My son to Dems: Couldn't we share?

Sean is nearly three, and has started giving me advice. This past Sunday, I spilled a glass of wine at dinner and he said, “It’s OK, everyone makes mistakes sometimes.”

Another thing he says from time to time, “It’s good to take turns, Daddy. I am a good sharer.”

As I sit exasperated by this prolonged, dirge-like slog we call the Democratic primary, I wonder if we could ever apply that advice to this election.

If you really wanted a message for change, imagine this: Hillary and Barack said something like:

“We are going to share. We are going to flip for it and whoever wins this year will run top of the ticket, and then we are going to switch in the next election. Yes, we know this is not normal, but we feel we can rise above this because it is in the best interest of our country and party. We are going to change the idea of ‘I win, you lose.’ That’s just not how we are going to roll in 2008. We believe we can share nicely and hope you all support us in that.” (big group hug follows)

I am not naïve enough to believe that this would ever happen in a million years, but I am so sick of this election that I can’t even stomach Meet the Press anymore. Forgive me, I am delirious.

If they wanted my son’s theoretical vote, both candidates would have to up their game. This fact makes me happy and sad at the same time.

Practice begins ...

"Practice begins the first time that your guest gets it right."

This was a tip I got from my examiner, when I got my American Association of Snowboard Instructors Level I certification a couple weeks ago.

This little tip has permeated a lot in my life. Be it with my co-workers, my clients (both the ones with the snowboards, and the other ones with the powerpoints), and even my family.

We are so quick and eager to "progress" sometime, we forget how much practice true mastery requires. If it is 10,000 hours, as Maclom Gladwell suggests, what role do we have as teachers in getting our students there? Is it peppering them with 10,000 new concepts at 1 an hour or is it giving them enough for them to begin to play with concepts themselves?

Probably the latter, which is why practice begins the first time you/your student/peer/managee gets it right.

Think about it.

The Apple Experience: "Meh"

I finally got on the Apple bandwagon. Especially after my good friend Jake gave it such a big rating. I was given an old school flat panel iMac from back in the diz-ay. I forced myself for two weeks to use it exclusively while working on it from home.

It wasn't that great. I mean, it's OK, but I wasn't doing cartwheels or anything. I couldn't install the Leopard DVD (why make the DVD dual-layer?), it isn't compatible with our VPN, and the Office integration left much to be desired (can't see comments in ppt). It also still crashed more than a couple times, despite what Applemaniacs attest and there have been 2 "security patches" to my version of OS X. So, it can't be supremely safe, can it? I mean, someone is out there hacking it.

I thought Molly Wood at CNET's Buzz Report summed it up best with this most recent report ... go to 2:10 for the bit about "Apple Is Like My Bad Boyfriend"



Unlike Molly, the I have no love for dorky guy either either. Been using a floater laptop with Vista on it. It still sucks, even with SP1. I now realize why there are so many linux heads out there ... I think I am going install Ubuntu or gOS on my next machine.