An idea, projects: Some visceral spontaneity, some hyperlink connectivity

What 20 more days without the daily bread anchor has revealed: I think I have an idea that can be actualized bringing much of my loose ends together to achieve my goals. TBD.

What is known:

• I definitely do not want 9-5 (actually 8-7) anymore, but I miss solving business flow puzzles and I do look at what is out there. This is important for several reasons among them being perspective.
• I have a home designed for young people but all my 20Somethings are now, elsewhere.
• I am committed to this community for at least another decade: ironically, just paid lifetime membership to the Wallingford Historical Society.
• I need a plan to underwrite some basic costs that has its own merits as good for me and others.
  

My to-do list from things set-aside to purse daily bread is long; it would have been scary to have seen it in list form while employed. It still is -- so I am still working it without committing it to a check-off format. Maybe I do not want to see it, maybe I do not want to be held hostage to it, maybe it is something my ADD/ADHD enables (or disables me) me to avoid. So my virtual list gets longer each day; especially when I follow Internet connections: Articles to read about things like Collective Intelligence. Videos to listen to with tidbits on non-profit management, editing. I could listen to TED all day long.

For example: I committed to producing video from the DryDock Musical Festival July16-17. 18 hours of capture, already 3 days of re-edit on the 1st 3 hours. This was a good list adjustment. Very enjoyable event. Potential for ongoing meaningful connections. Totally enjoying the work and relearning things in the process. While editing I thought -- could really use some B-roll of the towers. Dilemma: due I use these just found images to insert into the videos and re-render each 1 hour story in multiple formats...probably YES. Since the story is more important than the time. If I had a check-off list, I would need to checked UNDONE for these 3 hours of edit that I thought I finished last night a 9 pm. This is what hyperconnectivity does: provides opportunities but not always with the best timing (what the research is telling us).

My list also includes things ranging from weeding (Ivy has overtaken the property) to video documentaries (several projects here), to completing Dad's Probate Court tasks, to tiling the pool house kitchen (left in process in 2002), to reconstructing stone wall (this one can be checked off, but I keep finding stones to add). Also, Josiah brought the book Siddhartha home for me from his library, because I need less time at computer.

There is more ramblings in my head,,,but I want to get to some of the things on the list before the day gets too hot. But I should probably get that re-edit in process so the computer can be working while I am weeding.

BTW: my list now includes a Sunday Task of Filing with CT Unemployment - this task is now at week 3.

Meandering; some closure anticipated

So I have now experienced 3 unstructured weeks. For me unstructured means without 9 + hours a day committed to a day job with care of others sprinkled in between. In this state of anything can happen --- what did?

Anxiety caused me to seek the money saving efficiencies assumed critical for the next stage of survival. Annual savings derived:approx $2,000. Medical appointments were scheduled. Various areas of clutter were de-cluttered and several remain. I remained on task for the care of the animals within an hour of the schedule they expected. I increased movement in general. I experimented with healthier food choices. I avoided video editing projects that I knew could consume me until week 3. I researched a potential house for flipping and decided that location, location was not enough to overcome black mold and mosquitoes. I got some tasks done for my pet non-profit organizations but not more than I would or could have when employed.

I referred things I found to others...with positive hopes that something may manifest. Today I will try to accomplish a list of things. Maybe I will do lists for a week and see what limited structure yields.

So far it seems like a really long Saturday with naps

So last Monday was the 1st Monday in 35 years that I did not have a job. It is much to get ones' head around.

I did not dump into this state of being gradually because my last employed days played out like all that came before: Compressed Project Timeline. Deliverables. Teamwork. Business Needs awaiting solutions. Unpaid Over-time. I am still unsure what my true feelings are about what I dubbed my Last Hurrah Project -- which connected decades of dots to re-engineer the subsystem I supported so that I would no longer be needed. I am satisfied with the product and the teamwork it took to get it done. I am unsettled in my feelings about the manner in which the scope & scheduling was handled. But it is past and I need to be more present so I can find the right future.

Part of the future will be noted here. So this is the simple start.

Finding a eureka

Let the data set change your mind set: Visualizing data fascinates me. Spreadsheets frustrate me.

I am still struggling with knowing what my choices will be when I can re prioritize my life: this is causing a bit of stress. I was thinking it may be fear of failure. The future will likely have less incremental closures as projects end; but who am I kidding in the corporate world projects never did end, because you were forever SME. Since the documentation cycle always was eclipsed by the demands of next project, documents did not serve others just you -- the interpreter. It seems I have decades of work to document down-size. I hope I come away with a product and solid experience with some of the newer tools with the last large daily bread project which has all the things that make projects fail -- and one expert. Not worth my minutes documenting that here.

I need to investigate how others sensing the clutter and overwhelming nature of data are compressing it into knowledge: digitization with meta data, info-maps, visualization tools like Google Analytics. I what to play with the combination of eye & word communication with enough intensity & focus to find a eureka.

decision 9.9.10

So maybe you have heard – but now you are hearing from me:
I have decided to retire and will be leaving WellPoint no earlier than May 1 but no later than June 30. If that sounds like pseudo code, it is only fitting.
I characterize this change as from WellPoint to Wellness.

March 2011 will be my 31 year anniversary. For someone planning to be in a corporate-like job for only 2 years that is a long run.

Who knew that the non-profit job at BCBS of CT would become, well, so corporate. Retirement for me will not be leisure. I have many community initiatives to partner with as a volunteer. So I will be working the same mission – to improve the lives of the people I serve and the health of my communities. I will continue to work with teams of generous and committed people like you (maybe including some of you) who try to make a difference every day.

Time it passes...then something reminds you of just that

Time notations.
My best gift - from the middle...24 years ago today.
My job 30 years - a token award to select - most challenging - shall it be a watch.
My last entry - many iterations of bruises and floor plans.

I fail at habits.

I get inspired by random stories of lives that random did not devour.

I seem to know more of muddle, than middle these days.

Daylight will soon be saving time again.

Pencils, white text and the revelations as history

As I begin to tap at the keyboard -- I sense that I am facing challenges yet to be overcome. Contributors to this sensation include that I do not type, trifocals challenge accuracy in seeing, and what it feels like to write with a pencil is a very distant memory. I face the New Year with fatigue, lack of momentum and an intention to commit to basics. I am half-heartedly assessing the public medium for which I find that ideas must be coaxed, shuffled, strained and simplified to have value. This requires resources that have been depleted.

Therefore I must challenge the purpose of glimpses through stained glass as a blog. Is this just a public scribble? Does it qualify as a journey journal? Can it be more than an expose in my inconsistency and ease of distraction?

Random memory: a peer who communicated with another peer at the day job playfully included personal hidden messages in his emails. His messages were hidden by changing the text from black to white. This sharing was discovered unexpectedly because the email was sent to print and all printed text is in black. What does this story memory invoke? Other memories like the lemon juice experiments of my youth (play, discovery) and thoughts about understanding cloaking,exposure, innovation and all of there potential impact on privacy.

So no deep dives here - just nagging thoughts in response to popular media. Our former VP speaks and I quiver. He infers that terrorists did not succeed in attacking on American soil after 911 - and the true level of threat must remain cloaked. So if Truth is cloaked in fear and hyperbole --- will history reveal if we were protected or scammed by these fear mongers. In the 80's I took a course on International Law. Terrorism was a key subject matter. I believe a Lesson Learned from that course was that terrorists are empowerd by breeding fear. It seems that this is now a living history.

phrases of the day

When I allow other voices into my day, certain phrases bring me to a literal stop, to scribble down for later reflection. I feel some intuitive connection that could benefit me if mined. But mining is always tbd.

Technology places, a reference to the the instruments carried on the belts of the presidential candidates, connected to me to both my community access advocacy work and poetry team experiences. The word place evokes memories...there was the catch me in seminal times places of adolescence poetry tour and the public-people-place aspect of the community building project. Excerpt below:

‘Community Building’ is a process not a place. It requires the gathering of people in or through a public space. Participants share, listen and reflect. When used in the conduct of public business; community building is inclusive, collaborative, and representative of diverse voices. Based on a shared vision or problem it can be used to identify solutions, reach consensus, devise and implement strategies for resolution or change. It most often involves individual and collective actions of diverse peoples for a common good.

And then there is my virtual place of my work-at-home existence and the itch to just leave its physical confines after days of too little physical movement: when I exclaim I need to get out of this place.

Halo for Fear-a description by Barbara Walters of her work-life motivation struck a chord. As the primary bread winner/caretaker I could relate. I will look forward to her book Audition making it to Library shelves. I wondered is it truly different for women. I think so but it seems unfair to not see that the some self-employed men have similar stress.

Do stories ever end and other deep thoughts

Before a personal story ends, Memoir writers decide that there is enough of a story to be told, to be penned, to commit to. Reflection and significance are ingredients. Compelling is important. And how to begin requires selection of an end for the unending. I am a derailed storyteller because I can never decide upon an ending.

When this entry was conceived, there was 100 days remaining; to elect a new president and to make ready my primary daily bread assignment for go live. These turning points are not ends. They may be middles or starts. What comes later – the benchmarking measures like the 1st 100 days of the presidency and questions about the completed project speak to the lack of true ends.

New tools allow us to manage or compile data and images and the elements of story. Sometimes pseudo stories emerge much like pseudo poems from folks exploring sentences and fragments instead of paragraphs and chapters. New tools can inevitably make endings ever more, less likely. Time capsules of experience accumulate. Folks like me get to avoid deciding on a larger scale than outside of the moment’s distraction – about endings. Volumes of reflection, commentary and noise emerge – and stories that could change, heal or inform salt and pepper the abundance.

Blogging, this hybrid commentary journal process was activated by me to reflect upon significance. Scribble. Distraction. Curiosity. Ponders. All in a format that allows me to avoid questions wrestled by true storytellers. Maybe coming of age with the TV drama view of story, most of which now tell multiple stories simultaneously and attempt to develop characters serially, neatly prescribed time, foreshadowing and tension until there is a fade to credits has contributed to my dilemma.

I began to read the World is my Home. I did not get to the end yet. It has been months since I set it down. I started it in the middle, as I recall. The 1992 biography of James A. Michener was published 5 years before his death, an end marked by his decision to remove life supports. A collection of selective reminiscences, his story for me did not end when I closed the cover of the book nor would it have if I were on the last page. It continues here. His story lives on because they were scribed. Each new reader restarts the story. And every new writer underwritten at UofTexas at Austin by Michener funds ensures his story never ends. This novelist did story his way. He followed his intellectual curiosity, informed his style from the experience of opera arias and ultimately his narration rewards the reader or listener with knowledge. His large novels are said to be absent psychological insight. I have purchased but have yet to read his sagas. A novelist that could have been a blogger is an indulgence that I can not yet invite in to my frame of reference. So I digest short stories. This week it is People I wanted to be.

Go Live is less than 100 business days away and the day job is carnivorous. Is eating my soul, flesh eating? Deep thoughts are set aside as core hours begin now.

What we value enough to copy

The reminder came in recent conversation: To be a storyteller you need a story to tell. To be a blogger, not so much. So, I start.

Since vacationing, I have been sitting with a story that ignited my curiosity and ire and left me bemused. It is layered: outrage, heritage and this idea "what we value enough to copy." 

It is not new, this tale. In fact it's mangled roots began at the turn of the 20th century. It is every day, and the future, transformed by tourists, the global economy and the value of authenticity. It is the how and why culture is preserved by Native Americans —and purveyors of our nation’s history in this century. And in the world of the Internet, this story can be informed by comments of others.

I enter the story with stops at roadside booths in Arizona and Nevada. I stop to appreciate authentic Native American jewelry. My purchase power is nearly non existent. While cruising the tables,  I was thinking “How authentic.”  That puzzling idea seeped in as the experience as my vacation progresses and my joy of craft and art and flea-markets was transformed into “damn this America” again. There is no end to the disappointment.

For me, the West was an open book. The only pages written thus far were not from reliable sources. Tonto was the only Indian known to me. The embodiment of 'Indian' from childhood games modeled upon Wild West movies. I had so many pages of understanding to fill. 

The first real Native Americans I would see were entrepreneurs. Booths, gathered flea market style, abundant. The crafted-work, seen among the booths, is similar, yet distinctly different.

With questions I learned from ample answers. The stones are named after the area it was mined. Some are stones are rare as some areas are now barren.  In Bisbee, the seasonal rain wash turquoise into the roadside basins Bisbee, We must go there. I learn the bevel side is up. I learn advances in technology are embraced by the current generation because of economics. I am shown how strung, cut and polished gem stones crafted into jewelry can be done making clasps no longer essential. Most importantly, I sensed that the business of making and marketing jewelry is a family affair. And I cannot distinguish 'antique' from 'made yesterday' Indian Jewelry. I find an Antique Indian Jeweler at the Boulder City Jamboree.

My vaca get-a-way unearths a visceral delighted in the handiwork of others. But an undercurrent pulls me out of tourist mode. Ample answers come with prideful stories connecting generations by traditions. The economics and livelihood of Native Americans artisan jewelry makers is intrinsically tied to the next generation attending college. Heritage was being stamped upon them by a flat world. The tribes  needed doctors and lawyers more than Indian Chiefs.

One proud native mother expressed her outrage about fakes in a manner that I failed to yet understand, "Jewelry with .925 is not Indian". I decided to buy from her to join in the resistance that lurked now in a distant part of my brain. Her outrage inclined me to purchase from her son for mine, and from her, for me. It was not until vacation destination: the Grand Canyon, a place of mimic and replication that I came to more fully understand her exclamation.

At the Grand Canyon National Park Desert View Watchtower Gift Shop, a sign above strings of silver feathered turquoise necklaces read: Authentic non-Indian jewelry. If I was thinking journalistically rather than touristy, a picture of this sign would be gold for this story. It was a picture I failed to take. I had no idea how it spoke volumes about the latest economic based invasion of Native Americans by replica jewelry Made in China and machine stamped .925. [2]

The watchtower, a mimic of Anasazi Indian watchtowers, is infused with storytelling both figuratively and literally. The design of this national park building completed in 1933 was commissioned and awarded to Mary Colter. This five-story site to see is on a promontory overlooking the Grand Canyon at the eastern end of the south rim.

The architecture informed by archeology, ethno-history and the work of Indian mural artists, including Hopi Fred Kabotie embodies the value of copying, storytelling, and preservation of Native American Culture. Authenticity is reportedly at the core of the architect’s work. The replica design was said to be informed by turn of the century southwestern archeology. On its walls the tradition of storytelling in rock art are copies of rock art rendered by artist Fred Greer. These copies may be the only existing record of the original story painting found at an Abo, New Mexico Archaeological site.

Ms. Colter’s designs were commissioned by Santa Fe Railway and the Fred Harvey Company which launched the Native American souvenir business. This company’s transformation includes becoming the concessionaires of National Parks. The souvenir and concession business began by leveraging the traditions and skills of local artisans. This leveraging spawned tradition based Navajo, Zuni, Hopi and Pueblo family businesses that have now supported several generations of displaced Native Americans. So the ability of this outraged Indian mother to market to tourists, culturally based jewelry and crafts, is directly tied to the business that is now the target of her rage. In civilizing the southwest, trinkets were mass produced by artisans supplied sheet silver and pre-cut turquoise by the Harvey Company.

This blog, in all its hyper-parts, evolved because of I sensed a disturbing undercurrent of injustice for which I had no context. The outrage of the Indian mother could not be shaken so I needed to understand it. Give it a place to quiet in better knowing. I googled to learn more than the culture center disclosed. I determined that the act of selling imports as Souvenir is not out of character for the legacy company that ran the concessions. And that the new company continues to have unfettered access to 5 million visitors a year to profit from tourism.

I come away with a strong belief that Indian Crafted souvenirs from our National Parks should be authentic not imported reproductions. I share this story to amplify how economically based transformations without connection to values and tradition fail all of us.

1) The Grand Canyon is the most visited natural wonder on the planet. 5 million visitors a year with up to 30,000 visitors per day in peak season. 

2) Sterling Silver objects are stamped with either the word "Sterling" or ".925" which refers to 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper.

Postscript: Within this vacation there was another connection with Native American culture at the AMERIND MUSEUM, the ‘Traditions in Clay’ Exhibit. It depicted a history of pottery making. It also displayed outcomes of ‘a competition’ involving copying traditional works as a means of connecting to ones heritage

This story does not end here if you make a different purchase decision or support any legislation that may come in to play to make our collective treatment of Native Americans less egregious.

Really productive serendipity

When I selected serendipity as one of my labels, the voices in my head said blogs can breed LIKEthink and this label will be a reminder that your intentions include making chance connections that could influence your destiny in actions or words. I do not associate or bond well. My people interaction is based on in-common stuff: work, certain interests, life circumstances. In this I am not alone. And in this in-common I do select bonding levels – most often shallow levels. I tend to focus on the tasks, prefer observation and often lead out of frustration. I have good friend qualities for emergencies but no one calls me just to chat. No one. To blog is to let the voices in my head chat and it kicks up the dust on dopamine the feel-good neurotransmitter. Maybe it will improve my conversational skills. There are bloggers I have come to enjoy thru their words (Amy) and actions (Jason). There are others that will be revealed as I work the RSS technology of this world.

But as these conversations occur I do notice that the in-common stuff among people can breed – good and bad. I was reminded in the overheard conversations about politics this week about in-common bad. I will connect an old essay here on this distraction at some point.

Callouts: This past week I had a small victory in the in-common world of Community Access TV and a moment of awkwardness in the in-common world of work. The victory: successfully getting clarification with DPUC docket 08-04-09. For more than a decade, some volunteers were being held hostage by power tactics that included fear of reprisals and threats of underwriting changes. Truth had a small victory. The awkwardness: a public description of me. While it shared that my values and skills have made a difference there was large irony in that few folks will ever have such a lens on my life and work again because of my failure at the basic art of sustained conversation.

Lifelong…then retirement or into retirement

Life-long: what are the benchmarks? Is it duration or duration in relationship to the length of one's life. When must a lifelong relationship, idea, pursuit, regret begin to qualify? Is meaningfulness implied? What are the shades of meaning: continuous until a person's death, continuing through all or much of one's life? This out-of-place meandering began while at a retirement event of a co-worker.

When something is more than 50% of your life and the majority of your daylight it probably qualifies. Family relations most often do. A person’s work can qualify and sometimes that work is at one place of business. This is a phenomenon that is changing. It is one I never expected to be part of but one for which I can now claim a duration maker of more than half of my life.

For my co-worker the years are 36. The retirement is about to start with a summer vacation at the camp of his making with his best friend who is intended to be the rest of lifelong. He practiced retirement for a week before deciding that he was ready. Ready and able are not mutually exclusive but the able part usually comes far later than readiness for most (maybe I am projecting here). If employment is more than making a livable wage then one may never be ready. There are very few positions on 60 Minutes, or tenured professorships in the perfect climate, or artists that can sell enough to sustain daily bread or piano men or living poets with solid indirect income sources.

As I tried to kindle connections I found rhyming words: The batches of rhymes seem to speak to me about passionless day jobs: along phrases are scrape, rush, shove, stretch, play, pull, tag, or come along.

Lifelong is now a learning buzzword. It is something we are all expected to make claim to. I invested in this claim six years ago when I processed through a second graduate program. Sometimes I think it was only proof that I could type ever more poorly with more sleep deprivation. The brain exercise was sometimes fun and challenging enough to make me feel that I was evolving. However, I am not sure that the benchmarks for lifelong learning sited herein.(p.2) were achieved in my personal journey. I am often reminded of the three word marketing rule, as it is often deployed, and the challenges of good tauts. Grad school is where I learned I too could make hyper Connections like one of my most favorite books and made 4 television adventures by James Burke. (And I too have a box and scribble that may become bones or blog entries or remain for future ruminations.)

And then I get totally distracted in the world of connectivity and find bliss.

brain slurring

So much for the daily plan - so far the only consistency is in the lack of completion of promises to keep to myself. The cholesterol numbers have made a good showing and the random thoughts of creative ideas or connections have been encouraging even though not captured.

I muse about defining a robust, make a difference line-up of community access TV shows: titles occur to me like ‘Out of the Shallows”, “Lip sawed or Souled”, “Textures & Tones” and “Changes that Word Made” …but the day job distracts me with it’s demands.

I have managed to let the dog walk me every three days, not nearly enough for either of us. Major projects loom undone - the sun will come up Tomorrow - until next time