Today I felt especially like a mindless automaton checking items off a list. It's pretty rare that I have that experience in my "day job" at Summersault, but sometimes the combination of a burst in client project activity + a bunch of administrative things + an overflowing inbox + accumulated personal tasks from the weekend add up to a big long to-do list of calls and e-mails and paperwork that I just have to plow through. A lot of our organizing tools in the office environment seem to promote this: a numbered e-mail inbox, an ordered list of voicemail messages, a stack of papers. It's all so linear and narrow. Sometimes I'm tempted to scatter my paper inbox around the building and create a little scavenger hunt for myself - decipher a clue to figure out which bill to pay next! Or I want to delete, without response, every other odd-numbered e-mail message whose subject line contains the letters "s" and "a", and just be okay with that. Hmmm. It's all too easy to just get in that flow of "next...next...next" without really fully appreciating the people and ideas I'm encountering and the contribution I'm making to the overall work that Summersault is doing, let alone the incredible wider world that's going on around (and just fine without) me. And like today, sometimes it takes seeing how amazing the Sun is in the warmth and light of Spring it brings, or thinking about a far away friend who has had a loved one die just yesterday, or hearing the sounds of laughter from the kids playing in my neighborhood...all of these things help me remember the things I need to remember, and the checklists start to fall into place.
Tag: personal
It's been a while since I've posted here - I've had a couple dozen half-finished entries that just didn't seem worth bothering to finish, a barrier I've certainly encountered before. It's also been a busy month and life's been full of some great joys (cooking, consuming, community service, conflict resolving, cat transport, Co-op-ing, colluding in concomitance, celebrating the solstice, cultivating connections, etc.) and concerns that take place away from the world of my keyboard, so things are just quiet around here. Thanks for reading, check back soon. May the peace of the season be with you.
I always get excited when a new NASA mission comes around, and 3:51 PM EDT tomorrow is the scheduled launch of STS-114, Space Shuttle Discovery. It is of course a milestone for NASA to be launching its first shuttle since Columbia, but I find each launch to be pretty amazing in its own right. As a geek, I can appreciate (read: drool over) the incredible technological complexities that go into making it happen. As a science fiction fan and observer of human evolution, I can appreciate the role that space exploration plays in inspiring and pushing our strange existence on this puny little planet to new heights. I have fond memories of a family vacation when we toured the Kennedy Space Center, and just the physical enormity of the undertaking left an impression, not to mention the impacts of its successes and failures.
Continue reading "Good luck, Discovery"
I've been doing more and more public speaking over the last few years, and find that it's something I enjoy immensely. There was a time when I was younger when I considered a "career" in it (as a minister, even), despite my introverted nature and the nervous shakes I'd always get right before beginning a talk. I'm still introverted and I still get the shakes once in a while, but I really appreciate opportunities to be a part of group learning and educational sessions, especially when I have something valuable to contribute and/or unique ways of contributing it. Lately I've been getting some good feedback on my approach to these opportunities and my ability to engage an audience; I've also found more and more sessions that fit well with other projects I'm pursuing. So, I've created a page on this site about speaking opportunities and requests, in hopes that it will lead to more of these. If you're involved with a group or event that might benefit from this kind of contribution, please let me know!
After a few preparatory steps over the last few weeks and months I finally got my garden planted today - my second since moving to my house. I've planted two kinds of tomatoes, basil, bell and jalapeno peppers, celery, broccoli, parsley, cilantro, cucumber, mesculin mix, lettuce, kale, and dill. If just a few of those actually turn out and one of them is basil, I'll be satisfied. The whole process was a lot easier this year - last time I was doing things like wiring together a grow light, putting up shelving for seed trays, tilling a large section of grass, and just generally getting my bearings with gardening after having been away from the agriculture I'd learned at Elkhorn Ranch for a while. This year I also ordered a rain barrel rainwater collection system, which I'm really excited about putting to use instead of shocking my plants and soil with cold, hard chlorinated water.