Jeff Stone's Blog

Having less

 What do I really need?  Answer: Not much.  I already have things.  Like most folks, I perhaps already have more than is needed.  So I've decided to actively "consume" less.  Food is necessary so I'll keep food on my list of things it's okay to continue purchasing...just not in excess.  Luckily for me it's not in my DNA anyway to eat more than I need.  Clothes I have.  A new clothing item purchase now and again seems reasonable but since I'm also not much of a fashion guy, this should be easy also.  I stick to the classics on this score.  Gas for my car.  To get from point A to point B I'll need gas but here too I'd consider myself an underachiever.  I'm not an I-need-the-newest-thing guy either (like with technology or music) so that should be easy.  I'll consider light entertainments like books, magazines or going to a movie an acceptable expenditure.

So which "things" will be most difficult for me to give up?  Huh.  Tough one.  I'm going to go ahead and keep paying the mortgage and the utilities that go with it.  And I'll keep providing for the needs of our children - that includes a variety of insurance packages.  Other than these things I'm curious as to what will be the first thing I purchase that isn't truly needed.  I'll let you know.

How do we choose our work?

 This question has come up recently.  How do we choose what we do?  I don't have an answer for how "we" choose what "we" do but I have thought about how "I" came to choose what "I" do.

I currently am working in 2 areas... restaurant marketing and now facilities maintenance.  On the facilities maintenance side, I had a family member ask me to help with his business which involves repairing spaces.  I'm not going to be more specific.  All spaces need repair.  Homes, work spaces, schools, hospitals, etc.  I happen to be able to fix things.  I'm also able to help organize things.  In this case I'm helping to organize the business of fixing things.

Restaurant marketing is similar.  In this case I'm building a way to help restaurant owners strengthen their businesses through improved organization of their marketing efforts.

Back to the original question...how is it I came to choose what I do?  I derive satisfaction from both fixing things and better organizing the business behind it.  It requires applying creative problem-solving efforts to arrive at practical results.  That's it.  Rarely is the equation as straight forward as 1+1=2.  There are always people involved.  People alter the equation and that adds to the challenge.  I like that.  What appears simple on the surface often requires more complex machinations and I like being the one responsible for positive, well-designed and well-thoughtout solutions.

It must come from the way I was raised by my parents and my family.  It comes from my own experiences in the military, in travel, in school, and from what I like most from what I've learned from others.  I like when things work out.  I like the evolution of the process. 

I see other folks working at their jobs and it's not always obvious to me how they came to do what they do.  Some job types are easy to decypher....firemen, nurses, carpenters, farmers, engineers, writers, etc.  Some not so much....slaughter house workers, hairdressers, exterminators, garbage collectors.  I'm not saying these jobs aren't important or useful.  I'm saying it's not always obvious to me how they got there.  Interesting, that.

500 posts

 Since starting this blog a few years ago, my "stats" page tells me I've made 471 posts.  I think 500 is a good goal.  I'm paid through the end of 2010 so I have just over 6 months to finish with 29 more and wrap thing up.  After that I'll find a different way to keep track of things.  In the mean time I'll continue to post things I find interesting (see below) and perhaps you will too.  Don't bother looking for work or family related comments....they won't be here.  It's just not safe anymore.  Cheers. 

More than a phrase

From Boing Boing (none of this is my original content)

Manute Bol's legacy: did he invent the phrase 'my bad'?

Lisa Katayama

Manute Bol, a former NBA player and human rights activist from Sudan, died this past Saturday at age 47. Most of us remember him as once being the tallest guy in the NBA (he was 7'7") and for his uncanny ability to block and shoot three-pointers really well (most basketball players of that stature don't shoot three-pointers that often).

Bol was known for some things other than basketball, too. Most importantly, he used a majority of his earnings from his basketball career to raise money for Sudanese refugees and youth. He is also the only known NBA player who once killed a lion with a spear. He was once fined $25K for missing two exhibition games because he was busy with peace talks with Sudanese rebel leaders in Washington DC. Some also speculate that he may have invented — or at least popularized — the phrase "my bad." In 2005, a UPenn language blog (found via the Washington Post) concluded that:

[a friend] emailed me to say that he heard the phrase was first used by the Sudanese immigrant basketball player Manute Bol, believed to have been a native speaker of Dinka (a very interesting and thoroughly un-Indo-Europeanlike language of the Nilo-Saharan superfamily). Says Arneson, "I first heard the phrase here in the Bay Area when Bol joined the Golden State Warriors in 1988, when several Warriors players started using the phrase." And Ben Zimmer's rummaging in the newspaper files down in the basement of Language Log Plaza produced a couple of early 1989 quotes that confirm this convincingly:

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 10, 1989: When he [Manute Bol] throws a bad pass, he'll say, "My bad" instead of "My fault," and now all the other players say the same thing.

USA Today, Jan. 27, 1989: After making a bad pass, instead of saying "my fault," Manute Bol says, "my bad." Now all the other Warriors say it too.

So all of this is compatible with a date of origin for the phrase in the early 1980s (Manute Bol first joined the NBA in 1985 but came to the USA before that, around 1980). Professor Ron McClamrock of the Philosophy Department at SUNY Albany tells me he recalls very definitely hearing the phrase on the basketball court when he was in graduate school at MIT in the early 1980s, so the news stories above could be picking the story up rather late; but it is still just possible that Manute Bol was the originator, because he played for Cleveland State and Bridgeport University in the early 1980s, and his neologism just could have spread from there to other schools in the northeast, such as MIT.

Although I am somewhat hesitant to believe that such a widely used phrase could be attributed to the language mishaps of one person, I think it's totally possible and likely that Bol had a huge part to play in its wide use in sports.

RIP Manute Bol. Your presence on the court will never be forgotten.

Changing direction

 Yesterday I received our Certificate of Formation for Palomar.  It's official...we're official.  And on that note, this is the last time I'll be mentioning anything specific about the business.  Here's why - it's a dog eat dog world out there and I don't want to inadvertently make it any easier for someone with an agenda to tear down what I and others have worked to build up. 

Did you hear about the teacher in Pennsylvania that was recently fired for publishing a blog post about the work of one of her students?

 This issue has me doubting if I should continue with the blog at all.  The blog started out as a new and different way to keep a journal.  I thought I'd be blabbing away in certain obscurity.  It turns out that's no longer true.  It didn't help that I chose "JeffStoneBlog" as the name.

If I can't yap about my current work....or past work....and I'm concerned that any of the opinions I express might in some way be held against me in a way that could do damage to my friends or work partners or family....then what's the point?

I like the access a blog provides  - I'm on the computer enough... it's easy to jump on and jot a few things down.  But the "access" factor goes both ways and that's a problem.

I could change the name of the blog and use a code name.  Perhaps that would give me the best of both worlds - access and anonymity? I'll need to think about this one.

And please, please...can we get the spewing oil pipe in the Gulf plugged up!  It breaks my heart everytime I hear more about the damage being done.

Moving on

 Since leaving my last consulting gig about a week and a half ago, I've spent much of my time catching up with Palomar projects.  As a reminder, Palomar is a company newly formed by me and my friend PANDA and its primary purpose is to assist restaurant owners and managers to better manage their marketing efforts.  The task we've found most challenging has been building a web-based tool.  It's not just a website but a web-based tool that allows the manipulation of information in a unique way so individuals can stay on-task, in communication with their trainer (me) and the others working on marketing efforts in their restaurant.

First we had to come up with the idea.  Then we had to articulate it and figure out how to best organize the work while trying to consider everything that might need to go into the process.  Then we had to find the money to build it.  Then we had to find the people to build it.  Then we needed to convert the idea and the organization into a pre-design document so the builders could do their thing.  This is where we are now in the process.  I'm not the one creating the design document because I don't speak computer.  I described every function of every click of every button as I had envisioned it and as clearly as possible.  They listened...asked more questions...I provided answers (sometimes on the fly) and now it's in their hands.  We won't be trying to build everything all at once.  We're starting with the most important pieces in Version 1 and we'll grow into more and others.  We're currently hoping that by the end of the month we will have Version 1 available to us so we can begin using it in field tests.  In other words, in one or both of PANDA's two restaurant/bars.

Meanwhile, I received a call from a friend in need of my consulting services.  It looks like I'll be going down to Portland for a few days next week to do some work.  I like that you just never know what the next day might bring.

 And today is my daughter Piper's 5th birthday.  In this picture I'm forcing her to wipe clean the burners.  I don't know why she's so happy.

Is it time yet?

 Is it safe yet to return to the blogging waters?  I finished my latest project yesterday.  After 10 weeks the business appears to be on firmer ground.  What they do with it from here will be entirely up to them.  In the month of May there wasn't a single day that went by without me spending time on location...and it's time to rest.  This week will be for recovery.  I have things to catch up on...my family, Palomar, chores around the house and around the yard, Guild projects, shop projects, and a few naps to catch up on sleep.

Laying low

 Obviously I've been on a break from the blog for a few weeks.... and I'm going to continue on this break for a little while longer.  

I attracted the wrong kind of traffic.  I'm waiting for that to die out. 

There exists an on-going dispute among some friends and I don't want to add any fuel to the fire with public comments.

And, like most folks, I'm busy these days.  G. and I are putting in a lot of hours trying to keep up with the rat race.

Sadie is going back to school today after 3 weeks of recovery time from surgery.  Our friends and family have been a tremendous help.  It's just hectic.

When the time is right....I'll be back.  Couple more weeks perhaps. 

Miraculous

Sadie had open heart surgery last Tuesday.  She was out by Saturday.  Without going into great detail right now she's in great shape.  She has been home for a week now and recovering well.

More later....gotta go to work.

Not a shocker

Work will be taking a back-burner this week.  Our daughter will be undergoing surgery on Tuesday so today we'll be touring the hospital.  The doctors don't want there to be surprises.  G. is taking the week off.  I plan to be where ever I need to be.

 At the restaurant this is our last week before opening for lunch and 7 days a week.  We've hired two more cooks and we'll need 2 more eventually.  We still need a server and maybe 2.  We've decided to go with separate lunch and dinner menus.  Mostly we need to shore up our marketing efforts...signage, website, in-house promos, etc.  And we need to wrangle in the entertainment calendar.  May is almost complete but I need to get crackin' for June.