CurlyShavings

For the record, I have darkened the doors of my local Starbucks a couple of times these past weeks, all with someone else around. Yes, they were social visits, not coffee visits. To some, that may not be much of a distinction. The goal was to sit and talk with someone for a while, not to drink coffee. In fact, I couldn't even tell you what I got. This whole issue remains, not a boycott of anything but rather, a simplification of a lifestyle habit.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal has an article "New Starbucks Brew Attracts Customers, Flak" in which we hear that the new Pike Place Roast coffee "has perked up the company's sales by attracting new business, but has alienated a small yet vocal group of longtime patrons." That's not really why I'm not drinking coffee these days, but I think it helps illustrate one of my points: pursuit of the perfect cup of coffee (or "Coffee!" as I've posted earlier) is a difficult business and one person's perfection is another's filth.

It was the pursuit that was wearing me down, both in my own home, playing with all the variables and in my Starbucks, hoping for the perfect cup each day.

I just finished breakfast and a cup of tea. Simple and sufficient.

The Island Stallion's Fury by Walter Farley

My review

Meanwhile, I continue to slog through The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene

It was a day in mid-June like today, with late-afternoon thunderstorms rolling in after one another, that my oldest son was borne. My mental notes have it after the day's second thunderstorm, just after 6:30 pm. What a day and what all has happened in the intervening twelve years!

Yes, twelve years.

I still carry his baby picture in my wallet. Ask to see it sometime.

[Note: I have a number of unpublished/unfinished blog entries; this was one from January 21^st, 2008. In its unfinished state, it was supposed to celebrate being a coffee snob. Now, maybe not.]

Bumping into Bobby at the BP Tower Starbucks gave me a chance to explore coffee and talk about it. Our personal preferences conflicted dramatically, but it was conversations with Bobby that convinced me that coffee could be enjoyable and not only for the caffeine. Since then, I've discovered that there is "coffee™" and then there is "Coffee!" Very simply, the stuff called "coffee™" I found is usually purchased in stores and cafes, is usually too hot, weak and tastes of stainless steel or burnt beans. "Coffee!" is usually brewed at home.

I suppose there's another category. Our Cub Scout Pack drinks what we call "cowboy coffee": throw the grounds into a blue-enameled coffee pot, boil the water, let the grounds settle down and pour. You have to wait for the coffee to cool enough to strain it through your teeth. It satisfies but is never really enjoyed.

Recently, we've been bringing a collection of four-cup french presses. That gets messy, real quick. And keeping three or four of these things producing is almost a full-time job. You never get to sit down long enough to enjoy a cup. But in a french press, even rusty, hard campground water can make "Coffee!", depending on the beans.

And therein lies part of the problem. There are dozens of variables, some within your control and some not. I found myself constantly chasing the perfect cup of "Coffee!" Would this bag of Sulawesi taste as good as the last one? Should I try a different roaster's product? Why does coffee from this roaster do this in the water but coffee from this other roaster do something different? Early on, there was a bag of New Guinea Peaberry that has taken on mythical proportions. I've never been able to duplicate the flavors of that bag.

Someday, maybe I'll get back into playing this game. I enjoyed being a coffee snob, really. Ultimately, it was the constant chasing after the perfect cup that did me in. There was never a simply "good enough" cup of coffee.

We went as a whole family (there are six of us) to this year's ICCM conference. I didn't get as much time to hang out with the family as I had liked—I never made it to the lake, the woods, fishing or a hike—but one place we were consistent was the table. Taylor University feeds their conference attenders very well.

One of the things we like about having four children is that the oldest (now twelve) is able to assist with one or more of the younger ones on occasion. So it isn't unusual for JR (our son, the oldest) to be helping with KA (our daughter, the youngest at 18 months). What we wished we had the camera for was the looks of adoration that each gave the other as JR was helping KA with something at the table. She just looked up at him with this big smile while he looked down at her with another big smile. Moments like these remind you that not only do they really love each other, but they like each other, too.

My wife caught these smiles, too and I made a comment about how JR, twenty-some years from now, might be standing as a groomsman in KA's wedding, with much the same look now: very proud.

It can be fairly disturbing to think of your children in twenty years; much can happen and has to happen before then. But leave it to my wife to out-do me. She reminded us that in twenty-some years, one or more of JR's children might be flower girls or ring bearers or some-such role in this far-off wedding of our youngest daughter to some (as yet) nameless man.

Now if that doesn't get a Dad's eyes moist, well, you'd better check for a pulse.

Today was my last day to have coffee for a while. No, I'm not dropping caffeine, just coffee. Why? Hmmm....

Well, it's an expensive habit. A teabag is not only much more portable, it's cheap, too. Oh, and how does one throw away a teabag? Squish it out and drop it in the trash. Coffee? Well, I suppose there are single-serve coffee bags, but they never really taste like coffee. French press, now that's the way to go. What a mess.

I suppose one could argue fair trade, shade-grown and environmental impact as reasons for dropping coffee. That's part of it, but not all of it.

It's mostly because I have become the worst coffee snob I know. I can argue the differences between Starbucks and Phoenix, African vs Indonesian and why I can't stand bright coffee from Central America. I travel with a french press and grind my own beans, moments before adding the precisely filtered and boiled water. Yuck, I can't stand myself.

We're almost out of coffee in the house. My wife has a small stash of flavored stuff hidden somewhere. I have nearly a pound of organic Sumatran decaf that needs grinding (keeping it for entertaining). But I'm really done for a while. I'm not sure what would convince me to go back. I've gradually dropped myself to a single cup per day and tomorrow I switch to tea.

I started coffee a few years back when I took over WSO at work. Couldn't keep up, so I started burning the candle at the one end I was best at, the early end. It became a social ritual and then I found that there were differences in blends and regions, the terroir, they say. And then I couldn't drink it without knowing what I was drinking, where it was from and making notes. As I said earlier, yuck, I can't stand myself.

So, in case I'm completely unable to type this next week, you'll know.

Time at ICCM this year feels different than in years past. No doubt having a wife and four children in tow (my first time as a family at ICCM) influences that. No doubt having one child who is actively participating in the conversations this year also influences that. But there's something else, something I can't quite place my finger on.

Perhaps it is that this year is the first of four years I haven't been looking for a job while at ICCM. The prior three times were all during periods of transition: once I was underemployed and twice I was in-between phases of my career at my current employer. This year is different since I have just started a new assignment at that employer (less than two weeks ago), so I'm definitely committed elsewhere for a while.

Perhaps it is that this year is the first year that I'm giving back. These people don't want to hear about the huge datacenters my teams manage or the problems we face implementing the millions of dollars in server hardware each year. And you'd think that since this was my fourth time attending I'd be more in tune with what they need and what they want. My arrogant gaff the first night during the introductions painfully reminded me of all this.

The ten or fifteen folks who attended my Managing in the Whitespace of your Organization session yesterday seemed somewhat confused at first. It is, in fact, a strange topic to go over. ("White space" in an organization is that uncharted space in an organization chart that exists between the various functional teams. It is here where miscommunication takes place, poor hand-off exists and inefficiencies are created.) Ordinarily I pay a lot of attention to going slowly in a presentation but this time I was off like a shot. Thirty minutes into a 75-minute time slot, I was done. What was up with that? I've never done that before—I've always either ended with a few minutes for questions or gone right up to the end.

Well, I soon figured out why I slipped this time. There were a ton of questions. Thirty-five minutes of questions, discussions and probing conversations. I even got a chance to talk about some of the strategies I've employed in healing broken technical teams over the years. And after the questions were over (including two real extraordinary ones from Bob Hodge), folks came up front to talk for a few more minutes. The next session had to shoo us out. (This probably means that my presentation was actually lousy and the questions were needed to fill out the details. I'll think more about that soon.)

More later, as this continues to grow.

[Warning: Spoilers for C.S. Lewis' books from The Chronicles of Narnia are included. If you have not yet read the books (or seen the movie(s)), please pick up The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and read it first.]

I recently finished C.S. Lewis' Reflections on the Psalms. Among the many things I learned was an interesting tidbit about Professor Kirke from Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (the first of seven in The Chronicles of Narnia).

Lucy is in conflict with Edmund on this country she found (and he visited) in the wardrobe (If none of this makes sense to you and sounds interesting, please go read the book!), causing some strife in this family of four. Peter and Susan, the two oldest, approach the Professor (with whom they are staying during the London air raids) and tell him the whole story that Lucy has related.

     "How do you know?" he asked, "that your sister's story is not true?"
     "Oh, but—" began Susan, and then stopped. Anyone could see from the old man's face that he was perfectly serious.

     "But do you really mean, Sir," said Peter, "that there could be other worlds—all over the place, just round the corner—like that?"
     Nothing is more probable," said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, "I wonder what they do teach them at these schools."

     . . . I never regard any narrative as unhistorical simply on the ground that it includes the miraculous. Some people find the miraculous so hard to believe that they cannot imagine any reason for my acceptance of it other than a prior belief that every sentence of the Old Testament has historical or scientific truth. [. . .] The real reason why I can accept as historical a story in which a miracle occurs is that I have never found any philosophical grounds for the universal negative proposition that miracles do not happen. I have to decide on quite other grounds (if I decide at all) whether a given narrative is historical or not.

One of the reasons I insist on reading (and advising others to read) the Chronicles in the order in which they were written (starting with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, then Prince Caspian and ending with The Horse and his Boy, The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle) rather than the chronological order (starting with The Magician's Nephew) is for the sense of mystery. We marvel with Lucy and the others at the Lantern. We are surprised by talking beasts and a magnificent lion. And we wonder why the Professor is so wise.

We find out later, of course, that one reason the Professor is so quick to believe Lucy is that he has experienced the same miracle. But approaching the book from a position of not knowing allows us to experience the wonder, the marvel and the awe as the children do their first time through the wardrobe.

"How do you know?" he asked.

Our fair city's third-tallest building (by eyeball) got in the way of a rather smallish sparrow this morning.

I was exiting this building with a cup of coffee in my hand (as I sometimes do) when I saw it.

Now, the last twelve hours have seen a bit of rain (as the barometer foretold) and this smallish sparrow was hunkered down on the wet, red granite in from of this tallish building. I'm not an ornithologist, however hard I try. I do know my neighbors and this one didn't look familiar. The cut of the beak, perhaps, or the more densely spotted back.

After absorbing myself completely in watching her for a few minutes to see if she'd fly away, it didn't appear that she would. She didn't even protest as I placed my hand over her warm back and slipped my fingers under her equally warm belly.

There's a little flower bed a dozen feet away with a sheltered overhang into which I placed her.

Still no protest, no visible gratitude. If she was even aware of me, those beady little eyes didn't show it. Or even any signs of being terrified. She graciously accepted the change in location by hunkering further into the little corner she now found herself in. I suppose that's the best kind of gratitude.

Aware now of the people walking nearby and staring, I cut the corner of the Square to my own sheltered overhang, out of the way of this gray and dripping windy weather, taking with me only the memory of this warm softness.

Matthew 10:29-31

Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

[2008-04-11 16:05] As of this afternoon, she was gone. There was some chirping coming from the bushes, but I didn't get a visual.

A colleague I met at work makes electric guitars. Cool. Even cooler, he found an ancient house in the area that was getting rid of some ancient, wide chestnut floorboards. That he wanted to turn into a the body of a small travel electric guitar.

Turns out, said colleague doesn't have a whole lot of tools. Not cool. But he's going to let me work on his board, his one-of-a-kind chestnut board. That's cool.

So after some discussion at an East 4^th restaurant (imagine the waitress' eyes when she sees this board on her table!), we decide that I'll make some cuts, here and there and clean them up with a handplane. Sweet.

Well, one thing led to another and I didn't get to it for a couple of weeks. And then I lost confidence that I knew anymore where I was to make these cuts.

I had a rough idea of where the lines would be and so taped them to show my colleague and sent him some pictures. He approved and I ran the board through the bandsaw, leaving just a little bit proud of the line.

Here's where the handplane comes in.

I have a collection of them that I like to use. A #4, a couple of #5s, a really nice #6 bastard and a #7. That doesn't count the various block planes I've made, purchased, collected, etc.

OK, so you get it that I like handplanes.

If you're not familiar with the sound that a plane makes taking off a full-width, gossamer shaving of chestnut, I doubt I'll be able to reproduce it for you. There's just a satisfying ssshhwwshht as the plane glides along the edge. That sound, the lack of earplugs, the resulting curlyshavings and the satisfaction of moving your upper body muscles in tune with a 50-year old tool on well-over 100-year old wood.

That's why I pretend to be a woodworker. That's real satisfaction. Forget the spreadsheets and change records. Give me a board and a sharp tool.