Timing: NOT Everything

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Lin Ennis

Clock - Is timing everything --or not?I hate it when people say timing is everything.

It isn’t. Unless you live in a world of no substance.

  • When you’re making a sales presentation, it’s important to call on prospects during the time they’re looking for what you’re selling! But if you have nothing valuable to sell, does it matter when you present it?
  • You can’t expect an early wedding proposing to your best friend when she’s seven, but when she’s 18, you might have a chance!
  • You had a great new product idea, but it didn’t do well in testing. Someone’s going to try to encourage you by saying, “Bad timing; timing is everything.” If it’s a good product, look for a better time to release it. But what good would it do to have perfect timing with no product and no idea?
  • If you see a car you’d like to own, but don’t have the money, or your current car has years of life left it in, all right: the timing for buying that new car is bad. But timing would not be a factor without these other considerations. Timing is not and never will be everything!

It’s true in business that one “first to market” generally accrues a greater market share than those who come later with similar products. But not always. Those in front have to build demand and product recognition for those who come after. They work out the kinks. They spend the most in development. But whether you are the first or the 10th, how you do what you do largely affects your outcome.

If you’re running for office and lose, I guarantee someone will say, “Bad timing; better luck next time.” It could be true. You might win next time. If you do, it will be because people had more time to get acquainted with your name and what you stand for. But if you don’t stand for what the voters think they want, all the timing in the world won’t help you win!

So the next time you’re tempted to say timing isn’t everything, think about what is everything. It’s the everything-ness of it, the all-ness. It’s talent or quality or a good match or something else or all of these and possibly many other things – PLUS timing.

If you do not take a more realistic view of what comprises everything, you will not only not encourage your friends with this remark, you may also miss the boat yourself. And with boats leaving shore, timing counts!


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Picking Up Where You Left Off

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Lin Ennis

Two old friends reconnectingDon’t you love it when you run into a friend you haven’t seen in a long time, possibly years, and you pick up where you left off as though no time has passed?

I’ve delighted in that experience and relish the friends I am so in-tune with that picking up where we left off is as natural as smiling or hugging.

However.

I had a recent experience that turned my affinity for “picking up where we left off as though no time has passed” into a hiccup. More like a cough. Make that a choke.

(It wasn’t you, if you’re one of my friends reading my blog. It was someone…I don’t remember who. Besides, I don’t think my friends read my blog. I’m very popular, however, among others.)  😉

It occurred to me, one reason we may pick up where we left off is that the other person hasn’t changed, hasn’t grown, hasn’t budged. That would make you either pick up where you left off or have to introduce yourself (who has grown and changed) and a new person to that ‘old friend.’

What if the other person is the same old…?

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Look! Look!

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Lin Ennis

kids in car on vacation looking out window“Look, kids! Wake up and look over there, because I can’t; I’m driving.” Children drowsy during a four-day, 2000-mile cross country car trip are usually a godsend. Less squabbling. Less toy throwing. Less name calling. But as we neared Pikes Peak on our journey from Texas to Oregon that summer, Mother couldn’t contain herself.

We blearily looked off the side of the road into the hazy green bowl that had her so stirred up. Tree-covered mountains in the distance. What was the big deal? The winding climb over the Rocky Mountains seemed to never end. And she kept saying, “Look!”

Only as an adult who has driven many a mountain road and backroad could I begin to appreciate my mother’s fear of heights and of narrow roads one knows mathematically must be wide enough for two cars but don’t look it — a fear I fully inherited (along with her freakish talent for backing up at high speed!).

I relived part of that vacation this morning. It held my first taste of fresh apricots, cherries and dates; my disappointment that the petrified forest had fallen down before we got there; the smell of the redwoods; the absurdity of driving our car through a giant Sequoia; and my grandmother’s persistence in pronouncing Yosemite in two syllables, like it’s spelled she said: YOZ-myt.

All of that came back to me as I stood shivering in the driveway today at 5:30 a.m., head back and eyes straining skyward to catch a pre-dawn meteor shower. My partner told me last night there would be shooting stars between moonfall and sunrise. I didn’t try to remember. As I grabbed my morning coffee and headed toward my office, she said, “Go outside and watch for meteors.” After all, she was busy reading the paper and getting the crossword and Sudoku finished before her 6:15 commute; she couldn’t.

Without thinking, I zipped my fleece top and went outside. It was so dark, it took me 30 seconds to get down the two steps and stand in the driveway. I needed to put my hands in my pockets, but it was too dark to see where I might set my coffee. By the time my eyes adjusted enough to catch the reflection of a flat white rock marking the edge of the driveway, I wondered why I’d marched outside instead of to my desk!

Dutifully, I stared. I wonder if the radio said which direction to look? I need a knit cap. I bet my coffee’s already cold. Movement. A meteor? The light was slow and steady…a satellite. I watched it cross overhead, then turned around and watched it from the other direction for several moments. I scanned the horizon and overhead again. That’s it. I’m going in. Was that a glint or my bifocals?

I scurried inside to microwave my coffee, recalling a favorite family saying: Let’s not and say we did. I reported, “Yes, there was a meteor shower.” I didn’t stay out there long enough to see it, but I’m sure it happened.

As I stoked the wood stove to warm myself, I thought about how amazing what I’d just witnessed was. Any given night, one can go outside for a few minutes and probably see one of nearly 3000 satellites orbiting the earth.  By the time we crossed the Rockie Mountains and drove to YOZ-myt in my childhood, there had been only about 20 successful launches. None of those would still be orbiting.

Why I look when people tell me to, I don’t know. But today I traveled across the country, amidst family memories, through history and into space by doing so. I’ll probably keep on looking.

“Look!”

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Why ‘Affordable Housing’ Fails

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Lin Ennis

Landscape Format

“Many cities spent millions from 2000 to 2008 without building a single unit.”  Amazing what reading local newspapers while on vacation can unearth!

While I acknowledge the enforcement conundrum on contractors, what I still disagree with in municipal affordable housing initiatives is:

  1. Percentage of people making ‘affordable housing’ decisions while closely tied to construction industry.
  2. Decisions the city has made that reduce affordable housing, such as limiting multifamily development.
  3. Believing—or even considering—that people below the median income should be buying a new home – subsidized by anyone other than Habitat for Humanity. That’s why God invented rentals. If people need subsidies to buy a new house, how will they ever be able to afford the bottomless pit called home maintenance?
  4. Converting single family neighborhoods into multifamily without permission of the neighbors involved.
  5. Not making good use of the affordable inventory on hand.
  6. Not putting people who actually want/need/and qualify for affordable housing into available units.
  7. Not helping people in soon-to-be-demolished trailer parks find alternate housing.

I have been suggesting for years that my city could better spend its affordable housing dollars on a database that would match home-seekers with available units. There are myriad reasons this is a good idea. Here are a few:

  • Many low-income people are raising children and working full-time or more at low-paying jobs. They do not have the time or the money to read the local papers looking for affordable rental units.
  • If they have scoured the paper for a few weeks without finding something suitable, they may well have become discouraged and quit looking.
  • There are networks of people who know about affordable housing that may not be advertised in the newspapers, e.g., property managers and Realtors.

Perhaps such an endeavor should be established as a not-for-profit. But that still doesn’t address a city’s mandate to provide affordable housing, nor does it afford a way to manipulate developers into promising affordable units in exchange for building variances.

– – – – –

Again, please print and read this article, presented on this page in portrait format (below) for easy printing, and landscape format above for online reading.

LA Times Affordable Housing Article - Portrait Style Printing

Portrait Style Printing

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Computer Backup Hell

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Lin Ennis

My new HP i7 laptop screen died at 2 months old. I’d purchased a 3-year service contract with Fry’s Electronics – including a loaner – so I didn’t worry too much about it. But I did call Fry’s to see what would be necessary to drop it off and pick up a loaner, particularly since Fry’s is over 100 miles away.

It was a bit more than 90 days from purchase before Arizona was cool enough to even consider driving from Sedona to Phoenix – 90 minutes one way with no traffic or delays. First thing I was told when I got there was there was a 24-hour delay between dropping off a computer for repair and picking up a loaner.

“No. That’s not going to happen.” I stated firmly.

The service tech did not require much persuading. (The loaner exception must have been what the manager told me to mention, but I didn’t find my notes on the back of the warranty paperwork until I got home from the exchange.)

Knowing I would be without my own computer for two weeks, I took these preparatory steps:

  1. I planned the service to coincide with the last week of work before vacation and the week of vacation. That would ensure I’d be slowed down only one week and be back and fully functional the catch-up week after vacation.
  2. I downloaded and installed Paragon Software’s Backup and Recovery program which provided for either image backup (the last image I took wouldn’t restore to a differently-configured hard drive) or a clone. I chose the latter, because the former hadn’t worked previously; albeit, from a different software company.
  3. Though I have three external hard drives connected to my PC, one with over 350 Gb free space, I decided to play it safe and buy a new external hard-drive for just this operation. I bought the Western Digital Passport Essential 500 Gb for $79 plus tax.
  4. Though a friend warned me to “allow some time” for the cloning process, since I had only about 100 Gb on the laptop – including operating system and programs – I figured 2 hours tops. WRONG. It took a long time.

At Fry’s, after MUCH preliminary talk and paperwork, I asked the tech to make my tiny little Passport drive the boot disk. That was the first time I was allowed to leave the counter area. He gave me 30 minutes to go do my other Electronics shopping. When I returned, he asked for another 30 minutes. In all, I was in the store 3.5 hours, and the loaner computer would not boot from my cloned hard drive. After driving to the store, I was five hours into the process. I was tired and hungry. I told him to skip it and let me go.

So far, my investment was $300 for the three-year service contract with loaner, and just under $90 for the external drive including tax, plus the 90+ minute drive to Phoenix when it was 110 degrees.

I spent most of Monday trying to boot from or restore from the Passport USB drive. Then I called a computer tech. Since my database of trusted geeks was unavailable to me, I rode my bike down the street to one such geek, though he is a Mac person. He wasn’t home. His girlfriend suggested using the phonebook. I prefer calling “referred” people, but that gave me the idea to look for other comrades in Internet Marketing in the book. I was referred to Jeff. He couldn’t come right away, then called back that his pressing paying job had  to be postponed and he could come right away.

It seemed he’d never heard of Paragon software. I suggested he use whatever restore software he was used to. He said I was too far into the process to switch. I gave him the sheet of instructions the Paragon sales guy gave me. Jeff couldn’t make them work. There was a link on the Paragon site we were unable to get email from. (I probably typed my e-dress wrong.)

Nearly $200 later, I was none the closer to operational. What Jeff had convinced me of is that if your backup configuration and your destination configuration vary by even just a little bit, there’s a very good chance your backup will not be able to be restored. It seems one problem is nuances in how Windows is installed. No problem: Paragon will modify the operating system.

I began studying the documentation today myself. Yes, Paragon Hard Disk Management Suite will modify the Operating System as you copy one drive to another. That’s why I bought it ($49). But upon more careful reading, I noticed it modifies the source drive, not the destination drive! What’s the point of that? I need to run it off the destination (loaner laptop) drive!

I tried swapping physical drives, but the plugin components were different. One was card-like. The other drive had only pins. Not even close!

Had the Fry’s loaner been the same make and model of the ‘broken’ computer, none of this would have been an issue. In fact, I even had to modify Windows 7 to give me enough administrator privileges to try to make this transfer work.

If I’d simply mailed my laptop back to Hewlett-Packard for 12 days, a least I would have known I was off work, instead of sitting at the desk for two days trying to make work possible!

 

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In Search of Nectar

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Lin Ennis

I was uncomfortable, frozen in a not quite upright position, but I had to remain unnoticed. I was standing up after examining a recently pruned lower limb on my Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis). The buzz of wings alerted me to an incoming hummingbird. I looked up to see two deftly dipping their transparent tongues into the cups of the orchid-shaped flowers.

After three or four drinks, one rested on a pencil-lead-thin twig. A third zoomed in from behind me.

Nectar. In Latin, it means “drink of the gods.” Originating in Greek, (nĂ©ktar) is presumed to be a combination of nek, meaning “death,” and tar for “overcoming.” Surely for the little birds that must search out five times their body weight each day in minuscule droplets, nectar is a triumph over death.

However, for me, to have a halo of these jewels in flight overhead at 5:30 in the morning is the drink of the gods.

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Fake Cowgirl

Posted on July 10, 2010 by Lin Ennis

Recently a friend proposed moving to another city to be with her boyfriend…she owns a beautifully-appointed condo here… incredibly artistic, refreshing and relaxing. It’s a spiritual experience to be welcomed into her home.

He’s a sweet, gentle guy. When she first started dating him, she described him as “He’s just a GUY” (all caps). He’s funny, he’s healthy, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, and he has the most loving, easy to be around doggie ever!

Evidently, he cannot move here, because he has lived in Sedona before and has been burned/wearied/etc., with the ‘fake spirituality.’ The rest of us sharing lunch tried to come up with examples of ‘fake’ spirituality,

Leader (and personal  friend) asked, “How many fake cowboys in the town you’re moving to?” There in that Arizona Western town, lots of peeps wear boots and hats and jeans, but don’t rustle cattle. Just stylin’ down Whiskey Row.

I was a fake cowgirl there last weekend. I went to the rodeo – America’s oldest rodeo. Woot! I wore boots and a Western hat…No cow helped personally in any way to get me to the rodeo. The boots may have been a byproduct of your hamburger. And possibly the suede hat. The fun I had gussying up as a cowgirl was all mine!

Someone posited that fake spirituality might be the proselytizing kind. You know, the ones who tell you you aren’t whole until you do this thing they’ve done. Or lead you in a guided meditation when all you wanted to do was give them a lift and go on your way.

Another drew ahs and mhs by suggesting “Any spirituality besides your own.” Ha! Yes!

Or maybe it’s just those of us who don’t acknowledge our fakiness.

Speaking to the camera: “I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow.” (I think Martin Luther or some revered person…Ben Franklin? nah…) said that.

We’re all fake, because we’re all part who we want to be and part who we don’t want to be. We enlist denial (or debilitating blame) for the part that doesn’t fit the ideal “me.” Whether we deem ourselves better than or worse than others, that judgy part is wedging us into a false place, and there we are fake, because we are not better than or worse than the next person. We are neither better than nor worse than our idealized self, because that self itself is unreal; it is fake.

I think my friend will be happy with her fake-adverse boyfriend. What he doesn’t like about this town might even be fake only because he judges it so. No matter. I’m enriched by wrestling with the phrase and embracing my own fakiness.

Recognize and own your fake parts. You’ll evolve and live from a higher plane.

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One Things that Changed My Life

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Lin Ennis

Chance encounters often turn out to be important…as do comments made by friends, or observations in the presence of others, a line in a book, a title of a book you haven’t read, a chance compliment, mistaken identity, a job you got for which you were not technically qualified…

Some of these “one things” are bright in my memory, probably responsive to the emotional intensity I experienced at the time. Some must be sought for, as sifting gravel looking for quartz crystal bits. I wonder if I can recall 100? I’ll change the names of some people to honor the course their lives have taken…and some folks–I never got their names… To all of you: thank you, from the wealth and depths and breadths of who I’ve become, thank you.

  1. Aunt Mozelle, the sister of my soon-to-be step-father when I was eight, who told my mother, “Virginia, it’s all right. Let her call me what she wants to call me. Come on in Little Linny.” No one confronted my mother. Not ever. And especially not a soon-to-be relative.
  2. My father, who always called me Little Linny. Though I was very small for my age till somewhere halfway through high-school, this term of endearment always made/makes me feel special.
  3. More than reading What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter, I turned sections into exercises I performed aloud as I walked around the neighborhood park mornings. I learned to exaggerate neither the boon nor bane of my existence…to see my childhood self as my compassionate 40-ish self would see her…and comfort her…and love her…and if need be rescue her. I learned to not speak affirmations my mind would reject, nor to believe criticisms my soul would reject. Only truth is believable to the heart. Huge breakthrough. I could write chapters on how I did the exercises I invented based on reading this magnificent book, and how transformative they were. I place this book second only to the Bible.
  4. The high-schooler who showed me by example how easy (and appealing to others) daily showers could be.
  5. Same person who impressed upon me the intrigue of having smooth-shaven legs.
  6. The college professor who encouraged me to kiss a lot of frogs because they may be brothers to princes…it didn’t exactly work out that way, but I learned to be more open-minded about dating and friendships.
  7. The artist who demonstrated how a room with a yellow rock fireplace, pink Formica countertops and grey vinyl tile flooring could be pulled together with carefully-chosen curtain prints and craftily painted cupboards and doors!
  8. The stranger who encountered me on the sidewalk at the entrance of the International House of Pancakes and ‘recognized’ me as a writer; though, we’d never met, nor have we yet met. His prophetic/recognition utterance encouraged me when I didn’t know how much I needed encouragement.
  9. The lover who pointed out I became sexually aroused when in a zone of prosperity, whether by accomplishment, talk or dream. That connected me to a part of who I am.
  10. The elderly neighbor who asked me while achieving our common third-floor apartment building destination whether I needed help, and my off-handing my purse to him because my arm was in severe distress due to excessive or non-ergonomic computer use. It’s ok to ask an elderly or disabled person to assist you. They enjoy being needed. You need the help! Ask for it. Accept it graciously and gratefully.

What’s your story? Who changed your life? What happened then – and now?

I wonder if I can list 100 1-things…stay with me, all right?

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Ghost Gifts

Posted on May 22, 2010 by Lin Ennis

The week before my birthday, I looked up and said, Mom, I’m expecting that $20 you always put in a birthday card for me to appear somewhere. I know it will.

I told my friend Ruth about that and missing my mother-in-law.

Ruth sent a check for $100. Inside her birthday card was another little card saying “$20 of this is from your mom” [paraphrased].

Every year I’d buy something with the twenty, then show Mom what ‘she got me.’ I took the twenty to the hardware store where I’d priced the smallest Swiss Army knife – the one with the toothpick, tweezers and scissors. Telling the cashier the story brought tears to my eyes. In my car, I released a wave of grief, crying hard for a few seconds.

Ruth didn’t think the $20 was really from Mom. It was, because the story about her influenced Ruth to fulfill the promise. Call it God or ghosts or what you will, we cannot always explain and prove why a thing happens. But what needs to happen usually does.

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Birthday Pain

Posted on May 3, 2010 by Lin Ennis

This birthday is a bit sad for me. It’s my first birthday without a mom. While my own mother died a month before my birthday last year, organizing her funeral, getting the family together, traveling to Texas and bringing home a box of memorabilia made it seem like I didn’t have a birthday last year.  My computer crashed when she died, ensuring I had a solid month to grieve without the distraction of work.

Yes, my head spun for longer than a month, even though I’d been trying for years to prepare myself for losing a mother who alternately adored and beat the crap out of me from infancy into adulthood.

In my youth, it bugged me that my May 6 birthday was so close to Mother’s Day that I had to think about doing something nice for “her” during the one time a year legitimized for being the center of attention. Since I left home at 16, I usually had to buy or make a Mother’s Day card, gift or flower order before my birthday, thus tainting the week before and after my so-called special day.

I flushed the residue of decades of trying to have a “normal” relationship at her funeral that April day–a few words scrawled on a piece of paper that preceded her cremains into the ground. So last Mother’s Day, at least, was about remembering the greatest  gift she ever gave me: the thoughtful, kind, compassionate person I am–a person I could not have been without her. Though I skipped my birthday, at least Mother’s Day was saved!

This winter, my mother-in-law died. I miss her. She was a loud and cantankerous old woman, and she was old already when I met her 18 years ago. She could be critical, but she was not mean. She eventually accepted me as a decent daughter-in-law. She sent me birthday cards with a $20 bill tucked inside, just as she did for her own children.

Each birthday (and once when I received the card and $20 when it was not my birthday), I set aside the $20 for something special–a hat, a jacket, a necklace…During the year when I’d see something I fancied, I’d stash the idea away for when my birthday $20 would come! I enjoyed letting Mom know what she bought me for my birthday. She’d say in her slowing husky way, “That’s ni-ice.”

I’ve felt sad several times over the last week. I shed a few tears. I’ve received birthday cards from Ace Hardware, Factory Brand Shoes, Farmer’s Insurance and Chico’s. There will be one from my dentist this week, a card and a stick of chewing gum. But there won’t be the two cards my mother used to send–one funny and one sentimental. Or the prayer for my soul cards she sent in her last decade or so. And there won’t be a card from my mother-in-law with a $20 in it. (I told her I expect that $20 to show up somewhere!)

A mark in the passage of time, the growing and maturing the fortunate among us benefit from. A gray hair. A wrinkle. A persistent pain. And finally one’s first birthday without a mom.

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