These rocks are holding their own against the tide.
They are also standing the test of time.
We all need to push back against the tide when wrong is pushing forward.
Whether its corruption or violence.
Be like a rock!
Choose good over evil in every situation. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Thought this was a pretty cool clock.
Instead of just giving you the time (here it is 20:52 or 8:52 pm), the numbers are made up of 3-7 little cars.
When a number changes, cars either drive on or off to form the new ones.
(The “whole” clock is greater than the sum of its cars, which are the “parts”.)
And then some of the drivers actually get out of the car to schmooze or maybe clean their car.
Very creative and it makes you think.
That’s a good thing. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
On the way to a family wedding in Monsey.
We stopped back home in Riverdale, NY after 20 years.
Wow, old building still here.
And the KeyFood supermarket too.
Had a nice lunch at Kai Fan kosher Chinese food (the Sesame Chicken was great!).
Went up to my parents old apartment and saw the outlines of where the mezuzah had once stood.
I wanted to hear their voices through the door and go in to see them again.
It was very emotional, but I felt like their presence was there with us.
Enjoyed seeing how some (very few) things have changed and all that has otherwise stayed the same
With seeing my wife’s family, some after many years, it was like I had never not seen them.
I imagined that this is what dying must be like when you go to the afterlife and there is no time and you see everybody and it’s just like they have always been there.
That was an amazing realization and feeling for me. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So I thought this really matched my philosophy to a T on optimism and pessimism.
As Joel Rosenberg put it in his book The Ezekiel Option, “In the long run everything would turn out fine…but tomorrow could be a disaster.”
In short, this equates to:
I’m a strategic optimist, but a tactical pessimist.
My mom used to say, “If I am pessimistic, I’ll never be disappointed.” LOL
I think though when we have faith then we know that truly, in the end everything is for the best and will be okay.
In the short term though, there are challenges to face and these can be tough indeed.
– Strategically an optimist.
– Tactically a pessimist.
Plan for the worst, hope for the best. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I heard this saying and thought it was good:
Problems that are left unattended have a habit of becoming crises.
I suppose problems exist for us to confront and deal with them, so we can grow ourselves.
– There is no running from problems.
– There is no hiding from problems.
Problems can follow you with better than laser-guided GPS and they will find you out.
The only option is it face the challenge head-on and the earlier and more productively the better. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Wow, I love this retro digital Computron watch from Bulova.
I remember when the first digital LED watches with the red numbers like this first came out in the 1970s.
They were quite expensive then!
Part of the computer revolution. LOL
I remember my uncle had something like this and I thought how cool it was–no moving hands to read.
Also, has a little of that sci-fi Battlestar Galactica red (moving) light effect from the cybernetic enemy, Cylon visors.
What’s old is what’s new. 😉
So it was interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today…
There is an obesity problem in the U.S.
But the statistics in terms of the typical sizes of fashion (for women) has been “largely” overlooked.
The biggest size most fashion brands even bother to sell is: 12
“Only 7% of womenswear stocked at multi-brand retailers is a size 14 or above.”
But the average American dress size is between between 16 and 18!
The typical runway model is size 2.
BTW, I think men have the same problem with sizing.
There was another thing about measurement in the WSJ today having to do with measuring time.
Day is measured by the earth rotation (on its axis).
Year by the rotation around the sun.
Month by rotation of the moon.
Earth, Sun, and Moon…give us time.
Now we need to take all the wonderful time we have measured and not spend it all eating. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal @Ripley’s Believe It or Not)
So I had the opportunity to sit in on a colleague teaching a class in Performance Improvement.
One tool that I really liked from the class was the Impact-Effort Matrix.
To determine project worth doing, the matrix has the:
Impacts (Vertical) – Improved customer satisfaction, quality, delivery time, etc.
Effort (Horizontal) – Money, Time, etc.
The best bang for the buck are the projects in upper left (“Quick Wins”) that have a high impact or return for not a lot of effort.
In contract, the projects that are the least desirable are in the lower right (“Thankless Tasks”) that have a low impact or return but come at a high cost or lot of effort.
This is simple to do and understand and yet really helps to prioritize projects and find the best choices among them. 😉
(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
I liked this Hebrew sign that says (translated):
When the end is good, all is good.
Or as we commonly say:
All’s well that end’s well.
Lot of truth to this.
And there are so many languages that talk to this.
I remember my father used to say it in German as well.
When things end well, it’s as if everything went well. And when things end badly, it’s as if everything was bad.
The human mind seems to focus on the last thing (and forgets virtually everything leading up to it).
Perhaps, we justify the means with the end (i.e. all the time and effort leading up to it).
Or maybe we recap our lives as either a success or failure by how things ended up.
In 20/20 hindsight, we can see the consequences of our actions.
– Was all the hard work worth it?
– Did we even focus on the right priorities and goals in life?
– Were the choices and decisions we made well-founded?
– What was the impact on ourselves, our loved ones, and more broadly?
We look for meaning and purpose in our lives, and hopefully in the end when we look back, we are blessed to see that it was all for the good. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Check out how the time changes in Amsterdam.
I guess automation hasn’t put everyone out of a job yet. 😉
(Source Video: Andy Blumenthal)
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