I am back in a bit of a loop, and not sleeping again. Not like the dog dying incident, but something. A little reflective. Quiet. Sad? Maybe not so much sad—just having a moment. A bit more emotion from a guy that is known to occasionally be emotional.
Maybe the perpetual grey and rain.
I find myself pretty interested in a friend who is largely unavailable for a variety of reasons. Distance, age, marital status and some other barriers. But plenty of positives including a very intense draw. This is not new of course. If you go through life largely single and available, it is inevitable that you will bump against exceptional people who are for one reason or another not able to come your way. And, of course, as these things go, I have many times been on the opposite of this situation. Where I was unavailable—mostly for reasons of emotional insecurity and my tendency towards solitude.
Anyway, this will pass. While there are forces that sometimes pull us down, I remain intensely aware that my life is blessed by most any measure. Especially given that my bad choices roughly equal my good, or more likely, lucky choices.
Forecast is rain, rain and more rain. Sometimes it doesn’t rain, but it looks like it is going to. Which essentially has the same effect from a planning perspective.
Motorcycle days have been rare, but there have been a few.
Anyway….heavy shit for a blog about drinking martinis. So will take the rest of that nonsense off-line.
A public medium comes with a lot of natural constraints. It’s difficult to be completely honest without sometimes damaging someone a bit, even if not intentionally; so words must be limited with the intention of protecting someone or trying to not expose. It’s a fucking challenge man.
I am on the back patio with a lovely Japanese Whiskey, and a Dominican cigar, and all American Johnny Cash on on the music scene. So here we go.
And there’s this, today is National Martini Day. Not sure who is on the board of that foundation, but obviously I should be.
I had a haircut after work. The world’s coolest and most amazing and beautiful hair stylist—just fell in to that one when moving here. Super cool Taylor—she lives on the beach with 4 dogs and a boyfriend and I think they have a sailboat and I am pretty sure he builds sailboats for a living. Like I said, cool young-folk. Anyway, after my haircut, I went down the hall to the local restaurant which has marginal service and slightly better food and had dinner. After a martini. It being National Martini day and all.
Last weekend was family time. Always fun to hang with the sibs and the folks. It makes for a long weekend though. 3-hour drive down Friday after work and 3-hour drive back on Sunday.
One of the lessons learned from a long career and a lot of consulting, is that it becomes apparent that organizations generally reward loyalty and length of service—not creativity or ingenuity. The creative people who get shit done are the ones who get frustrated at bloated inefficient organizations and they move along to explore other landscapes. That leaves behind the unoriginal ones who simply toe the line and they eventually fill whatever void becomes available and ultimately become senior managers and executives. Their ineffectiveness does not prevent them from growing big egos that come with larger paychecks and more impressive titles. I’ve seen some of that over the years.
I occasionally meet someone with some management chops and great skills, but it’s rare.
I read back over that passage and realize it sounds judgmental. I don’t mean it to be. Nor is it directed at any specific individual. I have no issue with people who do their best and have staying power and capture some rewards for being in the right place at the right time. My issue comes when they start believing their skills automatically match their title and they become arrogant or quit striving to learn or if they make life difficult for their people. That’s what frustrates me. I call it the David Boucher syndrome for obvious reasons. That comment is directed at one very specific individual.
Anyway. Work talk. Good chat last night with a my long-time friend Catherine. She disappeared in to the woods of Vermont 15 years ago and emerges now only occasionally to visit her job in DC or to travel to Africa for work. She works for some NGO or another and works from her home most of the time. A good gig if you can get it.
I work sometimes at the CC Supply Chain offices which are next to Legacy Village in a beautiful setting—the building is called TRW because it was donated to CC some years ago by that company. The building itself was once beautiful but now needs some sprucing up. But magnificent exterior construction with lots of glass and steel and 1/2 the roof is windows so there is a lot of natural light and a big fountain and pond on the main floor. But CC has not done much with it as there is still an old phone bank facility on the main floor next to the big conference rooms.
The young consultants have grown up with mobile phones and they have no recollection that there was a time when people rushed to phones at breaks and between meetings to call their office to retrieve messages or check their voicemail. I do remember those days as it goes. Anyway, TRW building was very beautiful when I drove in this morning. I was on a phone call and did not want to drive in to the underground parking garage and so pulled over on the long winding drive and looked at the flowers and building and sunshine streaming through the trees and finished my conversation.
Overall a pretty nice building and grounds so worth a few words and photos.
No other news of note.
The Martini Tales 