Debt is not a Percentage!

I like to listen to the News, most mornings i simply turn on the radio to my local NPR station, which in this case is KUAF and i get my morning fill of national and international current events, as well as local events. I find the drive into work very relaxing and informative!

This morning was a little different than most because this morning i was driving on sheets of ice while freezing rain is ouring down on the window. Of course this is making noise, so i turn the volume on the radio up so i can hear what is goinng on in the world. The station was the same, KUAF, but the person they were interviewing was describing our national debt, more specifically how the national debt has gone down. WHAT!!! So many things were going through my head at this point including :how we managed to lower the debt, where did all the money come from, and more importantly, how much of the revenue used to reduce the national debt was taken from my personal income taxes?

I decided to listen to the person on the radio a little longer and was surprised to hear that "we do not have a debt problem in the United States, and nor did we ever have a debt problem". Astonishing! I was about to ask the question before i heard it across the airwaves, "How can you determine we do not have a debt problem", the response was, "we do not have a debt problem because the percent of debt to GDP has gone down over the past couple of years". I can't remember what the actual percent quoted wass, but the fact that they would measure debt as a percent of GDP and determine that debt was going down as the result is a problem.

Let me clarify, i think that if the debt to GDP percent is going down, that is probably a good thing. However, just because the percent goes down, does not mean that the debt is going down. It could mean that the GDP is going up and even if our debt is going up, as long as it is at a slower rate than GDP, it would appear that the debt was decreasing as a percent of GDP. At the end of the day, if the national debt is $10 Trillion today and two years from now it is $13 Trillion, debt is going up, regardless of what percent it is of GDP. Stop playinng games, the gameof life is real! Spend money like it was your own, save money for the future, and think of the real impact that the financial decisions have on the American public. You people in Congress are on tax payer time and you need to come up with a real solution to this Debt Ceiling that does not involve you spending more money. Grow Up!

Change Someone's Life for the Better

What does it mean to "Change"?

change

verb \ˈchānj\

: to become different
: to make (someone or something) different

: to become something else

I have not accomplished everything I have set out to in this world, and I am not the "Most Interesting Man in the World", but when it comes to change, I am well beyond the skill set of novice. Change is not always the easiest thing to do, but it is accomplished by completing a few tasks:

• Make a decision! Decide what you would like to do if nothing were standing in your way.
• Determine the obstacles standing in your way.
• Enlist someone's help to overcome the obstacles or to give you support. You did not invent the wheel and it is highly likely that you already know someone who has crossed the same hurdles you need to overcome.

Easier said than done, right? Well take this for example...A young man from Fayetteville, Arkansas has a dream to become a great musician. OK, he is already a great musician...but he wants to make it in the music business. He has a loving family, great kid, and teaches at Fayetteville Highschool. For as long as he can remember he has had a passion for music and he surrounds himself with other talented people to help him accomplish his dream of making it big in the music industry.

The musician I am talking about is Barrett Baber and the people he surrounds himself with are people like Aaron Schauer, and all of you who have been part of his family in music, church, school, or in life. Barrett has decided to compete in a contest to win the Gig of a Lifetime, which will afford a fortunate artist the opportunity to play at the Grammy's! The idea of going to the Grammy's, forget playing at the Grammy's, is something that most of us can only consider in our dreams, but for Barrett it could be a reality. There is so much more to learn about Barrett that i cannot put into words and it would defeat the point of me trying to because this blog is intended to be about change!

Barrett has decided that he wants his music to be heard and why shouldn't the whole world hear it! He has determined the obstacles standing in his way, and he has enlisted our help to overcome these obstacles. We can all help Barrett by voting for him to win the Gig of a Lifetime. You can vote the max votes for him on Facebook and on Twitter by including #BarrettBaber #SurfaceGRAMMYGig in your tweets. For most of us, this will take a few minutes and when the contest is over, we will be the same, but for Barrett it will change the stars and help his dreams come true!

If you gain nothing else from reading this post try to consider, if you had the power to change someone's life and help them reach their dreams would you do it? I know i would! I am thankful for all of the people in my life who have helped me to love, to learn, and to laugh! Thank you for helping my dreams come true. 

New Year's Resolution!

At some point in our lives we all have regrets. Some people regret not trying hard enough, others regret not having lost the right amount of weight. These are normal things to make one feel regretful.

What concerns me isn't the regretful moments, but rather those people who manage to skate through ann entire year withut a clue or care in the world of the people they had to step on or step over to acheive bliss in their fish bowl of a world. They have no regrets, because regret is a feeling that resides beneath them. In their minds regret is something reserved the people in the world who work hard for a living, who are always at work on time, and for those people who care about the product they create. we see these people all the time...These are the people who never talk to you throughout the year, but will send you a Christmas card with a family photo printed on $12 card stock. Really?

With this in mind I have a created a few New Year's Resolutions for myself, because I do care about the work i do and the people i impact:

1- Change someone's Life for the better!

2- Start a Business with some Friends that will make $15,000 a year, then double it next year.

3- Develop a Healthier Lifestyle, including food and activities.

4- Kill the family of moles that have invaded my yard. 

5- Spend more time with my Friends and the People who matter in my Life

6- Be kinder to animals, except for the moles!

7- Write a Book, fiction would be better.

8- Drink a bottle of Scotch with other's to celebrate their successes

9- Control my temper when the Recycle and Trash people fail to pickup my waste on time.

10- Love my Family, Love my Friends, and Love my Neighbor, because regardless of how crazy they are, they make life worth living!

I will try to stay on task this year, but will definitely need some help to stay on point. If all else fails, i can just drink the scotch!

Government Shutdown, or Government Bullshit?

For some of us, when we were young, our parents taught us the value of a dollar! Most parents had their own method of teaching this, but almost all of them had the same end result, which was you can't spend $2 if you only have $1.

So the United States Government is undergoing a "partial" shutdown. This means that all non-essential government functions are being temporarily suspended so Congress and the President can work together to get the Country's spending under control. There are a lot of thoughts out there about who or what party is to blame, but it is clear why we are in this predicament. We are in the midst of a partial Government shutdown because the Harvard Business School, Yale, and Stanford graduates who are representing the American people in Washington have forgotten the value of a dollar! What is even worse is that they have all forgotten why they are in Washington! This is not about being Republican or being Democrat and this is not solely about healthcare. This shutdown is about selfishness and ego.

How can this be about selfishness and ego? Ask yourself one question, "How can people, educated at some of the finest institutions in the country, manage to spend trillions of dollars more than our country has in the bank, blame each other for the overspending, and try to work with the leader of the free world only to be met with a resounding "this is not negotiable"? The answer is selfishness and ego! Ask yourself another question, If the partial Government shutdown is not the result of selfishness and ego, why are the national monuments, memorials, and National Mall being barricaded to prevent people from walking through them"? Keep in mind these places are outdoor structures that require no maintenance, in-fact it took work to barricade these places! Check out the video http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Monuments-Mall-Could-Close-Tuesday--225874741.html

Websites are being shutdown, cameras are being turned off, memorials like the WWII Memorial are being barricaded and all because some selfish, egotistical people in Washington forgot the value of a dollar. They forgot the reason they were elected. You are all on notice! The legacy Congress and the President leave will not be one of hard work, it will not be that they rid the world of terror, that they stopped global warming, or that they stopped childhood hunger. The legacy this Congress and the President leaves behind is that the egos and selfishness of the few outweighs the needs of the many. The legacy they leave is that the American people are only needed for elections.

Our Country will survive this. It is what we do! You childish, selfish, pretentious, egotistical types in Washington just need to get out of the way!

Private Sector.....Out!

Red Foreman, The Hero

Everyone has those days where everything they touch or have touched seems to go wrong...Your pens run out of ink, You have cereal but no milk, and the project you have been communicating to your customers grows legs of its own because your supplier did not understand everything you were asking for! What is definite in this world is that if something has the potential to go wrong, it usually will not fall apart until you decide to leave the office or go onn vacation.

Let's face it, accidents happen and people make mistakes....However, when you are working with someone who perpetually makes the same mistakes over and over, it makes it difficult to be sympathetic to the fact that even though accidents happen this person is a complete moron. Let me make one thing clear before too much judgement is passed, I do not think everyone is an idiot and i do not think I am the smartest person in the world. That said, I believe Red Foreman, from the hit show "That 70's Show", characterized my thoughts best when he referred to people who posessed little or no sense as "Dumbass"! 

Red Foreman is my hero! Sure, he does not have many friends but he has a family who loves him, collegues who respect him, and some of the best damn war stories you will never be able to get on HBO! Red says what is on his mind and I cannot help but believe he goes to sleep every night with a clear mind. The truth is, Red would never be able to exist in the society we live in today. Today we are foreced to communicate through phone calls, E-mail, text messages, Twitter, Facebook, and intra office memorandums...Even with all of these communication tools, people still manage mess things up or worse they claim to have never been informed!

I am not obsessive compulsive about communicating but when it comes to businness, i communicate through phone calls and through E-mails. I begin with a phone call and follow-up with an E-mail, usually because the people I talk with over the phone are not good at listening! This routine i have for communicating happens regularly with the people i support as well as with my suppliers. Despite my routine efforts to clearly and repeatedly communicate, I am still met with blank expressions or worse, exceptions or modifications to the plans i put into motion. Another thing you need to know about me, i like my routines but I adapt to change rapidly and effectively, if the change is logical. When something does not make sense, i stand my ground annd even though i try to find the pat of least resistance, i will not compromise what is right for something else. Communication people.....The reason something is communicated is to educate parties involved, ensure success of the objective, and prevent failure in the event something does not go according to plan. In otherwords, i do not communicate for the sole purpose of converting oxygen into carbon dioxide!

Pay Attention People and ask yourself one question today, How did we get to the point to where it is acceptible to repeatedly make careless mistakes? 

Politically Correct? Who Cares?

Politically Correct? Who Cares?

I was having a conversation with someone at lunch today and the typical topics began to surface such as sports, politics, and work. Nothing out of the ordinary, but i noticed that someone was eaves dropping on our conversation! Keep in mind this is mainly small-talk, nothing to do with corporate secrets! I could not help but wonder why this lady was interested in our conversation, so I asked her "Would you like to pull a chair up to our table?" Direct confrontation has the tendency to take most people off guard and this was no exception. The woman responded, "I just could not help but hear you refer to that football player as a black man". Having had a pleasant lunch interrupted by this comment put me in a defensive position pretty fast and I was not in the mood to argue, nor did I have the time to educate the woman on restaurant etiquette. So i thought about it for a moment and I asked the woman another question "How would you describe me"? She seemed a little perplexed by this and responded "You are a middle aged white man who probably works in a professional environment". It was like shooting fish in a barrel, i asked the woman my last question "Now you don not hear me correcting your use of the word White, do you?". Her expression was priceless! She responded to my last inquiry by saying "I am not sure I understand what you mean", to which i responded, "You should not worry about other people being politically correct if you are not going to give your own mouth the same kind of attention"!

I think you can probably guess the woman promptly finished her lunch and walked out of the restaurant pacing a vengeful glance at me on the way out. The guy I was eating lunch with asked me "Why i did you feel it was necessary to confront the woman for listening inn on our conversation"? I simply responded "Calling her out for listening to our conversation is not what prompted the confrontation, it simply expedited what was already going to happen and it allowed us to enjoy the last 30 minutes of our lunch in peace"! 

People who look to inject themselves into the conversations of others will undoubtedly do so, and those people who want to find something to correct, will always find what they are looking for. The trick is to notice these scenarios before they happen and move these people along their way because if you do not, it will likely result in frustration, for everyone except the person who is looking for trouble. For those who want to find what is wrong with other people, stop and take a look at yourself. Are you setting a proper example. And lastly, Stop being so damn sensitive. If i stopped to tell everyone about the stupid shit they were doing, it would be my full-time job and I think Jeff Foxworthy does just fine calling people out!

Here are some last words to live by, "Political correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical progressive minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end." Remember that the next time you feel like correcting someone for saying something differently than how you would like to hear it.

Stupid People + Problems with Tech Support = Hulking Pissed Off Rage

For the mathematicians out there, complex variables can and do exist in real life, specifically in corporate America! I work in a world where the most complex variables are stupid people and tech support....To understand how these are variables you only need to look at how problems are created, or if problems are inherent you need to look at how the problem hit your desk. Conclusion, you solve for X or Y and you usually come up with one of two variables, Stupid People caused the problem, or Stupid People could not solve the problem, either way it is up to me to fix it!

Fortunately for the world, the emergencies that cross my desk do not come in the form of a human body and I do not work in an Emergency Room nor do I operate heavy machinery or surgical utensils! However, I do solve problems and I associate with people who are as equally talented at solving problems...Back on topic...This is a story about someone who solves problems...

It was a busy day yesterday and on top of the problems this "Problem Solver" is responsible for solving, he received a call from a Variable with a problem of their own! Apparently, a database that was designed and constructed by the Problem Solver was experiencing a problem. For this Problem Solver the wheels immediately start turning because it is an extremely busy day and last thing he needs is another Variable adding to the load. So the Problem Solver asks the Variable, "What seems to be the problem?", keep in mind the Problem Solver is a business and logic oriented person who happens to be very skilled at designing and building information systems, not a programmer. The Variable responds "I can't see the database on my screen", immediate the Problem Solver acknowledges that there is not a problem with the database but rather a problem with one of three possible things; 1)The Variable is not accessing the correct database, 2)The Variable is using an external monitor that is not turned on, or 3)The Variable is using an external monitor that is not plugged into the computer. The Problem Solver understands that the easiest solution should always be the first one to try so he asks Variable "Do you see a light on your external monitor?", Variable responds, "Yes". Problem Solver asks "What color is the light on the monitor?", Variable responds "Orange"...Problem Solver says "Plug in your monitor to the computer and you should be able to see the database"!!!!

The problem in this particular case was an interface issue of the most basic kind, the interface between the chair and the keyboard was faulty!!! If i need to explain it then you could be a Variable. The whole scenario for this Problem Solver was a complete waste of time and ultimately resulted in the Problem Solver going into a Hulking Pissed Off Rage because he had only reserved enough patience for the bullshit he was responsible for solving. Lesson to those Variables out there, Think before you Speak, Look before you Leap, and if you have a problem on a Monday Figure it out for Yourself!! Lesson to those Problem Solvers out there, We are utterly and completely outnumbered and the more patience you have with Variables is not indicative of how strong you are but rather a marker that your cup has yet to overflow. By the way, The world only changes and Variables begin to be Problem Solvers when the cup overflows!

Until next time, OUT!