A Day Off In The Middle Of The Week

I don’t take a lot of days off. In fact with my son’s high school sports schedule I lost the spring break and end of summer vacations I used to take. I rarely take a day to make a long weekend. Most times I plan one, something comes up and I work a good part of the day anyway.

This week I was not feeling well. symptoms, just dragging more than usual. My wife has had some virus for a month now and I have been determined not to catch it. At the end of the day Tuesday a coworker told me that I looked “worn”. And while I was surprised it showed, that word captured exactly how I felt.

Wednesday morning I woke up at the usual time but felt like hell. In the shower I started thinking about how unscheduled my day was and that I had no client deliverables due. Hmmm thought I. Maybe this would be a good day to “work from home”. Back to bed I went. Slept until the decadent hour of 9 am.

I did do work that day but less than usual. The two hours saved by not commuting were reinvested in serious nap time. Some herbal tea and extra rest and I was almost back to normal by Thursday.

For about two minutes I felt guilty not being in the office on a work day in the middle of the week. Quickly I realized that I would not have been very productive–just present. I would have told any one of the people working for me to go home. There just isn’t anyone to do that for me. I wish there was.

Anyway the 13 hour day I put in on Thursday took care of the last vestiges of guilt.

Wednesdays off. I might make this a semi-regular policy. Maybe it will become trendy like casual Fridays. It needs a catchy phrase. Wanton Wednesdays. Nah.

I’ll work on this later. Maybe next Wednesday.

Awe Inspiring

This from the Chicago Tribune on October 11, 2007

3:23:14

Amy Palmiero- Winters, 35 Long Island, N.Y. Doctors told her that she would never run again after her left leg was amputated below the knee following a motorcycle accident. Since then, Palmiero-Winters — who competed in track and cross-country in high school and college — not only resumed running, but now competes regularly in marathons and triathlons. She hopes to inspire people with her example. “When you see someone who’s overcoming a challenge, maybe something you didn’t think you could do becomes a little more attainable,” Palmiero-Winters said. “It shows people no one can say what you can and can’t do. You’re only limited by yourself.”

There was a picture of this inspiring woman in the paper which I have not uncovered. It shows her at the end of the race with her “running leg” a piece of metal bent in a half circle.

First of all recognize that her time was outstanding for anyone with two good legs. Second, overcoming the loss of a leg to participate in marathons and triathlons is not just inspiring but awe inspiring. Apparently a person determined enough can do anything!

I will keep searching for the picture. Not just to share with you but to keep with me for those moments when a little reminder of possibilities is needed.

Found one from last year’s marathon

13 Years Ago Today

It was a clean, crisp fall day. Friends, family, and my about to be son were all there to witness. I said my vows, just messed up once. The next thing I knew I was married.  To a beautiful woman.

Would do it again.

Of Birds and Bees

No this is not a sex primer. This is literally about birds and bees. Lets start with birds.

The condor, a majestic creature. One worth saving from extinction. True. But how do you feel about vultures. Yeechh. So why be concerned that the vulture population in India has fallen from 20 million to about 10,000? Should we care about vultures any more than pigeons? Yes actually.

I haven’t gotten pigeons figured out yet but vultures in India are actually an important part of the big circle of life. In a country where millions of Hindus do not eat beef but millions of cows exist, until they no longer do, what do you think happens to the cows when they die? Yep, the vultures eat them. Unfortunately for vultures diclofenic causes kidney failure. Diclofenic is an anti-inflamitory used to treat cows. How ironic.

Unfortunately for India the vultures also keep down the feral dog population in a country that has 80% or the world’s cases of rabies. Lastly they are needed to clear human carrion. Parsees, a sect of Zoroastrians, believe that the elements are sacred and the body corrupt. Therefore they lay corpses on towers called dokhmas for the vultures to eat thereby they profane neither earth nor fire.

There is a vulture safe alternative for diclofenic. However it will take more than a decade just to get the environment back to being vulture safe. Far more time to rebuild the populations. In the meantime there is a hard out-of-pocket cost to society to replace what vultures did for the pure pleasure of dining al fresco.

As for the bees, I reported months ago that bees were leaving the hive at colonies around the globe. In the U.S. beekeepers were losing 30% to 90% of their populations. Again, why care about bees? Don’t they just sting people? And who uses honey instead of Equal anyways these days?

Actually bees are critical to populating crops including fruits, vegetables and nuts. They add $15 billion to the economy each year. Scientists have been working for over a year on the reasons for why adult bees would walk away from a perfectly good queen bee in her prime. They have recently discovered bacteria, fungi and viruses in the hives. According to The Economist, bees infected with Israeli acute paralysis virus shiver, their bodies become frozen and they die. There is a second one, the Kashmiri virus, and they suspect that a new strain of this virus found in abandoned hives may also be driving away bees. To top off this bee hell, a parasite called the varroa mite has been found hanging out with the Israeli virus. This mite weakens the immune system of the bees making them more susceptible to the virus.

While these are new ideas of what may be causing colony collapse disorder, no one knows what to do while billions of dollars of crops go unpollinated.

 You may not care about either birds or bees. You should. These are just two small examples of man-made unintended consequences with potentially huge effect on the cost of living in this world. Multiply this by millions of other little things. Scary. Very scary.

Maybe I should have kept this to a primer on sex.

Fathers and Sons

In the last couple of weeks I have observed several father/son moments which have caused me to reflect on the current state of my relationship with D. These moments, including a brief interlude of my own, connected in my mind this weekend. In order of age as opposed to chronology they are as follows:

• The Bar Mitzvah.  Yesterday a good friend’s son had his bar mitzvah service followed by a party today. I have seen this manchild over the years but did not know him well. The best part of the ceremony and celebration came as the mom, dad, rabbi and president of the congregation spoke intimately and glowingly about this boy. I expected as much from loving parents.  From the representatives of the congregation you often get some perfunctory and tired speech. But not this day.  I learned much about the boy including that he had a sense of humor and was not afraid to use it. This he got from his dad. The mutual love of parents and child was clear from the words and the way they looked at each other. My son went through this ceremony 4 years ago. All I could think was how things have changed.
• The Dinner.  I picked D up from a friend’s house where he had eaten dinner. We have become good friends with the parents. The dad told me what a delight it was to have D over. How talkative he was over dinner, unlike his own son. “My son was talkative” I laughed. Not at his own house. Never at his own house with his own parents. I suggested a new rule. Once boys hit there teenage years there would be a period of time, say 3-6 months, during which we would swap sons. That way we could all enjoy the pleasure of a talkative teenage boy for awhile.
• 31 Year Old Son. I went for a day’s ride with a good friend and his adult son. I had not observed such a relationship outside of family. Based on a sample of one, it does seem as if at some point your son no longer thinks of you as one of the most ignorant people on the planet. The conversation was sometimes man to man and other times father and son. I do not want my son to ever call me by my first name, however. I hope to always be Dad.
• 2 Minute Parenting. This is probably a good name for the next hit book. (I can see D and me on the book tour. I think I will wear one of those professorial sport coats with the patches on the elbows. He will be in long shorts, underwear showing, and a Cubs jersey. But I digress.) It is not that one can actually parent effectively in 2 minutes but often that is all you get. I have hardly seen my son all week. I was out of town or in the office late and on the weekend he was at a game or out with friends. A few moments ago I got him to sit still for 2 minutes while I asked him a few things about what he has been up to and to tell him that I was proud of him for his grades so far this year. By the end of two minutes the siren call of the Bears game was too strong for him and the connection was broken.

At 16, almost 17, this is a hard age for me. I miss the time we used to spend together and how we would sometimes connect.  As a friend said to me today, “I guess he does not have you tell him stories at bedtime anymore”.  No. No more bedtime stories. Too bad. I was damn good at that.

Baseball:It Ain’t Over ’til Its Over

Baseball is unpredictable. I went to sleep the other night after the San Dieago Padres went up by 2 runs in the top of the 13th inning figuring the winner had been determined. The Rockies proved me wrong.

I was not the only one to make quick judgements. There was a promo for the baseball playoff that played repeatedly during the Rockies/Padres game. Many of the action scenes portrayed Mets players. I guess at the time the promo was made no one in MLB thought the Phillies would overtake the Mets. Oops.

Rockies. Phillies, Cubs, Diamondbacks. Who would have picked those four teams.

Baseball, gotta love it.

Special Friends

If you are really lucky in this life, you will make friendships that transcend time and space. Because life gets in the way you may not see or possibly talk to someone for months, maybe years. Yet, the depth of the connection made long ago creates comfort so that in a nanosecond of being together it is as if you were together yesterday.

I have a very small number of people in my life for which this is true. I dined with two of them yesterday. We joined by a third who could easily fall into this category one day. Sarah seems to get me and even enjoys my sense of humor–go figure. Sarah is only limited by the fact that we have spent relatively little time together. 

With Frank and Shelly there are no limits. We met, Shelly first and then Frank in a world far, far away. Ok. It was a company that we all once worked for and have all since left. While we were there we found that we were passionate about the same kind of work and the way of doing it–which defied somewhat the conventions of the company. We wanted to create an impact at our clients.

One of my fondest memories is a day in a conference room in Philly. We were brainstorming ideas for a training program unlike one that had been done before. That conference room filled with creativity, brilliance and a lot of laughter. Work product that day–not so much. The development and delivery of that program became a special shared experience between us, two other great colleagues and a bonehead. Long story.

The key to these unique friendships is to keep them fresh. Balance sharing past memories with creating new ones. Keep current on what they are doing and feeling. More laughter.

Frank and I communicate regularly though I have seen him only twice in three years. He is my blogging svengali. He is responsible for setting up 48 Facets. (Blame him. I only write the material.) He has two blog sites, one work related and one personal. Both excellent. If you haven’t gone to my blogroll, and clicked on Frank or KnowHR you are missing out. Shelly has been harder to keep up with since she ended her stint in Chicago. I miss our periodic dinners.

Both have become wildly successful professionally. Frank has his own company and Shelly is one of the top professionals in her field. (If you don’t believe me ask her about the helicopter). They both live in Philadelphia which is why it is hard to get together. I was there yesterday for the first time in years. 

I hope to make it a regular stop because while it is good to have friends that you can pick up quickly with after long periods of time, it is great to be with them often.