Journal : OpenRoadWorks

I cannot seem to get out from under it. I look to my left - an inbox brimming with all sorts of presentations, leaflets, magazines, and binders lining up against the wall . I look to my right - a desktop screen cluttered with a Microsoft Office explosion of Powerpoint, Word, Excel, and a straggling Access file in there. I look down - the file drawers are organized, thank goodness, but should hold more of what I see to my left. And sitting on the table, those stacks of Red Herring magazines and various industry pamphlets that update everything from Japanese innovation to US Barnum & Bailey convention promotions. I sit in the middle of this, figuring out where to start in getting organized again. This is a monthly ritual, it seems - run like heck to stay just one step ahead as the crash of all this activity hangs imminently in the balance of what can practically fit in the inbox. Then, right before IT turns off the email and the inbox falls over, I catch it all and file it away. Unti...

Memorial Day weekend came and went like the thunderstorms that rumbled on Sunday evening here in the DC area. I thought that a three-day weekend would be just the cure for a crazy-busy schedule the past month (work projects blowing up all over the mainstream news, wedding planning, homeownership nicks & nacks, getting my personal affairs in order, travels, and stealing a moment for reflection), but it turned out that the only salvation was that the next weekend was now only 4 days away. Oh yeah, and a great friend was going to be in town in the upcoming week but that is the topic of another post. Still, I tried to make the best of the extra out-of-work time - which got funneled right back into homeowner activities (and what else does a homeowner do except spend free time keeping up with whatever is going on around and inside the home?). To be more specific, I took to cleaning up the "jungle", Wendy's vividly wonderful description of our backyard's overgrowth. I...

I am a curious bystander of the US political process. Driving to work around the Beltway in DC, I get the same news from NPR to which all the politicos listen; it is hard to avoid their chatter, even if I turn off the radio. From week to week, the issues are different, but the overall process is the same: executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government hammering out new laws & proposals while trying to make sense of current affairs and subsequent issues that will inevitably become the laws & proposals of the future. Keeping score of these accounts is tiring and no doubt a more-than-full-time job; I think those guys (& gals) down in the Capitol Building are doing a fine job of mucking around in the issues. Mucking is the operative word. I have tried to make sense of current issues that consume the media outlets and political bluster - Iraq, oil, and immigration. Of course, there is an off-mention of foreign affairs and other seemingly important issues like th...

Finally, the weather is starting to turn. After several funky months of start-again, stop-again weather spells, it appears that Mother Nature is done with her spring cleaning and is ready to turn up the heat. Temperatures are just starting to nudge over 80 degrees farenheit with a run akin to the up-and-up record-setting pace on Wall Street. By the time the weekend rolls around, the garden hose will become an essential daily accessory upon returning home from work. I have some melodies floating in my mind from old-time musicals, and they seem to accurately paint the mood - people are generally happy and excitement is carrying folks to their after-work plans. The days of hot, lazy afternoons are immimently here, and summer is here to stay (for a few months at least).

It only takes a minute To pen a heartfelt line But what becomes the limit Is what becomes of time. Overcome with activity, Dreary task lists full, Soon becomes proclivity Towards immediate pull Of urgent demands That consume the sands Of time. Prophesy often becomes A self-fulfilling bit, That what is overcome Is not what plans had knit. Ah yes, those best-laid plans Are lost in workaday, To be forgotten what only can Make boldened efforts pay. Just spend a moment to capture Some thankful words complete In card that might bring rapture For those who are so sweet. Remember simply the time they take To offer what warm feelings make.

I just got back in the office from a quick trip to my company's headquarters, and the voicemail messages were already piling up. Not to mention the action items in my notebook, the task list on my computer, which is only halfway processed from the even fuller email inbox. It seems that as much as one day gets me up to speed, the next day knocks me back down to size. And that size is very, very small. Such is life, I suppose. I am trying to do a better job of handling all this activity, so I am midstream in hoisting up a process to funnel this work activity through my calendar. I have to do that, lest my family and friends think I would have disappeared from the planet (and some already do - I'm still here folks!) - not to mention my smallish backyard with vacant pond (koi missing, taking new applicants) that is overgrowing its boundaries. Good thing I have great family, friends, and neighbors - as well as employers - who are fairly understanding, lest they all evict me from thi...

Wendy and I discovered some features in the newer version of Skype, plug-ins that allow Skype users to play classic games with each other. One of those games is the classic Chinese Checkers, and we have enjoyed a game together from time to time when we needed a quick pause from work. I find these simple events a marvel of the modern age, and it takes such technology to refresh old memories that are recast in a new light. When I was growing up, I spent time at my grandmother's house, brought by my mother in tow. I was a curious dawdler and easily amused. That is where the board games came in, those seemingly simple treasures that could capture a young lad's attention for hours on end. You know these games by heart as well as I do: Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, Sorry, Uno, and Go Fish to name just a few. But of all these games, I remember one most vividly: Chinese Checkers. On a warm, sunny afternoon, I can remember the faint scent of lightly breaded chicken pieces and ...

Yesterday it happened. Sometime after watching "The Queen" (a very good movie which requires some stamina to appreciate late at night), the clock struck twelve. After that point, I was no longer in my 20's. To be clear, I have never been one to get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of certain artificial milestones. One thing that I have learned through the last few years is that one reaches certain internal milestones without rhyme or reason; one person's moment to become an adult is another person's moment to grab strongly for long-lost youth. Still, these dates that mark the passage of time are as good as any in a post-modern world to re-assess one's stock and make some sense of the moments. For me, a life worth living has led ultimately to a townhouse life outside of DC with a fiancee'; it all works except for the picket fence and the struggling koi in the small backyard pond. Somehow, I ended up here after stints in Ohio, California, and Switzerla...