Hiking with my dad

Last month, my dad and I went hiking in southwestern Colorado. Specifically, we spent one day in Black Canyon of the Gunnison and one hiking Grand Mesa. Dad and I hadn't done a trip together, just the two of us, probably ever. And I learned a bunch of stuff about myself, my dad, and a part of Colorado I had not experienced.



Black Canyon may lack the size of Grand Canyon, but is certainly not lacking in grandeur. The sheer walls of black volcanic rock, cut with pink stripes of quartz monzonite, are striking. My photographic skills really don't do it justice.



The vertical drop is so precipitous that the river bed at the bottom shows no evidence of human occupation, ever, even as the Ute Indians lived all around the canyon rim for hundreds of years.



The only way down to the bottom is down some very steep trails (the park service won't even use the term 'trail' to describe them) with pitches up to 60 or 70 degrees. At one point, they have even installed an 80-foot chain to help you descend or ascend a particularly steep section.



We only went about a third of the way down because we didn't have enough time. That was enough, however, for me to be as impressed with my 77-year-old father as I was by the natural surroundings. That's him working the chain ...









The next day we hiked Grand Mesa, the largest flat-top mountain in the world. Because the mountain top is nonporous lava rock, water is trapped on top of it, forming 300 lakes. Dad grew up in the area and used to go fishing up there.

There are miles of healthy forests, with no sign of the beetle-kill that has ravaged Colorado. And almost no sign of people either. It's quite a treasure that I had never seen before.



As I described in my previous post, Dad was a hiking stud. Those two days of hiking wore me out, and overall it was a terrific four-day weekend with my dad. We're going to have to do it again next summer.

Just keep picking 'em up and putting 'em down

When I was in high school, my dad took me backpacking. I remember it as a great trip, but also a long trek with a heavy, uncomfortable pack. I also remember Dad telling me to "just take it one step at a time" as I grumbled and whined about the load. "Just keep picking 'em up and putting 'em down." It drove me crazy.

Then, a few weeks ago, he and I went hiking (more on that in another post). It turned out to be a long hike, about 5 or 6 hours, and he was telling me a story about leading his Marine squadron on long hikes with 90 lb. packs. You know how he did it? He just kept taking one more step.

So, this weekend, I was hiking with Ryan and he was complaining endlessly about being tired and wanting to quit. I told him that when I'm riding my bike up a mountain, I never focus on the top or how far I have to go. Rather, I just concentrate on turning the pedals over one more time.

Of course, that didn't do any good, and Ryan just kept complaining. I think it really just drove him crazy.

And that made me realize one thing. I realized that, in so many ways, I am clearly becoming my dad.

I think that's a good thing.

Looking for companies that get it

On Sustainablog, a recent posting said:

A North American organization of energy experts issued a report that found that building more green buildings is the best way to cut carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), one of the major contributors to global warming. In fact, green buildings could cut emissions more deeply, quickly and more cheaply than any other global warming mitigation effort.

So what’s stopping the change? The report found that capital and operating budgets are often kept separate, instead of a government or other institution taking into account the lifetime budget of a construction project. This separation creates a disincentive to build green.

This is a problem we deal with every day at Albeo. Albeo's LED fixtures present an opportunity for terrific operational savings in energy, maintenance, inventory, and disposal costs. However, they're relatively expensive compared to traditional lighting, and the investment in the fixtures would be a significant capital expenditure. Getting capital approved for operational efficiencies can be surprisingly challenging. Some companies get it, some don't.

We just need to find those that get it.

As a marketer, am I breaking the Golden Rule?

At Albeo, I'm planning to start a direct marketing campaign that will include direct mail and telemarketing, and possibly some email. Why? Because direct marketing works, and that's my job.

It raises a personal question, however. Since I don't enjoy receiving direct mail or telemarketing calls, am I planning on breaking the Golden Rule by doing unto others what I don't want done to myself?

I get annoyed with all the credit card mailings I receive. I don't like telemarketers any more than anyone else, and always hang up on them. But I also recognize that annoying marketing can be effective marketing.

For instance, as I have been watching the Tour de France on Versus Network this week, there's a Saab commercial that has run several times on each episode. (You can see the commercial here.) It's very annoying because it is very sparsely narrated, but repeats the same line three times:

"For the perfect balance of fuel efficiency and performance, we take energy from exhaust and recycle it.

For the perfect balance of fuel efficiency and performance, we take energy from exhaust and recycle it.

For the perfect balance of fuel efficiency and performance, we take energy from exhaust and recycle it.

Turning repetition into joy. The efficient performance of the Saab Turbo."

The repetition of the main line and the repeated airings of the commercial mean that that line is seared into my brain. Yes, I get it, the turbo provides a mix of fuel efficiency and performance.

It is amazingly annoying. On the other hand, as I pointed out, that line is seared into my brain, which means the marketers did their job. (Of course, there's a point at which they could move beyond message recognition into negative feelings.)

I guess my bottom line is that I recognize that some marketing tools can be annoying, but they're effective, and that's why I'm OK with breaking the Golden Rule.

Conflict resolution at the Earles household

My two sons, Ryan and Maddox, are ages 9 and 5, respectively. They are each other's best friend, which is wonderful to see, but like any brothers, they occasionally fight, and sometimes these fights become physical. It is never very serious, but it's also something that I want to address quickly and effectively before it gets out of hand.

My next older brother is 1 1/2 years older than I am, and he and I constantly fought as we grew up. I have 'fond' memories of him shooting me in the neck with a BB gun, and me embedding a dart in the back of his head. (Just a flesh wound, honest ...) Unfortunately, our little sibling rivalry never mellowed, and grew into an emotional barrier that took many years to overcome.

One of my neighbors has big, oversize boxing gloves that he gives his kids to help them 'fight' in a harmless way and get out their aggressions, but I don't like the idea of my boys hitting each other, even if it doesn't hurt. I'm not convinced that there wouldn't be residual resentment or other hard feelings at the end of one of these boxing matches.

We have tried various means to resolve conflicts between Ryan and Maddox, but the most effective technique is also the most fun: sumo wrestling.

Really.

The idea grew out of our unsuccessful experiment with Ryan and Jiu Jitsu. We were looking for a way to help Ryan develop some strength, coordination, and physical self-confidence, so we considered various martial arts. I chose Jiu Jitsu because it doesn't have the typical punching of Tae Kwon Do or other forms; it's much more about grappling and leverage. While Ryan didn't take to Jiu Jitsu, he enjoyed the wrestling aspect of the classes.

About that time, I happened to see some sumo matches on late night TV. The next time the boys had a fight, an idea was born ...

Now when they get into some kind of scuffle, rather than yell at them, we just mark out the circle (dohyo) and have a Sumo match. We have now watched enough sumo on TV that they even know how to set up, performing the leg-stomping, hand-clapping shiko exercise to drive out the evil spirits.

It took us a while to find a competitive balance in the matches, since Ryan is 20 inches taller and 20 pounds heavier than Maddox. However, Maddox is strong and Ryan doesn't have great balance, so I taught Maddox to go in low, grab Ryan's knee, and just hold on tight until Ryan falls. They're now pretty evenly match.

I can't describe exactly how comical it is to watch my skinny boys go through this, and this is part of the charm of the whole activity. There is just no way that they can stay angry at each other after sumo. Occasionally, they have even stripped down to their underwear to mimic the mawashi that the sumo wrestlers wear. When they do this in our back yard, which is open to the street alongside our house, we get some very strange looks!

Just when I was beginning to doubt BSS

Reflections on Father's Day ...

Most of the time, the boys love Big Science Saturday (BSS), particularly when we do stuff like rockets or bugs. Sometimes, though, they're not really that into it, and I wonder if I'm really wasting my time.

In my past post about Ryan's rocket birthday party, I mentioned that I didn't really care if Ryan loves rockets as much as I did when I was a kid, but I just wanted him to be exposed to them.

With regard to BSS, I also don't care if the boys go into any kind of scientific pursuit like I did, or have any interest in science whatsoever. When I talk with them about why we do BSS, I tell them that all I'm trying to do is get them to ask questions about their world and to have some structure around how they seek answers to those questions. To me, it's all about curiousity and critical thought.

A couple of months ago, I went to Ryan's science fair. At his elementary school, science fair is only required for fourth and fifth graders, but for our family, science fair is required in all grades. Ryan is not a big fan of this and gets a little grumpy about it, but we came up with an experiment that was kind of fun. We measured how fast Maddox, Ryan, and I went down a waterslide at a local rec center.

Ryan hypothesized that I would go fastest because I was the tallest. That's how the data turned out. However, Ryan was slower than Maddox, although Ryan is taller. As we discussed the results, he could not see the inconsistency in his data. Although I found that a little frustrating, he was quite content with his conclusion and that's what he went with.

So, recently I have been asking myself if it's worth all the trouble and if I'm getting through to these guys. Well, Ryan brought home his report card at the end of the year. It had threes ("proficient") in about 20 categories, had a couple of twos ("partial achievement"), and two categories in which he received fours ("advanced"). One four was in a reading category, something about recognizing words, and what do you suppose the other four was for? "Scientific Process and Inquiry -- Draws logical conclusions and writes about scientific investigations."

I guess his teachers saw something that I hadn't, and I really love that.

Robots!

(This post looks back a couple of months, but I saw something today that jogged my memory about it. I apologize for the delayed post.)

A few years ago, Ryan and I used to enjoy watching Battlebots on TV together. That show isn't on anymore, but we really enjoyed those compact creations of mayhem and destruction. (According to the Wikipedia page linked to above, the TV show will be returning, for at least one competition, in November 2008!)

One day during this spring break (we didn't do anything special for spring break this year, since we had gone to Puerto Vallarta a month prior), I happened to read about the FIRST Robotics regional competition taking place at University of Denver over the weekend. We went down on Saturday for our Big Science Saturday (BSS) activity, and the kids loved it!

The robots were built by high school kids with corporate mentors. The sophistication of the robots was very impressive, as good as we ever saw on Battlebots. (So much so, that it made me wonder how much design and manufacture was done by the kids, versus by the corporate sponsors.) You could go down into the 'pits,' where the teams were very helpful in describing their robot designs.

The robots were designed to compete on a specific event that involved racing around an oval track and picking up and carrying large exercise balls. It wasn't clear how the scoring was structured, but they seemed to get points for the number of laps completed, picking balls off the racks, and pushing them around the track.

Our favorite robot was one that wasn't even designed to deal with the balls at all. Once the designers abandoned this activity, they were free to design a very specialized little bot that did one thing very well. It zipped around the track three to four times faster than any other bot. It was very fun to watch that little guy.

The boys loved their robot-themed BSS. There was even a demo table there from a Lego robotics club, and the boys talked about finding a local chapter to join. We'll see how that turns out ...