Achievement: Schrödinger’s New Year’s Resolution
I like to be different so I came up with a new way of making my New Year’s resolutions. It’s what I do.
My idea? Giving the resolutions a Schrödinger’s twist. (Also one of my favorite cocktails but that’s another story.)
What is a Schrödinger’s Resolution, you ask? Easy.
A Schrödinger’s Resolution is a resolution you can’t know you’ve achieved until you’ve either done or not done it.
I came up with the idea during my imaginary free time.
The resolution was this: Blog less and/or blog more.
Some of you (and I’m speaking exclusively to my other personalities here) noticed that shortly after January 1st something went amiss. You had a little more spring in your step. The world was a little brighter and, dare I say it, seemed a little friendlier. Your ring-around-the-collar was gone.
What happened? It turns out I had achieved my resolution. Victory! The sweet smell of success.
I went with the less is more approach. Trust me on this, it was my gift to you. No thanks are necessary. In fact, you’re so gone you’re probably not even reading this.
Back in The Beginning, everything I read about blogging was pretty straightforward. Blog about what you love. Pick a niche and stick with it. Maintain a regular schedule. Treat your readers with respect.
Pshaw!
I gleefully ignored all of those rules except one. Somehow I found the temerity of will to post on a daily basis for several long, tedious years. Yes, it’s true, I backdated a post or two to keep up the illusion. But I stuck with it. And what did it get me? Did my stats slowly grow over time? Did I earn a single penny? Did I get a press pass to the Mitt Romney for President bus? Did I even get a simple bucket of dead hair?
No. My stats plateaued then cratered. And I thought I was doing something different by volunteering for the one-way mission to Mars. I’m already a Pathfinder. It was about as successful as a fart in a hurricane. Then I went screaming naked down a beach but that’s another story.
So now I blog less than I did before. It’s amazing how quickly I adjusted to that new reality. The Streak is done. Gone. Zip. Nada. Bupkis. And you know what? I’m okay with it.
Don’t worry. Stay tuned. I’m sure I’ll be back here pounding the keys again the next time a bit of undigested beef brings me visions. When that happens, be ready. I may have a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, or even a fragment of underdone potato with your name on it.
From here on out it’s nothing but gravy.
The Perfect Swarm
It was raining in the canoe on the bay lake. A hard rain. The kind of rain that encouraged my wife try like hell to bail water with her coffee cup.
Two days earlier…
It was a Friday. The crew and I assembled in the aft quarters to review the weather reports. They said there was a 10% chance of rain on Saturday and a 30% chance on Sunday. We decided to depart on Sunday.
One day earlier…
On one hand it was a good decision to delay because it gave us an extra day to perform dry runs. We ran equipment checks and drills. Our first trip had caught us unprepared. I’d be damned if that was going to happen on my watch.
We took some time on Saturday and got the rigging down to a science. That last portage had almost killed us.
While the canoe was out of the garage, we decided to go home improvement on this old house. For some strange reason we were tired of dry dock consisting of the canoe precariously balanced on the refrigerator and an old bookcase.
How To Have Fun In A Canoe
Lean in the same direction as your companion. This is also known as “swimming.”
A one-hour construction project was about to go 500 percent past deadline.
Continue reading →
What Does The Rich Say?
Get wealthy enough and you start believing your own hype and thinking shit like this is a good idea.
Earlier I espoused my pet theory (my precious!) that the odds of being an asshole increase exponentially with the acquisition of wealth. For example, if someone is in the top one percent there’s an asshole threshold (AT) of 99 percent. For the top .01 percent that grows to 99.99 percent.
I said at the time I said that I thought extreme wealth was a function of “lie, cheat and steal (LCS).”
Is it a chicken and egg kind of thing? Are people in the top .01 percent because they were born with LCS? Or was LCS something they had to learn to get there? Chicken and egg.
Thinking about this, I thought to myself, “If only there was some way to know.”
Then I realized that an existing data study might be useful. But what existing data is available? How about words taken right out of their own mouths? Perhaps that might provide some insight into their character and world view.
Case Study – Ray Kroc
Ray Kroc was a “restauranteur” and founder of McDonalds Corporation and included in Time: The 100 Most Important People of the Century. Perhaps not in the .01 percent Kroc was still considerably wealthy, worth about $500 million when he died in 1984. The Kroc family now has an estimated worth of $1.7 billion.
Suffice it say he’s sold a few “hamburgers” and made a few bucks. Let’s see what he has to say.
If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I’ll kill ’em, and I’m going to kill ’em before they kill me. You’re talking about the American way – of survival of fittest.
–Ray Kroc
Source: Bloomsbury Business Library – Business Thinkers & Management Giants (2007)
Wow. He truly sounds like a great guy. I think we’re ready for the peer review process to begin.
I’m updating my hypothesis. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that wealthy people say all sorts of the darnedest things. Like upside-down Weebles, they have an overly-inflated sense of self and think they can’t fall down. That’s when they’re at their quotable best. (See: Sterling, Donald.) It’s almost like they get off on exposing themselves. As if to say, “See what I can do? I don’t just have all the money. I can also do this. What are you going to do about it? Ha ha ha.”
Can you find other compelling examples of what the rich say?
Positive Feedback
It’s not every day when the universe provides something like this. So I thought I would share.
“Unicorn” is the codename I’ve given to one of the technical people who came on board after I quit. She’s been working on my stuff.
To: Tom B. Taker
CC: Former Boss
From: Unicorn
Subject: KudosHi Tom,
I just wanted to take a moment to give you some positive feedback on the scripts you created to manage vendor/product information.
Your extensive, clean documentation, stable code, and useful logging / script echos has made this transition run much more smoothly than I have experienced in other small businesses. Well done.
Warm Regards,
Unicorn
Note the date and time in the ship’s log. I’m speechless. I have nothing negative to add.
Hanging Out My Shingles
Now that I’m a successful small business owner (one day and counting) and a veritable piece of Americana, my mind has turned to other business opportunities. Where else can I spread?
My idea is a retail location known as The Nothing Goes Store. The sign on the front door says it all:
- No electronic devices of any kind permitted on these premises
- No wifi offered
- No headphones allowed
- No customers
- No soliciting
- No products
- No music
- No talking
- $20 cover charge
- No outside food or beverages
- No eye contact
- No touching
- No nudity
- No clothing
- No guns
- No addictions
That’s about it. Come in and have a seat. You won’t be served in the order of arrival. Charter memberships are still not available. No ground floor opportunities are available. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Therefore, no current or prospective client should assume that the future performance of any specific nothingness (including the advise dispensed by the guru), will be profitable or equal to past performance levels.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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