Alexandersmap

    Month: December 2019

    • Cracking the Egg

      I still remember the moment I watched the woman crack the eggs on the countertop and quickly move them into the hot pan to cook.  Swift, efficient and thoughtless.  This woman had cracked thousands of eggs for hundreds of guests, and I was just one more in the line.  She didn’t respond to my pleasantries, just cooked the eggs, slid them onto a plate and mumbled something about having a good morning before turning her attention to the next guest.  She was done with me, but ten years later I’m not done with her.  Or more specifically, the way that she cracked those eggs on the countertop.  Years of awkwardly tapping eggs on the rim of a bowl or frying pan hoping you wouldn’t make a mess of it had been eliminated in one encounter with a surly omelette chef in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

      We all have techniques, life hacks and learned skills that make our day-to-day more efficient, effective and safer.  Most of these we pick up as we march through life from a parent, friend or co-worker.  Some are aha! moments where someone shows you a keyboard shortcut or a way to crack an egg more efficiently, and some are less aha! and more ohhh, now I get it.  Walking on ice is best learned through example instead of trial and error.  When you see someone walk on ice you observe the technique and with practice become adept at navigating your way across a pond or down a driveway.  That doesn’t always keep you from slipping, but it greatly enhances your odds for success.  Learned skills are like spoken word history or fables; lessons passed from person-to-person for centuries.

      I learned how to drive a standard transmission car by learning how to drive a Ford tractor and soon after I took that skill to cars.  Once someone shows you the basics and you practice it a bit the skill stays with you forever, as I learned in Scotland driving a standard on the opposite side of the car with the stick on my left hand instead of my right.  Am I going to win the Grand Prix with this skill?  Nope, but I can comfortably get in a car and drive myself anywhere.  And I can tie a bowline knot, or spin a log to the right spot to split firewood, or know where to step when I’m descending a steep hiking trail, or to blunt the tip of a nail so I don’t split the wood when I drive it.  We all do a million small techniques and skills that we hardly ever think about.  Sometimes I catch myself and think about where I learned that life hack in the first place, and the person who taught me the lesson.  Ripples across time, connecting me to someone long ago when we were both different people.  These ripples I’ll continue to use, and pay forward for others in turn.  Another form of time travel for all of us, connecting the past to the future, disguised as a cracked egg.

    • Sun, Sand and Time Travel

      Friday morning, one last meeting in Buffalo, New York before I turn East and head home to New Hampshire. As I look at the calculated time necessary to get to my appointment I consider two quotes I’ve read this week on our perception of time. It’s a human creation, and as the saying goes, its relative. What is hard and fast is our small blip of “time” on the planet, so best to get to those priorities now. I love this reminder from De Mello of the trick time and the speed of light play on us when we look up at the sun:

      “When you see the sun, you’re seeing it where it was eight and a half minutes ago, not where it is now. Because it takes a ray of the sun eight and a half minutes to get to us. So you’re not seeing it where it is; it’s now somewhere else.” – Anthony De Mello

      “As you get older, and the patterns become more obvious, time speeds up. Especially once you find your groove in the working world. The layout of your days becomes predictable, a routine, and once your brain reliably knows what’s next, it reclines and closes its eyes. Time pours through your hands like sand.” – Jedidian Jenkins, To Shake The Sleeping Self

      I’m thankful for travel, for it keeps me on my toes. And I’m thankful for reading so many new perspectives this year that force me to reconsider my perceptions. Time does indeed seem to accelerate as you get older, and this pair of quotes points out that it’s never really what we think it is anyway. So make the most of the moment, for time – whatever it is – is slipping by. All this inspires me to visit a tropical beach again as soon as possible. Where you spend your time counts too.

    • Bumped Up to the Safari Room

      The woman at the front desk looked at me and smiled as I checked in Tuesday, thanking me for being a Hilton Diamond member and informing me that my room was upgraded to a suite.  I thanked her, still shaking off the miles of driving, accepted my cookie and water and rolled my bag to my upgraded room.  Hilton Diamond is just another way of identifying yourself as someone who travels a lot for work.  Less a status symbol, more a way of life.  But there are perks beyond the free water, wi-fi and shorter check-in line, namely I get points I can use for even more travel.

      My room was on the third floor, and as I rolled my bag around the corner I saw the room almost immediately.  I tapped my prox card on the reader, the light turned green and beeped a greeting and I opened the door to another world.  This wasn’t just a suite, this was an adventure in thematic decorating.  They bumped me up to the Safari Room, and the only thing missing was the soundtrack of wild animals screaming in the night and the pounding of drums as the natives hunted me down.

      Flipping on the light, the first thing I saw was a curved bar with animal busts mounted conveniently at knee height (as I would find out later).  A lion’s head sconce with flickering electric candles watched over the copper sink in the wet bar, gazelles and monkeys and wildebeests were integrated into the furniture.  Bamboo and matted grass-like wallpaper completed the look.  And the room went on forever (I counted 55 steps to circle the L -shaped room).  A glass table with four themed chairs met me around the corner, and far down the other end was the king-sized bed with bamboo headboard.  A massive walk-in closet was off to the side, with room for hundreds of outfits, and hangers for five.  And capping it all off was the bathroom.  This was a suite in itself, larger than many hotel rooms I’ve stayed in, with a hot tub set in the middle, a large walk-in shower to the side, toilet and avocado sink…. that’s right, an avocado sink. Surveying the entire bathroom suite were two jungle masks on either side of the sink that kept staring at me and a large hippo bench that looked like it would roll over and have me rub its belly.  Wow, where do you begin?

      The thing about getting a room like this is it reminds you that you’re traveling alone. It amplifies the solo in solo travel. I’d almost rather have the standard room where I don’t think about what I left behind to be in this crazy room. But you make the most of it and move on to the real world. I had a drink at the bar while running a report, but otherwise it was just another hotel room for me. People make the place, not jungle themed furniture. This room would be wildly fun with friends. Nope, just me. Alone. In the jungle. But it sure was unique.

    • A Healthy March To 100

      Watching my father and other older people in my life struggle with brain health has been a wake-up call for me.  I’ve been too complacent in what I put in my mouth, and I’ve been adjusting my dietary intake over the last few months as a corrective measure.  There are three things that I’m most concerned about as I get older: Brain health, heart health and avoiding cancer as long as possible on my march to 100.  We can’t control everything, but we can control what we eat and drink.  So with that in mind, there are the foods that most experts agree improve your overall health and resilience, and the foods that are harmful to your health.  It seems simple to adjust the menu accordingly.

      “Good” foods include fatty cold water fish like salmon, blue fish and sardines, blueberries, green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach, extra virgin olive oil, avocados, eggs, seeds and nuts and dark chocolate(!).  Wash it all down with lots of water, coffee and tea and some red wine in moderation.  Hey!  This is pretty much my diet already!  Easy, right?

      “Bad” foods include french fries, hot dogs and hamburgers, donuts, cheese, refined carbs like white rice and foods associated with high mercury like tuna.  Wash this toxic mix down with soft drinks (either regular or diet) and alcohol and you’re asking for trouble…..   I have work to do on this one. I dropped all sugar drinks and largely avoid artificial sweeteners, but tuna, bacon, burgers and cheese are tough subtractions. Making them a rare treat instead of a regular part of the menu is a good step forward.

      The x factor is exercise and sleep.  I used to pride myself on working on five hours of sleep.  No longer.  I sleep until I wake up, and I’m not shy about going to bed earlier than everyone else in the house.  I like getting up early, I just need to go to bed earlier to make up for it.  Exercise is the one that misses the mark too often for me, and it’s the one I’m focused on most now.  Walk, row, hike, bike and swim.  Those are my favorite exercises, and they all lend themselves to better health.  But listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast with Peter Attia woke me up.  Attia talked about the “Centennial Olympics”, which for him means being healthy enough to lift a great-grandchild or get up off the floor by yourself when you’ve been playing with them.  Dial that back factoring in the decline in strength and muscle mass that comes naturally with aging, and he’s figured out the amount he has to do now as a late 40’s active adult to build the endurance necessary to get there.  Interesting…  As someone who casually states that I’ll live to be 100 as a target number (knowing fate may intervene), wouldn’t it be good for me to get there healthy in mind and body?  What’s the point of living to 100 if you don’t really live when you get there?

      Nothing keeps the mind sharp like daily work, and I’m pushing myself with more diverse reading, travel, writing more, playing chess, picking back up on French and learning other new skills. Writing daily established the habit, and refined the skill. Reading opens my mind to new ideas from the greatest minds in history. Travel offers new perspective on living. And the rest just keeps the mind challenged in different ways. If nothing else I have more to talk about at parties.

      So I’m exercising the mind, modifying the diet, drinking more water, getting more sleep and prioritizing daily exercise. Will it get me to 100 healthy and sharp? Only time will tell, but it’s a better way to live anyway, and who doesn’t want to be more vibrant, engaged and active now, the only time guaranteed to us?

      Slàinte Mhath!

    • Getting There

      “What got you here won’t get you there.” – Marshall Goldsmith

      Indeed.  But knowing where there is is an essential part of making the shift in the what.  December is a great time to think about then and there stuff, but really every morning you should reflect a bit on where you’ve been and where you’re going.  What went well, what went badly, what can change, what must change…  and how do we begin right now, today?

      Personally, I function better with Bullet Journal type lists.  Check things off, move things forward that you didn’t do, etc.  Lists of tasks are easy.  Lists of life goals are a little harder.  The Warren Buffett/Mike Flint 25/5 exercise is harder still, but time marches on and if you don’t reflect on where you’re going you’re going to end up somewhere else with the things you wanted to do undone.  I did this 25/5 exercise a year ago, and I’m going to do it again this week.  Essentially, you write down 25 things you want to accomplish – start a business, write a book, run a marathon…. whatever.  You then circle the 5 most important goals and avoid the other 20 at all costs until you’ve accomplished the circled 5.  It forces you to focus on what your real priorities are, and what the real distractions are to getting there.  It’s challenging because we all want to be good at everything, but in being generalists we fail to achieve our biggest goals.  Hell yes or no.  Essentialism…  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People story of putting the big rocks in the jar before filling the rest with pebbles, then sand and then water…  Whatever you want to call it it’s the act of saying no to many things to enable you to achieve the few big things.  And the few big things are the “there“.

       

       

    • Let it Snow

      The snow arrived late in the day Sunday, and is staying for awhile. It wasn’t a surprise; this storm has lumbered across the country painting the landscape white, and now it’s New Hampshire’s turn. I welcome it with the reluctance of a road warrior. This guest came at a bad time, but snow is here and all I can do is make the most of it. Let it snow.

      If the world craves attention a major snowstorm demands it. It changes everything about daily life, to-do lists and appointments and travel time and what you wear when you walk out the door. For a Monday when I anticipated driving 325 miles to Rochester, New York, it’s surely changed my plans. So be it. Let it snow.

      Yesterday the last leaves were cleaned up, gas cans filled, snow blowers and generators fired up, batteries charged, pantries filled and firewood chopped. This morning snow changes the world and all is still but for the scrape of the plow, the strain of a single snowblower who’s master simply must get to work, no excuses. Birds chirp away at the feeder, busily flittering for position. The rest of the world sleeps. Let it snow.

      It’s Monday and I have things to do; calls to make, meetings to reschedule, bases to touch and reports to file. The driveway calls but I’m not it’s servant this morning. Snow changes more than the landscape, and I feel the change in me. Let it snow.

    • The Stages of the Moon

      I spent time in the passenger seat of the car last night contemplating the waxing crescent moon.  The stages of the moon are something I contemplate more than I should, but it’s a good exercise in awareness of the world around you, and a connection to people around the world now and people for as long as there’s been people.  Everyone who can or could look up at the sky and recognize the moon for what it is has experienced the same pattern recognition.  You may not know the names, but you know the shapes and thus the stages of the moon.

      A new moon is a blank slate.  The moon is completely obscured, though you might make it out in the sky.  Most people don’t think about a new moon because they aren’t seeing it in the sky.  But the moon doesn’t go on vacation to Mars for a stage, it’s still there with the shades pulled down.

      The next stage is the waxing crescent, when you get that fingernail sliver of moon shining.  But how do you know a waxing from a waning?  By which side the sliver is on.  That shade pulls from right to left, so when you see part of the moon illuminated on the right side that’s a waxing moon, and when it’s illuminated on the left side that’s a waning moon.  When I was younger I had it backwards because I thought of the shade pulling left to right, the way we read English.  Nope, it’s right to left, like reading Hebrew or Arabic.

      “Slipping softly through the sky
      Little horned, happy moon,
      Can you hear me up so high?
      Will you come down soon?” – Amy Lowell, The Crescent Moon

      After the waxing crescent the shade pulls further to the left illuminating more of the moon.  When it looks like an American football or bigger it’s called a gibbous moon.  And again, when the moon is illuminated on the right side it’s a waxing moon, so now we have the waxing gibbous moon.  Welcome to the party!  The waxing gibbous and it’s cousin the waning gibbous are the wallflowers of the sky party.  Everyone carries on about the full moon because it’s so full of itself, and the crescent moon twins are a bit flirty, liking the attention that comes with being so seductive.  Not so the gibbous cousins.  They don’t dance as well, step on a few toes along the way and that makes them a bit shy. But let’s have some love for these gibbous!  What would our sky be without them?

      We’ve finally arrived at the full moon, and it’s so full of itself that it starts having nicknames.  You can’t just call it the full moon, this character wants you to call it the Harvest Moon or the Milk Moon or the Beaver Moon.  Okay, we’ll humor you full moon, on your next debut we’ll call you the Cold Moon.  You good with that? Full Moon Fever is a real thing, everyone goes a bit crazy when this character comes around. Tides get bigger and minds get zanier; thanks full moon.

      Now the shade starts closing, again right to left, so where we had illumination before we start seeing shade.  Does the full moon notice the Earth casting shade at it?  Does it care?  At first it’s a small sliver of shade and you barely notice the change, but give it a day or two and and our wall flower has stolen the show from old Beaver Moon and we have that familiar football shape illuminated on the left side of the moon; yup, our old friend waning gibbous has come to town, doing it’s clydesdale dance across the sky.  I can relate to you waning gibbous, it’s not easy having two left feet, but keep dancing anyway, just mind the toes.

      Finally we reach the last call of the stages of the moon and the light is just a sliver on the left side of the moon.  It’s that flirty younger twin the waning crescent, here to dazzle you with her dance moves and seductive lighting.  The crescent twins are fuel for the poets and dreamers.  Who doesn’t love to see that sliver of moon rising out of the east, dressed in a bit of pink and yellow before slipping into something white?  The waning crescent offers a lovely frame for the celestial dance beyond, a star in its own right even if only a moon.  Don’t tell her that, this is her time!

      But waning infers things are wrapping up soon, and so it is with the moon. But one last hurrah for our friend.  The next stage is the old moon, where just a tiny sliver of light appears on left edge of the moon.  We’re all moving towards that stage, and it’s one more reminder to make the most of the day at hand.  Dance with the sky, make the most of your arc across the heavens, and try not to step on any toes out there.