Southwest Virginia Blogs

I wish that was the prediction for most employees.  Experience has taught me that it is unlikely most employees will experience even trustworthy management, much less great management.    A new survey reported by Brent Kallestad of the Associated Press seems to add some substance to my guess.

Nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word and more than a fourth bad mouth those they supervise to co-workers, the Florida State University study shows.

And those all-too-common poor managers create plenty of problems for companies as well, leading to poor morale, less production and higher turnover.

If you have worked in the business world, the odds are that you have experienced a bad boss.  While I don't have a survey to back it up, most bad bosses tend to move around until they find a spot where either no one in upper management cares, or they're running the whole ship until it sinks or runs aground.   A bad boss doesn't necessarily translate into a bad company or one where you should avoid their products and services.  It just means working there might be a challenge if you get on the wrong side of the guy or gal with power who might have even gotten his or her lofty position by being a little loose with the truth.

The American system is set up right now so that it is very hard to weed out bad bosses.   It is highly unlikely that companies will say anything negative about former employees for fear of a lawsuit.  Even if they find a spot internally for a weasel boss, the problems are likely to be ignored.  Speaking of weasels, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has posted the annual 2006 weasel list.

Most companies have great difficulty in identifying competence much less hiring it.  Executives tend to like people who remind them of themselves or assume that the guy who is fun to golf with might also be a great executive.  Defining what needs to be done, recognizing that it has been done well, and rewarding that good job is a challenge.  Even acknowledging good work is a problem for some bosses.  Saying thanks for a job well done, is one of the cheapest ways to motivate people, but that still doesn't make it easy to do for some.

I have seen teams willing to work unbelievable hours become completely unmotivated when a bad boss arrived on the scene. Making promises that never will  be kept is the fastest way I know to deflate motivation.  Some bosses immediately feel threatened by any competent employees and will often go to great lengths to ensure that no one outshines them.  That just perpetuates bad management.

The reality is that defining, finding, hiring, and keeping competent hardworking people is a huge challenge once you factor in company culture, personalities, and changing job requirements.  It's no wonder that a lot of very competent people steer clear of management roles.  Those jobs are often surrounded by hidden minefields and involve a lot of thankless work.

This morning I noticed in a NY Times article, "Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm," that Google has tried to reduce hiring to something of a science.  That probably works as well as anything.  It's pretty clear that interviews are an inexact science at best. 

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school.

Of course most companies don't have the luxury of Google's 100,000 applications, so sometimes they take the best that they can find which sometimes ends up working pretty well in the end.  Sometimes the best employee on paper or the one who comes through the interviews the best turns out to be a poor fit for one reason or another.  In truth giving competent people at shot at proving themselves works pretty well.

Having a successful team is a complex equation, but one thing is for sure, a boss who can't keep his commitments or continually changes his mind doesn't make life any easier for the company or the employees.

I wish that was the prediction for most employees.  Experience has taught me that it is unlikely most employees will experience even trustworthy management, much less great management.    A new survey reported by Brent Kallestad of the Associated Press seems to add some substance to my guess.

Nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word and more than a fourth bad mouth those they supervise to co-workers, the Florida State University study shows.

And those all-too-common poor managers create plenty of problems for companies as well, leading to poor morale, less production and higher turnover.

If you have worked in the business world, the odds are that you have experienced a bad boss.  While I don't have a survey to back it up, most bad bosses tend to move around until they find a spot where either no one in upper management cares, or they're running the whole ship until it sinks or runs aground.   A bad boss doesn't necessarily translate into a bad company or one where you should avoid their products and services.  It just means working there might be a challenge if you get on the wrong side of the guy or gal with power who might have even gotten his or her lofty position by being a little loose with the truth.

The American system is set up right now so that it is very hard to weed out bad bosses.   It is highly unlikely that companies will say anything negative about former employees for fear of a lawsuit.  Even if they find a spot internally for a weasel boss, the problems are likely to be ignored.  Speaking of weasels, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has posted the annual 2006 weasel list.

Most companies have great difficulty in identifying competence much less hiring it.  Executives tend to like people who remind them of themselves or assume that the guy who is fun to golf with might also be a great executive.  Defining what needs to be done, recognizing that it has been done well, and rewarding that good job is a challenge.  Even acknowledging good work is a problem for some bosses.  Saying thanks for a job well done, is one of the cheapest ways to motivate people, but that still doesn't make it easy to do for some.

I have seen teams willing to work unbelievable hours become completely unmotivated when a bad boss arrived on the scene. Making promises that never will  be kept is the fastest way I know to deflate motivation.  Some bosses immediately feel threatened by any competent employees and will often go to great lengths to ensure that no one outshines them.  That just perpetuates bad management.

The reality is that defining, finding, hiring, and keeping competent hardworking people is a huge challenge once you factor in company culture, personalities, and changing job requirements.  It's no wonder that a lot of very competent people steer clear of management roles.  Those jobs are often surrounded by hidden minefields and involve a lot of thankless work.

This morning I noticed in a NY Times article, "Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm," that Google has tried to reduce hiring to something of a science.  That probably works as well as anything.  It's pretty clear that interviews are an inexact science at best. 

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school.

Of course most companies don't have the luxury of Google's 100,000 applications, so sometimes they take the best that they can find which sometimes ends up working pretty well in the end.  Sometimes the best employee on paper or the one who comes through the interviews the best turns out to be a poor fit for one reason or another.  In truth giving competent people at shot at proving themselves works pretty well.

Having a successful team is a complex equation, but one thing is for sure, a boss who can't keep his commitments or continually changes his mind doesn't make life any easier for the company or the employees.

I wish that was the prediction for most employees.  Experience has taught me that it is unlikely most employees will experience even trustworthy management, much less great management.    A new survey reported by Brent Kallestad of the Associated Press seems to add some substance to my guess.

Nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word and more than a fourth bad mouth those they supervise to co-workers, the Florida State University study shows.

And those all-too-common poor managers create plenty of problems for companies as well, leading to poor morale, less production and higher turnover.

If you have worked in the business world, the odds are that you have experienced a bad boss.  While I don't have a survey to back it up, most bad bosses tend to move around until they find a spot where either no one in upper management cares, or they're running the whole ship until it sinks or runs aground.   A bad boss doesn't necessarily translate into a bad company or one where you should avoid their products and services.  It just means working there might be a challenge if you get on the wrong side of the guy or gal with power who might have even gotten his or her lofty position by being a little loose with the truth.

The American system is set up right now so that it is very hard to weed out bad bosses.   It is highly unlikely that companies will say anything negative about former employees for fear of a lawsuit.  Even if they find a spot internally for a weasel boss, the problems are likely to be ignored.  Speaking of weasels, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has posted the annual 2006 weasel list.

Most companies have great difficulty in identifying competence much less hiring it.  Executives tend to like people who remind them of themselves or assume that the guy who is fun to golf with might also be a great executive.  Defining what needs to be done, recognizing that it has been done well, and rewarding that good job is a challenge.  Even acknowledging good work is a problem for some bosses.  Saying thanks for a job well done, is one of the cheapest ways to motivate people, but that still doesn't make it easy to do for some.

I have seen teams willing to work unbelievable hours become completely unmotivated when a bad boss arrived on the scene. Making promises that never will  be kept is the fastest way I know to deflate motivation.  Some bosses immediately feel threatened by any competent employees and will often go to great lengths to ensure that no one outshines them.  That just perpetuates bad management.

The reality is that defining, finding, hiring, and keeping competent hardworking people is a huge challenge once you factor in company culture, personalities, and changing job requirements.  It's no wonder that a lot of very competent people steer clear of management roles.  Those jobs are often surrounded by hidden minefields and involve a lot of thankless work.

This morning I noticed in a NY Times article, "Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm," that Google has tried to reduce hiring to something of a science.  That probably works as well as anything.  It's pretty clear that interviews are an inexact science at best. 

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school.

Of course most companies don't have the luxury of Google's 100,000 applications, so sometimes they take the best that they can find which sometimes ends up working pretty well in the end.  Sometimes the best employee on paper or the one who comes through the interviews the best turns out to be a poor fit for one reason or another.  In truth giving competent people at shot at proving themselves works pretty well.

Having a successful team is a complex equation, but one thing is for sure, a boss who can't keep his commitments or continually changes his mind doesn't make life any easier for the company or the employees.

I wish that was the prediction for most employees.  Experience has taught me that it is unlikely most employees will experience even trustworthy management, much less great management.    A new survey reported by Brent Kallestad of the Associated Press seems to add some substance to my guess.

Nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word and more than a fourth bad mouth those they supervise to co-workers, the Florida State University study shows.

And those all-too-common poor managers create plenty of problems for companies as well, leading to poor morale, less production and higher turnover.

If you have worked in the business world, the odds are that you have experienced a bad boss.  While I don't have a survey to back it up, most bad bosses tend to move around until they find a spot where either no one in upper management cares, or they're running the whole ship until it sinks or runs aground.   A bad boss doesn't necessarily translate into a bad company or one where you should avoid their products and services.  It just means working there might be a challenge if you get on the wrong side of the guy or gal with power who might have even gotten his or her lofty position by being a little loose with the truth.

The American system is set up right now so that it is very hard to weed out bad bosses.   It is highly unlikely that companies will say anything negative about former employees for fear of a lawsuit.  Even if they find a spot internally for a weasel boss, the problems are likely to be ignored.  Speaking of weasels, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has posted the annual 2006 weasel list.

Most companies have great difficulty in identifying competence much less hiring it.  Executives tend to like people who remind them of themselves or assume that the guy who is fun to golf with might also be a great executive.  Defining what needs to be done, recognizing that it has been done well, and rewarding that good job is a challenge.  Even acknowledging good work is a problem for some bosses.  Saying thanks for a job well done, is one of the cheapest ways to motivate people, but that still doesn't make it easy to do for some.

I have seen teams willing to work unbelievable hours become completely unmotivated when a bad boss arrived on the scene. Making promises that never will  be kept is the fastest way I know to deflate motivation.  Some bosses immediately feel threatened by any competent employees and will often go to great lengths to ensure that no one outshines them.  That just perpetuates bad management.

The reality is that defining, finding, hiring, and keeping competent hardworking people is a huge challenge once you factor in company culture, personalities, and changing job requirements.  It's no wonder that a lot of very competent people steer clear of management roles.  Those jobs are often surrounded by hidden minefields and involve a lot of thankless work.

This morning I noticed in a NY Times article, "Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm," that Google has tried to reduce hiring to something of a science.  That probably works as well as anything.  It's pretty clear that interviews are an inexact science at best. 

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school.

Of course most companies don't have the luxury of Google's 100,000 applications, so sometimes they take the best that they can find which sometimes ends up working pretty well in the end.  Sometimes the best employee on paper or the one who comes through the interviews the best turns out to be a poor fit for one reason or another.  In truth giving competent people at shot at proving themselves works pretty well.

Having a successful team is a complex equation, but one thing is for sure, a boss who can't keep his commitments or continually changes his mind doesn't make life any easier for the company or the employees.

I wish that was the prediction for most employees.  Experience has taught me that it is unlikely most employees will experience even trustworthy management, much less great management.    A new survey reported by Brent Kallestad of the Associated Press seems to add some substance to my guess.

Nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word and more than a fourth bad mouth those they supervise to co-workers, the Florida State University study shows.

And those all-too-common poor managers create plenty of problems for companies as well, leading to poor morale, less production and higher turnover.

If you have worked in the business world, the odds are that you have experienced a bad boss.  While I don't have a survey to back it up, most bad bosses tend to move around until they find a spot where either no one in upper management cares, or they're running the whole ship until it sinks or runs aground.   A bad boss doesn't necessarily translate into a bad company or one where you should avoid their products and services.  It just means working there might be a challenge if you get on the wrong side of the guy or gal with power who might have even gotten his or her lofty position by being a little loose with the truth.

The American system is set up right now so that it is very hard to weed out bad bosses.   It is highly unlikely that companies will say anything negative about former employees for fear of a lawsuit.  Even if they find a spot internally for a weasel boss, the problems are likely to be ignored.  Speaking of weasels, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has posted the annual 2006 weasel list.

Most companies have great difficulty in identifying competence much less hiring it.  Executives tend to like people who remind them of themselves or assume that the guy who is fun to golf with might also be a great executive.  Defining what needs to be done, recognizing that it has been done well, and rewarding that good job is a challenge.  Even acknowledging good work is a problem for some bosses.  Saying thanks for a job well done, is one of the cheapest ways to motivate people, but that still doesn't make it easy to do for some.

I have seen teams willing to work unbelievable hours become completely unmotivated when a bad boss arrived on the scene. Making promises that never will  be kept is the fastest way I know to deflate motivation.  Some bosses immediately feel threatened by any competent employees and will often go to great lengths to ensure that no one outshines them.  That just perpetuates bad management.

The reality is that defining, finding, hiring, and keeping competent hardworking people is a huge challenge once you factor in company culture, personalities, and changing job requirements.  It's no wonder that a lot of very competent people steer clear of management roles.  Those jobs are often surrounded by hidden minefields and involve a lot of thankless work.

This morning I noticed in a NY Times article, "Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm," that Google has tried to reduce hiring to something of a science.  That probably works as well as anything.  It's pretty clear that interviews are an inexact science at best. 

Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school.

Of course most companies don't have the luxury of Google's 100,000 applications, so sometimes they take the best that they can find which sometimes ends up working pretty well in the end.  Sometimes the best employee on paper or the one who comes through the interviews the best turns out to be a poor fit for one reason or another.  In truth giving competent people at shot at proving themselves works pretty well.

Having a successful team is a complex equation, but one thing is for sure, a boss who can't keep his commitments or continually changes his mind doesn't make life any easier for the company or the employees.

This morning I received a copy of Joseph Rago's article, "The blog mob."  A subscription might be required to see the article.  I think probably the most interesting of Mr. Rago's comments might well be the subheading of the article on the WSJ main opinion page.

"Written by fools to be read by imbeciles."

That is a fairly generalized and inflammatory subtitle for an article written by someone who seems so concerned about the loss of the "checks and balances" of the mainstream media establishment ("MSM").

Certainly the MSM, such as it is, collapsed itself. It was once utterly dominant yet made itself vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue adversarial agendas. Still, as far from perfect as that system was, it was and is not wholly imperfect. The technology of ink on paper is highly advanced, and has over centuries accumulated a major institutional culture that screens editorially for originality, expertise and seriousness.

Perhaps my worldview here on the Southern Outer Banks  might be a little different than that of Mr. Rago's view from his WSJ office. I am certainly no enemy of the printed word. As I admitted in my post, "The morning newspaper," I am a newspaper junkie so I often read the WSJ, the New York Times, and the Washington.  I sometimes read a little farther down the food chain and will pick up copies of The Carteret County Times and The Tideland News.  I would hate to find out what our esteemed Mr. Rago would think of them, but he does offer us some clues.

Nobody wants to be an imbecile. Part of it, I think, is that everyone likes shows and entertainments. Mobs are exciting. People also like validation of what they already believe; the Internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying the mediocrity of the masses.

Immediately the assumption that I pick up from paragraph is that the only way we in the masses can be gratified is by subscribing and paying money to read the likes of Mr. Rago.  I wonder exactly what enlightenment I might pick up from Mr. Grasso's writing.  Is it that he is highly educated because he likes to use words like "vastation," "logorrheic," and "fatuities."  I actually come way with the opinion that his writing reeks of elitism.

Perhaps Mr. Rago, who is so unimpressed with the world of blogs, is overly impressed with his own importance as an "assistant editorial features editor" at one of the few newspapers in American which actually brings in enough revenue from its online business to take it seriously and not have to worry very much about firing people.  According to a March 14, 2005 NY Times article, "Can Papers End the Free Ride Online?," the WSJ has a total of 700,000 paying online subscribers including me.  That probably makes Mr. Rago's immensely important job fairly safe.

That's actually a rarity in this day and age. However for those businesses and publications not so fortunate, the Internet and even blogs come to the rescue. The same issue of the Journal which Mr. Rago's article even has an audio post about the Internet saving my small business.

Our latest Internet revolution is all about the localization of content.  Now very little of it may be relevant to Mr. Rago, who appears to be a big fish in a fairly well mapped big and prominent pond.  Yet to those of us who either are no longer in that race or never chose to be there, there is a whole world out here where information is scarce and the mainstream media hasn't seen fit to grace us with their enlightenment.

I am admittedly a member of a significant minority.  I use Macintosh computers. That means that while I have the choice of products from many manufacturers whose products claim compatibility, in reality the products may or may not work with my Macs.  While I might not know as much as about editing articles as Mr. Rago, I can generally make technology hum.  I did a fair amount of research before I went out and purchased a new HP AIO Photosmart C6180.  In the end my purchase was a gamble of sorts because information much of it from the mainstream media was scarce and conflicting, and sometimes tainted by the somewhat obvious need to not offend an advertiser. 

My safety net when I purchase the HP C6180 was that while I wanted the product to work on a Mac,  knew that I had a Windows machine to fall back on if needed.   When I actually got the product to work on my Mac, I wrote up a couple of posts, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180" and "The not so reluctant home system engineer," about my experiences.  Now while these posts might not be of much value to Mr. Rago, I suspect the well over 3,000 people who have read just the first one might disagree that they were written by fool to be read by imbeciles.  I apologize for taking the liberty of slightly altering the subtitle for "The Blog Mob."

Those posts about the HP AIO filled in a little but significant crack of knowledge that the mainstream media had chosen to ignore because it would not draw enough readership that anyone cared to track so that someone could be paid to write the review.  Even more significantly it is likely that no one in the mainstream media cared enough to even think of writing the article.

So if we are to judge by the standard that the only things worth reading are those where people have been paid to write them, I would argue that we make our lives immensely less satisfying.  If paying writers makes content better, then I wonder what happened to television and the writers whose content happens to offend my sensibilities.  I am not so sure that writing for free is something we should discourage.  If I am providing my best judgment on a product, service, or an issue and someone has decided that they would rather have my opinion than one from someone who is receiving money to promote something,  who is Mr. Rago to declare that this is just "gratifying the mediocrity of the masses."  Perhaps reading the WSJ's paid articles is just filling the pockets of wealthy publishers.

I could suggest one article for Mr. Rago, "Let the Seller Beware," which is a WSJ review of a book by that name.  Just maybe it might help him understand what's happening on the Internet a little more fully before the mediocre masses completely take over the world.

While my writing expertise or that of many others on the web might not be as financially well rewarded as Mr. Rago's, that does not mean that our opinions and posts are worthless dribble as Mr. Rago seems to hint.

While Mr. Rago's opinion piece has the benefit of being supported by the likes Fidelity and Toshiba. Mine has to supported by the time and effort that I take from earning money. Generally that means I have to believe that what I write has value before I even start.  Then when I start writing, I take it very seriously.  My considerable good reputation is on the line. 

I often write about small businesses which again is an area which the mainstream media has found unprofitable or at least hard to capture except by the likes of Google.  When I find a hidden gem like Kelchner's Cocktail sauce, The Depot at Cody Creek, or Backpack, I write about it.  By the traffic that I see and comments that I receive, I know these posts have some positive impact.

Do I sometimes get ideas from the mainstream media, certainly.  Do I "ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps?"  I don't think so.  Do I exactly know what my niche is?  Probably I don't even care.  I have written things as diverse as "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth" and "The Dippy Egg."  I even chronicled how to plant and care for tomato plants in the hope that the wisdom my mother passed down to me along with what I've learned might somehow be valuable to my kids. 

I added all the links in the last two paragraphs just as a statement that I believe interactivity in media has great value.  It certainly allows even us mediocre masses to do a little exploring on our own without the divine guidance of the mainstream media.

I would also take exception with the following comment by Mr. Rago.

But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting -- the news -- already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.

I would argue that there is a certain rigor enforced by doing it now and trying to do it right the first time with only one set of eyes for a safety net.  I try hard to check for facts and just as religiously correct for errors when I find them or they are pointed out to me.  Just because you have the luxury of doing something slowly doesn't mean that it is going to turn out well.  Those of us writing out without pay would love to have a second set of eyes to scan our works.  Often it turns out that it is our readers who find and report errors and omissions which can easily be corrected in our instant world of blogs.

Long ago I learned that wisdom and beauty are where you find them, not exclusively in a gated community where you have to pay to enter.  The idea that all blogs are "Written by fools to be read by imbeciles," makes as much sense as every article which has an editor and a dollar value attached to it is enlightening.

Finally in stating the obvious, "Journalism requires journalists," let me remind Mr. Rago of the second definition for "journalist" which is "a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events."

That sounds remarkably like writing a blog. I wonder if that might be acceptable training for the next generation of professional journalists?  It will certainly require a closer look than the one Mr. Rago gave the world of blogs.

This morning I received a copy of Joseph Rago's article, "The blog mob."  A subscription might be required to see the article.  I think probably the most interesting of Mr. Rago's comments might well be the subheading of the article on the WSJ main opinion page.

"Written by fools to be read by imbeciles."

That is a fairly generalized and inflammatory subtitle for an article written by someone who seems so concerned about the loss of the "checks and balances" of the mainstream media establishment ("MSM").

Certainly the MSM, such as it is, collapsed itself. It was once utterly dominant yet made itself vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue adversarial agendas. Still, as far from perfect as that system was, it was and is not wholly imperfect. The technology of ink on paper is highly advanced, and has over centuries accumulated a major institutional culture that screens editorially for originality, expertise and seriousness.

Perhaps my worldview here on the Southern Outer Banks  might be a little different than that of Mr. Rago's view from his WSJ office. I am certainly no enemy of the printed word. As I admitted in my post, "The morning newspaper," I am a newspaper junkie so I often read the WSJ, the New York Times, and the Washington.  I sometimes read a little farther down the food chain and will pick up copies of The Carteret County Times and The Tideland News.  I would hate to find out what our esteemed Mr. Rago would think of them, but he does offer us some clues.

Nobody wants to be an imbecile. Part of it, I think, is that everyone likes shows and entertainments. Mobs are exciting. People also like validation of what they already believe; the Internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying the mediocrity of the masses.

Immediately the assumption that I pick up from paragraph is that the only way we in the masses can be gratified is by subscribing and paying money to read the likes of Mr. Rago.  I wonder exactly what enlightenment I might pick up from Mr. Grasso's writing.  Is it that he is highly educated because he likes to use words like "vastation," "logorrheic," and "fatuities."  I actually come way with the opinion that his writing reeks of elitism.

Perhaps Mr. Rago, who is so unimpressed with the world of blogs, is overly impressed with his own importance as an "assistant editorial features editor" at one of the few newspapers in American which actually brings in enough revenue from its online business to take it seriously and not have to worry very much about firing people.  According to a March 14, 2005 NY Times article, "Can Papers End the Free Ride Online?," the WSJ has a total of 700,000 paying online subscribers including me.  That probably makes Mr. Rago's immensely important job fairly safe.

That's actually a rarity in this day and age. However for those businesses and publications not so fortunate, the Internet and even blogs come to the rescue. The same issue of the Journal which Mr. Rago's article even has an audio post about the Internet saving my small business.

Our latest Internet revolution is all about the localization of content.  Now very little of it may be relevant to Mr. Rago, who appears to be a big fish in a fairly well mapped big and prominent pond.  Yet to those of us who either are no longer in that race or never chose to be there, there is a whole world out here where information is scarce and the mainstream media hasn't seen fit to grace us with their enlightenment.

I am admittedly a member of a significant minority.  I use Macintosh computers. That means that while I have the choice of products from many manufacturers whose products claim compatibility, in reality the products may or may not work with my Macs.  While I might not know as much as about editing articles as Mr. Rago, I can generally make technology hum.  I did a fair amount of research before I went out and purchased a new HP AIO Photosmart C6180.  In the end my purchase was a gamble of sorts because information much of it from the mainstream media was scarce and conflicting, and sometimes tainted by the somewhat obvious need to not offend an advertiser. 

My safety net when I purchase the HP C6180 was that while I wanted the product to work on a Mac,  knew that I had a Windows machine to fall back on if needed.   When I actually got the product to work on my Mac, I wrote up a couple of posts, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180" and "The not so reluctant home system engineer," about my experiences.  Now while these posts might not be of much value to Mr. Rago, I suspect the well over 3,000 people who have read just the first one might disagree that they were written by fool to be read by imbeciles.  I apologize for taking the liberty of slightly altering the subtitle for "The Blog Mob."

Those posts about the HP AIO filled in a little but significant crack of knowledge that the mainstream media had chosen to ignore because it would not draw enough readership that anyone cared to track so that someone could be paid to write the review.  Even more significantly it is likely that no one in the mainstream media cared enough to even think of writing the article.

So if we are to judge by the standard that the only things worth reading are those where people have been paid to write them, I would argue that we make our lives immensely less satisfying.  If paying writers makes content better, then I wonder what happened to television and the writers whose content happens to offend my sensibilities.  I am not so sure that writing for free is something we should discourage.  If I am providing my best judgment on a product, service, or an issue and someone has decided that they would rather have my opinion than one from someone who is receiving money to promote something,  who is Mr. Rago to declare that this is just "gratifying the mediocrity of the masses."  Perhaps reading the WSJ's paid articles is just filling the pockets of wealthy publishers.

I could suggest one article for Mr. Rago, "Let the Seller Beware," which is a WSJ review of a book by that name.  Just maybe it might help him understand what's happening on the Internet a little more fully before the mediocre masses completely take over the world.

While my writing expertise or that of many others on the web might not be as financially well rewarded as Mr. Rago's, that does not mean that our opinions and posts are worthless dribble as Mr. Rago seems to hint.

While Mr. Rago's opinion piece has the benefit of being supported by the likes Fidelity and Toshiba. Mine has to supported by the time and effort that I take from earning money. Generally that means I have to believe that what I write has value before I even start.  Then when I start writing, I take it very seriously.  My considerable good reputation is on the line. 

I often write about small businesses which again is an area which the mainstream media has found unprofitable or at least hard to capture except by the likes of Google.  When I find a hidden gem like Kelchner's Cocktail sauce, The Depot at Cody Creek, or Backpack, I write about it.  By the traffic that I see and comments that I receive, I know these posts have some positive impact.

Do I sometimes get ideas from the mainstream media, certainly.  Do I "ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps?"  I don't think so.  Do I exactly know what my niche is?  Probably I don't even care.  I have written things as diverse as "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth" and "The Dippy Egg."  I even chronicled how to plant and care for tomato plants in the hope that the wisdom my mother passed down to me along with what I've learned might somehow be valuable to my kids. 

I added all the links in the last two paragraphs just as a statement that I believe interactivity in media has great value.  It certainly allows even us mediocre masses to do a little exploring on our own without the divine guidance of the mainstream media.

I would also take exception with the following comment by Mr. Rago.

But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting -- the news -- already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.

I would argue that there is a certain rigor enforced by doing it now and trying to do it right the first time with only one set of eyes for a safety net.  I try hard to check for facts and just as religiously correct for errors when I find them or they are pointed out to me.  Just because you have the luxury of doing something slowly doesn't mean that it is going to turn out well.  Those of us writing out without pay would love to have a second set of eyes to scan our works.  Often it turns out that it is our readers who find and report errors and omissions which can easily be corrected in our instant world of blogs.

Long ago I learned that wisdom and beauty are where you find them, not exclusively in a gated community where you have to pay to enter.  The idea that all blogs are "Written by fools to be read by imbeciles," makes as much sense as every article which has an editor and a dollar value attached to it is enlightening.

Finally in stating the obvious, "Journalism requires journalists," let me remind Mr. Rago of the second definition for "journalist" which is "a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events."

That sounds remarkably like writing a blog. I wonder if that might be acceptable training for the next generation of professional journalists?  It will certainly require a closer look than the one Mr. Rago gave the world of blogs.

This morning I read a couple of pieces, one in the NY Times by David Brooks,  "The Education of Robert Kennedy," and the other, "The job's not done," in the Roanoke Times by Jerry Fuhrman.

It occurs to me that one article is talking about learning the past while the other hopes to preserve the past by legislating it. Last night we stopped by one of our favorite spots in Croatan National Forest to watch the sunset.  A mother was there with her young son.  We did not notice him until we got close to the water.  He was climbing high up in a tree.  Eventually we struck up a conversation as we watched the sun burn into the water.

She said that she wanted her son to feel like he owned the world.  She did not want him to live in a world of "no you cannot do that."  That is probably an admirable strategy as long as there are limits to that ownership and an added measure of responsibility.

I am a believer in the government staying out of our lives as much as possible so we do have a chance to fairly own a piece of our world.   Having the government outlaw same sex marriage in our state constitution will have little impact on whether or not people form same sex unions. 

It will not change most people's opportunity to be happy.  It certainly will not help improve the lot of people in same sex unions who help drive our economy just as much as those in same sex marriages.

It is a interesting idea that we can create a more comfortable or safer society by trying to legislate people to be like us.  We are actually better off building a society that excludes no one except those who are a real danger to us.  You should take that to mean, that I am not in favor of holding people indefinitely without trial on charges just because they do not look like me or do not worship the same way that I do.

Is affirmative action a danger to our society?  I can think of plenty of other dangers that I would put well ahead of it.  If you want to see how American culture has changed for the worst, spend some time in our corporations that are held so dear by many in our society.  I wrote about this new corporate society, "Cult of the Buddies," back in December 2004.  That new corporate society is a far greater danger to American life than any affirmative action.  If your position in the corporation has more to do with who you know than what you can accomplish, we have some very serious structural problems.

Our experiences shape our prejudices and even how we write.   My life in Apple's buddy dominated corporate world colors how I see corporations.   I tend to view governmental power from the perspective of someone who got whacked on the head while attempting to go get a burger during the student marches in Cambridge in the late sixties.

I would like to see government have as little power as possible while still meeting our basic needs which in my mind do not include invading places like Iraq for specious reasons but do include providing basic health care for its population.

We have to understand in our minds what government can and cannot do.  Government can legislate all it wants, but if there is no enforcement there, then the legislation is worthless.  We have laws about age discrimination in business,  but talk to any male over fifty in the high tech world, and you will realize that most companies consider older employees an expensive burden even if the employees are highly qualified.  The laws are on the books, but with the current state of enforcement the companies can do whatever they want including putting older employees into situations where there is not a chance to do anything but fail.  It has even reached the stage that there are Dilbert cartoons on older high tech workers like these published this past Thursday and Friday.

Can government fix this? I seriously doubt it, and the cost would likely be prohibitive.  Can government legislate marriage between a man and a woman?  I have no doubt that government will try to do that, but I suspect over time it will fail.

We can all yearn for the fifties and sixties, like George Will in his "In the market for the '50s," or me in my  post, "Growing Up in the Fifties and Sixties."  Yet, society will change in spite of our desire to legislate it into the past.  The best we can do is learn from the past and build a society  that puts as few people at a disadvantage as possible.  That likely means protecting the rights of everyone  to be free from the  "Tyranny of the Majority" or those who happen to be in power at a given  moment in time.

If you think that power always stays in the same hands, that walls can protect our country, or that we can legislate how people live, remember that in ancient Greece, Sparta fell after it built its first wall.

David Brooks closes his article with this very poignant observation.

And the lesson, of course, is about the need to step outside your own immediate experience into the past, to learn about the problems that never change, and bring back some of that inheritance. The leaders who founded the country were steeped in the classics, Kennedy found them in crisis, and today’s students are lucky if they stumble on them by happenstance.

And so here we are reliving the past in foreign policy because those in power thought they were immune from the lessons of history and that they owned the world.

Probably the most difficult thing for any employee to handle is a manager who does not level with them.  You usually see it in two cases.  One is in large corporations where they are usually afraid to let you know where you stand since you might have an opportunity to question their inscrutable plans for you.

The second case is with immature managers who do not have the confidence to deal with employees one on one.  They end up going through some interesting contortions to keep from having to deal with their own insecurity and business situations that they just have not learned how to handle.

I managed to help several employees leave Apple Computer.    By far the easiest technique was to sit down and tell them the job was not working out for them, and to ask them if they felt changing some things would give them a chance to succeed or did they feel like it was time to move on to another job.  Every single employee that I talked to but one made the decision to go to another job.

Often asking an employee to move on, means they haven't been able to adapt to your environment or that you aren't smart enough to figure out how to use them.

I was reading in the paper today that one of the biggest problems in government is that policies are not decided by robust debate among near peers.  If it is a problem in government, it is an epidemic in business.  Usually when the CEO (or executive VP) makes a decision, his executive lieutenants fall all over themselves trying to associate themselves with the CEO's decision.  It often does not matter whether the decision is a good one or a bad one.  The important thing is that it is the CEO's or VP's decision, so everyone falls in line.

It's far better to have serious challenges to the CEO's ideas.  No CEO, no matter how much they think of themselves, is infallible.  The months they often waste in figuring out their own mistakes is a tribute to their unwillingness to have competent, strong people working around them.  It is much easier to have people who wouldn't consider anything but agreeing with the CEO's ideas. They will do anything to implement the CEOs ideas, no matter what the consequences.  Their loyalty is to the CEO not the company.

I'll never forget the time Apple's enterprise sale teams got sent off to peddle iMac kiosks to the enterprise.  Those who tried to question the plan did not have enough power, and those with enough power to challenge the idea were too far under the spell of the VP who had proposed the iMac kiosks.

The VP only lasted a short time, but the damage from his folly filled policies probably can still be seen years later at Apple.  Unfortunately Apple isn't the only company to have this problem.  You might also deduce from the Apple example that stock price isn't necessarily a measure of excellence in management.

There is little doubt that I am a big barbecue fan.  I have written about a number of barbecue spots like Bastians in Roanoke, Va in my post "Friday night at the Barbecue Joint." Then I wrote about a spot actually called the "Barbecue Joint" located on Weaver Dairy Road near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It was mentioned in my post, "Back to the mountains."

Then there was the visit to Allen & Sons Barbecue, Chapel Hill, NC which was recommended by my friend Cameron.  When I took my real estate broker course in Hickory, NC, I discovered a really great spot, "FireBonz."   I even hauled back barbecue in a cooler to Roanoke a couple of times from Firebonz.

There have been a very few barbecue meals that I didn't consider a success like the one we had at Olde Virginia Barbecue in Rocky Mount, Va.  However, the general rule is that any barbecue is better than no barbecue.  As I said in "Barbecue And More Barbecue," I love barbecue.

Since I have been wandering around North Carolina's Crystal Coast,   I have been suffering from a barbecue drought.  Early one morning on my way to a very useful NC broker post licensing course in Wilmington, I happened to notice a metal roofed building called "The Smokehouse" on the west side of US 17.  I made a note of the mileage, and promised myself if that I had a good day in class that I might stop by and check it out on the way home.

We had one of the most productive days that I have enjoyed in my many real estate classes.  With that as a background, I was on the lookout for The Smokehouse.  I walked in and without even looking at the menu, I asked if they did barbecue by the pound.  The young lady said yes. I ordered a pound with some slaw and two buns.  Complete with tax, the meal came to $9.08.  I did not even have to ask, I got chopped pork.

About forty five minutes after leaving, I backed down our driveway on the east side of the White Oak River in Carteret County with what I hoped would be my first successful capture of real Eastern North Carolina barbecue.

We made our sandwiches, and it did not take Glenda, my wife, and I long to decide that I will be swinging by The Holly Ridge Smokehouse whenever I get a chance in my travels to Wilmington.  The barbecue was very lean with a nice hint of vinegar without being overwhelming.  The slaw was also crunchy and tasty.  The meal was a winner, a great bargain, and there is even enough left for Glenda's lunch tomorrow.

I wonder how their fried chicken is?  There's seems to be a shortage of that also along the Crystal Coast.  The Smokehouse opens early every morning.  If a full parking lot is an indication of good food, their breakfast must be very good.

There is little doubt that I am a big barbecue fan.  I have written about a number of barbecue spots like Bastians in Roanoke, Va in my post "Friday night at the Barbecue Joint." Then I wrote about a spot actually called the "Barbecue Joint" located on Weaver Dairy Road near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It was mentioned in my post, "Back to the mountains."

Then there was the visit to Allen & Sons Barbecue, Chapel Hill, NC which was recommended by my friend Cameron.  When I took my real estate broker course in Hickory, NC, I discovered a really great spot, "FireBonz."   I even hauled back barbecue in a cooler to Roanoke a couple of times from Firebonz.

There have been a very few barbecue meals that I didn't consider a success like the one we had at Olde Virginia Barbecue in Rocky Mount, Va.  However, the general rule is that any barbecue is better than no barbecue.  As I said in "Barbecue And More Barbecue," I love barbecue.

Since I have been wandering around North Carolina's Crystal Coast,   I have been suffering from a barbecue drought.  Early one morning on my way to a very useful NC broker post licensing course in Wilmington, I happened to notice a metal roofed building called "The Smokehouse" on the west side of US 17.  I made a note of the mileage, and promised myself if that I had a good day in class that I might stop by and check it out on the way home.

We had one of the most productive days that I have enjoyed in my many real estate classes.  With that as a background, I was on the lookout for The Smokehouse.  I walked in and without even looking at the menu, I asked if they did barbecue by the pound.  The young lady said yes. I ordered a pound with some slaw and two buns.  Complete with tax, the meal came to $9.08.  I did not even have to ask, I got chopped pork.

About forty five minutes after leaving, I backed down our driveway on the east side of the White Oak River in Carteret County with what I hoped would be my first successful capture of real Eastern North Carolina barbecue.

We made our sandwiches, and it did not take Glenda, my wife, and I long to decide that I will be swinging by The Holly Ridge Smokehouse whenever I get a chance in my travels to Wilmington.  The barbecue was very lean with a nice hint of vinegar without being overwhelming.  The slaw was also crunchy and tasty.  The meal was a winner, a great bargain, and there is even enough left for Glenda's lunch tomorrow.

I wonder how their fried chicken is?  There's seems to be a shortage of that also along the Crystal Coast.  The Smokehouse opens early every morning.  If a full parking lot is an indication of good food, their breakfast must be very good.

I am beginning to think this is the year of returning to my inner geek. 

First I went to work at Webmail.us where I ended up bringing my own computers, network hub, and even an Internet phone.  Since I was one of only a couple of Mac users, I ended up figuring some of the printing and other technology issues with only a little help.  I actually wrote about that on Applepeels in the post, "Heterogenous Apple nirvana, well almost."  Then we moved the Webmail.us outside sales office to Roanoke, and I ended up setting another office for myself.

Since I do a fair amount of web work, I usually need three machines to survive, a Mac desktop, a Windows box, and a Mac laptop.  When we got a place in the fall on the White Oak River near Cape Carteret, NC, it was obvious that I needed another office.  I decided to leave a Mac at home in Roanoke to drive my big Epson printers, but I felt that I need my dual G5 and my Dell desktop.  My youngest daughter confiscated my Dell laptop for her business classes at UNCC.

I actually enjoy technology when I can make it work.  I'm usually persistent enough to eventually achieve that.  I can move pretty easily from Mac OSX to Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux.  In fact when I want to procrastinate I will often lose myself in technology challenges.  I spent a lot of time in 2004 getting Linux up and running, and experimenting with SUSE and Xandros distributions before settling on Ubuntu as my standard.  When I recently did some upgrades on all three operating systems, I was convinced that Ubuntu was as easy if not easier than Mac OSX.

For my coastal office printers I went with an Ethernet equipped Brother 5250N and a HP AIO Photosmart C6180 which also supported Ethernet.   I installed  a router with firewall and four ports, one of with goes to an Airport Express and another to a small hub.  We are using a cable modem hooked to Time-Warner.  I also have a Vonage Internet phone to go along with our land line.  We are using an AT&T two line wireless phone system which works great.

So far everything seems to be working fine.   The biggest challenge was the  HP AIO which I wrote about in the post, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180 and Mac OSX."  Last night I got the fax working.  Unfortunately I first tried to set it up using the Mac.  That turned out not to work.  I used the Dell to get it going.  The Windows Wizard had another setting which seemed to fix things.  I had already confirmed that the printing works, both text, color, and photo.   Still the HP software for the Mac seems very intrusive.

The HP scanning does work.  Other than the feature to scan directly to iPhoto, which I like a lot, I felt like I was missing my good friend VueScan which I have used in Roanoke to drive my Epson scanner since Mac OSX came out.  I tried to see if VueScan would see the HP C6180 scanner on the network but it did not, even with the most recent version.  Tonight I read through the HP manual to make certain there was no reason to not use the USB port on the AIO while the Ethernet port was active.  I could not find any warning so I hooked up my MacBook using the USB cable from my recently deceased Sony camera.  VueScan saw the scanner and I was in business.

The only thing left is to try is to see how well the printers work with Ubuntu.  There is no rush on that.  That might be a good winter project for a lazy Saturday. 

One of the interesting things that I have run into is that it seems every that every hardware manufacturer, including those who do printers, computers, and cameras has its own suite of consumer digital photo tools.   They're all similar, and it gets a little weird with all the choices of how to manage your photos.  Once you throw in Adode, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, you have to wonder if the market can support this many solutions.  Actually my guess is the market will figure it out. The support people might rightfully view this proliferation as scary.  Just imagine a Mac running Parallels Windows software.  You could have Nikon, Sony, HP, Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and Google software all fighting for control of the same photos.

Invariably the client based software doesn't seem to work nearly as well managing photos on the web as the true web based solutions like Flickr and Picasa Web Albums.  That's the case even in the with the iPhoto, iWeb, and dot Mac from Apple who used to be the digital content king.  I wrote about this recently on Applepeels in the post, "My problem with Apple."

I am not  sure why the companies are spending so much money on this segment.  My guess is that there  will be some shakeout, but that's the subject of another post.

Right now I am proud of my new office, and I would recommend all of the products that I am using.  The only exception would be the Parallels Desktop software which turns the MacBook into a Windows box. The problem is probably caused by the measly 1 gig of ram on my MacBook, but I doubt I will figure that out for a while since I have my Dell box running.

I do not have a lot of tolerance for technology gadgets or companies that fail to meet my expectations so expect to see a post or at least a comment if I run into challenges like the IE crash that I had last night after installing Internet Explorer 7.  I did like some of the new feature of IE, but crashing is not a good way to win my confidence.

The office even looks good since I even ran the cables through the desk.  This is the neatest office that I have ever had.  I must be mellowing with age.  Just getting it working used to be the most important task and often the only thing that mattered.   Just do not ask my kids about my old cable tree.

I am beginning to think this is the year of returning to my inner geek. 

First I went to work at Webmail.us where I ended up bringing my own computers, network hub, and even an Internet phone.  Since I was one of only a couple of Mac users, I ended up figuring some of the printing and other technology issues with only a little help.  I actually wrote about that on Applepeels in the post, "Heterogenous Apple nirvana, well almost."  Then we moved the Webmail.us outside sales office to Roanoke, and I ended up setting another office for myself.

Since I do a fair amount of web work, I usually need three machines to survive, a Mac desktop, a Windows box, and a Mac laptop.  When we got a place in the fall on the White Oak River near Cape Carteret, NC, it was obvious that I needed another office.  I decided to leave a Mac at home in Roanoke to drive my big Epson printers, but I felt that I need my dual G5 and my Dell desktop.  My youngest daughter confiscated my Dell laptop for her business classes at UNCC.

I actually enjoy technology when I can make it work.  I'm usually persistent enough to eventually achieve that.  I can move pretty easily from Mac OSX to Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux.  In fact when I want to procrastinate I will often lose myself in technology challenges.  I spent a lot of time in 2004 getting Linux up and running, and experimenting with SUSE and Xandros distributions before settling on Ubuntu as my standard.  When I recently did some upgrades on all three operating systems, I was convinced that Ubuntu was as easy if not easier than Mac OSX.

For my coastal office printers I went with an Ethernet equipped Brother 5250N and a HP AIO Photosmart C6180 which also supported Ethernet.   I installed  a router with firewall and four ports, one of with goes to an Airport Express and another to a small hub.  We are using a cable modem hooked to Time-Warner.  I also have a Vonage Internet phone to go along with our land line.  We are using an AT&T two line wireless phone system which works great.

So far everything seems to be working fine.   The biggest challenge was the  HP AIO which I wrote about in the post, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180 and Mac OSX."  Last night I got the fax working.  Unfortunately I first tried to set it up using the Mac.  That turned out not to work.  I used the Dell to get it going.  The Windows Wizard had another setting which seemed to fix things.  I had already confirmed that the printing works, both text, color, and photo.   Still the HP software for the Mac seems very intrusive.

The HP scanning does work.  Other than the feature to scan directly to iPhoto, which I like a lot, I felt like I was missing my good friend VueScan which I have used in Roanoke to drive my Epson scanner since Mac OSX came out.  I tried to see if VueScan would see the HP C6180 scanner on the network but it did not, even with the most recent version.  Tonight I read through the HP manual to make certain there was no reason to not use the USB port on the AIO while the Ethernet port was active.  I could not find any warning so I hooked up my MacBook using the USB cable from my recently deceased Sony camera.  VueScan saw the scanner and I was in business.

The only thing left is to try is to see how well the printers work with Ubuntu.  There is no rush on that.  That might be a good winter project for a lazy Saturday. 

One of the interesting things that I have run into is that it seems every that every hardware manufacturer, including those who do printers, computers, and cameras has its own suite of consumer digital photo tools.   They're all similar, and it gets a little weird with all the choices of how to manage your photos.  Once you throw in Adode, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, you have to wonder if the market can support this many solutions.  Actually my guess is the market will figure it out. The support people might rightfully view this proliferation as scary.  Just imagine a Mac running Parallels Windows software.  You could have Nikon, Sony, HP, Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and Google software all fighting for control of the same photos.

Invariably the client based software doesn't seem to work nearly as well managing photos on the web as the true web based solutions like Flickr and Picasa Web Albums.  That's the case even in the with the iPhoto, iWeb, and dot Mac from Apple who used to be the digital content king.  I wrote about this recently on Applepeels in the post, "My problem with Apple."

I am not  sure why the companies are spending so much money on this segment.  My guess is that there  will be some shakeout, but that's the subject of another post.

Right now I am proud of my new office, and I would recommend all of the products that I am using.  The only exception would be the Parallels Desktop software which turns the MacBook into a Windows box. The problem is probably caused by the measly 1 gig of ram on my MacBook, but I doubt I will figure that out for a while since I have my Dell box running.

I do not have a lot of tolerance for technology gadgets or companies that fail to meet my expectations so expect to see a post or at least a comment if I run into challenges like the IE crash that I had last night after installing Internet Explorer 7.  I did like some of the new feature of IE, but crashing is not a good way to win my confidence.

The office even looks good since I even ran the cables through the desk.  This is the neatest office that I have ever had.  I must be mellowing with age.  Just getting it working used to be the most important task and often the only thing that mattered.   Just do not ask my kids about my old cable tree.

I am beginning to think this is the year of returning to my inner geek. 

First I went to work at Webmail.us where I ended up bringing my own computers, network hub, and even an Internet phone.  Since I was one of only a couple of Mac users, I ended up figuring some of the printing and other technology issues with only a little help.  I actually wrote about that on Applepeels in the post, "Heterogenous Apple nirvana, well almost."  Then we moved the Webmail.us outside sales office to Roanoke, and I ended up setting another office for myself.

Since I do a fair amount of web work, I usually need three machines to survive, a Mac desktop, a Windows box, and a Mac laptop.  When we got a place in the fall on the White Oak River near Cape Carteret, NC, it was obvious that I needed another office.  I decided to leave a Mac at home in Roanoke to drive my big Epson printers, but I felt that I need my dual G5 and my Dell desktop.  My youngest daughter confiscated my Dell laptop for her business classes at UNCC.

I actually enjoy technology when I can make it work.  I'm usually persistent enough to eventually achieve that.  I can move pretty easily from Mac OSX to Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux.  In fact when I want to procrastinate I will often lose myself in technology challenges.  I spent a lot of time in 2004 getting Linux up and running, and experimenting with SUSE and Xandros distributions before settling on Ubuntu as my standard.  When I recently did some upgrades on all three operating systems, I was convinced that Ubuntu was as easy if not easier than Mac OSX.

For my coastal office printers I went with an Ethernet equipped Brother 5250N and a HP AIO Photosmart C6180 which also supported Ethernet.   I installed  a router with firewall and four ports, one of with goes to an Airport Express and another to a small hub.  We are using a cable modem hooked to Time-Warner.  I also have a Vonage Internet phone to go along with our land line.  We are using an AT&T two line wireless phone system which works great.

So far everything seems to be working fine.   The biggest challenge was the  HP AIO which I wrote about in the post, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180 and Mac OSX."  Last night I got the fax working.  Unfortunately I first tried to set it up using the Mac.  That turned out not to work.  I used the Dell to get it going.  The Windows Wizard had another setting which seemed to fix things.  I had already confirmed that the printing works, both text, color, and photo.   Still the HP software for the Mac seems very intrusive.

The HP scanning does work.  Other than the feature to scan directly to iPhoto, which I like a lot, I felt like I was missing my good friend VueScan which I have used in Roanoke to drive my Epson scanner since Mac OSX came out.  I tried to see if VueScan would see the HP C6180 scanner on the network but it did not, even with the most recent version.  Tonight I read through the HP manual to make certain there was no reason to not use the USB port on the AIO while the Ethernet port was active.  I could not find any warning so I hooked up my MacBook using the USB cable from my recently deceased Sony camera.  VueScan saw the scanner and I was in business.

The only thing left is to try is to see how well the printers work with Ubuntu.  There is no rush on that.  That might be a good winter project for a lazy Saturday. 

One of the interesting things that I have run into is that it seems every that every hardware manufacturer, including those who do printers, computers, and cameras has its own suite of consumer digital photo tools.   They're all similar, and it gets a little weird with all the choices of how to manage your photos.  Once you throw in Adode, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, you have to wonder if the market can support this many solutions.  Actually my guess is the market will figure it out. The support people might rightfully view this proliferation as scary.  Just imagine a Mac running Parallels Windows software.  You could have Nikon, Sony, HP, Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and Google software all fighting for control of the same photos.

Invariably the client based software doesn't seem to work nearly as well managing photos on the web as the true web based solutions like Flickr and Picasa Web Albums.  That's the case even in the with the iPhoto, iWeb, and dot Mac from Apple who used to be the digital content king.  I wrote about this recently on Applepeels in the post, "My problem with Apple."

I am not  sure why the companies are spending so much money on this segment.  My guess is that there  will be some shakeout, but that's the subject of another post.

Right now I am proud of my new office, and I would recommend all of the products that I am using.  The only exception would be the Parallels Desktop software which turns the MacBook into a Windows box. The problem is probably caused by the measly 1 gig of ram on my MacBook, but I doubt I will figure that out for a while since I have my Dell box running.

I do not have a lot of tolerance for technology gadgets or companies that fail to meet my expectations so expect to see a post or at least a comment if I run into challenges like the IE crash that I had last night after installing Internet Explorer 7.  I did like some of the new feature of IE, but crashing is not a good way to win my confidence.

The office even looks good since I even ran the cables through the desk.  This is the neatest office that I have ever had.  I must be mellowing with age.  Just getting it working used to be the most important task and often the only thing that mattered.   Just do not ask my kids about my old cable tree.

I am beginning to think this is the year of returning to my inner geek. 

First I went to work at Webmail.us where I ended up bringing my own computers, network hub, and even an Internet phone.  Since I was one of only a couple of Mac users, I ended up figuring some of the printing and other technology issues with only a little help.  I actually wrote about that on Applepeels in the post, "Heterogenous Apple nirvana, well almost."  Then we moved the Webmail.us outside sales office to Roanoke, and I ended up setting another office for myself.

Since I do a fair amount of web work, I usually need three machines to survive, a Mac desktop, a Windows box, and a Mac laptop.  When we got a place in the fall on the White Oak River near Cape Carteret, NC, it was obvious that I needed another office.  I decided to leave a Mac at home in Roanoke to drive my big Epson printers, but I felt that I need my dual G5 and my Dell desktop.  My youngest daughter confiscated my Dell laptop for her business classes at UNCC.

I actually enjoy technology when I can make it work.  I'm usually persistent enough to eventually achieve that.  I can move pretty easily from Mac OSX to Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux.  In fact when I want to procrastinate I will often lose myself in technology challenges.  I spent a lot of time in 2004 getting Linux up and running, and experimenting with SUSE and Xandros distributions before settling on Ubuntu as my standard.  When I recently did some upgrades on all three operating systems, I was convinced that Ubuntu was as easy if not easier than Mac OSX.

For my coastal office printers I went with an Ethernet equipped Brother 5250N and a HP AIO Photosmart C6180 which also supported Ethernet.   I installed  a router with firewall and four ports, one of with goes to an Airport Express and another to a small hub.  We are using a cable modem hooked to Time-Warner.  I also have a Vonage Internet phone to go along with our land line.  We are using an AT&T two line wireless phone system which works great.

So far everything seems to be working fine.   The biggest challenge was the  HP AIO which I wrote about in the post, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180 and Mac OSX."  Last night I got the fax working.  Unfortunately I first tried to set it up using the Mac.  That turned out not to work.  I used the Dell to get it going.  The Windows Wizard had another setting which seemed to fix things.  I had already confirmed that the printing works, both text, color, and photo.   Still the HP software for the Mac seems very intrusive.

The HP scanning does work.  Other than the feature to scan directly to iPhoto, which I like a lot, I felt like I was missing my good friend VueScan which I have used in Roanoke to drive my Epson scanner since Mac OSX came out.  I tried to see if VueScan would see the HP C6180 scanner on the network but it did not, even with the most recent version.  Tonight I read through the HP manual to make certain there was no reason to not use the USB port on the AIO while the Ethernet port was active.  I could not find any warning so I hooked up my MacBook using the USB cable from my recently deceased Sony camera.  VueScan saw the scanner and I was in business.

The only thing left is to try is to see how well the printers work with Ubuntu.  There is no rush on that.  That might be a good winter project for a lazy Saturday. 

One of the interesting things that I have run into is that it seems every that every hardware manufacturer, including those who do printers, computers, and cameras has its own suite of consumer digital photo tools.   They're all similar, and it gets a little weird with all the choices of how to manage your photos.  Once you throw in Adode, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, you have to wonder if the market can support this many solutions.  Actually my guess is the market will figure it out. The support people might rightfully view this proliferation as scary.  Just imagine a Mac running Parallels Windows software.  You could have Nikon, Sony, HP, Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and Google software all fighting for control of the same photos.

Invariably the client based software doesn't seem to work nearly as well managing photos on the web as the true web based solutions like Flickr and Picasa Web Albums.  That's the case even in the with the iPhoto, iWeb, and dot Mac from Apple who used to be the digital content king.  I wrote about this recently on Applepeels in the post, "My problem with Apple."

I am not  sure why the companies are spending so much money on this segment.  My guess is that there  will be some shakeout, but that's the subject of another post.

Right now I am proud of my new office, and I would recommend all of the products that I am using.  The only exception would be the Parallels Desktop software which turns the MacBook into a Windows box. The problem is probably caused by the measly 1 gig of ram on my MacBook, but I doubt I will figure that out for a while since I have my Dell box running.

I do not have a lot of tolerance for technology gadgets or companies that fail to meet my expectations so expect to see a post or at least a comment if I run into challenges like the IE crash that I had last night after installing Internet Explorer 7.  I did like some of the new feature of IE, but crashing is not a good way to win my confidence.

The office even looks good since I even ran the cables through the desk.  This is the neatest office that I have ever had.  I must be mellowing with age.  Just getting it working used to be the most important task and often the only thing that mattered.   Just do not ask my kids about my old cable tree.

I read an article, "Lost and forsaken in Canada," in today's Toronto Star.  It was about an immigrant to Canada who in despair had jumped to his death from a bridge into Highway 401 traffic.  The Toronto paper described him in this manner.

Jiang Guobing was well-educated. He had a doctorate in nuclear engineering from a prestigious U.S. university but apparently that was not enough for Canadian employers.

Having immigrated to Canada from Honduras as a child, I understood his despair. Coming to this country with very well-educated parents and watching them struggle and never achieving their dreams was very hard...

I think that's what happened to Jiang Guobing. He lost his way. He felt like a failure, not only to himself but to his family.

Having lost a job in corporate American myself, I find it easy to guess some of Jiang's feelings.  I'm sure being highly educated and probably successful, he felt very frustrated not being able to work in his chosen field. 

I am one of those high tech people, who no matter what the company said, really got rid of me because I was too old and expensive.   I was also a little too ethical for their tastes, complaining loudly when they mistreated people working on my team or when they played around with the financial results.

When you've been very successful all your life and have been in same company for twenty years, losing your seat at the whim of new under forty manager who was also your fifth manager in two years is a little galling, but it is a regular occurrence in corporate American.  If you are over fifty and in the technology business, you're probably an endangered species.  It doesn't matter how successful you are, likely you are considered a dinosaur even if you are very technical.  If that isn't the case, consider yourself very lucky to be working in an enlightened company.  I can assure you Apple wasn't and probably hasn't changed.

Leaving Apple wasn't the end for me.  It has been the beginning.  Though not everything has been perfect or worked out as planned, I can say that in spite of the many challenges, 28 months after leaving Apple, I continue to put bread on the table, and the future is very bright.

I have learned a tremendous amount since I left Apple.  I actually can talk from experience about Linux, Windows XP, lambda speed networking, and how to market products through the web.  I continue to believe that my sales techniques can be of great value to companies, and I recently provided some sales help to a telecommunications company.  I even manage to sell a few of my own  high quality prints by the web.  Now I am just finishing up some last courses in real estate so I can take advantage of the broker's license that I got by passing the North Carolina state exam in September.  Going back to school, while intimidating, hasn't slowed me down.  I think it has accelerated the changes brought about by my developing web presence.

In fact I would have to say that beyond my close friends and family, the family I developed from friendships on the web has been key to keeping me from being lost and forsaken at 57.

My writing for the web allowed me to develop a new identity to replace the one that I lost when I left Apple.  It kept me from becoming just another anonymous old guy who got replaced at tech company.

I've written lots and been written about enough to drive my numbers to the point that I'm very excited about my web stats.  On Feedburner, I have 1,385 subscribers to my two main blogs.  Just this week, Typepad has recorded over 22,000 visitors to my two main sites, and the numbers seem to be increasing rapidly.

Writing for no monetary compensation has given me something to fall back on whenever I was between jobs.  It's been a great way to get my thoughts sorted out and to find a great support group of people who believe in the intrinsic value of communicating through the web.

I don't pretend to have any great secrets or wisdom to share with the world through my blog.  I do hope that my observations help others enjoy another perspective. Usually it has some pretty neat pictures of the mountains or ocean attached.

Filling in the blanks of knowledge that have been created by our increasingly mobile and fractured society is one of things that I believe blogs do best.  We've become a society where Google is the local authority.  I think blogs to it better if you can find the right one.  The conversations I've had on the web have been good ones that would be hard to duplicate if I were limited to just the people in the this geographic area.

I fill more connected because of my web presence.  That along with absolutely stellar family, friends, and business associates has helped smooth my transition from the dysfunctional world of Apple to a new life where I can't wait to get up every morning and see the sunrise, whether it is over the mountains or the water.

I wish Dr. Guobing had been as lucky.

On another note, this is post 1,001.  I made it over the top.

I read an article, "Lost and forsaken in Canada," in today's Toronto Star.  It was about an immigrant to Canada who in despair had jumped to his death from a bridge into Highway 401 traffic.  The Toronto paper described him in this manner.

Jiang Guobing was well-educated. He had a doctorate in nuclear engineering from a prestigious U.S. university but apparently that was not enough for Canadian employers.

Having immigrated to Canada from Honduras as a child, I understood his despair. Coming to this country with very well-educated parents and watching them struggle and never achieving their dreams was very hard...

I think that's what happened to Jiang Guobing. He lost his way. He felt like a failure, not only to himself but to his family.

Having lost a job in corporate American myself, I find it easy to guess some of Jiang's feelings.  I'm sure being highly educated and probably successful, he felt very frustrated not being able to work in his chosen field. 

I am one of those high tech people, who no matter what the company said, really got rid of me because I was too old and expensive.   I was also a little too ethical for their tastes, complaining loudly when they mistreated people working on my team or when they played around with the financial results.

When you've been very successful all your life and have been in same company for twenty years, losing your seat at the whim of new under forty manager who was also your fifth manager in two years is a little galling, but it is a regular occurrence in corporate American.  If you are over fifty and in the technology business, you're probably an endangered species.  It doesn't matter how successful you are, likely you are considered a dinosaur even if you are very technical.  If that isn't the case, consider yourself very lucky to be working in an enlightened company.  I can assure you Apple wasn't and probably hasn't changed.

Leaving Apple wasn't the end for me.  It has been the beginning.  Though not everything has been perfect or worked out as planned, I can say that in spite of the many challenges, 28 months after leaving Apple, I continue to put bread on the table, and the future is very bright.

I have learned a tremendous amount since I left Apple.  I actually can talk from experience about Linux, Windows XP, lambda speed networking, and how to market products through the web.  I continue to believe that my sales techniques can be of great value to companies, and I recently provided some sales help to a telecommunications company.  I even manage to sell a few of my own  high quality prints by the web.  Now I am just finishing up some last courses in real estate so I can take advantage of the broker's license that I got by passing the North Carolina state exam in September.  Going back to school, while intimidating, hasn't slowed me down.  I think it has accelerated the changes brought about by my developing web presence.

In fact I would have to say that beyond my close friends and family, the family I developed from friendships on the web has been key to keeping me from being lost and forsaken at 57.

My writing for the web allowed me to develop a new identity to replace the one that I lost when I left Apple.  It kept me from becoming just another anonymous old guy who got replaced at tech company.

I've written lots and been written about enough to drive my numbers to the point that I'm very excited about my web stats.  On Feedburner, I have 1,385 subscribers to my two main blogs.  Just this week, Typepad has recorded over 22,000 visitors to my two main sites, and the numbers seem to be increasing rapidly.

Writing for no monetary compensation has given me something to fall back on whenever I was between jobs.  It's been a great way to get my thoughts sorted out and to find a great support group of people who believe in the intrinsic value of communicating through the web.

I don't pretend to have any great secrets or wisdom to share with the world through my blog.  I do hope that my observations help others enjoy another perspective. Usually it has some pretty neat pictures of the mountains or ocean attached.

Filling in the blanks of knowledge that have been created by our increasingly mobile and fractured society is one of things that I believe blogs do best.  We've become a society where Google is the local authority.  I think blogs to it better if you can find the right one.  The conversations I've had on the web have been good ones that would be hard to duplicate if I were limited to just the people in the this geographic area.

I fill more connected because of my web presence.  That along with absolutely stellar family, friends, and business associates has helped smooth my transition from the dysfunctional world of Apple to a new life where I can't wait to get up every morning and see the sunrise, whether it is over the mountains or the water.

I wish Dr. Guobing had been as lucky.

On another note, this is post 1,001.  I made it over the top.

I read an article, "Lost and forsaken in Canada," in today's Toronto Star.  It was about an immigrant to Canada who in despair had jumped to his death from a bridge into Highway 401 traffic.  The Toronto paper described him in this manner.

Jiang Guobing was well-educated. He had a doctorate in nuclear engineering from a prestigious U.S. university but apparently that was not enough for Canadian employers.

Having immigrated to Canada from Honduras as a child, I understood his despair. Coming to this country with very well-educated parents and watching them struggle and never achieving their dreams was very hard...

I think that's what happened to Jiang Guobing. He lost his way. He felt like a failure, not only to himself but to his family.

Having lost a job in corporate American myself, I find it easy to guess some of Jiang's feelings.  I'm sure being highly educated and probably successful, he felt very frustrated not being able to work in his chosen field. 

I am one of those high tech people, who no matter what the company said, really got rid of me because I was too old and expensive.   I was also a little too ethical for their tastes, complaining loudly when they mistreated people working on my team or when they played around with the financial results.

When you've been very successful all your life and have been in same company for twenty years, losing your seat at the whim of new under forty manager who was also your fifth manager in two years is a little galling, but it is a regular occurrence in corporate American.  If you are over fifty and in the technology business, you're probably an endangered species.  It doesn't matter how successful you are, likely you are considered a dinosaur even if you are very technical.  If that isn't the case, consider yourself very lucky to be working in an enlightened company.  I can assure you Apple wasn't and probably hasn't changed.

Leaving Apple wasn't the end for me.  It has been the beginning.  Though not everything has been perfect or worked out as planned, I can say that in spite of the many challenges, 28 months after leaving Apple, I continue to put bread on the table, and the future is very bright.

I have learned a tremendous amount since I left Apple.  I actually can talk from experience about Linux, Windows XP, lambda speed networking, and how to market products through the web.  I continue to believe that my sales techniques can be of great value to companies, and I recently provided some sales help to a telecommunications company.  I even manage to sell a few of my own  high quality prints by the web.  Now I am just finishing up some last courses in real estate so I can take advantage of the broker's license that I got by passing the North Carolina state exam in September.  Going back to school, while intimidating, hasn't slowed me down.  I think it has accelerated the changes brought about by my developing web presence.

In fact I would have to say that beyond my close friends and family, the family I developed from friendships on the web has been key to keeping me from being lost and forsaken at 57.

My writing for the web allowed me to develop a new identity to replace the one that I lost when I left Apple.  It kept me from becoming just another anonymous old guy who got replaced at tech company.

I've written lots and been written about enough to drive my numbers to the point that I'm very excited about my web stats.  On Feedburner, I have 1,385 subscribers to my two main blogs.  Just this week, Typepad has recorded over 22,000 visitors to my two main sites, and the numbers seem to be increasing rapidly.

Writing for no monetary compensation has given me something to fall back on whenever I was between jobs.  It's been a great way to get my thoughts sorted out and to find a great support group of people who believe in the intrinsic value of communicating through the web.

I don't pretend to have any great secrets or wisdom to share with the world through my blog.  I do hope that my observations help others enjoy another perspective. Usually it has some pretty neat pictures of the mountains or ocean attached.

Filling in the blanks of knowledge that have been created by our increasingly mobile and fractured society is one of things that I believe blogs do best.  We've become a society where Google is the local authority.  I think blogs to it better if you can find the right one.  The conversations I've had on the web have been good ones that would be hard to duplicate if I were limited to just the people in the this geographic area.

I fill more connected because of my web presence.  That along with absolutely stellar family, friends, and business associates has helped smooth my transition from the dysfunctional world of Apple to a new life where I can't wait to get up every morning and see the sunrise, whether it is over the mountains or the water.

I wish Dr. Guobing had been as lucky.

On another note, this is post 1,001.  I made it over the top.

When things are going great, there's little pressure to do things differently.  We've all seen it.  Great results in business or politics can hide some really serious problems.  Usually by the time the hidden problems are uncovered, things have unraveled to the point that disaster can be just around the corner.

I've been in companies during great times and bad times.  The truth is that companies, like governments or even individual operate a little better when everything isn't going their way.  They become more open to exploring alternatives or looking at things from a different perspective.

We gotten to be a society where it's hard to admit you're wrong without supposedly losing face. Yet I believe failure only counts against you if you don't learn from it.  In the post, "On being an observer," I said the following.

The great who have never failed are probably not so great...

Not owning up to your failures or mistakes is not part of the recipe for success that a leader should follow.

Of course we all know far too well the example of the current administration in Washington which has refused to admit any mistakes in the Iraq war.  If appears that "Stay the course" has finally been retired, not because of any willingness to admit mistakes, but because it appears the Republican majority is in danger of disappearing.  This was in the Washington Post this morning.

But the White House is cutting and running from "stay the course." A phrase meant to connote steely resolve instead has become a symbol for being out of touch and rigid in the face of a war that seems to grow worse by the week, Republican strategists say. Democrats have now turned "stay the course" into an attack line in campaign commercials, and the Bush team is busy explaining that "stay the course" does not actually mean stay the course.

Businesses are no different.  They often blindly follow strategies because there is more ego involved than business savvy.  It's easy for a CEO to cruise along with business strategies whose only tests are the current quarter.  Yet businesses are different from government in one important distinction. 

Businesses, even large ones, sometimes change strategies like individuals change clothing.  Government, however,  is like a huge container ship.  Change is really hard in government.  Once the ship of state is going in one direction, getting it moving in another direction takes some serious pressure, something on the order of a disappearing majority.

As individuals, we often face the need to change without the resources to accomplish that change.

No matter what the situation, those who accept their own fallibility are much more likely to implement successful change.  It will be interesting to see how much change the coming election can bring to our government. 

We certainly have plenty of American companies who desperately need to change. 

Personally I'm hoping to change careers during the next year. So far it hasn't been easy, but my hope is that I'll respond as I have in previous pressure situations.  After all, the change from being a cattle breeder to a technology sales manager was not exactly an easy one.

I know one thing, I'm approaching my new career, chronicled in "You can teach an old dog new tricks," knowing that I have a lot to learn.  I've seen enough folks pretending to have all the answers to understand that it's a road to failure, even if it takes a long time to show up.

When things are going great, there's little pressure to do things differently.  We've all seen it.  Great results in business or politics can hide some really serious problems.  Usually by the time the hidden problems are uncovered, things have unraveled to the point that disaster can be just around the corner.

I've been in companies during great times and bad times.  The truth is that companies, like governments or even individual operate a little better when everything isn't going their way.  They become more open to exploring alternatives or looking at things from a different perspective.

We gotten to be a society where it's hard to admit you're wrong without supposedly losing face. Yet I believe failure only counts against you if you don't learn from it.  In the post, "On being an observer," I said the following.

The great who have never failed are probably not so great...

Not owning up to your failures or mistakes is not part of the recipe for success that a leader should follow.

Of course we all know far too well the example of the current administration in Washington which has refused to admit any mistakes in the Iraq war.  If appears that "Stay the course" has finally been retired, not because of any willingness to admit mistakes, but because it appears the Republican majority is in danger of disappearing.  This was in the Washington Post this morning.

But the White House is cutting and running from "stay the course." A phrase meant to connote steely resolve instead has become a symbol for being out of touch and rigid in the face of a war that seems to grow worse by the week, Republican strategists say. Democrats have now turned "stay the course" into an attack line in campaign commercials, and the Bush team is busy explaining that "stay the course" does not actually mean stay the course.

Businesses are no different.  They often blindly follow strategies because there is more ego involved than business savvy.  It's easy for a CEO to cruise along with business strategies whose only tests are the current quarter.  Yet businesses are different from government in one important distinction. 

Businesses, even large ones, sometimes change strategies like individuals change clothing.  Government, however,  is like a huge container ship.  Change is really hard in government.  Once the ship of state is going in one direction, getting it moving in another direction takes some serious pressure, something on the order of a disappearing majority.

As individuals, we often face the need to change without the resources to accomplish that change.

No matter what the situation, those who accept their own fallibility are much more likely to implement successful change.  It will be interesting to see how much change the coming election can bring to our government. 

We certainly have plenty of American companies who desperately need to change. 

Personally I'm hoping to change careers during the next year. So far it hasn't been easy, but my hope is that I'll respond as I have in previous pressure situations.  After all, the change from being a cattle breeder to a technology sales manager was not exactly an easy one.

I know one thing, I'm approaching my new career, chronicled in "You can teach an old dog new tricks," knowing that I have a lot to learn.  I've seen enough folks pretending to have all the answers to understand that it's a road to failure, even if it takes a long time to show up.