Vastness

I know we are all aware of the size and shape of the United States.  We started learning about it in seventh or eighth grade in a Civics or Geography class. But I hadn't really grasped the size and diversity of geography our country offers until a couple of weeks ago. This country is really big.

Sara, Megan, and I took a vacation to San Francisco. Because I wanted to, we rode Amtrak to the West Coast.  The last time I was on a train for travel, I was a child. I enjoyed the Amtrak experience and would do it again, however that was not the universal feeling in the group. If we do this type of trip again, some of us will take the train and others will fly and meet us when we get there.

I was amazed while watching the country go by, mile after mile. There are times when you have the sense nobody is around, but then you come upon a house or a ranch, a city, or a town, and you remember you live here with millions of other people. It was a time of true reflection. I couldn't help but think about all those people in all of those places, trying to have their own happy lives.  Sometimes it is hard to remember that when we are surrounded by the things that happen to us on a daily basis. 

In contrast, we spent several days in San Francisco. The difference was startling. We went from watching mountains, plains, and emptiness to being continually surrounded by crowds of people. Overall, the experience made me think about our personal daily experiences.

On top of that, I was amazed by the passengers on the train. They were younger than I expected, with those in my age group being the oldest by far. I didn't expect to see train travel embraced by thirty-somethings. I had an opportunity to talk to some of them and found out that the train fits many personal "likes" of the age group. They can read a book, listen to their music, and watch the world go by. Additionally, it appears that Amtrak frequently runs "Buy one, Get one" specials. I will need to pay more attention. There is already conversation about taking the Empire Builder from Minneapolis to Seattle next year.

On a completely unrelated note, I will be hosting my Executive Roundtable at the Toybox next week. I am working diligently to have the place in shape so it will show well and my guests will enjoy themselves. I am sure it will go well, but I do want to be ready.

I hope you have a great Labor Day and spend the time in a way you enjoy.

Learning by Looking Around

I started working for Payless Cashways in 1984. After moving to work inside the store from the lumberyard (an experience I loved), I was fortunate enough to have Darrell Bridges as one of the first people who managed me. For those of you who have always wondered, it may be his fault. One of the earliest things Darrell taught me was the ability to look at something and then remember it hours, days, even weeks later. At the time, it was identifying back stock in a receiving room and later seeing a location on the sales floor and remember what product we had in the back room. This helps a person be effective in retail management. It also helps for a lifetime, as I still amaze people here with things I remember seeing, like where product is in a warehouse. This behavior developed a process where I managed by wandering around. It almost drove at least one person I worked with over the years to drink.

Over the last two years, management by wandering around has been curtailed with the pandemic and lockdown and everything associated with it. In the midst of the transformation, there is the possibility for me, and maybe for you, to change how this works. I will refer to it as LBLA, or Learning by Looking around. We live in a time where we have more information and opinions available to us than ever before. At times it is difficult to dig out what is truth and what is just opinion, but the amount available to us is simply amazing. On a minute-by-minute feed, we have available, commentary, humor, pets, virtually any information desired. All we need to do is listen or read. Although physically isolated from the important people in our lives, we have more ways to communicate with them than ever before. Everything from Zoom to US Postal Service is available to move information and opinions from one person and place to another. 

The big trick is to decide what sources you can believe and what people you can trust. There was a time you could generally trust the printed news, or television broadcasts. That time is long gone, with part of the belief today being if you say something with enough bravado and volume, you can convince a certain portion of the population to believe you. This isn't good. It creates a slippery slope where people soon believe nothing. We have all seen examples of this in the last three to five years. What do you do about this?

My suggestion takes me right back to Darrell Bridges. Take time to look, listen, and remember. Take in information around you. Listen to as much as you can. But stop reacting and don't simply move it forward in social media. Think about it for a long time, and hold it up to the situations you are in and which you see. Talk to people you trust and who you've found reliable over the years. Listen to their thoughts about the matter. Finally, be cautious about those who have an economic or profit motive around a particular issue. Money and influence does funny things to people and can cause a truth to be told as a partial truth with the goal being to influence you. After you have practiced LBLA, circle back to the beginning and do the whole thing again. Take what you have learned, and use that information to be smarter the next time.

I believe we have seen a time when many believe they are thinking on their own. The only problem is at the same time we have people and organizations which have gotten really good at the art of propaganda.  They have gotten masterful at getting people to see things in a specific way. Do what you were taught in elementary school. Do the hard work, look at things through your own eyes and with the information you have developed over a lifetime, and be a lifetime learner. Today, our world needs people who can look at situations and people and think their way through what is truth and what is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate.  Learn by Looking Around. Trust the accuracy and believability of what you think to nobody but you. Be a healthy skeptic, but do it by looking and listening to the things around you and making up your own mind.

Thank you for reading my thoughts today.

Passion

It is interesting to me to sit back and look at the ways 2020 and the Pandemic change us going forward. I have friends who, although not quite at the level of "doomsday prepper", probably have more essentials stockpiled than they did in 2019. We all know people who operate their lives more simply than in the past. We all know people who have better cooking and gardening skills than they did pre-pandemic. I have even heard friends say they believe some industries. like restaurants, are pricing themselves out of the economic landscape, even though what they are doing is what they must to survive. 

The thing I can't help thinking about today however is passion, personal passion. In the last several weeks several people have talked to me about how lucky I am to have woodworking as something to do. Although I could argue it is the age group of those around me, I really think it is more about the last year. Regardless, more and more acquaintances are talking about life balance in a new way. A conversation about life balance used to be about the number of hours you worked versus the number of hours you were away from work. In the last year, there has been more understanding about the quality of those hours than ever before. When you are sitting in front of Netflix or Hulu and there is nothing on you have not seen, or even interesting looking, you start to ask questions about quality of time. We were all home A LOT last year, but  was the time we had of the quality we hoped for? I sincerely hope you can answer that question positively, but I think for a lot of us there was a gap. This is the gap people are thinking about right now.

I have been surprised at how many people my age or younger have told me recently they have no hobbies, or nothing they do just for fun. I've been as much of a work-a-holic as the next person, climbing the corporate ladder to make things better for my family. But I was lucky. In my freshman year in high school, I got hooked on woodworking. The part of our high school where wood shop, metal shop, agriculture, and drafting took place may have been on the face of Mars. It was clear at the end of the school , completely away from the more "academic" endeavors. But I will tell you, the things I learned in that shop from Russ Bennett and Bill Reese have helped me keep my sanity. During times of the most stress in my life, I  found myself moving back toward the shop and woodworking. 

So, you have read this and it has struck a chord in your soul, but you are not ready to lay out tens of thousands of dollars for shop equipment. 

Maybe I could suggest something else. Here is a list of the Top 10 Do-It-yourself skills. (taken from this article: https://lifehacker.com/top-10-essential-diy-skills-that-arent-as-hard-as-you-t-5896102)

1. Emergency Preparedness

2. Jailbreaking/Rooting Your Phone

3. Building a Computer from Scratch

4. Photo Editing

5. Cooking

6. Home Repair

7. Auto Maintenance

8. Sewing

9. Working with Electronics

10. Coding

You may have added some of these skills/hobbies to your repertoire  in 2020. If not, this may be a list to consider as something you for the future. A couple of years ago (maybe more) I was talking to my daughter about a list like this, and I told her it seemed odd in a family of such accomplished seamstresses, I could not sew. That year for Christmas, she gave me the fabric to make a quilt, and taught me to sew. I now have a quilt I made myself (with help from others) and I am not afraid of sewing anymore.

We all have stresses in our regular work world. For me, stepping into my woodworking world causes the stress to lift like a morning fog. It brings me such freedom. And sometimes, I come up with things other people like to add to their lives. If you are interested, pop over to my Etsy store and take a look. 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ToyboxWoodworking

I hope you are having a great summer. The Iowa State Fair is coming up, which signals the end of summer in Iowa, so enjoy what is left and think a little bit about what brings you joy and freedom.

Tails

As many of us watch the lead-up to the Olympics and see some unbelievable performances, it makes me think of math, or more specifically, statistics. Be clear here, this about sums my statistical knowledge. It was a struggle to get through the classes I needed to complete for my degree work, but I held on to some of it.

Most of us live in the middle of a bell-shaped curve for much of what we do in a lifetime. We think of words like average, normal, or maybe even mediocre. As I told someone just today, it is very possible to be mediocre and still win. In fact, over the years, some of the best teams I've been associated with have just been average. But, and this is important, in a normal distribution there are the parts of the population on either end of the distribution. They are "out in the tails." This means in the normal distribution, they are either very good at something, or on the other end, really poor at something. With the Olympic trials going on, we have gotten to witness performances which are at the "really good" end of the spectrum. Like so many other times, thinking about this brings other things to mind for me.

We often focus on athletic events and performances when we think of excellence, but I think it is way too narrow a view. I have been fortunate in my lifetime to know people who were "in the tails" in part of their life. This may have bee around intelligence, or the ability to work with metal; this could have been someone who was a tremendous mechanic, or someone who was a great caregiver. There are so many times and ways people show themselves with portions of their lives which are just way above the norm, but we rarely recognize the fact there is excellence going on here. Maybe a couple of examples would help.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to sponsor a Pro-Am golf event. As part of the event, I spent time with the professionals on the driving range as they loosened up. At one point, one of them was working on doing a particular thing with the ball, a fade or a draw, I don't remember which. I asked how they could accomplish what they were doing with a golf ball. To my amazement, I was told when they watched the club meet the ball, they made sure the club hit in the correct quadrant. They were of course saying this to someone who would be happy just having the club and the ball meet. This was obviously someone not in the center of the normal distribution.

Another example from the same time was a gentleman I knew who was a bulldozer operator. In his life, his wife ran virtually everything, money, planning, almost everything as he just could not. But if you put him in the middle of a blank piece of ground and told him you wanted a certain project accomplished, he could estimate in his head, the number of cubic yards of dirt needing moved, and how long it would take. His degree of accuracy was uncanny. In that part of his life, his ability was way "out in the tail" of the distribution.

You may wonder exactly what I am trying to get at. What I am suggesting is in a time when the world seems to be very angry and aggressive about so many things, maybe it makes sense to recognize, and maybe even call out people who have skills way beyond the normal. Maybe you know someone who makes the best custard pie you have ever tasted (my Grandma Jo, BTW), take time to tell them. Maybe you know someone who can get the seams of a quilt to come together like nobody you have ever seen. Tell them.

We have the ability to recognize people for their accomplishments and almost everyone has something they do better than the norm. We can't all be Olympic stars, or music celebrities, but maybe you know someone who can plan an outing for you and friends like none other. We actually had the opportunity to experience this skill a few weeks ago in Minnesota. We were celebrating my daughter's graduation from law school and had friends that took it upon themselves to help us with the celebration. Without question, the ability they brought to food and drink was nothing short of a five star experience. Even my sister commented on the level of care they had shown. There was no question as to the level of excellence. Thanks to Jim, Jody, and Doug.

Take time to recognize the skill. Watch the Olympic hopefuls and think about family and friends and the skills they have. Tell them you see their abilities and the excellence they show.

I hope you all have a great weekend and I hope you are willing and able to make someone else's weekend better.  Take care of yourself and those around you.

Joy

 On April 9th, Sara and I had to do one of those things familiar to every pet owner. We had to put JC, our spoiled rotten poodle, to sleep. I say spoiled rotten as she was incredibly well taken care of in the ten plus years she lived in our home. She came to live with us after being found in a road side ditch in Clark County, presumably after being discarded by the puppy mill which used her for breeding. This won't sound right, but all I have to say to those who disposed of her in such a manner is, "Thank You."

Thinking about JC causes me to reflect on the small things making up a lifetime which are only recognized when we look back. JC was clearly Sara's dog, but there were things she did and moments  I will always remember. If you have had pets or animals in your life, I am sure you have similar stories. Another thing it made me think of is when I had a horse that really didn't like me. There was just something there which caused us to clash. I think we sometimes forget that although pets try generally to make us happy, they also have a free will. This is sometimes easier to recognize in a 1500 pound horse rather than a nine pound poodle.

If you wonder about this, talk to almost anyone who has had a rescued animal. There are exceptions, but owners of rescued pets I know talk about them as though the animal recognizes that the rescue is the best thing that ever happened to them. With JC, it was as though she knew she was living a second, completely different, part of her life.

So, it causes me to circle back around to the "Thank You" part of this story. Speaking completely for myself, and not for anyone else, although I complain about things as much as others, there are probably more times than I want to admit when my response to the situation should be "Thank You." Looking back on many of the things I have gone through, I came out the other end stronger and more confident than I went in. This is not something to complain about, but rather something to celebrate. If I can actually do this more often, it will make me a better person. 

Okay, enough. I miss JC and have every confidence the time will come when we will have another dog in our house. But, along with all this, there are some big things happening. Many in the next month.

First, I get to see Megan graduate from law school. It is almost impossible to think about it, but we have gone through the three years it takes to get through law school. And she has a job! While we are celebrating her, I get to be with my sister, my family, and some very dear friends. What could be better? We are even going bowling together. I'm a terrible bowler, but can hardly wait.

Second, I get to add air conditioning at the Toybox next month. This may sound like a little thing, but it will make it possible for me to get about three more months of work a year out of the space. For me, this is really a big deal.

Third, we have an actual "real" vacation planned for this summer. We are going to San Francisco. I have planned and scheduled this trip for times in the last 31 years and have been forced to cancel it every time. This time is the one. We will get there.

Finally, I have reached the point where we can move forward with the next library project our of the Toybox. We were initially scheduled for some time in January/February, but with everything happening last year, it all slowed down. Fortunately for the project, I got everything produced at the end of last year. I say fortunately because for those of you not affected by the cost of lumber products. Count yourself as fortunate. In this case, I beat the price increase and I get to hold the price for the project.

So, to finish today, I count myself as fortunate in so many ways, but on the things I do not see in the same light, I need to look at them differently. I am here, getting to play this event called life, and I need to see as much of it as possible through the right lens. The lens I need to use is of a twenty year old, nine pound poodle. Although mostly blind, thankful for every day and everything and being as joyous as she could be.

I may have been a little sappy today, but it is what I am thinking about. Have a great weekend!

Getting Stuff

Starting a little over a year ago with something as innocuous as toilet paper, we experienced and continue to experience a real pressure on our infrastructure and the ability to get things made and delivered. 

The picture attached to this blog is the best single example I ran into. The street in front of the building I work in is putting in new sewer pipes. 

A little over a week ago, the people responsible for the project came to talk. There was no question it would disrupt things here for a while. The affected area which has impact on the business I work at is about two blocks. When they came to talk to me, I was told they complete about a block a week, so in my mind, we were looking at two weeks. It is now Thursday and there has been virtually no progress this week. Why? One would think there had been rain or bad weather. Nope, not the case. What stopped this project was running out of pipe. What they are using is not an uncommon product, it would just appear they can't get it at this point.

There is no shortage of examples of this type of situation. A couple come to mind:

* Last week, through a person we know at work we were told one of the car dealers in town has a large number of fully commissioned salespeople, yet has less than one vehicle for each of them to sell, from a purely numbers standpoint. Also, if you have not been by any of the car lots lately, take a moment and swing by. You will find out there is not much there, and I would argue what is left are vehicles with something abut them people just don't like.

* When we decided to get a new dishwasher for the house, we discovered the wait was probably 90-120 days, and it was.

* All of the trucks  I sourced this year, built to our specifications have now moved out at least an additional two months. Generally, this has been around the supply of digital components and around plastics.

* Plastic drums, which we use several of, are in very short supply, 

I could go on, and I am sure every one of you could add additional items to the list, but that is not what I am thinking about. I am clear back to the concept of working smarter, not harder.

It seems like this is the perfect time for companies to think about the breadth and depth of their product offering. Let's take the pipe example out in front of my building. From looking at what they have been using, my belief is it is one of several different SKUs of this pipe. No doubt, it is the best and easiest for the contractor doing the work to use. But if rather than trying to carry ten different types, sizes , and configurations of this pipe the supplier would have carried one big pile of the most generic and the fittings to work with it. Is it possible my street would be open at this point?  Maybe.

Go to the grocery store and stand in the section of picante sauce, or hot sauce. How many items are in the section? I would say at least dozens of different kinds. This happened over time as manufacturers attempted to differentiate themselves from the rest of the items in the category. Multiple items to manage at every level of the supply chain from the retail level all the way back to the manufacturer. When this happens, rather than trying to manage one big item everyone in the supply chain is forced to manage multiple items. This makes it much more complex and it makes it much easier to fail. 

Many years ago, when I was just a newbie with Payless Cashways, I was sent to South St Paul for a week. The reason was not a good one. The decision had been made to close the store and I was one of the people sent to help with the process. When the team I was with got there, the store had already done a couple of big promotions, 25% off everything, 50% off everything. The store was picked over. But I remember the thing most amazing to me was there were parts of the store which looked the same as when the store had been open and functioning in an ongoing way. These sections had not been touched, even when the offer had been 50% off. I remember thinking every one of the company's merchants should be in there, walking around, seeing the things it might not be important to have in a store on a regular basis. I wonder how this logic applies to the hot sauce aisle? If a merchant somewhere just stopped buying anything that went in to the hot sauce aisle, what would it look like in a year? Would it be completely empty as customers had seen the products as interchangeable and had just bought whatever was in stock? What would be the first item to run out?

I guess what I am advocating today, or maybe ranting about a little is it may be time to look at things and rationalize assortments. We all know how the 80-20 rule works; 80% of volume comes from 20% of an assortment, but maybe for a while, it is time to stop chasing the other 20% quite so hard. Let's focus our time and energy on the items that are the most important to our businesses and our lives, and quit chasing the rest. I remember Wayne Reimer telling us the best way to manage inventory was to figure out the slow moving items and order the minimum quantity of each when you ran out. I thought at the time he was crazy as it would make a store look horrible, but I am completely with him now. If I can get 80% of the items I need or want and I can get something to cover the other 20% even if it is not my ideal choice, I personally would be fine, in the short time for sure and probably even longer.

So, long an short of all of this, let's stay focused on the really important things and for a while, if we don't have all of the really specific extras, let's just decide to be fine with the situation.

Perspective

As we all have a greater opportunity to look back and think about the experiences we had and the way they have changed us, this spring is speaking to me very powerfully.  Although overall, Iowa did not have a bad winter, there were a few absolutely brutal weeks. The picture I included was one of those days. This is a picture of one of the streets on the way to my shop on a Saturday morning. Yes, in fact the day was as grey as shown, and yes, I was one of the first people on the street.

The interesting thing for me was where the experience took me. As I sat at the top of the hill, I went back to a time I sat in the snowplow with my grandfather, looking at a mile of country rock road, the only visible sign of where the road was being the fence posts on either side. I remember clutching the handle of the door, wondering if we were going to drive off into a ditch, or hit something unseen on the way to the other end. My grandpa, on the other hand, based on his age, time, and perspective, knew exactly what we were doing and what the outcome would be. He had done this dozens of times in his life. His perspective brought him comfort and confidence in a situation he had experienced before.

I don't know about you, but I find I am this way. With more time around a topic, I come to a better level of understanding and knowledge. The last year has been an exercise in this exact thing. As the pandemic descended on us, I found myself in a complete state of panic. Well, maybe panic is too big a word, but let's leave it there. As time has passed and i have more perspective on the situation we have found ourselves in, I am much better with it. I have come to understand the importance of wearing masks, social distancing, and other safeguards I take to help keep my family and friends safe. Yes, I miss going out to dinner and gathering with family/friends, but I have the ability to view these things through the lens regarding the future. I feel as though I have seen improvement in the overall situation, and I have faith I will see more.  This is a much healthier place for me to be.

The other thing I have realized is how often I touched my face.  Who knew?

I hope you are experiencing some of the same things. There is nothing about change that comes without discomfort. I think we have come through the largest part of the change around the world we live in. We have faced a worldwide pandemic and the results have been horrific. At this point we all probably know people the disease has had terrible effects on, or we have lost. But, we are still standing today and for me, I am more confident about the future of the country than I have been in a while.  Heck, I must be. We just finished putting a new roof on the house. This behavior is looking forward without question.

Things at the Toybox continue to move along briskly.  My daughter is keeping a couple of items on my list of projects to complete, and a few weeks ago we had a first at the Toybox. Andrew and Brian, a friend of Andrew's and now a member of my extended family, came to town to work on a project. Over one busy weekend, we completed a maple bedstead for Brian. Plus, we had a GREAT time in the shop and at home. Good food and camaraderie were watchwords for the weekend. I hope we will do it again sometime.

Finally, Sara and Megan did something cool this week. They put their first quilt out on Etsy. I am incredibly prejudiced, but I will put their work up against most others. Their attention to detail is quite good and they both have an eye for color and overall look.  I am including a link to the quilt on Etsy.  I hope you all like it.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/978378910/quilt-for-sale-55-34x-67-handmade