Month: April 2005

Stress down… My accountant said, “It’s going to be ok!”

Those things need gas to keep puttering. Who woulda thunk!

No alcohol, no soda, no chips…

So far the day has included phone calls regarding insurance and other bureaucracy including calls about the elementary school bus. Knoxville needs to own their own buses. Contracted bus service is pathethic.

Use them both!

An old favorite! Lemmings!

What I should be doing:

• Invoicing clients
• Emailing clients that would have liked to have heard from me Monday morning
• Picking up two powersupplies from a client
• Talking to the IRS
• Balancing the books
• Programming for Client A
• Documenting for Client B
• Programming for client B
• Calling the school to make sure the bus is not causing my son tardys
• Calling the transportation department to find out why the school bus is picking up after school has already begun
• Arranging for the hospital for the baby that could come at anytime (ie. Medicade/TNCare etc)
• Cleaing the house

What I am doing:

• Trying to figure out why the car won’t start

Fifteen-year-old girl throws out-of-control party, destroys house. Man-on-the-street interviews suggest her punishment:spank her, twice So this girl throws a spring break party after her parents leave town. Much more than the 10-20 high school students invited show up. She hides in her room while the party smashes her windows, front door, and flat screen television (which they were trying to steal but it wouldn’t fit through the front door so they attacked it with golf clubs instead); And "they carted out more stuff than the Grinch on Christmas Eve."

I’m stunned just trying to imagine it…

A very thought provoking article on MSN today.

This generation has sworn they wouldn’t hit their kids. The problem is, the same anger and frustration that fueled the old model of corporal punishment didn’t magically vanish merely because a generation of well-meaning parents wanted it to. Instead of letting anger lead to hitting, it now often leads to shouting. But that simple act of raising our voice, depending on what we say and how often we do it, can hold the potential for long-term harm, says Murray A. Straus, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire.

The article asks the question “would you yell at a co-worker or a bumbling bagger at the grocery?” Our society allows for yelling at children but in other circumstances that doesn’t apply. Why not extend this courtesy to children? I like their “9 Anti-Yelling Tips”:

1. Defuse with humor (and that doesn’t mean sarcasm)
2. Sing
3. Send your kid outside
4. Whisper
5. Invade your child’s space (I don’t like this one although I’m employed it)
6. Insist once, act immediately
7. Put yourself in time-out
8. Create a key phrase
9. Create a no-yelling rule

You can resolve a conflict without yelling in 15 steps:
Thinking Steps

1. Assess emotions
2. Accept anger, behave well
3. Gauge intensity
4. Who and what?
5. Perspective check

Talk/Listen Steps

6. Time and place
7. Avoid coalitions
8. Express appropriately
9. Listen actively
10. Admit fault

Solving Steps

11. Brainstorm solutions
12. Pros and cons
13. Decide and plan
14. Do it
15. Review/revise

Resources:

• Parents Anonymous – It’s ok to seek help
• Tired of Yelling : Teaching Our Children to Resolve Conflict by Lyndon D. Waugh, Letitia Sweitzer
• The Encouraging Parent : How to Stop Yelling at Your Kids and Start Teaching Them Confidence,Self-Discipline, and Joy by ROD WALLACE KENNEDY PHD

So the first 45 minutes of my day, begun at 4:30–almost 3:30!, have been spent confirming a quote, backing up a database for a client and beginning documentation for the client, posting lottery results, email, and some blogging. Now I’ll spend 15 minutes puttering about and making some tea.

No coffee today. Maybe a coke or two.

Stephen R Covey encourages 30 minutes to an hour of stretching and cardiovascular exercise as a step toward effectiveness. I want to exercise. I like it. I have more energy and less stress. Despite all that, I can’t justify it until I get a couple of things off my plate. Oh the dichotomy!

When a plan or a schedule slips I start to stress. When they slip badly I get a bit beyond crazed. I need today to go well.

"I love it when a plan comes together."
  

Unsafe health care in Seattle.

“The male patient, who was not identified, went up in flames after alcohol poured on his skin was ignited by a surgical instrument.”

And now for bureaucratic cya and spin:

The patient died after the surgery but that was due to heart failure and not the fire, said Dr. Robert Caplan, medical quality director of Virginia Mason.

Dr. Caplan. Don’t you think, in your professional opinion, that perhaps, just maybe, the patients heart failed because he was ON FIRE!?

Student: The mower fails.
Master: It has not been maintained.

The India Daily reports “Thousands of Missiles Fired by Russian and American Forces over Earths Arctic Regions – completely unannounced – Are we fighting extraterrestrial UFOs?“

The article mentions that several news services have stated that Russia and the United States are jointly participating in a previously unannounced war game for missle defense systems but questions the secrecy.

Could a war be going on above our atmosphere? Was the Iraq situation not about oil but perhaps the location needed to better deploy our EDS?

The Columbia space shuttle could be the public’s first glimpse at what was to come. Perhaps the first attack was on the Columbia which could explain why no other launches have occurred. The Columbia may have sustained phaser damage but having no defenses had to escape into the atmosphere and attempt an emergency landing. Why not escape to the space station? Simply put, under these circumstances, it certainly has been destroyed.

There are also reports that someone is manipulating the earth’s weather systems in a massive scale.

The cosmic bursts hitting the earth are also strange. The Solar flares in recent days have shown extreme abnormal behavior.

The increasing earthquakes, floods, droughts and landslides may have been caused by some artificial agents.

We have seen this evidence in the tsunamis. The 10 story "freak" wave that hit the ocean liner yesterday was obviously caused by a large, intergalactic space craft crashing into the ocean (congrats to the doughboys on that one!); or perhaps an enemy space to earth missle intended to hit a continent went off course and exploded in the ocean.

Look folks! ET has come home!