Life

I love playing around with Google Translate – mostly to look at web sites or read blogs that are written in other languages.  I’m also a big cycling fan and after this year’s Tour I decided to write to the German cyclist Jan Ullrich – one of my favorite riders and the third place finisher in this year’s contest.  I wrote my note in English but also translated it into German using Google. I had forgotten about this note until a few days ago when I actually received a note back from Jan (I’m actually pretty sure it was really from him – it certainly made my day!).  I translated it back to English also using Google, but decided that…

Back from vacation and quite refreshed . . . One of the things we did in Maine was visit the LL Bean outlet (ok . . . we’re tourists . . .). Going there provided an example of making your threats real – in this case a positive one. LL Bean is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.  No exceptions. They are so serious about this that they actually don’t have locks on the doors to their store. Pretty powerful example of putting a stake in the ground about something they believe strongly in.

I’ve been re-reading my Occam’s Paradox post as well as the comments and trackbacks (which are excellent – please click through them if you have a minute).  I fell a little short of really saying what I originally intended for the post, which was that I think that we have a tendency not only to make things more complicated than need be, but also to focus on too many things (and therefore the wrong ones).  As a result we try to assimilate too much data to make decisions (not recognizing the massive diminishing returns on this effort) and try to pay attention to too many things.  I wrote a post a while ago about trying to cram too much information…

Remember Occam’s Razor? It’s the principle (that you probably learned in high school physics) that states that the simplest solution to a given problem is probably the best.  I’ve been thinking recently about complexity in business and in life and think there’s a corollary to Occam’sRazor that perhaps should be called Occam’s Paradox – the propensity of humans to make things more complicated than they need to be.  I don’t pretend to know why this is, but I notice it all the time (both in my own life and with other people).  I guess it’s just easy to start down the road of dependency mapping (i.e., making everything you do a part of a larger matrix that has many interdependencies). …

Today is the 36th anniversary of the first moon landing (July 20, 1969).  Moon’s almost full, so you’ll get a great look at it. Google put up a moon site recently – www.moon.google.com.  Be sure to zoom all the way in <g>.

i can’t tell you how much safer i’m feeling now. i’m writing this on a flight from denver to chicago (on my danger sidekick, by the way). i almost inadvertantly took aboard an allen wrench set (in my bag from when i rode my bike to work last week and perhaps the most blunt object in my bag). the fact that i somehow got it with me to chicago in the first place aside, i know i’m much safer now that its been confiscated (apparently under the ‘tools’ clause of the tsa’s list of banned items). if not, right now, someone could have taken the set and be using it to LITERALLY dismantle the plane. . . i’m glad to…

Today is bike to work day in Boulder. I’ve been meaning to ride my bike into work for a while, so today seemed like a good day to start. Here are a couple of observations from the road: – Riding in is a fantastic way to start the day.  I got to work and felt great.  I was completely energized and awake after my roughly 15 mile ride in.- Leave your computer at home. I forgot to do this last night and as a result had to lug my laptop on my back (along with a change of clothes, which would have also been a good thing to have brought into the office the day before my ride). What didn’t…

My grandfather died on this date two years ago. He was a great man and I’ve been thinking about him all day. (As an aside, my wife pointed out that it would probably be a more appropriate to do this on his birthday rather than on the day he died, to which I responded that, as a Jew, it just feels right this way . . . <g>)My grandfather was truly of the ‘greatest generation’ – growing up through the depression; dropping out of high school to help support his family where he was one of 11 children; eloping with my grandmother; serving in WWII; raising children; working a variety of jobs, but always making ends meet; enjoying retirement; taking…

I’ve been asked a bunch what I’ve found most surprising about being a new dad. My wife, Greeley, and I have talked about this a lot as well. I’m thinking about it right now – on a flight and looking through some family pictures on my laptop – and the answer is actually really easy (and I think shared by a lot of parents – at least I know that both Greeley and I feel this way). The love you feel for your child is completely overwhelming – and for me the intensity of it was unexpected. Seriously – it’s totally different from anything I’ve ever experienced. I love my wife very much and in a way that is different…

I have a concept about relationships that I really like (even if I sometimes forget to follow its teachings):  In any meaningful relationship (business, personal or otherwise) each person should be 100% responsible for that relationship. I used to think that a relationship involved each of the parties to be responsible for 50% (i.e., and therefore the total 100% would be taken care of). I guess that works in theory, but if you think about it, your relationships will be much more meaningful (and fulfilling) if you take 100% responsibility for them. This plays well into my recent post on communication. If each person in a relationship is taking 100% responsibility for the communication in a relationship that communication is…