Sports Enthusiasm – Offshore Focus

Countdown: 95 days till the race begins!

That’s the Volvo Ocean Race: an extreme sailing competition that pits “one-design” boats against each other on a round-the-world course. The difference between the eventual champions and the rest of the fleet depends on the crews alone – it’s a contest of skill and endurance, not technology or equipment.

Most of the fleet from the 2014-15 race are back: Dong Feng, MAPFRE, Vestas Wind, and (yes!!!!) Brunel. An 8th boat has yet to be named/sponsored, but I fully expect it will be Abu Dhabi with Ian Walker returning as skipper (if not, he’ll have to give up his Twitter handle!).

I will once again be rooting for Team Brunel, of course, and skipper Bouwe Bekking. He SO deserves the win!

I’ll say this now, because once Oathbringer comes out, it may have a different connotation – – to me, Bekking’s leadership style is reminiscent of Dalinar Kholin as we see him in The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. Or maybe it’s just that I admire them both: heroes from the real-world and the cosmere.

At any rate, I encourage everyone to investigate the VOR. Pick a team to follow (cough, cough, Brunel, cough), cheer them on through social media, and learn a lot about our oceans in the process.

“See” you in Alicante in October!

Non-Generation-ism

Tweeted this June 22:

I tend to not believe in generation-ism.

Culture and tastes change, but human personalities – not so much.

Otherwise, every “generation” would need new Myers-Briggs Types, Communication Styles, Leadership Styles, “core competencies,” etc.

Don’t segregate generations: collaborate instead! 🙂

Fountains of Geekdom

This month I levelled up in geekdom: I have joined the fountain pen community.

Admittedly, it’s the shallow end; unsure it would work with my left-handedness, I wasn’t going to plunk down too much green at the get-go.

But happily these Pilot Metropolitans are working out fantastic for me! All the bloggers who say it’s a “great starter pen” are totally right.

You know I couldn’t resist the aqua color, and the pearly white (with tiger stripes!) is so pretty. I bought 2 because I wasn’t sure if I’d like a medium or a fine nib – turns out (at least for this brand and model) I’m happiest with the fine. So I plan to use that primarily, and use the medium when I’m writing with fancy ink colors.

And oh, the colors! My first order from the Goulet Pen Company is on its way with several ink samples that will allow me to affordably find my perfect shade. (Seems redundant to call it a “signature shade,” eh?)

I never used a fountain pen as a kid in school (we always had ballpoints), so I have no memories good or bad. This is entirely new to me.

The experience of writing with ink that is actually liquid and flowing through the nib onto the paper is more different than I’d expected. It seems instinctive to think more about what I’m writing, and to care more about how I’m forming the letters … it’s been quite surprising. It’s slower but strangely more fulfilling.

There are lots of times when I’ll still use my rollerballs and gel pens – not to mention my Palomino Blackwing pencils! – but for brainstorming and correspondence and lots of other tasks, I’m practicing with my fountain pen. (Srsly, why does my brain insist on calling it “practicing with my spheres”? No spheres involved! No The Lopen either! November cannot come soon enough!!)

kim’s Tasty Turkey Meatloaf

This meatloaf tastes like turkey and stuffing at Thanksgiving dinner – yum! At least half the volume is vegetables. Enjoy!

  • Recipe serves: 4+
  • Oven Temp: 375F

Meat loaf ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning

1/4 teaspoon Beau Monde seasoning

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon ground sage

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Couple dashes Worchestershire sauce

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped bell pepper

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1/2 cup matchstick/julienned carrots, parboiled

1/4 cup finely diced water chestnuts

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1 apple, diced fine (or 1/2 cup applesauce)

1 zucchini, coarse grated (shredded)

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup seasoned stuffing mix, crushed (no big pieces)

Topping ingredients:

1/3 cup ketchup

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon dark mustard

Directions:

  1. Mix all meat loaf ingredients well.
  2. Place in a loaf pan (or several small loaf pans).
  3. Mix topping ingredients.
  4. Spread topping on loaf.
  5. Cover pan with foil.
  6. Bake for 45 minutes (or 30 minutes for small pans) at 375F; thermometer inserted in center should register 165F. Optional: Remove foil for last 5 minutes of baking time.

kim’s Tasty Beef Meatloaf

At least half the volume of this meatloaf is vegetables. Using oatmeal keeps it gluten-free. Enjoy!

  • Recipe serves: 4+
  • Oven Temp: 375F

Meat loaf ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

1 teaspoon Montreal Steak seasoning, crushed fine

Couple dashes Worchestershire sauce

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped bell pepper

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1/2 cup matchstick/julienned carrots, parboiled

1 zucchini, coarse grated (shredded)

1 egg, lightly beaten

8 ounces canned diced tomatoes, drained (for tomato-free, substitute 1 yellow squash, grated)

1/2 cup steel-cut oatmeal

Topping ingredients:

1/3 cup ketchup (for tomato-free, substitute peach butter or sugar-free peach preserves)

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon dark mustard

Directions:

  1. Mix all meat loaf ingredients well.
  2. Place in a loaf pan (or several small loaf pans).
  3. Mix topping ingredients.
  4. Spread topping on loaf.
  5. Cover pan with foil.
  6. Bake for 1 hour (40 minutes for small pans) at 375F; thermometer inserted in center should register 160F. Optional: Remove foil for last 5 minutes of baking time.

Bullet Journal

Have you heard about Bullet Journal?

bulletjournal

Its creator, Ryder Carroll, calls it “an analog system for the digital age.”

I’ve been trying it for the past few weeks, and I like it pretty well. I had been trying to use a calendar on my phone, since that’s always with me but, like many other people, I got frustrated at not being able to see the calendar while I was talking on the phone. So now I’m back to paper.

I’m using a medium-sized Moleskine with grid ruling, like he shows in his video, but it feels a little too big – too tall and wide. I looked for one a little smaller but couldn’t find anything that still had the 31+ lines you need for the monthly list of days.

Comparing this to the way I used to use paper planners, the biggest difference I see is in my own attitude: if something doesn’t get done, as long as it was a “nice to have” or a “possible option,” I just leave it behind. I have waaaaay too many ideas to actually do them all. Perhaps this means I’m making peace with that in a new way. 🙂

I added Post-it tabs for two sections: Collections, and (unique to me) Scathingly Brilliant Ideas – I have five of the latter so far, some of which will appear on this blog in due course.

Another thing I did was to glue a traditional calendar into the back of the notebook. It just helps me to see the 7-day grid, especially when planning activities with friends … sets things in a context. I use that calendar to record events in future months, then add those to the Bullet Journal monthly list of days.

So far, so good. June will be my first full month with a Bullet Journal, so it will be a better test. I’ll let you know toward the end of the year how it’s going.

If you’re looking for a system, why not check it out?

Lessons from POTC

A light-hearted post for the holiday!

Those who know me well, know that Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies are some of my favorites.

While I don’t want to say, “Everything I need to know I learned from POTC,” I’ve spotted some big life lessons in each film.

“POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl”

Be yourself.
If you know what you want, you’ll find a way to get it.

“POTC: Dead Man’s Chest”

If you don’t know what you want, sometimes your friends can help you get it.
Go ahead and face your biggest fears; you might find yourself saying, “That’s not so bad.”

“POTC: At World’s End”

“It’s not just living forever, it’s living with yourself forever.” (spoken by Captain Teague in the movie)
Good people keep their promises.

What did you learn from “Pirates?”

Originally posted July 4, 2009 on White Tree Ideas

Us and Them

For a long time now, I’ve been trying to make my “Us” bigger – to include more people in it.

Seems to me that a lot of social ills stem from a small Us that brings an adversarial tone to interactions with the majority of people. If I can just see more people as part of my Us, it keeps the tone positive and helps me to feel at home – among “My Own” – more of the time.

And every human being has something in common with me, even if it’s just the fact that we’re human.

Where does this idea of Us and Them, of  My Own vs. outsiders, come from? It seems ubiquitous, so it’s not culture-specific. Is it a carryover from the stage of life when children differentiate themselves from their parents, but taken too far? Do our minds slip into the thought pattern of the children’s game, “One of these things is not like the others …”? Is it hyper-individualism?

I appreciate the concept of otherness, written about by many noted thinkers including C.S. Lewis. And I’m not advocating that everyone is or should be the same – uniqueness is a precious gift.

But realizing that I have a choice of who belongs in my Us – that it’s not just automatic, that it can be flexible, and that nobody else can force my choice – has really opened up the world for me. It has actually helped me to delight in uniqueness, since more and more people are part of My Own and not adversaries.

What do you think? Should everyone try to expand their Us? What would happen if we did?

Originally posted July 1, 2009 on White Tree Ideas