What's That You're Reading?? February '10 Edition

Well once again, the days have become weeks, weeks have become a month, and I haven't checked in on my blog...sigh.  I need a personal assistant to hound me into keeping up with this thing.  It's not for lack of ideas of what to write about that I let my poor journal languish...I seem to always find something else to do.

So for an awesome Christmas/Birthday present, my mom got me a Kindle!  This is the perfect gift for a serial reader like myself.  It's easy to read, easy to use, has free wireless internet (super handy for those of us without iphones/androids), has incredible battery life, and delivers me books in under a minute.  It's so awesome!  I fired it up, and immediately ordered...

The Lost Symbol - This is Dan Brown's latest Robert Langdon tale, and what can I say...it's obviously interesting in its conspiracy theory stylings, similar to Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, but this one really seemed to fall short.  I loved that it all took place in DC, and down the street from our old house.  I liked the initial plot.  It's pretty much everything else that took place that really didn't do it for me.  I thought it was too long, that the badguy was almost comical, and that the way everything shook out was just a little over the top, even for a fiction.  The ending wasn't even earth-shattering.  Sigh.

The Last Dickens: A Novel - this was a novel by Matthew Pearl who also wrote the Dante Club, which I really enjoyed.  This one is about Dickens' last manuscript, and the trials and tribulations of a small publishing house in Boston that held the rights to Dickens publishing in the US.  It's a pretty decent mystery until the end, when it all of a sudden turns out that the entire story was based on a premise that more ridiculous than I ever could have imagined.  Fairly disappointing book for the last 20-30 pages...

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance - this followup to the big blockbuster Freakonomics is more of the same - irreverent discussion of real-life things and how they relate to economics.  It's worth a read, quick, and provides a reader with a few more decent 'hmm didn't think of that' moments, but certainly not anything astoundingly good.  I'd say it's well written but not really extremely well thought out stuff.

Simple Genius - Ahh, another David Baldacci book.  No need to write much.  They are always pretty good without being great.

The Whiskey Rebels - Another historical fiction from David Liss, whose books I really enjoy.  This one is a story about a couple that is tricked into buying a plot of useless land in western Pennsylvania after the Revolution, and a disgraced spy in Philadelphia who gets roped into a crazy plot to bring down Alexander Hamilton's Bank of the United States.  Inevitably and rather smartly, the two plot lines intersect in what is a very enjoyable novel.  David Liss really has mastered the historical novel (and the non-historical, as evidenced by another book I really liked - The Ethical Assassin).

The Girl Who Played with Fire - This was another really good book by Stieg Larsson.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was an immensely enjoyable novel about a disgraced investigative writer in Sweden on the trail of a really juicy story, and his collaboration with the young and troubled investigator Lisbeth Salander.  That book was very well written with great character development, and had a great cliffhanger of an ending.  This book was even better!  A great story that fell into place at a nice pace, with more great writing, interesting characters, and a crazy ending.  I can't wait to read Larsson's third (and sadly last) book soon.

Now that I finished those, I am working on these:

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World - this is a (so far) easy to read history of currency.  The first fifty pages have been full of interesting information and it's delivered in a very accessible manner.

All the Pretty Horses

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals - All you can say every time you finish a chapter of this book is 'WOW'.  I can't believe that the things we eat have such a colorful (and mostly disgusting) history.  Really makes you think about the things you eat.

Politics!, or Why Scott Brown Matters So Much

Well Barack Obama's time in charge hasn't been all peaches and cream.  Is anyone surprised??  I am not, but ever since 'worst.candidate.ever' Martha Coakley blundered away Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachussetts, all the talking heads have been writing Obama's political eulogy.  I think it's far too early to say that anything is a failure or that Obama will never get anything done.  It took two years for Clinton to fail at passing health care, and I think we can agree that from a non-Lewinsky standpoint, he did a pretty decent job.

Why does it matter so much if the Democrats have only 59 votes??  The filibuster!  That's why!  Jena and I were talking about it the other day, and I must admit that I was fairly ignorant outside of being able to say that 60 votes allows you to shut down the filibuster completely.  Fresh Air to the rescue!  The first segment of yesterday's Fresh Air program explains the dynamics of the filibuster...click the link below to listen:

Gregory Koger, Explaining The American Filibuster

Couldn't Say it Any Better

From Seth Godin:  Without Them

"you can fail by going along with that and not doing it, or you can do it, cause a ruckus and work things out later"

At work you often run into situations where you see something that just smells.  Something that isn't right, but is perpetuated by inertia or apathy.  You have two choices.  You can say 'well that will never fly - they have been doing this forever', or you can say 'I have an idea and I am going to go ahead and do it, and when people see that things can be better they will get on board or get out of the way'.

I choose B.

On the Mountain

Everyone knows that skiing is a big part of living in Colorado.  I wasn't sure how much of an integral part of my Colorado life it was going to be, but surprisingly, it's ended up being something that I really enjoy, and that I can see myself doing a LOT of in the future.  Prior to coming out here, I had spent all of 5 or 6 days skiing in my life, with one extremely icy/slushy day at Wintergreen, and a few pretty solid days at Snowshoe and Sugarloaf up in Maine, where I did about six cartwheels on my head while avoiding a potentially deadly collision with an entire ski school.

Anyway, I got here, and I think there's magic in the air because for someone who is not exactly the most graceful, I was able to get out on the slopes at Copper, and by the end of the day I was sort of skiing like someone who knows how to ski.  This inspired us to get a season pass at Arapahoe Basin.  We have been up to the mountain four times since then, and this time I went up to the top and skiied the blues all the way down without killing myself.  I also completed my very first ski day without a fall.  This won't come as a surprise to anyone who has done skiing or snowboarding, but it's pretty awesome.  All your cares evaporate, as all you can think about is how fast you are going and whether or not you want to go faster.  Awesome.

Christmas?

Some people think that Christmas is overrated.  That's it's nothing but a meaningless commercialized, materialistic money grab that has lost all of it's real symbolic juice.  These people are incredibly adamant that those who do dive whole hog into Christmas are foolish, naive people who are tricking themselves.  I heard a kitchen conversation at work the other day and it made me wonder about how I really felt about Christmas.  It took a while, but I think I know:

'The Christmas Season' is commercialized and materialistic, but it doesn't spoil what Christmas is really all about.  The symbolism of Christmas is, to me, what is really important...the part of the year where you unselfishly give to people just to see the smile on their face, a time when you spend time with friends and family and reminisce on the year that was, and a time when you celebrate what's really important in life.  Sure you can get carried away buying crap that nobody needs because it's ON SALE!!!, but it doesn't just automatically signify a 'cheapening of the holiday', because the whole gift thing is just a small part of what makes it so great.

I love this season because my Dad loved this season.  A guy who otherwise was quiet and pretty reserved went absolutely all out when it came to Christmas.  A guy who really didn't like shopping could be found trolling the malls right up until the night before Christmas.  A guy who wasn't really into embellishment would go to great lengths to professionally wrap all his gifts to me and my Mom, no matter how gigantic or oddly shaped.  He also made sure to sign the 'from' section on each and every one of the gifts with something ridiculous like 'Santa', or 'Rudolph', or 'The Elves', and he filled the stockings up with more gifts than most people got presents.  It was about giving.

I love this season because it's about traditions.  It's about the times that define your family.  It's about times like going out with your father to buy a Christmas tree, and remembering the first year your dad let you 'help him' carry the tree in, and you were strong enough to carry it in by yourself.  It's about putting all the ornaments that you had accumulated through the years on the tree, stopping to remember how you got that one, or who made this one for you.  It's about sitting down and playing the same record you play every year, and having the same special breakfast, that you HAD to eat before you could open presents.  These are the kind of times that define families, and Christmas is about the biggest one for a lot of those families.

It was about one special time in the year when no matter what else was going on, everything was perfect, everyone was happy, and everyone knew how much everyone else in the room loved them.  It was special, it stuck with me, and I already do the same thing.  I love Christmas.  I love that people drive around in cheesy Santa hats.  I love giving the bell ringer $20.  I love thinking back on all the special Christmas seasons that I spent with my family, and that I can barely remember any of the gifts that I got, but I can certainly remember how I knew how much I was loved.

So yeah, Christmas isn't necessarily about buying stuff.  It's about choosing your own way to express your love for the people around you.  If that means you buy some stuff, then hey, why not.  It's your money.  It doesn't cheapen the season to me.  Just make sure everyone you love knows that you love them.  That's what it's all about to me.

2009 in Review

Well it's here again.  Another year of Christmas spirit.  Here in Denver we actually get a White Christmas - we are in the midst of a 6-incher, which is exciting, except we are trying to fly out to Boston tomorrow morning.  Hopefully DIA has their de-icers warmed up and ready to rock...

This has been one crazy year.  It's my first full year as a married man.  My first year living somewhere not called Virginia or DC.  My first year being involved in selling a house.  (It sucks by the way).  My first year moving somewhat blindly across the country to a completely new place, where the amount of people I know can be counted using one hand. Yep, crazy year.  It was a great year though.

This year I learned a fair amount about planning.  Planning everything so that you can coincide a move, a job, a home sale, finding a new place, and moving into it.  It's stressful.  This year was a crazy year.  Did I mention that?

The year started out pretty nicely - we went to Aruba with Jena's parents, her sister and bro-law, her Aunt Louise, and our awesome nephew.  It was an awesome trip, mostly spent floating around the lazy river...

Spring was pretty uneventful.  We were getting ready to sell our house, and starting to do the awesome dance where you leave every weekend and are forced to clean every morning before you leave the house.  I got pretty good at being a better cleaner though, so that's good.  Also we always came home to a clean house.  Those are roughly the only two things that I can think of that were good about selling the house.

Over Memorial Day, we got a visit from Jena's sister and fam.  We went to Annapolis where our nephew learned to drive boats and dressed like a pirate.  We had a great time out on the boat and walking around town.

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Over the summer, the house sale process dragged on, but it didn't keep us from doing a fair amount of fun stuff.

          

        La Jolla Cliffs

We did some boating on the Chesapeake Bay, spent July 4th in Annapolis with family, and I made it out to San Diego for the first time.  What a beautiful place.

We also took in a Tigers game in Baltimore on a beautiful day for baseball.  And we got a win!  It was a fun time and erstwhile Tiger Edwin Jackson threw a gem!  

We finally sold the house this Summer.  Wow, what a pain in the ass, dealing with the most unreasonable buyers and agent, but it allowed us to finally realize our dream of moving to Colorado!  With the house sold, we moved in with my parents-in-law while everything fell into place for our journey.  Jena was allowed to keep her job at WeddingWire, and I lucked into a job at eCollege in Denver.  I traveled out for an interview in August and did some house hunting while I was here.  I found a great rental that had everything we wanted in a great neighborhood, and got the job offer, all in the same 48 hrs!  It was finally time to roll out!

We got everything packed up in a POD and shipped off to Denver while we waiting for our moving date to arrive.  It was a long and tiring process, but the POD worked out great, and everything made it cross-country in one piece.  An amazing feat, and it was a pretty good deal too.  We moved in with Jena's parents, which was not bad at all.  I am blessed with a great pair of parents-in-law, and I think they enjoyed having their daughter back home for a while.  We took some time out to attend a beautiful wedding in Vermont and watched Jena's cousin KC get hitched to his beautiful bride Annemarie.  Once we got back, it was pretty much go time.

We made it out here pretty quick.  We made a couple stops along the way - we saw my grandparents:

And then we stopped in Iowa to see our friend Tricia, who showed us around her wacky little town:

Then we hightailed it the rest of the way to Denver where we were met with an awesome housewarming surprise from Jena's friend Meredith's mom...what a great welcome!

So anyway, this is where we live now.  Denver.  It's weird, because I keep calling the DC area home, and it's not really home anymore.  It's a place I grew up, and it's where I am from, but it's not where I live, which is quite a change.  I have three months under my belt in Denver, and the other 380 were spent in DC.  The good news is that we love it here.  We love the friendly people, the great neighborhood we landed in, and the wacky weather is even growing on me a bit.  Our house is nice for a rental, but we look forward to buying something that we can call our own.  Work is going really well - I couldn't be more pleased with my manager, my team, and the work that I get to do.  It's been a really pleasant surprise, as I went in pretty much blind.  We have had a lot of good times since we got here.  We've done some sightseeing, beer tasting, skiing, and we've been pretty busy sampling all the great restaurants in our area.  It's been quite a year, but I can't wait for next year.  We are all settled in now, and we can put all our energy in enjoying everything that Colorado has to offer, including snowshoeing, hiking, more beer tasting, and skiing.  

Goodbye 2009!  Bring it on 2010!

On Intiators, Blockers, Supporters, and Observers

In reading Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, I found myself fascinated with the chapter on the four personality types -



Initiators, who have ideas and drive innovation, and are the general optimists.
Blockers, who are the doom-and-gloom, are you sure that's a good idea types.
Supporters, who pick the side of the initiators or blockers.
Observers, who simply provide comments.


I have done a lot of thinking about what the right balance of personalities is for a team.  In a perfect world you want a bunch of initiators, because they can just think up all kinds of good ideas and knock them out, moving the team and the organization forward.  This generally doesn't end up happening this way.  I can speak from experience when I say that having a manager who is an initiator and an employee who is an initiator is not necessarily a good mix.  This can lead to something of a whirlwind of work that might all be interesting, but isn't necessarily good for the organization.   


You also don't want a lot of blockers and nothing else, because you will sit around spending endless hours justifying why something has to get done, even when it seems relatively clear why it's a good idea.  This is the other end of the spectrum.  Instead of doing too much and having some of it not be the right stuff, you end up doing not enough of anything.  People get fired because of this.


A perfect balance in my opinion is to have a team made up of an initiator, a blocker, a supporter, and to have the manager be an observer.  The initiator gets people fired up, introduces ideas and enthusiasm, and generally dives in with gusto.  The blocker is there to make sure the initiator doesn't get carried away, questioning whether something is the right thing to do, or whether it's necessary.  The blocker makes the initiator better, because in order to do something new, the initiator knows they will have to pick their battles well, and to justify their enthusiasm with a business case that can sway the supporter and the observer.  In my opinion, a manager should be the observer, but can play a bit of a supporter role as well.  A manager who is a blocker won't get very far, and a manager who is an initiator can be seen as a little too gung-ho or overzealous by their employees.  As an observer, the manager can interject when they see fit, shaping the way that the work evolves without forcing their will on anyone.  This makes for happy employees.


It's just interesting because my office now sort of fits this dynamic, and the give and take is really great.  Coming from other places where the balance was definitely lacking, I think it's a great place to really grow.  Blockers can become more open to new ideas, and initiators can learn to harness their enthusiasm and be more thorough.