Fan or Friend

I had a friend, a close friend for many years. We've all seen those movies or read those books where a "soulmate" style friendship is described. This is what we had and it was everything that the books and movies make it out to be. Actually, it was quite a bit more. 

Regardless, it fell apart. When I look back at our friendship, I realize that it lasted well beyond the expiration date. What does that mean? It means when I review the timeline of our friendship, I realize now that it would have been better had we stopped being friends about ten years before the end of our friendship. There was nothing positive or worthwhile that emerged from the final ten years. It would have been better had we stopped years and years before. 

Outlier

I had to travel to Michigan this past weekend. I don't care for Michigan personally. I've been here enough times to know this is not a place I'd like to live. This weekend was the worst trip here I've had . . . why?  . . . snow, super cold, and for a funeral. 

I only met Anne a couple of times. The first time was in Key West for a wedding. That was a great time. My wife and Anne were both bridesmaids for Anne's sister. I got to hang out with Anne's husband, the groom, all of the groomsmen. It was a memorable and terrific time. Still, I interacted with Anne, only once or twice the whole weekend. 

Hypocrisy Again

Maybe it's because it's on my mind, but I struggle with all of the hypocrisy. Not just the challenges I see in my day-to-day life, as I discussed yesterday, but also in the news in general. 

I read an editorial today that discussed the WaPo story about the "double tap" incident that is currently in the news. These two images that I posted, other than the land vs water aspect . . . what are the differences?

Unreal Hypocrisy

My (former) colleague J told me she had a talk with my old boss a few weeks after I resigned. She asked him, "How do you think he'll like the new place?"

What did he say?

He said, "I think he'll find there's a lot of nepotism."

She told me about it. At the time he said it, I thought it was absurd. The place I was leaving had a significant amount of nepotism and familial hiring. It also worried me because one of the things I wanted to leave behind by going to the new organization I was moving to was the back-scratching, the politics, the nepotism, and the favoritism. The good news . . . I've been at my new company for a year. Not even a hint of nepotism or favoritism. There's one daughter-in-law of a senior manager who works in a department, and one husband-and-wife team who are both lower-level employees. But nothing beyond that. 

Shifting the Conversation

I just had another article published (HERE). Woo-Hoo! Sadly, this might be the least impressive of the bunch.  

The Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP), an organization of which I am a member since I earned my Associate Safety Professional (ASP) certification, has published my article on translanguaging. 

Graphical Abstract

There aren't a lot of time I like to toot my own horn, but this will be one.  A primary reason that I was so excited to get this last article published in Engaged Managment ReView was that I was able to include the graphical abstract which I've pasted below. 

I had to make this graphical abstract as a part of the publication process and submission for the second journal I tried. I thought it was great. I've never heard of a "graphical abstract" but it makes sense right? It's a bit of an info-graphic. Packs alot of information into a very small space.

Connections Over Capability

 So, someone at my old company was just promoted to VP of Operations. Sounds great, right? Well, it sounds great until you realize that this person has no operations experience. Not just no operations experience with that specific company, but no operations experience at all. 

Sadly, this is true to form for that organization. Since I left:

ChatGPT or Insanity

One of the reasons I was eager to set up this blog is that I ran into a paper the other day and it absolutely left me dumbfounded. . . or in a more Archie McNally turn of phrase, . . . found me dumb.

The assignment is to peer review one of our classmates' papers. The paper happens to be on our personal philosophy of inquiry as it pertains to qualitative research, and specifically, qualitative research frameworks. Already, as you can tell, this is fairly heady stuff. These are not easy-to-read papers. BUT, when I read this classmate's paper, . . speechless. 

IRB-Less Pub

 I started my own IRB last summer. Why? Well, I was tired of latching on to different universities. Every time I used K-State's IRB, I had to rope in Dr. K. And every time I published, since he didn't do anything more than latch onto my IRB, I never included him as an author. It felt weird. 

Texas A&M's IRB process took months to complete. That was one good thing about K-State's. It usually takes less than a week. 

Recommitting to Daily

I'm going to start daily writing here again . . . Why? Well, for several reasons. 

1) I do better with daily activities in my life. I saw my son working on his sit-ups the other night, and I remembered that when I was his age, I had a daily goal of 100. Every night before I went to bed, I had to complete 100 sit-ups. It could be 3 sets of 30 with a kicker of 10 at the end. It could be all in one go. It could be 200 one night, then skip the next time. But, there had to be 100 a night. I think I did that all throughout high school. When I joined the Army, I maxed out the sit-up portion of the PT test.