Mehling.org: September 2003 Archives

September 28, 2003

Catherine is TWO!

Tedd, Hol, and I were invited to Catherine Revtyak's 2nd birthday. Today was the big festivities... tons of little kids enjoying the playsets and goodies. Tedd was super helpful with the little ones, watching out for them and playing with them on the equipment.

Posted by ben at 08:37 PM
Comments (0)

September 21, 2003

Into Thin Air

By:

Recommended by Shandon, who also loaned me his copy... this is a great pick. Thanks very much Shandon.

Into Thin Air tells the exciting and chilling story of the writer's personal experience summiting Everest in 1996. Primarily on the team as a journalist writing about the commercial guides taking mere mortals to the summit. Jon Krakauer writes with a passion and experience for a sport that is the center of his life. This book is Jon's account of the '96 tragedy that took two famous climbers (among others) live's, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. A personal tale told with frankness (including questioning Jon's own culpability in some of the deaths) and honesty.

This book leaves you with an understanding of what it takes for a human to reach the top of the world. Besides the extreme physical strength and conditioning, people "surviving" these trips above 8,000 meters require a drive and mental capacity to get up and back down again that few have.

One thing that this story really hit home was sheer lack of support available in extreme places and situations. With the regular news stories about someone being rescued from a remote forest or desert and living with the comforts most of us do, you forget there are truly isolated places. Places where a rescue team can't be called, where a helicopter can't just swoop in and save the day... Everest is one of those places.

The book that was loaned to me was a later edition with an addendum by the author reflecting on the experience since publishing his article for Outside magazine and the book itself. Because Krakauer told his story (backed up by intensive interviews of the others involved) many survivors were named in the book. My take on the book was not as tell all or blame game, but a frank explanation of the events. I did not finish the book thinking that anyone person was responsible for the events, in fact the book made it quite clear that the tragedy was most likely due to a series of bad calls and misjudgments. Many of the same people who (in hindsight) made mistakes were also shown as the heroes they were.

Some people were not satisfied with Jon's answers or account of the story. He also explains his personal reasons behind staying quiet while another climber, Anatoli Boukreev (now deceased), involved in the tragedy attacked his book (and personal account). Jon comes to realize that it is his responsibility as a journalist to rebut the attacks and does so quite eloquently, including his now clearer hindsight into the events -- a worthy addition to the book.

I found his candid writing and observations to make a very clear case. Many believe Into Thin Air is the best and clearest account of what happened on top of the world in 1996, and I can understand why. While reading further about the tragedy online, I came across this incredible panoramic photo from the summit -- careful, it requires QuicktimeVR and is 1MB in size.

Posted by ben at 09:54 PM
Comments (0)

September 15, 2003

Slack

By:

Having previously read both Peopleware and The Deadline by Demarco, both about managing people and project management (a big part of my daily life), I wanted to see what the authors latest thoughts on the subject were...

I was pleasantly surprised to find this book actually leaves, for the most part, those themes behind and tackles the subject of the over-efficient organization and managing knowledge workers. Demarco suggests that for an organization to adapt and change (an absolute requirement in these times), there must be "slack" built into the company. For his first example of describing over-efficiency, Demarco uses one of those sliding puzzle games (you know, a grid with 9 squares, filled with 8 tiles, the player attempts to arrange them into a pattern or order by sliding the tiles into the free space left by the one unfilled square.)

... Getting the tiles into order is a distinctly nontrivial exercise. It's hard enough with the game in its traditional form. But now consider a modified -- dare I say improved? -- form.

Now instead of eight tiles and one open space, we have a game with nine tiles and no open space. The efficiency of this layout is improved by 11.1 percent, since the waste space is gone, and all the squares are 100 percent in use. Efficiency is improved, but something else is lost. Without the open space, there is no further possibility of moving tiles at all. The layout may be optimal as it is, but if time proves otherwise, there is no way to change it.

The open space represents what I call slack, the degree of freedom required to effect change. Slack is the natural enemy of efficiency, and efficiency is the natural enemy of slack. And there is the rub.

If you've read Peopleware or The Deadline you'll remember that Demarco makes compelling, but subjective arguments about his theories on project management. He then attempts to back these arguments up with a sort of quantifiable or objective methodology. I think its the engineer in him. He uses a similar formula in Slack, stating his theory, giving some real-world examples, and then attempts to provide more scientific proof of his theories. Given the nature of the subject, the pure science approach isn't as useful (to me) as the real-world examples. These anecdotes and stories Demarco tells from his consulting experiences far out weigh the various attempts at proving the theories with a graph or other means.

The book touches on the value of retaining employees (both monetarily as well as keeping knowledge within your organization), proper training, and risk management.

Of the three books I've read by Tom Demarco, I believe slack is the most useful for helping to manage knowledge workers and organizations. The previous books seemed to deal more with project management, and specifically software project management. I'd say this is a pretty solid book for any manager. I'll probably read it again to reinforce some of the points and remind myself of the signs that my organization is missing slack.

Posted by ben at 12:00 PM
Comments (0)

September 13, 2003

Irvine World News Raved!

Irvine World News raved, "The social event of the weekend (for Tedd's friends)!!"

Because Tedd's birthday falls when he's up visiting with his other family, we always have to delay a birthday celebration until he returns at the end of August. This year we decided to wait until the school year began and have a pool party with all his SoCal friends.

We rented the pool house at our HOA to give the kids a place to hang out. My parents drove down in my dad's new car (more on that later) to help out. The kids played in the pool until they got hungry. BBQ burgers and hotdogs (and grilled asparagas w/ a butter and garlic sauce. No, I don't think the kids had any. were served along with as much junky snacks and soda as the kids could stomach. Cheescake (Tedd's favorite) for dessert, including candles and singing. We hung a sheet on the wall to act as a movie screen and used one of works LCD projectors so the kids could watch a movie on the "big screen" with popcorn, of course. The kids capped the evening off with a quick jacuzzi.

Result!

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
Comments (1)

September 11, 2003

Lessons in Division

This fairly interesting article (you might need to register to read it) was in the LA Times Magazine a week or so ago...

The article tells the story of a progressive orthodox Jewish private school (I know - I know, 'progressive' and 'orthodox Jewish' don't normally go together) and a secular Jewish instructor taking the ideals of the school too far for the administration. Sounds like an incredible learning environment for these kids.

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
Comments (0)

September 01, 2003

Nice F-ing work
Last year I hired a guy to do some work on the house. Born-again fellow, living in OC for the summer, before returning to Arizona. Seemed nice enough. He did a couple jobs for me... installed some recessed lighting in the kitchen and replaced our nasty 70's style "light tube" with a real skylight. His cleanup skills weren't particularly diligent so I had to go around after him and cleanup the odd mess or two... until yesterday.

I hadn't been in the main attic since he did the skylight work last year, but yesterday a buddy and I were installing some additional phone, network, and AC jacks in the house. This required some work in the attic over the main house... Danny left a little surprise for me.

F! I can't tell you how much it pisses me off when people can't complete their job. Just do the F-ing work you were hired to do and take some pride in the complete job. Darick was kind enough to hand stuff down to me and Tedd helped me carry TWO massive loads outside. Now I gotta figure out how to get rid of all this junk.

Of course, there's not really anything for me to do, the guy lives in Arizona... needless to say, I won't be giving out any recommendations. Grrrr. I particularly love the nasty rusted nails hanging out of these 2x4s! What? Did he think I'd never go in the attic again?!

Posted by ben at 08:00 PM
Comments (2)


« August 2003 \| Main \| October 2003 » September 28, 2003 Catherine is TWO! Tedd, Hol, and I were invited to Catherine Revtyak's 2nd birthday. Today was the big festivities... tons of little kids enjoying the playsets and goodies. Tedd was super helpful with the little ones, watching out for them and playing with them on the equipment. Posted by ben at 08:37 PM Comments (0) September 21, 2003 Into Thin Air By: Recommended by Shandon, who also loaned me his copy... this is a great pick. Thanks very much Shandon. Into Thin Air tells the exciting and chilling story of the writer's personal experience summiting Everest in 1996. Primarily on the team as a journalist writing about the commercial guides taking mere mortals to the summit. Jon Krakauer writes with a passion and experience for a sport that is the center of his life. This book is Jon's account of the '96 tragedy that took two famous climbers (among others) live's, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. A personal tale told with frankness (including questioning Jon's own culpability in some of the deaths) and honesty. This book leaves you with an understanding of what it takes for a human to reach the top of the world. Besides the extreme physical strength and conditioning, people "surviving" these trips above 8,000 meters require a drive and mental capacity to get up and back down again that few have. One thing that this story really hit home was sheer lack of support available in extreme places and situations. With the regular news stories about someone being rescued from a remote forest or desert and living with the comforts most of us do, you forget there are truly isolated places. Places where a rescue team can't be called, where a helicopter can't just swoop in and save the day... Everest is one of those places. The book that was loaned to me was a later edition with an addendum by the author reflecting on the experience since publishing his article for Outside magazine and the book itself. Because Krakauer told his story (backed up by intensive interviews of the others involved) many survivors were named in the book. My take on the book was not as tell all or blame game, but a frank explanation of the events. I did not finish the book thinking that anyone person was responsible for the events, in fact the book made it quite clear that the tragedy was most likely due to a series of bad calls and misjudgments. Many of the same people who (in hindsight) made mistakes were also shown as the heroes they were. Some people were not satisfied with Jon's answers or account of the story. He also explains his personal reasons behind staying quiet while another climber, Anatoli Boukreev (now deceased), involved in the tragedy attacked his book (and personal account). Jon comes to realize that it is his responsibility as a journalist to rebut the attacks and does so quite eloquently, including his now clearer hindsight into the events -- a worthy addition to the book. I found his candid writing and observations to make a very clear case. Many believe Into Thin Air is the best and clearest account of what happened on top of the world in 1996, and I can understand why. While reading further about the tragedy online, I came across this incredible panoramic photo from the summit -- careful, it requires QuicktimeVR and is 1MB in size. Posted by ben at 09:54 PM Comments (0) September 15, 2003 Slack By: Having previously read both Peopleware and The Deadline by Demarco, both about managing people and project management (a big part of my daily life), I wanted to see what the authors latest thoughts on the subject were... I was pleasantly surprised to find this book actually leaves, for the most part, those themes behind and tackles the subject of the over-efficient organization and managing knowledge workers. Demarco suggests that for an organization to adapt and change (an absolute requirement in these times), there must be "slack" built into the company. For his first example of describing over-efficiency, Demarco uses one of those sliding puzzle games (you know, a grid with 9 squares, filled with 8 tiles, the player attempts to arrange them into a pattern or order by sliding the tiles into the free space left by the one unfilled square.) ... Getting the tiles into order is a distinctly nontrivial exercise. It's hard enough with the game in its traditional form. But now consider a modified -- dare I say improved? -- form. Now instead of eight tiles and one open space, we have a game with nine tiles and no open space. The efficiency of this layout is improved by 11.1 percent, since the waste space is gone, and all the squares are 100 percent in use. Efficiency is improved, but something else is lost. Without the open space, there is no further possibility of moving tiles at all. The layout may be optimal as it is, but if time proves otherwise, there is no way to change it. The open space represents what I call slack, the degree of freedom required to effect change. Slack is the natural enemy of efficiency, and efficiency is the natural enemy of slack. And there is the rub. If you've read Peopleware or The Deadline you'll remember that Demarco makes compelling, but subjective arguments about his theories on project management. He then attempts to back these arguments up with a sort of quantifiable or objective methodology. I think its the engineer in him. He uses a similar formula in Slack, stating his theory, giving some real-world examples, and then attempts to provide more scientific proof of his theories. Given the nature of the subject, the pure science approach isn't as useful (to me) as the real-world examples. These anecdotes and stories Demarco tells from his consulting experiences far out weigh the various attempts at proving the theories with a graph or other means. The book touches on the value of retaining employees (both monetarily as well as keeping knowledge within your organization), proper training, and risk management. Of the three books I've read by Tom Demarco, I believe slack is the most useful for helping to manage knowledge workers and organizations. The previous books seemed to deal more with project management, and specifically software project management. I'd say this is a pretty solid book for any manager. I'll probably read it again to reinforce some of the points and remind myself of the signs that my organization is missing slack. Posted by ben at 12:00 PM Comments (0) September 13, 2003 Irvine World News Raved! Irvine World News raved, "The social event of the weekend (for Tedd's friends)!!" Because Tedd's birthday falls when he's up visiting with his other family, we always have to delay a birthday celebration until he returns at the end of August. This year we decided to wait until the school year began and have a pool party with all his SoCal friends. We rented the pool house at our HOA to give the kids a place to hang out. My parents drove down in my dad's new car (more on that later) to help out. The kids played in the pool until they got hungry. BBQ burgers and hotdogs (and grilled asparagas w/ a butter and garlic sauce. No, I don't think the kids had any. were served along with as much junky snacks and soda as the kids could stomach. Cheescake (Tedd's favorite) for dessert, including candles and singing. We hung a sheet on the wall to act as a movie screen and used one of works LCD projectors so the kids could watch a movie on the "big screen" with popcorn, of course. The kids capped the evening off with a quick jacuzzi. Result! Posted by ben at 10:00 PM Comments (1) September 11, 2003 Lessons in Division This fairly interesting article (you might need to register to read it) was in the LA Times Magazine a week or so ago... The article tells the story of a progressive orthodox Jewish private school (I know - I know, 'progressive' and 'orthodox Jewish' don't normally go together) and a secular Jewish instructor taking the ideals of the school too far for the administration. Sounds like an incredible learning environment for these kids. Posted by ben at 10:00 PM Comments (0) September 01, 2003 Nice F-ing work Last year I hired a guy to do some work on the house. Born-again fellow, living in OC for the summer, before returning to Arizona. Seemed nice enough. He did a couple jobs for me... installed some recessed lighting in the kitchen and replaced our nasty 70's style "light tube" with a real skylight. His cleanup skills weren't particularly diligent so I had to go around after him and cleanup the odd mess or two... until yesterday. I hadn't been in the main attic since he did the skylight work last year, but yesterday a buddy and I were installing some additional phone, network, and AC jacks in the house. This required some work in the attic over the main house... Danny left a little surprise for me. F! I can't tell you how much it pisses me off when people can't complete their job. Just do the F-ing work you were hired to do and take some pride in the complete job. Darick was kind enough to hand stuff down to me and Tedd helped me carry TWO massive loads outside. Now I gotta figure out how to get rid of all this junk. Of course, there's not really anything for me to do, the guy lives in Arizona... needless to say, I won't be giving out any recommendations. Grrrr. I particularly love the nasty rusted nails hanging out of these 2x4s! What? Did he think I'd never go in the attic again?! Posted by ben at 08:00 PM Comments (2)		Bookmarks Ben's Resume Ben's Lists Mehling Photo Album Flickr Photo Album Recently Archived Cozumal and Playa Palancar Akumal Desperately Seeking Lodging See you in nine days Sian Ka'an Coba Ruins Tulum Ruins Finally! 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