Fast, Cheap, or Quality ... Pick Two!

"Quality means doing it right when no one is looking."

- Henry Ford

 

 "Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort."

- John Ruskin

 

I have spent the last couple of months utilizing one week’s worth of vacation and an abundant amount of my after work hours and weekend time building a deck at our house. For a number of reasons it has taken me a lot longer than I originally anticipated.   A.   LOT.   LONGER.

There is an old adage in the design and construction industry stating one can have a project done “Fast, Cheap, or Quality…. Pick Two!” Whether you are web designer, contractor, architectural designer, or a husband, in order to build something one really must know which two of these are the most important parameters. Or in other words, which one are you willing to give up?

Quality + Fast = Expensive
This option means the hired contractor will postpone everything, cancel all other appointments, work 24/7 to get the job done. Quality is still paramount and if something goes amiss then a professional fixes it and makes it right. However, the deadline is critical to this scenario, too, and it comes with a cost. The higher price trumps everything else. That is why it is expensive. In the case of our deck, this would have been a professional deck builder or contractor, not me. We could have paid for a contractor and a crew to build it in a week, easy. But labor is not cheap and the contractor mark up on materials isn’t either. Quality + Fast = Expensive

Quality + Cheap = Slow

This option assures quality is not compromised, either. And since quality is paramount one can’t just go cheap on materials. So, in order for it to be cheap one must have cheap labor or no pressing deadline! One works on it when there is spare time. Paying attention to details is important and that can’t be rushed. In the case of our deck, it is just me and my wife. We are free. My vacation time was paid for and I could give the deck project the attention it deserved for a week. But, I’m not a professional. I’m not practiced in the art of speed. I measure twice, sometimes thrice, cut once. Quality + Cheap = Slow

Fast + Cheap = Inferior

This option means one really doesn’t care about the quality. The priorities are to just get it done so that it doesn’t cost a lot of labor and time. Cutting corners is acceptable. Quality is not important. In the case of our deck, this was not an option. Not at my house! Fast + Cheap = Inferior

As of this post, the project is nearing a 90% completion. The deck boards are all in. We can walk on it. The railing and trellis parts have yet to be finished. Plus, we need to put the second coat of stain on it again. But, it feels almost complete. We should have most of the remaining 10% done in the next few weekends, depending on our schedules, of course. The only thing I’m in a hurry for is that sense of accomplishment. I’m not there yet.

A side note:  With all the hours working on the project, I spent some quality time within my own head. I came to the conclusion that there IS indeed a way one can get all three… Fast, Cheap, AND Quality! One needs to be Amish.

Amish Quality = Experienced craftsmen

Amish Cheap = Tons of free, quality labor
Amish Fast = They can build a barn in a weekend

 

 

Celebrating Another Year of Daddyism (or Its Father’s Day, Again)

“He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” – Clarence Budington Kelland

As I tick off another notch in the annals of Father’s Days, I am confronted once again with the concept of Daddyism. One can start HERE, of course. But I must admit the center of the concept continually changes.

Daddyism resembles a long, dreamy road trip ripe with illogicalities and absurdity. For brief moments one has the audacity to presume the ride is a sporty convertible and a meandering open road; the wind in your hair, the sun on your face, perfect music, and the world in front of you. The next moment, a shriek from the back seat turns the driving to a clunky, beat up wagon, a steep downhill mountain pass where one questions the validity of the brakes.

In other words, no matter where one thinks you are on the Dad spectrum, “psyche!” That is Daddyism.

Daddyism feels a lot like being lost in L.A. without a GPS. Well, not really lost. You know you are in L.A. someplace. It doesn’t really look like what L.A. is supposed to look like. You see tons of sprawling strip malls and palm trees, but you don’t see anything you know to point you on the right track. Half the people speak some other language one can’t understand (including English) making asking for directions beyond taboo. Besides, you’re not really lost. You just can’t seem to locate that one familiar landmark.

No matter what the outward persona looks like, fathers are destined to navigate an unknown highway. We hopelessly search for something intended to stay hidden. Fatherhood is a place where drive, ambition, and a sense of purpose are routinely translated as narcissism and self-importance. In other words, sometimes the driver needs to take a back seat to reality. Daddyism !

After 18 plus years it is foolish to claim all this stuff is easy. Family matters have only gotten complicated, busy, and increasingly emotive. The calm offerings of Dad are often just a delusion to the contrary. But, that is ok.

On the surface, I hope to be seen by my family and peers as a father with wisdom and understanding. Indeed, it has been a great ride so far. To my kids, I hope they see through the fool they think I am to one day be the wise dad, navigating the world with a enough skill that they no longer feel the need to “tell me the way it is.” To my wife, I hope she can hold back the laughter until we are far, far away from earshot. And to me and my Daddyism, I simply hope to maintain that inner GPS.

Human and Feline Condition

“To him, who still would gaze upon the glory of the summer sun, there comes, when that sun will from him part, a sullen hopelessness of heart.” - Edgar Allan Poe 

I used to read more. The other night I stood reviewing the shelves of our library consisting of classic Hawthorne, Longfellow, and Poe. They sat right next to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Philip Roth, and, my favorite, Jim Harrison. I sighed. I’d like to reread some of them as I’m sure my former self had no idea of the perspective I hold now. I’m sure they would read different for me today. Those authors were are all unique, yet all passionately articulate and poignantly eloquent on the varying degrees and perspectives of the human condition.

From this vantage point, today’s human condition and a broad view of modern life resembles much of what is disliked about the “happiest place on earth”. For a fairly steep price, one jumps on the “high school graduation – college – girlfriend/boyfriend – graduation – career – marriage – pets – parenthood – PTA meetings – 40 something – community volunteerism – career number two – kid graduations – aging parents – and stuff not yet conquered” ride where we blog, document, and record each meal, gathering, and event while screaming toward the ultimate exit, which sounds more and more like a long discussion about Sansabelt pants. Just a single day involves an alarm at dark thirty to work out, a glance through an online paper during a ten minute power breakfast, a flurry to make kid lunches, beat the rush to drop off said kids at school, careen into work, email, texts, errands or meetings at lunch, work, quick stop for some forgotten thing on the dash home, snail mail assessment, cooking, forced quality time at dinner with events of the day retold, clean-up, kid homework monitored, more email, media check, pet check, teeth brushed, goodnight kisses, alarms set, schedule for the next day reviewed, and … bed. And I’m sure I missed something. But, it is Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride for reals.

A couple of months ago, our waiflike cat became ill. She couldn’t move. We watched her struggle. We nursed her as best we could. My wife fit vet schedules into an already stupid schedule of her own. It threw a wrench into a barely tuned machine. On top of it all, it was mentally and emotionally draining. The good news is the petite cat is doing better now, albeit a bit wobbly. She might always be that way. We shall see.

But this weekend something typical happened, though often overlooked. Maybe it was the first real observed moments to feel like Spring. Perhaps it was a break after all the laundry, house cleaning, vacuuming, and grocery shopping. It could have been the exhaustion after all the mowing, weeding, fertilizing, planting, and fixing irrigation lines. But, our frail, dainty cat ventured outside for the first time in a long time. And, we stopped.

We stopped. We sat down on the sidewalk in the sun. We listened to birds and distant barks. We compared cloud formations and jet streams. We talked. We laughed. And, our hearts filled with joy as our little, feline companion did a “stop, drop, and roll,” something physically not possible the last couple of months.

Our Lucky kitty was – and is – a simple reminder that despite our personal, puffed-up significance and all our interminable scurrying around in this crazy jaunt of life, one’s wild ride doesn’t always head in the direction we planned. There is often great loss and unavoidable sorrow—and that sometimes there is a rare delight in acknowledging we are, more often than not, helpless in the face of it all.

I needed a reminder. That is why I desire a good book.

Matter of Fact

“It takes two to speak the truth . . .

One to speak and another to hear.”

– Henry David Thoreau

“Everybody has the right to express what he thinks.

That, of course, lets the crackpot in.

But if you cannot tell a crackpot when you see one,

Then you ought to be taken in.”

– Harry S. Truman
 

It is critical to separate feelings from facts. Boring, I know, but it is necessary.

Something considered to be true is more often than not subjective, not objective. A truism in one world can be vastly different in another. In other words, truth has an element of perspective. People lose sight of this all too easily.

We all walk a fine line of acknowledging the truth in what we feel. Feelings are legitimate. It is your world. It is what you know. And your feelings matter. But, that isn’t always the “way things are” to others.

Not separating the facts out from feelings is a relationship buster. It propels misunderstandings, miscommunications, and mix-ups. Ask yourself, when one is sanctimonious, victimized, angry, or joyful, what has taken place? It is a reaction to a feeling and taking that feeling as a fact.

My feelings are my truth. Your feelings are your truth. But they aren’t the whole truth, just a personal partisan shade of it.

When we take what we feel to the point where we fault, accuse, deny, disparage, or judge, let’s start over by laying out the facts and separating them from our feelings. Therein lays the truth.

The Heart In Summer

The heart in summer feels passionately,
Breaking the ties between motivation and reason,
To enter a world of splendor and love.
Spirits and perceptions are dominant.

Yet, summertime often brings agony.
It is a time of rivalry and revolution.
The summer heart often finds oneself,
A stranger. The price of callousness.

Time shifts slowly with toil and sweat.
Youthful memories balance bliss and contentment.
Feel swimming and sailing. Music.
See, hear, touch the magnificence around.

The heart in summer knows well,
The river is deep and the passage broad.
Unlock the poetry and be. Laugh.
Summer is long and not to be forgotten.

Ordered My Jimmy Towel

Not only is this a great idea, but it is the brainstorm of a couple SLO Leadership Grads. Way to go guys.
Jimmy Towel

It's Friday (A work of fiction)

It’s Friday.

 

Mark likes wine. He sits on the shady corner of the patio talking to a minimal audience about his “script”. It is a piece “reflecting the interminable chasm of pandemonium in today’s digital world. Yet, it all makes complete sense, you know! There is order in the milieu. But that is also the peril!”.

 

Liz stares back at him, “It’s called The Matrix. Hello!” She adjusts her semi-transparent white blouse and looks around for another conversation to join but settles on the music, a specific Euro beat reflecting the walls of grey and green. She thinks Tom Waits’ music would be out of place here. M83 is a much better fit. Too bad, she laments.

 

And then there’s Sabrina, solitary at the central bar pretending to know her wine. Her intemperance, bright red lipstick, and haughty perfume hints of industry rookie and matches the green walls better than her charisma.

 

Leaning up against a post, palming a white wine glass to warm it a bit, Michael’s round specs reflect the light coming through the roll-up garage style doors. He’s wearing that black beret again making him look more clownish than Samuel L. Jackson, although his reference to Terret Noir catches a few nods from his group(ies). Michael is no clown with blending, or so it is told.

 

Being Friday, Kelly is in control of the bar and hooks me up with a perfect pour of Spanish rosé. She winks and lets the remnants of the bottle drip into my glass. I’m going to miss her if she ever ascends her way up the industry chain and lands in Napa or, more to her style, France. Besides her beauty, ambition is her best asset, as is the black tshirt/uniform.

 

Jake and Cynthia are rather loud assholes, being well read up on existential crap. They are appropriately absurd and talk in circles of intense nothingness. Though, it is amusing to note their cats are named Nietzsche and Sartre. They drink beer in a wine bar. Go figure.

 

Andrea is preposterously stunning, dressed as an affluent Santa Barbara woman just off a chic horse outing. She pulls her blonde hair off her shoulders and hugs Michael, hinting toward some deeper level as she inquires about a private dinner served family-style in a newly renovated barn.

 

Tai is an engineer and silently knows more about wine than most of the industry. He smiles naturally as he eavesdrops on the conversation next to him at the stainless steel bar.

 

Look at these people. Watch all these crazy, driven jesters with their aptitudes and criticisms and philosophies and inhibitions and crap. Who am I to judge or criticize? I’m not much different with these rosé glass goggles on, uploading balderdash into a smart phone like I’m important enough to be busy in an actual social setting. The reality is, as I shift on this bar stool all satisfied and happy and in my own state of veracity, I’m not any different. Maybe Jake and Cynthia are on to something. We’re just a group of troubled, disheartened, driven oenophiles finding ourselves in this wine bar for the same reason. It’s Friday.

From Where She Comes

Nearly two months ago my daughter and I submitted poems to the local paper for their Poetry Month competition (From Soul to Paper). My submission was not selected this year (though I have placed it here). Mallory's was published. I am so proud of her.

Where I am From

Mallory Jaeger, 14, Atascadero

I am from marketers,
from dead winters and dry summers.
I am from grandma’s green beans
(buttered and sprinkled with breadcrumbs)
I am from the birds chirping, the dogs barking, whose voice echoes
throughout the neighborhood, bouncing off of garage doors.
I’m from possums and wine,
from Cuba and Germany.
I’m from the “leave me alones” and the “you don’t understands,”
from earthquakes and droughts.
I’m from the In-N-Out Burger
with the smell still lingering, attached to my tongue.
I’m from charm bracelets and notebooks,
classic rock and Jason Mraz.
From my father’s famous hand flip,
my mother’s fingers tapping a keyboard.
In the back cottage is a bookcase,
filled with notebooks and old memories to reminisce everyday.
I am from those journals —
wrote into my life —
I am the last entry.

Read more here: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2013/04/26/2485885/from-soul-to-paper-a-celebration.html#storylink=cpy

Silence

Quietness echoes in soft morning light,
Showing the coming day with stoic poise.
Appearing cautiously not to excite,
This time is not about clamor and noise.

Silence is water and hope and routine,
The practiced calm of one's personal space.
Stillness is self-sought solitude. Serene.
A landscape and comfortable sense of place.

At an unpretentious level, one asks,
Might I ought to be getting on with it?
Successful men's days are raucous with tasks.
Captured noise is defiantly earsplit.

True silence is found in the ability,
Of claiming elusive tranquility.

Mondegreen

I learned a new word today. It is a noun: "Mondegreen". It means a word or a phrase resulting from mishearing another word or phrase. Specifically, I put this with lyrics. For example, I've always loved the rock band, The Who. One of my favorite songs is about a doorman named Milo ... "Let Milo Open the Door".

 

Now there is a term for it. Mondegreen. Here are a couple of other Mondegreens of note:

• The Police still sing, "A year has passed since I broke my nose."
• The Beatles wrote, "The girl with colitis goes by."
• CCR sings, "There's a bathroom on the right" instead of "There's a bad moon on the rise."

 

What are your Mondegreens?

Apples and Oranges

Often I find myself using the "Apples and Oranges" quote in explaining the differences in things. The idea is that you can't campare the two.

 

But why the hell not? Both are round. They are edible fruit. They both grow on trees. And, when necessary, they make great things to throw at argumentative people.

The Heart During Winter

In Winter, the heart holds reflection,
Knowing the solitude of self-determination.
It looks for echoes and significance,
In the exchange of a familiar hand.

Yet, wintertime draws one inward.
Beckoning firelight warms a hope within.
The winter heart lies snug inside,
Revisiting a day’s sunny ski slope.

Now is the time to discover meaning.
Defying control. Fostering consciousness.
Lifting viewpoints. Raising awareness.
Assessing plans for the future.

The heart in winter longs for rebirth,
To peer through the dark for a reason,
To ask and question. The Why.
To seek out a coming season's identity.

Terra Incognita

Maps made road trips with Dad a blast. Since a ten year old couldn’t drive, said ten year old was the navigator. Needless to say, this kid’s world held maps as a huge fascination. That makes today’s Google Earth a bit like porn. But that is another story….

 

Urban legends show that cartographers put down unmapped areas such as “Here Be dragons”, claiming crazy beasts or serpents to exist in the far corners of the earth (see Lenox Globe). One ponders if this was a major inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkein and the whole Hobbit series. In fact, the much maligned quote from the books and then the junior high play “over the Lonely Mountains through Mirkwood and the Withered Heath” rings in my head still today (if Joe was here he'd smirk and recite his monologue).

I crave old, paper maps. They are sketched-out canvases for the travel imagination, should one like to explore out of the comfort zone, that is. Old maps show lands yet untraveled or seen. They offer a matrix of material requiring one to fill in the path by foot or car or cross-country ski. Exploring maps helps us know places in our minds as fantastic, bizarre, shocking, or, well … flat and boring.

Never the less, a trusted map helps know the place before setting foot and eye into the setting. Before going to Spain last year, I utilized Google Earth to identify the alley and block around our rental apartment in Barcelona. It was good thing to have in mind as there were a few hours of adventure and stress before finding out the secret knock and Scottish password to get beyond the scary door (see above). THAT was not on the map.

The other day I street mapped our next destination.  Loreto, Baja Mexico. Can’t wait! I’m all mapped up and rarin’ to go. Though, I’m down just a notch as I’ve already seen it.

Even as I anticipate and support the emergence and development of digital, hand-held phones with GPS, I lament the disappearance of regular, paper maps. There is little space left for imagination to fill in the gaps as you can now see it in the palm of one’s hand. Today’s maps show a greater reality and leave little to resourcefulness of the mind. The need to know ahead of time has formally supplanted a wondrous experience of surging forward into an “in the moment” unknown.

The maps of old may have tantalized people with Terra Incognita, sea monsters, and large expanses of the unknown, but that didn’t stop explorers from traversing mountains or setting sail to the edge of the earth. So, why the urge to know a place ahead of setting foot there?

Ultimately, we have misplaced the imaginary destination. We have lost fiction before fact. RIP the last digitally unrecorded place on earth.

Broader Concerns

Martin Luther King said it best...

"No man has learned to live
until he can rise above the narrow confines
of his individualistic concerns
to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Length without breadth
is like a self-contained tributary
having no outward flow to the ocean.
Stagnant, still, and stale,
it lacks both life and freshness.
In order to live creatively
and meaningfully,
our self-concern must be wedded to other concern."

Remains of a Man's Day

That haunting movie was on again the other day and, after hours on the road within the last few weeks, it hasn't quite left the brain. The other day the t.v. remote found the instinctive impulse to stop and take another peak, if only to remind oneself of the soft underbelly of a respectful, middle-aged man. It isn't quite the Halloween scare you'd think, but rather a mental numbness of another sort.

It has been over 20 years since I was dragged kicking and screaming to see the movie The Remains of the Day. Yet the image of Anthony Hopkins, Mr. Stevens the Butler, sticks in one’s mind. Although the character is a man of honor and dignity, he is, for the most part, alone and unfulfilled. Empty. It is a fairly dark image of a man countered by a hefty respect for long hours, hard work, and putting the needs of others first.

It isn't currently important, really, just timely. When the movie was released in the early late 80s I saw it and I understood it, but did not truly get it. Fresh out of college, not yet married, and just starting a professional life of work, I was still in the making. The movie should have been forgettable and unremarkable to the college self save for the fact I knew men like Mr. Stevens. I worked with them. They were former professors. They were the middle class dads of friends and collegues who grew out of the depression era influenced generation ahead of me. It is a bit of my own father, who devoted his artistic soul to a vibrant career in music to struggle with early retirement and only a handful of gigs to satisfy his soul. And it is now me, twenty years into a career of giving my talents and dedication to one work project after another and coming home to happily cook, chauffer the kids, and attend to all the elements divorced/re-married dads do.

The Mr. Stevens character tapped into the silence and the unspoken hush of most dignified men. His self reflection is not lost on me. It is the dark, tacit part of us men not often shared. Though it could be Halloween-esque, it isn’t really a scary depressing place at all. It resembles center stage of an empty theater with a single, glowing bulb. It is a cigar, a glass of scotch, and an hour by oneself on the back patio. It is fishing or driving in silence. It is being. Respectful. Contemplative. Alone.

Men don’t share it because the answer is almost too simple. Get into the game. Stay in the light. Just leave the darkened mind-set and let that Emma Thompson character know of your true feelings and life can be complete. Yes, it can. I have. And, I am immensely happier for making the leap and trusting again. I didn't follow the script. But...

Apologies if you have read to this end with no real conclusion to offer up. All this rambling makes for incredibly boring reading, I'm sure. Most blogs of note get much further in today’s on-line culture by loudly bitching about something. But, to mer there is a sense of celebration in the balance between a man’s light and dark. One thrives in this balance. And that is ok.

Although he wasn't a role model, per se, Mr. Stevens taught me something once. And it has become clearer at the end of this day.

On the Eve of the First Debate

It would seem the majority of the people
Lean toward the two poles
Of mistrust and belief.
Grudgingly polarized
Between disenchantment and hope.
Disillusionment controls,
Yet, belief maintains the upper hand
In the calamity that is today.
Politics is a trench war run via circus management.
The partisan’s ability to compartmentalize
Prevents both bewilderment and imminent.
It feeds the conflict between belief or mistrust.

The Standard of Care

Why do you care?

Because, somebody has to care and I can’t help myself. I care because it is my job as a friend, husband, a father, and Marketing Director. And, if nobody cares it all just stagnates into mediocrity or falls apart altogether.

You know what this means.  Winemakers use pretty much the same fruit. But the ones that put that extra thought, the attention to detail, are the ones getting the WOW moment. The other wines down the road that cost the same are just ok. I might or might not be back.

My son’s grades are atrocious because he doesn’t care. Nobody else seems to care either.

The service at the sandwich shop is made up of non-caring college students just putting in their time to get the beer money. The customers don’t care. They just want a sandwich.

The cork flooring we ordered for the house is back ordered for months. We are incredibly inconvenienced, but the company getting our money could care less. None in the supply chain want to make an effort.

Well, that is all about to change because I do care. That alone makes a difference. If it is worth doing at all, it has value. You should care. I’m shopping again for a flooring company that actually wants me to buy their product. That was the last sandwich from that deli. My son has no choice IF he cares about a car someday. And, I only allow myself wine club memberships having a WOW factor.

When will you all learn the value of actually caring and going beyond mediocrity?

We, of the Individual

We, of the individual, possess a creative brain,

Voracious intellectual inquisitiveness,

In spite of basic function.

We, of the individual, have a memory,

A supremacy to reason and sway,

In spite of absentmindedness.

We, of the individual, formulate resolutions,

With a capacity to be subtle,

In spite of bad habits.

We, of the individual, possess potential,

A power to realize that potential in actuality,

In spite of the limits endured.

Change Happens

"Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have—and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up."— James Belasco and Ralph Stayer Flight of the Buffalo (1994)

I’m a little behind in my reading. The stack of books has been returned to the bookshelf, leaving behind a few in the bedside drawer in hopes of a sleepless night or an afternoon without chores. But I sleep really well and I have a lengthy honey-do list at the moment.

Most of what gets read these days are articles:  marketing articles, financial trends in the A/E/C world, social media tips, and most them fall into the firm self-help category. The ones that profoundly resonate are terrific. Some of them minimally inspire and some of them repeat the obvious. Everything else simply fails.

The t.v. was on a food channel while doing chores last weekend. I took a break long enough to catch the jist. It was all about a guy who reinvents restaurants. He takes failing restaurants and revitalizes them. He watches their actions, interviews the customers, redoes their menus to reflect the best in their food, highlights their real costs, and gets the owners to actually do their jobs. He turns the whole operation around. The only result is success. Happy customers who want to come back.

We can learn from this approach and apply it to business. Ultimately, we are all trying for a similar goal. The difference isn’t one of intent. We all WANT to succeed.  The difference is in being able to change and get over bad, old habits. In this highly energized, faster paced world of today, the only way to truly succeed is to Nike-Up. Just do it. Change! There are a lot of self-help materials available or you can pay for a consultant to host an intervention (and maybe put it on a reality show).

Over the years a number of excuses have been hoisted up as to why change can’t happen. “You can’t turn an aircraft carrier on a dime.” Or, “We need to justify why and do a study before we can change that.” Well, the Navy came up with PT boats to deal with that aircraft carrier issue. Those boats were smaller, faster, and armed. And a study is just a study. One still needs to endorse change.

The key to all these self-help articles I’ve been reading comes down to a simple concept. One must change in order to be successful. If you are willing to unequivocally change now, all those articles, tips, and self-help lists have a chance to have a major impact for the good. Then one might not actually need an outsider to mess with the menu.

What is best

Look what is best, that best I wish in thee.
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
- Shakespeare