For some time now, I've felt that what the world really needs is a new commute car. Why does the world still not have a car that:

- Seats only one person
- Is only 1 person wide
- Is battery powered with a range of maybe 80 miles
- Costs less than $20,000
- Is as safe as your standard SUV

I kid you not - I would buy that car today (if it existed and I had any money). Instead I am forced to look at dog ugly wonders of the design world such as:


The Hyundai Santa Fe - very ugly


The Acura MDX - non-descript blob of a car




Lexus RX300 - Who allowed this car to be made?

There are a number of very cool cars in this world. Most of them happen to be little cars made in Germany. They include:


Plenty of muscle in a tiny car - truly beautiful. Great commercials, too ("sometimes my fast and my girlfriend don't get along", and "un-pimp your ride").


Audi A3 - has just recently started showing up on US roads.


Smart ForTwo - All over Europe, tiny, great gas mileage, what's not to like? Who cares if Smart is a hopelessly doomed money-losing venture by Daimler. As long as they're making cars, export them to the US and let me buy one. Oh yeah, make it run on diesel, too, please.

I hasten to add that there is a company that claims that they have a solution. I would buy this car if it didn't cost $100,000. (click here to see why George Clooney likes this car)


Enough car ranting. Some random pics from this week below.

 

The more I shop at Costco, the more I realize that there are really two kinds of treat ladies (I say 'ladies' because I have only seen one guy in the many years I've been shopping there). The first kind makes the treat stand run like a well-oiled machine. She has 2 or 3 trays goin' in the toaster oven, and the plastic tray with bite size samples is always generously stocked. One need not even halt the rolling wheels of the gargantuan Costco shopping cart to sample the garlic buttered shrimp. Then there are the treat ladies that are always causing cart pile-ups and shopping delays because they cannot or will not churn out the DiGiorno slices fast enough. They fidget with the toaster oven controls, fastidiously check lineage of each child hoping for a sample, and keep a tray of empty napkins in the bullpen, waiting to emerge with pizza slices, should they ever show up.

This week at work, I witnessed two phenomena that often occur in presentations, and they caught my attention for some reason. The first is the urge for a presenter to ask (after spending an hour or so speaking) "has this been useful?". This is typically asked by an important person after he/she has given a highly esoteric talk to a room full of silent employees. Regardless of the situation, this question breaks the employees out of their trance, and the presenter hears a jumble of comments like "of course" and "sure it was", as if anyone would be crazy to think otherwise. It's as if we're going to audibly mumble "complete waste of time" or "I'd rather have been filling out HR benefit election forms in my cube for the last hour". The second thing is the concept of the "hard stop", as in "we have to wrap up in 15 minutes because I have a hard stop at 4:00". This makes a mockery of our ability to manage time in the absence of the "hard stop". It suggests that the meeting organizers would just love to have everything drag on for hours on end, but today will be prevented from doing so by the trotting out of the phrase "hard stop".

This weekend, I finally conquered spare ribs. Back ribs have always been easy - hard to make them anything but tender and good in a little over an hour. However, I have had limited success with spareribs. Probably my best showing was when Mom and Dad visited us in Pittsburgh, but I've only been able to get tender meat inside by burning the outside. This time, however, the grill was just the right temperature, I sprayed the ribs with apple cider every 3o minutes just like Steven Raichlen told me to, and voila! - perfect spareribs. They were amazing. BTW - if you want a BBQ book, get "how to grill" by mr. Raichlen. It's great for beginners like me, and takes you through all the steps w/pics. It got us hooked on bbq during our summer in Evanston. That's about it for now. Pics - Kai trying to see out the front window (on tippy toes). Me stealing Asha's princess crown, Asha in on the swingset with Kai, and Kai in the kitchen.

This week was also Kai's first birthday. Marie made a banana cream cake that we all enjoyed, and Kai even figured out that there was good stuff inside the wrapping if he tore it open. He did need some help getting it started, though. Jerome and Asha were both really cute about Kai's birthday, and both made cards for him even though Marie and I hadn't told them to. Gma Campbell sent along two presents for Kai, who loved the truck book (the Thomas the Tank Engine overalls were more of a hit with Kai's mom). Kai also was allowed the pleasure of devouring a piece of banana cream cake on his own. As you can he, he quickly got into the task.

To be honest, I can't really think of a lot to write about, but here are a couple of things. On Friday I went on my first campout with the Teacher's Quorum. It was apparent that the Teachers had planned it themselves because the entire plan focused on taking various props to the sand dunes in the desert and riding these props down the dunes. They hadn't taken into account the fact that the dunes are 2 hours from San Diego, so it would be dark when we got there. They planned to camp in approximately the same place as they had 2 years ago when they came to the dunes as Deacons. This would also be the time that they were also almost run over by dune buggies numerous times during the night. After arriving at around 10pm, the boys then insisted that we camp in the same spot. I vetoed this idea, and we went to a different place where folks are actually supposed to camp and pitched our tents. Predictably, the boys stayed up all night, but this had the fringe benefit of having them suggest that we go home at 9am the next morning. Another fiasco that I managed to see coming was breakfast, which was supposed to be french toast. On the way out, we stopped at a truck stop to buy dinner. It was there that I acquired 2 Clif Bars which would serve as a fine breakfast in the event that something went wrong. Well, the Teacher that was supposed to bring the stove didn't actually come, so at 8am while I was contentedly snacking on my Clif Bars, the teachers were washing down chunks of virgin white bread with room temperature apple juice. In case you're keeping track, here's a rundown of the campout stats:
Teachers attending: 9
Teachers shot with airsoft guns: 9
Leaders: 3
IPODs holding songs with profanity: 1 (that I know of)
Total man hours of sleep for leaders: 12 (I got half of that myself)
Total boy hours of sleep: 18
Total meals eaten: 2
Total meals purchased at fast food establishments: 2
Driving time : 6 hours
Time spent actually having fun on dunes: 2 hours

An unrelated realization I made this week: At work, I keep on seeing people that I swear worked at PPG, too. These are people I probably only see once or so a month, and I guess there's a place in my brain where I store that info, and it happens to contain both PPG people and Pyxis people. I can't tell them apart anymore. Of course, I'll probably find out that in addition to myself, there were a bunch of people that worked at PPG headquarters that also quit and moved to SD to work at Pyxis at about the same time as me. 

Here we are at Point Loma! On the suggestion of my excellent brother Stu, we all went up to Point Loma on Saturday afternoon. It was a gorgeous day, and we could see all the way up the north coast on one side, and all of downtown San Diego, Coronado Island, and all the way down to Tiajuana on the other. The point is near the spot where Juan Cabrillo is believed to have landed in 1521, becoming the first white guy to visit San Diego.


Jerome plays with a beetle. Unfortunately, this propted Asha to grab an insect for herself. This insect happened to be a bee, and it stung her middle finger. It appeared to hurt pretty bad, but after a few minutes it was ok. 

OK, a few more from Mother's day. Stu made a strawberry tart, and it was really, really good.


 

This week, I'm tired. I spent 4 hours writing a talk for church last night, and have no desire to blog. I see this as a temporary affliction. In the meantime, here are some pics from our first real trip to the beach. It was great!


 

So, I turned 31 this week. I got lots of presents, including some great flip-flops and board shorts from Marie. I also got this great product from Sony which will finally enable us to transfer all our old camcorder tapes to DVD. There is one minor problem - it doesn't work. It came from Costco, though, so it won't be a big deal to take it back if we can never get it to work. I really wish it would just work, because it's really simple to use - it just makes coasters, that's all. asha. (that last word is the work of Asha, who made me let her write her name in the blog).

This week was also the Fathers and Sons campout, which was held at Lake Jennings. It was only about a half an hour away from our house. There was no shortage of prickly pears, as you can see, but it was hard to feel like we were roughing it when I could look across the lake and see the palatial sub-suburban mansions of San Diego rich folks. The Jack-in-the-Box was only about 3 minutes from camp, and many a Father and Son succumbed to the temptation. In fact, Jerome and I were the only ones that actually cooked our dinner at the site. As if you can have a Fathers and Sons without cooking your own dinner. We had hamburgers.

This is what Asha calls her "mad face'. CTR5 (Asha wants everyone to know that she just wrote "CTR5" on the blog)










This is another picture of Asha, but this one's not her "mad face".

Here are some unrelated thoughts from this week. After seeing the name of one top prospect in last week's NFL draft, I was left to wonder whether D'brickashaw Ferguson has a long lost brother named D'rickashaw, who shows a prodigious athletic ability regarding the pulling of a two-wheeled cart.

Also this week, Marie and I decided to unload our house to a total low-ball offer, which reminded me of when Clint Eastwood's character remarked "There are two kinds of men in this world. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig." We dug. We'll see if we actually close. 

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.