Bookish Disposition

Songs of Records Management, part 1

In honor of the upcoming ARMA 2008 Las Vegas conference (woohoo!) and my recent musical good fortune, I offer one of several songs that have been floating around in my brain for a while now.

Fifty Ways to File Your Records
Sung to the tune of 50 Ways to Leave your Lover
(with deepest apologies to Paul Simon)

The problem is all inside your head she said to me
The answer is easy if you file them logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to file your records

She said it’s really not my habit to intrude
Good management means you’re much less likely to be sued
And I’ll repeat myself at the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways to file your records
Fifty ways to file your records

You just alphabetize, guys
Make a file plan, Stan
You don’t need to destroy,Roy
Just give them to me.

Stop gathering dust, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Pick a primary key, Lee
File numerically

Alphabetize, guys
Make a file plan, Stan
You don’t need to destroy, Roy
Just give them to me.

It’s time to recycle, Michael
Time to archive, Clive
Use taxonomy,Dee
And set yourself free

She said it grieves me to see your e-mail cause such pain
I’d like to help you help you figure out what to retain
I said I appreciate that and would you please explain
About the fifty ways

She said why don’t we inventory your files tonight
And I believe your records schedule will work out quite all right
And then she shook my hand
And I realized I’d finally seen the light
There must be fifty ways to file your records
Fifty ways to file your records.

You just alphabetize, guys
Make a file plan, Stan
You don’t need to destroy, Roy
Just give them to me.

Stop gathering dust, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Pick a primary key, Lee
File numerically

You just alphabetize, guys
Make a file plan, Stan
You don’t need to destroy, Roy
Just give them to me.

It’s time to recycle, Michael
Time to archive, Clive
Use taxonomy, Dee
And set yourself free

I rock! (Who knew?)

Last night, my Second Life avatar won me a real life Epiphone Les Paul Special II in a drawing at a party for bluesman extraordinaire Von Johin, who just signed a deal with Reality Entertainment.

Before the drawing, I said to a friend, "If I win, I'll take guitar lessons."  This was a safe promise, I thought, because if I were the type who wins things, those lotto tickets surely would've paid off by now.  I was more than a little surprised.  Woohoo!  Now I'm ready to rock!  Mary Had a Little Lamb, here I come!

Earlier that day, I was reading an article by life coach Martha Beck in Oprah's magazine.  She described a woman who felt she hadn't accomplished what she thought she should have for her age.  Beck asked her to describe 100 things she's accomplished so far.  Like most of us, the woman had trouble coming up with such a list, but she had a breakthrough when she confessed she had started taking ice skating lessons.  Something out of the blue, out of the norm, but meaningful for her life.  "This is how," Beck says, "our superpowers often show up.  It may happen to you in large ways or small; you're just puttering along, then unexpectedly find yourself studying Turkish or buying jodhpurs or moving onto a houseboat.  It just seems to happen, the way your heart beats and later your mind notices."  Focusing on these things, she says, help you spot the out-of-the-ordinary but very valuable parts of your life that set your heart free.

As one who is pushing 40 (I prefer to think of it as having 40 on my RSS feeds) and one who once-upon-a-time thought it would all be worked out by age 27, I'm thinking electric guitar might just be the musical kick in the pants I'm needing.  Obnoxious neighbor kid pulls up with his car stereo booming so loud it rattles my walls?  Hey, no worries - now I can play along!  Bad day at work?  A round of the Star Spangled Banner a la Hendrix could inspire me to love government work again.  Feel like giving the IT department a hard time?  I can tell them I'm changing my name to an unpronounceable symbol and ask them to update my e-mail address accordingly.

Musical genes run deep in my family.  My mother's side has a long history of music teachers and musicians.  My father's side includes the family with the fiddle players, the wine makers, and the biggest barn in the county (in late 1800s Kansas terms, this was called "instant party").  We'll see if any of that primal DNA still lurks in me.

Maybe I do rock after all.

Nature - 1, Me - 0

  Biggest spiderweb EVER!
When I came home tonight, the light caught a giant spiderweb hanging in the middle of my yard.  As I looked at it, I realized that one side was attached by two thin strands to a tree and to the grass.  The other side seems to be suspended in midair.   Somehow Mr./Ms. Spider managed to extend a spider silk at least 20-30 feet from high in a tree clear across the driveway and well into the yard.  How? 

I took the picture, but the builder seemed to be nowhere in sight.  When it occurred to me that Aragog might come back, I decided to call it quits.  Now I just have to convince this structural engineer to move into my garage for a week or so and catch all the moths that have taken residence. 

A New Mexico state of mind

I'm back from five days in beautiful New Mexico.  It's amazing how even a business trip to that state can change my attitude.  I'm happier, calmer, and more hopeful.  That will all change in a heartbeat on Monday when reality sets in, but for now, the sky goes on forever and in my mind's eye, I'm still seeing country that proves no one does landscape architecture better than God.

I had a few hours before my flight back to reality, so this trip, I went partway along the Turquoise Trail and stopped in Madrid, NM for a meal and some great shopping.  If you've been to Albuquerque and like the shopping in Old Town, you should try Madrid.  The prices are better, the selection is good, the atmosphere is more laid back, and you'll be doing your part to help keep a very creative community afloat.

I also went to see Tinkertown, a roadside attraction started years ago by a man with a serious sense of whimsy and quite possibly a compulsive collecting disorder (but who cares when he had so much fun?).  I met a 22 year old cat and decided it's long past time for me to clean out a bunch of the junk I have kept for far too long.  Or maybe I'll make art out of it.  See photo album to the right for a few pictures.

Small but mighty

The Ed Techie blogged a great post from the Leisurely Historian on lessons educators can take from the punk zine movement.  Check 'em both out - the LH is onto something, here.

My favorites:
You can do good, worthwhile stuff CHEAP.  "All you need is Sharpies, tape, and a Xerox machine."  So much of this Web 2.0 stuff is free or cheap, and it doesn't require advanced degrees in computer science to use.

"There’s always some lonely kid in rural Iowa who needs to hear what you’ve got to say."  We have the power now to link students to experts, experts to experts, and the 25 people in the world who are interested in the early history of harness making to each other.  Well before Web 0.0, zines were connecting communities.  We have that connection power now times a thousand.

Maybe I liked their posts because they reinforce what I'd very much like to believe:  a small group of devoted, talented people can accomplish great things, even when mega corporate and government bureaucracies insist it can't be done.

More good stuff heard at The Summit

From Bill George (Finding Your True North):

• "There is nothing enlightened about shrinking in front of other people so they won't feel insecure about you."
• Lead an integrated life - be the same person in all environments

From Craig Groeschel (It):

• In order to reach those no one else is reaching, you have to do the things no one else is doing
• When you face obstacles, shake it off, step up
• When you face obstacles, you're often propelled forward - they force you to see opportunities you wouldn't otherwise have seen
• (quoting a friend) "The antidote for the fear of failure is not success but small doses of failure"

Seeking justice vs. the "mediocrity of safe bets"

This week, I attended a satellite version of The Leadership Summit, a two-day conference sponsored by the Willow Creek Association.  The focus of the conference is on leadership within the Christian church, but the speakers taught leadership lessons that can apply in many settings.

One of the speakers was Greg Haugen of the International Justice Mission.  IJM battles violence, sexual exploitation, slavery and oppression around the world.  They rescue people from hell on earth, and they establish support networks to care for victims.  In the process, they risk their own lives, safety, and comfort.  They could have stuck to well-paid, safe and (relatively) easy lawyer jobs, but when you hear him talk, you get the sense Haugen couldn't imagine life any other way.

Haugen had many powerful points, but the one that struck me most was this:  In the face of so much evil in the world, how can we believe in a just, good God who wants the best for His people?  What is God's plan for convincing the world that He is good?  We are.  We are God's plan to address the injustice and oppression in the world, and there is no backup plan.  It's up to us.