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No whiskey in the house tonight…sadly. I took some time to make love to my guitar tonight…I’ve been away from it too long. Much too long. I was missing Sarah so I went out to YouTube and viewed Keeping the Fire Warm.  That was enough to inspire me to play it.  Sarah (playing banjo in that video) started singing almost as soon as she started talking.  I miss having her music in the house (except for those bagpipes...no regrets when those were abandoned).  Emily and Erin play music too. I am blessed with creative and talented children.


This little guy visited our yard the other day.  He might have been hibernating in our ivy for the winter.

Tomorrow, my goals are to complete my team assignment - first draft and submit, and write two posts.  The team assignment is not bad - my part is to write 3-5 annotated bibliographies and do a detailed outline on WebERP, and ERP emplementation, customization, and complexities.  Not bad IF everyone does their part of the whole assignment.  There are only 3 people on my team, the other teams have 4.  Still, I think we have a very capable team.

Two response posts tomorrow and two Sunday on:  unrealistic client expectations, what top management commitment really means, evaluation of intangible benefits, and lack of client preparation.  If I blink, it will be Monday morning.

Dicentra spectabilis

A “higher up” forwarded an email with a link to an article about employees’ ever-increasing requests and demands to access the corporate network from personal mobile devices. Some corporations are experimenting with strategies to make mobile device communication work securely – arguably a long-term challenge. The “higher” made a sarcastic comment, insinuating the masses would prefer to never be obligated to work from personal mobile devices. That is SUCH an arrogant attitude, but no matter. I predict that before Generation Y is able to retire, the model for corporate organization structure is going to be much flatter and more networked.


The younger generations have information at their fingertips from the time they are born, potentially even before they are born considering the miracles of modern medical science. Look at the baby toys these days – electronic rattles that light up when moved, movies designed for ages 3-months old and up, toddler education software, public preschool kids begin computer literacy training. Think about how much we middle-agers depend on our Internet, wireless, mobile phones, wi-fi, blue-tooth, etc. The younger folks miss it more than we do when it’s unavailable. At least we old folks can force ourselves to revert back, do things the hard way, or make do until services are restored. It’s very inconvenient, but survivable. The younger generations are lost and in virtual panic-mode when they want it and can’t have it (technology).

The real solution here is to somehow implant communication-enabling electronics directly into a person’s body somehow unobtrusively and hopefully painlessly. That would be pretty dang creepy! Might make a good movie.

Look at this – a neglected bleeding heart.

Old-Fashioned Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis)

I'm not sure why I like bleeding hearts so much.  They are dainty and look like pink hearts, sort of.  Their leaves remind me of hands.  They have no noticeable scent, but I like them.  When my dissertation is done, rebuilding my gardens is going to be FUN!!       

Tied down

I'm dragging a heavy weight around.  Erin drew this picture of me.  What can I say?  RRRRRR.  You can click on it to make it bigger. 

F'ing

What is the big F’ing deal with me? I took the whole F’ing day off work to write and I have not written a single word! Jerry came home early today and cut the grass. I used that for an excuse to take a break, went outside and layed on the driveway in the sun like I was nailed to a cross, actually had fantasies that maybe he might just jump in the car and back right over me…put me out of my misery. I deserve to die today. I only HAVE to write 22 more pages to meet the minimum requirement. Maybe a really good killer hangover would get me in the mood to finish this F’ing thing.


Maybe I’m just lazy. Maybe it’s burnout. Definitely burnout is a component. Maybe it’s spring fever. It’s a perfect day today – clear, sunny, 70’s, everything in bloom – and here I am back in front of my laptop wishing this damn thing would write itself.

All right, I have two more hours to get something done on this before I switch to writing shit for my class. I have to write a response and two posts tonight…and then I’m cracking open the whisky bottle…well…maybe. Maybe that will be my motivation to finish chapter 2 – THEN crack open the whisky bottle.

Lilac - smells like heaven

Faithful Pest

Molly - faithful mousespace hog

I love having two monitors but it takes up Molly's space.  Now I have to deal with that tail and her habit of knocking my mouse and ink pen off the table.  Not to mention how inconvenient to have her on my notes all the time. 

Selective abortion

So tonight – I broadened my horizons. A brand new HP monitor – MY new assistant – extended display!!! The gift of space... I like space. It’s serious business come Monday morning. This new monitor is a technology investment to get me where I need to be by Friday, 6:00 PM. My most serious goal is the complete draft of Chapter 2 by then. 

Today, I read some interesting stuff about rich media communication, the premises of transaction cost theory, open source ERP advantages (nobody mentions any disadvantages), and collaboration pros and cons regarding multinational alliances. Oh yes, and onshoring/offshoring/nearshoring decision factors. I noticed our big paper prompts are less-defined and the required word count is longer.

Hmmmmm….that can only mean we have more rope to hang ourselves.

I stepped out back to check on my lettuce and feel all so neglectful. It has grown and must be thinned immediately. I stood and plucked lettuce seedlings for 20 minutes. I still have WAY too many – look at these poor things.  It makes me think of selective abortion.  I indiscriminately rip them out by the roots and throw them into the yard below.  Think of Dr. Mengele, deciding who will die now and who will die later.  Man\Woman has domination over the plants and animals...mostly.   

 

So, Friday, I lost my patience in the afternoon and went for a quick walk around the lake behind our building.  I snapped some photos of dogwoods.  They are all in bloom now, with the lilacs and redbuds.  The hills are alive again.  I love spring time in Kentucky.

 



spontaneous combustion

Fridays are the worst day of the week for me, even more so than Mondays most of the time. It makes no sense whatsoever. I should be working now and I haven’t been able to get started yet. By the time Friday rolls around, I’m ready to blow a gasket. Maybe I have a mechanical integrity issue in my brain. They remodeled our offices, took away our walls and doors and gave us cubes with 5 foot sides and no doors. Now we hear everything each other says and does. By Friday, every last cough, sneeze, paper shuffle, phone ring, apple crunch, and drawer rummage noise sets me off. By noon, I’m wild enough to shoot, and by 2:00 I find myself pacing…as much as one can pace in a 6X6 square box. Fridays should give me all the motivation I need to finish my dissertation and graduate. I gotta get out of this place before I kill somebody (me?). Right now, I want to be Chief Broom in One Flew Over the Cuckcoo’s Nest – at the end of the movie he throws a desk (or something big like that) through a window and escapes. That should be me. Sometimes I think about crashing through my window and running off into the woods, disappearing forever…of course, there’s no need to break the window…I can just use the doors and windows like a normal person.

When Sarah was little, I used to tell her that if she left too many toys on the floor, it could cause spontaneous combustion and not only would all her toys be incinerated, but our whole house might burn to the ground. That motivated her to pick her toys up and put them back on the shelf. The truth is, maybe all those toys in my way were going to cause me to combust spontaneously…kind of like Fridays in my 6X6 cube/prison cell at work.



lettuce babies

I knocked off work a bit ago. The stuff I read today – ugh. The Galliers text sucked every last ounce of enthusiasm right out of me. At least that concluded the biggest chunk of text material – 19 chapters from four text books. Now I do a bunch of journal articles. So far, everything is about strategic alliances, mergers, partnerships, and acquisitions. More man-made crap.


Anyway, today felt like summer here. Mostly sunny and mid-80s. Whoa!! I had to get out and get some of it. Jerry and I went to the driving range. This time, I left my old woods in the garage. I’m moving on to the new clubs. I’m still uncertain about that 3-wood after hitting it more today. I don’t like how it flexes – the shaft flexes differently than the old club. I will have to change my swing to suit that new club. Is that a good thing to do?? Undecided.

The lettuce I planted on the back porch is growing. Yes, I over-planted it. The seeds were fine and I couldn’t really tell where they were going. I think they’re supposed to be 1-2 inches apart…been thinning them. I hope snails don’t find them…or those damn Japanese beetles that eat everything up. How come birds won’t eat those bugs? Maybe it’s God’s way of saying obese birds are not a good idea.

Demystifying the Holy Grail

I recently read about procrastination – I am procrastination personified and unparalleled, unfortunately for me.  So, now I have a much better understanding about what and why.  The probem is I still have no clear idea about how to stop. 

I finished off a text tonight and started the next, authored by Katz. The intro was easy reading, but the first section title caused me to freeze: “Demystifying high productivity.” High productivity is the secret to success in this world, and I stopped reading! Is that like Jesus himself handing me the Holy Grail and me saying, “Oh, no thank you, I’m not thirsty.”

Anyway, today was a low productivity day for me. I resolved a few minor cases, stirred up a few things, and wrote documentation the rest of the day. Tomorrow I gotta kick it in gear, get stuff closed out and accounted for.

The morning was clear and sunny. My corn plant that bloomed a while back still has a green stalk. It drips sap all the time. I have a shedding poinsettia underneath and my poor African violet catches the drips. If you look close at the photos, you can see – it looks like water. My violet is awesome!



So well, I've been making a plan to create time to work on my dissertation stuff.  Instead of a couple of whole days, I'm going to take 4 mornings off work.  Morning is my most productive time.  That'll be 5 hours of dissertation work, 4 hours of career, then course work until I collapse for the night.  That's for 4 days, then the fifth day is a holiday for me - Good Friday.  I can do dissertation-work all day...but I am going to do something fun that day I hope.  At least go to the driving range for an hour. Weekends all go for coursework.     
 
Well, speaking of work reminds me I better get back to it.

spring in KY

IST721 started Tuesday. So far, I’ve “read” six chapters of one text. This book is all about ERP systems and business processes. It’s good stuff to know.


Work was a bit less hectic than usual today. Too many sit-in-passively meetings for me today – we do too much of that in my company. My projects are falling behind schedule because all discretionary time is getting sucked back into the Minnesota assets separation deal. It feels like beating a dead horse. There’s far too much of that in my company as well. I am more than ready to hand off but they want more handholding.

On a happier note, it was a lovely spring day here today. Violets are blooming and the maple trees have fringes of green. Springtime in Kentucky is heaven. We will have redbuds in bloom soon *slobber…love ‘em*

I knocked off work on-time today so Jerry and I could play tennis for an hour. We have fun volleying the ball. Sometimes we play games, but Jerry usually wins – what’s the point? He’s played on a league for years whereas I don’t play through the winter months (we rarely rent an indoor court) and don't play on a regular schedule. Warm weather makes me think of golf and tennis, and springtime here in heaven.

Our Chewy, sadly missed. 

blowing it off

Well now.


It’s a turkey night, springtime in Kentucky. It’s self-reported heaven here. Today was sunny, breezy, about 65F-70F. I tried to work and failed.

Jerry and I went to the driving range. He gifted me with 3 new woods this past Christmas. The driver has a head on it the size of Canada! The sweet spot is as big as Ohio. I can hit some amazing drives with it – and that is what makes golf fun. The new 3 has less loft than my old 3-wood. I really like my old 3-wood though; not so sure about the new one’s benefits. The 5-wood is going to be useful. I can’t hit it consistently yet, but I have better distance with it than my 3-iron. Someday I will be playing golf again – the way I want to. I used to be a decent golfer.

I do want to do well in my program. Why didn’t I write today? I blew it off 100 times. Much of the day was spent in more research – trying to see if Frederick Taylor had some impact on occupational safety. Wouldn’t you think his focus on efficient production might have influenced safety systems? I found nothing interesting. Not true. I stumbled across an article about whistleblowing and organizational citizenship behavior. Now that’s an interesting topic! Taylor’s impact on occupational safety?? Apparently, nobody has given that enough thought to publish about it.

 But then I planted some lettuce and a pineapple.

The girls have spring break now for the week. It means I can sleep in and stay up later. Sleep in, means…..I set the clock for 6:30 AM. It means…hmmmmmmmmm.

Road Kill

I’ve been looking at puppies tonight at Petfinder.com


I love animals but whew…the trouble! Being tied down….which makes me laugh! Tied down? If I were a pirate, instead of a wooden peg leg, I would have a giant iron Popeye anchor for a leg.

But not today. I was a nomad today – traveled across the beautiful state of Kentucky to Louisville, then went into Southern Indiana to visit Kiko. She has a sweet little pug. I saw photos of Kiko’s pug when it was very young. It was cute, but I’m not so fond of that smashed-face look. Persian cats have it too. Anyway, I miss Chewy and having a dog around. Chewie was such a good dog. Very gentle with her family but very protective of us too. So much so, that I locked her up when I knew people were coming she didn’t know. She scared people.

Traffic in Louisville is heavy; it’s why I like living in a small town. We spend enough time getting from point A to B; I spend too much time sitting – PERIOD! The road trip going and coming home were uneventful. I saw lots of road kill – coyote, skunk, deer, fox, raccoons, possums, dogs, cats, and something I swear looked like a bobcat (in Greenup County). I also saw a flock of live turkeys off the Industrial Parkway and a small herd of deer (maybe six of them). I very nearly had a hawk hit my windshield – quite scary! I was on the Interstate and he flew across the road from the right side. I was in the left lane with a pickup truck on the right side of me. The hawk flew in front of the truck and then started across in front of me and turned upward just in time. He would have hit fairly squarely in the center of the front windshield. Emily was in the front passenger seat but she was asleep.

So 7 hours in a minivan today with two 15-year-olds girls. My little girls are growing up! 



They love scary stuff - scary movies and anything haunted.  Everytime we passed some old house, old school, or old barn, I heard "Oh!  That place is haunted."  We talked about stuff at Akiko's house and Michelle suggested I should take them to the Waverly Hills Sanitorium.  I just might do that!

Spider babies

Sarah created a poem just for me. She knows me better than I thought (which is rather scary).

Mommy, Mommy, works all day,
Babies, college, bills to pay.

Straining just to stay awake,
Working through her bathroom break.

No time for a little snooze,
No Facebook, TV, or booze.

Bloodshot eyes and caffeine pills,
Utilities, tuition bills.

Praying for the end to come,
Marathon and Phoenix done.

Fifty acres, creek and trees,
Apple orchard, honey bees.

Sarah, Erin, Emmy there,
Dogwoods, redbuds everywhere.

Fireflies and nighttime creep,
Play with fire, go to sleep.

Caffeine pills. I hate the taste of coffee so Diet Mountain Dew and caffeine pills keep me going when I have to work through the wee hours of the morning, and some of afternoons at work when I’ve had one of those nearly-all-nighters.

Sarah’s delinquent kitty ate her spider babies. I picked more of those today and put them in water so they can root. It’s spring and time to plant and grow stuff!!

I miss having time to mess around in my flower beds SO MUCH!! My first attempt to grow a pineapple failed miserably. Time to try Plan B. I went to Lowes and bought a pot and will stick the pineapple top directly into dirt as instructed by my pineapple-growing-expert friend, Steve. He has two little pineapples growing right now – one in his office and one at home. While I was in there, I picked up a pot to plant the spider babies in AND!!!! I bought two window boxes and lettuce seeds. Yes folks, I will be attempting to grow lettuce on the back porch, up high away from hungry deer, rabbits, turtles, raccoons, and every other sort of wildlife critter that eats our garden every year. In all my free time, maybe I can produce a few leafs of lettuce and a pineapple.


Another class starts Tuesday. This weekend, I am working on Chapter 2, the literature review. No complaining out of this mouth – at least I’m making progress. Once the class starts, I will likely have no time for dissertation work. Bummer!!!