Dryden Is Home

"Time Management" - Randy Pausch

If you hadn't heard of Randy Pausch before today, that's ok. He's the professor (computer science I think) that was told he had 6 months to live (pancreatic cancer) and did a presentation on life's lessons in a series called "The 'Last Lecture'"  in September of 2007. Today, he is still alive.

In November of 2007 he did a presentation on Time Management at UVA. What better person that someone that really knows how important time is to give a talk on Time Management. I watched it while finishing up work chores (finalizing projects, emailing, invoicing). Mostly I was listening to him and flipping back and forth. See the video here (about 90 minutes, but worth the time):

Sunk Costs

Over the weekend I spent time both at the Ithaca Chili Fest 2008 (Saturday, Yummy) and going to a number of Varna Volunteer Fire Company service calls (Sunday: Motor Vehicle Accident, EMS call, structure fire). Along the way the subject of "Sunk Costs" came up. From Wikipedia:

In economics and in business decision-making, sunk costs are costs that have been incurred and which cannot be recovered to any significant degree. Sunk costs are sometimes contrasted with variable costs, which are the costs that will change due to the proposed course of action. In microeconomic theory, only variable costs are relevant to a decision. Economics proposes that a rational actor does not let sunk costs influence one's decisions, because doing so would not be assessing a decision exclusively on its own merits. It is important to note that the decision-maker may make rational decisions according to their own incentives; these incentives may dictate different decisions than would be dictated by efficiency or profitability, and this is considered an incentive problem and distinct from a sunk cost problem.

For example, when one pre-orders a non-refundable movie ticket, the price of the ticket becomes a sunk cost. Even if the ticket-buyer decides that he would rather not go to the movie, there is no way to get back the money he originally paid.

The discussion turned to business and politics - with regard to figuring out when and how to measure sunk costs and how to remove those from the next decision. Most commonly I believe the thought is, "Well, We are at point Z and we've already spent X on this project. It isn't done yet, but with a little more time (Y) and or money (D) or resources (C) we can finish it."

However, that discounts and potentially removes the possibility that an entirely new option may have surfaced at that point (Z) that costs less that D or takes less time than Y or less resources that C. The X is the sunk cost, there is no way to get that value back.

Where and when should projects be evalulated? Should milestones and benchmarks be included in every plan? While it looks like it could be daunting to the ego of the decider, the best possible solution to the problem should be worked out that makes the best use of resources.

Wikipedia has more:

Sunk Cost: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

and related pages:

Sunk Cost Dilemma: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost_dilemma

Irrational Escalation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_escalation

List of Cognitive Biases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Moderation and Balance

My friend PE once told me that out of the ordinary things in life are often ok - as long as they were held in moderation. Sure you can eat take-out Chinese food (or eat-in Chinese food) at 2:30 in the morning, just don't make it a daily habit. You can drive 700 miles round trip to see your favorite band, but not every weekend. I've come to use this word, this definition, this "moderation" to account for trying new things, but also for responding to disapointments. Last night's football game was one of those disapointments. Its tough to win all the time, its easy to win in moderation.

Arjan calls me balanced sometimes, usually in the face of adversity. I didn't throw anything or smash anything or stomp around - although I could think of a few people I know who might have at the prospect of their team not winning it all. It was a tough loss, but for me, part of the highs and lows of moderation of my last six months.

• I asked Arjan to get married, she said yes
• I ran for re-election and won
• The Boston Red Sox won the World Series
• My friends Mary Ann and Joe both won their elections
• Arjan and I got married
• We got to vacation in Hawaii
• I have a great set of active customers to keep the business going strong
• Mary Ann asked me to be the deputy supervisor of the Town of Dryden
• Jason was appointed to the board
• I have new hope for the nomination and election of Senator Obama

And it wasn't all good of course:

• Arjan's cat got hit by a car while she was in Turkey and I was cat sitting
• My friend Arthur Lomax passed away
• Arjan got in a car accident (totalled the car, but came away without a scratch)
• The Patriots lost the superbowl and blew a 18-0 start to their season

I was very sad when the bad things in life happened. I wasn't angry, though I guess I could have been. I took these events in stride with the very good that has happened. I woke up early this morning, in bed with the love of my life, the girl of my dreams, warm and snug, and while full of ideas about what is next, perfectly content that I have been so lucky. My wife is from Buffalo - so she's got the not winning the championship when it is a sure thing down pretty well. Her strength is mine too.

Today is a new day, I can't wait to see what it brings us.

The Wedding Hike

The hike ends (part 1 of 7)
Originally uploaded by dmakar

There was the wedding dance and the wedding cake and the wedding speeches and the wedding ceremony and mixed in with all of that was a wonderful three mile wedding hike.

Arjan's friend's Julia and Morgan were married at Upper Treman State Park on Sunday afternoon. Following the ceremony the guests were invited to walk down the Treman Gorge to Lower Treman State Park for the wedding reception.

The weather was perfect - blue skies and comfortable mid-70's temps. Arjan and I had a great time and made lots of mental notes for our own upcoming nuptials.

Pictures are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/sets/72157601826734856/

Nails in the Fence

My dad emailed me this today:

Make sure you read all the way down to the last sentence.

(Most importantly the last sentence)

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.

You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there. "A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.

Friends are very rare jewels, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us."

It's National Friendship Week. Show your friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND, even if it means sending it back to the person who sent it to you. If it comes back to you, then you'll know you have a circle of friends.

YOU ARE MY FRIEND AND I AM HONORED!

Now send this to every friend you have!!

And to your family.

Choose Your Own NYSEG Adventure

Are a home owner like me or you rent and get to choose your electricity supplier from NYSEG? If so this post might be of some interest to you. I emailed about 20 people from around Tompkins County on their experiences with the program. The results were mostly discouraging and didn't seem to make anyone too happy to get to gamble on their energy supplier's pricing.

I posted an entire article about this here, it is current as of 9pm today (November 20, 2006) and offers some web links and advice to help you choose a supplier.

http://www.544productions.com/Energy

If you have any experiences or thoughts on this program, please use the comments field. If you are interested in being included on any other discussion emails, let me know via email: davidmakar@hotmail.com

Remember you only have until December 29th, 2006 to choose!

Death of a Hero

Jack Palance died today. I will probably always remember him first as that spooky guy from Ripley's Believe it or Not when I was growing up. I used to think he was Ripley. He was so convincing and scary. He always had a young female co-star on the show - I always thought they were his daughters.

I remember him walking across a bridge over a geothermal heated pool and he put an egg in the water and took it out and it was hard boiled. That always amazed me. They were always traveling all over the world.

I used to watch this show with my dad and sister. My dad told me that Jack Palance was Ukrainian, like us. That was always a good thing. Even though he could be frightening, he could be friendly - I always thought he was letting us in on a secret.

Since I always thought he was Ripley, I never realized he had done other work in movies. I was 5 when Ripley's premiered in 1981 and was only 10 when it went off the air. Not many kids that age watch Shane or any movies that aren't animated.

Later in my life, he was in City Slickers and I realized that he wasn't Ripley. He told this story about having just finished being in Shane and having this director tell him he would win an academy award. And bam, 50 years later he won for City Slickers. After that I was always attached to Jack Palance. He was the grandfather I never knew. My own grandfather died in 1979 and I have no real memories of him. Jack was Ukrainian. He was successful. He was a hero in City Slickers - playing a parady of himself as a bad guy in all those westerns. He was an original and I think I always liked that about him.

I haven't yet seen any of those old westerns. I just read a little bit about him as a fighter and a veteran and read that he grew up just 155 miles south of Dryden, New York in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania. He was born in 1919, the year before my grandmother and three years before my own grandfather.

When you're a kid you dress up as your heroes at Halloween. When you're an adult and get invited to costume parties and Cowboy and Farmer parties you go as your heroes as adults. After knowing Jack almost my whole life and knowing him from City Slickers I think I was happy to attend a party last fall as a cowboy. Hold onto your heroes as long as you can. Learn from them, look up to them, emulate if it is what you want. Find your heroes and follow if you can.

Jack Palance, February 18th, 1919 - November 10th, 2006

Thursday Evening

My cat has a new trick. She climbs on me, my chair, my lap, my head, my shoulders, my stomach and just this second climbed from my lap to my shoulder via my chest and managed to dig one of her cute little paws right into my t-shirt and through the t-shirt and into the region of my chest where my nipple is. OUCH!

This picture is from last Wednesday when she sat on my shoulder as I hunched over the keyboard.

This week has been a lot of sitting at my desk. I'm working on launching two Ithaca based web stores, as well as working on getting a BNI chapter moving along here in Ithaca. I am also doing a website (brochure style) for a shop in Endicott, a professional in Binghamton and a non-profit organization in Owego. All that plus keeping up with all of the great requests from my current customers. I'm really beginning to see the sites I have developed produce results. This is very exciting.

In other news, I was just thinking about how sometimes you really want to call someone, and it is likely that they would like to get a phone call and still you just sit with the phone on your desk and don't call. You wait to call tomorrow. You could call. It wouldn't make that much of a difference, but you don't. You feel dizzy. You want to do it, but you don't. You wait. The waiting is the best thing. The waiting is the hardest thing. Contact will be made soon.

Contact with my cat Lexus is happening right now (again!). She's kneading my shoulder and reading this blog post. This picture to the right is from last Thursday morning. Shes a good cat. Of course like all cats she pukes from time to time on either my rug that I backpacked all the way back from Morocco or on my bedspread. She's my little baby. The other cat, I don't know what her deal is. All I know is that when I wake up in the morning she's lying on top of the covers near my knees or ankles waiting for me to get up to feed her. I'm sure having my door closed and the electric blanket raising the room's temperature about 5 degrees warmer than the rest of the house has something to do with having her company. When 63 is warm the cats like to snuggle.