Anet paddling Lake Sonoma along with Howard as part of a MeetUp group led by Brent
Apr6
Paddle on Lake Sonoma
Apr4
What reduces stress best is not trying to make it go away
Excerpt from an article by Cassandra Vieten on HuffingtonPost
Strangely, what reduces stress best is not trying to make it go away. Instead, by attending to your breathing, your body sensations or a special word, you bring yourself momentarily into a very basic, nonjudgmental awareness. Grounded in this place of awareness, you can allow things to be as they are, almost as though you were sitting in the eye of a hurricane. The stress may still be there, swirling around, but for the moment you are sitting in awareness.
Jan26
Taylor Mountain
Near the top of Taylor Mountain Sat 25 Jan 2014 with Linda Johnston and Frances Caballo, overlooking Santa Rosa. Taylor Mountain is very close to Costco and Target — a new county park that attracts dog lovers.
Low winter morning sun through the old oak trees near the creek crossing
Jan19
Segway Tour SF
On my Segway in North Beach
The tour company had us watch a training video and gave us a group training, then they hung a little yellow radio around our necks and gave us an earplug to hear the commentary from our guide, Cameron. He was cute and his patter was good, but my radio was crackly and hard to hear. He told us about the history of the places we were seeing, recommended the best spots to eat and those to avoid. Saw a great shopping street at Grant and Green Streets. We stopped for a break (photo left) at Washington Square in North Beach for a delicious slice at Tony’s Pizza Napoletana at
1570 Stockton St.
Cam pointed out that Scoma’s has a fleet of fishing boats that go out to sea every day and that you really can get fresh local seafood at their Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant. We went around the Cannery and Ghiradelli Square, and spent some time zooming around a pier near the Dolphin Club. When the tour was over, we walked half a block back to Ghiradelli for some great ice cream. We also checked out the Spy Shop on the wharf — the place to go for your own lock pick set.
At the pier with San Francisco in the background
Anet and Howard on Segways with Alcatraz in background
Jan18
Hood Mountain Summit
Jason, Eileen, Frances, Bob Martin, Marcia, Ezra, Becky, Bob Horn on a Saturday Saunter 18 Jan 2014
Jan17
What I Learned in Oakmont
The venerable, 85 year old Senior Peer Counselor put it best, “These people are a gift.” I learned so much from the unmarried couple in their 70’s with whom I stayed in Oakmont for the past eight months.
- I enjoyed being surrounded by beautiful objects and expensive books that I did not have to dust.
- I learned what it felt like to be on the receiving end of verbal abuse.
- I saw what “scab-picking” was.
- In dismay, I watched the man flee into a financial fantasy to shield himself, emotionally, from the verbal abuse. For 10 years he had been sending money to a Nigerian “lawyer” in the hope of getting a bank in Abu Dhabi to lend him a million dollars to invest in real estate. Just before I left today, he told me the Nigerian lawyer had been jailed, which froze the man’s assets in Nigeria during November and December, and that he had fired the Nigerian. He continues to believe that his loan will fund “next week.”
- I watched the hostess punish me by keeping the TV tuned to Fox News.
- I learned that isolation is the enemy of mental health.
- I saw that Learned Helplessness keeps people trapped in ruts of thin emotional survivorship. They mistake this for courage.
- What takes real courage is climbing out of the helplessness that was learned when one was vulnerable, sharpening the tools that have been gained over the years, learning to trust yourself again, and doing what it takes to get out of the rut.
- I learned why the work we do as Senior Peer Counselors is so important.
- I learned that love is simultaneously fragile and indestructible.
- I learned that a dog is a fountain of joy and unconditional love. I won’t be paraphrasing D.C Fontana anymore about “enslaving animals for the emotional gratification of humans.”
Their beautiful Golden Retriever suddenly became lame before Thanksgiving and had to be euthanized before Christmas. The house was not the same without her. The Feeling of Healing was gone. A grayness descended.
I left.
Jan12
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque de Soliel Sat 11 January 2014 San Francisco
Jan5
Grandmother Oak
Grandmother Oak
From the left: Phyllis, John, Wendy, Becky, Bob Martin, Ellie. Small group because of the 1300′ elevation gain.
We reached it through the Mt. Hood trail head up long windy Los Alamos road, climbed some fences for a shortcut through some private property that separated the two parks.
Jan3
Bugs-In-The-Teeth Paddle New Year’s Day
Russian River – Gurneville to Monte Rio
Oct6
HOW we do things means everything
Dov Seidman, author of “How… Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything… in Business and in Life
Several interesting insights included the paradox of the Hills of Knowledge. He ended each chapter with a graph showing two hills with a saddle in between. The lower hill, on the left, represented B students, the saddle represented C students and the higher hill, on the right, represented A students. He had learned, during his teaching years, that the students who synthesized the class material with their own experiences and ambitions and expressed their changed understanding clearly, got As. Those who did all the work and hit all the marks but created nothing new got Bs. Those who struggled to synthesize or expressed it poorly got Cs, even though they had a better grasp of the material than the Bs.
In this book, Dov mainly talks about a paradigm shift in business and life from following the rules to a values-based integrity that drives decision making and choices. He advocates inspiration rather than motivation. The Bs are the attorneys who write long documents in an effort to foresee every possible outcome. Dov talks about how the diamond trade has worked for centuries on a handshake and a “mazel.” He contrasts the management styles of blind obedience and informed acquiescence with the recommended Self-Governance. We would like to see better people and fewer rules. This book sets out the benefits to choosing to be a better person.
Also fascinating was the Afterward where he references Danny Meyer’s book “Setting the Table” for the insight that we have moved from a service economy to a hospitality economy.
“If you simply have a superior product or deliver on your promises, that’s not enough to distinguish your business. There will always be someone else who can do it or make it as well as you… Service is a monologue: we decide on standards for service. Hospitality is a dialogue: to listen to a customer’s needs and meet them. It takes both great service and hospitality to be at the top.”
The book I got from the library was not the edition with the forward by Bill Clinton. His take on integrity would have been interesting.