The Annual Annual

Owning a boat, which stays in the water, is the same as owning a second home. It requires that much attention, and when you do not provide it catching up doubles the work. If however, you enjoy the work as much as using the vessel then the labor is one of love. Each year my spouse and I take a trip down river and back, although we have missed some years, the week spent sailing, anchoring under the stars or tied to a dock in a quiet moorage lets us forget about the stress of being on dry land. Combined with particpation from good friends accompanying us in their various and sundry vessels, we would have had to work too hard to not have a good time.



Our vacations, such as they were or are, have been spent at the in-laws beach house or aboard the boat. These are the trips my two daughters remember and ones they still recall with joy and good humor. Each trip represents its own adventure, running from minor groudings to sinking folboats, miscellaneous injuries, mechanical breakdowns, and blown out sails and these only add to the exageration of the story telling. Blessed with a family who enjoyed these adventures as much as my self, I can tell you nothing could have been added by making a trip across the country or visiting an expensive theme park.

I shall look forward to sharing these times with future generations and friends who only are now beginnning to find the time to ride along.

Hope and Expectation

Some years ago a boss told me to strike "hope" from my vocabulary -- either it was going to happen or is was not. I probably failed to report properly, or the outcome of the report included a hoped for outcome and he took issue. This guy took issue with everything, however. The lesson was not forgotten. Hoping for an outcome is not the result of planning, executing a plan, and monitoring its progress. Systems type people manage an expected outcome. They use Six-Sigma or whatever to make sure the goal is reached. There is no hope about it; there is an expectation. By their very nature, and indeed definition, the difference in the two words are clear. Hope implys a certain amount of abdication of control where expectation insists on a managed outcome.



How much of this can we transfer to our everyday life? Will Smith, one of America's great talents (I believe), said all you have to do is; ' do the math.' Many successful people profess having had a plan and the plan is what got them to where they are. From my own poor experience of traveling through life without a plan I must accept the notion having a plan would have produced better results. That said, hope must still be an integral part of our emotional toolbox. Experience has taught me, even when I do an effective job of planning, a thousand and one unknown variables can interfere with success. Perhaps it is something you get used to in sales, but in the end we must still hope, our expected outcomes will be the result of good planning, thought and prayer.

First Timer

Recently, in class, the importance of creativity as a force in our life and work was revealed. The value of play long since forgotten for most to our childhood past is replaced by the demands of being grownups, parents, wage earners, and mortgage payers. Recognition of my own displacement of play cut deep, particularly as I recalled one daughter suggesting my childhood was the last Huck Finn childhood. Perhaps there will be more on that later. For now, creativity is writting. It is something I enjoy and something I do far too little. The hard drive is filled with unfinished novellas. Spiral notebooks abound with scratch from various periods in my life.

With all that said I expect this blog to be a reflection on journey, a sharing of this place on the trip, and fair recounting of events which swirl around us all.