I just loved this sidebar title. . . Is it an Acorn or a Rabbit Turd??

A couple of other quotes of interest (all from the same article)
* “But by definition, innovation is wasteful in the short term: It takes a lot of acorns to grow an oak tree.”
* “You need 1000 crazy ideas to find 100 plans that are worth funding experimentally so that you can then identify 10 projects that are worth pursuing seriously in hopes of coming up with one or two strategies that have true transformative power.”

Inspired me enough to fire off an email to my boss. That goes against the grain of this article – I should supposedly just ‘do’, but I’d really like this to spin off into a new mission/task/plan for me. I’m fired up with the idea of getting to hunt out new business software/system ideas. I knew a guy who had something like that job title, but I don’t think it ever translated into anything real. I may end up just ‘doing’ anyway – feeding system synopsis to someone who then gets a sales commission if they actually sell ‘my’ vision. But it sure would be nice for that to be at least part of my job.

Some days there are just too many topics swirling around in my brain. Stuff ranging from the completely mundane to the nearly, possibly sublime. I have this hunch that, were I ever to filter out the mundane and concentrate on the sublime, that something amazing might just bubble up. Wonder if that’s how genius works? Folks can either filter out the mundane thoughts that clutter the rest of our daily lives, or they can connect it with the sublime and make something sublime-er. Or maybe they can just bubble the sublime stuff quicker – make a quicker cup of caffeinated thought.

Maybe I’ve just got too much gunk in my filter.

I’d like to do so many things. In fact, I’d up that word “like” to “aim” – I have aims to do many things, in many different arenas. In the space of today, ideas for craft projects, marathon training, and knowledge management systems have run through my mind and excited my interest. Then something else runs through my mind and steals the cycles for some other interest. And nothing gets done. Day dreaming is exhausting. . .

I’m a sucker for management-type books and magazines. The One Minute Manager, Fast Company magazine, any of Tom Peter’s books. . . I’m an optimist, thinking that businesses can and should be run better, and that just maybe I’m the person who can run them better. But I just loved John Scalzi’s review of Who Moved My Cheese?. It’s worth reading his review for his list of unintended conclusions he drew about business, based on the book.

Jones-ing. As in “keeping up with the Joneses”. I don’t know why, but lately I’ve had a serious case. I want a laptop, a puppy, a new wardrobe, lots of things changed around the house. All of ’em seem like reasonable requests unto themselves (my husband might debate the puppy one – restraining myself from going down to the pound today), but taken together, they seem to indicate a new case of “gotta-have-it-ness”. You know, that’s the illness that says what you have isn’t good enough, that there’s something out there, something specific, that would in some way make you just a bit happier. And what’s money for, if not to spread a little happiness around, particularly if some of that “extra” happiness ends up smeared on you? Smeared even seems to be the right image – layers upon layers (figuratively speaking) of various things that are supposed to do something to make us just a bit happier. We’re like little Pig Pen’s layered with stuff, rather than dirt.

Oooh, now I’m Jones-ing for a reprint of the first strip that Peppermint Patty appeared in – check it out here.

Ran across a term called blog chalking in my various wanderings. Near as I can figure, you tag your blog with geographical identifiers, plus tags for name and age. Those can then be used by search engines to find blogs of folks living near you, etc.

I _like_ the anonymity of the web, knowing someone just by their material, ideas, and visual presentation. To discover that they lived across the street from me would be depressing, actually. One would hope to interact enough with the people around you to determine that they are interesting people – to discover that you’ve overlooked an amazingly interesting person that geographically close would suggest that 1) either I’m completely dense, or 2) that this person has determined that I’m not interesting. Either way, fairly depressing.

It would be an amazing gift to discover via the web that you’ve found someone whose ideas, etc, are interesting. But life’s too complicated to count on that person being geographically near, or even, in some cases, to _want_ that person to be geographically near. Geographic closeness almost implies that folks ought to meet in person. And who needs one extra thing that one “ought” to do?

August 12th was my birthday, one of the ones that isn’t quite 30, but sure is too close to keep thinking of 30 as old. More than New Years, birthdays seem like the appropriate day to take stock of the year that’s just passed and to make any necessary resolutions for the year upcoming. New Years just has too much hoopla and champagne surrounding it to take it seriously as a taking stock and making resolutions kind of day. . . noisemakers and champagne bubbles just don’t put one in the right frame of mind to do any serious self-contemplation. But staring down another birthday candle, gazing into the flicker of fire, could put one in the appropriate solemn mood.

Looking at this past year, the big change in life would definitely be my daughter, and all of the sundry life changes she brings. I can’t see topping that kind of change in the upcoming year, or at least, any change that topped it would be unplanned and most likely unpleasant, barring winning the lottery. (Note that I don’t play the lottery, so winning it would most definitely be unplanned.)

Resolved for the upcoming year: to work on contentment. Most resolutions that I’ve ever seen seeked to change something about one’s life situation or themselves. I’m all for goals and continual improvement, etc, but the thing is that the list of resolutions and goals to change should be small, and the list of things one is content with about their life and themselves should be larger. I’m not aware of a list of things about which I’m contented. I’m not discontented, mind you, but I can’t mentally say I’m content with any one particular area of my life. For a goal-oriented person such as myself, that’s a problem, because then there are just too many possible goals distracting me from accomplishing much on any of ’em. So, I need to either decide that I’m absolutely content about some areas, or that I’m temporarily content – so that I can table things until “later iterations”. If I managed to either be absolutely content or temporarily content about everything, then nothing about me would improve except my attitude and outlook on life. Which would be a big enough improvement of itself.

My husband and I have been out of high school for ten years now, and our respective class reunions are fast approaching. I went to pick up tickets to his at the local library tonight. I didn’t go to high school with my husband, but had attended the same middle school (side note: I had a crush on him even then!), so I knew some of the folks in his graduating class. Turns out, one of the folks I knew was manning the ticket table at the library.

Surprisingly, she recognized me. I say surprisingly since I haven’t seen her since middle school and we only knew each other then and weren’t especially close. I’ve always thought that I’m a lot different than I was in high school and before, so it was a bit of a shock to be recognized. In fact, more than a shock, it was bit of an affront to my self-image to be recognized. Who wants to think that they’re recognizable as that same geeky, self-conscious, non-attractive person from high school? You want to go back to reunions as the stunning person who no one can figure out who she is; you want to have “blossomed” into a beauty queen who’s self-confident, accomplished a fair amount, and yet still a humble, likable person.

Now I’m thinking maybe I’ll let those tattooes show – I had figured on keeping ’em covered, but now I’m thinking that I need to do _something_ to show I’m not quite that same person. Hmmm. . . Useless musings. . .

There are lots of places on the web based around the idea of images. Sites that seek to impress you with flashy graphics and effects, or images that draw you in, enticing you to spend time or money. This site won’t attempt to accomplish that through images – as you can see, my ability to make beautiful websites is, shall we say, less than impressive. Hopefully, two things will occur. One, this lil’ piece of the web will be interesting to someone (at least me), regardless of its lack of visual attraction. Two, I’ll in some way absorb some creative karma and evolve this area into a visually beautiful venue. (“Visually beautiful venue”? What a load of horse manure!) In the meantime, this’ll serve as an outlet for the ideas and thoughts that are languishing for lack of expression. None are guaranteed to have any value to anyone but me. And looking back at them, I’ll probably decide a fair number of ’em didn’t have any value, period. Feel free to comment, influence my postings, just generally interact. The web’s good for more things than buying stuff, catching up on news, and other less interactive (and often less socially redeeming) things.

There are lots of places on the web based around the idea of images. Sites that seek to impress you with flashy graphics and effects, or images that draw you in, enticing you to spend time or money. This site won’t attempt to accomplish that through images – as you can see, my ability to make beautiful websites is, shall we say, less than impressive. Hopefully, two things will occur. One, this lil’ piece of the web will be interesting to someone (at least me), regardless of its lack of visual attraction. Two, I’ll in some way absorb some creative karma and evolve this area into a visually beautiful venue. (“Visually beautiful venue”? What a load of horse manure!) In the meantime, this’ll serve as an outlet for the ideas and thoughts that are languishing for lack of expression. None are guaranteed to have any value to anyone but me. And looking back at them, I’ll probably decide a fair number of ’em didn’t have any value, period. Feel free to comment, influence my postings, just generally interact. The web’s good for more things than buying stuff, catching up on news, and other less interactive (and often less socially redeeming) things.