I was speaking with an entrepreneur, writer, and general wise-sage of programming last week and we were discussing some finer points of a software idea I had and, well, to be honest, a lot of what he said fell into that “areas for improvement” or “how to improve” the work category.
I say both of those phrases above in quotes not because it was really a hatchet job of my work, it was an opening of eyes to new ideas.
At the end of that he asked, “But what else can I do for you?”
And I’ve decided this is the key for success in business, and perhaps, life itself.
My next invited step was to elicit more wisdom ( or abuse 
) and the forum was still open. Nothing was closing, everything was a beginning point for further negotiation and understanding. I bet you could try it with your spouse / SO. I bet you could try it with your boss / client. I suspect that if you were to keep track of responses and enthusiasm pre- versus post- you would be mightily surprised.
The Latin at the top comes from my Wheelock’s. It, apparently, was a common salutation in written communication. It says, “If you are well, I am well.” God, can you imagine anything so polite in this age where I saw some girl on a cell phone let the door into the Chick Fil A close in the face of a mom pushing a stroller.
I was listening to MacBreak Weekly episode 54 where LaPorte and Merlin Mann are discussing the finer points of The Big Lebowski and cite that Bridges never once actually “imbibed” Lebowski’s preferred intoxicants while acting.
He said you just have to fake it or else you can’t work.
Leo then revealed he used to get high on hallucinogens and do radio show ( about the 3 minute mark ).
The Screen Savers Leo?
What you don’t know about your friends, neighbors and podcasters. Puts a new spin on screen-savers.
Must display unicode properly
Must let me use command ( AKA the apple key ) as META on the command line ( i.e. meta+b goes back one word )
Option is not an acceptable substitute for META ( lookin’ at you, iTerm )
If anyone can fulfill this, I would be thankful. I’m looking at the code in iTerm to see if I can hack it.
Thre are many things in this world that I am not supposed to say, but I find it intolerable that the word “N#gger/a” be used. It such a vile term – and I don’t buy for a minute that whole story of “reclaiming”.
I’m glad to see some others are taking a stand within the community that has the exclusive monopoly on acceptable use of the term.
…at a Black Enterprise event. TMZ reveals that Griffin’s performance was cut short after magazine owner Earl Graves showed the not-so-funnyman the door due to his frequent use of the N-word. “We … will not allow our culture to go backwards … We will pay Mr. Griffin all that we owe him but we will not allow him to finish the show if that’s the way he’s going to talk,” Graves announced. … via
Let me catch you all up on last week.
Two Mondays past, Lauren went to Pilates and was complaining when she got
back that she thought she overdid it a bit. So sore muscles, back
rubs, and ibuprofen ran us to previous week Friday when we decided to go to the
hospital.
Regrettably the threshold of “should we go or not” didn’t hit until late in the afternoon on Friday. Let me tell you now friends, the quality of care you get in doing just about anything about that time ( be it ordering coffee or getting medical attention ) is a bit weaker as the providers of said services anxiously anticipate their Labor Day weekend bender.
The only place we could get in turned out to be, in my dad’s estimable terminology, a quack shack. In line with their ethos of “let’s not get sued and move patients quickly” Lauren was prescribed two knock-you-out-cold drugs. So as she flew high and shone on like a crazy diamond we found the only exterior events she was capable of enduring was a trip to the movie theatre. As such, we had the chance to catch “Superbad” and “Once”.
“Superbad” was funny, gross, but incredibly realistic. It was the way I remember teens talking to one another and the things that I recall us talking about. The fact that it hit so close to home in terms of the frustration and desperate boredom of growing up in the suburbs made me think of the goofy adventures the SB and I got into.
Given that the movie felt so “true” with respect to relationships and dialog, there was a sexual element that was portrayed that had changed since I was in high school…if you’re wanting to read some frank commentary look here.
“Once” on the other hand was a
musical romantic comedy filmed in that indie aesthetic, it was OK. I don’t know if the film style was dogme95 or YouTube æsthetic, but the music was great. The story, well that was, honestly, rather flimsy.
Come Monday, we were no better off. Monday we got an appointment with my
Dr. for Thursday. So 4 more days of vicodin and misery.
Meanwhile I started my Latin I and Calculus I classes.
Meanwhile a small team of us at work were preparing a launch of a new, enterprise-grade, and to-be-heavily-abused technology. So, there was a fair amount of pressure associated with that.
Add to this perfect storm, that I got a call from my sister explaining to me that my mom had to be taken to the hospital.
Rains, pours.
So between sweating my mom’s health, my girlfriend’s health, class, and a launch on Friday, I was feeling, well, a bit on-edge.
Fortunately, by the end of the week my mom was showing progress in the right direction and was released from the hospital. Thursday after Lauren’s appointment it was clear that we needed to get X-Rays done des que maintenent and thus we were off to the radiology lab. After getting Lauren X-rayed and a new round of pain medication, I was able to put her to bed and rush downtown for my evening class.
blink blink
The X-Ray results came back and it doesn’t appear that there’s any tumors or grossly evil things going wrong. The current diagnosis is tendonitis in her neck. She’s been on anti-inflammatory drugs and muscle relaxers since then, so we’ll see how things go as she tries life sans pharmacology over this next week.
The weekend, however, was fine with a visit ( alone, given my patient’s inability to travel ) down to the Hall of Justice, the home of The League of Melbotis. We were there to observe the ‘Horns’ entirely underwhelming opening game against Arkansas State University. The League made a masterful burger and as the night wore down I made an exit. The up side was that he lent me 1980 Flash Gordon DVD.
Watching that with Lauren took me back to being a single-digit age kid watching that on HBO with Mom who would sing along with Freddie Mercury’s “Flash! Ahhh-ahhhhh”. I gotta admit, that refrain is incredibly adept at sticking in one’s memory. It was weird seeing those scenes that I remember only very colorful snippets of from yesteryear: Sam Jones executed in Leather Underwear, the miscellaneous feelings inspired by Ornella Muti, and the metal-faced General Klytus.
I gotta give a hand to De Laurentiis ( more on them later ) sci-fi films of the early 80’s. They take art, Sophocles, gay, and BDSM, make them colorful, and serve it up to that nation of secret twisted kinks of mine ever so well ( is someone tapping their foot? ).
As we watched the firm derrière of Ornella Muti resist torture beneath sheer red Lycra, Lauren was driven to postulate that perhaps this movie planted my love of dark Italian women personified in my uhm, not so secret fanboydom of Monica Bellucci. I had to laugh. Uncomfortably. And then I was shamed.
The rest of the weekend and holiday was spent doing homework and watching after my patient.
So here we are, Monday.