Programmed

At the beginning of this last semester, as I moved my daughter into her apartment, it struck me that she needed a basic set of tools. I went to K-Mart and collected every tool she might possibly need. A hammer, pliers, etc. - just the basics.  I even got her a bag to hold all of these items. When all was said and done, she was ready to go. I did all of this early in the morning before she was even awake. The funny part of the whole experience was when I got to the register to check out. A gentleman  probably ten years my senior looked over all of my items and said, "Someone starting school today?" Well of course. It was so obvious from the things I had purchased exactly what challenges were ahead during the upcoming day.

I flashed back to a time much earlier in my life just after Andrew was born. For those of you who've experienced having children, these are times with little sleep and a lot of unexpected things pop up that need to be accomplished.  So at eleven o'clock one night, I was standing in a cashier's line with a package of disposable diapers and some formula. We'd run out of these two essentials and there were no replacements in the house. And even worse, there was also no waiting for these items. Of course the part which made this funny was that the other three men in the line had the exact same items, and all of us looked as though we'd had no sleep in the prior seventy-two hours.

As you watch people around you  every day, it's amazing how much you can tell about the things they are in the middle of, or just the kind of day they're having. Sometimes it's based upon the place they are, or sometimes it's only based on the way they look.  My daughter and I like to play this game at places like the Iowa State Fair. We will pick a place to sit and then we discuss if people are really off the farm, or if they're just dressing that way to come to the fair.

New boots, new blue jeans, John Deere cap that had never seen the sun before? They didn't live on a farm. Either that, or they'd saved their Sunday best for just this occasion.

I was in Winterset this morning and saw the perfect example of just what I am talking about.  Really, here in Iowa, boots, jeans, and a black Stetson hat aren't what you would call typical. However, sitting in Winterset this morning I watched a man get out of his pickup truck and walk down the street dressed exactly like that and you could tell he thought nothing about it. This was the way he is suppose to look and there was nothing the least bit strange about it. I'll even bet if the right person is reading this right now, they know who this man is.  He's probably a fixture in the community and that attire is common for him. He is programmed to act and look this way.

The greatest thing about being human is that we have the ability to change or fight this programming. On any day, we have the freedom to get up and look at the world and the way we interact with it and make a change. I remember when my son decided he was going to be Andrew rather than Drew. That was a day he changed the way he was programmed and began to change the way others around him were programmed. He changed the way the world viewed him and the way we interacted with him. Honestly, I still have trouble some days with remembering he is Andrew, but I am one of the last holdouts regarding this change of programming.

I know for myself, there are a lot of things I have just always done, many of them without even thinking about it. As we wade through this last month of the year, and in to the New Year, with all of the resolutions which typically come along, I need to take a little time and see if there are things I should do differently.  Although everyone thinks about the beginning of the year as the time we come up with resolutions, there is never a bad time to take a good hard look consider things we can change, or upgrade.  This type of reflection is going to be something I do over the next few weeks as we work our way through  the holidays and the beginning of a new year.  

From my shop to yours, I hope you have a great holiday season and a truly blessed New Year.

Night Sky

Often as I think about the things around me, I have a tendency to look back, and today is no exception.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go to the Iowa Great Lakes area to spend the weekend with a group of friends. As many of you know, I spent a lot of time there in my youth, so being at "The Lake" as we always called it makes me nostalgic. On this particular trip however, I didn't even get close to the area before I started thinking.

I can remember when I was a child and traveling anywhere at night was amazing. A lot of this was because the sky was so dark and the stars were so bright. This was long enough ago, that we were just at the beginning of the electrification of Iowa's rural homes and farms. In those days, many times the only sign seen as to a farm having electricity was the single security light in the center of the yard. This made traveling in the night very overwhelming for a child. This amazing darkness was also compounded because automobiles weren't nearly as reliable as they are today, and everyone had stories of breakdowns where walking was required. I remember when a trip either to, or from my Aunt Dorothy Dean's house, north of Keswick, Iowa, seemed as challenging as going to the moon (which obviously we hadn't yet done at the time).

But the stars. Wow. I remember sitting in the back seat of my grandparent's car, a huge auto, and leaning my head back on the seat and looking out the back window and seeing all of the stars that the universe presented. It was amazing. The other piece of amazement was that from a distance, you could see the glow of big towns - like Sigourney (population 2300). And then change happened and with REC's, electricity became easy to get and inexpensive by comparison. The countryside became much more well lit. Security lights on barns, lights in workshops and out buildings, and of course, homes lit up. The countryside started to feel like one sparsely populated, extended suburb between larger towns.

When we lived in Humboldt, we started to see this go the other way. We were just at the beginning of the roll up of the smaller family farms into larger units. To be clear, it was still family farming and I believe that much of it still is today, but I'll leave that argument to others. Anyway, I remember going to work in the morning and driving by an abandoned farmstead, still in decent shape and driving by the same place in the evening and it was gone. Everything was gone except for the water wellhead, the land put back into production to help drive the productivity of the enterprise. The countryside started heading back the other direction.

This is what I noticed when we driving to Northwest Iowa in the darkness a few weeks ago.

With one really notable difference. In the early days when you saw a glow over the horizon, you knew that in the next few miles, you'd come across a city. Not anymore. Now, the glow that you see is one of two things. It is either the hub for one of the larger farms that has been created in the rollup of the smaller forms, or it is one of the many production facilities in the state that supports the agricultural industry, or uses the products from the farm as their inputs. This could be an ethanol plant or a production facility that produces farm equipment. Either way, they are usually the glowing lights that you see in the otherwise dark sky of rural Iowa. The other thing that you see, particularly as you go Northwest is all of the red lights at the top of the windmills so pilots know where they are.  Otherwise, the night has gotten darker again and it is easier to see stars in the night sky.

The future will bring even more change. There was a very interesting article in Time magazine in the last couple of weeks talking about fusion. The fascinating thing is that they actually think it may be possible to accomplish in our lifetime. This has always been a bit of a pipe dream, but now with many of the world's most forward-thinking and wealthiest people getting into the middle of this, it would seem there really is a hope that this could happen, and if so it would be a game changer. It could well be the thing that changes the world, taking energy off the table as one of our biggest challenges. This would allow the reversal of climate change and would turn many industries on their heads.

I hope for two things with this. First, I hope that this discovery happens in a way that everyone will be able to participate in the change, and second, I hope that I am here to experience it.

Have a great week.

Stretch

I've had a great week in so many ways. A lot of projects moved forward, and  obstacles overcome, but as I consider the week as a whole, what I really thought about was stretching. This isn't really something that often comes to mind for someone in my age range when thinking about their occupation.  I think more often than not, when people reach a certain age, they settle in and very effectively accomplish their work for the rest of their lives. They do it without a great deal of innovative or new thought and without a great deal of change. I remember hearing that in the scientific community, almost to a discovery, all of the big things are discovered by those under 45 years of age. When I read this the first time, I remember not really believing it. I think maybe I am closer now.

This last year gave me the opportunity to start stretching again and now I am watching someone close to me do the same thing. In both situations it was due to a change in employment. As any of us begin something new, we are deluged with a constant stream of things that even if we "knew" them in a different environment, the differences of companies and individuals makes the whole idea seem alien.  With time and repetition we stretch and adapt and make these strange and alien activities part of what we know and what we can accomplish.

Sara started a new job and she has been in the throes of learning new processes and procedures. Finally, by the end of last week she had confidence in what she was doing. One of her teammates even mentioned that she was moving around the office and getting things done with a great deal more confidence. I believe her confidence came as a result of the stretching.

When we watch younger people and children, we often see this phenomenon very clearly. We even talk about "growing pains." You may remember, if you had boys, times when the growth experienced overnight was actually painful and would wake them up from a sound sleep. This is probably the most extreme case of this type of growth and change. We also get the opportunity to watch this through the educational process, most specifically when we have our children in college. They tend to go in with one idea, or thought, and at the end of the experience, they have changed the plan several times. All we can hope is they have something they will be able to use as they move forward. I've watched my daughter do this, starting with a degree in Biology and now as she moves to a degree program in Biochemistry. This came as she discovered her love for chemistry and her disappointment when she came to her final chemistry class. Her stretch came as she discovered a need to change majors so she could continue exploring through more chemistry classes. Interesting, huh?

Those of you who know me know I am committed to lifetime learning. I believe we continue to learn from the first day of our lives to the last. The thing I've found out about myself is there are times you may still be learning something, but the rate at which this happens is less than what we should expect of ourselves. When this happened to me in the past, I filled time with activities far from appropriate to get me moving forward again. One of the classic things I do is shop on Amazon and Ebay way too much. I developed whole collections of things which I sold later because I wasn't stretching, I was bored. So in order to not let this happen again, I am developing a personal list of things I will fill time with when I am not stretching. Hopefully, this will be a combination of things to move me forward at work and things which will just make me a better person. One of these items will be learning to weld. This is undoubtedly something which improves my life away from work, not at work.

As I end this thought today, I challenge you to ask yourself if you are continuing to stretch?  Whatever your answer, then you need to ask if you really want to.  Based on those two answers, decide what to do with this going forward. I hope you find answers which help you to find joy in your day to day world.

Have a great week.

Rolodex

Yesterday was a good day. It was a good day for a lot of reasons, but for the purpose of this post, I'm going to try to corral my thoughts around one issue.

I don't respond well to "cold calls." I know everyone has to do them, and I've had people I'm responsible for make a great many of them, but I generally don't have time to talk to people when they show up without prior planning.

A couple of weeks ago, a vendor show up in out of the blue, and I wasn't actually in the office. He left information, and honestly, I was never going to do a thing with it. Then he did something smart. He sent an email telling me he was going to be in Des Moines this week and asked if I had any time to meet with him. Now, although I can ignore a "cold call" with the best of them, if someone appropriately asks for time, I can't tell that person no.  So, I scheduled the meeting.

The time came for the meeting and Ryan from Kraft Tank in Kansas City did the next smart thing. He arrived exactly on time. Not a great deal early, and not a minute late. He had now cleared the next hurdle with me. He respected my time. I invited him into my office and rather than attempt to engage in a great deal of meaningless small talk, he introduced himself and went about the purpose of his meeting. He started telling me about the company he works for and what they may be able to do for me. Okay, really? He just hit the trifecta of making a call on me, and honestly I think on a great deal of other people.

Since we'd reached the point where I actually cared about this person and what he had to say, the whole tenor of the meeting changed. I stopped the meeting and asked my fuel manager, Seth, and to join us so we could talk about some of the trailers we use in our over-the-road operation. We also had the chance to talk about a piece of equipment that we might want to sell. All of a sudden, there is the possibility now of  entering into a  transaction with Kraft for that trailer.

Then the most interesting part of the conversation happened. I started talking with him about who he knew in Kansas City and almost immediately discovered he'd worked with a couple of people in the MHC/Kenworth organization I'd really enjoyed when I worked in that market - Todd and Larry. I could almost feel Seth rolling his eyes as this conversation took off.

Seth is just beginning to truly embrace the power of a network. I have always cultivated a strong network, clear back to the days of using a Rolodex. Whenever I left a company, the one thing they most often wanted from me was my Rolodex - all of the contacts and information therein. I guess they cared about me, but they really cared about all of that info.

Anyway, after Ryan from Kraft Tank left, I felt the need to go one step further. I picked up the phone and called Todd just to catch up. It had probably been the better part of a decade since we talked, but as so often happens, the conversation took off just as though we had spoken yesterday. He even laughingly told me he'd told a "Jim Martin" story in just the last couple of weeks. Todd has done well in his career - now a Vice President with MHC/Kenworth. It was really nice to talk with him again.

I know we all realize the power in the contacts we have - the network that we've fostered, but the manner the world is interconnected is sometimes even beyond our ability to really understand. I have friends who believe I'm more connected than they are. I don't for a minute think this is true.  But maybe I've been more willing, deliberate, successful at identifying the many ways I'm connected to others.

Like I told Seth the other day as he was trying to decide if he should go to a networking event, "Get in there and figure out how you know these people."  It will do you good, and honestly, it is just fascinating to find out how connected you are.

You should try it too.  Have a great week.

Bravery

Let's talk about the most important things first today. My scraper is found. I knew it would be. I knew it was just misplaced and not lost. Of course, it was in a place where I had looked ten times before - between the pages of the plans for my roll top desk. Even though I'd picked the sheets up and rattled them, the scraper had not fallen out.  But it did, and now all is good.

Except. Now my favorite tape measure is missing. What is going on here?

I'm not sure if you are in the right age group to either remember yourself, or to have children or grandchildren that watched an animated movie called "The Borrowers." The premise of the movie was that there was a race of small people who lived in the walls of our houses and offices. They borrowed things from us to be able to make their lives work. Hmm, maybe I have "Borrowers" living at the Toybox?  No, there has to be a more logical explanation, like I dropped the tape measure and knocked it under something and haven't found it yet.  Yes, that has to be it.

I titled today's thoughts "Bravery," but this isn't the type of bravery we hear about in the press or we see in extraordinary situations. The bravery that I am thinking about today is the type that allows a person to stand up and be the person they want to be.

When I think of this, I think of my Grandma Jo. I know I've told you this before, but the story bears retelling.  In 1992, we went to Sigourney to see Grandma. She was solidly in her eighties at the time. While we were there she announced that she had come to a time when she was no longer going to pull any punches.  he was going to tell people exactly what she thought, all of the time. This was a women that had been an over-the-road trucker in the 1940s - she was one of a very few women on the road. She worked in the Keokuk County Engineer's Office for a number of years and when you talked to the engineers that worked there, they would all tell you that although she didn't have a degree, she could understand and work on everything that they did.  She and Grandpa ran multiple businesses in Sigourney, often times with Grandma running the business and Grandpa on the road. In short, she was a walking, talking example of bravery every single day.

Last weekend all of this came back to me in a very real way. Friends of ours invited us to ride the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad for their dinner train on Saturday. In the event that you ever have a chance to do this, take the opportunity. It is really a great way to spend the evening. Good food and company, riding through the Iowa countryside on a train. To some, this may not be as much fun, but if you know anything about me, I am a train nut. I am the person that sees a train coming and slows down to get caught at the crossing so I can watch it pass.

On at least two different occasions I have filled out paperwork to volunteer at the B&SV railroad. In both cases I did the work and took time to explain that I really wanted to help in the shop - rebuilding and improving cars and locomotives.  Also, in both cases, the only information that I ever got back was an invitation to help with the crowds during the Christmas season and when Thomas the Tank Engine was there. This is not what I wanted at all. So as I was standing there the other night, I thought that maybe I should fill out the form one more time, even knowing that the outcome would probably be an invitation to help take care of crowds of people. No thank you.

But wait, I thought. The people who could get me to the right place were probably right here in this building, right now. Rather than just fussing about what happened in the past, I walked into the office and introduced myself. I told them that I was a woodworker and was in search of a way I could use my skills to help the railroad. I told them that that I had tried to volunteer before, unsuccessfully. And then a gentleman stepped forward and introduced himself as the President of the B&SVRR. He told me that he knew exactly who I needed to be introduced to and that he would make sure my information got to that person. He explained the way that they deal with people volunteering and why I had the past experience that I did. It was nice to talk with him and in giving him my business card, I felt that I really will be contacted this time. Maybe I have finally reached the point that my Grandma reached - deciding that I have nothing to lose and that I should just charge ahead. We will have to see if this is a change in my demeanor, or just what I needed to do at this moment in time.

A couple of things worth noting as well this week.

The desk I'm working on at the Toybox is beginning to look like a desk.

And I can hardly wait for my daughter to come home from working at Camp Foster.

The Iowa State Fair is about to begin.  Even though my family and friends aren't coming into town for the fair this year, I will be there, you can certainly count on that.

Misplaced

The strangest thing happened at the shop last week. I have a small bench scraaper that had truly become an item I use in a lot of ways, and all of a sudden, it is just not there. This caused a great search to take place, and before all was done, I had cleaned the shop and put all of the tools back where they belonged, but to no avail - the bench scraper has not shown itself. Now, I have another one just like it and there is no real sentimental value to this scraper, but I don't know about you - it drives me crazy when I can't find something like that.

I come from a family that had a very solid philosophy about this kind of thing. Mom taught us, from the earliest that I can remember that nothing is ever lost, it is just misplaced. This was not just a passing comment on something we couldn't find, it was a call to arms to leave no stone unturned and find whatever it was. I have to give you the best example. Sometime in the mid 1970s, probably 1975 as we were getting ready to have my high school graduation, we took all of the drapery in the house down to have it professionally cleaned. This was no small feat.  After taking it down, we removed all of the drapery hooks and put them somewhere that "we would be sure to remember." We took the drapes in, had the cleaning done, brought them home, and went to put them back up.  And to our surprise - no drapery hooks. We tore the house apart. After several days of searching, mom gave up and bought new hooks.

Now, fast forward, like 13 years. Mom died in February of 1988. When my sister and I were cleaning out the house, in the drawer that had always been known as the junk drawer, clear in the back in a couple of plastic bags, we found the misplaced drapery hooks. Jaye and I didn't say a word, we just started to laugh. And, at a time we needed a good laugh, it continued until we both had tears in our eyes.

That day, the universe had shown us the truth of Mom's words - nothing is ever lost, it is just misplaced. We also found out that at the most high stress times of our lives, things like this will happen to give you a moment to release some of the pressure that you are under. After all, it was just drapery hooks, but at one point they had driven us all crazy, and at another time they were almost cathartic, giving us a much needed release.

So - my bench scraper - it will show up sometime and will hopefully happen when I really need it, or when I need to be able to laugh about where I put it. I say that because I'm sure that wherever it is, I put it there to ensure I wouldn't lose it and would be able to remember where I put it. So much for that thought. I also know that there are things in your life that are currently missing/misplaced. Maybe it is a picture, or a newspaper article, or all of your stained glass tools. There is a reason and a place they have landed and it is just a matter of figuring it all out. By the way, if I loaned/gave my stained glass tools to you, please let me know. My cousin, Julie, has been good enough to give me hers, but I am really curious as to where mine went. One of those other things that is just hanging out there for me.

As for other happenings in the Toybox, I delivered a couple of chairs to Andrew and Lyndsey last week. Although I know they will add more furniture to their deck as they go forward, they really look good there now. And I have finally gotten back to a project that is just for me. I am working on an Alder and Maple roll top desk that I am very excited about. It will reside in the Toybox, but I have always wanted to see if I was good enough to make this project. Since the days up at the lumberyard, sitting in Pug's chair at his roll top desk, I have always wanted one. Well, that is about to come true.

Have a great weekend.

Zero

I went to work for Payless Cashways in 1983 as a trainee in the yard. I spent the next several months working like I had never worked in my life and sweating like never before. By the beginning of the next Spring, I had moved into the store and was taking on responsibilities of running the store and making purchasing decisions. I remember it as if it were yesterday - ordering the Seasonal goods. This was when all of the purchase orders were manual and had to be filled out by hand, one at a time.  I remember that when all was said and done, I added up what I had purchased and I had cut purchase orders for in excess of a quarter of a million dollars.  I went home that night and did not sleep, wondering if I had made good decisions. After all, that was more money than I could even think about. Sleep was, well you might say, elusive that night. The next morning I went in to talk to my manager. I wanted him to look over the decisions I'd made and tell me if they looked right. He did one of the greatest things for me that anyone has ever done. He asked me if I had made the best decisions that I could make. When I told him that I haed, he suggested that there was nothing more to do but to wait and see how things sold. He communicated to me that he believed in me.

Several months later, I remember my District Manager telling me that business decisions were really all the same, it was just about the number of zeros that were included. His point was that whether you were making a $250 decision, or one that valued at $250,000, the decision process and the thought that you put into it should be the same. I must tell you that in the years since then, I have found that is really the truth. I remember agonizing over that first quarter of a million dollar decision, and then I remember later, still working for Payless, when the decision I made was for a great deal more, but we actually saved a quarter of a million dollars. That was a time when the company was $1.54 billion dollars in revenues.  It is all about the zeros.

As I finally get solidly into a new job, I am reminded of this again. It is great to be back on the Operations side of the business where it is truly possible to make things better. In the first several months that I was here, I continued to do repair after repair that all seemed to be about $4000 each.  I know that's a lot of money, but if you remove some zeros, you can think about them as being less, 400 or 40.  The easy thing in the Operational arena is that as long as you are sure the people you are talking to have the same desire and direction as it all just needs to happen. We have slowly worked our way through all of the things we needed to fix and now the real fun starts. We start doing things that will make the enterprise more efficient and more profitable. We are looking forward and spending amounts that have a whole lot more zeros in them, but we can now look at the amount of time it takes to pay off the investment.

Investment, not expense. I love that distinction as it is all about moving forward, not just paying for the past.  Hmm... I should probably think about that in my personal life too.

Looking back at what I have written, it strikes me that once again I've landed on a recurring theme of mine. It is the little things that make the difference. As you think about what I have talked about today, you can't really find a smaller thing than a zero, But, when you add them to the back of other real numbers, they have the effect of moving the number by a degree of order. $200 with just a few added zeros becomes $2,000,000.

I think that this is applicable in our lives as well. So often, when we really need something from a friend, it will be the smallest of things, the personal equivalent of a zero. But the way that it works is as a magnifier, making the result greater than you could ever imagine. And with that, come the ripples that affect those around the person you are doing something for. The other thing to remember about the ripples is that they go places that you will never see from the original act that caused them.

So, remember: sometimes the big things aren't as large as you initially imagine. They are easily taken care of by treating them like smaller issues. And small things sometimes have larger results than you could ever imagine.

Have a great day.

Pavlov

I am never exactly sure how much I remember from most of the classes that I took in High School, but I'm sure I learned about the Pavlovian response during those years. This was the idea that after you associated a stimulus with a particular biological response, you could create that same response with the new stimulus. This was also sometimes called classic conditioning. The experiment I remember was training dogs to salivate with the ringing of a bell. The bell replaced the presentation of food that would naturally cause the reaction of salivating. We are all subject to this, and there are times that it is worse than others. Ironically enough, for me it has always been about the ringing of a bell, the bell that comes from our phone. Okay, I guess that talking about a bell on my phone may date me somewhat. Maybe this is about the sound of a ring tone instead in these days that we live.  

I have an uncle that I've spent most of my adult life in this type of situation with. I knew that if I answered the phone, and it was his voice on the other end of the call, it was bad news. A death in the family, an illness, or any number of just basically bad pieces of news. This was bad enough in the early years that I was out of school and living on my own, but since caller id, it has taken on a whole new level. Now, I don't even need to answer the phone, I can simply look at the display and know what is coming. Fortunately in the last few years he has also called several times with good news, so my conditioning has softened somewhat. The other thing that makes me laugh is that this is also the way my mother was. She and I finally agreed that she wouldn't give me bad news on the phone. Which ensured there was that joyous period of time when I got all of the bad news the minute that I walked in the door at home. Not sure which was better.

Today, I found out that a person I know received bad news about their child. There is going to be a long road for them to get this child back to health. I know where they are right now, and so do many of you. When you are at the start of something that you hope and pray will come out good, but you aren't sure that it will, everything is large and overwhelming. That is where this father finds himself today.  And I guarantee that over the coming months and years, as his family works their way through this, any phone call will cause absolute panic: what is wrong? What do we need to do? Can I help? All questions that they will ask over and over again. I hope for this person, and for all of you that are going through this, that you have a great outcome at the other end of the journey.

As I think about this and the way we react as parents, siblings, or just friends, it is natural for us to tense as the phone rings when we're in the middle of an emotion-filled situation. But the great part is that when it is finally over, the time comes when you realize the phone no longer causes panic. You return to a point where you look forward to phone calls from those you love again. Conversations return to the things that happened in a day, or a week that they want to share because you are important in their life. It is about the joy of sharing and celebrating. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

My thoughts go out today to this person I talked about here, and all of you that find yourself in a bad situation with family or friends, where you know that when the phone rings it's probably not good news. I hope for you that time passes and things get better ... that you get to a point where the ringing of the phone is something to be celebrated because you know that there will be good news or a great story on the other end of the call. After all, that is what should come across the phone most of  the time ... good news.

Have a great day.  Thinking good thoughts for you here.

Time

I spent  time at the Toybox yesterday. It was glorious. The only downside was that it is actually clean out there. That just seems wrong, but at the moment, I am between projects. I completed a couple of Adirondack chairs for some friends a few weeks ago. Last week I completed a Giant Jenga set and a set of really large dice so they can play Yard Yahtzee at Camp Foster. Now I'm back to the roll top desk that I'm working on for myself.  Although many of the pieces were already cut out, so much time has passed that it was kind of like starting all over. I really needed to figure out exactly where I was, but I got that done. Now this project will move forward, unless I get busy with something that I need to complete for somebody else.

Anyway, as I was taking a break, the HUD sign that came off the house we owned north of the Drake area caught my attention. This was doubly fascinating as I had been past that house a week or so ago and saw that it was for sale. I actually called the agent and discovered that the house had sold very quickly. The agent had been fascinated to know that I had once been an owner and wanted to talk about its history. For any of you that remember us living there, I'm including a link to the Zillow page so you can look through the pictures of the house now, as opposed to the memories you may have of it.  As you will see, the current owner is much more in favor of carpet than I have ever been, always preferring hard surfaces, given the choice.  Also, they redid the kitchen again, and it all looks very nice.  If you remember it when I lived there, check it out here.

As I was wandering this strange set of memories, all triggered simply by the sign that had been in front of the house when we bought it, I started to think about memories in a more global way. As I begin to get older, read as "older," not old, memories are very interesting. In many cases, I have much better memories of the things I did as a child than the things I did last week. Fortunately, items like pictures and old bits of paper and souvenirs help me remember some things. On the other hand, there are parts of my life that are really just a blank. I find this troubling.

At this point, I thought about an article by Hugh Howey that I read last week. It was sent to me by a friend who tries to make sure I read things that keep me thinking. For your consideration, here is a link to the article. I would really recommend this as something to read and consider. In the article, he writes about going to the beach and how long it took to get there when he was a child vs. the amount of time that it took when he was in high school. I don't know about you, but that makes a lot of sense. I remember it seemed like forever between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next. I can remember spending an entire day one summer lying in a hay field watching the clouds go by. If I could know the truth, it was probably 15 minutes, but looking back, it seemed like a whole day. I was still making new memories in those days.

I had the opportunity to talk with my son and his wife over the weekend with this on my mind. I asked if they remembered anything about last Monday. Andrew told me that he had gone to work, but that was all that he could actually remember. In the conversation, they have clearly hit the part of life that is "wash and repeat." They are going through the steps, accomplishing the things that they need to get done, but honestly it is like those times when you finish a car trip and cannot remember parts of the trip. They are functioning just fine and doing all of the right things, but they are no longer making new memories. Their mind is just moving them forward. And this, if you wondered, is why people always tell you that time goes faster as you get older. Relatively, I think that it does. We are no longer making new memories - we are living in what we know.

I have to ask myself what I am going to do with all of this. I think that I will always agonize a little over the years I didn't do enough living every day, but over and above all of that, I think that I am going to spend a lot more time thinking about all of the individual opportunities that present themselves in a day.  And with each of those, I am going to work more diligently to say "YES" to as many as possible and start making new and different memories. I have no idea if I will make any difference at all, but it sure seems to me to at least be worth a try.

Give it some thought and see if you are willing to try too. Yes?

Travel

I remember when I was offered the first job that would involve travel.  It was a magical moment, reminiscent of getting something back from Battle Creek, Michigan. You know, the place where all the stuff from the back of the cereal  boxes came from. Anyway, I remember having this wonderful idea of what a job with travel would be like: seeing new cities, experiencing food, culture, different people.

Then came the reality. I was responsible for conducting on-campus interviews for Payless Cashways on college campuses in the western half of the United States. At the one year mark, or there about, I remember being in a motel in Provo, Utah. I woke up that morning, opened the drapes, and had absolutely no idea what town I was in. In order to figure it out, I actually had to go to my briefcase and look at my plane ticket to see where I was. That was the morning when it struck me that what I had really seen in the past year were airports, motels, and college campuses. And guess what? They all look very much alike. That was also the day I asked the person I worked for to get me off the road. Thankfully he did.

Time passed and again, I found myself in a job with travel. At that time, I was in Store Operations, and we were trying to make sure that we saw each of 154 stores at least once every six months.  So, we were traveling a lot. It was different that time in that I was spending time with operators and walking stores. Never did a day go by that I did not learn something or have the opportunity to teach something. It was exciting, but the travel took its toll.

So, once again, I asked to get off the road and again, my boss said okay. This time the thing that pushed it over the edge was that I had been on a flight that had an aborted takeoff. And I was on a flight that had been required to "punch back out" from a landing attempt because there was sosmeone else on the runway. And... these two things happened on the same week.  Just too much.

If you have someone in your life that has traveled a lot, and you talk to them over dinner or drinks, you will find out that they have a lot of interesting stories about the way travel goes.  And if you are lucky enough to get two people like this in the same room at the same time, they will be like two old fighter pilots, trying to tell the biggest, best story.

But today, flying home from Maine, I think I may win. In LaGuardia, on a Delta flight, after we had pushed back from the jetway and were just starting to get ready to taxi, the announcement came overhead that we had too many people on the flight. We had more people on the plane than we had seats. Really?? How exactly does that happen? Anyway, back to the gate we went and two people left the plane. After all of the paperwork, and I am sure some finger pointing, we were back on our way, about an hour late. You may think that is the amazing part, but no. The next thing that happened was the part blew me away. On a three-hour flight that was now an hour late, the pilot came on the intercom and announced that he would make up the time in the air. An hour? All I can think is that warp speed is now deployed.

So, if airlines can get us there in half the time, why don't they?

Have great travels out there. Okay, I am off my soapbox now. I might have spent too much time in airline terminals this week, way too much time. Oh, by the way, he made up all of the time except for three minutes.

Karma

I don't know if you ever watched it or not, but there used to be a show on television called "My Name is Earl."  Now, in my opinion, this show would have had to move a LONG way to have ever become mainstream, but like so many other things in my life, if you put it at the right time of the day, I watch it.  That usually means sometime between 3 and 5 am when I'm having my daily sleep sabbatical.

Anyway, the premise behind the show was that Earl had done a lot of bad things in his life, and after an event that changed him, was working his way back through his life, correcting as many of these injustices as  possible. He talked about karma as if it were a true force of nature, one to be realized and recognized at every turn.

I am not to the place that Earl was with his worship of karma. Rather, I love to watch people either do something unexpected or something to pay it forward. I absolutely love stories about people in the Starbucks line paying for the person behind them, and the process continuing for hours after it started.

I find myself actually looking for opportunities to do something nice for someone I don't know. Of course there are a lot of them. Every now and then, one really makes you smile. Yesterday was one of them. We'd gone to breakfast at a place we had never tried before. Breakfast was incredible, but there was an item on the menu that I wondered about - bread pudding French toast.

So check this out: they make bread pudding from their leftover sticky buns, let it cool, slice it, batter it, and cook it as French toast. After asking questions, even though we were finished eating, we had  to try it. I placed an order for the table.

In the time between ordering it and having it arrive, I heard two older ladies talking at the next table.  Now, the reason I had even thought about trying this was that they had been asking questions about it all through breakfast. Anyway, they finally decided to try it themselves. When they ordered, I heard the waitress tell them that they had just sold their last serving for the day. Of course, I knew that serving was coming to us. There was only one thing to do. I asked our waitress if she would please charge the order to us, but split it between us and the next table. After all, we all just wanted to try it.

When the waitress delivered the half order to the other table, you could tell immediately that the ladies were pleased and amazed. In some small way we helped make their day brighter and maybe, just maybe, we started a chain reaction of one person helping another person for no real reason other than it was the right thing to do. And if not, it sure made me feel good. Helped to brighten a day that was already pretty darn good.

So, next time you are sitting in that line at Starbucks, think about buying coffee for the next person in line, or help someone with a door, or help someone carrying a heavy load. You will be amazed how good it makes you feel.  Have a great day.

Morning

I know that I've talked about this before, but I love mornings. This is the time of the day I like best because, honestly, I haven't screwed anything up yet. In the morning, a day is perfect, without the imperfections that litter the rest of the day as I begin to do things and make decisions. Admittedly, this time doesn't always last very long, but there are always at least a few minutes of this feeling.  But that isn't really what I am talking about today.

The morning that I am talking about is the way that the day itself, and the world around you, actually stretches and yawns as a way to get started. If you've never thought about this, stop and take a moment one of these days and really listen to the world. This has to be in the quiet time just as the day is getting started. Here are some of the things I've seen or heard in the last few days.

Driving to Weekend with Wood last Friday morning. I had already been in to work to get a couple of things done. I had a cup of coffee (one of my signature morning activities) and was in the heart of downtown. Two separate times, women crossed the street in front of me, carrying large satchels.  Both were dressed professionally, both were wearing running shoes of one type or another. These women were on their way to work, traveling at least some of the way on foot. This may have been from a parking structure, or maybe from their home. Both were going to get to work and change into whatever they needed to wear for the rest of the day. They may have even been carrying their lunch in the bag as well. I had to slow down my morning while waiting for them to cross in front of me and it was a quiet moment for all of us as the day was beginning. Just people trying to live their lives, and get their day started. Sometimes I think that I need to be more aware of the fact that this is what people are doing, just trying to live their lives.

Different day, different place. As is often the case, I was up early. As part of that I got to listen to the house come awake. Slowly, almost cautiously, there started to be the little sounds of a day starting. The squeak of a bed as someone started rolling around to wake up; the long sigh from another - stretching and getting all of the body parts moving; sometimes even the sound of the house as weight came to bear on places that it hadn't all night. I love this little symphony that plays out at the beginning of the day. And that is only inside the house. Open a window, or go outside and listen to what the rest of the world is doing. It always helps me to know that there is something more going on than what happens in my little corner.

Okay, that is probably about as philosophic as I ever get and definitely enough for today. Take the time, even if you aren't a morning person, to try at least to embrace the morning once. You may actually find something there to like.

Control

I guess I need to admit something and this is probably a pretty good forum for me to do it in. I think I may be a bit of a control freak. No, wait a minute. Let's think about this and think about what those of you that know me would say about that. I think you're right. As long as I'm in control, I really don't have any type of control issue.

There it is, all that I really need is to be solidly in control.

But wait, there are situations, rare though they may be when you con't be in control, or as was said in the movie Days of Thunder, "Control is an illusion."

Okay, now I'm back to this being an issue. When we come to those times that we are truly in the hands of others, such as going in for the "procedure" that occurs after we are fifty years old, (yeah you all know exactly what I mean), I think the control freak in all of us shows up. But, truly for some of us, it's more pronounced than that.

Some people think that I drive a lot of the time when we go to events because I love driving. The truth is I don't really love to drive, but rather, I want to make sure that if a decision needs to be made in a split second, I don't need to confer with anyone. I may not always make the best decision, but I know that I will make a decision and be willing to stand behind it, win or lose.

Many years ago, I went through some testing with the team that I worked with. When all of the results came back, we gathered in large groups to discuss the results. The discussions revolved around how we could work together more effectively, knowing how each of us reacted in given situations. I don't remember all of the dimensions, but I one of the measures was "Assertiveness." In this particular area, I actually got the highest score possible.

As we were going through the results, our Regional VP, Dave Krumbholtz for you old Payless folk, looked at my results and said, "Aw Martin, you aren't assertive." He was absolutely serious. He didn't see me that way. The funny part was that the rest of my team was sitting there, giving him all the verbal and nonverbal cues that I actually was. At the end of the discussion, Dave had decided that I was a "closet assertive."

Maybe that's the way I am in control. Maybe I'm a "closet control freak." If there is a chance to be in control, I will take it, but if there's no need for anyone to be in control, I'm okay with that, too. After all, that's kind of the way the assertiveness thing worked out: if someone needed to take charge, I would and could be assertive, but if there was no need, I was fine with it.

Hum... very interesting, maybe I don't have a control issue. Thoughts?

Like-Minded

In this time in which we live, you can barely turn around without being exposed to a multitude of ways people find to express their opinions.  This not only has many positive effects but also intended and unintended negative effects. I have to laugh just a little bit as I am talking about this in a blog, a manner of communication that really hasn't existed for that many years, and was certainly not something that I knew about several years ago.  Now, there are a million ways that people can reach out, through Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and other ways that I'll never understand.

But sometimes we get a chance to land in a group of like-minded individuals. This happened to me over the last weekend. It was time for Wood Magazine's annual "Weekend with Wood," and this is truly a bunch of folks who are interested in and committed to improving their knowledge and skills around woodworking.  Really a group of like-minded individuals.

Okay, hold on a second. Really? Well, not really. Even though there was an overarching interest in woodworking and the skills it takes to do good work, as I listened to the group there were fully as many other topics as you would find anywhere else. I listened to a very impassioned conversation about Homeowners Associations. The four people involved were from different cities and different states, but were able to have a very animated conversation about their thoughts. The conversation could have gone on anywhere. And in the middle of it I found myself smiling. You may ask why?

It struck me that in our daily lives, in a time and a society that it feels as though there is NEVER a clear agreement, really all that you have to do is look for it, and when you see it you have to recognize it.  Now, if you are scratching your head, let me see if I can help to clarify with an example.  Suppose that you are at a dinner party and discover the the two most politically polar people that you have ever met are in attendance. You would of course expect that the conversation would become contentious, right?  Well, maybe ... maybe not.  If the conversation goes the rightt way, it may be possible that these people are also the biggest Kansas City Royals fans on... the... PLANET. Who knew?  It might be possible for these two to have a conversation and go through the whole evening without landing on what their political beliefs are.

So, what is my point here? I guess that I'm saying that sometimes we should spend the energy looking for the way we are like each other rather than the ways we are different from each other. I know that in the middle of that group at the Meredith Corporation this weekend there was probably someone I could have argued with over something that we both felt passionate about.  But, instead, we were all SO focused on woodworking that when other topics came up, they were really just as ponts of interest and nothing that would drive a conversation. It was very refreshing.

At this point I find myself challenged going forward to strive to find the commonality that I have with others, rather than looking for the differences and reasons to argue. It will be interesting to see how I do with that. It isn't necessarily the way that I have functioned up to this point. Wish me luck.

Numbers

I'm glad that I've always been comfortable with numbers and that math has come relatively easy to me. As I started thinking about where this came from, I was amazed to realize that it really tracked back to my grandmother.  This was my mom's mother, Josephine Helen Nauman Milburn. She was 94 when she died in June of 2000, still living in her own home. She was taking out the garbage at the time she passed away.  I am sure that I speak for many of us when I say that I certainly hope I have some of that karma in my life.

Grandma and Grandpa were very important members of my life, as they were to all of their children and grandchildren. When I was still relatively young, Grandma was still working in the Keokuk County Engineer's office. She had all of the knowledge to be an engineer, from the practical point of view, but didn't have the required educational background.  At least two of the people that she worked for told me that.  Anyway, at that time, the office was open on Saturday until noon.  On good weekends, I would get to wake up early, go to breakfast at the Town House Cafe with Grandpa and then he dropped me off at the courthouse to spend part of the morning with Grandma.  Our mornings were somewhat of a ritual.

During the course of the morning, we would make and fly paper airplanes.  In later years, when they went to paint the office, they found some of the planes on top of a high set of shelves.  You know, sometimes that just happens.  After our flight exercise though, Grandma would sit me down at a drafting table with an architect's rule and a set of colored pencils and we would draw house plans.  I was forever trying to figure out how to design a house with a round kitchen.  The problem wasn't really the kitchen, it was the rest of the rooms around the kitchen and what you did with those spaces.  To this day, I haven't come up with a good answer.  But, with this work, Grandma taught me about scale and how to draw plans "to scale."  I was probably the only 7-10 year old in Sigourney, Iowa that could accurately read and understand all of the scales on the rule that I was using.

When we were done with that, the next thing was to use the ten column calculator in the office.  This thing was a MONSTER.  It seemed like one of the biggest pieces of equipment I had ever seen, let alone used.  And in a day when very few calculations had to be carried out to ten columns, I am sure that it was also a very expensive piece of equipment.  But, being the lucky young man that I was, I got to sit there and figure out how numbers went together and of course what you had to add to overflow the capability of the calculator.  You know, you always have to figure that out.

Now, as if this were not all enough to cement a love of numbers into my brain, Grandma also had a couple of number games that she liked to play.  One was to come up with a mathematical "equation" that would describe someone's birthday, and the other was to do the same thing with their license plates.

I will give you an example.  Let's say that someone's birthday was September 27,1993.  We would work through this and come to the decision that all you really had to remember was that this person was born in '93.  From that you could remember that they were born in September (the ninth month) and on the 27th (9 x 3).  We played this game all of the time, and honestly, I still use this trick to help me remember people's birthdays and other special days.

After Grandma started me down this path, somewhere along the line someone taught me the Pythagorean theorem - A2 + B2 = C2 - and I was off and running.  Still today, with this basic interest in math and these tricks, along with a little understanding of percentages, I get through a lot of situations with ease.

Last week, as a group of intelligent men that I work with were trying to calculate the volume of a cylinder, I was able to estimate it as a cube and come to an answer while we were still on-site.  I know that one of the gentlemen I was working with is probably still in his office crunching numbers, but I'm sure that my estimate was close enough. Though they talked about finishing the conversation after they'd done all of the calculations back in the office, I knew we had plenty of information to move forward.

I appreciate having the confidence and assurance that the quick calculations I do in my head are generally correct. It has made my life a whole lot easier and sometimes a whole lot of fun. Thanks for the help Grandma Jo.

Small Green Stone

There are numerous ways we remember people, and lots of things that enter our lives and then are just around, sometimes for no real known reason. I have many of those in my office, my home, and my shop. These are the items that ... if we died, nobody would have a clue as to the story behind them, or the value that they hold for me.  One of these items is a small green stone.  It weighs very little and has a tendency to move around my desk. I hold it and roll it over in my hand at times when I am thinking about something.  Many might call it a "worry stone." That's a good name for it.

Over the years I've had the opportunity to work with a great number of individuals - from the old Payless days, through distribution, to today at Diamond Oil. I learned much from these folks and I hope they learned as much from me.

One particular group was from when I worked at Huttig in Kansas City. This group of people distinguished themselves by taking a facility that was losing a lot of money to becoming profitable in just two years. We got a lot of attention from others who tried to figure out exactly what we were doing and why it worked. It was the people, which is always the answer. Let me tell you about some of these individuals.

My Production Manager had come from Guatemala to make a better life for his family. Alary never met a challenge that he couldn't overcome.  As I continued to add production to his schedule, he complained in passing fashion and then dug in and figured out how to get it done.  He threatened me a couple of times about it, but always just got it completed. I still grin when I think about his words: "Meester Martin, I beech-slap you if you..." Add whatever challenge I set before him.

My operations team was made up of a lot of people, but Benny and Jamie were two of the folks that really got it done.  They were the people who made sure all of the orders were pulled and completed every day, and got the product on the trucks and routed so that everything was delivered.  This was one of the largest jigsaw puzzles that you could ever imagine, and they took it on day after day.  Pretty amazing.

Then there was the inside sales team.  Dawn, Donna, Joe, Grif, Andrelee, Dave and Roy.  They took tremendous care of the customer.  As we worked to change the way that the branch responded to its customers, this was the group that stepped up to tell the story and bring back the customers that we had lost with bad service and bad pricing.  They did the work one customer at a time, in conjunction with the outside sales team. These teams spurred our growth until we were moving forward again.  As individuals we were all flawed and had our quirks, but as a team, we were just about unstoppable.

So you ask, what does this have to do with a small green stone?  When I roll this stone over in my hand, these are all of the things that I think of and more. This stone reminds me of all.

But most specifically it reminds me of Grif Davies.  I'd known Grif when he was the sales representative for Magic Woods when I worked at Payless.  He sold me hardwood lumber and specially items and was always there to help. Years later, when I landed at Huttig, he worked as an inside seller for me. I remember sitting down with Grif for his annual review and asking him what his goals were for the upcoming year. He told me that he wanted to live to the next review, going on to tell me that he was going to need a lung/heart transplant in order to get there. Over the coming months, we all worked to support him in all the ways we could.  He ended up gong in for the surgery and although things started out well, as we all followed him through his "caring bridge," we hoped for the best. But in the end, his body was unable to overcome all of the indignities that had been done to it over the years and we lost him.

When we went to the funeral, there was a basket of these small stones at the entrance to the sanctuary. Each stone was unique and a handwritten note from Grif. He wanted us to take a stone and use it over the years to remember that day and the friends that were there with us.  It has always done just this for me.

I know there will be a day when someone goes through my things and tosses this stone in a box to go to Goodwill, or to the curb. But like so many things for so many of us, it really is just a symbol. This little green stone isn't just a rock to me. It's something that helps me remember.

Cherish the things in your life that are more than they appear to be.  There value will rarely be understood by anyone but you.

Ice Cream

In past blogs, I've talked about how one person can make a difference. Everyone who knows me knows I truly believe this, and there are more examples of it than there is time to recount, but I also have owed you a story about ice cream since a blog (One Person) I wrote in March of 2014. Seems to me that this is the time that I should share that story.

For many years, I worked for Payless Cashways. At one time, we were labeled the "Sweetheart of the Industry," but before it was all done, we had worked our way through two Chapter 11 reorganizations and then one Monday, found ourselves with a negative cash flow we couldn't overcome. At the beginning of the decline we were 150 stores and $1.54 billion in sales. I remember our President holding up a screwdriver at one meeting and telling us that there was nobody in the company that could tell us how many of those we had sold in the previous year. At that point, by the way, we were blind, but very, very profitable.

Over the next number of years, we continued to add capabilities to our computer systems to be able to mine more and more information from our system under the guise of making better decisions. We had a great deal of metrics and information at our fingertips, but in the end, it didn't really matter. The company seemed to do its best when the decisions were made at the local level by individual managers who were completely responsible for most of the decisions made in the store. Although I am not completely sure of it, this seems to mimic the current Hy-Vee model - which seems to be highly successful.

Enough of my soapbox. On to the ice cream story. In later years, after we decided to embrace the Professional customer in our "Shift Right" strategy, we ended up trying a lot of different things to try to generate immediate cash and draw/keep customers in our stores. One thing we tried was ice cream novelties. Items like "Drumsticks" and "Bomb Pops", and my favorite, the ice cream sandwich made with chocolate chip cookies as the outside of the sandwich became popular. I found these to be a delightful afternoon snack. When we first added ice cream to the stores, I was at Store 16 in West Omaha. I remember telling the person who delivered our stock that I didn't ever want to be out of that particular item. Being a good supplier, they made it happen. Over time, the company asked me to move to Texas and run a district down there. I set up my home store at Store 21 Contractor Supply in Garland. I had the same conversation with my new ice cream supplier and after a couple of mis-steps, he was able to get it right.

Time marched forward and somewhere along the line, we had a meeting in Kansas City with all of the leadership of the organization in attendance. Millard Barron, our CEO, was very much into the numbers and he had carefully watched all new product lines. Ice cream had been one of them. In a breakout session to discuss some of these initiatives, the comment was made that for a long time Omaha had been the number one seller of ice cream, but then for a reason that was hard to identify, the Texas Contractor's Supply had taken over the lead.

There in front of many people I'd known for years - many that I respected a great deal and many who respected me - it was pointed out that the thing that changed was that Jim Martin had moved from Omaha to Texas. This wasn't necessarily the best way to have pointed out that one person can make a difference, but it certainly did that for me, and here, twenty plus years later, as I recount the story to you, I still find a bit of embarrassment welling in my throat. Never forget that one person can, and does matter. Okay, laugh a little bit, if you haven't yet.

Now I've admitted the story and it's out there. There are a couple of other pretty wonderful things I need to share with you.

First, this is my 100th blog. When I wrote the first one, I wondered how much I would possibly have to say. Although there have been times I've been hard-pressed to find something to talk about, I kept after it until I am now at 100. I'm sure some of you are laughing right now at even the thought that I might not have something to say, anytime, but it was a concern for me.

Second, this week I sold my first item through my Etsy store. I know that there isn't much there, but a person found something they liked enough to ask me to build one for them. This feels like high praise and fits with the fact that I've had a good year producing items out of the shop that others seem to like. We'll keep that going. And, just as a little view toward the future, I've also been asked to produce a teardrop trailer for someone. This should be fun.

I hope this 100th blog finds you all healthy and happy. Let me know what's going on with each of you.

Fun

You may have noticed that I've been gone for a while.  It seems I should try to explain.  As we entered the first quarter of this year, everything got really busy, all in a really good way.  I started a new job with Diamond Oil, which is fantastic, and took on the largest woodworking project that I've ever done.  I worked with Youth and Emergency Shelter Services to help them outfit a library.  I cut, assembled, finished and installed 34 sections of shelving, twenty-nine two-foot sections in the library itself and others for into individual offices.  The last of the finish went on today.  There are still seven units to deliver, but for the most part it's done.  Now I can get back to other things, like the Adirondack chairs that I owe to a friend. Then I need to figure out what's next out of the shop.  Obviously my roll-top desk is taking a back seat to everything else.  It is nice to have the shop really rocking, though.

The other thing I've been doing is to some interviewing for a company.  It has been a great deal of fun to talk to first-round candidates from all over the world and is part of what made me think about this blog tonight.  One of the questions I've been asking is, "Tell me about a time that you had fun at work?"  Really a pretty simple question, but it's made me think.  I have to tell you, I've been really fortunate to have had several groups I worked with that I had fun with.  This really goes all the way back to the early pool crews that I worked with.

In the mid 1970s and the early 1980s, I was the manager for a municipal swimming pool in my home town.  The summers there were always a ton of fun.  We all worked hard, and strived to make the customer experience safe, and fun, but behind the scenes, we had a ball.  I can't even tell you all of the pranks we pulled on each other: hiding personal items, or even freezing them into a block of ice in the freezer, or soaking a member of the team with water when they were asleep on the nice warm concrete.  With all of that though, we all agonized at the end of  summer over not seeing each other every day, and could hardly wait until the following summer when we could do it all over again.

Fast forward to the Payless days.  We all enjoyed the teams we worked with so much that it was not unexpected for each of us to receive calls from home asking when we were going to finally show up.  Sometimes we were in the office discussing ways to be more profitable, or we had taken the gathering off-campus - post-work hours.  It seemed that every Payless Cashways had an adoptive bar we all called home.  In West Des Moines it was a place called Lori's and they actually developed a punch card system for us.  Buy 10 pitchers of beer and the next one was free (not free but included-see my blog on this).  It's really amazing how many great ideas were developed on the back of cocktail napkins.  Honestly, at one time we re-organized the entire $1.54 billion company with a plan that started that way.  The Payless experience may not have ended well, but many of the friendships and the lessons learned there are still part of the way we work today.

When I was in Kansas City, I received a call from a gentleman that I had worked for at Drake.  He was the VP of Student Affairs and invited me to a Drake Alumni event.  The keynote address was by the CEO of Hallmark.  At one point in his speech he talked about the fact that several of his people, even some of his direct reports were in the room.  He went on to say that if they were not in love with their job, were not enjoying their job, they should quit their job.  I remember thinking he was a bit crazy at the time, but with more and more time, I am beginning to think he was absolutely right.

So, over the past few months, I have been asking the question about having fun at work. I have been listening to people's stories and the inflections in their voices when they tell the stories, and it continues to tell me how important it is.   I have had the blessing of having a great deal of jobs that were fun, and I find myself in one again today.  The folks at Diamond Oil are great and the challenges, although sometimes very large, are all things that can be handled.  So, tomorrow, as a new week starts I will have a smile on my face and be ready to go.

I sincerely hope that the same is true for you.  If not ... you may want to consider changing something.  Have a great week.

Four Years

Well, the end of the year has caused me to start looking back at a lot of different things, thinking about the upcoming tax season and all of the fun that comes with it.  Interesting.  Even as I wrote the words 'tax season,' a wave of memories flooded through me.  After my father died, the part of the legal practice that mom was able to keep was the "J Leo Martin Tax Service."  This was the family business that really got me through college and launched on this ride called "being an adult."  Tax season at the Martin household was a real ride, probably much like that for any of you that had or have a tax professional in your life.  I remember Christmas as the lull before the storm. You could just tell that mom was thinking about what was coming at her.  In later years, when I was in college, I even helped by setting up all of the accounting pages that she used to run the business.  It was all part of the preparation that happened around the holidays.  Quiet times but pensive, thinking about the immediate future.

Then, after the first of the year, all hell broke lose. Mom almost immediately started working the bulk of every day, 18-20 hours. Her office was in our basement, but it's not like we saw very much of her.  We also needed to remember that when we got home at the end of the day there were still a couple of hours that she would have clients. We always had to remember to be quiet.  Additionally, there was work that came with the business. I was responsible for making sure all of the snow was off the drive before I went to school. This required some really early mornings. and of course, as we all remember, we had a lot more snow in those days than we do now. I had to empty the trash cans out of the office every night and burn all of the contents, as nothing from the business could accidentally show up somewhere else. Since so many more people smoked then, it was always possible that someone had flipped a butt into a trash can and it would turn into a fire overnight.  More than once Mom or Saundra carried a burning trash can outside. This was the reason Mom only used metal trashcans.

January 2011 - Not much there yet.

Anyway, lots of instant memories about the tax business, but it provided us a good life and it allowed mom to be free in the summer when we were off school.  Okay, back to the real topic of this week. As I was thinking through all of the end of the year stuff it struck me that as of December 2014, I'd been in the Toybox for four years.  Wow.  That time rolled right by. A nice thing about this though, is that in just one more year, the interest rate on the loan for the Toybox drops significantly. That is a great thing. But - probably just me being way too pragmatic. On the more personal side, the place helps to keep me sane. Whether I am working on a big project for family or friends, or just messing around sharpening a chisel and figuring out how to organize the place, I love my time in that space. It is my true point of balance.

Four years ago, when I started out there, it was nothing but a shell and through hard work, and some disposable income, it came to the point that it is today. But that isn't the end of the story. It will continue to change, evolve, and recreate itself based upon the kind of woodworking that I do. Or, and this could happen, whatever size flat screen gets handed down out there and ends up on the wall. Entertainment and work really need to go hand in hand, at least I think so.

January 2015 - Big changes. Kind of exciting!

As for the Toybox and its current happenings, I have just taken on the biggest project in my life. I am helping YESS equip their new library with shelves. Today was the serious start to the work. I cut up 38 sheets of Roseburg D-3 maple plywood and turned it into several hundred pieces that will come together in the next month to be shelf units. Also, for any of you who are woodworkers, that product is beautiful for what it is. The face is a whole piece face (no splices) and the back, although showing more dark wood, is still really good. So, if you have any maple projects coming up, consider it. I even took the time today to give the Roseburg Forrest Products rep a call to tell him how good it looked. I figure that they receive enough bad calls, once in a while they should get a good one.

Enough rambling. Four years down, a whole bunch left, I hope. And believe it or not, I am approaching 100 blogs. Bet some of you never thought that I actually had this many words in me, right?

Brilliance

I was looking through a list of items today that I keep to help me think about "stuff."  I was actually looking for an idea for this blog, and something must have tripped my thought process, because I came up with something that is worth more than a moment's notice.  The word brilliance - not like a light bulb, but a person, because I've been fortunate enough to know a few of these people throughout my life.

First, it only seems right to tell you about my grandfather. He was truly a brilliant man, even though he barely had a sixth grade education.  He could read and write his name, but I remember the time he lost his driver's license because he'd forgotten to look at the expiration date. We both figured out very quickly that he wouldn't to be able to take on the test to get re-qualified, so instead, he drove for the next ten years without a license.  But in so many ways, he was brilliant.  He had an incredibly wide knowledge of mechanical things and how they worked, and he had an incredible ability to pull people into the conversation and interest them in that knowledge,  I remember one summer when we went to Fort Belmont in Minnesota. When Grandpa was done, he had a regular herd of kids with him, learning about cider presses and grist mills.  He was able to share the things he had learned in a lifetime with the rest of the people around him.  For me, he instilled a fascination with the tools and machines that make the world work in me and taught me all of the basic concepts to let me know how things work.  He was brilliant.

The second person I know who is brilliant is my sister.  She was the one that always made me feel as though I was just a step or two behind.  Just that much smarter.  She was valedictorian of her high school class and years later when she graduated from law school, she got snapped up by a firm that only hired top 10, ivy league attorneys.  They told her they discovered that those people were good with the books and the research, but unable to talk to clients. With my sister, they got both - brilliance in the technical arena and an ability to talk with their clients.  I think both of my children came from this stock of the family, because we just keep uncovering how smart they really are.

Finally, I want to tell you about Bravo.  He was brilliant, but not necessarily in the way that one might want to be known.  Bravo lived on my street while I was growing up - in a dilapidated old home with a bunch of trashed vehicles and other stuff around it.  It was one of those places that kids made up stories about, mostly about the horribly frightening person that lived there and what he would do if he caught you on his property. The truth was very far from that.  Bravo was actually very nice and always spoke to both my sister and I if he was outside when we came home from school. His brilliance came from the manner in which he lived.  Bravo never showed that he had anything.  As was typically the case in small town Iowa, the locals took care of Bravo. The local restaurants fed him and everyone worked to do what they could. Now, the interesting thing is that during WWII, Bravo had made a fortune in scrap. He made the money, but never spent any of it, and never let anyone know that he had it.  The community took care of him, and only found out the truth after he passed away.  I'm sure you've known someone like this.  You may call them shrewd rather than brilliant, though.

We are surrounded by brilliant people.  We know those that are book smart, and those that are street smart, and those that are even a little bit "crooked" smart.  It takes all kinds, just like the rest of the world that we live in. It is all of those differences that make the fabric of our lives so very interesting.  I've said it so many times and in so many ways, but this is what keeps me young at heart.  I love looking at all of the ways people approach the lives they live.  Ways that they can be proud of, and so can their family; ways that they may not be so proud of but that gets them through.  And, one of the most interesting things of all is that on any given day, some people can slide back and forth between the various approaches - almost chameleon-like.  It really does take all kinds, doesn't it?

Okay, so what is up in the Toybox these days?  Well, I've had a nice influx of project come in as the new year begins. One major project is for a non-profit.  I'm very excited (and a little nervious) about this. The nervous part is just like with anything else - I truly want to do a good job for them. The second project two Adirondack chairs for a friend.  Not only will I get to build them, but there is probably a time that I will be able to sit in them and have a glass of wine.  Wow, I love woodworking.