Screws In My Coffee

I had to look back at my goals from last year.  I did transform my diet and lost about 20 pounds and three inches from my waist.  I traveled 2,602 miles in 2013 by human power.  The human power was measured walking, running and biking. I purchased a juicer and I have started juicing greens and added them to my daily diet. What I am amazed at is the fact that in late September I started bike commuting.  I rode 1, 643 miles from September 24 to December 17.  I almost rode everyday to work. I have never done this before in my life.  I am so inspired to have the ability to ride my bike and I am grateful for my health. So even though i did not make my goal of walking 2,000 miles this year I exceeding my expectations by running 146 miles.  I never expected to start running because running takes a toll on my knees and back so I do not want to get gung-ho on running. I enjoy running on the golf course and trails and try to stay off of the streets because they are so hard.  I walked 1,123 miles

Last week I rode 203 miles bike commuting from my home to work.  My ODO is at 1,812.  I rode several days in the rain and most of it was sort of chilly.

There is an age old argument that continues to rage in the US among dieters.  The issue is that they want to lose weight and deny themselves calories and sweets in order to lose weight.  Some diet plans and food makers offer concepts called  cheating . This concept of cheating is riduculas to me.  For one thing consider that everyday that you are breathing above ground is a day that you are cheating death. So as I was riding into work today zipping along at 18 to 20 MPH on my 17 mile commute I thought about how I was cheating on my   cycling diet. My general response to the question that I get from friends who ask why I like to bike is that I bike for chocolate.  This response is also my general plan for life.  When I burn 1,300 calories on a bike ride to Dawson, GA from my home in Albany, GA I can eat a double Snickers bar in Dawson knowing full well that I'll burn it off pedaling past the cotton and corn fields on my way home.  Do not cheat on your diet, do not diet, have fun,

For week 49 My odometer reads 1,608 miles in my 3 years in Georgia.  I have ridden about 1,300 miles this year since September 24 2012.  Since week 47 I have ridden about 248 miles.

Lily Pond road Oak Trees When you find yourself struggling to get up the inspiration to exercise something is wrong.  Maybe you need to pick a different way to exercise.  When I get in the groove of bike commuting there are days when it is difficult to get up on a cold morning and bike into work.  There is a thrill after I get started that does not wane as I put more miles on my bike.  This morning was on of those times when everything went perfect, so I am writing this blog entry to inspire me in the future when I am having a difficult day. For starters I want to paraphrase a Neil Young lyric, I would rather burn out on my bike on a country road than rust away in a lazy boy watching TV. For those of you who went to Disneyland in the early days you remember the ticket ranges from A to E.  A being the kiddie rides and E being the really cool scary rides.  I rate my bike commutes the same way.  When I start bike commuting I start by riding the most direct route which is the A ro

With the Thanksgiving Holiday week requiring me to work Monday and Tuesday I did not bike commute for the rest of the week.  Last week I had to drive Sylvia to the dentist so I did not bike commute on Wednesday or Friday.  For week 46 I only rode 46 miles.  I wanted to ride to make up for the mileage that I missed in week 46 plus keep my miles up during week 47.  My goal is to ride at least 100 to 120 miles each week. For week 47 I rode 170.21 miles according to my bike computer.  My odometer reads 1,358.9 miles in my 3 years in Georgia.  I have ridden 1,039 miles this year since September 24 2012. My longest ride to date is 66 miles.  I rode to Dawson yesterday and it was a hard ride out to Dawson because there was a very strong headwind blowing from the west.  I enjoyed the tail wind on GA 32 as I rode back to Albany.  I wanted to do a metric century on my birthday last April and I just did not get it done, so this was my 60 mile birthday ride a few months late.  I will make the 61 m

I am really inspired about my latest drawing. The image on this page is the bottom right corner of my current work in progress. Most of the time I have a vision of what I am drawing, but there are times when I turn my mind off and let my emotions and artistic ability flow onto the illustration board through the colored pencils without thinking about what is going on. It is in these times when I am at peace. When I tune out the voice in my head that tells me I'm doing it wrong or that I am using the wrong color or that I'm not good enough, this is when I have the freedom to draw like I want. I rode my bike 134 miles this week and my odometer for bike rides in Georgia since January 2010 is at 1,142 miles.  This year alone I have ridden my bike 835.09 miles. I am getting to the point with my cycling just like my drawing where I have tuned out the voice in my head that tells me that I'm too old to ride a bike or that I will never be as strong of a rider like I was in Oregon

So finally I am using the belt hole that I used after running my 100k in January 2009.  My life is a long path of waxing and waning waist sizes.  i never throw out pants when they become too large as i lose weight nor do i throw out pants when I can not get in them anymore.  I do not diet my weight and size fluctuation are the result of how much I exercise.  My motto is  I bike for chocolate .

This blog entery gets it title from a phrase in the song Accidents by Thunderclap Newman . I have come to realize that my attitude towards life was shaped in a large way by the music that I listened to as a teen.  This song did not fully materialize into my consciousness until after I had completed the  Landmark Forum .  Once I realized that I could make up games and set goals for myself to help me get what I wanted out of life I truly felt liberated. The key paradigm shift to the accidents song is that when you are complaining about the game you need to hear this as being coached by yourself or your environment.  Let me give you a real life example. Right now I am playing a game that I have not played in a long time.  The first time that I played this game was when I lived in Portland Oregon.  The name of the game is  Bike Commute more miles to work than you drive your truck to work . The rules are simple, I will ride my bike to work more than I drive my truck to work.  Instead of com

Yesterdays evening ride was the first time that I rode home with my arm warmers on. Hurricane Sandy, now a tropical super storm generated strong winds down here in southwest Georgia.  Most folks in cars never notice a 20 MPH wind.  To  a cyclist like myself anytime I am on a ride and I notice blades of long grass bending over I know that there is at least a 10 to 15 MPH wind blowing.  I always know that if I am riding and I do not feel the wind then I am riding with it and when I turn around I'll have a head wind instead of an easy tail wind. Yesterday I was riding home hauling the Burley trailer and the wind was so strong from the north that the trees were swirling violently above my head.  Normally on my bike this would have been a challenging ride home, but the Burley really sucked up the wind.  I was slowed down to 8 MPH on my ride where I would normally be riding at 14 to 16 MPH.  It was a great hill simulation as I did not change gears and just cranked trough the head winds.

My ODO reads 895.7. I rode 84.79 miles this week. I averaged 15.2 MPH. Based on Runtastic data I have cycled 592 miles this year. I went to a conference this week so I will not get in three days of cycling. I rode on Saturday 40 miles.

My ODO reads 810.8. I rode 131.62 miles this week. It took me 8 hours and 53 minutes to ride those miles back and forth to work.  My maximum speed was 25 MPH. I averaged 14.8 MPH. Based on Runtastic data I have cycled 506 miles this year.  I started bike comuting on September 24.  So far this month I have cycled 388 miles. I have to go to a conference this week so I will not get in three days of cycling.

Every once in a while I get to a point in my life when I know I am in the sweet spot.  The sweet spot is sometimes hard to define, but I know when I am in it.  When I was younger I could only know where the sweet spot was after I was out of it and I was in the middle of tough times and I found myself thinking of better times.  For a while I accepted the fact that I had no control over when or where or how long the sweet spot would last. Now I know that there is a difference between random occurrences and choice. The sweet spot on a bat is different for every bat so the sweet spot in life is different for all of us.  What is a sweet spot for you could very well be hell on earth for someone close to you in one part of your life. Ideally the sweet spot is an enjoyable zone that does not infringe on anyone's space in a way that is detrimental to them. This morning after an enjoyable ride to work a calm rush came over me as I was changing from my riding gear and getting ready to prepare

Last week I rode 124 miles.  My ODO is at 679.  Hauling the Burley to work with my weeks worth of clean clothes. Still have mornings where it is 100% humitidy.  Today it is 64 degrees at 4:42AM. I am riding in my big chain ring in te front and my fourth from the smallest in the back.  I am not shifting as I ride to work.  I have never ridden in a single gear for so long.  It has been about three weeks sind I have shifted my gears with the intent of making it easier to ride.  Albany is basically flat so I am working to build up my strength for some future hill rides in north Georgia,

James Brown was from Macon Georgia about 90 minutes by car from where I live in Albany Georgia.  Today as I rode to work in the fog in 54 degree air temperature and 100% humidity I finally got the meaning of Mr  Brown's lyrics, "cold sweat".  I had to wear my arm warmers and I knew that I had to ride hard and fast to get warm.  What I did not realize is that I would be cold and sweating like a pig at the same time.  This is a new experience for me as i'm use to riding when it is cold and dark, but not sweating so much that my Gutr Guard still overflows like it does on a hot summer day.  Truly I got the "cold sweat" Georgia style. Today's pace, 3.44 minutes per mile and I averaged 16.0 miles per hour over 12.46 miles.

On Monday October 8, 2012 I hauled my Burley cycle trailer to work  I needed to change out a weeks worth of clothes and did not want to drive my truck to do it.  I have not pulled this Burley this far (12.4 miles) since my two kids were small enough to ride in it.  One is 18 and the other is 23.  When I whine about SW Georgia not having enough hills I will haul the Burley. There is something that I enjoy when I am hauling a trailer.  I like hauling one on my bike and I like hauling one with my Dodge 3500 Cummins diesel.   One thing I like about my truck is the fact that it has a lot of towing tourque.  I thought about this when I was riding into work towing the Burley, I want to build up my legs so they can power me anywhere. One amazing feeling that i get when I haul the Burley is the feeling of independence from fossil fuels.  with this trailer I can go grocery shopping and not worry ow i will get my food back to my house. When I lived in Portland, I use to hang out with a cycle clu

I have felt that students in school today are not learning how to learn, but how to memorize. They are being taught to think less and follow the rules to get a good grade.  I am a self learner and this computer science course as described by Shimon Schocken is one that I would love to take.

I finished the may latest drawing.  I started it on September 2, 2010 and finished it on October 1, 2012.  The title is as usual based on some of the music that I have been listening to as I draw.  Famous Jane , the low spark of high heeled Ghitas in the Jungle room .  The hyperlinks go to web pages with the lyrics for the songs that inspired my drawing.  Most of the time I am sitting with my drawing and music is flowing into my ears through headphones.  The  music enters my head through my ears, then travels to my brain it sends the feeling from the music into my eyes that then move my fingers to manipulate the color pencils on the drawing board.  The interaction with the music plays a big part in my drawing. I based this drawing on a photograph that I took of a statue while I was in north Georgia.  I liked the statue and the fact that it was not in good shape.  It has lots of pits and cracks. The statue appears to be an Indian women, but I am not sure if the statue represents

All to often I forget about the things that truly bring joy to my life.  Most of the things in this category are things that are very simple, things that I can do by myself or they have a direct function and immediate benefit.  Two of the things that fall into this list are drawing and bike commuting.  I have a post on why I draw here , but for this post I'll discuss why I bike commute. I like getting on a bike and using it for transportation, exercise and cycletherapy.  Exercise for me has to have other functions in order for me to be inspired to do it everyday.  Even though I enjoy walking and running I do not like doing these activities in a loop or just to fill up some designated time.  Bike commuting has a purpose, you have to get to work at a certain time.  Once you are at work if you want to get home you have to use your human power and ride your bike.  This sort of functional logic may seem draconian to some, but that is what really inspires me to ride.  I am the power of m

When diesel gets to $4.00 a gallon and I get a huge cut in my pay it is time to break out the old Serrotta and start commuting by bike.  I have bike commuted off and on to every day job that I have had since the mid 1980's until now.  I rode my bike to work in Orange California, Portland, Oregon, Austin, Texas and now Albany, Georgia. This is the second shortest bike commute that I have had which is about 8.5 miles.  When I lived a trailer in Austin, Texas at one point I had a 7 mile bike commute one way.  My rule of the bike commute is that I need to ride at least twice as long as it takes me to shower and get to my desk to make it worth the effort.  In Portland my direct ride to work was about 12 miles one way.  To make the ride more interesting sometimes I would take a longer route and do about 25 miles on my way to work.  I will most likely start to do this in Albany because I always have a hard time starting a ride, but once I start i have a hard time stopping.  riding a bik

Every so often I search the Internet and I find what I am looking for to solve a problem.  This site has all of the steps to do what I wanted to do.  I have a server at my house that has been turned off for a few months.  It had an expired RHEL 6 license and I did not want to continue to pay for the subscription since the client that I built it for was no longer my customer.  I did want to continue to use the server so I wanted to convert it to CentOS.  I found some simple steps and then I tweaked them for the current release. So these are the steps to upgrade from RHEL 6 to CentOS 6.3 # yum clean all # mkdir ~/centos # cd ~/centos # wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-6/6.3/os/x86_64/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6 # wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-6/6.3/os/x86_64/Packages/centos-release-6-3.el6.centos.9.x86_64.rpm # wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-6/6.3/os/x86_64/Packages/yum-3.2.29-30.el6.centos.noarch.rpm # wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-6/6.3/os/x86_64/Package

My new business card Business Cards by Vistaprint

My Garmin Forerunner 405 died a few days ago at the end of July 2012. It lasted about 4 years. I knew it was going to die because I had to start hard booting it when it locked up. It sort of threw me for a loop as I always like to record my workout and compare my results. I have to think of a way to keep my goals documented without the use of my Forerunner 405. I decided to try an Android application and use my phone to record my workouts. I installed Runtastic on my phone and started using it.  I like the fact taht it has a large interface so that I can see where I am on a Google Map.  I also like the voice that announces your stats at one mile intervals.  I carry my phone with me anyway so having the phone also perform duties as my running GPS monitor is great. I am still looking into fixing my Forerunner 405, but for now I'll use Runtastic. My last run using my Forerunner 405 was on Folley Beach in Charleston, SC. Here are my stats for the year. Progress Summary Report for wa

Here are my stats as of today. Count: 218 Activities Distance: 1,002.12 mi Time: 256:12:10 h:m:s Elevation Gain: 11,791 ft Avg Speed: 3.9 mph Calories: 115,833 C

This morning I ran for one hour without stopping.  This is not the first time that I have accomplished this feat.  In fact I have run for several hours just 4 years ago when I was an avid trail runner.  What is significant for this one hour run for me is that I am slowly repeating what I did before in that I am building up my endurance so that I can run a marathon. Setting goals in life is very beneficial to the quality of how you live.  If you are successful in one area of your life you will also see benefits in other areas.  The flip side of this is also true, if you have barriers in one area of your life those same barriers will exist in other parts of your life. My goal for the year was to walk 1,000 miles in 2012.  I am modifying this goal to state that I will travel 1,000 miles or more under my own power (and not on a bike).  I have had the experience of great running coaching when I lived in Austin, Texas.  One of the challenges for me now is that I do not want to over train and

So today I decided to take a shorter walk before I started running.  I walked 3.26 miles before running and I walked 1.08 miles after running.  I ran the full loop around the main part of the Doublegate Golf course near my house. I walked 902 miles in the first 6 months of 2012.  I started doing 1 and 2 mile runs at the end of my 5 mile walks during June.  My milage when down for June almost half of my 205 miles that I walked in April.  During June I was laying tile in the kitchen almost every weekend so this may be a factor. Anyway my goal is to gradually work up to running further and build my endurance back up so that I can run long distances like I was running in Austin.  What is difficult for me is walking knowing that I want to be running.  Trail running uses different muscles than running on pavement.  I am making every effort to protect my fragil knees by walking on pavement and running only on non-paved surfaces.  The closest big stretch of non-paved surface is the golf course

I went to see Snow White and the Huntsman this weekend. This is not a Disney flick, so do not take your toddlers to see this.  I am not sure if it is a chick flick, but in Albany, GA at the Friday evening 8:30 PM showing on June 1, 2012 there were no males in the theater that were not accompanied by a female.  In fact there were large groups of females in attendance.  Anyway I enjoyed the film especially the evil queen.  You can not have a real hero or heroine with out a truly evil character in a film. What I like about this version of Snow White is that it is a real Grimm fairy tale.  Just like the fist movie and TV versions of Batman got it wrong, but the Dark Knight got it right, so does this version of Snow White get it right.  If the evil queen is truly vain enough to believe that she is the fairest in the land then how do you so how this, well by killing off all of the fair maidens around you. No spoilers in this commentary, go see the filme it is worth a data night with your ho

I have a Skil Saw model 825, serial number 985414.  I was told by the Skil repair shop in Los angeles back in 1980 that this saw was manufactured in 1952.  I have had the saw in my possession since about 1976.  I love this saw.  It is the only thing that I have kept with me as I have moved from California, to Washington state, then to Oregon and Texas and now Georgia.  Through the years other worldly items have come and gone, but I still have my Skil Saw 825. Today I decided to check the oil and clean it up a bit.  the image in this post is before the cleaning.  i'll post a picture later after it is cleaned up a bit.

Who am I fooling?  I started out this year with the goal of walking 1,000 miles.  Today I am at mile 692 so I am on target for reaching my goal.  The problem is that I am starting to run.  This is a real dilemma for me because I do not want to injure my knees by running on pavement.  Albany does not have the great inner city trail network like Austin has.  Heck there are no big parks with trails that are free.  Albany does have a 5 mile trail located in Chehaw Parks, but this is a private zoo and you have to pay to gain access. This past Sunday I ran a mile around the ASU track in the middle of my 8 mile walk along a paved trail next to the Flint River.  I use to run along this trail before my knees started to hurt, now I just walk it.  Today I ran almost a mile across the Doublegate Golf Course at the end of a 7 mile walk.  I have wanted to do this ever since I moved into the neighborhood over a year ago.  Today I was so bored with walking that I just said to myself what the heck star

I wanted to have walked 600 miles by the end of April.  I fell short by 4 miles. so far this year I have walked 602 miles. Progress Summary Report for wormlelo Count: 134 Activities Distance: 602.63 mi Time: 156:31:07 h:m:s Elevation Gain: 7,554 ft Avg Speed: 3.8 mph Calories: 68,181 C Today as I walked listening to my Steely Dan radio station on Pandora I heard a song by the Eagles, Take It Easy.  When I was young  I  used to this phrase as my mantra, "Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy".  Lately I have had to start using it again so that I can ease up on a few of my self made goals for my exercising activities.  It is OK to have golas, but you do not have to be obsessive about meeting them all of the time.  Hence the phrase "Take It Easy".

I am half way to my goal of walking 1,000 miles in the year of 2012. Progress Summary Report for wormlelo Count: 118 Activities Distance: 503.04 mi Time: 131:32:03 h:m:s Elevation Gain: 6,550 ft Avg Speed: 3.8 mph Calories: 57,415 C This morning I did a typical loop around the golf course.

Today I walked 6 miles. My total mileage for the year is 497 miles. Progress Summary Report for wormlelo Count: 117 Activities Distance: 497.01 mi Time: 130:05:09 h:m:s Elevation Gain: 6,477 ft Avg Speed: 3.8 mph Calories: 56,762 C [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="236" caption="Lonnie Wormley"] [/caption] So as I reflect on turning 60 I am reminded that I have aged, but I am still enjoying the same things I enjoyed as a younger man.  I walked today listening to music on my Sony headphones connected to a Droid mobile phone that was playing music from an Internet application called Pandora.  When I was in my early 30s I had one for the first Sony Discman's .  When I took my lunch break at work I would walk around outside and listen to music.  My first CD was by Dire Straits who had just recorded the first full digital recording, Brothers in Arms . So as I think about what has changed in 30 years I can say that one thing has stayed the

After walking every weekday morning in the dark I want to see the world in daylight.  On weekends I look forward to walking when the sun is out.  Today I decided to go and walk along the Flint River.  I was so inspired that I walked all the way down to Oakridge Drive and crossed over and cam back through Albany State University. Last month I surpassed my goal of 150 miles and walked 178.84 miles. So far this year I have walked 440.72 miles.  I am  measuring my walks using my Garmin 405. I took some short videos with my phone that will show some of the areas that I walked through during my 13.1 mile walk on Saturday afternoon.

I have lost 15 pounds since I started my everyday walking plan this year. I am not intentionally dieting, but i have eliminated corn syrup drinks from my diet. I am enjoying my early morning walks before work.  This month I am starting to use my bask pack that I used when I was trail running.  It makes drinking water easier than the small water bottle that I have been using that I carry around my waist.

Today I walked over 13.1 miles which qualifies me to say that I walked a half marathon in just over 3 hours.  This is the last walk of the month for me so I wanted to do a special walk. This month I have walked 178 miles. I could not have run this many miles in one month when I was running back in 2008-2009.  I feel that my stamina is good and I can walk a full marathon when I have enough time to do it. I learned a lot from my trail running coach and all of the folks that I met on the trails in Austin.  I know how to prepare my back pack for a long walk.  I live in a part of Albany that has lots of streets that have little or no traffic.  These are residential streets with lots of trees and interesting houses to look at.  It is in these neighborhoods that I walk every morning and I have let go of the mach ego that I had about not being able to run on trails and accepted the challenge of being a power walker on pavement.   As usual the biggest thing that stops me from getting to my goal

For the first time I have walked 10 miles.  I have run this distance and further before, but I have never walked this far. This is the course that I walked. I did my 5 mile loop twice. Past 30 day Progress Summary Report for walking Count: 37 Activities Distance: 152.29 mi Time: 39:19:33 h:m:s Elevation Gain: 1,613 ft Avg Speed: 3.9 mph Calories: 16,931 C Max Speed: 2,583.1 mph

I wanted to walk 25 miles this week so I selected a course that would loop 5 miles. I decided to make a goal of walking 1,000 miles this year just like I made a goal to run 1,000 miles in 2008.  The main point of my goals and keeping track of the miles is to make a game out of consistent exercise.  For me walking is sustainable exercise that allows me to relax and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Here is a map of the loop from my house around the Doublegate Golf Course. Below is a summary report of my walks for this week Progress Summary Report for wormlelo Count: 5 Activities Distance: 25.40 mi Time: 6:11:35 h:m:s Elevation Gain: 318 ft Avg Speed: 4.1 mph Calories: 2,802 C Max Speed: 13.5 mph Last month I walked 146 miles, and this month I want to walk 150 miles.  I could not have realized that these types of goals were possible without measurement.  I have been tracking my walking using my Garmin 405 so with the knowledge of this walking data I can set effective goals. Having this 

I have been playing around with the developer's release of Windows 8 for a few months.  It of course had some issues.  Today I updated to the latest Windows 8 Consumer preview and it is really improved. I do not have a tablet or touch screen computer, but I can see how nice having one will improve using Windows 8. During the past year I have used an iPad, a NetBook running ChromeOS and Windows 7.  Of all of the operating systems I feel that Windows is still the best for me.  Although the Mac OS is really nice it is only appealing for my daily work because MS Office 2011 finally works and has Outlook.  Having one Operating System (OS) for mobile devices and computers is the holy grail for users. So maybe my next phone will be running Windows Mobile 8.  Maybe my next personal computer will be a ultra notebook with detachable display that will function as a tablet.  I am going to play close attention to see how Windows 8 improves and I hope it is released for production this year.

For me this is the year of walking. As I approach my 60th birthday I am at the point of conceding that my knees will not longer sustain my desire to run any distance without injury.  I am proud of being able to run a 100 kilometer endurance race in my life.  I wish I had been introduced to trail running earlier in my life, but at least I have fond memories or trail running. Instead of lamenting about not being able to run I have chosen to put my exercise plans towards walking. Walking at this point in my life is sustainable exercise.  I live in a neighborhood that has lots of quite no and low traffic streets to walk everyday.  When I was at my peak in running I set a goal to run 1,200 miles in one year.  I exceeded that goal.  To my surprise when I look at the reports from my GPS enables watch I am on target to walk that far this year.  When I was running I could not run everyday as I had to have days to recover.  When I walk I can walk everyday as it is a low impact sustainable form o

I wanted to add a larger hard drive to my computer running Windows Vista.  I had filled up a 250GB drive that was out of space.  I wanted to clone the drive and put the contents on a 1TB drive.  I used Clonezilla to do this. I downloaded the Clonezilla ISO file and burned it to a CD using a program called Tuxboot.  I inserted my new drive and rebooted the computer from the ISO.  I followed the instructions and 1 hour later I had cloned my drive. I rebooted my computer on the new drive and I got a Windows error that the drive would not boot and that I should insert the Windows Vista media to fix the error.  I could not find my Vista media at the moment, so I booted from the original drive.  I found that the cloned drive had been written to the 1TB drive with the original partition.  I used Windows disk manager to resize the partition to the full 1TB disk. When I found my Vista media I rebooted the computer using the cloned drive and fixed the boot error.  Then I rebooted and the new cl

So when I woke up in my career and found myself leading a team instead of being in it I was sort of schocked.  I am not forgetting what it is like to be on a team and this is why I can deal with being a team leader.  I have been on a lot of teams some that I have enjoyed and some that I have endured. So tonight I was watching NCIS LA and I heard that Linda Hunt  playing the OSP's operations manager Hetty Lang had a line where she said that she had a complementary team of independent thinkers. This statement is the reason for this Blog post. I want a team like this.  Yeah, I am sure that I am an independant thinker, but to have a whole team like this may be like hearding cats.  On the upside it would be like having an endless view of all sides of a problem and easy acceptance of a group solution. So how do you build a team like this? How do you cultivate a team like this?  I am not sure I have all of this figured out, buy I am exploring the possibilities of building such a team.  We

Another year has past and now a new year begins. Not sure why we place so much importance on the passing of a year, but this is my annual posting to express my reflections on the passing of time. This holiday season I kept the lowest profile ever. When I still had my kids in the house holidays were focused on their enjoyment.  I have many fond memories of holidays with them.  Now that they are not around each year the holidays get less of my attention. Normally I like to live each day like any other and not place a lot of importance on special days. This is the first time in about 5 years that I have taken more than a week of continous vacation.  So for me the end of the year usually means that I have a time to stand down from work and spend time with family and friends. Giving the gift of presence and being in the moment is how I want to live every day.  Every day is special if you want it to be special. This year I spent two weeks with my wife brother  John and his wife Phyllis. Sylv