Photos Uploaded

Added a bunch of new photos from our recent trip.  If all the ones of us that you see are the backs of our heads, that means you haven't signed in, or aren't connected to us on Flickr as friends or family.

SeaTac = Greedy

1. Park at a car at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for five days.  Car sits there, does nothing. Costs me $130.00.

2. Rent a "mid-size 2 or 4-door" car in Long Beach - at the airport - for five days - $162. 

That doesn't count gas in the rental, but if we're comparing apples-to-apples, then that's the at-rest cost of the rental. 

Now, I thought the rental was reasonably priced, especially considering the free upgrade to the full-sized SUV with only 10k on it.  So I think the privilege of providing me with a 10x7' square of concrete in a structure built decades ago is more than a bit overpriced if it's only $30 less than handing the keys to a relatively new car over to someone from another state with very few questions asked and just a signature here and initials here and here.  Especially considering there was no way we were packing a toddler, an infant, two car seats, two strollers and a mess of luggage (and a newly purchased baby swing for the trip back, long story) onto a bus and traveling from an off-site parking lot.  And especially considering how difficult it was to even find a space.  I know, I know.. supply and demand.  Still can't help being a little bit annoyed.

Leftover Fusion Chopped Salad

Leftover garden salad (lettuce, spinach, tomatos, cucumbers, whatever)
2 slices of Turkey
Raisins
Handful of Pringles (or other potato chip)
Shredded Cheese (cheddar and parmesian recommended)
Salsa
Asian and Italian Salad Dressings
One can of soda (your choice)

Chop the salad into small pieces (hold clumps between forefinger and thumb and draw small knife backwards across).  Chop the turkey in the same manner.  Add in handfuls of raisins, shredded cheese. Pour or spoon salsa on the top.  Crush Pringles over the top.  Mix.  Drizzle salad dressing across top.  Mix again.  Add more dressing if necessary.

This was inspired by left-over salad from the fridge, the idea of nachos and other stuff I grabbing from the fridge and cupboard.  It is really tasty, offering the mouth a lot of different flavors that really work well together.  It also offers a lot of different textures, which is fun.  I did find that I needed the soda because there was a really kick that made my eyes water in a good way.

Ticketmaster

Long story short, a few years ago, I bought 5 shares of Expedia.  Blah blah Libery blah blah John Malone blah blah Interactive Media blah blah Barry Diller blah blah.  I now find myself the owner of 1 single share of Ticketmaster (TKTM). 

I loathe myself and believe I am now obligated to knock the snot out of myself.

sigh

Irish Blessing

I clipped this when I was searching for a blessing for my best man speech at my brother's wedding.  A year ago. Thought it was pretty cool.  Not exactly new, I've heard this before over the years and liked it. 

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Winning a Fight with an A-Hole

I am enjoying this book "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't" by Robert Sutton. 

First, to define... in this book's definition, an a-hole is to ask this question... "After talking to the alleged a-hole, does the "target" feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized or belittled by the person?  In particular, does he or she feel worse about him- or herself?"  It also suggests that a true a-hole primarily directs this behavior towards people in a subserviant position to themselves, be it subordinates, or service/retail workers or what have you.

There's been some fun examples, like the Southwest senior exec. that saw a customer mistreating an employee, went over to the customer, told him he wasn't a good fit for Southwest and walked him to a competitor's ticket counter and bough him a ticket on another airline.  Or that Southwest sends out letters, when necessary, asking someone not to fly on their airline anymore. 

And a really sobering chapter that pretty much puts us on notice: we all have an inner a-hole that we need to keep in check.

And an interesting theory that you should keep around one a-hole to serve as a negative example.  A study on a college campus with a parking lot that faced the elevator of a building: (1) they made the parking lot really dirty, scattering garbage on the ground and then stuck flyers on everyone's car, they monitored how many people took the flyers off and threw them on the ground; then again (2) with a spotlessly clean parking lot and a third time (3) with a spotless parking lot, but right as a group of people came off the elevator, someone very visibly took the flyer off his car, read it, crumpled it up and threw it to the ground.   The highest percentage of people taking the things off their car was in the dirty parking lot (1), but the next highest was the perfectly clean parking lot (2).  The lowest was the one where people witnessed someone else throwing litter on the ground (3).  But, the book cautions, you should be careful to limit the damage the a-hole is allowed to do.  That even if they are a star performer or rainmaker or closer, they still should be considered as defective for the increased costs the company pays in hiring and training people to replace victims who leave, lost productivity of victims who stick around, HR and legal costs and supervisory costs in dealing with the a-hole.

And the whole reason I decided to write tonight... they were talking about an a-hole who seems to block your every move, thwarts your efforts, shoots down or sabotages your projects, things like that... suggests finding smaller projects, smaller wins, ways to break up your project so there's less visibility.  A small project might not be worth their time to screw with and you can achieve success.  Thought that was pretty profound.  It was the idea that the feeling of control, even a small amount has a huge impact.  There's a nursing home example involving death rates of patients, but I don't want to just give away the whole book.

It is an interesting read if you have any sort of HR leanings or have worked in an environment with a-holes or think you might be one yourself.

Goooooopid

Uh, what?  Why would I want to slash heroes?  Google suggests this whether I spell it "zeroes" or "zeros." 

I was looking for a quote I heard in a TED.com video, but apparently no one's quoted it in a blog.  I can't remember exactly how it goes, but they were talking about a city that had been doing regionally themed parks... Chinese, Russian, etc.  But after awhile, they realized that they were spending way too much money.  So would continue to allow people to put in proposals, but they were budgeting far less for the development of the parks.  But they said they were getting better quality parks that were more original and the quote was something along the lines of "Creativity flourishes when you begin slashing zeros from the budget." I thought it was a great quote and so was trying to find out who said it, but alas.  Don't know why Google would want me to slash heroes.  That's just wrong.