The first Snow

Driving home in the dark the temperature goes from 48 to 33 in 45 minutes. The wind picks up and the rain turns to snow.


Not even November and there is a quarter inch of the white stuff and its flying all around. Probably won't be around in the morning and least after the sun rises and things warm up a little. But its the sign of what inevitably comes.

The wind is blowing in that howling hollow sound that is so familiar and so eiry yet somewhat comforting. For it always seems like the wind is going somewhere and I try to imagine where. There are parts of the valley near where I live where I can see Mt Greylock to the north, probably 30 miles as the bird flies but looking as clear as if it were in the next town. So often I know the wind is headed there and then to whip around and head to the east.

The first snow. Familiar yet different each time.

When life is like turning an aircraft carrier

This past week I was chatting with a manager who I recently hired and he said that there were many ways that he knew he could help improve the way his staff did their work and also make it easier, but they didn't want to hear some of it. I listened for a bit then told him to hold on to his ideas and not be discouraged and that we would talk further. Then I briefly shared a philosophy I have used for many years in management and in many aspects of my life that I refer to as "turning the aircraft carrier". Others might call it "taking the long view" but I like the visuals.

I find that I get varying responses from people whenever I share this. Some get it and some don't. Oh well!

This approach has come from some extremely difficult work and personal situations and experiences and when what was up front of me looked pretty bleak and discouraging and borderline hopeless.


The theory is that in turning an aircraft carrier you have to keep your eyes not just on the present but quite a distance into the future. If you want to turn it, or in life want to change something, it doesn't happen automatically and the initial work and decisions seem to have absolutely no impact. But to turn that carrier you have to have a vision of where you want to be and then start to make small changes that will gradually result in a cumulative big change. Plus once you have that change in motion it is much easier to move something that is moving. Eventually you will look back and go "wow" that's a big change that has occurred.



So in my manager's situation, he needs to make little changes that make people more comfortable with the direction he is leading them and gradually increase the number of changes until the cumulative amount of change becomes noticeable.

Is it easy to do this? Hell no. It takes tenacity and patience and a certain degree of optimism ....A few things I have felt blessed to have in varying degrees.

I have been in jobs when in my first week I was met by the IRS wanting payment of penalties for late payment and left the job several years later with it being profitable and healthy. Did I loose sleep and work phenomenal hours for which I was never fully compensated? Absolutely.

But for the most part I was treated well and these happened to be non profit organizations that provided a valuable service in the community and were also good employers to a lot of dedicated people. If I didn't succeed many people were going to loose their jobs. To get to the end where the "wolf was no longer at the door" I had to remember that I was turning an aircraft carrier and have the one year, two year, three year plan.

About a month after starting to run this spring I decided to go out on a limb and shared with someone that my short term goal was to run a 5k in under a half hour by summer and a 10k in under 60 minutes by fall. I have this spreadsheet that has tracked every workout since I started listing every workout by date, time, distance, route, amount of time a 5k would be finished at that pace and a 10k at that pace. I would tweak my routine to get the numbers I wanted.

If you have followed this blog you know that both goals have been accomplished and that I am now a fairly regular runner. Have I questioned my ability at time and worried that I would not be able to do it or would come in last, the proof is right here that I did. But then I put my head back down and worked at it. I also had a goal of being significantly lighter and have also met that goal and as a result have to buy smaller clothes.



So why am I telling this tale and sharing this philosophy? Because I need to remind myself of it at times. I have some challenges I am working on and its very easy for me to want to say I want out or I just want to avoid them. But I know I either shouldn't (the adult in me speaking) and I also know I can't hide from some tough decisions. I need to remind myself that this is nothing new and that I have done this before.

10 K in under an hour & far from last

YEAH!!!!!!

Its cold and tomorrow's 10k

It cold……………….30 degrees in the morning, the grass is covered with frost and it is still just October. The winter fuel supply, 4 tons of pellets, hopefully will be delivered some time next week. It is hard to believe that by next spring I (and yes it is mostly me) will have moved these 4 tons bag by bag into the garage for intermediate storage and then into the house for the stove. If I treat it like a workout then I see the benefit thought I can tell you that I fail to see that benefit hauling in a bag at 11PM to load up the stove for the night. But is inexpensive warm heat so that surely is a benefit

Tomorrow is my first 10k (6.2 miles) race. www.brocktrot.org. A town race that draws a few hundred people. The route is a winding country road with some long hills then looping around Tanglewood and up a steady grade and then off to the back entrance of Shakespeare and Company.

When I started running in February and March my goal was to do a 5k (3.1 miles) by summer and a 10k (6.2 miles) by fall. While I am confident that I will finish, as I often run 7-8 miles along the same route on weekends, my objective tomorrow is to not finish last. My pace for 6 miles is about 60 minutes, which is about 15 minutes faster than the last person in the 2007 race.

But as I look at the predictions it is for 34 degrees at the 9AM start time. So tonight I am digging out the gloves and trying to figure out the layers so I don’t freeze but also don’t overheat. For the 7:30 registration it will be full sweats and fleece.

Then after the race its off to be a parent driver on a teen trick to a corn maze. Should be an interesting Sunday……..

Wish me a warm tail wind…….

Olivia's Overlook

One of the nicest views around. Up Lenox Mountain a couple of miles from Tanglewood. Olivia's Overlook sits on part of the Yokun Ridge. Owned by the Berkshire Natural Resources Council there are several beautiful trails around the ridge. Click on the title of this post for their page. The opening in the trees was created when a gas pipeline was laid and there is a small parking lot and has a spectacular view of Tanglewood fireworks, watching the stars and just checking out the view like this.


The water is Stockbridge Bowl, a mid sized Berkshire lake. The overlook sits in a spot that is very close to being the intersection of Lenox, Richmond and West Stockbridge.

Here is  More information on Olivia's Overlook that I added in a blog entry on December 3, 2011 with more pictures.

Tanglewood off season

As the range and distance of my morning runs has expanded I often find my self running across town past the old white church and the "haunted" B&B and the old cemetery and and along what many would call a country road passing a stable, some extraordinary views of wetlands and past a few farms that have become upscale B&Bs. As I make the turn to head back into town, and then out the other side for home, I come to Tanglewood. This is about an 8 mile run with some serious hills so its become a favorite for early Sunday morning just after sunrise. As I usually don't like to carry the camera when I run distances because of the weight, I came back a little later.


The season is over and the BSO has returned to Boston and the tourists and students are have left this part of town. The vast fields that serve as parking lots are just fields along the brightly colored hills. In the winter we locals gather here for sledding.



The gates are open for walking and sightseers and some local high school cross country teams use the vast lawns for sprinting practice. The shop was open with a 40% off sale for the few people that would venture down to these parts.
The road past Tanglewood goes from Lenox through the backroads of Stockbridge past Kripalu and West Stockbridge and eventually down to Great Barrington, so while there is a good amount of traffic its usually people going somewhere else or like me looking to wander around.

The shed is all closed up to protect it from the snow and driving winds but you can still walk inside and climb up on the stage and wander the aisles.
This will stay closed up until spring when it becomes the site of many of the high school graduations. Having use of such a big place means never having to worry about tickets to these events or the fickleness of the weather.


When I was wandering the lawns there was this lone person with his lawn chair and newspaper enjoying the sun. Hard to believe the 15,000 that crowded this same space a few months back to see James Taylor and thousands would be here several times a week.


Occasionally there will be an event off-season but it will be in the lovely Ozawa Hall concert hall, which is a good walk from the shed and accessible from another point.


The views from the old mansion are extraordinary overlooking Stockbridge Bowl(Lake Mackinac)





or the hills to the west.

As you look at this now it is difficult to comprehend the activity that takes place during the season. The tour buses, the students, the cars and the tourists, the world renown artists who have summer homes a few minutes from here and some that live here year round but are just part of the community and no one special. They are parents who pick their kids up from school or volunteer like us on school projects.


The tourists are here this weekend but it is mainly the leaves they have come to see. Soon the leaves will have fallen and the snow covering the great lawns and an it will sleep 'til spring.

Impacting your tiny corner of the world

I guess I am like most people in wondering if I ever really have an impact on the world around me. That sounded quite defeatist and that extremeness is not what I meant, for of course we have an impact. But do we resonate?

I am mildly neurotic about recycling. Not in an aggressive sense but in a persistent sense. We try to do our part at home in making choices on purchases and usually recycling as much or more than the trash we put out for pick up. I am also not shy when I am at work or church or volunteering at school in retrieving all the tossed water bottles, and plastic containers from the trash and bringing them home. It no longer bothers me that my head is in a barrel poking around for plastics and cans. Often when I do it I get a comment of "oh you are so good and I should do that". Well that wasn't the point (although it really is the point, yes they should, we all should.) But I don't do it to guilt people or make them feel bad, I just do it because it bothers me to see how much stuff is thrown out that can be recycled. Preaching takes up too much energy and laying on guilt never works and makes me seem really compulsive, which I am far from.

But as we have had parties at work, more people started asking if I wanted to take the recyclables and cleaned them and put them aside, then a couple of weeks ago the blue containers appeared for collecting plastics and cans and I was asked if I wanted to share the pick up job, which of course I said yes.....and the containers are close to being full each week. I am still working on the paper recycling at work but that is tougher because there is a cost involved.

Then tonight I was at a parent meeting holding my water bottle that gets refilled about 50 times before it is recycled (yes I know about plastic breaking down) when another parent who I have worked on multiple events and projects with over the years came up to me and said "you know I have become almost like you. You were always pulling out the recyclables and bringing them home that I found myself feeling guilty about throwing the stuff away and now have a bin at work and sort everything at home and I am making others in my family do the same." She added that when her kids gave me a hard time I say "Jeff would be pulling these out""

It made me smile. Ripples in the waters of life.

So if you are reading this I am going to plan this seed, not guilt just an example. Yes I would pick up the empty water or juice bottle and either take it home or find a recycling bin.

A Beautiful Day in the Berkshires

A flock of geese grazing among the chopped down corn stalks


A pair of mushrooms in the yard



The valley beyond the lake

Feeling green

As I observe the evolution of the several blogs that I follow, the writers often get to a point where they inevitably write "why am I doing this" or they stop writing all together or take a long break. There is also that common "who am I speaking to" statement whether the blog gets high traffic or never a hit. I have been there from time to time. What is it that attracts others to check in on your blog? For some it is something dramatic going on or rants that are amusing to follow or challenges. I don't have much drama going on in my life right now. Thank you! For now if anything, I get frustrated because my camera time (which prompts my writing) is more and more when I am in the car and which is very limited and my writing time is when I can get on a computer when there isn't a line at home. Trying to compartmentalize writing is not easy for me.

I feel like I am on the road a lot. In reality I am. I commute around 2000 miles a month plus occasional trips to Boston and then the usual driving around on the weekend. I hate to look at the odometer. It is a tremendous waste of time but I do try to make it useful by listening to books and as a result I am quite well read. I do however find that I occasionally just space out and have to move the book back or I look at the road and go where am I?


From time to time I reach this point where I am in this total fog. I think I have mentioned this before but I am too lazy to look back. So many things are flying at me at work and at home that I feel like a cross between a deer in the headlights and a pro-tennis player in a match. Strange combination? One is total sensory overload and subsequent resentment of this overload the other is that I usually kick in gear and handle the tasks like the balls. Though the past year I feel like so many balls have been coming in my direction that some I just let go by.


Then I feel bad because I couldn't / can't handle it all. Sort of like being at this rail crossing and you have to get to the switch in time to manually move it and when your constantly busy at the other end of the track you can't realistically cover both ends. For me this also has the price of a crash. When I go through phases like this and the output and stimulation is extremely high I just want to just escape from life for a while. In reality I know it is that I want a total realignment of things that I am too late in my career / life combination to accomplish. They say its never too late, but as I have just had another birthday with a number that makes me cringe and face multiple obligations reality overtakes choice, at least for now. Its in these times when I do best if I can cook or play with some clay or take the camera out for a walk or run or kayak. Doing something concrete seems to settle me for a while as there is so much in my world that is not.



Wouldn't it be nice if in life there were runaway ramps like this? When you are going way to fast you can pull off to the side and up the ramp of gravel and cruise to a stop and let traffic pass you by. Though the shock of the stop, sort of like a bungee cord is also a little jarring as a way to stop. Then you have to pay to have the ramp re groomed. In a book I just finished the price listed for re grooming that trucks were forced to pay was $250.



The seasons are changing here in the hills. Its inevitable as life itself. Fall is pretty but I am definitely more of a summer person. Plus when you live in a house with lots of trees you look at the changing leaves not only as foliage but as "when are they going to fall and I have to rake them up.

So as I drive along I look at life over the guardrail and sometimes imaging what it is like down in the yonder valley. The guardrail keeps us contained, though not necessarily safe. I also think about what it must have been like before this highway came through, the contours of the land, the unobstructed valleys. I seem to be traveling through this world of theirs, contained in this metal box along with several other metal boxes moving in the same directions.



How many times have I seen this view. In the morning I travel east to work which of course means that I return to the west. The sunsets are often different and there are special views I look forward to that last only a few seconds. Too quick to even photograph, I've tried. Sometimes the sunset is intense, especially in spring and fall when the sun is in-between being low and high. In the summer the sunset comes long after I am home though occasionally I am leaving late and it is intense. In the winter it is dark at 5 so what is left of the sunset are only the corners on the horizon.



So what is with this green photo? Its a photo of trees and grass taken at 70mph. A blur of color that I just seemed to like. Aren't the colors neat? It also kind of looks like I've been feeling. A little on the green side and we all know its tough being green.




So I await the parting of the fog, the time when I am not feeling as green, a time when I am not the deer in the headlights, a time when I don't feel as wiped as I often do.

Musings of sorts

In case you haven't noticed I am rather guarded about personal stuff I put out here. I know some of the people who drop by but others I do not. So If you are in the "I don't know you" category please don't be offended and don't stop coming by. We writers write to be read and don't believe anyone who says otherwise. I also tend to keep personal stuff to myself in general, so when I do share it, it is possible that this is the only place I am I sharing it.

I was thinking today how good I feel. I have been running for roughly 28 weeks and today ran almost 8 miles in an hour and a quarter. Yes its an absolute pathetic time for some but for someone who has been only moderately physically active the last 20 years, this is a major accomplishment and as I have written before, this definitely is not a flat track we are talking about. Plus I am over 25 pounds lighter and have had to go clothes shopping.

I do get discouraged because the times are slow and only improve minutely but I find I enjoy the feeling that comes from running. Yes there is a high and it is a legal and respectful on and one that is a good example for my kids. I am a morning runner as later in the day I just feel worn out from work and commuting. This past week it was so dark that I went searching at lunch for reflector tape and flashers to append to myself. Since some of the roads I run at 5AM are barely illuminated by street lights the flashers go a distance and keep the rare car at a safe distance.

Growing up this time of year was birthday time. My mom, dad and I were born on dates that are within a week. So as my birthday approaches I am reminded of my parents who died five years ago two months apart and who I no longer celebrate a birthday with. I makes me somewhat melancholy. I still get caught on the thought of the two funerals that were in quick succession, with neither being at "death's door" due to illness and then the full year of sorting through their affairs and closing things down. Yes I shared it with a sibling but there are many things you do not share. In a world where I think we all like transitions, there was none to this.

It is the beginning of a new school year and the kids are immersed in classes and new friends and lots of activities. Good Morning America came through the area in their train entourage complete with many helicopers flying over the neighborhood and area to accommodate live satelite feeds and traffic being diverted from its regular routes. Which meant the regular way to drop of the kids at school was not longer the regular way. But it worked out fine and one kid was playing in the band as the train arrived and got to see James Taylor and YoYo Ma perform on the porch of the Red Lion in. Both James and YoYo are locals so their sightings are not that unusual but the chance to see them perform together is always an experience.

The calendar gets a bit chaotic and as they advance through the teen years our role as parents clearly changes. Sometimes like traversing a mine field but most of the time just differently pleasant and I get wistful that this phase also will end too soon and things will become too quiet in the house. But I don't like to think of it.

Fall projects are on the list. The carpenter is scheduled to fix all the damage caused by the ants and at a price that is a small fraction of the first quote we got in the summer that was an amount I could have replaced a car with. The pellets are on order in hopefully will be delivered before the constant cold. All over the neighborhood white stacks on pallets are popping up every day. We started a trend.

So in general life in the Berkshires is good. Some of the tourists came back this weekend for the Apple Squeeze festival in Lenox and Latino festival in Lee. Lots of good food and something for the locals to do as well.

Clocks and gears and pendulum

We have a large clock that stands about 7 feet tall. The simple wood case, with its very dark stain was made by my great-great grandfather about a century and a half ago living in the small town of Colrain Massachusetts. [this was once a tidbit I would use as a response when I started working near there early in my career and some of the locals called me an "outsider" as my family can be trace in that area going back to the 1600s.]

But that is not the point. This clock is tall but not wide. Some people call it a grandfather clock though I have read that because of its thin size that it could also be call a grandmother clock.

But that is not the point either. This clock originally had wooden gears and works that made it run but the story is that some of them broke and my great grandmother stored them in a box until they were unceremoniously tossed in the trash. Eeeeekkkk was even the reaction I can remember 40 years ago.


But believe it or not that is not the point either, but I am getting closer. The clock stood empty and quiet for many many decades, being passed down a few generations until my Mom and Dad who had a friend who liked to work on clocks. Her ordered and installed new insides and another artist friend took the face and repainted it. The narrowness of the case determined the chime that could be installed and this is a very simple gong on the hour and single hit on the half hour. Then for the next twenty years or so it rhythmically ticked and chimed on the hour and on the half and then it stopped. It had become such a presence. The sound heard in throughout the night and the day.

The friend who had fixed it had long died so it again just sat there for another five years until I inherited from my parents.

Fortunately there is a clock shop in the Berkshires who took out the innards immediately after moving it here. Three months later (12 weeks to be precise) and it was back, its rhythmic tic and gentle gong that I would hear though out the house in the middle of the night. And then a year later it stopped.

With a minimum fee of $100 just to come look at it and then more to do something I was reluctant to immediately call someone and decided to look inside myself. The clock would wind up but the pendulum would move back and forth for about a minute then stop. You can see from these pictures that there are several gears and wires and ratchets. But then I spotted that the pendulum was just hanging.



Looking closer and closer, something that becomes less easy with these middle aged eyes, I found that there were many possible places from which to attach the pendulum. Each of which would enable it to move for a minute or so and then it would stop.

Each day I would come back to the clock and take off the face and try another position for the pendulum to hook to until finally it continued to swing and was back in business. The pendulum swung and the gears moved and parts spun around and around and the hands turned until that familiar bong.

I took these pictures of the insides to remind me of where it attaches for when it happens again. But as you can see taking pictures really close up makes it difficult for the camera to figure out how or what to focus on.

So is there a point to this post other than a pleasant story about a clock? I really is about how things fit together, how one piece out of place can totally stop the works and how it can sometimes be just a delicate attachment and connection that starts things back to working again. But how that connection can be broken again, but as you learn the weak points you can work around them, fix as necessary and the Little fixes stay little, even though not doing them makes everything stop.

Hills

One of the physical realities of living in my part of the Berkshires is the hills. They are everywhere and even a grade that looks somewhat flat probably isn't. In a car that doesn't matter much but if you are biking or running they are always something to contend with.

When I run in the morning and run the route that goes into town I leave my driveway, run uphill a tenth of a mile, round the corner and run down a steep hill a tenth of a mile, then do another turn and run for two miles up this steady grade, which even minor, is uphill. I round the town center come back down and then meet the steep hill just before turning back into my street. Most people think its easy running down hill and it is easier, but it also requires holding yourself back from going to fast and crashing into a tree or car or just the ground.

I just finished reading "Uncommon Carriers" by John McPhee and he notes how hitting a 1-2% grade can cause a long coal train to grind to a hault and that subsequently many of the rail line grades are purposely kept very low. I thought of my long gradual uphill runs when I sometimes loose steam 3/4 of the way up.



The same can be said about biking. The up hills are brutal and the downhills can either be a rush or downright treacherous.

There are very few ways for me to avoid hills unless I drive somewhere first and then there is only limited flat grade before its uphill. Last weekend I picked this 6 mile route that is scenically beautiful and the road rolls up and down, at least in the car it rolls. At street level its a freak'n lot of up hills with not enough flat in between and I didn't seem to notice the downhill. But I consider this training and I feel relatively goood when I am done.

I do find this deceptive as I never really know how well I am doing as I still occasionally stop on some of those hills. At least when you are biking there is the satisfaction of the downhills and coasting in-between. With running you get none of that.

I have a new respect for people who run in the Berkshires, having become one. We are definitely not whimps and not scared off by a simple hill and then another and then another. Its still a fine time to be out in nature and just taking it all in.

I have several times of day that I consider my favorite. They aren't what I expect is common but they are special in the qualities and moments they bring.

I have come to love waking up at 3:00AM. Not to get up but just to wake up. I can remember days when it might be anxiety and worry that would have me awake at 4 staring at the ceiling but I seem to have been able to tame that beast, at least for now.

Waking up at 3, it is peaceful and quiet and very dark. It is these times when I can sometimes hear the bells of the church in town or hear owls or coyote in the back woods or when there is a full moon the beams streak though the side window. The house is peaceful and I just barely wake up. This time feels like the joining of two worlds, the threshold leaving one day and approaching the next, a very thin space as I like to call them.



I've taken to using this brief time to send positive thoughts to a list of people who can use them. As I think the name I feel that I am handing it off for safe keeping. I think requests for assistance or for guidance. I send messages of peace.

Very peacefully and methodically I go through this and drift off to sleep again.



Then there is 5AM when I usually love waking up. Again it is dark, darker this time of year than even this photo and I get up quickly when I wake and make my way to the coffee pot and bathroom, all in the dark. Then for a half hour or so I just sit near the window and sip my coffee or walk out to the porch to feel the morning breezes.

Then on really good days, at 5:30 I get on my shorts and sneakers and mp3 player and head outside to run into town and back. The sky is dark and street lights are dim, there is rarely a car and only occasionally are there lights on in the houses I pass. Running through town it is quiet and peaceful and I head back home to get ready for the day and start waking up the family.

On an average day the daytime is fairly routine with an occasional special moment, but nothing I can count on. But then at 6:30 I am home and usually everyone else is too and that is my next favorite time. Eating dinner with my wife and kids, hearing of their day, hearing them laugh, enjoying their presence and then doing nothing special or like tonight leading a congo line of teens around the house in goofy laughter.

Of course there are are other special times on many days but these are my special times that make things feel right and if missed I feel off kilter.

Do you have special times? Think about it, I'm sure you do.

Good Morning America comes to the Berkshires

As part of their Whistle Stop Campaign ABC Good Morning America has been crossing Massachusetts and was in the Berkshires. But the lead up was much more and there have been train cars running through the rehearsals on the tracks, helicopters dashing around the sky all weekend testing satellite hookups and getting aerial views. A big stop was Stockbridge this morning with a visit to the Red Lion Inn. Since we have to go through Stockbridge each morning to get the kids to school this became a logistical questions of what did it mean when traffic is being rerouted around a downtown that consists of 2-3 streets and includes a main state highway.

So Sunday while I'm cooking dinner for friends who have a family member in the ICU and our own dinner my wife ventures down to Stockbridge to see what she can find out. Their she finds enough police to get the information we need then finds Yo Yo Ma and James Taylor sitting on the porch of the Red Lion doing rehearsals and sound checks. Probably 2 hours worth of playing and replaying songs for what eventually will be a few minutes of air time.


My daughter is also playing in the school band that will greet the train at the station so we have to be through Stockbridge and at the school at 6AM for them to suit up and get back to Stockbridge. It was a bit of a nuisance with traffic being rerouted and schedules being messed up a bit but there was some excitement in the air of being profiled on national TV if only for a few minutes.


and here is the link to the James Taylor spot.
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1797097629

So what do these photos say?

The light is changing, more shadows are cast late in the day on the hills.
They were taken completely on the run, arriving late for a cross-country meet, as everyone was leaving or left, walking back down the hill to the car. Alot of things are seeming rushed even of there is time. I feel like there is much that is on the run, I am having to defend my time more than I like to have to.



Then there are the shadows. I am feeling blue. Unapologetically an absolute total liberal who finds it continually difficult to feel at odds with so many that I just do not understand how they think. I also want some things to be easy for a change. I want Caleb to wake up in the morning and find that his accident was a bad dream, I want the same for a friend who has cancer and one who has Krohn's. I want work to be uncomplicated for a change. I want someone to make the ant damage in my house go away without costing the same as a used car.

So for now I hunker down a bit, feeling like I can't be too down beat because I really don't want a pep talk or drag down everyone else, but not wanting to be upbeat. So I am quiet. I want something different. On Saturday I'll quietly help out on a Habitat project with my son and others and try to feed good karma to the world, I'll go for a longer run and try to feel good about the progress I've made, even though my times are quite lousy for the race I am hoping to do next month.

The glass is half full but it feels like it has a leak in it a small crack that lets energy drain. I need some glue.

Stuff in the road

The rain is heavy, the clouds are low, the wipers are working furiously to keep the vision clear, motion everywhere, claps of loud noise, people trying to pass you and people holding you up.



Oh, you think I am talking about being in the car and these pictures? I guess I can see why but I am not.

A friend posted on her blog that she felt like a squirrel in the road, dashing back and forth, not sure which direction safety lies.



While she has big time issues going on with the well-being and future of a child I think this feeling is all to common.

I am feeling at times like that squirrel and the deer in the headlights. Not sure what direction to go, questioning myself when I make a decision on direction and like both freeze in indecision and sometimes letting time make the decision for me.

At work lately I am neither of these, which is good, but in a way I am both of these. I don't freeze from total indecision, I freeze because another issue has come up that is more immediate and seems to keep pushing everything off to the side. Then when the items that were pushed aside become crucial I lecture myself about having gotten into the situation to begin with.

And then there are the home issues that can only be dealt with during the day but get trampled in the stampede, the carpenters, winter approaching that all compete for space in an already crowded mind.

Its a no win and not a good place to be at.

But I am tenacious and resilient, so I turn up the speed on the wiper and take some more deep breaths, chip away and dream of my run tomorrow morning, when I just accomplish something for me.

Random thoughts and pictures

At 5:00 AM it is dark again. As the calendar hits September there is always a dramatic shift. By 8:30 pm its the same. The challenge is how to go running when it is dark and to also be motivated to get out.



The tourists have pretty much left town, though they'll be back for the long weekends. Tanglewood has wrapped up its season as have some of the theater companies, Jefferson Starship, a name from the past, was at Eastover down the street this weekend. I heard them through the trees. The new second home owner neighbors, whom we haven't yet bothered to meet, have gone back to the city. The new full time neighbors, whom we have partially met, seem totally moved in. The neighborhood is quiet although it always is.

The pellets are on order, all 4 tons, and should be arriving any day now for me to start moving them in the garage. That's alot of pellets to be hauling at least twice during the season.



Coming back from kayaking on the river this weekend I parked at the public ramp which is a short dirt road going down to the river off the main road with parking for a few cars. Some city folks had pulled in and were in their lawn chairs eating lunch and they asked me if I knew the name of this nature preserve. It doesn't have a name, I shared, its state and local land and just a boat ramp. It just happens to be along the beautiful river, be surrounded by wetlands and flowers and farm land on the other side of the river running up to the mountains. Actually pretty average, but isn't that wonderful that they are awed by our average. I am too.




The light and clouds are unusual tonight, possible rain, possible storm. I just hope its not too intense and doesn't drive itself in through the outside wall covering where the ants have done their damage.



Back to work from "vacation" and already behind and not happy about it. Vacation should be rest and that one was not.



The Google ads are gone. They say there have been "invalid clicks" and shut me down. I have read its not uncommon and happens to large companies as well little bloggers and the unfortunate thing is that they inform you in a way that implies dishonesty and take back anything that has been earned. While I like Google and am even a small shareholder they are impersonal and big and come across heavy.

My blog got rated by a critic and got an 8 out of 10. Cool, I guess and I get to add their rating button. Perhaps Zagats is next.

So that is the randomness of the day. Measuring out new off season running routes trying to imagine if I'll be able to do a 10 k next month in under an hour, avoiding convention coverage- the red gives me a headache.

The week is almost over- hurray!

the vacation exception

Thursday was a highlight to the vacation week, a reality check, a grounding experience.

Because I work and hour out of the Berkshires I am not as involved here as I wish I could be. While I connect with groups on nights and weekends there is this whole part that is missed.

Thursday I had the pleasure of accompanying my teens when the did their monthly work at a community dinner. They've been doing this for years but it is late afternoon when I am usually still at work. Rather than drop them off I joined them in-case they were short volunteers due to vacation, which they were.

At 3pm volunteers gather in the kitchen and its all hands on deck setting tables, making salad, preparing a main course, making the lemonade, cutting bread, helping make dessert, firing up the dishwasher and ovens. The menu varying by what might have been donated or purchased from its donations. Tonight it was stuffed shells and sauce, sauteed peppers, salad, brownies and lemonade. A team of volunteers, part of a bigger group of teams that rotate through 2 nights a week throughout the month.

About 430 people start drifting in sitting down, visiting. Some know each other other do not, some I know are homeless, some with issues, some just at a down swing of life.

At 5:15 I joined the volunteers as we served the 100 guests at their tables. A reason this is a community dinner and not a soup kitchen, people are served with greetings and kindness just as you would expect at a restaurant. People came up for seconds and often complimented the cooks and volunteers.

So what struck me about this this? The humanity of it all.

One team of volunteers worked set up and another served and did clean-up. (we stayed to do both) Three hours of work with friendly people who clearly had no pretense that they were doing charity work, they were serving people who could use a good meal. That was it.

What also struck me were the guests, the span of ages and appearances. There was a politeness and gratitude that was natural and genuine from both volunteers and guests.

Then 3 hours later the guests had left, the dishes were washed and away, the tables wiped down and floor washed and the recycling put in the bin. Just as quickly as they had arrived the volunteers had all drifted away. Some to return the next night, some the next week and some the next month.

As we left for home and for our own dinner I felt good that this was just a normal occurrence for my kids and something they actually looked forward to and recruited friends to fill in, good that I knew all the volunteers and was part of the church that sponsored the dinners, good that this was available for those who needed it for what ever reason even if the only reason was that they didn't want to eat alone.

This is one of those quiet parts of the Berkshires. Its not for the tourists, it doesn't involve the arts but is part of the fabric of life.

So I guess in the context of things my last post was whining. Compared with many that I saw here and having great kids who want to do things like this and want to have me along with them I can put up with the distress of the ants.

The vacation from Hell

I am usually not a complainer and sometimes when wave after wave of crap comes on I go either in the direction of wanting to cry or burst out laughing over the absurdity of the sequence. I think I've said this before, its like trying to keep dry in a downpour and then reaching a point of just giving up and letting it soak you.

This has had to be one of the worse vacations I can recall. Much of it sucked, except for one exception which deserves its own post. Starting off with a cold that has just ended, on and off through out the week I was tethered to work email sheparding IT consultants through a project that got finished at 5:30 pm Friday night. Then working on home projects it seemed that each project that I picked up became way more involved or extensive and either took 3 times as long or I threw my hands up. Then there was dealing with newly discovered carpenter ant and water damage. Listening to the contractors assessments and rough estimates rivaling a the price of a used car is alone enough to depress added to the frustration of trying to get estimates and reliable contacts had me ready to scream. To confess, when the house was empty of family I could probably be heard by neighbors an acre away screaming and cursing. A good try but it didn't work, I still feel like crap and thoughts of a hurricane, or remnants, working its way up the coast had me staring at the ceiling at 4am.

So two days left of the weekend and vacation and I'm tossing in the towel about chores. I am done. Tomorrow we get a family day in the city (Boston) and after figuring out what to do about dinner tonight I'm heading out with the kayak.

So what is the purpose of this ranting post? Well perhaps to make you feel better if you aren't dealing with stuff like this and guess-what, not all vacations in the Berkshires are great especially when you live there. They are just like your vacations at home.

Rant over, turn the page

End of summer blahs

The clouds blow in, the rain comes, the clouds blow out. That seems to have been the rhythm of this summer. Rain more often than I wanted, making the grass grow faster then not giving enough dry days to keep up with it. The dampness seems to add more chores to the list. Water seeping in where it hadn't before, mold growing on the leaves of trees, the porch plants that always thrive are under attack. Ants are finding the dampness of wood and discovering a feast.



I usually find summer restful although it is always busy. This summer seems different. I am tired. Not in a sleeping sense as I am still keeping up my 13 mile a week running pattern that I started in the spring, but a fatigue that has set in, a fog on the mind and like the rain it seems to leave for a bit but then comes back.

So this week I am on vacation. Nothing scheduled but a totally unrealistic chore list , a summer cold settling in on me and the need to stay a little tethered to work email. Blah.........

So if you notice I'm not posting as frequently its where I am at the moment. The camera is hidden in the car as I am tired of taking pictures of mists and rain. Its too much like the fog that I am working to get free of.

We'll see how the week goes. Does this cold set a different schedule for me than the list that is on the frig? Do the work emails give good new that the project I've been sheparding has been successfully uploaded and I can then shut them down? Can I get enough painting done to get through to next year? Well I get a warm afternoon out in the kayak? My complaints for the day.................................



An then I recall yesterday when I traveled back to Springfield for the wake of the husband of a former co-worker. Several years younger than I, he was diagnosed with brain cancer a year ago and despite an active fight succumbed. Barely 50. The body in the coffin I did not recognize. Not the same person I had seen before his illness or vibrant person in the family pictures on display.

Something like that gives you another perspective, a sort of dope slap up the side of the head. Yeah I am tired, yeah I am fatigued and getting a cold, yeah I feel like I am fighting a war against ants, yeah feel resentful that I need to check in with work emails while on vacation. Yeah I feel totally blah.........

But I feel...... I am living....... I am healthy........my family is healthy......I have a choice of doing chores and even complaining about them. The fatigue will eventually fade as will the fog and this cold will also fade. So life ain't all that bad, its life.

So that is where I am at. It is the end of summer in the Berkshires. The nights are cooler, the sun comes up later. But the sun comes up for me and it sets and the moon rides and it sets and that isn't something to be taken for granted.

Before moving to the Berkshires we lived for many years in a suburb of Boston. While there are many wonderful things about living near a major city quiet was not something we found easily around home. I could go to places that were quiet, but home was not one of those. We lived on a street that was lined with pastures but we learned too late that it was also a shortcut known by locals between two towns. Swish, swish, swish was a most common sound at all but the deepest hours of the night. Plus the flight paths to Logan and the interstate in the distance provided for fairly regular low level, and sometimes not so low level if noise.

Over the years I found this wearing and one of the several things on the list of musts when finding a new home in the Berkshires was quiet.

Now nested against woods on a dead end street and the nearest interstate 15 minutes away and state highway at least a mile and jets that only pass over at 30,000 feet, the sound of nature is dominant. As I have written before, nature is by no means always quiet but it is rarely jarring.



But one of the sweetest sounds is one not from nature but one I hear mostly in the middle of the night and when the windows are open [which is May to October] since we don’t need air conditioning.

In the stillness and dark of the night the bells of the "Church on the Hill" a few miles away softly chime the hours. Floating across town over the hills and trees the chimes seem the sole guardian of the passing of time through the night. Drifting awake I count the hours and then drift back to sleep in the peacefulness of the night knowing that daylight is still a while to come.

Crisis = Danger+Opportunity ???

Recently I was listening to someone speak about the Chinese characters for crisis being danger and opportunity. In the context of the discussion was about good that can be found even in the worse situations. Very Taoist I thought.

I was going to write a post completely on that topic and how often kernels of good come from a bad occurrence but decided to do a little more research first. I was dismayed to find several articles written by authoritative sources that present this theory as an almost urban myth. One PhD in Chinese linguistics described that the characters actually are “danger and incipient moment; a crucial point (when something begins or changes)” and that making “incipient moment into opportunity is a significant misinterpretation.” Another scholar,in addition to parsing out the characters and their actual meaning, thinks that the perpetuation of this myth is Pollyannaish and dangerous in itself. There seems to be an almost market of sorts for items with this theme of finding opportunity in crisis. Here is one source of the commentary. http://www.pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html

So at first I scrapped the idea of writing on this but as I mused further I was intrigued not by the clinging to of something that is completely false. I think humans do that very often in varying situations with an attitude of don’t confuse me with the facts and don’t mess with my fantasies.

I don’t think here it is clinging for the sake of clinging but rather a core optimism that is part of the human spirit. The desire to see order in things; to see good surpass evil; to see all things end well; to see that happy ending.

After coming through a crisis, with its fear and sometimes despair, and sometimes heap of a mess, either physically or emotionally, we innately want some good to come from this terror. That all the error and pain endured and energy expended has some gain to it.

I know myself I have tried hard to identify and in a way honor valuable lessons and useful tools that have come from the process of working through and coming back from a job loss or health issue. I don’t think that there is anything naïve in that and I am not glossing over the crisis as having been valuable in itself. No thanks, I‘ll learn the lesson another way if you please. But it is a way of recentering and reconciling with the bad that has occurred. That even in a mess and a disaster we are able to comb something positive out of the wreckage to keep us moving forward.

Optimism, yes. Blind optimism, absolutely not.

Help wanted

One of the more challenging and sometimes interesting parts of my professional job has been recruiting for open positions. I oversee a reasonably sized division that for many many years had very little turnover and the people being hired were all for new positions added due to growth.

Then starting last summer, one long time staffer quit to care for a terminally ill spouse, then another two got once in a lifetime opportunities with much more pay and closer to home and another had the opportunity to retire early….and so you can see the pattern. Several years worth of normal turnover happening all at once,

So it’s been pretty consistent reorganizing, redoing jobs, finding temporary fixes to get the work done while at the same time trying to recruit.

But what has changed dramatically during this latest round of hiring has been the quality of the candidates.

Gone are the days when I would run ads and get 50 applicants and potentially have a half a dozen to choose from. Now if I get 6 responses it’s been a success and the quality, to be very blunt….sucks big time.

So I may rerun ads and change the wording a little to see if that works. It hasn’t.

The common response is the email with the resume attachment. Often the email will be canned and not pertain to what was actually written in the ad; sometimes there will be an email with the subject line “applying for job opening” and an attachment. If I run the ad in different papers I may get the same email/letter/resume combo as many times as papers it’s appeared in. If I run it multiple weeks running I may get several duplicate resumes.

This is not good for jobs that often have “attention to retail” as a key requirement.

This week came the resumes attached to an email with no introduction or even a subject line – which sent them electronically into the SPAM bucket.

And then there are the excuses.

When I have had enough of the crap I will occasionally respond back suggesting that the applicant have someone else read their resume as it has errors in it. [such as misspellings of the person’s previous employer, the word resume, or their address is spelled wrong and the zip code with letters in it.]

One response I received back was that I must have opened a resume of his that was not the final version. It’s the one he sent and the only one I had. While another asked me “what they had applied for”. Yesterday I wrote back to the person whose resume went in the SPAM bucket because of no email, letter or subject line giving some feedback [me being a nice guy]

The response I received was a curt one word SORRY! in triple sized font and then the resume was copied and pasted in the email.

So from SPAM bucket to “delete” and the applicants don’t even have a clue. It was clear that I had offended the applicant by pointing out why she will rarely hear anything when she sends a resume out. SORRY…..NOT

Then there was the “post it” cover letter. A resume coming by mail with a 3x5 post-it note stuck to it with a full cover letter written in tiny hand writing. I couldn't read half of it even with my glasses on.

A couple weeks ago I reran an ad for a position I have recruiting 6 months for and added the requirement of responding with more than a one sentence email reflecting on how the applicant fit with the description.

The first response was from a guy who had previously sent a two sentence email with a resume and had no relevant experience.

How he responded to the new ad was a one line “I sent you my resume a couple of weeks ago, am I being considered or not”?……………not.

So I am thinking there must be a market for educating and coaching people wanting to switch jobs on how to do it and on the basic organizational skills to manage an effective job search. But I also suspect that many of those who need critical feedback will be the ones who will be offended by the feedback and they will see themselves be the “victims” of over critical people.

Meanwhile I’ll continue to tweak the ads and bring in recruiters to lure people away from someone else. Gradually working my way back up to fully staffed and hope for another several years before another wave of turnover and retirements hits again

1000 visitors and growing

Wow I feel a little like McDomald's as I see the official Blogger visit counter hit the 1,000 mark. Of course I'm not selling burgers and actually haven't been to a McDonald's in several years (another story for a future post).

So thanks for visiting and of course thanks for commenting.

Jeff

Learning from your kids…….

As I have written before I have kids currently in their mid teens. Parenthood for us has been a blessing and a joy and a lot of fun. Sure there are challenges and issues and fights that go along but we genuinely like our kids as people and not just because they are our kids. They are thoughtful, funny, inquisitive, opinionated and smart, kind, healthily industrious and full of life. They are very different from each other and in many ways different from my wife and me and yet very much the same.



Since the birth of my oldest, being a dad has been a learning experience. Not just in learning the practical aspects (for there has been tons of that) but in an experiential way. For as my kids grow and mature I find I am learning more and more about life and myself. When they were babies and then a toddlers it was as if I was being given a peephole into my own childhood and the rare opportunity to gain perspective on that early stage of my life. Memories of experiences that I had never remembered before came back as deja vu.

They were a reason, or should I say excuse, to play at the playground, climb on the climbing structure and slide down the slides and swing on the swings. Who would ever question the motives of a dad keeping up with his little ones, when in fact I also saw this as an opportunity to play and relive and have fun. I learned that it is ok to say yes even though my parents might have said no or that other parents might give that look. The time the rain caused the front yard to get muddy and rather than shoo everyone away because of what it would do to the lawn, I encouraged the neighborhood kids to join mine sliding in the mud. There was the time of chasing a group of kids around with a water hose and everyone, especially me was drenched. Though safety was always paramount, it was through those moments I learned it was ok for other parents to wonder where the adult was in the group.




Though I’ve always been curious, having kids opens a new world of seeking and exploring even the minutest thing. When sharing music and rocking with them in the dark or playing with the puppets, time seemed to be suspended; seemed surreal.

As they each face new challenges and opportunities and are unsure, I learn much from how they respond and how we have to encourage and coach. Setting limits and also expecting responsibility; but learning to hold back my fears and to consider the source of my caution and to decide when its best to just let them go and be on the side lines if needed. The way that I have learned and become was not necessarily how they should be or experience life.




As they face their fears and I have had to be brave for them I learned something about myself as well as them. When they fell down and picked themselves up I was also reminded of how durable I really was. When they laughed and laughed at my goofiness I was reminded to not take myself and life so seriously. When they just jumped into a group of kids they had never met and just began to play I am reminded how easy it was before we all stopped to think before doing that and more times hesitated than was good.

When they asked to come to work just to meet the people and spent a day seeing what I did, I was reminded of the nice people I work with who thought this was cool and feel good years later when my kids talk about that day. I am reminded to say yes more that no.

As they struggle with school and with friendships and with relationships I am relearning what that was about back then and that this newer perspective can be healing. I am also learning that because they are friends with each other, they will often seek out the other's perspective or advice, as being more relevant or current than what dad and mom could provide and that this is ok and good.



As my oldest nears college age I am reminded about how things will change so dramatically. For him it is an awesome and scary time and my job is to hold my fears in check and be there to talk to and guide and to hug them tight. As parents we are not only coaches we are also sometimes partners. I know that in that process they will learn; and as we help them through this next stage they will teach me as well.

I have often said that having young kids keeps you younger and more on your game and that is good.