We don’t need no stinkin’ instructions

My dad came to town to pick up some materials for a home construction he is overseeing. With him, came a 26′ goose neck trailer. So I asked if he would be willing to help me bring some furniture up to my house from IKEA.

Many, many carton lugging sore muscles later, Dave and I were constructing Cailin’s new bed EXCEPT there were no instructions.

No reason to panic, surely the instructions were posted to the web.

Yes and no. Yes, IKEA does post many of the instructions to the web…but no, not this bed. 🙁

Here is where past experience as an IKEA furniture installer comes in handy (oh, and Dave’s too -he has hung around me way too long – I think when he reaches 5 years they will Saint him.). Anyway, we layed out all the pieces and proceeded to put together the bed. There were just a few mishaps, which were fixed without much ado.

It turned out awesome…and there were only a few leftover pieces. 🙂

In fact, it turned out so well, my daughter spent most of the day and the evening in her bed. She has been reading, building Legos and playing on the Internet in Migoland.

So we now know that we don’t need no stinkin’ instructions! Amen!

But we are glad to have them for everything else…

Concrete and Neighbors

Wow, what a busy few days.

Spring break is always that time to shake off winter and start preparing for summer. In Phoenix, spring doesn’t change much in the weather department (we only have two seasons, hot and hell). But up north, in the mountains, there are signs of spring. The tree next to my driveway has buds, more people are out walking around and it all reminds me of the joys of a small community.

Growing up in a small town was torture, it seemed there was never anything going on, everybody knew your business or knew where you were and where you weren’t supposed to be…it never applied to me though. 😉

Anyway, as you get older you start to appreciate the nuances and entertaining experiences a small town can offer. Knowing everyone’s business becomes somewhat interesting, as is everyone stopping by your house to know yours.

Earlier this week, my dad, Dave and a local guy Charlie were pouring concrete at the house. It is amazing how many people were driving or stopping by while walking the neighborhood just to chat and check out the work going on.

I have updated with picture of the work and of Cailin leaving her handprint and name in the concrete, (so you can ignore this part now- but once you hit this part of the mountain, my new T-Mobile phone, with the cooler camera, is a brick. I’ll have to upload photos when I get back down to the valley).

This is the only home I have ever owned in my own name, which is safe, comfortable and liberating. Having it in a small community makes it more homey. The first time my dad and Cindy came through to visit, they pulled into the ERA office and Susan, the owner asked who they were going to see, loaded them up in her car and drove them over.

I count this and many other things among the reasons I like the people and the area. Hokey, yes, and not Texas, but it’ll do. 😉

Random Friday

Maybe Friday’s seem like a great day to consider Random topics…

Like, my heart and prayers go out to those in Japan and to those bracing for impact in Hawaii. So many things we can’t control from some giant Jumanji board (I wonder who is winning) seems like just a lot of losing down here sometimes.

On to the breakfast and at this point looking like the lunch of champions:

If you haven’t had a chance to try the bacon sunflower seeds, OMG! Add a little Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr. Pepper and it is pretty much heaven. How southern is this? I guess you can take a girl out of the…

Of course, I live in AZ, not like I went too far and bought a house in the mountains with deer that graze on my yard at night. Okay, never mind, I own this. I will throw a shout out to my gal Teresa (no idea if I spelled her name correctly) from the Payson Walmart for getting me Cherry Vanilla Diet D.P. no one in the Valley (Phoenix) carries it anymore. She came through in a crunch. That reminds me, I have to stock up again when driving through Payson tonight.

Time can be pretty harsh (of course, I blame time and not the 30 extra pounds or my beloved Framboise beer…)

Hollywood Good Eggs

We all know why it happens, but as we are bombarded with Charlie Sheen nonsense, I couldn’t help notice there just isn’t enough good press for the good eggs in Hollywood.

There are TV and movie actors that seem to do a really good job of living a “normal” life. Granted, normal is all relative, but these are folks you really think must consider their job much the way you or I do, it’s just a job. Albeit a job they must love otherwise would you really put up with the downside of the press, the stalkers and the insanity?

They don’t seem to be about the entitlement of fame nor do they really want the attention. I believe one of those is Mark Harmon.

Harmon’s show NCIS is a consistent ratings winner on Tuesday evenings for CBS. In the Sheen model isn’t it time for him to throw a public fit about something? I know he is older and with age comes wisdom but there seem to be others, like Natalie Portman. She is huge right now but maintains her privacy and her dignity surfacing mainly to promo a new movie or receives an award.

Along those lines, I have always admired the Hollywood parents who manage to keep their kids grounded. Henry Thomas’ parents are pretty much tops on my list. After E.T. he shot one maybe two more films and then went back to his life. He has come back to acting (and maybe never left the local theater scene) but overall his parents kept him from becoming a male Lindsey Lohan, Miley Cyrus or well, yes, Charlie Sheen.

I can’t help think that Martin Sheen is another of those that is fine with a more private life, if his son didn’t keep dragging his name through the press. These have to be the times Emilio Estevez is glad he chose to use his dad’s real name and not the Sheen moniker. It gives him a little distance.

Not having to live or operate in that world, I can only imagine the life and parenting challenges. It just seems some people get it right, some get it very, very wrong and looking at the turn out between Emilio and Charlie – sometimes the kid is just rotten…

The Trouble with Legos

You probably thought I was going to talk about how those infernal little bricks hurt when you step on them as you make your way across the living room.

Yes, that is a problem, but the trouble I am really talking about is how boyey they are and that they are apparently more addictive than meth.

I have a daughter that LOVES Legos and at this point we have found about 2 series of Legos that she is interested in putting together. We found the one box with the pink half-house and from there she has been doing the creator and the city series. She did a couple of the atlantis ones (the shark – she also loves sharks, and the crab) but so many of the sets really are aimed at boys.

The new Ninja thing is just too far out for her to even get excited about. Additionally, now we really have to go to the actual Lego store to find varieties of the series for her to build. You know how it is, department stores keep a variety but they are often similar to one another in what they carry.

Here is the Shark she was so proud of…this was one of the first sets we got her.

This is from the city series her Aunt Brianna and Uncle Aaron gave her for her birthday last month. She had it done about an hour after we got home from her birthday party.

I took her to the Lego store this past Saturday and got her the creator car (it has 3 patterns in one set), the city series semi-truck and a little Easter bunny set. They were all put together by the time we got home Sunday at 1. 🙁

She is already hitting me up for the next visit to the Lego store.

I did have a chance to talk to an associate at the Lego store who assures me there is a new “girl” series coming sometime this year, but I am a little worried it will be lame. I can’t imagine it will be hot pink race cars or other cool things. The Lego clerk hopes they extend the Disney partnership to make a Cinderella’s castle kit or some other items along those lines. That could be okay.

She really isn’t to the point yet where she makes stuff on her own, she wants to follow plans and build what they tell her and there aren’t books of Lego plans out there either – a couple of adult books but nothing for her age.

Lego does offer the ability to enter your own design online and they will make a kit out of it and ship it to you. I am just starting to fool around with what we could do there, however it seems to me if she were ready to start designing her own things, she would. Maybe I am being simplistic there.

I don’t know the answer, all I know is these have to be good for her engineering/spatial brain and the the new ninja monsters are just gross.

So for now, I guess the only trouble with Legos I have any control over is paying closer attention to where I step.

And I bet you thought I was gonna say doing a better job of making her clean them up…yeah, right…

Great weekend!

I have to say this past weekend was a terrific one. I did not get to go up north to the cabin, but it was more than made up for in our activities.

The terrific-ness began on Friday when Dave walked into Nate’s with a Vitamin Shop bag handing it over and telling me we were out of Spirulina (I think I was supposed to care).

However the bag did not contain Spirulina there was a wrapped-bowed box which contained this:

Isn’t it gorgeous! There was a bit of a back story, but let’s just leave it at Dave did good. 🙂

On Saturday, we attended a friend’s birthday party at a Valley Ho, a Historic Registry Hotel in Scottsdale. http://www.hotelvalleyho.com/

I have wanted to stay there for awhile after reading about its history of glamour from the 50’s. For example, some of the noted hotel guests included Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Betty Grable, Cary Grant and Jimmy Durante. Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood also held their 1957 wedding reception there. It was a great experience. Here are some room photos:

Looking from the entryway.

Looking down from the balcony to the pool area, I really like the orange curtains that the pool view rooms can use to make their outdoor sitting areas private.

A View from the balcony across the valley. In the background directly ahead is 4 peaks but it is a little difficult to see in the photo.

If you are ever in Scottsdale on a Thu-Sat night and hungry around 2 am, Joe’s NY pizza is open until 3:30 and is an experience in itself plus the pizza is still good the next morning. 😉

Sunday we loaded up Cailin and took off to the Renaissance Festival. Some of the shows we try to catch every year include Franko the Hypnotist (Dave is a sucker for those type shows – he loves ’em) and the Tortuga Twins, however this show comes with a disclaimer; they have two versions of their show, the last show of the day is an R rated version, so if you are going with the kiddos check out the earlier PG shows.

There aren’t too many action packed weekends like this one and I am partial to the part where I got new jewelry but it was all fun while it lasted.

Random musings

Have you ever noticed that some days are harder than others just to put one foot in front of the other? Breath in and out, in and out, the weekend is coming…

Do you remember a time when you didn’t have to worry about anyone but yourself? Really? Funny thing was, we probably weren’t really worrying much about ourselves then either; we thought we were invincible.

In true string of consciousness fashion, I thought I would also pass along that today is National Grammar Day so everyone from the South is forbidden from saying ain’t (just kidding). If that were the case, I would have to give up “fixin” and that is a very important word to a southern person. How else would we get stuff done if we weren’t fixin to? 😉

If you happen to like Grammar (I know I should come off the drugs sometime soon) there is a podcast: Grammar Girl http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/ and just for the beauty of writing, there is a book by Edward Tufte’s mother, Virginia Tufte titled Beautiful Sentences, Syntax as Style available here: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vt

Since I managed to run-on and otherwise grammatically kill the statement above, my work here is done. 🙂

You get what you measure to…

Expect to see this in other places because it is such a common issue that it bears pointing out to any audience that I have captive…

Last weekend Dave and I ran to get a bite to eat at a local fast food restaurant (I will omit the name to protect the guilty). We were there in the middle of the afternoon so, not a busy time for the drive-thru. We ordered, we pulled forward and paid. After giving us our change the young lady working the window asked us to pull forward and she would bring our food out to us once it was done.

I said “since there is no one behind us or ordering, is it okay if we sit here and wait, but if I see someone coming, I will pull forward?”

The young lady says (and I couldn’t make this any better) “our drive-thru is timed and we are trying keeping the times at under a minute, please pull forward and I will be happy to bring it out to you.”

<dramatic pause>

I pulled forward and turned to Dave and said, you get what you measure to.

The things wrong with this situation are many so let’s break down a couple:
1) Apparently no one actually explained to the employees why they were keeping the drive thru time at under a minute. They are working to this metric regardless of the unanticipated outcomes (i.e. customer annoyance).
2) If your success is reliant on the customer doing something (pulling forward) you have already failed; what if I chose to say no after she told me the reason.
3) If you are working to improve customer experience with shorter wait times, how do you express to the “eager to please” young lady that she has already lessened this by asking me to pull forward and wait.
4) They are “gaming” the system. At a young age, in the workforce, she has learned it is more important to cheat the system to achieve what the boss wants than to do the right thing for customer service. Of course, see #1, she may not understand the ultimate goal of the metric. 

I am incredibly greatful she told me the truth, if for no other reason than I could consider how often in management we make this mistake.
As managers we create metrics, explain the rewards/risks for not meeting them, but how often do we fail to explain what we are really trying to achieve.