Fortune of the Week (6)

"Your help will be needed in an embarassing situation"

Hmmmm.... embarassing for whom? Well, at least it's a real fortune this time. I can't complain, I suppose.

Odd shaped ducks

These are definitely the strangest looking ducks I've seen. They could puff up their head and neck to about the same size as the rest of their body.


This is what the duck looked like normally:

Sorry the pictures are a bit pixelated. The ducks were a fair distance from my condo window. I had to zoom in and crop the pictures to show the details. Then the automated program I wrote for posting the photos automatically scaled the images to a width of 600 pixels. Normally this scaling to 600 pixels is a good thing as most of my photos are hi-res and are much wider than that. But since these pictures were tiny crops smaller than 600 pixels wide to begin with, they got blown up instead.

Happiness in the Workplace

A friend at work sent me this link to a book about about finding happiness in the workplace. At first glance I thought it sounded a little goofy, but while giving it a chance and reading the introduction I thought this quote was interesting:

"I can safely say that there is no greater job than making other people happy! It’s continually fun, exciting and rewarding. And when you think about it, isn’t that really the true purpose of most jobs—to make people happy? You must make the customers happy. Or your co-workers. Or the boss. Or the shareholders.

A nurse who makes the patients happy and healthy is better than one who only makes them healthy. A boss who makes his employees happy and efficient is better than one who only touts efficiency. A teacher who can make his students smarter and happier is better than one who only passes on knowledge."

I thought it raised a good point about rather than just doing your job (whatever it might be), you should try to also try to show a way towards happiness for others with whom you interact. I really don't like the phrase make someone happy as it implies you have control over other people and can just cause them to feel a certain way. If there's one thing I've learning in life regarding interpersonal relationships, it's this: try as you may, you really can't control other people's feelings - it's up to each individual to be happy (or sad, or angry, etc.) on their own. However, you can do your best to show people a way towards feeling happy.

So far I haven't read more than the introduction to this book, so I can't say whether it's good or not, but it's free to read via the web site link I provided above. It's worth a look. Hopefully it doesn't tout the trend of trying to generate happiness in people by giving false phrase and lowering expectations. I still cringe when I recall reading the results of an international study measuring self-esteem and performance of students from different countries. Americans were rated among the highest in regards to self-esteem and confidence in their abilities, yet actually performed near the bottom when tested on actual skills. We definitely don't need books encouraging that form of blind happiness.

A walk to the the seals

The seals are back in town! I assume they've been here for about a month, but I hadn't gone out to Rome Point until today. It was a very mild day and coincidentally a friend of mine was visiting from London, so we took a walk out to spot the seals.



Ok, in the above picture you'd have to have really good eyes to spot the seals - but they are there. The little specks on the right hand edge of the picture are actually seals out on some rocks several hundred yards off the shore. I included this picture just to give an idea of how far away they are.

We walked further up the shore to get a better view, but still even with a 400mm zoom lens they are still pretty far off:



Here's the same picture cropped a bit so you can see abit more detail:



(And as with just about all the photos I post here, you can click on them for a slightly larger view.)



There was no breeze at all, so the bay was like glass. It would have been a perfect day for kayaking.

They were doing some demolition work on the old Jamestown Bridge - I assume the cranes were being used to remove the few remaining pieces. The new bridge is in the foreground.




The large white building is the old mill building I live in. This is a view of it looking back from Rome Point across Bissel Cove.



And just some last snapshots as the sun was setting....

A rare baking event

For the first time in about a year, I actually baked something at home in the oven:



It's an apple pie, completely made from scratch. Since baking for me is such a rare event, I figured I may as well document it lest no one believe me.

I can't think of a better smell than that of a baking apple pie. Mmmmmmm......

Loose Change

I've noticed these Coinstar machines at the local supermarket for the past couple years, however I've never used them because they charge a service fee of about 9% of the total value of the coins. I always thought it would be very handy to not have to roll coins, but the 9% fee seemed a bit steep. But, I honestly never set aside the time to roll my coins, so for the past few years I've been accumulating quite a bit of spare change. It was enough to fill one and a half medium-sized laundry detergent bottles.

Well, the other day I noticed the Coinstar machines now offer a free option for cashing in your spare change - if you choose to get the value of the coins as a gift certificate to various online companies (Amazon, Cabelas, and two other I can't remember). Since it's the holday season and I'll most likely be buying gifts for people online, I figured it would be a good time to cash in my change for an Amazon gift certificate. So I trudged (yes trudged - these coins were heavy!) out to the local Stop and Shop and poured the coins into the machine. One neat feature of the process is the machine displays statistics of the coinage as it is counted. So, what does one and a half laundry detergent bottles of coins add up to? I had 164 quarters, 1310 dimes, 761 nickels, and 2872 pennies (yikes! that's a lot of pennies!), giving a grand total of $238.77.

If you have jars of spare change and shop from Amazon or Cabelas (or those other places I can't remember), it might be worth your time to just dump your change in a Coinstar machine instead of rolling it. I've heard some banks offer a similar bulk coin counting service for free to their customers, but mine does not.

I should note that the Coinstar machines also offer an option to donate your change to a list of different non-profit organizations. What I wasn't able to determine was whether Coinstar takes a cut of the money in this case by charging the service fee.

Morning Visitor

I was running slightly late for work this morning, but couldn't resist snapping a quick picture of this sight when I glanced out my living room window. When I say it was right outside my window, I'm not kidding.




The heron was so close I couldn't take a chance and go anywhere near the window for fear of scaring the bird off. I ended up standing halfway up my stairs and used a 400mm telephoto lens. Who would have thought I'd ever being using that lens in close quarters in my livingroom?

Of course, since I took the time to write this, now I'm really late for work.

The Wonders of YouTube

The past two days I've been sent links to two very entertaining videos on YouTube.

The first is about 8 minutes long and is an educational video about how to behave in a sushi restaurant in Japan. I know, I know. That doesn't sound very entertaining. But trust me, it's worth watching.

The second video is a music video by OK Go, a band I had never heard of, but whose synchronized performance on six treadmills is a sight to behold. The music's not too bad, either, if you like indie style pop rock. What I found most impressive is the whole 3 minute segment is done with one take. There are no camera cuts. [UPDATE: Apparantly I'm completely out of touch with today's pop culture. Several people have told me this video has been around for a while on TV. Since I don't have a TV, it was new to me.]

Fortune of the Week (5)

Ok, so I skipped a week. I hadn't had Chinese food in a while.

This week's fortune leaves me bemused:

"You should be able to make money and hold on to it."

Is it telling me I'm careless with my finances? Or is it supposed to be a positive message foretelling future monetary gains? Or is it just an observation about money in general - maybe speaking to the physical qualities of printing it. Perhaps it's against things like Paypal and virtual money - only the real cold hard cash will do.

I dunno. I think I just wasted 5 minutes of my life thinking too much about it. I could have been making money, instead.

Revisiting Karate Motivation

I recently stumbled across an interesting article about karate and its origins. The heart of the article focuses on how the main point of karate is not the physical aspects, but the character building that occurs along the way. This quote from the article sums it up nicely:

"Character is the goal. Karate training is simply an excuse for developing character. Blood, sweat and tears are to form the character of the student. Karate is a means to an end.

Character is not one of the benefits of Karate training. It is the goal. Without it, there is no Karate, only athletics."

You can read the full article (which I highly recommend) here. I found it was a refreshing reminder of why I enjoy the karate training so much and why I am thankful to have found a dojo where this character building is truly emphasised by the sensei.