An Extra Step

I'm not sure how everyone else feels, but I find myself exhausted. Given everything going on with 2020, there are plenty of reasons for this and you probably have one you are partial to. I've thought a lot about this. Everything takes at least one or more extra steps this year. I believe this is related to the pandemic.

Take something as relatively simple as going to the grocery store. In times past (last year) if you needed something you swung in when you were in the area, picked it up and came home. Pretty simple.

Not anymore.

Other things we consider these days: 

• Do I really need this?
• Should I do this as an online order or go in person?
• Will they have the product in stock?
• When should I go to have the least contact with others?
• Will other patrons be wearing masks?
• Where can I shop that they really care about my safety?

These are the thoughts just about shopping for groceries.

Admittedly, some of these were in the back of our minds historically, but have really come to the forefront. Now think about going out to dinner. We probably averaged a couple of times a week prior to March 2020. It was often a last minute decision when nobody wanted to cook. Sometimes we chose to go to to a "drive-through" and bring food home, which we still do, but often we chose to eat at a restaurant. Since March, that option has been a "hard no". The places we frequented for years in the Des Moines area haven't seen us for seven or eight months. And, as I said at the beginning of this, it has added extra steps to everything around this.

With all of this there are trade-offs, just like what happens with almost everything in life. 

Let's take cooking. I'm not sure about you, but when the pandemic started, I thought of myself two ways where cooking was concerned. First, I thought I was okay at it. I could find my way around the kitchen and it had been a few years since I absolutely destroyed anything while cooking. The second thing I thought about my ability to cook regarded what I was willing to try. I had a certain number of things I would cook and could accomplish regularly. That was the sum total of my cooking repertoire. 

Enter 2020 and the pandemic. I would have gotten WAY sick of the things I regularly cooked. You can only have breakfast for dinner so many times. But 2020 forced us to do things differently. We cook more at home, or eat peanut butter sandwiches. One thing I am truly thankful for in all of this is the companies who came to market with recipes and meal ingredients shipped directly to our homes - companies like Home Chef and Blue Apron. We just celebrated four years with Home Chef on August 28th. We skipped a few weeks, but in round numbers, they've shipped over twelve hundred dinner servings into our home. This explains why every time I go to look for a box to use for anything, there are a few Home Chef boxes around the house and at the Toybox. It's helped me to learn to be a better cook and has caused me to stretch my palate as to flavors and items I like. Without question, I will never like the taste of truffles or truffle oil. It tastes like dirt to me. Anyway, with the extra steps required around meals and cooking, I am thankful someone stepped in to help me.

The final thing I need to talk about in the light of adding extra steps has been around the supply chain this year. I have friends in virtually every part of the business world. Anyone who has a physical product needing to be sourced, at one time or another there's been a disruption. One friend waited months for dishwashers and other appliances he used to be able to get in three days. My work has a vendor who has historically been able to provide full loads of product in 3-5 days. Now, their loads dribble in a little at a time over multiple weeks. 

Each of us has to think about the way things work. At the beginning of the pandemic, when toilet paper was almost impossible to get, one thing I thought about was the reality of household and institutional toilet paper being produced in a specific ratio to each other. Suddenly, the institutional side wasn't being hit as hard as residential. I did a little research, and found that I could purchase large institutional rolls with no problem. If we are ever able to visit each other's homes again, don't be surprised by the toilet paper in our bathroom. 

I would also bet that when bacon was hard to find, you'd have gone to a meat distributor, and had no trouble buying a thirty pound purveyor's box of bacon. It would have just taken an extra step or two. 

2020 has been about taking the extra steps, and it has made us all weary, in one way or another.

I hope you find a way to relax and unwind over this long weekend at the end of our summer. Relax and take care of yourself and those close to you. It is the right thing to do.  Take care.

Gentle Breeze

Daniel Acker, Getty Images

There are not many times Iowa comes to the forefront of the news, but I believe last week was one of them.  Last Monday, central Iowa experienced a derecho.  I have lived here my whole life and I had to look up the word. A derecho is a storm of straight line winds with gusts exceeding 100 mph. According to one source, a Iowa is as prone to derechos as Florida is to hurricanes*.

The closest thing I can remember was July 1999 in Minnesota. I went out to look up the information on that event and while it was referred to as a derecho, I remember it being called a "blow-down," mowing across 500,000 acres of Boundary Waters. The reason I remember the event is because my sister, Jaye, was in the middle of it. She literally hid under large fallen trees and when it was over had to hike back out of the area. It was incredibly scary for her, as was last week's storm for people here in Iowa.

From what I can tell, the storm destroyed about ten million acres of cropland across a swath in the middle of the state.  If (big if) the acreage is correct, and half of the crop was lost, and it was all in corn, the lost crops would be just about 1 billion bushels of corn lost this year.  Last year's corn yield in Iowa was 2.58 billion bushels, so it is easy to see this was an unbelievable storm and loss. Beyond the farming loss, over eight thousand homes were damaged or destroyed and at one point half a million people were without power.

In the midst of all of this, I believe we only had three fatalities, which is amazing and a reason to be thankful.  The resilience of the state and the people here never ceases to amaze me. I have to say thank you to all of the utility companies sending crews to help out. I heard there were even crews from British Columbia here helping. Simply amazing. 

One area that was hit was northeast of here around Perry. My company has a bulk plant there and other than no electricity and finding part of the neighbor's roof in the plant, things were fine. Late last week, when I talked to the manager and asked how things were going, he told me everything was taking longer, but all was good. Then he told me with his spare time, after cleaning up his home and helping with family, he was out helping neighbors and customers get things cleaned up. I'm sure this happens with this type of event everywhere but in the middle of a time when it seems like so much conversation and writing is derisive, it makes me smile to hear people just be good with each other.

Most of you know I am in the petroleum business. One thing I discovered in the middle of all this is there is a significant similarity between the petroleum business and the ice cream business. Neither of them works well without electricity. In the days we were without power in our  Des Moines plant, we had to be creative in getting trucks filled and product out to customers needing to work or run generators. 

During the same period of time, without power or a backup of any type, my favorite ice cream place, Hickman Soft Serve, lost all their product. Once we could get back out and around, and I discovered they were shut down, I worried they may not be able to come back from this. As far as I know, this was their first year in this business and although I have done all I can to help them, the sign on the drive through saying, "Closed - No Electricity" was worrisome. I saw the sign on Sunday when I needed ice cream.

Fast forward to Tuesday of this week.  I was still worrying about them, so I called to see if they were open.  When they answered the phone, I recognized the woman's voice. She's usually at the window to take my order. I asked if they were open and she told me yes. Ah, the joy. Then she asked if I was the guy in the brown pickup truck. Of course, I said I was. She told me I needed to wait as the ice cream novelty I usually bought wouldn't be ready for a few days. 

We have lived several places in the United States, but conversations like this make me know that this is home.

If you lost power, or had damage from the storm, I hope you are getting back to normal. I might suggest that today would be a good day for ice cream. Of course, I think any day is a good day for ice cream.

Take care and be careful.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/19/iowa-derecho-hurricane/

Support

In the middle of this year we call 2020, I believe many of us are discovering how much support is required for organizations and people around us. Watching the news has become something to avoid, as it is possible to focus on the things going wrong and find yourself going down a rabbit hole created by the media. However, I continue to be amazed at stories about people doing for others in a way rarely experienced in my lifetime. Many of these extraordinary acts have been around funds for groups needing help, but many have just been simple acts of human kindness. 

Some of you know I work in an industry which can't work from home. Every day, we need to deliver product so all of you can continue in your daily endeavors. We deliver fuel and lubricants. But, as I said, the care we see from both inside and outside the company is amazing. 

Today, I was talking to a salesperson for the company. He is wired to want to get in front of current and potential customers to make a connection so as to continue business growth. Today, we discussed having the respect to stay away from others if they want us to. There are times basic respect is such a powerful thing. As we talked, I told him the story from a couple of weeks ago. I had a salesperson show up without any type of notice, making a true "cold call" at our front door. Not only did I explain they were not welcome in our facility at this time, but I also made a mental note they will most likely never see any business from us. Although respect has, on occasion, fallen out of the business equation, I believe it is more important than ever now. In working with another business or another person, if you begin by making them feel unsafe or insecure, what are the hopes the interaction will come to a good result? I have a ton of respect for the sales team working for me, knowing they are listening and being respectful of the customer's wishes.

The other thing I continue to see is companies stepping out into unknown channels to help in the middle of everything. We have seen large manufacturers step up to help produce items in short supply. We have seen local companies supporting food banks in ways they have never before. And we've seen companies doing extra to try to keep their employees safe. Every one of these examples we see from businesses is being repeated and duplicated in the personal sector as well. I know of many trying to figure out how to support teachers and children in the incredibly difficult decisions being made around education. I know of neighbors who are paying much greater attention to those around them. There are a lot of good folks trying to do the right thing to help all of us get through this pandemic.

So today, I'm going to ask you for your support. As many of you know, I am a big fan of the Iowa State Fair. I've missed a few years, but overall I would tell you I've attended at least half of the years of my life. I love the experience. I love the fact that things change at the Fair, but they do so slowly. I know where to find my favorite lemonade vendor and where to find the best foot-long hot dog. They've been in the same place for decades. But this year they will not be in the same place as the Fair has been cancelled. I believe it is the right decision and am hopeful we will be back for the 2021 season. Like so many other things, in order to make sure the Fair goes forward, there are ongoing needs which must be met. 

Many people think the Iowa State Fair is supported through taxes, but most of the support for the fair and the fairgrounds comes in other ways. One way has been the Corn Dog kickoff. This event, usually held in July, is where people meet and bid, both through silent and live auctions, as well as having the opportunity to feast on many of the standard fair foods. This year, like the fair itself, the Corn Dog Kickoff has not been possible because of the pandemic.

  

In lieu of the live event, the decision was made to have an on-line auction to support the fair. This year, I built and donated a cedar park bench that converts to a picnic table.

There will be hundreds of items available through the auction.  I would encourage you to take a look. It is a great place to start your holiday shopping or just get something fun for yourself. 

The link to the website for the auction is: http://www.blueribbonfoundation.org/events/no-fair-i-do-care-benefit-auction

The auction begins at 10:00 AM August 13th and runs through 10:00 PM August 23.  I hope you will take time to check out the offerings.  

Pieces

Trivets (Etsy) From large to small to perfectly-sized pieces.

One thing I love most about working in my shop is taking large pieces of rough lumber, turning those into smaller pieces and then, in many cases, putting them back together to form larger pieces to create an interesting finished product. 

It is actually the milling of the parts where I find the joy in the work. Of course, delivering finished pieces and knowing they will be around for decades to come is a great part of the process as well.

I also have quilters in my world. Watching their process, I find the experience and the joys are the same. Taking large pieces of raw fabric, turning them into small pieces, followed by recombining the small pieces into a finished project. Then handing off the finished project to someone who will love and cherish it for a long time to come.

As I was thinking of this last weekend, while standing in the shop cutting up pieces of plywood for a library project I am working on, I wondered if there were other examples of this same kind of work. I am sure there are, but the situation I really landed on was with intellectual quilting.

I hope we've all had the opportunity to know some really smart people in our lives. I have known some who are very smart from the point of view of "book" learning, and I've known some incredibly gifted with the practical world around them. But when I consider similarities between the groups, I discovered that they have the ability to take small pieces of knowledge and quilt them together into bigger and better understanding. 

The other thing I was struck by is the variety of potential sources of information we have today to learn little things we can  turn into larger pieces of information. I'm not talking about sources of opinion out on the Internet, but true information sources. The best examples and comparisons of this come from a couple of different acquaintances and conversations years apart. 

The first is from a family who decades ago bought a funeral home. When I asked how Brad how a person learns to run a funeral home, I was told they had gone to the bank, signed the paperwork, and  realized there was no choice but to figure it out. They obviously did, as the business has been successful for years now, but that's a really tough way to learn.

On the other hand, a friend decided to open an embroidery and screen-printing business. When I asked how they had decided to start the business, I discovered that he and his wife watched over sixty hours of YouTube videos, and then bought the necessary equipment. They had learned the best ways to be successful at it. And, by the way, they are successful.

These two stories, separated in time by decades, point out what we have available to us in the time we now live. What is available to us is literally unbelievable. Of course, like everything else, the real question is how we use the information. I believe it is up to each of us to take the time, do the research, and come away with the best understanding we can find.

Now, I am as guilty as any at finding a bite of information and going off believing that what I found is the truth, but this is the point when we all need to be intellectual quilters. We need to know there is not one unequivocal source of information. We take bites from all of it and piece it together just like building a quilt, or a piece of furniture. When so many voices are trying to move us one way or the other based on a comment or a picture, we must look deeper. Do the research to inform ourselves as well as possible. Do the hard work of quilting the information together.

After the research and work is complete, it is still possible we will come to the wrong conclusion, but at least we have a much better choice than believing everything we hear. As I said about my woodworking, it is the work of milling the parts to fit them together I enjoy the most, and I need to be more comfortable with doing the same with the information presented me on any topic. It is my responsibility, nobody else's, to make sure I am armed with the best and most complete information possible.

I am committed to be the best intellectual quilter I can be. Will you commit with me to do the same?

Practice

We all look at the world through a particular lens developed over the experience of a lifetime. I am no different. Now, don't laugh, but today I'm thinking about Gingher replacement blades for rotary fabric cutters and flour. Take a minute to try to put those together. 

Here is the way it works for me. I have several items I buy through Amazon's Subscribe and Save. If you aren't familiar with the program, the way it works is you identify items you would like shipped automatically on a scheduled basis, and Amazon ships on the schedule. Part of the incentive for this plan is a better price; hence, Subscribe and Save. For the last couple of months, the Gingher rotary blade has been unavailable. Although we have inventory in the sewing room, the sewers in my world are concerned about this. 

Now let's turn to flour. This began with a discussion with my sister, Jaye, a couple of months ago. She told me there was a lot of baking going on in their house. Although flour had become difficult to get around the country, their local Hanaford Grocery had remained in stock so far. Since she sometimes sends me the results of the work from their kitchen, this was concerning. I had flour delivered to her. With freight, it may have been the most expensive flour in the country, but we have to do the necessary to keep things going.

To me, the common theme what people are doing during this pandemic. We are in our homes, like we haven't been in generations. With this comes everything people had meant to do, but before this moment in time there were too many distractions. When all of the peripherals are removed, we focus on the things right in front of us. In a conversation with my son last night, we talked about doing puzzles, and cooking at home. If this discussion had taken place a year ago, I would have wondered if we were both all right.

I've found extra time to spend at the Toybox. I've worked on some infrastructure projects, making the shop work better, as well as creating projects for others. I even made a couple of sales through Etsy. It's kind of nice to think about projects I have completed being out there, making others smile or telling a story about how they found this woodworker in the middle of Iowa. 

When I moved back to Iowa and set up the Toybox, I thought of myself as a decent woodworker. I am much better today. This has been driven by the simple fact that I am doing more woodworking. In the past, when I wanted to work, I had to move cars out of the way, and then pull tools and product out of the spaces they were stored in to get work done. It took a large commitment of time and energy just to set up and tear down. All time taken away from actual woodworking.

One day about ten years ago, Dan Keller and I had a conversation. Dan owns an architectural casework and millwork shop, and I've known him for years. He told me that if I wanted to be a better woodworker, I needed to do more woodworking. Wow, right? This is nothing we have not all heard in the past, in many forms, but the day Dan said it to me was the day the information struck me with real impact. So, I got my shop set up and started doing more woodworking.

I believe, but time will tell if I am right, that at the end of this pandemic, we will be a society of people who are better at crafts and talents from generations before. We are going to have more and better seamstresses and quilters. Heck, Gingher can't even keep their replacement blades in stock on Amazon right now. We will have people who thought cooking and baking was voodoo, and now they have the ability to be successful at it. I know I am a better cook today than I was six months ago. We will have better woodworkers because there has been more shop time. It is all about practicing the skills we want to become better at. 

Don't let this opportunity escape you. Do not just sit around and complain that you are unable to see friends and go out for a pizza. That will all return, but it has to be in the right way. Take the time to decide what you have always wanted to get better at, and start practicing the skill. The first time you do something, it will probably not be great. There may be a few bad meals, dry bread, or bad sewing outcomes ahead of you. But if you commit and practice, I know there can be real success in areas you have always wanted to be better in.

Here is a picture of a potting bench I built and finished for Sara last weekend. Ten years ago, this would have been a month-long project and I'd have returned to the lumberyard multiple times as I cut things wrong, or just didn't plan ahead. 

This project came together with one trip to the lumberyard and two days in the shop. 

Practice really matters. 

Now, go work on something you always wanted to master.

Ginormous

You probably know this about me, or have figured it out if you have read my blog for a while.  I was born in the fifties, was too young to truly understand the sixties. I graduated from high school in the seventies. I tell you this simply to put a time frame around my comments today. I think it will be important.

Garbage. Let's talk about garbage. The world I was born into handled garbage in a very simple way. Everything was disposed of through the trash can you hauled to the curb once a week, or it was burned. At my house, we burned paper from the house and the office in an incinerator. It was basically a barrel on wheels set up to provide air to a fire and elevate the temperature and rate of burn to turn everything you put into it to ash. It was very effective. One of my jobs around the house was to empty the trash cans in mom's home office and burn all the paperwork. This was the most effective way to deal with the personal and confidential information from the clients.

So, garbage/trash left our house primarily by being burned or via the garbage truck,. Oh, and a couple of other things. We had a public dump we could always take things to. It was an old rock quarry you could unload things into and the city would manage the process from there. We also had a hole at the bottom of my grandparent's horse pasture we would dump things into and then once a year, hopefully on a calm day, we burned it all in a big fire. It was typically exciting as there were usually aerosol cans in the mix resulting in explosions or in the alternative. The fire might get away from us a little bit - another story all together.

I know, that's a lot about garbage, right? I think the information is important as I need to compare it to today. Today, in my garage there are two trash bins. They are the same size and one is for "single stream" recycling and the other is for trash. The trash is picked up once a week and the recycling every other week. The interesting part is the recycling bin is always overflowing. I could probably use a second container for the recycling. As a comparison, my garbage container could be a quarter of the size it is and there would still be plenty of space. Many weeks the container only has one trash bag at the bottom, only because we went around the house and collected everything.

How did this all change from the seventies until now? Was there a moment in time it was legislated or ruled to change? No, it happened a little bit at a time, one small step, continuing to move toward the point we are at today. I am also sure we're not at the end of the process. Products will continue to be made more recyclable and recycling will continue to get easier. 

Now, how does this all tie to the word ginormous? When the movement moved from hauling and burning garbage to recycling a large part of it, the overall problem was ginormous. There was no way one person could take it on and have any success. What it took was a significant percentage of folks deciding they would do what they could. It would have been easier to throw up their hands and say it was impossible for them, as a single individual, to accomplish anything around recycling. Interestingly enough, I know there are people who still take this position. In the USA, the latest number I could find was 80.1 million tons recycled in the latest reporting year. This is far from nothing. It is still only slightly over a third of the trash produced, but it is a far cry from where we were in the sixties and the seventies. Trash was a ginormous problem back then, and it is less of a problem today.

What I am trying to get at today is a way to think about the ginormous problems of the day. Pick one. Whatever is most important to you. The odds are you are not able to "fix" the problem by yourself. It may take years of starts and stops, of taking two steps forward and one back, to actually have an impact on the problem. But personally doing something about a ginormous problem today will have an effect on it down the road. Don't wait. Decide you are going to do something about the ginormous problem you see as critical today.

I am reminded of an old expression: you can only eat an elephant one way; one bite at a time. I encourage you to think about which ginormous problems is your elephant and take the first bite. You may never even see the change, but it will be there, because of your involvement. I know collectively we can improve our world and make it a better place. And it starts over again, every day. Every day there is the opportunity for each of us to change our world in incredible ways.  

Go ahead, began a change today, or move a change forward.

Optics

In this historical time, as we are all "learning" our way through new and different situations/things, I am sure you have hearing and thinking more and more about the way we look at situations and people. I know I've really had some things which stopped me in my tracks. In a time in my life, when I thought I was pretty set in the ways I looked at the world, there have been moments which shook me deeply. 

In the middle of this I want to say thanks to Sigourney IA, and the family and friends who raised me. I count myself as blessed for all that community and its people put me through.  This includes, but is not limited to, my mom and grandparents, Bill and Leah down the street, the county sheriff, the state trooper, my Jr High and High School principals, and a ton of friends and family.

Why am I thanking these people? For pushing me to look at the world without blinders on. They taught me through word and deed to listen to and learn everything I could. We sat at the kitchen table, or at the table at Bill and Leah's, or in a booth at Spaghett's and talked about the world events and how to think about the world. How to think about it with an open mind. They taught me this within a community backdrop that was pretty homogeneous. In my own way, I saw the world much the way a horse wearing blinders does, only seeing part of it. The thing I thank all the people I grew up around was they pushed a bigger world in through my ears, even while I only experienced a small slice.

Then I had the opportunity to go to school at Drake University. I know there are a ton of great schools out there. Drake is where I landed and it was a tremendous decision for me. Many of you know I had trouble leaving there, it only took nine years. The reason I speak to my Drake years next was this was the time in my life I found out how many different kinds of people there are and the variety of situations they come from. Early in my freshman year, I found myself shying away from others different than myself - their color of skin, religious background, speech pattern, sexual orientation, any number of things. In the middle of it, when I was seeing only with my eyes, I found the words those who raised me had pushed into my head. Honestly that was the moment in time I decided I could learn from all of these people I lived with. So, I worked to take off the blinders. I listened and questioned. I tried foods and music and dance and religion. Thing I had never experienced. I learned a ton. things that would never really be important, but I also found out I was, and still am, a lifetime learner. I am still this today, and honestly, sites like YouTube were absolutely built for me. So, as long as I am able, I will work to take the blinders off and look/listen and learn based on what is around me.

Now, here is one of the points I have a huge blind-spot for. It seems to me that given the rest of my commentary today, I should share at least one. Without question, if someone comes to me looking for a job, while wearing a set of pliers on his belt, I am inclined to hire on the spot. Now, this can't be someone who purchased a brand-new set on the way in to the interview. No, those pliers have to feel like they belong and the person wearing them is comfortable. In fact, in a perfect world, I would want to believe the person wearing them could rewire a nuclear sub with those pliers if they needed to. I've hired people in the lumber business, the distribution business and now the petroleum business with this "badge" and I have never had it go wrong. It might someday, but so far, so good.

When you read this, think about the way you look at the world around you, and the people within that world. Saying that you will "walk a mile in their shoes" is just not possible. We are never able to understand everything going on for another person, or what got them to the point they are , but we can recognize their experience is different from ours, and they have the right to feel the way they want about it. Try where you can to take off the blinders and look at the world the way children do, "through new eyes".

Have a great weekend and learn something.