Been A.W.O.L. Again - But Here's Why!

Once again, we apologize for not updating the blog as frequently as we'd like. We have been very busy with multiple things on the go (learning to juggle bigger and more dangerous things). For example, there's the typical consulting and board meetings I go to after work, and the typical meetings Smartbottom goes to after work. But the last few weeks have seen MANY more obligations.

1. Bigger and more dangerous juggling item number 1 is I (Bookly) had a job interview to take on the promotions development lead for another government department. So I've spent the last week reviewing textbooks and researching that department to prepare for the interview, which was yesterday. In my opinion it went very well. There was even a surprise question where I was asked to give an impromptu promotional presentation on a topic of their choosing, and I didn't miss a beat. But after getting some answers to questions I had, I'm not too sure I'd take the job even if it were offered to me. But we'll see.
   
   
2. Bigger (but not so dangerous) juggling item number 2 is I wrapped up a four month long consulting contract this week. WOO-HOO!
   
   
3. Finally, the biggest and most dangerous juggling item was an obligation that has taken up a lot of our energies. But it was worth it. Smartbottom and I are buying a house! It's been two weeks of meetings, contract reviews & signings, late evening drive-by's, and many other things that take up time, decrease energy and add a lot of uncertainty and stress.

But I finally got word this afternoon that everything has been approved! We officially have a house!

So, for those interested in this new development, here are some details:

• The house is brand new. In fact, it's still being built. We are supposed to take possession on March 30th, but with the trades the way they are these days, it could be delayed.
  
  
• It's a bi-level, detached house. We took the garage package as well, so it will have a two car garage in the back, separate from the house. That means we also have an alley! Why am I so excited about an alley? Less bumper to bumper parking on the street that would otherwise force you to play chicken with an oncoming car due to lack of road space.
  
  
• It is located in a brand new community in the north end of the city, right between my family and Smartbottom's family. We actually timed how long it would take to get to both families from the house - 10 minutes and 3 minutes respectively, assuming good flowing traffic (which we had when we took the time measurements).
  
  
• Being that the community is brand new, it's a relief that it's already beautiful! The public portions of the street are lined with young trees, and every front yard is required to have at least one additional tree. Therefore our street will have a lot of trees, which is always beautiful to see. So we are looking forward to walking down the street in the Fall.

Anyways, as soon as we have things settled we will be inviting our families and friends over for an informal house warming party of sorts. I am particularly eager about finally getting to host a nice dinner party, and Smartbottom is crazy excited to get a highly charged game of Monopoly going with our friends.

So we are looking forward to hearing from you soon so we can plan some things!

Thanks for understanding our absences.

Marriage Preparation Questionnaire Review

Bookly here.

We got the call last night from one of the marriage preparation class facilitators. Our couple's questionnaire results are in and they want to meet with us privately to go over them.

The first thing Smartbottom said to me after I hung up the phone was "I can see it now: 'You guys scored a little differently on your thoughts around what God's role is in your romantic life. (Bookly – Um, God creates life; Smartbottom – Thank God for our romantic abilities?) Lets talk about these differences.' And we'll look at each other and tell them we already talked about it and agree. Then there will be an awkward moment as they weigh us on whether we can be rescued." She's probably right. It isn’t that were unfaithful to our religion. It’s that we aren’t such strong believers that we think about God in everything we do, especially our romantic life. We’re spiritual, not religious. Spirituality is not religion. Religion divides people. Belief in something unites them.

Anyways, to make matters worse, this private meeting is at the house of one of the facilitators. And it just so turns out that I went to school with one of her daughters, for twelve years.

That's just great! I can just imagine that these overzealous religious facilitators will find our questionnaire responses & review answers a little contrary to their safe and secure little world and that they will talk with their daughter about us. "I saw Bookly tonight! You remember him, right? When you were in grade 4 he's the kid you punched in class and blamed by telling the teacher he was kicking your desk, when all he was doing was minding his own business, bouncing his knee and drawing. Anyways, he and his fiancé think God doesn't have much of a role in their romantic life! That's strange for a Catholic raised couple, isn't it? But is this how couples in your age group tend to think?"

I may be jumping to conclusions, but we got the sense that this kind of thinking will occur. People, we just want to get married. We’ll work with you on preparing for our marriage as part of our desire to have it sanctified by the church, but please don’t measure and judge us based on your religious conviction.

Been A.W.O.L.

Hey everyone,

We apologize for not updating the blog in the last 10 days. It has been a crazy time since the last entry, with many things in the air right now.

We will fill you in as things land. Until then, have patience with us as we learn to juggle bigger and more dangerous things.

Bookly

Smartbottom, je t'aime ma chérie!

Ah, Valentine's Day.

While I am well aware of the growing cynicism around Valentine's Day being a marketing gimmick (this has some truth to it, but this cynicism makes us marketers feel like its hunting season, and we’re not the hunters), it is still nice to think that all over the world people are stopping to think of their loved ones for a moment. Isn't that a nice thought?

In an admittedly atypical demonstration of my thinking processes, I like to optimistically think that all over the world someone is reminded of what this day is, and they in turn take a minute to specifically smile and think about their loved one. That one moment might buy them a minute more of life before a stress-induced heart attack 10 years from now. That one minute might be caught by the boss during a meeting, convincing him or her that you are in fact paying attention and that you like his or her idea so much that you're smiling at their sheer geniusness, thereby setting things in motion for a pay raise and promotion, allowing your kids to go to a better school and you to buy your loved one a better Valentine's Day gift next year in the hopes that this Karmic-like cycle repeats itself in perpetuity. That one minute might be the best thing that's happened to them all day, all week, all month even.

I just hope the sheeple in line at the Hallmark card store and the Starbucks gift card wall, among other zombie hangouts, don't get so frustrated over waiting in line with the dozens of other procrastinators that they end up taking it out on their loved one in the form of crankiness, or it's more subtle and ugly cousin, resentment. Then all the positives listed above invert to negatives... one less minute of life before the heart attack, a frown for your boss's thoughts, or the straw that broke this work-horse's back, not to mention a hurt loved one.

You see, marketers aren't the enemy. Procrastination is. So, hurry out to your nearest Hallmark store and buy a card! Better yet, buy several, then you're covered for a few years! You'll live a longer and happier life, see!

Sorry, I let the marketer in me take over for a second. In actuality, when I think about how automatic these kinds of holidays are (going out to buy the cliché box of chocolates, a card, and some flowers) I feel guilty because it’s the easiest way to demonstrate your love and appreciation of your loved one. Doesn’t it make you feel like your love is equal to the $13 plus change?

Now I’m not saying you’re lazy or cheap if you think this is a good show of your love. It’s just that it bothered me enough that instead I used Microsoft Word and made a Valentine’s Day card and “Newsletter” for Smartbottom. Sure, some will think I’m cheap, but I put a lot more thought and feeling into these two things than into standing in line, and I was able to personalize every piece of my gifts. I’m sure Smartbottom will really appreciate that.

Anyways, Happy Valentine’s everyone! Don’t forget to smile!

Solutions For All Of Our Problems!!!

Here are two books everyone should read. In fact, these two books are so significant that they should be used to design the education system in all its guises - play school through high school and post secondary, marriage preparation, parenting, military, and so on.

Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury

This book teaches you, the reader, how to apply principled negotiation in order to achieve win-win outcomes! In it’s easy to read 100 or so pages it gives you all the tools to prepare for a negotiation, and even tools for "negotiation jujitsu" to deal with those mean and hard-balling people you might come up against.

And just think, you use negotiation every day whether you know it or not. "Honey, can you take the garbage out?" "Mom, we have a professionally trained baby sitter already..." "boss, I have too much on my plate..." Everyone could benefit from this book.

But how is it part of the solution to all our problems Bookly?

Well, if everyone actually used Principled Negotiations we wouldn't have the typical "politicking" that goes on at home, at school, at work, between work units, between organizations, in government, between governments... the world, with all of it's conflicts and disputes, would be settled based on principles! Imagine that!

For a great 1 minute summary of "Getting to Yes", check out what Wikipedia has put together (the first link).
For an interactive preview of the book itself, check out the Amazon link (the second link).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_Yes

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Yes-Negotiating-Agreement-Without/dp/0140157352


First Things First by Stephen Covey

This is the guy who wrote another best-seller called "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". In "First Things First" he talks about how all the activities in our lives fall into one of four quadrants, based on their degree of importance and degree of urgency, and that we usually operate from the Important, Urgent (Quadrant 1, such as procrastinating on something important for so long that now it's urgent as well - a sort of addiction to being in crisis) and the Not Important, Not Urgent (Quadrant 4, such as watching TV to "relax"). This creates an exhausted and stressful life.

The goal of this book is to get you to operate mostly from Quadrant 2, where you do a lot of important things but your time management skills are developed to the point that you rarely feel like you're under urgency. For example, spending time with your family or planning a project in such a way that it's easily done in small bits and on time.

Oh come on Bookly, I agree that the negotiation book is quite significant, but a time management book? *YAWN*

Well, if everybody read this book, everybody would be less stressed out. Families would feel closer, work would move more efficiently, you'd find time to finally renovate the bathroom or go to the gym. Life would be less like a chaotic event and more like a ballroom dance, with the occasional unexpected event/crisis - but c'est la vie, such is life. It would even affect your every day negotiations in a positive way!

Conclusions

With the knowledge from these two books, you're on the path to being like Lucas from Empire Records, or Yoda (you don't really need a reference source for Yoda, do you?), or Morpheus from The Matrix. Things move around you like water past rocks, yet you are flexible enough to be like water yourself when you need to be.

For an alright 1 minute summary of "First Things First", check out what Wikipedia has put together (the first link).
For an interactive preview of the book itself, check out the Amazon link (the second link).

Enjoy, Grasshoppahs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Things_First

http://www.amazon.com/First-Things-Learn-Leave-Legacy/dp/0684802031

Marriage Preparation Class #1

As part of the church-sanctified-marriage qualification process, we have to attend 10 + 1 marriage preparation classes. Yay!

As you might already know, I am an introvert and therefore I dislike being in groups of people, especially people I don't know. But, there we were, sitting in this windowless room for our first class, looking back and forth at the rest of the couples, who I might add mostly seem to be naïve and truly in need of this course. Bookly kept smiling at me and was whispering a little joke in my ear when the facilitators came in.

Oh, yeah! Here's a quick story about Bookly and how he may have already set the tone for how him and I will be perceived in this class. He called and left a message with the marriage prep class facilitators to call him back with the details of the first class. When the wife of the facilitation team called back, he didn't look at his call display and just answered the phone expecting it to be me, "Hey Hon..." She was not impressed, especially when he started laughing at the situation. So when she walked in only to see Bookly uncontrollably whispering and snickering in my ear, she must have thought he was going to be too much to handle, given the look on her face.

Anyways, the first thing they did was insist on taking our pictures as a couple so they can show the new class off to the church congregation. Given the similarly annoyed and uncomfortable reactions of everyone else in the room, we weren’t the only ones just learning about this. After we watched a few couple’s awkward and predictably playful bickering about "come on… oh come on…" "no! I don't have my face on!" we just stood up to volunteer and get it over with, secretly trying to make the seemingly naïve couples feel as immature as they were acting. Really people, you’ve got to learn to roll with the punches – you’re getting married after all, a simple picture shouldn’t be a problem.

After the pictures were done and we were sitting down, the facilitators pulled out a thick pile of booklets – 180 question questionnaires. All of us couples were then told, for the first time, that we’re to fill out these questionnaires (over the next 1½ to 2 hours) and that our answers will show each individual of the pair what things we’re in agreement on, and which things we need to discuss – therefore also determining the topics that will be covered over the rest of this marriage preparation course. Then it happened. They separated the men from the women for the questionnaire.

As my brat of a man walked out of the room, he looked back with a slightly mocking, mostly empathic expression, wagging his pinkie finger goodbye to me.

Goodbye Bookly, I'll miss you.

Only 10 more classes to go.

Church Boundaries?!?

Bookly and I were raised "Roman Catholic", and we want to get married in a Catholic church. But we’re not strong followers of the Catholic faith. In fact I originally wanted a wedding outdoors and it didn't matter if we were married by a priest. But the church portion of our wedding was an necessity for Bookly, partly because he wanted a "preemptive maneuver to placate any strong Catholic followers in his Irish-Catholic family" (yes, he talks like this), and mostly because he wants (and he convinced me too, obviously) our marriage to be "officially sanctified" in the traditional sense.

Anyways, as if planning a wedding isn't fun enough, the first church related hurdle we came to was that we don't live within the "boundary" of the church we want to get married in. Evidently, a church has a problem when people from their boundary get married in some other church’s boundary. So we had to have an interview with the priest so he can fill out an application form so we can get the "OK" for us to use his particular church, all because of these boundaries.

Things have been officially OK'd and we've cleared this hurdle. But we're already coming up to our second church related hurdle - Marriage Preparation classes start soon. I wonder what surprises are in store for us.

Update on Bookly’s Performance Review

Yesterday, the Director of my Branch (my supervisor's boss's boss) came in to talk to me about my performance review. He's happy with the results and has decided to make a minor change to our organizational structure:

• I used to work on a variety of projects with several different units across the Branch in a project support role.
  
  
• I'm now supposed to work primarily with the strategic planning unit in a project lead role.

Ok, I admit, this is shop talk to anyone not in my line of work, but it's a good thing.

Here's Why:

My work is now centralized to one unit, making this is a good thing for me for two main reasons:

Breadth vs. Depth

A key determinant to success or failure in the business world is your product/service offering. If you were to open a pizza joint, are you going to offer a couple types of pizzas and lots of other things? Or are you going to offer lots of different types of pizzas, and a couple of other things? It's almost always better to specialize in at least one thing and to be competitive with that, while offering some other general things. For example, I specialized in marketing management (particularly in the strategic planning side), and can offer general skills in software & hardware support, among other things.

Anyways, in the project support role I worked on a variety of projects with several different units (like a jack of all trades - breadth). In a project lead role, I'll be working on a few related projects allowing me to "specialize" (depth). This leads into the second reason why this is a good thing for me.

Brand Management

In the first post about my performance review, I wrote about how I was worried that my brand image and brand equity have been damaged over the last few months, and that it might affect my performance review.

This update will greatly aid my brand management efforts because now they are focused on one primary target market (the strategic planning unit), and not on so many other target markets.

But...

I'm not sure I want to stay with this job.

More to come…

Is Road Rage Caused by Driving? I Doubt It!

Maybe it's caused by a predisposition to be aggressive. You know, the born criminal type. The guy who at 5 years old beat up all the other pre-schoolers, took their juice, and rode around on his tricycle with reckless abandon.

Or maybe our natural aggression levels are enhanced by things like greasy food, legal addictive stimulants like caffeine, not enough sunlight, the threat of a 50% marriage success/failure rate, and us damn marketers "making" you spend a lot of money so you can feel like you live the life we designed on TV for Gap, Samsung and Mercedes.

I don't know, but the *%$!&$@ I talked to on Saturday, "Sir Testicles" (pronounced: Testyclees, a play on Greek warrior names), has me leaning toward the latter possibility, irregardless of how immature he was.

Here's what happened:

I felt reminiscent so I went for a drive while Smartbottom was hanging out with a friend. So there I was, driving along on a two way, undivided street full of parked cars, in a part of town where I spent a lot of my childhood. It was a cold and icy day, so I was going a little slower than the speed limit. Behind me were a few cars, all driving about the same speed, probably because it's mid-morning with icy road conditions, near a playground and between an elementary and junior high school, on a Saturday.

Next thing, this guy at the end of the line swerves out into oncoming traffic, speeds up to way over the speed limit and passes all of us as if we're in the passing zone of a highway and he has some pressing emergency like Jack Bauer from 24. That's dangerous for so many reasons, and he did this for just over one block. Sure enough, I pull up beside him at the next red light two blocks ahead, the one he beat all of us to, roll down my window and patiently wait for him to roll down his.

Me: "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"
Sir Testicles: "Hey! F&%$ You!"
Me: "It's illegal for a reason."
Sir Testicles: "Are you a cop?"
Me: "I very well could be... but what difference does that make?"
Sir Testicles: "Then F&%$ You!"
Me, aware of the new law enforcement initiative for citizens to report dangerous drivers: "I've got your license plate you know."
Sir Testicles: "I don't care! F&%$ You!"
Me: "Obviously."

Sir Testicles then sped away on his mission to, I presume, spend money on things my fellow marketers told him to buy, eat greasy food, and to top it all off with that all important Butter Caramel Hot Smoothee from the Tim Horton's drive-through. I drove off in another direction, found a place to park and called the police to report his driving.

Now, you might think I'm a taddle-tail, or whatnot. But, I gave him a chance to redeem himself. You see, there's no way around how many laws he broke. But I try to be an objective man. When I pulled up beside him, I wasn't yelling and swearing. I just wanted an explanation for his actions, as someone he could have just as well endangered. If he had said "We were just called and told our kid broke her arm in hockey practice" then I'd somewhat understand, and wouldn't call the police. I'd probably still be a little shocked and frustrated because what would he tell the parents of the kid he mowed down who was just going across the street to toboggan by the playground? Or the family going out for brunch making a left turn into their lane only to come head to head with this guy? But instead, he was all "Me Tough! *swear* *swear* *swear* You Stupid! *swear* *swear* *swear* Me allowed to break the law because I'm a man! *swear* *swear* *swear*"

He failed the justifiability test. I don't regret a thing.

Analysis:

So, is road rage caused by driving? I can see how this guy might get a little frustrated being at the back of the line, even if it was only going to be for three blocks. But he decided to let his frustration take over rational thought (in Air-Crew survival instructor school this is nicknamed "lizard brain": in a survival situation your body is malnourished and under immense stress, so your brain functions start to deteriorate. The longer you go without food and water, the worse it gets and you begin to operate on a basic and primitive level, like a lizard. But you have no choice in the matter when it's a survival situation and you have no food and water. This guy is not in a survival situation, so why is he thinking so irrationally?). No, it is not caused by driving.

Is it from a predisposition to be aggressive? Well, your personality is made up of both genetics and learning's from the various environments you've experienced in your life so far. So, you aren't born a criminal, you learn to become one. It might be a little easier to become one if your genetics dictate an over-active brain function that controls aggression, for example. But it doesn't make you a robot unable to choose for yourself.

Then is it from aggression enhancers? I think this is most plausible. But where do you draw the line? Is he a victim of these enhancers? I don't think so. He chooses to eat greasy food, for example. He chooses to have a highly leveraged lifestyle trying to buy all the best toys, for example. There's a lot of research out there about these kinds of things - and they are main topics in the news all the time. If you were truly concerned about managing yourself (ie. your aggression), about being responsible to yourself, your family & friends, and to society in general, you'd look into this research. Failing to look into ways to improve your life doesn't make you a victim. It makes you negligent.

Negligence is very rarely an excuse for your actions, or lack thereof. That's why, for instance, they fine tourists in Singapore for spitting on the street. That's why, for instance, you as a home owner can be sued when someone wipes out on the ice on your sidewalk that wasn't there this morning.

Sir Testicles broke a dozen laws by his own choosing, which was probably provoked by mismanaged stress. That's no excuse. I have no pity for him.

Pain in the Butt!

Next Wednesday will be the 7 month milestone since my tailbone surgery. 7 MONTHS! And it's still not fully healed yet!

And as if walking around like an old man with a bad back wasn't bad enough, we had a scare last night while changing the bandages. Let’s just leave it at this: after the scare, the wound is a little bigger, and quite angry, therefore it's more painful.

Ok, with that said, if you EVER need to have Home Care nurses involved in your recovery, as I do, you need to be on top of them every day! DON'T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER! It is their job to help you. Don't give in to their guilt trips of "we're short staffed" and "the supplies you need are expensive so let’s just visit you once per week." That's not your problem, nor should it be mine. They have shifts of nurses available 24 hours a day. And I know for a fact that they can afford to send co-op students on paid holidays. And they are funded by the government - our tax money. A cliché argument, I know, but that doesn't make it less true. (Edit - Feb. 5: And they cannot turn you down. If you say you absolutely need someone out that night, they have to oblige. It is their mandate as part of the health care system.)

It was so frustrating getting one of them out last night to monitor the scare we had that Smartbottom, a typically polite young woman, was swearing up a storm while I fended her off from seizing the phone and giving them an excuse to hang-up on us. It was like separating a ball of alley cats fighting over a piece of food. She made the Tasmanian Devil look like a figure skater!

Anyways, don't let it happen to you. It's frustrating enough that they have such tactics - probably because there are some rude patients that overreact over minor issues. But trust me, it's far worse when you give them an inch.

Performance Review Day for Bookly

I had my performance review today.

I was expecting it to be an awkward and frustrating event.

Why? Well here are some backgrounders:

1. Since I started this job two and a half years ago, I've been working on branding myself with a "young management professional" image - the "go to guy" for strategy and solution ideas, the tech-savvy "generation rep" of the office. So I'd make my rounds every day to say hi to my colleagues and see how they're doing, sitting in their offices for a few minutes, smiling and being friendly. Occasionally I'd drop in to ask if there is anything I could help them with, and then I'd look for ways to not only complete the task but improve the whole process. I'd even bring in Tim Horton's coffee and muffins every once in a while, stating that it's just because I walk past Tim's in the early A.M. and I was getting one for myself anyways. And occasionally I take my supervisor and boss out for lunch as thanks for their mentoring efforts. I didn't do all of this to kiss butt, mind you. The butt-kisser is someone who tries these tactics with a sort of desperation that sabotages their efforts by making them look insincere. They've typically convinced themselves that they are on the fast track, without seeing that they are just endured and disregarded by most everyone else. I'm sure I succeeded in coming across as genuinely interested and friendly, especially with some of the process improvements I've been a part of implementing. That's the difference. Anyways, since my tailbone surgery (in July, 06) I've been sore every day as I recuperate. This means I'm also sore throughout the night, therefore I haven't slept well in seven months. So, at work I'm often yawning and looking tired and like I don't want to be there. That's a bad thing - it severely damages my brand equity.
   
   
2. I used to be called on for a lot of things. But since my promotion (in August, 06) we've hired someone who now does a lot of this work. So, sometimes I'm left out of working on projects that I used to handle. Don't get me wrong, I don't resent the new guy, he's pretty cool. And it's not like I'm just sitting around waiting for scraps to land on my desk, I do have other projects I work on and I do actively look for things to do. It's just that, keeping with the marketing analogy, the more your brand is in the consumer's face, the more recognition you get. That's why marketers use multiple channels of advertising & promotions. Channels are like projects! With being less involved with a few of the projects I've always been associated with, I'm not in their faces as much any more. Will this come back to haunt me in, say, the performance review? (Them: "Well, it seems your productivity has gone down..." Me: "Well, no, I've just been doing more projects for the other unit... (My target market has changed thanks to a new entry in the market)" Them: "hmmm...well maybe you should have done this! (whatever "that" is)")
   
   
3. I had a head-butting match with my supervisor in November about a mistake I admitted to and apologized for. It got so out of hand, even after apologizing, that a week later he apologized to me for over-reacting about it.

Suffice to say, I was expecting the performance review to be slightly tainted by a slightly dented pride, and that it would reflect a seemingly lower level of productivity and lack of enthusiasm and energy.

On the contrary, and to my delight, it went very well.

GeoCaching

GeoCaching (aka GPS Stash Hunt; Global Positioning Stash hunt) is an adventure sport particularly for GPS users, but a map and compass work just as well, provided you know how to use them.

Conducting a cache hunt is a good way to get outdoors and do something adventuresome, fun, and active with your family and friends.

There are caches all over the world! And they range in difficulty from easy (stuff in a Tupper wear container under a bench that you can find while out for a leisurely walk) to extreme (stuff in a bag tied down to a rock in a lake on a mountain in Peru - seriously).

The way it works is someone (individuals or organizations) sets up a cache and shares the location over the Internet. GPS/Compass users can then search the database, for example by postal code, and use the provided cache coordinates to start their hunt. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something else for the cache. Also, it's pretty cool to sign the log book to say you were there and compliment whoever hid the cache.

For the most in-depth information and cache database, check out the first link below. Once you get accustomed to the sport, check out the Alberta specific links under that.

http://www.geocaching.com/

http://www.geocachingalbertasouth.com/

http://geocachingedmonton.com/blog/

Things to Try & Our Picks

This category is dedicated to things we recommend you try.

It will cover anything from good music to good food to cool activities.

We hope you try some out. Let us know what you think in the comments section!

The Back Alley Graffiti Wall Is Now Open

We'll be posting Rants and Vents here about work, society and anything else that might make us feel better in the moment.

Please add your own rants in the comments section!

Please do not post anything racist, sexist, prejudiced, or any specific names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. Use discretion... if it seems too controversial or wrong, then it probably is, and will be deleted, and further action may be taken (ie. contacting Blogger.com to report your account).

What is the BIG day?

The BIG day is our wedding day! October 6, 2007!

And I'll (Smartbottom) be using this category to update everyone on the planning and preparation of our wedding!

About Smartbottom

I am a practical and linear thinker. I prefer to take my time and analyze my thoughts before saying anything, which tends to frustrate Bookly because he's always moving at 100 mph with his own thoughts. It's funny how Bookly and I work - he'd ask "what do you want to do?" and I'd say, "I'm not sure" because I haven't thought about what I'd like to do yet, which prompts Bookly to list a dozen possible things to do, the pros and cons of each, and the likely "cost : enjoyment ratio". But, he leaves the top 2 or 3 possible things to do for me to pick from, once he's narrowed down the options based on our feelings at the moment.

On the Myers-Briggs personality matrix, I’m an ISTJ (Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging - taken in March 2006), and what's interesting about this is that it fits in with what I do in my job at the bank, very systematic and analytical work, and how Bookly and I make most of our collaborative decisions.

Finally, although all of this describes me as exactly opposite to Bookly (even in the Myers-Briggs chart), we find that we compliment each other. Individually, we'd be either too Introverted or Extroverted for our own good. Together, we've learned from each other on how to adapt ourselves for improvement. And voilà! We make a great team! Lucky bastard!

About Bookly

I am an out-of-the-box, always thinking about possibilities kind of guy. The odd thing is, my perceptions are not "glass is half full". So, my possibilities-thinking is driven by planning and preparing to avoid problems. I often wonder what nurtured such a character trait, but for as long as I can remember I’ve enjoyed thinking this way, the "hope for the best, plan for the worst" sort of way. And it has been a benefit to me as a strategic planner in many different ways.

On the Myers-Briggs personality matrix, I’m an ENTP (Extroverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving - taken in December 2006). One thing that's interesting about this though is as much of an Extrovert as I am, I need downtime (Introvertedness) in order to recharge. This has been a guilty addiction for me because as a very busy guy (I work: full-time as a strategic planner in the government, part-time for myself as a strategic marketing consultant, and hold a chair on an advisory board for community services in my city) my downtime is valuable. So I spend it with Smartbottom (an Introvert) doing some reading and watching educational and reality shows on TV. But this means I, and we, tend to neglect our friends. The biggest problem is one week is easy to lose track of but with being so busy, three weeks fly by. I know this bothers them, and I hope they understand where I'm coming from and that I am trying to make an effort to change it, but sometimes it just hits me "Damn, it's been 3 weeks already."

Finally, I am also dedicated to smooth communication, spoken or written. For example, when I ask someone a question, I start to listen to their answer and try to think of where they are going in their thoughts. If something seems a little vague or out of place, I will stop the train right there and endeavor to get it fixed instead of hearing it out and giving my best guess to its meaning after the fact. This usually pisses Smartbottom right off, but in the end it makes for clear and logical conversation - smoothness, from which a multitude of ideas and responses sprout forth.

The Bookly-Smartbottom Team

A lot of our posts are going to be about the kinds of things a soon-to-be married or married couple are going to face during the adventure that is their lives.

In order to make sense of them all and understand where we're coming from in order to be able to provide advice or comments, we decided to provide a more detailed introduction of ourselves.

As a Team
We are strong believers in self-reliance. It sounds like a sugar-coated way of saying we’re too stubborn and proud to accept help or support, and maybe it is sometimes, but we prefer to operate as a self-reliant, self-sufficient team. Don’t get us wrong! If we inherited a trust fund, or won a lottery we wouldn’t turn it down. But we’re proud we’ve done everything together on our own.

We operate in a "calculated-risk taking" fashion. We like to gather as much information as possible on things before making a decision. The bigger the decision, the more information and convincing, and therefore time, we need. Makes sense, right?

But this sometimes causes frustration in the person or people we are dealing with at that moment. In fact, it sometimes comes across as us “trying to manipulate the situation to cause a fight” or “trying to be a polite jerk”. We can sometimes see why we’re perceived this way, what with all the “Why is that”, “What about…” and "How come..." questions, but that’s how we work. We’re aware of this perception and try to avoid it, but it’s all too easy to get frustrated with someone in return when they fail or refuse to hear us in the first place.