The Needles and the Damage Done

I was ever so hopeful that i would just be able to go into Kaiser and have them print out a nice little manifest to show that I had all of my immunizations and that they were up to date... but no such luck! turns out there are a number of immunization records that have not been recorded for me, and a few that I have not determined immunity for.

so today, what I had hoped would be a fifteen minute in and out for paperwork became a three hour circuit where I got tested, gave blood, and got screened to determine that I needed at least two shots and possibly more. I received my tetanus booster cocktail today (felt like getting gasoline pumped into my arm, ouch!) and I also received my first of three Hepatitis A and B vaccinations. I will need to do a TB test when I come back from scout camp, and *then* I should be all caught up.

Sheesh, the things I do to be a good example to my Scouts (LOL!).

Shedding of Innocent Stuff: Paper by the Pounds

This is one of the most aggravating aspects of my reality; try as I might, paper always seems to find me. What's worse, it always seems to accumulate. Much of the time, the paper that accumulates is not of a high enough importance to actually keep it, but I get terrified when I try to decide if I should throw it away.


I woke up early this morning to try to get through what has amounted to reams and reams worth of paper related to certain areas of my life. There are household papers (receipts, warranties, manuals), there are mortgage papers (which we have paid off, but we need to keep a while longer just in case), there are financial papers (account statements, balances, accounts that no longer exist), tax papers (going back as long as Christina and I have been married, and I would really like to purge some of these years), and yes, the most egregious bulk of papers consuming my existence, Scouting papers. In fact, my Scouting paper is approximately 60% of the stuff I have accumulated, most of which is not relevant at this stage anyway (most of the papers are flyers related to events and activities with a moderate but not indefinite shelf life). I had hoped I would make a decent dent, but I was not completely successful. I did manage to vacate my office of all superfluous paper, but in the end, all I really did was bring it down to the garage and downsize it a little bit (There is so much more I still need to do).


Today, though, I have prepared myself for what shall be a merciless battle. Granted, all of the paper and items are in the garage, but that gives me one tremendous advantage... it's all in one place now! IN anticipation of this, I have hooked up the shredder, gotten out the multiple page protectors and clear cover binders, and tonight will be a massacre of unparalleled proportions. In short, I will not set foot into my house until the paper monster is drawn, quartered, beheaded, and the items in question given their due place:


1. Home papers in the filing cabinet in the appropriate slots.
2. Financial papers in their appropriate folders.
3. Tax papers in their associated binders (and likewise in the filing cabinet)
4. All Scout related paperwork put into binders and (gasp!) put into our Chartered Organizations Scout Closet!!!


Do I believe this will be a once and for all victory? Of course not, but I do believe, if I really approach this with the necessary effort, that it will go a long way towards resolving this issue. It will of course take diligent effort to stay on top of this, and make sure that it doesn't creep back up on me again.

Madd Money: Peninsula Library System and Safari Books Online

One of the things that has made 2008 and 2009 memorable for me is the fact that I made a conscientious decision to not buy new books, and to use the public library as often as possible to read, learn and discover things. One area that I have found to be mildly frustrating has been the area of technical books for Computer Science. In many cases, the books that I am most interested in (or need to be most interested in) are the newer ones, and in many cases, the Public Library doesn't have many of those yet.

What's more, not every technical book is created equal. I freely admit to being a fan of the O' Reilly book line. O' Reilly is probably best known for the old style wood block prints of various animals on their covers, but even more key is the way in which their books are written. There is a specific formula, and this formula is especially appealing to me. They use every book and teach fundamentals (regardless the topic) for the first three or four chapters. Everyone who reads these books knows this, and because of that, tech geeks joke about the books that we never read past chapter 3 or 4, or the books that we all have that we start on chapter 4. So in general, when given a choice, I tend to gravitate towards O' Reilly books. There are some O' Reilly titles in the library, but many of them are the broader and more general topics.More specific titles are a little harder to come by.

Several years ago, O' Reilly launched Safari Books Online. This is a collection of technical books, cross references and code samples that allows for the user to read through literally thousands of books, many of them as specialized as your needs require. There is a subscription fee associated with the service. If you have a steady diet of technical books, say one or two a month (in previous jobs and at various times, I certainly have had that level of demand) the subscription made a lot of sense. However, in the last few years, I have not had the same level of need, and thus paying for the subscription was seen as a luxury. But I really did miss it at times, and often wondered if I should renew it for my own career development.

Well, the great news is that the San Mateo Peninsula Library System (i.e. the one that I am a part of) has answered it for me... it's a service offered by the PLS, and my library card gets me access to the Safari Books Online subscription! Lately, I have been exploring C#, a programming language my company is deciding to use for all future development. Going the traditional library route, I may have to wait several weeks for a title to come in, and in the event that it's not an O' Reilly book, i may work through several sections to decide that I'm not digging this particular book (unlike a business book or a novel, I need to actually feel connected to a computer or technical book. If I don't, I don't feel that I learn as well. Sometimes, even O' Reilly books have this problem, and then I may need to wait a few more weeks before another title is available that I can try. With Safari, I can go right to the titles that interest me, and withing ten or 15 minutes, I will know if this is a book that will work for what I want to do.

So for those of you out there who often cite the lack of certain titles as to why the library won't work for what you want to do, especially you computer geek types like me, ask your public library if they have a Safari Books Online Subscription, or if they use a comparable service. If they do, try it out for awhile and see if it works for what you want to do, and finally, if you find yourself being a dedicated user of the system, consider giving SFO some love and subscribing directly. If it's going to be a "Casual Affair", then by all means, use the library's system... you do pay for it, after all :).

Took A Few Days Off, and Did It Ever Feel Great :)

Starting Thursday afternoon, my family and I decided that we wanted to have some time together and go off and do some things together. This was a busy several days, but so very fun. We started out by camping in Big Basin Redwoods State Park down near Santa Cruz. Nick and I took responsibility for the cooking and setting up of the camping area, and the girls had fun helping set up the fire and just exploring the area around where we were camping (Blooms Creek, the first main camp area as you enter the park from the North side). Nick regaled everyone with his excellent Dutch Oven cooking skills, treating us to Coca-Cola Chicken and Philmont Ranger Peach Cobbler for dinner and Dutch Oven Train Wreck for breakfast. We then explored around the park and looked at truly massive Coastal Redwood trees and other stretches of forest that made us feel right at home, and far away from home, both at the same time.

After our time in the park, we drove through the various "mountain towns" that stretch along Hwy 9. between San Jose and Santa Cruz. These towns include Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton, among others, and we had some fun looking at various sites along the way. NNick spotted a house that was made to look like a castle. He asked if we could stop so he could get some pictures of it. By doing so he met the maintenance crew for the house, and they invited us in for a tour of the place; unexpected, but very cool :). As we continued driving down Hwy 9, we also made our way into Santa Cruz, and then turned up the Cabrillo Highway to explore some of the beaches and natural preserves that run along our coast. One of the neat stops was at Pigeon Point Light Station near Ano Nuevo Natural Preserve. It's a neat old Lighthouse that also has a youth hostel on its grounds. The Lighthouse is a rapidly disappearing method of navigation, but one that was used for centuries. Northern California has one of the foggiest coastlines in the world, and its fair share of shipwrecks. Thus, the various Lighthouses that can be seen along the California coast are great reminders of our recent past, and it was fun to stop and take a closer look.

We also celebrated our version of "Pioneer Day" this weekend with members of our Stake at Coyote Point in San Mateo. This was a big gathering of the six wards that make up our stake, and it was a lot of fun to see so many people that I only occasionally get to see. It was also fun to see Karina, Amber and Nick playing and hanging out with their friends. Recently, the Crystal Springs 1st Ward and the El Camino Ward merged their Primary, Young Men's and Young Women's groups together, so our Young Men's group has picked up several new boys. It was terrific to see both Young Men's groups spending time together and getting to know each other more :).

The final cap of the weekend was to get to spend time with the Delgado's. Carlos and Kelly are literally the longest tenured couple that Christina and I have known together. In fact, Carlos and Kelly were at the Stone in September of 1990 when I first met Christina (Carlos was and is the lead guitar player for High Wire). We had wanted to have an opportunity to get our families together to do something fun, and this weekend, that finally happened. We went to meet up with them at the California Academy of Sciences, and it was so fun to watch our kids interacting with each other. Amber and Gabriel were inseparable much of the time, which was really cute, and Karina loved doting on little Sara. Carlos and I had fun geeking out on all of the exhibits and explaining to our kids what they were (that is, when our kids weren't explaining them to us first (LOL!) ).

All in all, a fabulous whirlwind three day "vacationlet", if you will. Now it's back to work for one week, and then I'll be gone for eight days with Troop 250's scouts at Summer Camp.

Shedding of Innocent Stuff: A Life With No Habits?

It's taken me awhile to come to grips with this, but over the past several weeks, I've been reading a lot of Winget (don't worry, this is not a Larry Winget exercise per se, but it fits today's topic somewhat), and he's really big on changing habits and replacing bad habits with better ones. As I was looking at my various habits (and I have a few of them to say the least) I was struck by the fact that, actually, what I really suffer from is a overall lack of habits.

Over my life, I've known many people that are honest and serious creatures of habit. My wife Christina is one of them. This is by no means a put down, but for much of her life, she would have the same meals for breakfast for months or even years on end, she has a very solid routine of things that she does every single day, and this is part of the structure of her life. By contrast, my life is markedly without ingrained habits; most of what I do is what I refer to as "opportunity activities"; I do what I have to do when I have to do them, but there's generally no rhyme or reason to why or how. Take food, for example. When Christina and I go out to eat at a restaurant, it's generally a given that Christina will, depending on the restaurant, order something familiar that she likes (nothing wrong with that at all, it beats ordering something she hates). By contrast, I actually make it a point any time I go to a restaurant to almost never order the same thing twice, I always choose something I have never tried, if indeed there is an option I haven't tried. In some ways, I think this sense of "must be different" is about the only truly consistent habit I have.

In many ways, this feeds into my online life where, OK, I do have habits, and some of them not really all that good. I read sites that I enjoy probably way more often than I should (not because they are bad, but because they can be major time sucks when I need to be doing other things). Seems logical that I should say "OK, I will limit my time to viewing site [fillInTheBlank] between (time A) and (time B)". I have every intention to follow through with it, but I almost never do. The reason why? It would require me to submit to a scheduled habit, and I'm discovering that's a really difficult thing for me to do, silly as that may sound.

The point I'm trying to make is that we talk about the clutter in our lives and shedding of it so that things will be more orderly and tidy in our lives, but rarely do we consider that not having habits about certain things can be seen as "life clutter"; it's like a messy room with no organization (or very little, in any event).

To this end, I'm trying an experiment for the next 21 days. Why 21 days? Because that's the amount of time many psychologists believe it takes for a fledgling habit to actually become one. Thus, for the next 21 days, I have decided to put together a list of things that I know that I need to do on a regular basis, and I commit here and now to set aside time to deliberately do them, and make every attempt to do them on a schedule. You may think this would be obvious to many people, but I assure you, to me it isn't. This way, I'm hoping to make it so that many of the things in my life I keep saying I mean to do I will actually do in a more timely manner, and I will also hope to corral those things that threaten to suck away my time into specific areas and spaces where they can be prioritized and allowed to run free for their respective times, but once the time is up, that's it until the next day.

This is going to be a real challenge for me, so don't be surprised if this topic comes up often in the next few weeks (LOL!).

Madd Money: Eat Out For the Adventure, Not the Habit

In my world view, the whole point to going out to a restaurant is to try something I have never had before. Since I often look at the costs associated with anything that I do, I want to be sure that I'm going to both enjoy the place and also enjoy the food item that I have never tried before. Also, I tend to want to go out for food that I would otherwise not eat at home.

Going out to eat is an expensive endeavor in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't mean that you cannot enjoy the experience, or that you have to forgo it entirely. Christina and I used to be big time foodie geeks, and when we lived in San Francisco, we would go out a *lot*. Now that we have three kids and all that goes with that, we have trimmed back on the various "food expeditions" but we still like to go out perhaps once or twice a month, and when we do so, we want to find something unique, interesting and worth the time and money to scope it out.

With this in mind, I want to give some solid props to K-Tofu and Grill in San Bruno. For those who are fans of Korean cuisine, this is a great place to get a solid Korean food fix without breaking the bank. The dishes are reasonably priced and they have a wide variety of food options to try. Their Moeun Ohjinjoh Twigim (deep fried spicy calamari) and Dolsot Bibimbab (mixed beef, vegetables and rice served in a hot stoneware pot) are both notable and quite memorable dishes, and price wise, you get a substantial amount of food (Christina and I were quite happy with the two items listed above and more than fed both of us very happily :) ).

So if Korean is your thing, check out K-Tofu and Grill on San Mateo Avenue in San Bruno. If you never considered Korean food as being "your thing", well, this place may help you start :). Wherever you decide to go, if you want an adventure and want to try something truly unique, going out may be the best use of both your time and your dollars. Otherwise, do more meals at home and aim to make those nights out truly unique and special :).

The Aches and Pains of Getting Older

I never imagined I'd be one of those people grumbling about "oh my aching this" or "oh, my aching that", but this past weekend has both made me aware of it, and how very capricious life is and what causes things to happen.

My weekend was summed up by some great high points. The Troop had a terrific "mostly minimalist" campout at Sam McDonald Park. I say mostly minimalist because we had to still pack up more gear than I would have liked to (but since we had some brand new scouts that had never been backpacking before, we decided to bend the rules a little bit :) ). I slept out under the stars with just my sleeping bag, my bed roll, a ground cover, and nothing else. I also brought nothing my pack couldn't carry, so I was totally self sufficient on my pack this weekend. We hiked the Forest Loop Trail with a fair amount of vertical ups and downs, and later went to Pescadero Beach and played among the rocks and the sand and the surf. Through all of this I felt fine, and had not troubles at all.

Waking up on Sunday morning was when everything went south. Somehow, while sleeping in my comfortable king sized bed, with all of the comforts and modern conveniences of home, I managed to pull a muscle in my upper back (feels like it's right over my right scapula). This has made moving around a rather eventful experience, to say the least. getting dressed, taking a shower, ducking in and out of a car, all of this has been made to be more eventful than I ever hoped it would be (and aggravating, just to be clear on that front as well).

Why is it that when I go out and do things that most people would think would trash you, I suffer no ill effects, but when I come home where it's comfortable and safe, all of the annoying things happen?! Yes, I realize that that's not really the case; I've had my share of scrapes and bruises and "owies" occur outside of home, too, and even on my outings and activities; I'd be full of it if I said that I didn't get hurt at times doing those things, but somehow, life conspires to wait until I get home to do damage to me much of the time, and I find it slightly ironic that my body's biggest enemy is my own bed (LOL!).

Sorry for grumbling today, but this is one of those days where I'm feeling rather irked. I know I'll be better soon enough, but it's the waiting for the soon enough that's going to drive me crazy!

On Dealing With Stress

You all will have to forgive me if I’m on a bit of a “Winget” tear these past couple of weeks, but I’ve been reading through the four books of his I’ve picked up from the library, so a lot of his core philosophy is taking up a fair amount of my time lately. Still, there’s a lot that he says (bluntly and with no subtlety whatsoever (LOL!) ) that make a lot of sense, and I really liked the thoughts he has concerning stress (note, this is his concept and his chapter from "Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life" that I'm talking about here, and this is honestly verbatim the exercise he suggests that you do in the book, so here it is for your voyeuristic pleasure :) ).

Now, here’s a rhetorical question… if you could give up all your stress right now, would you do it? I think the answer for most people is a resounding “YES”, but that brings up back to the question of, “how am I getting stressed out to being with?!” There are people that will help you do “stress management” and figure out ways to help cope with stress, manage stress, and work with stress, but wouldn’t it be great if we could all just learn to eliminate stress entirely?!

In Larry Winget’s world view, and one I feel I am agreeing with more and more, (and this is a direct quote):

“Stress comes from knowing what is right and doing what is wrong.”

So what causes you stress? Here’s some of the things that I deal with and often cause me stress:

· getting ready for Scout Outings
· studying for school (when I went) or studying for work (which I do now)
· dealing with yelling and noisy kids
· arriving late to anything
· missing work deadlines
· annoyance at rapid transit for delays
· not being in the physical shape I want to be
· earning enough to cover the basics but wishing I had more for [fillInTheBlank]

That’s a fairly decent and representative list (LOL!).

So here’s the premise and the idea to follow on with. In each of those listed items, what is causing the stress? Is it the item in question, or is it my response to it? Actually, is it the fact that I am not responding to it correctly that’s really the cause? In each and every one of those areas, I know what I should be doing. The fact that they are a stress in my life is that I’m not doing what I should be doing.

So let’s take the list and let’s see what we can do about it:

· getting ready for Scout Outings (this one is actually really simple; just make sure that all of the gear is packed well in advance, that all parties know what they need to do, and then let the chips fall where they may. If the boys forget something, they forget it and they do without. If I forget something, the same applies. Freaking out over it doesn’t help anyway).

· studying for school (when I went) or studying for work (which I do now) (yes, it’s tedious at times, and yes it’s the last think I may *want* to do at any given moment, but it’s these things that reap positive benefits down the road. The answer is to not procrastinate, to do a little each day and focus on small steps instead of trying to accomplish big jumps. Plan the work, work the plan).

· dealing with yelling and noisy kids (is it the kids problem, or is it my problem? Why does this stress me out? Because I don’t want to hear it, or because I have not done the necessary things earlier on to prevent the escalation to this point? Ah, now there’s the rub! Instead of getting aggravated that the kids are yelling at each other, I should be earlier in the process [maybe days or weeks] helping them understand how to deal with and interact with each other).

· arriving late to anything (this is pretty simple, actually… leave earlier and prepare to do something if that action gets me there early. If something happens along the way that delays us beyond our control, well, realize that… it’s beyond my control, and stressing won’t change that fact).

· missing work deadlines (now really, this is just all about the man in the mirror. If it’s because I did all I could and couldn’t get it done on time, then I have to simply state I did all that I could and that the time just wasn’t enough… but often that’s just not the case. The real reason is procrastination or poor planning, or not reading through and understanding how long something will really take. While on a rare occasion there is an unrealistic deadline, ultimately I have to be the one to say “this can be done in X amount of time” and then I better darn well make sure that I allocate enough time and focus to accomplish the task in X amount of time, since that’s my word on the line there).

· annoyance at rapid transit for delays (if I can control it, and if I can make an alternate plan, I should do so. If I can’t, I need to contact those who may be waiting, explain the situation, and then let go of it. I’m not the train conductor; there’s nothing I can do to make them arrive on time. While I’m waiting, I might as well do some other things that require attention).

· not being in the physical shape I want to be (dude, this is entirely “man in the mirror” stuff; no one to blame but yourself. Eat less, exercise more, make the time to do it. Otherwise, just pipe down and deal (LOL!) ).

· earning enough to cover the basics but wishing I had more for [fillInTheBlank] (the real question is “what are you willing to do about it?” Is overtime an option? Can you freelance a little on the side? Would talking a second job be an option? Are you allocating your money correctly to the areas that are most important? Have you asked your manager for a raise? Have you done work of a quality that is commensurate with the asking? Each one of these questions is squarely in MY court. If I have stress here, it’s my own fault, and my own domain to do something about).

So what makes you stressed? And at the end of it all, is it the circumstances, or is it you and how you deal with them? I know my answer after doing this. How about you :)?

A Simple Night Out With My Older Daughter

Last Night, Karina and I went out for a daddy-daughter date. Because of work and so many other things going on, I haven't had much of a chance to spend some 1:1 time with my older daughter, so we decided to change that last night.

First stop, Shaw's Ice Cream and Candy... this is Karina we are talking about here, so does this surprise anyone (LOL!)? We each had a single scoop cone and I asked her all about her current camp program she is attending this week (we have an in-town camp called Camp Kaleidoscope, where the kids get to be involved in a lot of games, activities and crafts. Each year we have opted to give each of our children a week or so opportunity to get out of the house and interact with other kids and do things they can't do at home. This was what Karina chose to do this year :).

Afterwards, we decided to go and check out the Millbrae public library, since it's nearby. Now, you may not think that a date to the library is much fun, but Karina really enjoyed it, especially since this isn't our regular library that we go to. It's interesting to see how the buildings are laid out,m what each one offers, and how they differ from our regular library in San Bruno (and since they are all linked together, we can check stuff out on the same account :) ). Millbrae has a large selection of DVDs, about 3 times what the San Bruno library has. I also noticed that there were a number of Korean television series DVDs in the foreign language section... wonder if my friend Tom had anything to do with that (LOL!)? We both decided to pick up a few DVDs to see over the next week or so. Karina picked up some instructional DVDs related to art and watercolor. I picked up "The Animatrix", just because I wanted to see it, and we both agreed on the 3rd season of The Muppet Show :).

It may not seem like much, but it was a great way for us to spend two hours together, have some time to talk without interruption, and the whole cost of the thing was a pair of ice cream cones (well, Karina picked up a bottle of Skittle Spray for herself... I don't even know how to begin to describe it except to say image Binaca breath spray, but it's made by Skittles. You're welcome :) ). I'm looking forward to seeing how she likes the Muppet Show (she knows many of the characters, but seeing the original show is a different experience (LOL!) ). Should be fun.

Scoutmaster Mike: SM is Getting a Home of Its Own

After much consideration, thinking and the need to make something that is a big part of my life more specific, I've made the decision to start a new project. While I will still update MKL's Muse on as close to a daily basis as I can, one set of posts are going to go away, or more accurately, one set of posts will be getting a more specific grouping and a blog of their own.

I have created a new blog called "Scoutmaster Mike", and this will contain many of my musings commentary and other aspects about being a Scout leader and all that goes with it. This will be the first of my blogs that will be topic specific. In other words, my various musings about Scouting that are specifically scouting related (trips, activities, thoughts about Scouting), will now appear there, so those who are Scouting Geeks, I encourage you to jump on and follow along. That's not to say that I will not put the occasional Scouting post here, too, but I will tend to save those for the moments and thoughts that are more personal and reflective of me and for me (and of course, for those voyeuristic types that like to follow along with my musings (LOL!).

Today's Post is the Scoutmaster Minute that i shared last night, and I will from time to time make a mention of posts that I make there in my entries here. My thanks to those who have encouraged me to consider spinning this section off. There's no questions it's the one area of my life that I am actually something of an authority on and can speak at length about (well, outside of the dumb and silly things I do in my day to day life, I have the equivalent of a PhD in THAT :) ).