I am the Virginia Office.

It’s an interesting time at work.

My manager is going on maternity leave.  One of my team mates is going out for four to six weeks for back surgery, and my team lead lives in another state. The rest of the team is either in another state or another country.

So that leaves me. The only one at headquarters.

I smell a lot of casual dress days coming up.

Sinking feeling

I have had this weird feeling in the morning lately. I get up early, and feel proud of myself while I Accomplish Things. It’s pretty nice actually.

And then I remember that I lost an hour over the weekend and while my body thinks it’s early, I’m 20 minutes late.
Again….

With apologies to my former Sifu.

I’m going to tell a little story about him. Charlie is his name.

Three childhoods and two cities ago I studied Tai Chi. My teacher was a little Italian man with a long white beard and a whole lot of practice in his art. Plus a curiosity for all things martial arts related and a complete lack of ego when it came to other styles.

One day a couple of us went to see another instructor teach, we did this a lot if it was an obscure style. We were curious and Charlie went with us. The other instructor found out Charlie was a teacher and asked for a demonstration. Well, things went the way they usually go when someone has a point to prove and by the end of the afternoon Charlie was turning down offers to spar. After much insistence, Charlie made him an offer. What he would do is this:If the other guy could keep Charlie from touching his chest they would spar. If he couldn’t, well then, there wasn’t much use in sparing, now is there?

So there they were, one big fast Black belt. One short, slightly round, tai chi teacher. Once they started it was kind of funny. Big and fast threw every block he could think of as short and round simply reached in to touch his chest.They did this for two very long minutes, with the black belt spinning blocks wildly and getting tap every time,  before black belt simply gave up. He thanked Charlie, and thanked us for visiting, and oddly, didn’t offer to come visit our class. I asked Charlie what actually happened, what was the ancient mystical trick that let him land a touch every time. His reply was something  I will never forget.

Charlie said there was no trick to it but rather the simple fact that they had different intents.The other guy really wanted to show his students the superiority of his style. He was going to demonstrate the grace and power that his art was all about. He was going to do it at Charlie’s expense. That was his intent.

Charlie, on the other hand only wanted to touch his chest. It made his actions more deliberate, faster, and more efficient. it also made them next to impossible to avoid.

The lesson I took back then was that intention is powerful stuff and that with the proper intent on can do the Amazing. But as I think about it more today, the lesson take from it today is that without proper intention its next to impossible to accomplish anything difficult and worthwhile.

So this is my next personal goal, to hone my intent. Hopefully it will help me accomplish some of the harder and more worthwhile things I’ve been thinking about. We’ll see how it goes.

Sick of sitting

After a couple years of not having any place to put one I finally broke down and bought a standup desk for my home office. And I love it. It does all the things for my brain they say it does. 

But this left me with a strange problem. I still have to sit in my cube at work where I spend the majority of my working time. So I put my brain to it and came up with a cube hack that I’m totally in love with.

My Ikea Idea.

I bought a kids table from ikea and sawed the legs off to make the work surface 42 inches tall. I got a cheap stool and threw my task chair in the hallway. I couldn’t be happier with it. 
The really funny part is that people in the office now think I have some sort of medical condition that requires me to stand up. 

Why else would you choose to stand, right?

Lightning on a clear night

So I’m sitting on the porch and the lights go out. 
Sirens galor sing out across the neighborhood.
The lights come back on for a moment and then darkness returns. 

And that’s when we see lightning on a  clear night. 

That is usually a transformer blowing, which is usually a six hour ordeal. I’m sleeping in the dark tonight.

Which brings me to the best part of the kegerator. You don’t have to open the door to get beer out. Which means it stays cold and you can still get it.

Awesome dream

So I had  this dream that my wife bought me a new car; only the most awesome car ever. It was KITT from Knight Rider. Except it was different. 

It would turn into AirWolf! It was AWESOME! 

That was too sweet to not share.

Five years ago…

If I think back five years ago there’s one thing I really remember: I was getting laid off. But I was starting a new job and I didn’t know how it was going to go but if I could hold on for a couple years I would feel good about it. 

Well, today the company I started with 5 years ago gave me a clock to celebrate my anniversery with the company.  It’s been a wild few years, but it feels good to have gotten here.