On Thin Ice

Not sure how to classify this one exactly.  It's skating, I guess.  But so much more than that.  Looks like they're  CRAZY in Norway.  :)

"On thin ice 4"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF1V8HFfpTE

Where I'm from it snows a LOT so we never got perfectly smooth ice like that.  I'm jealous.

Song of the Day: Aerosmith - Chip Away the Stone

I'm not a big Aerosmith song, but I think this song of theirs is overlooked as compared to some of their later bombastic songs.  This is, in my opinion, more of a pure rock and roll song.  Maybe even a bit of a life lesson in there...

Chip Away the Stone - Aerosmith

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOvvCtaormU

Chavez Dies

Yes, you've heard the news.  Yes, the world is now a better place.

I happened to go to Venezuela in 1999 or 2000, give or take.  I was down there teaching some engineers, mostly from PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.), the state-owned oil company in Venezuela.  The engineers back then were already talking about how Chavez was running things into the ground by appointing incompetent political cronies to high positions within the company.  Morale was already low.  Very sad to see then, and sad to see how things developed.



I think that the Patriot Post captured it well, with this headline:

"Venezuelan Thug Dies, Socialists Mourn"

http://patriotpost.us/editions/17080

You can see exactly how bad a person Chavez was by who mourns him in this article, from CBS News:

"Sean Penn mourns Hugo Chavez's death: "I lost a friend"" by Jessica Derschowitz

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57572771/sean-penn-mourns-hugo-chavezs-death-i-lost-a-friend/

More, from the Wall Street Journal:
"Venezuela Leader Chávez Dies at 58" by Jose de Cordoba and David Luhnow
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203458604577265460960140008.html

This is the more accurate description of Chavez, in my opinion.

"I celebrate his death, because he did a lot of harm to Venezuela, he handed the country to Cubans, he left behind crime, the hospitals are collapsed," said housewife Lisbeth Aulasr. "But I don't doubt chaos is coming."

Classic dictator behavior, claim the mantle of democracy but don't allow fiar elections:

After failing to reach power through a military coup in 1992, Mr. Chávez proclaimed himself a democrat. But once in power, he proved difficult to remove. He changed the constitution twice to allow continuous re-election. He also used rhetoric to sharpen class divisions, pitting millions of poor Venezuelans against a prosperous middle and upper class, which he scornfully called "the squalid ones."

Mr. Chávez expropriated thousands of farms and businesses, and transformed the state oil company into a behemoth that built houses and distributed food. He saddled Venezuela with high inflation, some $80 billion in foreign debt and made it even more oil dependent.

"He leaves the country in a shambles," said Moisés Naím, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. "Never has a Latin American leader wasted so much money, misspent so many resources and misused such power. Chávez could have transformed the country, but instead used those resources to build a personality cult, push a failed ideology and decimate the country's economy."

It is said that a man can be judged by the company he keeps:

Venezuela's oil billions gave Mr. Chávez a chance to strut on the world's stage. He delighted in tweaking the U.S., inviting Libya's late Moammar Gadhafi and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Caracas. He supplied Bashar al-Assad with fuel oil as the Syrian leader killed thousands of his own countrymen.

This happened after I went to Venezuela, but is entirely consistent with what the PDVSA employees were telling me back in 2000:

Back in power, Mr. Chávez purged the military and set out to tame Venezuela's other important power center, state oil company PDVSA.
In December, after Mr. Chávez tried to replace the company's board, employees went on strike, shutting down oil production. Other businesses joined in the strike. But by January 2003, Mr. Chávez had broken the strike.
Mr. Chávez fired some 19,000 PDVSA employees. The company never recovered. Neither did Venezuela's oil production, which was 2.6 million barrels a day in 2011, down from 3.2 million in 1998.

Song of the Day: Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble

My daughters like this song.  As do I.  Yet another song we agree on.  Now if I could only get then to like independent music...

Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNoKguSdy4Y

This song spawned a little discussion with my daughters.  Let's take a look at the lyrics first.  From AZLyricscom:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/taylorswift/iknewyouweretrouble.html

TAYLOR SWIFT LYRICS
"I Knew You Were Trouble"

[Music video spoken part:]
I think--I think when it's all over,
It just comes back in flashes, you know?
It's like a kaleidoscope of memories.
It just all comes back. But he never does.
I think part of me knew the second I saw him that this would happen.
It's not really anything he said or anything he did,
It was the feeling that came along with it.
And the crazy thing is I don't know if I'm ever gonna feel that way again.
But I don't know if I should.
I knew his world moved too fast and burned too bright.
But I just thought, how can the devil be pulling you toward someone who looks so much like an angel when he smiles at you?
Maybe he knew that when he saw me.
I guess I just lost my balance.
I think that the worst part of it all wasn't losing him.
It was losing me.

Once upon a time a few mistakes ago
I was in your sights, you got me alone
You found me, you found me, you found me
I guess you didn't care, and I guess I liked that
And when I fell hard you took a step back
Without me, without me, without me

And he's long gone when he's next to me
And I realize the blame is on me

'Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in
So shame on me now
Flew me to places I'd never been
'Til you put me down, oh
I knew you were trouble when you walked in
So shame on me now
Flew me to places I'd never been
Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble

No apologies, he'll never see you cry
Pretend he doesn't know that he's the reason why
You're drowning, you're drowning, you're drowning
Now I heard you moved on from whispers on the street
A new notch in your belt is all I'll ever be
And now I see, now I see, now I see

He was long gone when he met me
And I realize the joke is on me, yeah!

I knew you were trouble when you walked in
So shame on me now
Flew me to places I'd never been
'Til you put me down, oh
I knew you were trouble when you walked in
So shame on me now
Flew me to places I'd never been
Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble

And the saddest fear comes creeping in
That you never loved me or her, or anyone, or anything, yeah

I knew you were trouble when you walked in
So shame on me now
Flew me to places I'd never been
'Til you put me down, oh
I knew you were trouble when you walked in (you were right there, you were right there)
So shame on me now
Flew me to places I'd never been
Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble

I knew you were trouble when you walked in
Trouble, trouble, trouble
I knew you were trouble when you walked in
Trouble, trouble, trouble

[Music video spoken part:]
I don't know if you know who you are until you lose who you are.

One of my daughters said two things.  She said, why can't she (Swift) keep a boyfriend, why can't she stay in a relationship?  "All those songs about breaking up and stuff..." in her words.  Wow, kids are perceptive!  Anyway, she wondered why life seems so hard for her when she has everything, plenty of money would seem to take a lot of life's pressures off of a person.

Then, referencing this song in particular, in response to the "Flew me to places I'd never been" line, she asked how someone could possibly take Swift to places she's never been, after all Taylor Swift is rich and can go wherever she wants to!

So I told her, "Imma let you finish, but..."  :)   Then I told her that I disagreed with her on both counts.  First of all, regardless of how much money you have, relationships are tough.  Money does NOT help with that.  Either you believe me or you don't, not sure how I'd prove that case other than to show that the rich seem to have just as many break-ups as anyone else.

More importantly, I tried to explain the "Flew me to places I'd never been" line, as I understand it.  First of all, life is about EXPERIENCES, not about THINGS.  You can have all the things money can buy, the ability to go wherever you want, but you need other people to have experiences.  Doesn't help going to a new city and just wandering around.  You need to dig in and have experiences.  Check out a great singer at a local club.  Get on a motorcycle and have an adventure in a new land.  Climb to the top of a mountain in a rain forest with your kids.  Just to name a few things that have touched me deeply.

Having another person to show you those things or to share them with makes a huge differences.  So this explains, to me at least, how, even though Swift has many resources at her disposal, someone else could easily "fly her to places she's never been," to paraphrase.

On a broader note, I tried to point out that our world is one of abundance, not one of scarcity.  Money is not the most important variable.  Yes, I'll admit that there are people stuck in tough situations where they are barely getting by; I get that.  But I would still argue that we are far more limited by our time and our imagination than by money and other resources.  Save up enough money and you can fly across the ocean or take some exotic vacation that even kings couldn't take a couple hundred years ago.  Buy a car that performs better than any in the world mere decades ago.

But you know what?  I've found precious little that compares to some of the experiences that I've found close to home, for much less money.  The satisfaction that comes from crossing the finish line after a 100-mile skate.  The tightness of a group of guys in a locker room after we've battled together and won a championship.  The feeling of being "in the zone" or "in the Now" when I'm utterly focused on bending one of my motorcycles through a tricky series of bends when riding in the mountains, and getting it just right (by my standards, anyway!).  The feeling of pride in my daughters when they learn some new concept I've been trying to teach them.  Know what I mean?  I sure hope so, because a life without such experiences doesn't quite seem fully-lived.


And then, to knock me down a peg, that same daughter, after my long-winded comments, told me, "Now I know where I get my tendency to lecture from."  To which I replied, "What, is your mother lecturing you again?"  :)   I think I'm raising some crazy dangerous smart kids.  Seriously.

Advice from LinkedIn

Under the recurring theme that I'll post good advice regardless where I find it, consider this article from LinkedIn:

"Best Advice: Lessons From My Dad and Steve Jobs" by Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn CEO)

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130226121959-22330283-best-advice-lessons-from-my-dad-and-steve-jobs

Jeff's advice?

You can do anything you set your mind to -- My dad
As simple as it sounds, the short version of my response is that you have to know what it is you ultimately want to accomplish (optimizing for both passion and skill, and not one at the exclusion of the other). As soon as you do, you'll begin manifesting it in both explicit and implicit ways.

Everything that can be converted from an atom to a bit, will be -- Nicholas Negroponte

Do you want to push paper around or do you want to build products that change people's lives? -- Dan Rosensweig

This next one really intrigues me.

We are the stories that we tell -- Deepak ChopraSeveral years ago, I asked Deepak how massively scaling consumer web platforms could best contribute in a world that felt increasingly besieged by secular challenges. His response was that ultimately we are the stories that we tell; that the importance of storytelling was as old as humanity itself, dating back to the time of cave drawings. He went on to explain that if society was exclusively focused on rehashing the problems of the world, e.g. rising unemployment, global warming, threat of terrorism, etc, it would create anxiety, stress, and a planet steeped in self-fulfilling negative energy. However, if we came together and focused on not only identifying the problems, but developing the solutions and shining a light on those success stories, we could change the dialog and manifest more positive change. That discussion forever changed my appreciation for the power of narrative, regardless of the size of the audience.

If you could only do one thing, what would it be? -- Steve Jobs
Shortly after Jerry Yang became the CEO of Yahoo, he invited Steve Jobs to address the company's leadership. Among many insightful things that Steve shared that day, the one that continues to have the most profound influence on me was his discussion regarding prioritization. Jobs said that after he returned to Apple in 1994, he recognized there were far too many products and SKUs in development so he asked his team one simple question: If you could only do one thing, what would it be? He said that many of the answers rationalized the need to do more than one thing, or sought to substantiate bundling one priority with another. However, all he wanted to know was what "the one thing" was. As he explained it, if they got that one thing right, they could then move on the next thing, and the next thing after that, and so on. Turned out the answer to his question was the reinvention of the iMac. After that, it was the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Interestingly enough, years later I heard Jobs speak at All Things D and he explained that the company had actually been working on the iPad before the iPhone, as he had long written off pursuit of the phone as being prohibitively challenging given the carrier landscape. However, once a window of opportunity opened up to successfully bring a phone to market, he hit the pause button on the tablet, and only returned to it once Apple got the iPhone right. Pretty mind blowing to think that a company as large and successful as Apple, and someone as prodigiously talented as Steve Jobs, would temporarily shelve something as important as the iPad for the sake of focus, but that's exactly what he did.

Wisdom without compassion is ruthlessness, compassion without wisdom is folly -- Fred Kofman

Five steps to happiness -- Ray Chambers
As one of my mentors, I've learned a lot from Ray through the years, but the one piece of advice that I find myself coming back to most often are are his five steps to happiness:
Live in the moment
It's better to be loving than to be right
Be a spectator to your own thoughts, especially when you become emotional
Be grateful for at least one thing every day
Help others every chance you get

Song of the Day: Flo Rida - Wild Ones ft. Sia [Official Video]

So one of my daughters told me that she really likes this song...

Flo Rida - Wild Ones ft. Sia [Official Video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOR_HuHRNs

And you know what?  I really like it, too.  Not usually my type of song, and I must admit that it's really the female vocals that make the song, in my opinion.  Particularly this part:

I am a wild one
Break me in
Saddle me up and let's begin
I am a wild one
Tame me now
Running with wolves
And I'm on the prowl

That is HOT!

Interesting point in our lives where my daughter and I have similar tastes, at least in one part of our lives.  Certainly not in the part where they play stupid games on their Android tablets, though.  :)


Lyrics, from AZLyrics.com:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/florida/wildones.html


FLO RIDA LYRICS
"Wild Ones"
(feat. Sia)

[Sia - Hook]
Hey I heard you were a wild one
Oooh
If I took you home
It'd be a home run
Show me how you do

I wanna shut down the club
With you
Hey I heard you like the wild ones (wild ones wild ones)
Oooh

[Flo Rida]
I like crazy, foolish, stupid
Party going wild, fist pumping music,
I might lose it
Blast to the roof, that how we do'z it (do'z it do'z it)
I don't care the night, she don't care we like
Almost dared the right vibe
Ready to get live, ain't no surprise
Take me so high, jumping nose dive
Surfing the crowd
Oooh
Said I gotta be the man
I'm the head of my band, mic check one two
Shut them down in the club while the playboy does it, and y'all get lose lose
After bottle, we all get bent and again tomorrow
Gotta break loose cause that's the motto
Club shuts down, a hundred super models

[Sia - Hook]
Hey I heard you were a wild one
Oooh
If I took you home
It'd be a home run
Show me how you do

I wanna shut down the club
With you
Hey I heard you like the wild ones (wild ones wild ones)
Oooh

[Flo Rida]
Party rocker, foot-show stopper
More Chambord
Number one, club popper
Got a hangover like too much vodka
Can't see me with ten binoculars
So cool
No doubt by the end of the night
Got the clothes coming off
Til I make that move
Somehow, someway, gotta raise the roof, roof
All black shades when the sun come through
Uh-Oh, it's on like everything goes
Round up baby tilt the freaky show

What happens to that body, it's a private show
Stays right here, private show
I like 'em untamed, don't tell me how pain
Tolerance, bottoms up with the champagne
My life, call my homie then we hit Spain
Do you busy with the bail, we get insane

[Sia - Hook]
Hey I heard you were a wild one
Oooh
If I took you home
It'd be a home run
Show me how you do

I wanna shut down the club
With you
Hey I heard you like the wild ones (wild ones wild ones)
Oooh

[Bridge]
I am a wild one
Break me in
Saddle me up and let's begin
I am a wild one
Tame me now
Running with wolves
And I'm on the prowl

Show you another side of me
A side you would never thought you would see
Tear up that body
Dominate you 'til you've had enough
I hear you like
The wild stuff

[Sia - Hook]
Hey I heard you were a wild one
Oooh
If I took you home
It'd be a home run
Show me how you'll do

I wanna shut down the club
With you
Hey I heard you like the wild ones (wild ones wild ones)
Oooh

I am a wild one
Break me in
Saddle me up and let's begin
I am a wild one
Tame me now
Running with wolves
And I'm on the prowl....