Highlights of my week -

So, I was on the flight back home after attending the "society of competitive intelligence professionals" meeting in Orlando. All of a sudden, the plane started bouncing around like an amusement park ride, and the flight attendants beat a hasty retreat with the beverage cart. It then got even worse, prompting a lady seated right behind me to blurt out "God help us!". The flight attendants appealed for calm, implying that such turbulence is common, but who really knows. The rest of the flight passed without incident.

The meetings were meant to get me up to speed on what I'm supposed to be doing here, but seemed less than useful to me. At the end of the day, on the ball people who are perceptive and listen will do well, and those that aren't probably won't. That's what I learned. I also learned that I will never be as smart as Clayton Christiensen, who gave an amazing talk about innovation and churn in the business world. His conclusion: the only way that traditional companies can hope to survive is to establish autonomous companies with a mandate to kill the parent corporation. Bleak, but very timely given lots of the challenges we're facing at my company.

I had to cringe when I saw an Applebee's commercial with Sammy Davis, Jr. digitally patched in this week. I find it highly objectionable to use dead celebrities to hawk products. Now if someone wants to buy an Elvis shirt, and his estate wants to make a buck on that, so be it. I have no problem with that. I also have no problem with Tiger Woods endorsing Buick, a brand that's way more Sam Snead than it is Tiger. Tiger decided to make a fool of himself. I do have a problem with Applebee's and Sammy's estate deciding posthumously that Sammy prefers Applebee's to Chili's, TGIF, Outback, Olive Garden, and every other lame-0 micro waved food outfit supplied by Sysco (thank you, Tom). Why, during the middle of a commercial, do I have to ponder on how Applebee's and Sammy's relatives hammered out his latest deal? Why is Applebee's stupid enough to think that people won't think about that when they see Sammy in their commercial?

The proliferation of password "help'' questions continues. I've been thinking, and here are some you are not likely to see:

• What was the serial number on the first can of soda you ever drank?
• How many times were you screened for scoliosis in elementary school?
• What was the name of the first store in your hometown put out of business by Wal-Mart?
• Who makes up your favorite 2 man luge team?
• Why don't you like jazz?

I was called to be the assistant teacher's quorum advisor. The boys are pretty rowdy, but I think I can still beat most of them up - maybe not all at the same time, though.

No pics this week - sorry.

This week, I finally got around to another task that I've put off for about 2.5 years - taking the Ichthus off our van. This was kind of wierd from the start. The guy we bought the van from in the first place (who was really nice, by the way) had the Ichthus on it, and it wasn't a priority for us to take it off. If, instead, the bumper had read "honk if you're horny" or "bad cop, no donut", you can bet we would have been out there with a razor blade and ammonia on day one. The Ichthus is more complicated. We are Christians, after all. We also respect the origins of the Ichthus, and the legacy of the early Christians who used it to identify themselves. Still, we have gotten our share of funny looks as we leave the church parking lot. We considered ways of modifying the Ichthus (see above) but felt the meaning would be lost on fellow members while also not playing well with fellow Christians not of our sect.

So, I took it off. This also was kind of wierd. Imagine, if you will, a friendly neighborhood Baptist minister having a conversation with his wife- "Bernice, I was driving down the road today minding my own business, and happened on sorry young man scrapin' the Ichthus off his car. Poor boy has fallen pray to the persuasion of the world, lost his faith, and got to the point where he couldn't take it anymore. Saddest thing I've ever seen". Luckily, this didn't happen.
Marie here: How am I going to find our van in the parking lot any more?

(Back to Scott)After dinner this evening we had the chance to take a walk through the canyon behind our house. (The black shade at the top of the picture is the fence behind our house.) It was fun for the kids and us. So far we've been really pleased with the neighborhood and living in San Diego in general. I hope you like my finger in the pic to the left.

Last thought: a coup d'état is defined as the sudden overthrow of a government through unconstitutional means by a part of the state establishment that mostly replaces just the top power figures. A poo d'état is the sudden overthrown of family priorities executed by the youngest member of that family through an unusually large, smelly, or leaky poopie. Kai pulled one off before church today.

My longstanding procrastination regarding backyard play equipment for our kids ran head-on into Marie's discovery of a guy on craigslist from our neighborhood unloading a used playset for cheep. That's what I spent Saturday doing. As you can see, it all got done in the end, even if I muttered a few choice words at various nuts and bolts that didn't seem to be doing their fair share. We almost didn't get it done, though. I went over to Ricky's house (the guy that was selling it) and he kindly assisted in the partial dismantling of the playset. We then hauled it out to his front yard. Having no rig to haul the pieces over to our house with, I called Home Depot (both of their trucks were out) and then Uhaul (yes, they had trucks and they were 19.99/day plus 1.20/mile). Great, I said, and headed over to the sketchy liquor store/uhaul franchise. There, the loser owner proceeded to say that he had no 19.99 trucks left, only 29.99 trucks. This crock (along with the multitude of signs warning of dire consequences if rip-off insurance is not purchased) affirmed U-Haul's place in a select group of truly disgusting American institutions. Needless to say, I left and drove over to Home Depot. Someone had returned one of their flatbed trucks, which I rented for 19.99 (no per mile charge) thereby saving about $30. Ricky helped me load the playset onto the truck, and we then re-assembled it in our back yard. Asha and Jerome love playing on it so far, and spent some time on Sunday kneeling in front of the patio door staring longingly at the swings and slide.

A quick thanks to Jules for the Flat Stanley letter. This is a picture of an engrossed Jerome reading the letter to Asha. He loved it, and his class was very impressed, not only with the letter but with the fact that Flat Stanley was trapped in a Suburban in some place called Kennewick, WA.








Lastly, the Easter bunny came. I don't know why neither Marie nor I are big sticklers for family holiday traditions relating to the lesser occasions, but everything below Christmas for us seems to be off the radar. Anyway, Jerome mentioned to Marie that he thought that the Easter Bunny didn't really come, and that it was just his dad that had put out all the candy. When asked why, he referenced as proof a comment I made to Marie that Kai probably wouldn't enjoy looking for candy, because I hadn't put any low enough for him to reach. I guess he's gotta find out sometime.

Fascinating article this week in the Economist on soft paternalism (in other words, the saving of ourselves from ourselves, sponsored by the government and encouraged by everyone but the Cato Institute). For instance, researchers found 2 new ways to make people save for retirement (almost no one saves enough on their own). The first way is to make people opt out of 401K saving when starting a new job, instead of making them opt in. This increases the participation rate from under 50 to over 80%/ Also, if you commit workers to save a certain percentage of future wage increases up front, researchers were able to raise the savings rate for workers from about 5% to over 13%. Some researchers have even suggested ways to get people to quit smoking, like letting people buy cigarettes tax-free for 5 or 10 years, but only if they pay the tax up front in a lump sum. They would pay the same, but the current system makes it easy to start smoking by using a pay-as-you-go structure. If we're going to have sin taxes, might as well have ones that work. Hugh Nibley might say "work we must, but the lunch is free and nutritious and you're gonna eat it". Tough dilemma. Most of us are doomed to failure unless we can be tricked into succeeding, in which case we don't learn anything and succeed in spite of ourselves. I can email the article to anyone who wants it - just let me know.

I've been thinking about what makes a person into a better person. This week, an executive at work talked about how he started out in medical devices over 20 years ago. He's an inspirational kind of guy who's good at motivating and developing people around him; a class act. It made me wonder what kind of a guy he was 20 years ago, and what has he done (or what has happened to him) to make him into what he is today. There's a larger issue here that has spiritual implications. I'm still trying to figure out how one can measure personal progress; how to take a snapshot of my abilities or failings today and dust it off 2 years down the road to see what has changed.

So we went to Legoland. It was good, if only because the kids absolutely loved it. We hatched a crazy plan for bro-in-law Bryan (who was in Anaheim for a tradeshow) to come down to San Diego for dinner on Friday night, leave Kahlin, who would then go with us to Legoland, after which we take Kahlin back up to Anaheim, and drive back to San Diego. Kahlin was great with our kids, who love his intense personality. The only tears were shed by Asha, who failed by 1 inch to qualify for spinning teacups-like ride.

This week, not much to report.

I do have one pet peeve that keeps on popping up. Could we please all agree on the airplane flight metaphors? There seems to be an unhealthy number of flight altitudes floating around in conversations I hear. For example, I heard somebody say this week "Just give me the 30,000 foot version". I've heard everything from 10,000 feet to 100,000 feet. Frequently someone will really think he or she knows what he/she is talking about, and will throw in an increment of 5000, as in "Well, here's 45,000 foot view of the situation". These are usually silly and pointless. It would suffice to say "cut to the chase", or "just give me an overview". One problem is that people typically use the number they remember from the pilot's announcement on the last flight they took ("We have reached our cruising altitude of 52,000 feet, and I'm going to turn off the fasten seatbelt light"). But if I'm not mistaken, these numbers are always different. Also, nothing looks like much of anything from above 50,000 feet. For me, the views aren't that interesting unless I'm taking off or landing. This means that if I had my choice, I'd prefer the view from 5000 feet, thank you very much.

Also, one thing that has always bugged me about sweaters. They are harsh on my elbow skin. Every time I rest my elbow on a table with a sweater on, it makes a semi-permanent waffle pattern. Besides the fact that this is annoying, it is also mildly uncomfortable. A related point: what's up with the elbow patch on sweaters and blazers, anyway? I have yet to see any article of clothing that has been so abused in the elbows that it would warrant this kind of overkill protection. It's not like all of us wear our nice tweed jackets to play rugby or compete in arm wrestling tournaments. So I've got an idea. Sew the patches on the INSIDE of the sweater elbows. Voila! No ugly elbow patch is visible, and resting of arms on tables is much more comfortable.