Today: Give People a Chance

Debriefing from Eat Poorly: It's always good to have an occasional cop-out resolution - to resolve to do something bad, so that your intentions are clear and honest from the start, and you don't feel like you betrayed yourself or violated any principles. Yes, I occasionally eat poorly, but I won't feel bad about it if I intended to eat poorly for this one day. Someday, we will make it our resolution to eat healthily, and on that day, I will stick to that resolution as I did this one! (Hopefully.)

Today I'm going to Give People a Chance.

Those who know me well all have independently come to the same two conclusions, with no prompting from me or anyone else:

1) I start out hating everyone I meet. Everyone is in the doghouse until they prove worthwhile.

and 2) The more I like a person, the worse I treat them.

Now, I don't particularly like or support either of these conclusions, personally, but each has been identified independently by so many people I can't really ignore the evidence.

And it's not that I treat people that I like badly, I just am able to maintain a fake-ish facade of politeness for people I don't intend to see often. Don't you do that? So it turns out that I seem nice to people I can't stand, because I just want to be out of their presence without anyone getting choked, and I seem mean (by comparison!) to the people I like, because I intend to see them again, and hell if they're going to continue that nonsense. So, it's like that. Makes sense to me, anyway.

Today I'm going to give new people a fairer shake. Usually when I really get to know someone, I find out a few positive things about them, and can finally stop hating them quite so much. If I gave people a chance from the outset, maybe we can shorten this process up, and have it involve a little less choking.

Red Mill Burgers

Apparently something close to famous in Seattle, my hero Adam Richman ate there once, and that is always good enough recommendation for me.

True as advertised, they had some kind of Great Wall made of bacon sitting ominously in the kitchen, for reasons us lesser being probably couldn't hope to understand. There was also a picture of some employees showing off this slightly peppery bacon bunker to the press, cleverly disguised with bacon mustaches. The bacon-stache! A new classic.

Fortunately, fame and TV specials seem to have not given these good folks a license to phone it in. The burger was good, the atmosphere was good, the portions were good (on the burgers, anyway. The shake, fries, and onion rings are small-ish) and the prices were not too terribly out of control. Oh, it was expensive for a pair of burgers, fries, onion rings, and a shake, but at least it was still high quality. Nan opted for a double-bacon double-burger, and that thing was probably better material for bench pressing than casual lunching - he was food coma'd for the rest of the day. I got a Bleu Cheese and Bacon Burger, and it was very fine, if messy.

Today: Eat Poorly

Ugh, Wednesday already?

Debriefing from Aim Higher: Well, not much got done there. But let me talk about a few other resolutions that seem to be relevant.

Show No Weakness: This involves a lot of a previous resolution to limit my speech. The less you say overall, the less weakness you show. Also, something to consider, is the fine line between showing no weakness, and plain being a jerk in order to compensate.

Be More Firm: Again, must tread that line of not being a total jerk, but also must find a balance between this and another previous resolution of not being a pessimist. I want to be firm about things, but I don't want to reject things out of hand. I ended up conceding on Being Firm in order to not violate the other resolution. But now that I've tried it once, never again. More Firm on that.

Today I'm going to Eat Poorly.

Some days it seems that everyone around me is some kind of health nut, and looks at me like I'm a disgusting pig when I'm ... well, admittedly I'm usually elbow-deep in some baby back ribs or bacon-covered bacon, or something. But not today! Today, I'm going to eat some decidedly lousy food, and no one will deter me!

Today: Aim Higher

Debriefing from Errands: I don't really have a pirate costume, but we shall see.

Today I'm going to Aim Higher.

I like to set the bar low - it's an effective form of lazy. Years and years of it have probably left me with not just a decoy-low bar, but an internally-low bar. This is more of a work related issue, but will invariably take me all weekend just to muster the effort to break out of the mold. And every little bit will help this weekend.

Today: Errands

Debriefing from Show No Weakness: I'm actually quite pleased with results, but not pleased with my ability to stick with this resolution. It really requires a big change in speaking habits.

Today's resolution will be two-pronged, due to my vows to ease up on intense work-focused resolutions. Half effort will go to "Getting More Involved" and half will go to "Running Non-Work Related Errands".

You run errands at work, right? I'm not getting a skewed perspective of work from friends and family? I suppose in super high-powered jobs, there isn't time for it, but I need to do a few things that I've been putting off - email a friend, renew library books, RSVP for this or that, check out the NorCal Pirate Festival. Today we're going to spend time to catch up on real life kinds of things.

Today: Show No Weakness

Debriefing from Spin Positively:

RWAARRGHGH RRRRAAAGGEEE.

Awful, and I hate it here with a simmering passion.

Today, I'm going to Not Show Weakness.

Two problems with this, classically, and it's sad that we'd have to classify them as 'problems':

1) I'm not an evil person by nature. Not a single "Might Makes Right" bone in my body. Nan, on the other hand, loves LeBron's responses to post-game questions. He actually said it was "awesome to be that powerful, to be able to 'eff you' every other person in the country and no one can do anything to you". It is like an age-old caveman mentality, and it disgusts me to my core. It's hard to adopt any principles in that direction.

2) I have great friends. I'm spoiled for reassurances, comfort, and kind words when I doubt myself, hedge my bets, or question my abilities. Sorry to put you in a negative category, friends!

I need to remember that the rest of the world is going to take weakness, and tear out its exposed throat. Even metaphorically. Time to put a zipper on words that suggest weakness to the caveman-minded out there.

Today: Spin Positively

Debriefing from Get Back to Work: Did I say one limb at a time, back into a cold pool? Did I mention the part where I keep getting in until I'm drowned and dead? Alright, that's enough drama, I suppose.

No! Never enough! RAAARRRGGH RAAAAAGE HULK SMASH!

Alright I'm done now.

Today, I'm going to Spin Positively.

Not that I like egomaniacs as people (remember we talked some about this before, I've decided to name these people "Egotestostical" - like it?) but you've got to hand it to them, they don't let little things like interpersonal on-the-job conflicts get them down. Nothing gets to them, and as that's one of our yet-to-be-attained goals, let's try to break it down some and adopt at least some of their practices for ourselves.

Now, the first ability we want for ourselves (I like to imagine me as the Prototype character for this) is the power to believe things are not personal. The egotestostical way to do this, it seems, is first, to believe you're so much better than everyone else, that the complaints and criticisms of others fall under the category of "white noise" or "meaningless quibbles from the lesser beings". Not having the gift of such monumental self-esteem, we may start by simply increasing our Optimism Quotient to the point where we believe everyone means well, and perceived insults and undermining behavior are results of their own insecurities and lack of empathy/perception/politeness to be aware of jerk behaviors.

This method does fall short when behaviors are actually undermining, however, so that will be something to watch out for. But, what it comes down to, is that we're going to have to believe that we are good enough at our jobs, and that everyone above us is good enough at their job to notice that we are, even if no one's saying it.

I will absolutely try to talk about something besides work, sorry to be such a downer every post. Someday soon. When I am not here every hour of the week...

I Hate the Heat

Oh, I know I'm not the only one. But I've had 5 years leg up on everyone else.

Why did no one ever talk about that play in the Bulls-Heat series where Lebron fell over at half court, clutching at his eye and howling like a baby, and then as soon as the whistle blew, he got up and winked at the booing Chicago fans? Disgusting.

At least Van Gundy (I think it was Van Gundy, anyway) spent a long while talking about how he should head up an official NBA "No-Flopping" crew that would spend off days pouring over video and subsequently punishing bad acting whenever it was unacceptably ridiculous. (Stat from '06 Finals is, 97 free throws for just Wade in six games, shattering the record, and setting a record for most in one game with 21). Today Wade fall over when no one was around, and Carlisle got a technical for coming over to argue.

Lin: You could probably also write in your blog every day about how you hate Wade.

Me: How we could count the ways. How about how he only plays hard when it's the Finals, and when he doesn't think he's got a good team he phones it in all year so he doesn't go to the playoffs?

Lin: What about Lebron?

Me: I don't even care about Lebron. I've always thought he wasn't as good as the hype, and now he's revealing himself as not being a carry. People are just going to have to learn to expect less out of him, he's never shown that's he's more than a very large man who loves hearing people adore him. Let's just establish it now: Wade is the super carry, Bosh is the support, and Lebron is the tanky DPS. His usefulness just plain falls off late game, and all he's good for in the end, is a few 'DEMACIAAAAA's.