Today I had some time to kill. I grabbed my iPhone and started to play my usual time waster, Klondike solitaire. When I had finished losing again I thought I would look at the stats and see just how many games I had lost. The number is staggering, but even worse is the total time played, almost 406 hours! I’ve read the time management books and all the how to get things done ones as well, and I can safely say that wasting 406 hours on a game would fall into the “don’t do it” category. Just think about what I could do if I had that much time? That is almost 17 twenty-four hour days, or if you put it into work days that is over 50! I have spent over two months of work days at an average of two minutes and thirty-two seconds playing solitaire. I either have to get a life, or find a game that doesn’t tell me that I don’t have one!

Have you seen the scale they use to ask children what their pain level is? It starts with a very sad face and moves all the way up to a very happy face. They use this because it is very hard for children to express pain in a way that is helpful to a doctor in diagnosing what is going on with that child. I was thinking this morning that we need some of those for adults. Think how helpful it would be to find out some things about your co-worker before you go into a meeting with them. Here are a few suggestions

1. A bewildered scale. This could have faces from a totally confused to attentive. That way you could know ahead of time if you are going to have to repeat what you say or  if you will need to speak slower to help them understand.
2. A coffee consumed scale. I need this one. If you schedule a meeting before 9 am you better know how caffeinated the attendees are. Maybe the rating system could be a smaller cup up to a large big gulp mug.
3. A how close they are to vacation scale. This one would help to determine if they are really going to get done what you are asking of them. Let’s face it if they are close to vacation you are not getting your report. This could also serve as a close to retirement scale as well.
4. Age and number of children scale. This one goes along with the coffee scale, if they have a new baby or they have five children below the age of ten you might as well buy them the Big Gulp coffee mug because they are going to need it.

Yesterday I had to cut down a tree. The fire this summer had burned it to a crisp and the barn builders where going to start today. I didn’t want to have to take it down later when the chance of me destroying something was high. So on my way home from work I bought a chainsaw and fired it up. It was a big tree so when it hit the ground you could feel the rumble, it was awesome! My oldest asked me afterwards if it was the first tree I ever cut down. I told him no, I had cut down trees before. I said, “Do you know where I learned how to do that?” From my Dad! I had a discussion this week with a friend who was joking about his friends and how they couldn’t even install a microwave. My friend paints his own home does repairs and a bunch of stuff others are afraid to do. I do those things too and the reason is not because my Dad showed me how to do everything, but because he made me work alongside him on all the things he did do. As a teen I hated it. The last thing I wanted to do was roofing or car repairs. As an adult I still hate doing it but I do it not for fun, but because I can’t afford or want to pay some else for what I can do. So as I work to repair what the fire damaged and destroyed this fall, “Every” hammer swing will come with thanks to my Dad!

There is a term in the TV business called “Jumped the Shark”. It apparently refers to a Happy Days (you must be over 40 to know what this show was) episode in which they had the Fonz jump a shark on water skis. The term is used to define when a show has run out of ideas and they go too far into stupidity to try to make an episode. I think non-profits need a term like this for when they go too far in advocacy. We could call it “Going PETA”. I am referring to the group people for the ethical treatment of animals. While I do agree we need to treat animals well and appreciate efforts to protect them from harm. I do however think that when you say that the killing of chickens is equal to what the Nazi’s did in Germany you have gone off your rocker! It seems that many groups start out with a great idea to advocate for a good and noble cause, but somewhere along the way they lose touch with reality. For example the guy who started green peace no longer is a part of the group. They say he sold out, he says they have gone too far. I know that not all the groups out there have “Gone PETA” many still do a great job of being the voice for good causes. I just wonder what the common factors are that keep some sane and send some for the ski-rope?

I do appreciate bumper stickers in the same way I like ads in the public restroom. They give you something to read while you sit and wait. Bumper stickers old and new give some small insight into the person who drives the car. Far beyond the political sticker, the mix and mash of personal statements comes a view of people and what they are all about. The fun is that many times they don’t seem to convey a constant message. The classic is from the Don Henley song about a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac or seeing, “feed the poor” on the back of a Lexus makes me shake my head in wonder. You don’t see too many PETA and NRA stickers together unless they are “tasty animals” variation, but I also wonder why you don’t see save the whales with saving babies stickers. I have seen a non-repeatable offensive one next to the “give peace a chance” and the “co-exist” with a “Focus on your own family!”  I have always avoided putting stickers on my car, especially Christian ones. Not that I don’t want anyone to know I am a Christian but that I am aware of my erratic driving and don’t want God to get blamed. Maybe no stickers say a lot as well!

I went looking for a tool box yesterday. Besides finding out that most of them must be made of gold, based on what they want for one, I found out something else. Every drawer that I opened had a pretty little picture of a few tools arranged in a neat and orderly pattern with rubber mats underneath to protect the tools. That isn’t my tool box! Mine has way too many tools in each drawer. So much weight is in them that the tool box would almost tip over if you open them too fast, or if you open more than one at a time. The tools on the picture were all matching, not the five different brands mine are. I don’t know how many times I have bought a set of sockets just because I can’t find one size, and when you go to the store it is cheaper to buy a set than just one socket. The picture showed them all shiny not the dull greasy mess of my reality. The only time I clean them is when I can’t read the size on the side. I don’t use my tools for my job so I don’t buy the good ones I buy the good enough ones. A friend who buys the good ones made fun of me buying cheap tools but if they work once and I have to go buy another, at least I get to use clean and shiny tools once in a while.

Some things are just stupid. For example, playing with poisons snakes. You know that the odds are you are gonna get bit and when you do pain and sometimes death is going to follow.

Some things are unwise. Raising a lion as a family pet has worked out for some and for others it has not gone well, ask Siegfried and Roy.

Then somethings fall into the not really bad, and in some cases a toss-up as to the effect.

Eating pie for example, If I weigh 450 lbs. I really shouldn’t be eating pie, but a slice of pie with ice cream can be the answer to a really bad day.

Climbing trees is another example. As a kid I climbed my grandparents avocado tree in the back yard to get the last avocado so we could have grandma make us guacamole. Grandma made the best guacamole. So as I climbed further and further out on the thin high branch, being cheered on by my cousins, I should have understood that this was not a good idea. I did come to that realization but it was only after I lay on top of the trash cans gasping for breath from falling head first out of the above mentioned tree. Of course in the end, the guacamole soothed the pains of trash can contused ribs, and the experience while not necessarily good for me physically, ended up a good memory!

Have you ever noticed there is no shortage of management books. While other areas of writing seem to be shrinking, books on how to manage what you are responsible for are on the rise. Seminars are plentiful as well. You can pay a lot of money to be told about the latest fad in how to do your job. Since I see so many of my friends and co-workers spending lots of time and money on these, I thought I would deliver one for free today. If you find it useful and decide you don’t need to attend one in Vegas this year you can send me the money you would have spent.

1. Pay attention to your stuff! You have been given an area to watch. Instead of watching what everyone else is doing, take a peek at your stuff and make sure it is in order.

2. Care about what happens in your area! I know that what is going on in other parts of your life are important, nothing says who cares like a boss that doesn’t show up mentally.

3. Figure out how to measure what you are doing. Some call it metrics, know what you do and measure how well you are doing it. You should be able to look at a dashboard and know if something is going on.

4. Care about the people who work for you. I have had bosses who could manage their way out of a plastic bag. But we all protected them because they cared about us. The boss who is nasty gets hung out to dry when something goes wrong, and something always goes wrong!

When I hear a person for the first time I get a mental picture of what they look like. Maybe not a clear picture but at least by their voice I think they should look a certain way. You know if they have a deep voice I expect some giant six-foot six three hundred pound guy. Rarely does it match up when I meet them or see them for the first time. I got the card of a contractor who could rebuild our barn, when I think contractor, I think older guy with paint stains on his pants, rough hands and a hand shake that crushes your hand. I have met three of them so far this month and they all fit that bill. The guy I talked to on the phone had the right voice so when I met him I was surprised. This guy looked like he should be hanging out with Jimmy buffet in a bar somewhere on an island. His hair was beach bum, the beard was definitely island style and I fully expected a surfboard on his truck. He informed me he just got back from Central America because a few friends’ houses had burned in the fire and they needed him to rebuild them. As we looked at the work he was doing for my neighbors I could see why they had asked him. What he was building was beautiful. We will see if it works out for us.

There is a famous quote by Mark Twain, “ It’s not the size of the Dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”  I have a new one “The size of the dog is directly proportional to the age of the owner”. Once over fifty dog owners start to shrink the size of the pets to accommodate care. The problem I see is that these little dogs have a disproportionate degree of difficulty when it comes to care. I don’t know if it is from over breeding or size of the organs but they don’t seem to be as hearty as bigger dogs. I also think that when we have more time on our hands we look for ways to fill it, and dog care can be time-consuming. I don’t hate little dogs I just don’t see the point, but I only have two more years before I turn fifty so maybe I should start looking at Chihuahua’s and  Corgie’s! They may be my future pets.