-year-old farm house didn't have a sump pump in the basement. Had all of the previous owners used the same backwards logic as FEMA? Maybe, but then again, I've always been kind of lazy that way, trying to solve problems to save time and money.