RootsRain

I took this picture (or rather the three pics that make up this quick and dirty photomerge) back when I first started working at Turner. I figured I’d post it now to let other people (inlcuding my wife) see the view from where I work.

Pardon the dirty windows, but the hose wouldn’t reach.

Malcolm Gladwell’s fascinating little book, Blink, was a tremendous eye-opener to me when I read it about a year ago. He has a chapter in there where he describes an experiment called the Implicit Association Test (IAT) where people were presented, on screen, with a picture of an attractive white man on one side and an attractive black man on the other. Then words or word sets would flash up on the screen and the person would click the button for the picture they thought best represented the word. (I may be getting the details a little bit wrong here, but the basic concept is the same.) The speed that they connected a word to a picture (or words to other words… “black” with “bad” or “white” with “honest”, for example), the stronger the implicit association is believed to be. The interesting thing about the experiment is that the overwhelming majority of those tested were slanted heavily towards whites. They would consistently be faster matching white faces with positive words and black faces with negative words. Everyone had this problem, including African Americans. And when people would retest—knowing which questions revealed their “racism”—they couldn’t improve their scores. Here’s the kicker Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been thinking a lot about this past year… about how far I’ve come, especially with managing our finances… For a long time I’ve known most of the things I’m doing better now, but I just never actually did any of it. It got me thinking… For any change to occur—in any area—there has to be more than knowledge about what to do… there’s some ingredient that’s missing from most people’s attempts at change and it keeps things from starting or keeps them from finishing. It’s hope. Hope is what makes people get moving. It’s what takes head knowledge and vivifies it. Without hope, no one acts. If nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm, then absolutely nothing was achieved without hope.

This has some interesting ramifications… If it’s true that in any situation people need both knowledge and hope, then giving someone only the head knowledge to deal with a situation is like giving them a gun with no bullets (you’ll forgive me—I’ve been playing a lot of Ghost Recon in between Open Championship updates). Or half a pair of scissors. You’ve only met half their need, and probably the less important half.

So this is a pretty painful realization… because I’m a head knowledge kind of guy. I like to know things. I’m not an effusively encouraging kind of person. If someone comes to me with a problem, I like to show them the utter logic of approaching and conquering their problem a particular way. Yet if I send them away with only that knowledge, I’m a very unwise friend. To really help people change (or change a situation) you have to give them hope that change is possible.

There seem to be at least two ways of giving (or receiving) hope. In the money situation, I was given hope by Dave Ramsey spelling out a practical plan, and then I faced the bills/income statements and ran the numbers myself. Since humans are such physical creatures, we derive a lot of hope from seeing things ourselves… from comprehending the situation with our own senses and intellect. That may come from reading something or watching someone succeed at something, but the point is that practical examples have a strong connection to hope.

The other way is verbal encouragement. We usually feel better about doing something when someone believes in us and lets us know. My wife is really good at this. My cousin Will and friend TJ are really good at this. I’m an absolute clod. In nearly every situation, I think it’s my gift to find every cranny where there’s a problem. This would be a wonderful ability on a quality control team, but it’s an incredible liability if you want anyone to sit near you. If someone does a good job playing something, I’m consumed with the fact that they didn’t do it greatly. If they did it greatly, I’m consumed that they didn’t do it perfectly. It usually means that I have nothing desirable to say unless I’m talking to a masochist. But gifts are gifts, and pickiness over problems could be turned to an amazing ability to always find something good to say. And that gives me a lot of hope.

I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since my last aenemic blog posting. Wow. Time is flying.

The work in Atlanta is definitely picking up. This Thursday through Sunday is the Open Championship (also known as the “British Open” to less hoity-toity Americans). I’ve been feverishly at work on the website (making ads, updating content, etc.). Since the event starts tomorrow, and since the first tee time is 6:30 am GMT, feel free to drop by the site at 2:30 am ET and just revel in the knowledge that I’ll be awake posting pictures and daily stats. Ah… The joys of working with a “live” media site…

In general, though, my work day is moving much, much faster than it was at BJU Press. I’ve been so intensely glued to the computer screen that it usually takes TJ calling Tim and telling him to tell me to respond to my bouncing IM icon. Sorry, TJ. Turner makes up for the intensity of the work, though, by spoiling the employees the rest of the time. The benefits at Turner are unbelievable. I think they must have someone in a little room somewhere who just dreams up ways that the company can take care of stuff for employees. And then there’s the goofy, fun stuff: breakfast catered every Friday morning. During the summers there’s also Fabulous Fun Fridays, which have been everything from catered lunch by Moe’s while we watch Three Amigos, or a video game championship (for the guys) while the girls all went and got manicures (courtesy of Turner Sports). This Friday is “Brain Freeze”: all you can eat Edy’s ice cream. I’m going to get fatter. Oh, wait, no. There’s a gymn in the building: employees only. And if my workout goes long and I miss my carpool, I can always have Turner call a cab that’ll take me home (25 miles away) on their nickel. But I might just stay and catch the advance preview of Lady in the Water. But if it’s too scary and I have recurring nightmares, Turner provides free psychological counseling. If I fall out of the rollercoaster during the free “Turner Employees Only” night at Six Flags, I get double the complimentary life insurance. And then there’s that Philips 54″ HD LCD that I get 50% off employee pricing on. And there’s the free K-Cup coffees & teas, creamer, filtered water… oatmeal, too, for some reason… Starbucks in the lobby… Perky perky perky…

Living in Atlanta is different in ways other than work… Tim’s car (an Acura RSX-S) died on the way to work one morning. He got it started again but was a bit concerned so we pulled in to the Acura dealership at the next exit to get it checked out. All the workers there were spiffily dressed. There were two complimentary Starbucks machines in the waiting area (I had two cups). Tim told the guy at the counter that we needed to hook our laptops up to the internet so we could work on the PGA.com site (there were a bunch of things that needed immediate updates). The guy escorted us to the “Quiet Room” (as indicated on the glass doors) where there were cubicles, wireless internet, and, of course, silence. So we worked in that room for an hour until they fixed the car. Awesome. I don’t imagine all Acura dealerships are this well decked out…? I guess it’s the trade back you get for living in a city where your daily, one-way commute is an hour-long fight with crazies.

Emily started her job on Monday of this week. She’s teaching music camp classes in the evening at Berean Music Academy. Her work load should pick up in the coming weeks as more students register for fall classes. She’s been practicing guitar pretty heavily in recent months since it seems like that’s what Berean wants her to focus on teaching. She’s also been looking for a good teacher in Atlanta to help her continue her own guitar proficiency.

There’s not a whole lot new going on besides work, though. Emily’s done some house shopping while I’ve been at work. But she’s been going with Stephanie, so I think now Stephanie’s got the house-shopping bug, too. They’ve been wanting to move for a while, though, so I’m not too surprised.

I found a link a while back I just thought I’d share for any other bluegrass/Alison Krauss fans out there.

Free downloads of some of Alison Krauss’ music from Amazon.com. Enjoy!

Okay, so I’ve once again been long absent from my blog and I’m sure everyone’s dying for the news. I have a perfectly valid excuse: I was playing Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter on my brother’s XBox 360. And since we’re so bad we needed a lot of practice. A lot. Like every evening. From the moment we walked in the door until we crawled bleary-eyed into bed. We only made it past the first two multiplayer boards in mission mode (where you only have one life). But we downloaded the expansion pack and played through all the multiplayer boards.

Oh, and I also started my new job in Atlanta.

Yep. That’s it for the news.

Okay, okay… I’ll include a little more job info. I started on Monday at Turner Sports (New Media) and spent most of the week making banners and HTML tweaks to the Senior PGA 2007 new microsite. We also watched the Germany/Argentina World Cup match (at work), which was really great… tie score, overtime, and penalty shootouts with Germany winning the shootout. Deutschland, Deutschland, uber alles.

On another note, it’s looking highly official that Craig & Sarah Oesterling will be buying our house, so that’s good news. That means whenever we come back to Greenville we’ll be able to stay in the attic room that I’m still trying to finish. (Just kidding, Craig!) But it’s always nice to know someone you like will be getting your house.