Posted by Tim
Tue, 21 Nov 2006 03:12:25 GMT
That was the title for my 10th and final speech in my quest for the Toastmasters Competent Communicator award. After we send in some paperwork, I will be on my way to starting an advanced program!
The stated purpose of the 10th speech is to inspire the audience. Suggested topics include spiritual, physical, or financial growth. Given that it was exactly one week before Thanksgiving, I had more important things on my mind. Food.
I couldn't stop thinking about bread, and I took the opportunity to share my enthusiasm while showing, first hand, just how easy it is to whip up a batch of dough. It is tricky kneading dough while speaking, but I managed to pull off both tasks well enough to earn a decent review. Mashing together wheat proteins to form gluten while mashing together friends and family is a recipe for a warm and joyful household.
Every year for Thanksgiving I visit Grandma to get a refresher course on her great bread recipe. I am one of a handful who have taken on the recipe. Many people are either intimidated by her lack of exact measurement, or by the thought of cooking with living bits of yeast. Making a batch of her dough takes about 15 minutes with experience. We always make two batches, but I get much more than 30 minutes of cooking out of my visit. It is great to spend time with the matriarch of the family on the eve of a giant feast, sharing her recipe, her stories, and her time. Grandma's house is too packed for a slow conversation on Thanksgiving day, but on Wednesday evening there will only be a few of us gathered around two batches of dough and a giant bowl of in progress potato salad.
Posted in Food, Toastmasters | no comments
Posted by Tim
Tue, 22 Aug 2006 07:30:00 GMT
While trolling through my referrer logs this evening, I found an interesting entry from Google. Someone found my Toastmasters category by searching on "good things about toastmasters."
I have plenty of good things to say about Toastmasters. The feedback on my grammatical "style" alone is worth the time out of my week. I learn, and I become more aware of the world we live in through Toastmasters.
Hopefully that person's search was fruitful. Are there people blogging the Toastmasters experience? A Google search for "toasmasters blog" was marginally successful when judged by the first page of results. Maybe it is time for those of us within Toastmasters to start writing about our experiences more often.
Maybe our clubs should run blogs and planet servers rather than only handing out paper or email newsletters.
Wait, wait, wait... this is part of my job as my club's Vice President Public Relations.
/tim gets comfortable, settles in.
I have some work to do.
We are known by our words. At Toastmasters we work on our verbal communication skills, but we would be wise to remember that our written words have the capability of living on long after we are gone.
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Posted by Tim
Fri, 23 Jun 2006 06:52:00 GMT
Fifteen months ago, Kate and I
started taking dance lessons at our local Arthur Murray franchise.
I had a little bit of dance experience from musicals, and we
talked on several occasions about one day taking lessons together.
Kate found a coupon for a free introductory lesson, and she
signed up for the 10 week beginner program at the end of that lesson. I knew about the free lesson, but signing up for the 10
week course was news. It went something like "hey, I signed up
for dance lessons today!" Running that through my personal
girlfriend translation engine, I deciphered the message. It said
"I hope you weren’t joking about taking dance lessons, because now
we’re going whether you like it or not."
Fortunately I was up for the challenge and actually excited to start.
A lot of couples our age sign up for dance lessons because they
are getting ready for their wedding, some with as little as 4 weeks
before the big day. That wasn’t us—Kate just wanted to dance.
Even still, dancing is a lifetime fitness activity that takes a
while to learn. Signing up for a long running activity with her had me
sighing with relief. You see, she had no idea, but at the time we
started dancing I had recently written the single largest check ever to
come out of my checkbook. Tivol gladly cashed that check while
placing a shiny diamond on a platinum band into their vault on my
behalf. Yes indeed, long term commitment was just what I was
looking for.
Our lessons happened over my lunch break at first, and because of this
I caught a little flack from some coworkers. They’d call me Fred
Astaire, or worse, Ginger Rogers. These taunts came from men
deathly afraid of emasculation. Men for whom a big night out with
their wives involved eating out and making it home just in time to
watch reality television or a cartoon rerun. They laugh, and tell
me that life will be much the same for me. I laugh too. I
know that Kate wants a house with hardwood floors for dancing, and I
know she wants the DirecTV subscription canceled when she moves in.
Fifteen months of dance lessons. Fifteen months is quite a long
time. That’s two and a half semesters of school plus breaks.
At about the one year mark, I made mention of an upcoming
jitterbug lesson to my grandma. Grandma grew up with the
jitterbug, and I was giving her fair warning that I’d be ready to take
her out on the dance floor at the wedding. An uncle cocked his
head a little and appeared genuinely curious. "What? You’re
still taking lessons? I figured you would have learned all there
is to know by now. I thought that after a year you’d be dancing
like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers." Grrrr, those two again.
No, we are not yet dancing like Fred and Ginger. After
telling our instructor that story, he pointed out that even he still
takes lessons. This is definitely a long term commitment.
Keep in mind that we aren’t just talking about matching our feet up to
black painted and numbered outlines on the floor. There are small
matters of timing, styling, and combinations. There are larger,
more "pressing" issues. Me not pressing my toes on to hers.
Kate not pressing her elbow into my face as she walks through an
under arm turn. Her elbow, my face. She worries about that a lot, so
it warrants repetition. I have a different outlook: it is
my problem and my fault if I lead her through a move and collide with
her elbow in the process, but I appreciate her concern.
As an example of the layers of complexity involved, let’s dissect the
basic footwork required to make the Rumba look like a Rumba. If
you’ve had any waltz experience, you may look at the footwork diagram
of the Rumba and think "piece of cake, it’s just like the waltz on a
smaller scale! Forward, side, together!" At first, both
instructor and student will be thrilled when the student consistently
remembers the pattern of the dance. But music has rhythm, and a
straight "forward, side, together" doesn’t feel very latin to me.
The student is then introduced to a new mantra, "slow… quick,
quick, slow… quick, quick."
Kate and I were happy at this point. When we danced a Rumba, we
danced WITH the music, and we were even learning some nice turns and
breaks. At that point I learned why we as a nation have such a
problem with Cuba. It isn’t their government, it’s their motion.
Cuban motion is the fancy term for making your hips and legs go
in all sorts of different directions while dancing. Truthfully,
Cuban motion is an American invention, but it’s still quite
foreign to me.
Here’s a quick beginner’s explanation of Cuban motion. Keep one
leg bent, and one leg straight at all times. Take tiny steps.
Keep your toes near the floor. Lift your heels off the
floor, but drop them slowly. Land on the inside of your foot,
roll to the outside. Now, all at once. Confused? So
am I. Mastering this with any competency may require long term
commitment to rival even Castro’s dedication to communism.
Kate and I have a long way to go with our dancing before we even finish
the bronze level program in which we are currently enrolled, but we
will continue dancing at whatever level we can swing as long as our
hips, knees, and ankles continue to do their part. Long term
commitment is a joy when shared with someone so wonderful. I only
ask you to remember that there’s a big difference between an activity
looking easy and being easy. Thanks alot, Fred and Ginger.
Posted in Music, Toastmasters | 1 comment | no trackbacks
Posted by Tim
Thu, 27 Apr 2006 04:01:00 GMT
Someone dies from hunger about every 4 seconds. I
gave a variation of this as my Toastmasters CTM speech 3, and it was
clocked at just over 5 minutes. In that time over 70 people passed away
because of hunger.
April 7th through the 9th was a physically filling and
fattening weekend. An outside observer might have guessed
that I was in the first phases of a competitive eating training
regimine. Kate and I ate out three times. Four, if
you count a visit to Grandma's house, and since Grandma always offers
heaping portions and multiple desserts, well, let's count
that. At work we always end the week with lunch at Governor
Stumpy's because it's so tasty and the people are always
smiling. Saturday Kate and I had a (*clears throat*) "light"
lunch at the Jerusalem cafe on Saturday, and we followed that with the
trip to Grandma's house. On Sunday, we ate so much at the
Ruchi Indian Restaurant's buffet that I had a belly ache all afternoon!
Right now I have a belly ache of a different sort. I learned
a great deal about hunger and malnutrition over the last few days
because Kate and I are choosing charities to put on our wedding
registry. Harvesters quickly floated to the top of our list
because of their strong presence in the Kansas City community coupled
with their incredibly low administrative overhead, and my
normally full belly had an empty and aching feeling as I read some of
their statistics. For the price of a soda, complete with free
refills, Harvesters can feed 10 people. My tuna melt and tip
at the Stump could have satisfied 60 people. Ugh... belly
ache.
I'm going to go over some of the facts and figures, but first lets get
some definitions out of the way.
hunger:
(a) a craving or urgent need for food or a specific nutrient, (b) an
uneasy sensation occasioned by the lack of food, (c) a weakened
condition brought about by prolonged lack of food
malnutrition:
faulty and especially inadequate nutrition
In my own words I'd say that hunger is a belly ache from not eating
enough, while malnutrition is a condition induced from a long term lack
of nutrients. If someone ate macaroni and cheese everyday all
day, that person would not be hungry. He'd probably even be
fat, but unless he was eating super fortified and enriched mac and
cheese, he'd be quite malnourished by a lack of important vitamins and
minerals.
Globally, 1 in 12 people are malnourished. Some parts of the
world are worse than others, with an extreme example being
Afghanistan. 70% of the population of that country are
currently undernourished according to the World Food Programme.
Remember your mother forcing you to eat your carrots because
they were good for your eyes? The special ingredient that
keeps your eyes in top notch condition is vitamin A, and approximately 250,000 to 500,000 children
go blind each year because they have a vitamin A deficiency [WIKIPEDIA].
Beyond blindness, as many as one million child deaths could have been prevented by vitamin A supplementation between 1998 and 2000 [UNICEF].
Iron is another everyday nutrient that isn't in the everyday
diet in sufficient quantities for a sizable portion of the world
population, and enriching people's diets with iron would be the single
most cost effective action that we could take to improve the health of
the world.
Those of us living in the United States may find hunger and
malnutrition to be remote problems that deserve the attention of
international organizations and think tanks. We don't have to
deal with hunger and malnourishment here, right? Although
hunger
isn't as pronounced in the United States as in many parts of the world,
over one tenth of our population experienced insecurity in their food
supply in 2004. Many of those affected by food insecurity
lead normal lives otherwise; people with jobs, homes, and
hobbies for whom something went wrong. A missed paycheck or
an unforeseen medical emergency is all that it takes for many people to
have to make tough decisions between food, rent, or medication.
Let's zoom in just a little more. When asked why
they like Kansas City, many people mention the small city feeling and
the friendliness of most residents. Hunger may exist in rural
areas or in overbearingly large cities, but surely in such a personal
and friendly city as KC we manage to feed those who hunger.
Not quite. Harvesters is our only area food bank,
and through a distribution network that includes 550 not-for-profit
organizations they help approximately 60 thousand people each week.
About 3% of our metropolitan population seeks assistance each
week, and 43% of those in need are children. All of this
support adds up to some pretty incredible numbers. For
instance, 23 million pounds of food were distributed in 2005.
My dad always, always, always made sure that we were not only
fed, but fed incredibly well. He picked up this habit from
his own father, and it seems to have induced a condition in our family
that causes us to get incredibly grumpy or just plain mean if it has
been more than about six waking hours since we last ate. My
pampered palate caused these facts about hunger and malnutrition to
really resonate with me. It was an eyeopener to see how many
people go without food at all for a day or more, especially when I get
edgy after six snack less hours.
There is a bright side to this situation. Since the
1960s the world has produced enough food to sufficiently feed everyone,
we just have to figure out how to distribute all of the food
appropriately.
Many people are still digging into Easter baskets and indulging in
treats that they may have voluntarily gone without for 40 days and 40
nights prior to Easter. I hope we will all take a moment to
remember those people who involuntarily go without by contributing to
an organization dedicated to feeding people at an international,
national, or local level. Food is
not only necessary, food is wonderful. Enjoy indulging in
life's nourishing pleasures, but be careful to avoid overindulgence or
you may end up with a belly ache.
Posted in Food, Life, Toastmasters
Posted by Tim
Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:45:00 GMT
I read this great post on "I Will Teach You To Be Rich" the other day, and I wanted to share it with anyone who comes across my blog. I love the idea of "Call Your Ass Out" day, and I would like to see it as a holiday celebrated at the end of every quarter, not just the first quarter of the year. We might need a name change before the day gets a selection of Hallmark cards, but I think the name really serves its purpose, so I’d rather skip the cards all together.
This year has seen great weeks and horrible weeks in terms of my goals. I seem to be really good at sprinting through problems for a week, and then I extract a week’s worth of slacking even if I try to work. The sprints are great, but I need to figure out a way to deal with my tendency to slack afterward.
I have done a lot of good things in the first quarter. Toastmasters is helping me to improve my verbal communication, I’ve started writing bid proposals for programming jobs, I’ve written an application that is just waiting for our new server, and I’m installing that new server tomorrow. May will see me running my first 5K since I was in high school, and the wedding planning moves along. All that stuff is great, but I don’t feel like I’ve fully tapped my potential yet. I have a long way to grow, and I’m excited about raising the bar in this second quarter of 2006.
Posted in Life, Entrepreneurship, Toastmasters
Posted by Tim
Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:13:00 GMT
I’m told that means "shaking the house", and it is a thorough cleaning process that Iranians go through each year before celebrating the Persian new year, which falls on the first day of Spring. From this practice, and from tracking mud, salt, and sand indoors all winter long, we Westerners get our fascination with spring cleaning. I’m not Persian, so my perspective is a little different. In my family spring cleaning wasn’t an activity done in anticipation of a holiday, but instead a task undertaken begrudgingly because "your mother said so."
With age comes an acceptance of the annual deep cleaning. Now that I’m a home owner I have seen first hand clutter taking over a room as well as all of the weird places that dirt tends to collect. My big problem is that I am the latest in a line of pack rats. This spring ritual is a favorite time of mine to overturn the house with trash and donation bags in hand. Small shirts, expired canned goods, broken computer parts? Donate, trash, and why’d I have broken computer parts in the first place? No matter, it’s spring cleaning, and it’s my time to start fresh with a clean slate.
What about those knick knacks and paddy whacks that we pick up as souvenirs? Tesuaro and Mollod, the authors of The Modern Gentleman, provide us with the Arc of Archivability in which, as they put it, "Heartifacts must be plotted on three axes before they are alloted shelf space in the den." If an object doesn’t provide a sufficient combination of uniqueness, meaningfulness, and familiarity then away it goes.
Let’s not limit our exploration of spring cleaning to our homes. What about ourselves? With wonderful weather on the way we have a great opportunity to clean out our cardiovascular system with healthy doses of fresh produce and fresh air. The weight loss commercials are out in full force, so I will leave physical fitness as an exercise for the reader. We have bigger thoughts to ponder.
Think for a second, what’s been on your mind lately?
At today’s pace, there are probably a whole lot of things are racing around in there. There is a parallel between our physical world and our minds: just like a clear workspace enables intense focus on important work, a clear mental space enables intense focus on important thoughts. How many of the thoughts, dreams, goals, and aspirations running around in your head right now don’t really belong there?
Let’s pick some low hanging fruit first: turn off the television. I turned off mine last Thanksgiving, and my only regret is that it took so long. Television is designed to dull our senses and replace real experiences with flattened generalizations, filling our heads with visions of low, low prices and our satisfaction guaranteed. Reclaim that mental space and in the process stop watching other people live.
What about thoughts that have overextended their stay in our minds? I have projects swimming in my head right now that have been there for years, and they can be distracting at times because each project is an open loop in my mind craving attention. If you have read David Allen’s Getting Things Done you probably see where I’m going with this. To be proactive about managing your mental energy you need an action plan to deal with old ideas bubbling up from your subconscious. Do it or dump it. When an idea surfaces I either take a step toward implementation, even if that is just writing down my thoughts, or I take the time to remind myself that I am no longer interested in the idea. In this way I am crudely able to communicate with my subconscious, and it greatly reduces the anxiety that comes with things left undone.
On a grander scale, what about your dreams? In his essay "What You’ll Wish You’d Known", Paul Graham disparages the commencement speakers who each year tell kids to "never give up on your dreams." A more appropriate message would be keep moving forward, keep growing. Never giving up on a dream can be counterproductive or futile.
Napoleon Dynamite’s Uncle Rico is a perfect example of a man who has dreams that need to be put to bed. He continually relives the championship football game of his senior year because that’s where his dream of an NFL contract was derailed. All the while he’s throwing streaks at Napoleon and claiming to have the ability to throw footballs over mountains, he’s missing out on life today because of a long dead dream from the past.
I’m not trying to be a dream killer. Don’t give up on dreaming. Dreams, goals, and aspirations are a healthy and vital part of life. They excite us and energize us, they enable us to make this world a better place. I’m asking you to recognize when you have grown at a faster pace than your dreams and goals. As outpaced dreams are put to rest, celebrate! Enjoy the fact that you continue to grow, and use your celebration as a time to set your sights higher still.
Don’t begrudge your lengthening list of TODO items as you go about your spring cleaning. Don’t curse your clothes for "shrinking" through the winter. Instead recall that spring is a time of rebirth and renewal for all living organisms. Embrace the challenges that await you and rejuvenate vigorously as you are in good company with all of nature.
Posted in Life, Toastmasters | no comments | no trackbacks
