Called to serve (good food)

Man, I haven't blogged much for a while. It's not because I haven't had anything going on. Rather, I've had so much going on that the combination of busyness and paralysis of where to begin has kept me from blogging.

This weekend, for instance, H's parents are staying with us. They go into the MTC tomorrow in preparation for their 18-month mission in northern Missouri. They'll be assigned to two branches to work with less-active and part-member families.

Last night, we took S out to dinner at a local Thai place for her birthday. I can't believe she's 10 already--it seems like she's growing up so fast and has reached the milestone my older sister always called "double digits." I remember well reaching that milestone myself. Anyway, we went to this Thai place and invited both sets of grandparents. None of them were familiar with Thai food, but S loves it. I ordered half a dozen entrees and some appetizers and we passed the food around family style. I tried to stay mainstream with dishes like peanut satays, pad thai, and mild curries. I don't think either grandfather liked it too much. My dad dislikes both noodles and rice generally, and my father-in-law is a self-proclaimed meat and potatoes guy, but they both gamely tried almost everything and seemed to do okay. I made sure not to get anything too spicy, either, since my dad is very sensitive to many spices. It was enjoyable, and H and I enjoyed introducing our parents to some new dishes and trying a couple of new things ourselves.

Go, world!

I admit it, I'm an Olympics junkie. I've been watching the games every single night, and it's been great. Every time I watch the swimmers, though, I remember that I owe my sister $20 from a bet I made around the '84 Olympics when I was a county-wide champion in my junior age bracket. I bet her that I would swim in the Olympics someday. I was good on a local level at least, but I lost interest in swimming a few years later and didn't swim competitively in high school. I guess I liked to talk too much--plus, I couldn't see anything in the pool with my bad vision.

Time capsule

For family night tonight we created a little time capsule. We've been doing work on the bathroom, and there was a space behind the new tub created by a change in configuration of the plumbing, so we decided to put in a nod to a future occupant of the house by putting in a mini time capsule. My contribution was $1, because, hey, who doesn't dream of finding money hidden in the walls of their home? I also whipped up this little poem for whoever finds the capsule:

If you read this Carr family rhyme
You must have our capsule of time
We’ll put treasures inside it
In the bathroom we’ll hide it
And leave it to age and to slime.

We’ll tell you a bit about us
Now you’ve got our old house full of rust
And we hope you are happy
And don’t think it’s too crappy
Like life in a Volkswagen bus.

Of children our family has four
We’re middle-class, not rich or poor
Our mom plays the trumpet
Our father likes crumpets
And all think that laundry’s a chore.

A lawyer, musician, four kids
(Thank goodness none died of SIDS)
From age one to ten
They make quite a din—
Like banging a hundred pot lids

You must be remodeling now
We wish we could tell you just how
To paint and to grout
But you’ll figure it out
For we’ve done the same stuff, somehow.

To God we give thanks for our place
And hope it brings smiles to your face
It’s given us pleasure
And been quite a treasure
Enjoy it, whate’er your life’s race.

Wind power

Look, here's a technology that's available to power vehicles solely by wind. Best of all, the technology is market-tested and ready for deployment today:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/reports-of-sail-freights-demise-have-been-mildly-exaggerated/

Here's a more likely widespread use of the technology in practice:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7205217.stm

I'm not quite there yet with my own vehicles, though with four babies, there have been times where the back seat of the minivan could have been referred to as the poop deck.

A better stimulus program

Instead of sending out checks so Americans could spend $100B or so more at Wal-Mart on non-durables from China, we could repair our entire bridge infrastructure for a mere $140B. Not only would that provide a much more lasting benefit to our economy, but the money would be spent primarily on domestic labor and materials. Granted, such a stimulus program would take years to put in effect, so there wouldn't be a huge short-term stimulus at all, but with our nation so much in hock, is this really the most efficient use of funds? Yes, in the long term I'd like to see taxes reduced and more money returned to the taxpayers, but infrastructure is pretty important to the long-term economic health of the country, and we don't seem to be doing well on rail, road, or air networks these days.

MoTab and the Osmonds

On Friday night, I took my eight-year old to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform with the Osmonds in the LDS Conference Center. I'm a little young to remember first-hand the Osmonds in their heyday; my best memory of them was seeing Donny as Joseph of Technicolor Dreamcoat fame when the Broadway touring company came to our city. I have to say, though, that the concert was very enjoyable. My son liked the music and seeing footage of the Osmonds in the 60's and 70's. His favorite was footage from the old Osmond's Saturday morning cartoon, which I had never heard of. Anyway, I had a great time with my son and sister, and the MoTab and accompanying orchestra were as good as ever.

Maybe you have me confused with 911

I've been working to get a license agreement renewed with one of the world's largest tech companies--you would all know them. Their license agreement has expired, but we've been supporting them in good faith, particularly since we do a lot with them not just as our customer but also as a partner.

They've been promising for weeks to get a proposed amendment to me for review. Understand that this is all being driven by them, because all I really need is one paragraph that says that the agreement is renewed for xx years. Finally, yesterday afternoon they sent me something. Our sales guy, who has also been calling me every single day to see if they had sent me something he hadn't seen yet, was on the phone within minutes. I ignored his call but got multiple IMs immediately thereafter, despite my status showing I was busy.

I explained to this individual that yes, I had seen the email, but no I hadn't read it yet so I didn't know what it contained (lots of ugly stuff, as it turned out). He of course then wanted to know when I would have a response back. I told him again that I hadn't read it, that I couldn't make an estimate of when I would respond until I read it, and that I wasn't going to read it that day because I had lots of other stuff going on. He seemed dumbfounded that I wasn't just waiting by my inbox and phone like a 911 dispatcher waiting for something from him. Never mind that he is just one of many people I work with, most of whom have quarter-end demands and regular business going on.

Naturally, I got a call from his director early this morning asking the same thing (sales guys are so predictable). I informed the director that I had seen it, that it was ugly, that Big Customer had taken weeks to get a response to me, and that I hoped to have a response out by sometime Monday. It was indeed an ugly document, but I made it a priority and just got a response out, so I exceeded the expectations I set.

I've learned the hard way how important expectations are in this job. Sometimes, I've told people that I expected to have a deliverable ready by a certain date. Then, a four-alarm fire from somewhere else unexpectedly kept me from being done. At that point, these sales guys, who seem unable to close favorable deals with our customers without massive concessions, become the master of pressure tactics and escalating you up the chain of their management and your management. It's not a fun situation, so I often avoid giving response times at all and lead them to believe I'm always incredibly busy so that any quick response would be a miracle. It doesn't stop their jerky behavior, but it limits the escalation a bit.

Working with my own company's sales guys is definitely the worst three things about this job, which is otherwise pretty good.