Musings at Altitude

Sometimes you just have to smile when you get certain text messages:

Her: “Y cant me and mom get to ur blog?”

Me: “I don’t know”

Her: “And u know u are going to have to start ur articles with life with a 14 year old”

In those two simple text messages, my 13 year old gave me a slew of messages.  First, the fact that she goes to my blog to read these messages about her at least tells me she gets some smiles and some fun from the blog.  I certainly hope so.  And she’s also telling me that my wife is reading my blog which is also pretty cool.  At least I certainly hope so.  And she’s telling me that she’s tracking the blog and not just quickly reviewing it since she’s reading the title and the content, and she’s now guiding me in her own way about what to call the upcoming blogs when she turns 14 on Sunday.  And finally, she’s reminding me that Sunday is her birthday, which she knows she needs to do because for some strange reason I always believe her birthday is May 12th instead of May 11th which it is.

As you might imagine or just expect, I’m on the road right now and because of great challenge on our job site, I may not make it home for this Sunday’s birthday of my 13 year old or Mother’s Day which is that very same day.  As I think back on the life of all of my kids, I have a hard time counting all the birthdays and special events I’ve missed.  My life has been filled with “mission critical” activities (or so I always think) that have taken so many precious moments away and etched them in the mind of my wife while leaving me to listen to the stories as a disconnected participant.  The older I get, the more the missing key events hurts, even with the incredible support and understanding of my wife and kids…they’ve always been that way, or at least they always expect it to be so. 

I talk about balance in my life every now and then (I don’t want to dwell on it though because I know that I don’t have the will just yet to bring complete balance to my life), but I’ve never really taken any steps to come close to balance.  I think though that I’m at a time and place in my life where balance is important enough that it’s time to seriously look at who I am and where I’m at.  I’ll be a grandfather shortly; my youngest child will be 14 on Sunday; I’ve been married 25 years now of which I’ve been home maybe half of those 25 years; my oldest daughter is graduating from college in a couple of weeks (my wife asked me to make sure I didn’t miss that special event – that one I wouldn’t blame her for drawing the line on); my son will soon be starting his second year in college; and my wife had her dream home built in 2001 and we just now have lived in it more than others have due to job location requirements. 

I’m thankful that I still have the love of my family even though I’ve missed so many of those special events.  I’m so thankful that I get understanding when I probably deserve a bit of anger for the constant change in plans and the constant separation.  I’m ever so grateful to friends who let me vent about my frustrations but keep that venting in confidence and then help me view life from a perspective that may be very different than mine.  When you boil this down, I’m blessed beyond belief – in fact, I’m incredibly blessed with a million smiles a day because I believe the goodness far outweighs the badness, the number of optimists far exceed the number of pessimists, and the applauders are a much larger group than the critics.

As I sit here tonight just thinking, I’m like most people who are so incredibly blessed yet so frequently separated.  We think about all that we miss during any multi-day separation, and then we get sucked right back into the mission to respond to the operational needs of the day.  Our minds for an oh so brief moment get relief from the longings caused by separations…and then during any moment of respite from the pressures of that mission, the thoughts of home invade our minds, bringing us right back to the point of “just thinking”.

It looks like I’ll be “just thinking” for awhile.  For all of you who I’m thinking about and yearning for, I love you.

Comments Off on Just Thinking

I’ve been pondering lately the affects of “reaction” in business, and I’ve been watching how very smart business people react to varying challenges to business direction.  In that watching, I’ve come to several conclusions:

(1) You can never really under-react; under-reaction is in itself a reaction, just a reaction of no or improperly inappropiate action; under-reaction in a sense is the worst possible scenario, because it means that something of some level could have been, should have been and probably would have been done in reaction to whatever the stimulus was, but instead, no meaningful action was taken; it becomes very obvious very fast when under-reaction occurs, and when I under-react, the pain of knowing I could have done more and didn’t is overwhelming

(2) Most all of us react at what we think is an appropriate level of response, and then later we find out we may have under-reacted…every now and then we’ll figure out we over-reacted; but I’ve found that rarely if ever do I ever feel like I reacted appropriately; it seems like the scale tips one way or the other in every situation that warrants an action; I’ve read some interesting business reviews of those that took “appropriate action” during some specific crisis, but in almost every case, there was an under-reaction first, an assessment of the issue being faced, and then new actions that were then deemed appropriate later; this leaves me to wonder in business if the result of great planning and strategy is a proper reaction in any crisis?

(3) I’ve jumped on people in the past for over-reacting, but to be honest with you, I appreciate those that over-react; since I’m awkwardly slow at responding to any stimulus, having others around me that will react or over-react quickly is critical to success of any mission that I would be involved in; there is a point of insanity though where the over-reaction could be so extreme that unneeded resources are tied up in highly unnecessary responses…in those cases, we all have an obligation to shut things down; but if the over-reaction makes us sharper, or makes us more responsive, or makes us more credible in the eyes of those watching closely our reaction to any issue, then it’s hard to fault anyone whose standard response is an over-reaction

I’ve come to the conclusion that if you under-react, you always seem to fail at some point in some way.  If you over-react, you tend to consume resources that may or may not be available for consumption, but the mission will succeed and the problem or issue will be resolved.  If you react properly, you probably over-reacted at some point but no one really cares about the consumption of additional resources because it was budgeted in a slush fund environment and did not cause any significantly noticeable overrun, or, you under-reacted at some point and then over-reacted to correct and thus stayed on budget and potentially on schedule.

Assuming I react thousands of times a day to any stimulus received (maybe millions if we look at all senses), I bet I personally under-react much more than over-react.  If you buy into the facts that we don’t lead alone and we should judge a leadership team rather than individual leaders, I should always be partnered with an over-reactor.  Two under-reactors partnered together are a catastrophe waiting to happen!

1 Comment »

Today is a day of mourning…deep, emotional mourning…that gut wrenching, mood swinging mourning that can only come when your favorite sports team loses in the playoffs…not a game, but a series, ending the year and starting that exhaustingly long break between last game of one season and first game of the next season.

My 13 year old was at the game last night, hoping beyond all hope that her team could dig out of the huge hole they dug into by losing the first 3 games of this playoff round.  Games 1 and 2 were semi-blowouts.  Game 3 was very competitive, but her team eventually lost.  And she entered game 4 with the type of high expectations that only the most loyal of fans can have – honestly believing that her team had a chance to win 4 in a row and move on to the next round.  My daughter didn’t care that her team was playing the highest point standing team in the league, with the most wins in the league, with  arguably the best well rounded team in the league.  None of that mattered.  What mattered was that her team (in her eyes) was capable of kicking the living daylights out of that other team and sending them off to the season ending hell of a break that she fully believed they desevered.

When the game started, I waited for that first text, hoping right along with her that a miracle would occur and her team would finally show up and play.  The first one came – “1-0 them”, and a sinking feeling hit my gut.  The second one came just a few minutes later – “1-1 Arnason scored”.  My heart leaped, and I sent her a text back “Sweet!”.  She responded, “Ya we rock”.  The euphoria of thinking they may have a chance was short lived though, when the following string of text messages were exchanged starting just 20 minutes later:

Her: “Two to one them”

Me: “Darn it”

Her: “3 to one”

Me: “Double darn it”

Her: “Budaj is in goal now” [Editor’s note – for the 3rd time in 4 games they pulled their starting goalie]

Me: “Still 3-1?”

Her: “Ya start of 2nd”

Me: “Go Budaj” [Editor’s note – he really was our last hope]

Her: “Ya he rocks”

Her: “4 to one”

Me: “Good grief”

Her: “I know”

Her: “5 to one”

Me: “Did they quit?”

Her: “Idk we arent doing good right now”

Her: “6 to one”

Me: “It’s over!”

Her: “Ya”

Her: “This is just sad”  [Editor’s Note – it’s hard to watch a young fan sink lower, and lower, and lower as the team she’s fanatically supported all year gets destroyed.]

Me: “Yeah – y’all should go home early” [Editor’s Note – it was closing in on 10 pm where she was, she had school the next morning, they had an hour drive to get home, and there was still another full period of hockey to go!]

Her: “NO!!!  A true fan never leaves early”

Her: “7 to one” [Editor’s Note – by this time I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry for my 13 year old.]

Me: “Oh good grief”

Him [my son]: “She won’t let us leave early” [Editor’s Note – my son hates going to the games anyway and really surprised me by wanting to take her.  I was stunned he lasted this long before suggesting they go home early!]

Me: “I think this one you should go home on -school tomorrow”

Her: “No!!!!!!”

Me: “Call me” [Editor’s Note – I don’t know how else to talk to her when she screams at me in a text message!]

She called; we talked; she walked me through her reasoning that a true fan doesn’t leave early and that she wanted to see them all shake hands at the end of the game since that was the end of the series.  I must admit, for such a brutal sport, hockey is very civil when the playoff series actually ends and both teams line up and skate by each other shaking hands.  I’m sure the winning team only says “good game” to the losers and the losers only say “good luck” to the winners, but there truly is something special about two teams who have battered each other so brutally then shaking hands once a victor has been determined.

The scored ended 8-2, and my 13 year old did stay all the way till all the hands were shaked.  I have to admire her for her commitment to follow it through all the way to that bitter end.  She’ll mourn today…that’s for sure…but by tomorrow she’ll be talking about how good they’ll be next year and she’ll be off to plan her next championship run with this team!

1 Comment »

As we pulled away from the gate today, I faded off to sleep like I always seem to do at the beginning of any of my travels.  It doesn’t matter what time, what time zone, or what my state of sleeplessness  – I just always seem to be lulled into sleep as the plane pulls back from the gate.

At some undetermined point during our ascent, I woke up to my neighbor aggressively agitated and digging for her headset.  I found out later she was desperate to tune to channel 9 and listen to the pilot communications which is typically provided on United Airlines – but it was eerily silent today.  At the same time, I recognized the wrongly timed sound of rapidly flowing air coming from the under-carriage of the aircraft.  I quickly looked out the window and noticed we were incredibly high for such a sound.  I was starting to shake off the sleep, and I felt the weightlessness that comes when the plane quickly transitions from rising to falling in a split second of time.  I looked right in my somewhat sensory blur and I saw a lady on the opposite window still sound asleep – that seemed really strange with the noise.  The two guys behind me to my right kept chatting away seemingly unaware or unconcerned by the incredibly loud noise that shouldn’t have been – that seemed incredibly strange too. 

I could sense the aircraft struggling to climb, and I also could sense the disruption in airflow caused by something obviously not being perfectly sleek on the air frame.  The disturbingly loud noise and the abnormal turbulence lasted for no more than a couple minutes, but those couple of minutes seemed like an eternity.  Then, the noise slowly quieted and the turbulence slowly eased.

As I looked around the cabin and watched the tension noticeably ease, I heard the dual tones of the flight attendant phone and watched the purser talking to the pilot.  As she listened on the phone, I kept glancing around the cabin and saw that all of the passengers were now alert and anxiously waiting for any news of what had happened.  After she hung up, she seemed to be collecting her thoughts, and then she picked up the intercom to finally make an announcement to the passengers:

“I know you were worried.  I was too.  The pilot just called me to let me know that the sound you heard was just him trying to cool off our brakes which got too hot during the take off roll.”

What a bizarre explanation!  In fact, I’m still pondering what she said.  I’ve flown over 1.5 million miles in my now anxiety shortened life time, and I can honestly say I’ve never had the experience of cooling off the brakes well into an ascent.  I’ve heard similar sounds when a pilot kept raising and lowering the landing gear because the gear wouldn’t stow right.  And I’ve evacuated an aircraft very rapidly when we landed and the brakes caught fire.  But I must admit, this is a first and I’m just a wee bit mystified at why the brakes would need to be cooled off that far into a climb after takeoff.

Unfortunately, from that point forward through the rest of the flight the senses were finely tuned as I listened, felt and watched for anything out of the ordinary – it was really hard to relax.  One of the first questions that popped into my mind was what was going to happen when we landed on a fairly short runway when we reached our destination if indeed the brakes got hot during take off.  It sure seemed likely that we’d need lots of brake at our destination. 

Over time, several passengers made some light jokes about their anxiety, but you could tell that the mood of the plane was quite a bit different now.  Even the flight attendants realized that for those brief couple of minutes, anxiety was high and fear filled the plane.  In response to that anxiety, they made the drinks on the house and they quickly ran out of beer because of it.

I’m very glad to say that the rest of the flight went flawlessly and the landing even with intense braking went beautifully.  But I’m still left wondering what the real story may be…there must be some other explanation for this.

Comments Off on Anxiety

I think my anxiety is just now starting to ease – but for just a few minutes now, life was really, really tense.  Those of you that are parents will soon know exactly what I’m talking about. 

With my wife out of town, I picked up my 13 year old daughter at the bus stop at her normal time and we proceeded with the normal mostly meaningless banter from the bus stop to the house.  I guess I should be honest that it was probably meaningless to me but very meaningful to her because she was complaining about the goalie selection for the hockey playoff game tonight, how all her friends agreed with her, and how it was absolutely wrong that she wasn’t going to the game tonight since she’s the biggest fan (her big sister and her brother-in-law are going with me this evening, thus leaving the 13 year old at home – OMG – a truly criminal offense I guess).  Fortunately, the drive was only about 2 minutes, so she packed those two minutes full of hockey related discussions.

But when we got home, the anxiety increased tremendously.  When we got out of the car, the conversation went something like this:

Her: “Dad, you have to help me with my homework tonight.”

Me: “What homework?”

Her: “Dad, I have sex ed homework tonight.”

Me: “Call Mom.  She’ll help you with it.”

Her: “Dad, Mom said you’d be able to help me with it.”

Me: “You’re kidding me.”

Her: “Dad, it’s about dating, not about sex.”

Me:  “OK then.”

You wouldn’t believe how many excuses I was thinking of in advance just in case it really was a sex education questionaire.  I was just about to call her Mom and scream into the phone when the “it’s about dating” came out, so a bit of calmness arrived although skepticism abounded.

When we got inside, my 13 year old sat down in my office chair with her 4 pages she needed to cover with me and sure enough it was about dating…at least to start…and then it covered communications, and the need for openness and honesty between the child and the parent, and the need to overcome the awkwardness of talking about sex to ensure that honesty.  How ridiculous is that!  We parents don’t get embarassed or feel awkward when asked about sex.  Come on.  It doesn’t create any anxiety at all!  Or at least I’d never admit it.  Not to my 13 year old anyway.  And I know she couldn’t have possibly figured it out when I immediately tried to get out of it and divert her attention to something else or calling her mother.  Yep, no awkwardness or anxiety at all on my part.  Nope, none at all.  PS. Thank goodness it was about dating.

 

Comments Off on Life with a 13 Year Old (3)

I’m heading home from Alaska now, landing in Denver just in time to spend a couple hours with my wife in the United Red Carpet Club before she heads down to Biloxi to visit with her father and I go home to spend 24 hours with the kids (when they’re not in school), take in a hockey playoff game, and then head down to Baton Rouge to meet up with some of my business team members.  As I think forward to those couple hours in the airport, I can’t help but think about how this reminds me of Barry’s song that goes, “we’re two ships that pass in the night”.  The lyrics for the song are so typical of our life right now – “we both smile and we say it’s all right” and “we’re still here it’s just that we’re out of sight”.  Yep, that’s us.  Because of my schedule and her much more mobile life, we do too often just “pass in the night”.

The good thing about Barry Manilow is that his songs reflect our life so beautifully – the good times, the bad times, the love that we share and the frustrations that we sometimes feel.  For example, Somewhere in the Night is such a vivid description of the love I feel for my wife – “Time, you found time enough for love, and I found love enough to hold you”.  Or Weekend in New England defines the all too busy schedule that we have with, “and tell me when will our eyes meet, when can I touch you, when will this strong yearning end, and when will I hold you again?”

When I was at the Academy, Barry Manilow was at the top of the charts with one sad song after another.  I remember listening to his songs over and over and over again during some tumultuous times in my relationship with my wife back then.  We started dating when we were both teenagers, and knew each other long before I went to the Academy.  Barry sang of separation, and we were separated for 4 long years.  Barry sang of anticipation and expectation, and that was so beautifully indicative of our relationship.  Barry sang of the pain of loss and the sadness of break ups, and we had our share of those before we got married.  And Barry sang of the magic of love and the beauty of songs and the excitement of words and locations, and I smiled and often times cried through every one of them.

We spend our lives trying to be tough and hide our emotions.  I’ve had lots of people comment to me in my life time about how I never cry.  But those people don’t know me very well…they don’t see the tears…they don’t see the pain…they don’t see the sorrow…but I bet they see the love…I bet they see the compassion…I bet they see me pause when Barry Manilow or Jimmy Buffet (I love the song “Survive”) or Chicago (our song is “Hard to Say I’m Sorry”) comes on the radio.  I find my feelings so beautifully described in these songs, and during those long separations, those songs in so many ways kept me going – in fact, they still do.

It’s amazing how it’s really no different today.  As Barry says, “and maybe the old songs will bring back the old times, maybe the old lines will sound new” or “I almost forgot what it’s like, holding you near me at night, but now that I’m home again you’ll know that I’m home to stay, because it’s a miracle, a true blue spectacle, a miracle come true.”

Comments Off on Barry Manilow

I just spent 2 days north of the Arctic Circle in a 450 person village in Alaska, where the beauty of God’s creation is all around, where the pace of life is based on the basics of living rather than the expectations of others, and where the typical insanity of business life in the “lower 48” is replaced with companioned walks, long talks, and deep thoughts.  I always come home from these villages with a renewed spirit and a commitment to change my own life, but without exception, after about 24 hours of being back in the business chaos, the lessons I learn in these way-to-few days of peace are lost once again in the frenetic pace of the corporate life I lead.

In many ways these visits remind me of the revivals of my youth, where for a few days straight we focused on our Creator and His Son, and during that week you really felt in harmony with His Word and with His teachings.  But within a couple days of that revival, we (meaning I) returned to my other-focused world and my typically sinful self. 

These trips north are truly a revival for me, reminding me of the importance of the work I do and the wonder of the people I do it for.  The places we go typically don’t have readily available internet connections and the blackberry doesn’t work.  The interruptions are verbal communications with face to face interactions, allowing for an incredible level of understanding and a common commitment to bring resolution to any issue being discussed.  The voices are typically low in volume and measured in pace, and all communications seem to be delivered with love and respect for each other that often times does not exist elsewhere in this country.  The young people in the villages live in a seasonally specific wonderland, and as the days lengthen with the ever approaching midnight sun, the sounds of their activities fill the night with the wonder that this land truly is. 

I stand in awe of those that live in these remote areas because they reflect all that faith and family and culture really mean, and I’m always so grateful of the reminders of what life should be for the rest of us.

I’m once again at peace – at least for this evening.

 

Comments Off on Peace

I had a crisis yesterday – my track ball on my blackberry decided not to actually track down the screen.  It would go up.  It would go right and left.  But it wouldn’t lead the cursor down the screen.  For those of you as dependent on technology as I am, you understand the incredible crisis I went through.

The first thing I thought was to pull the battery and reboot the blackberry just in case it was a flaky software issue rather than mechanical failure.  My wife was telling me “just shut it off”, but I immediately went to the battery pull technique which required me to disassemble my blackberry in the middle of PF Chang’s.  There’s nothing like proving you’re a geek in the middle of a big restaurant like PF Chang’s during the high traffic lunch crowd.  With my wife shaking her head, I pulled the battery, put it back in, and waited anxiously as the hour glass kept flipping before the menu came back up.  It finally did after what seemed like an eternity, and lo and behold it didn’t change a thing…the track ball still didn’t track down.   Since my first choice of crisis response options didn’t work, I immediately went to option 2 – banging the blackberry on the table to see if I could somehow dislodge whatever was preventing the track ball from tracking down.  After a couple of bangs and further track ball rolling, that too did nothing to change the downward tracking deficiency in the track ball.  With option 1 and option 2 now tried with no success, we started talking about finishing lunch quickly and running to the AT&T store to see if they could do emergency surgery on the track ball.  Before we committed to such a dramatic deviation from plan (I couldn’t go to the airport without a working blackberry), I decided to take a physically ruthless approach to the track ball and to the blackberry overall, forcing the track ball into the blackberry and aggressively tracking back and forth and up and down to try and break loose any physical particle that may have been preventing the track ball from tracking properly.  Since lunch was so slow to arrive, I had plenty of time to attack the blackberry.  Though some may be appalled at such an approach, I learned very early in my military career that if a piece of technology I was expecting to work was for any reason not working, often times beating on it for any lengthy period of time for some reason encouraged it to work!  Lo and behold, that same approach got it to work this time too!

Now before I get turned over to the “don’t beat on technology” police, I must admit that if pulling the battery or a couple of quick bangs on the table don’t work, I’m at a loss as to what else to do to fix broken technology.  Unfortunately for the lonely repair folks sitting at the cell phone store desperately waiting for folks like me to tear things apart, beating on the technology works probably 80-90% of the time…that’s a fact!  It works so much, I ought to bang first and pull the battery second.  I honestly don’t understand why I pull the battery first…it never seems to work…but brutalizing it almost always seems to work.  I fully realize that I’m probably in some way greatly decreasing the possible lifespan of my blackberry, but I’m having a hard time caring about that right now because it works again…because of the aggressive troubleshooting…and without me having to go back into the AT&T store and talk them through what doesn’t work and wait for them to try a couple of things and then replace the device because they too couldn’t get it to work by pulling the battery or scrolling the track ball. 

Yep…I’m a happy man today since my blackberry still works.

1 Comment »

               Altitude

High clouds, rough winds, thin air,

     Altitude is what we seek;

Minds freed, thoughts soar, smiles soft,

     Solitude is finally reached.

Miles pass, bright sun, blue sky,

     Optimism seems everywhere;

Sweet dreams, high hopes, plans made,

     Altitude has got us there.

Books closed, bags stored, ground soon,

     Preparation all around;

Eyes locked, talks cease, wheels touch,

     Rejuvenation has been found.

 

 

Comments Off on Altitude

Before I headed off to the airport today, my wife, my oldest daughter, and I stopped by PF Chang’s for lunch before we took the 70 mile drive to drop me off for my next trip.  Sticking to form, we all ordered what we typically order – lettuce wraps for the daughter, crispy honey shrimp for the wife (wasn’t crispy at all), and the humongous bowl of wonton soup for me.  We waited patiently for what seemed like an eternity to get our food, and the waiter even stopped by at one point and said, “I’m sorry about the wait but our kitchen got annihilated!”  Not a one of us wanted to ask any further questions preferring to think they were just busy.

When the food arrived, we enjoyed the lunch and then anxiously awaited the fortune cookies.  OK – we didn’t really anxiously wait, but don’t you get that twinge of anxiety when you see the server approaching with the bill and those plastic wrapped fortune cookies as well?  I sure do.  I’m very interested in knowing what lies ahead for me, and I can’t think of anything more accurate than that fortune cookie.

So, we each grabbed for one, and here’s what the fortunes entailed:

Daughter – “You are going to be a winner.”

Wife – “You will have a highly profitable financial transaction soon.”

Me – “You will be called to fill a position of high honor and responsibility.”

My daughter thought hers was pretty lame – not enough specificity I guess.  When my wife read hers, my daughter popped off with, “what are you a prostitute?”  I got a chuckle out of that, but I was more worried that her fortune might have to do with my life insurance policy and that didn’t really appeal to me that her financial upswing may indeed come from my personal demise.  For me, I immediately thought about several things that could be a “high calling”, to include the priesthood, government service, politics and even a higher calling in business.  Any or all would be interestingly appealing to me, but each has it’s own unique challenges:

     — Priesthood – as my daughter quickly pointed out I’d have trouble overcoming my 25 years of marriage; can you get an annulment after 25 years of marriage bliss?

     — Government Service – although my heart would bend towards doing my duty in support of our government, I have no patience for bureaucracy and no real desire to sit down in front of Congress and try to explain why the “system” didn’t respond in a way that actually solved a problem

     – Politics – this one is truly enticing and I’ve often thought about running for public office; I get as far as the campaign and I envision the microphone shoved in front of my wife’s face and a reporter asks what she thinks of me, and the answer goes something like this – “It’s pretty fun living with the butthead, but I can’t understand why he wants to be governor.”  I’d also be challenged by my son, who has stated in the past when asked if he’d vote for me, “depends who you’re running against.”  And I’d be challenged (or at least financially exploited) by my oldest daughter who when asked the same question said, “I can be bought.”

     — Higher Calling in Business – this one is the most likely fortune proving path (of these 4) and probably what most of us dream about; with me, it’s not as much a dream as a deep desire to do more in different roles; I’m not sure what the perfect role would be, but it’s almost always not what I’m doing today; that’s a tough challenge that I always face

So I’ll keep thinking about my fortune and waiting anxiously for that higher calling – it has to happen – the fortune cookie is never wrong!

Comments Off on Fortune