Mission creep is what group dynamics folks describe what the rest of us might well call L.O.S.T, or Line Of Sight Tasking (I'm still not sure what we call group dynamics without making our moms cry). At some point in a project one of the bright people who came up with the original idea realizes there's yet another function s/he forgot within the transaction and announces 'some one needs to do/be .....' The first person who makes eye contact inherits this new responsibility with absolutely no authority or means to accomplish it. Don't look up! Oops, thanks for playing.
It's part of our lives as individuals, as well, fretting in the various roles we each play in the drama. I had a plateful (and more) when it was just me, myself and I. Falling in love and getting married moved me, or us, to egoisme a deux and then we added children to the mix. Solo, spouse, parent, while also being a child, sibling and wearing a half dozen other hats. You can't tell the players without a scorecard, especially when we each are covering numerous positions.
Is there a limit to all this multi-tasking, if that's what this actually is (I like to think that term is better applied to linked tasks vice totally different ones-like a product being both a floor polish and a dessert topping) and when do we reach a limit, how do we know? I remember the 'how to cook a frog in boiling water' semi-urban legend (don't judge; I run with a colorful crowd, sehr bunte leute) that makes me suspect there's no 'top end.'
If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will simply hop back out; but, if you place the frog in the pot of water and then slowly and carefully raise the heat of the flame under the pot, the frog will never move until it has been cooked. I've been told repeatedly the same thing is true of us humans and our hanging on to old habits. If that's so, I'm wondering why so many of us are called chickens?
-bill kenny
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Monday, May 8, 2017
Life Is Beautiful
I make no bones about who I am or how I have become this way.
When you stand behind me at a cashier and I pay in actual paper money rather than plastic be ready to wait as I take all the paper change I am given and place the money, by denomination and then within the denomination by serial number in order. I do it without thinking and without caring what anyone else says about it. When I have the money in my wallet just the way I like it to be, I leave and if you were behind me, you wait.
I mention all that as I continue to seethe in anger at the 'repeal and reform' effort perpetrated last week in the House of Representatives by (217 members of ) the Republican party. I think we're still waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to 'score' it but failed VP candidate Paul Ryan, the current Speaker of the House, couldn't wait for that process (House is on recess, again; I truly wish someone would give the house Ritalin as their current insurance covers it) as he rushed off to do whatever it was he felt needed doing back home.
I suspect talking to his constituents about what he did to them while he was in Dodge City won't be high on his list. Not that he'll be lacking company as a coward on that count. I would imagine just the conversation on how pre-existing conditions are 'covered' would last for days even though an honest answer would take just seconds.
Lots of people will be surprised, if not stunned, to discover they've traded a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage when it comes to the American Health Care Act, AHCA, that like many I will always call Trumpcare so that the Dorito Dictator is remembered for something.
Among the many sub-groups of voters that Bigly Little Hands did well with this past November were veterans (not this one but plenty of others as it turned out) so it's only fitting they, too, should be unhappily surprised at what he did with their trust (and vote).
People prefer a problem that's familiar to a solution that is not. We saw that almost a decade ago as the nation argued over something many other nations already have, universal health care (even alphabetized, just the way I like things). So it's not unusual that there would be so much struggle to improve the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (its real name) which is nowhere near universal health care, except, in all likelihood, we didn't do that (nor was that ever the intent despite protestations to the contrary).
So now we turn our eyes to the Senate where even more scoundrels of all political stripes abide and hope for the impossible while fearing the inevitable as we pray "Don't let us get sick." Amen.
-bill kenny
When you stand behind me at a cashier and I pay in actual paper money rather than plastic be ready to wait as I take all the paper change I am given and place the money, by denomination and then within the denomination by serial number in order. I do it without thinking and without caring what anyone else says about it. When I have the money in my wallet just the way I like it to be, I leave and if you were behind me, you wait.
I mention all that as I continue to seethe in anger at the 'repeal and reform' effort perpetrated last week in the House of Representatives by (217 members of ) the Republican party. I think we're still waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to 'score' it but failed VP candidate Paul Ryan, the current Speaker of the House, couldn't wait for that process (House is on recess, again; I truly wish someone would give the house Ritalin as their current insurance covers it) as he rushed off to do whatever it was he felt needed doing back home.
I suspect talking to his constituents about what he did to them while he was in Dodge City won't be high on his list. Not that he'll be lacking company as a coward on that count. I would imagine just the conversation on how pre-existing conditions are 'covered' would last for days even though an honest answer would take just seconds.
Lots of people will be surprised, if not stunned, to discover they've traded a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage when it comes to the American Health Care Act, AHCA, that like many I will always call Trumpcare so that the Dorito Dictator is remembered for something.
Among the many sub-groups of voters that Bigly Little Hands did well with this past November were veterans (not this one but plenty of others as it turned out) so it's only fitting they, too, should be unhappily surprised at what he did with their trust (and vote).
People prefer a problem that's familiar to a solution that is not. We saw that almost a decade ago as the nation argued over something many other nations already have, universal health care (even alphabetized, just the way I like things). So it's not unusual that there would be so much struggle to improve the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (its real name) which is nowhere near universal health care, except, in all likelihood, we didn't do that (nor was that ever the intent despite protestations to the contrary).
So now we turn our eyes to the Senate where even more scoundrels of all political stripes abide and hope for the impossible while fearing the inevitable as we pray "Don't let us get sick." Amen.
-bill kenny
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Go-Kart Mozart
We've pretty much conceded Spring is here in Southeastern Connecticut, if not just a little more saturated than memory suggests, and not a moment too soon for most of us. Our weekends and many after-dinner evenings are spent working on yards, mowing grass, planting bushes and mapping out flower beds and vegetable gardens.
As I drive back and forth to work on Route 12, I keep waiting for my semi-official harbinger of summer to arrive. In Ledyard, on the same side as the Catholic Church and across the street from the Subway/Civil Engineers complex is a seasonal shack (I was going more for the assonance than a description) of a tiny place with a big parking lot that offers go-kart rides, batting cages and soft-serve ice cream. It's never been clear to me if it's a package deal or if you can choose one or the other.
The parking lot, which you can access from Route 12 at the foot of the hill just at the stop light, is a busy place most weekends from late Spring through early Fall as all manner of organizations use it as a staging area for fundraising car washes. There's hardly a rain-free Saturday when the Ledyard cheerleaders aren't holding up hand-lettered signs to catch motorists' attention for the world's greatest "donation-only" car wash and there are always dirty cars and willing hands and hoses behind them.
So far, this year that hasn't happened.
It always seemed to me to be a clever idea if you had someone scrubbing away on my rims and tires while I was scarfing a chocolate soft-serve or swatting a few big flies over at the batting cages, except I've never actually stopped into the place. Two and a half or so decades of driving past it, on average six days a week twice a day, is a heck of a lot of missed opportunities. I'm an advocate in theory, but come up a little short in reality as is so often the case in so many things.
Truth be told, my ship has probably sailed as the place never opened last year, and come to think of it, maybe the year before that as well. The go-karts, which are in the back are operating (at least the place is open) but plywood still covers the windows on the front building facing the highway and will continue to do so I fear for some time to come.
Not sure how these decisions get made but know, technically, they are not in my lane to make. It just seems a little unnatural to me to have batting cages but no batters with go-carts a plenty but no ice cream cones nor tongues to lick them. The struggle, I've discovered to my chagrin, is real.
-bill kenny
As I drive back and forth to work on Route 12, I keep waiting for my semi-official harbinger of summer to arrive. In Ledyard, on the same side as the Catholic Church and across the street from the Subway/Civil Engineers complex is a seasonal shack (I was going more for the assonance than a description) of a tiny place with a big parking lot that offers go-kart rides, batting cages and soft-serve ice cream. It's never been clear to me if it's a package deal or if you can choose one or the other.
The parking lot, which you can access from Route 12 at the foot of the hill just at the stop light, is a busy place most weekends from late Spring through early Fall as all manner of organizations use it as a staging area for fundraising car washes. There's hardly a rain-free Saturday when the Ledyard cheerleaders aren't holding up hand-lettered signs to catch motorists' attention for the world's greatest "donation-only" car wash and there are always dirty cars and willing hands and hoses behind them.
So far, this year that hasn't happened.
It always seemed to me to be a clever idea if you had someone scrubbing away on my rims and tires while I was scarfing a chocolate soft-serve or swatting a few big flies over at the batting cages, except I've never actually stopped into the place. Two and a half or so decades of driving past it, on average six days a week twice a day, is a heck of a lot of missed opportunities. I'm an advocate in theory, but come up a little short in reality as is so often the case in so many things.
Truth be told, my ship has probably sailed as the place never opened last year, and come to think of it, maybe the year before that as well. The go-karts, which are in the back are operating (at least the place is open) but plywood still covers the windows on the front building facing the highway and will continue to do so I fear for some time to come.
Not sure how these decisions get made but know, technically, they are not in my lane to make. It just seems a little unnatural to me to have batting cages but no batters with go-carts a plenty but no ice cream cones nor tongues to lick them. The struggle, I've discovered to my chagrin, is real.
-bill kenny
Saturday, May 6, 2017
No Need to Be Coy, Roy
Jimmy Cannon, who made a career writing brilliantly about professional boxing (calling it the 'red light district of sports') and who authored a marvelous though now intermittently out of print book, Nobody Asked Me, But..." once opined that 'a rabid sports fan boos a TV set.'
Perhaps. But then you have Tom McDonald (e-I-e-I-oh) and Roy Riegel, though I guess it's actually a lot more Tom than Roy, especially at this point in their relationship. In the dog days of August when your baseball team's playoff chances are circling the bowl remember Roy has already gone where no man has gone before, though technically it's Tom who was really doing the going thus making Roy's journey possible.
As someone who bought an Amazon Firestick specifically so that he could watch live Bundesliga action early on Saturdays and Sundays (because the USA rights are held by Fox Sports and watching MLS makes my stomach hurt), far be it from me to cast aspersions or asparagus on what another sports fan does or doesn't do and with and for whom.
Even in one-sided games, FC Bayern versus just about anyone else in the first division or RB Leipzig gegen Schwester Tomas und die kleinen Kinder aus dem Waisenhaus, I wouldn't dream of changing the station. Those big red foam fingers I have on both hands make it really hard to push any of the buttons on the remote.
-bill kenny
Perhaps. But then you have Tom McDonald (e-I-e-I-oh) and Roy Riegel, though I guess it's actually a lot more Tom than Roy, especially at this point in their relationship. In the dog days of August when your baseball team's playoff chances are circling the bowl remember Roy has already gone where no man has gone before, though technically it's Tom who was really doing the going thus making Roy's journey possible.
As someone who bought an Amazon Firestick specifically so that he could watch live Bundesliga action early on Saturdays and Sundays (because the USA rights are held by Fox Sports and watching MLS makes my stomach hurt), far be it from me to cast aspersions or asparagus on what another sports fan does or doesn't do and with and for whom.
Even in one-sided games, FC Bayern versus just about anyone else in the first division or RB Leipzig gegen Schwester Tomas und die kleinen Kinder aus dem Waisenhaus, I wouldn't dream of changing the station. Those big red foam fingers I have on both hands make it really hard to push any of the buttons on the remote.
-bill kenny
Friday, May 5, 2017
Marlin Perkins on Line One
Cutting across a parking lot just the other day as a short cut back to where I work, passed a gun barrel grey Sebring with a sticker on the rear seat left passenger window, in the corner, that read 'my cat is one in a million'.
As I walked past the car, light reflecting off the windows shifted and I could see what looked like prints from a small nose, some smears possibly from a tongue and could also make out paw prints all right around the decal. Perhaps the cat thinks it pays to advertise. Now I'm wondering if the person who drives the car even realizes what his cat is up to in the back seat.
You never see cats stick their heads out the window of a moving car, only dogs. I've never understood why dogs do but cats don't but in the spirit of you should learn something new everyday (even if it's only to avoid this url), here's an answer for you.
And in a related, though I'm not sure to what, development, here's a story about a woman charged with stealing people's pets and selling them to others. I worked on that previous sentence for a bit to no avail-it's the story, not the words that are goofy. I wonder what house pets make of all that 'this is my dog and that's my fish' rigmarole. I guess as long as you can build a fire, you're at the top of the species.
I watched a family of geese, we call them Canadian Geese, I have no idea how we know that, eating grass-I mean chowing down on grass. Pate as cows, amazing-but if we could breed cows that laid eggs and gave milk, so much for goose liver (or Goose Gossage, for that matter).
I mention the grass eating because near where I work there's a nine hole golf course (sad, innit? It's like a one bucket basketball court or two bases and a home plate baseball field.) called Goose Run because there are flocks (herds? schools? prides?) of geese everywhere, eating the greens, and pooping willy-nilly (your mouth smiles as you say that word aloud, you cannot help it).
"Run" wasn't the first choice as part of the name but no one wanted to explain why a word that started with an "S" and ended with "h-i-t" was on a sign children could read (I'll bet the Sylvan Learning folks would've appreciated that incentive). I figure if they just pave the golf course, the geese will go someplace else. It would give us more space to park cars with cat decals. Of course, then we'd have to worry about hairballs.
-bill kenny
As I walked past the car, light reflecting off the windows shifted and I could see what looked like prints from a small nose, some smears possibly from a tongue and could also make out paw prints all right around the decal. Perhaps the cat thinks it pays to advertise. Now I'm wondering if the person who drives the car even realizes what his cat is up to in the back seat.
You never see cats stick their heads out the window of a moving car, only dogs. I've never understood why dogs do but cats don't but in the spirit of you should learn something new everyday (even if it's only to avoid this url), here's an answer for you.
And in a related, though I'm not sure to what, development, here's a story about a woman charged with stealing people's pets and selling them to others. I worked on that previous sentence for a bit to no avail-it's the story, not the words that are goofy. I wonder what house pets make of all that 'this is my dog and that's my fish' rigmarole. I guess as long as you can build a fire, you're at the top of the species.
I watched a family of geese, we call them Canadian Geese, I have no idea how we know that, eating grass-I mean chowing down on grass. Pate as cows, amazing-but if we could breed cows that laid eggs and gave milk, so much for goose liver (or Goose Gossage, for that matter).
I mention the grass eating because near where I work there's a nine hole golf course (sad, innit? It's like a one bucket basketball court or two bases and a home plate baseball field.) called Goose Run because there are flocks (herds? schools? prides?) of geese everywhere, eating the greens, and pooping willy-nilly (your mouth smiles as you say that word aloud, you cannot help it).
"Run" wasn't the first choice as part of the name but no one wanted to explain why a word that started with an "S" and ended with "h-i-t" was on a sign children could read (I'll bet the Sylvan Learning folks would've appreciated that incentive). I figure if they just pave the golf course, the geese will go someplace else. It would give us more space to park cars with cat decals. Of course, then we'd have to worry about hairballs.
-bill kenny
Thursday, May 4, 2017
The End Is What Follows Silence
We are a nation that has rarely been comfortable in its own skin for any great length of time. We rarely settle and more often struggle against and beyond the very things we were happy in achieving only the day before. I think that's good when our desire drives us to be more and better tomorrow than we are today, perhaps most especially today, which is (no irony intended) the National Day of Prayer. And with the resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I can offer no other prayer but this.
I have never felt that happiness is rationed in our world or our country. That there's just so much and then 'sorry! no smile for you!' and we keep on moving. We have the power to make ourselves and one another happy, wistful, angry, and contented (and all the stops in between) and some days we seem to do it all simultaneously and sometimes we have to do it that way. I don't see any reason to apologize for any of that and even if I did, I'm too old to start doing it now.
As someone who is very unhappy at the decisions that created the national politics we have at this moment, I cannot encourage enough engagement on whatever side of the equation you feel most strongly about. Actions will always speak louder than words, but words have a purpose and a part in framing any and all courses of action.
I read/watched a lot of stories about 'May First protests' with varying amounts of trouble and tribulations (like this one) but am old enough to remember a time, a long time ago, where many people took to the streets and assembled peacefully to express unhappiness and dismay at US foreign policy in a nation half way around the world and how, in two separate and disparate moments of hesitation and uncertainty, catastrophe resulted and people died.
Not 'you have your own opinion,' not fake news, not alt-facts.
Too Real To Be Forgotten. Ever.
-bill kenny
I have never felt that happiness is rationed in our world or our country. That there's just so much and then 'sorry! no smile for you!' and we keep on moving. We have the power to make ourselves and one another happy, wistful, angry, and contented (and all the stops in between) and some days we seem to do it all simultaneously and sometimes we have to do it that way. I don't see any reason to apologize for any of that and even if I did, I'm too old to start doing it now.
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| Bryant Park, NYC, May 1, 2017 |
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| MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, May 1, 2017 |
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| Mary Ann Vecchio kneels over Jeffrey Miller Kent State May 4, 1970 |
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| Jackson State University May 15, 1970 |
-bill kenny
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Two for One Sale on Rose Buds!!
If you’re looking for cheery, chipper or perhaps snarky words about the City of Norwich budget process, you should look elsewhere. We elected a Council to make those decisions and that’s what they tried to do Monday; if you can do better run for office, otherwise move along.
Every morning I try to lean forward and greet the day in as positive a frame of mind as I can summon here in The Brave New World. It can be trying sometimes to enjoy this moment when so many of us like to use the past to explain why the future will not work.
I didn't grow up in New England, or Southeast New England (as folks from New Hampshire and Vermont have told me this area is called. I don't have the heart to share with them what people I know from Maine call them) so I'm not sure how much of this Eeyore frame of mind is a result of environmental influences or how much is hereditary. But when I think of how New England came to be settled, and the resolve and resolution and optimism those voyages required, I'm not sure it's not the former rather than the latter.
You know who I mean, the donkey from Winnie the Pooh who has, umm, slightly lower expectations on the prospects of success than Kanga, Rabbit or Tigger. I love his cartoon voice and his ability to see the glass as half-empty. Of course, from someone whose favorite food is thistles, perhaps it's too much to expect wide-eyed optimism.
Except, why not? Today, this day, actually any day is exactly as long (seconds, minutes and hours) if it's drudgery or if it's excitement. Why choose unsalted crackers and unflavored gelatin when you can taste the color of the rainbow, or at least contemplate tasting it.
I bought regular gasoline last night (they were all out of extraordinary, I guess) for more than it cost a month ago but nowhere near the most that I've ever paid, so I'm good. But the fellow on the other side of the island (and I don't mean Mark Burnette) with a sports utility vehicle so big it probably has its own zip code was not happy at all and didn't care who knew it.
From what I could understand of his muttered imprecations, someone from an auto dealership (or perhaps the manufacturer) is holding his family hostage and that's why he bought this huge vehicle because as he pointed out (very loudly) 'I'm going broke just keeping it in gas! Everything in this state is so expensive, y'know?!' ?' Actually, I didn't know but suspected it wasn't a good time to bring that up.
I don't imagine anyone anywhere is happy at the cost of fuel or food or clothing or housing or the taxes they pay or the ones someone else doesn't but this is our life and we make it what it is, or it happens beyond us in other people's lives, and we have no voice and no choice.
The Island guy sounded like a believer in 'them' [what are making all the money from 'us', I guess] and I didn't have the time to ask him who exactly the 'them' is. The next time I see him, or someone like him (and to people like me, Eeyore always looks the same) I'll ask him and pass it along to you and that way two of us can be on the lookout for 'them'.
Actually, no I won't. I have only today in which to live, to laugh and to love. I have no idea what happens tomorrow and there were things yesterday I could regret but cannot repair, so I'm done with that day as well. Today is the next day in the only life we have, so face it and embrace it. We've got bees to count and clouds to sweep. And exactly 86,400 seconds to get it all done in.
-bill kenny
Every morning I try to lean forward and greet the day in as positive a frame of mind as I can summon here in The Brave New World. It can be trying sometimes to enjoy this moment when so many of us like to use the past to explain why the future will not work.
I didn't grow up in New England, or Southeast New England (as folks from New Hampshire and Vermont have told me this area is called. I don't have the heart to share with them what people I know from Maine call them) so I'm not sure how much of this Eeyore frame of mind is a result of environmental influences or how much is hereditary. But when I think of how New England came to be settled, and the resolve and resolution and optimism those voyages required, I'm not sure it's not the former rather than the latter.
You know who I mean, the donkey from Winnie the Pooh who has, umm, slightly lower expectations on the prospects of success than Kanga, Rabbit or Tigger. I love his cartoon voice and his ability to see the glass as half-empty. Of course, from someone whose favorite food is thistles, perhaps it's too much to expect wide-eyed optimism.
Except, why not? Today, this day, actually any day is exactly as long (seconds, minutes and hours) if it's drudgery or if it's excitement. Why choose unsalted crackers and unflavored gelatin when you can taste the color of the rainbow, or at least contemplate tasting it.
I bought regular gasoline last night (they were all out of extraordinary, I guess) for more than it cost a month ago but nowhere near the most that I've ever paid, so I'm good. But the fellow on the other side of the island (and I don't mean Mark Burnette) with a sports utility vehicle so big it probably has its own zip code was not happy at all and didn't care who knew it.
From what I could understand of his muttered imprecations, someone from an auto dealership (or perhaps the manufacturer) is holding his family hostage and that's why he bought this huge vehicle because as he pointed out (very loudly) 'I'm going broke just keeping it in gas! Everything in this state is so expensive, y'know?!' ?' Actually, I didn't know but suspected it wasn't a good time to bring that up.
I don't imagine anyone anywhere is happy at the cost of fuel or food or clothing or housing or the taxes they pay or the ones someone else doesn't but this is our life and we make it what it is, or it happens beyond us in other people's lives, and we have no voice and no choice.
The Island guy sounded like a believer in 'them' [what are making all the money from 'us', I guess] and I didn't have the time to ask him who exactly the 'them' is. The next time I see him, or someone like him (and to people like me, Eeyore always looks the same) I'll ask him and pass it along to you and that way two of us can be on the lookout for 'them'.
Actually, no I won't. I have only today in which to live, to laugh and to love. I have no idea what happens tomorrow and there were things yesterday I could regret but cannot repair, so I'm done with that day as well. Today is the next day in the only life we have, so face it and embrace it. We've got bees to count and clouds to sweep. And exactly 86,400 seconds to get it all done in.
-bill kenny
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