Author Archives: Ralph

Why can’t travel be as pleasant as Google Earth?

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Flying is more fun with Google Earth

2012 02 20 1139 300x223 Why cant travel be as pleasant as Google Earth?

Our home in El Dorado Hills California

Preparing for our trip, I’m discovering the wonders of Google Earth. I downloaded it sometime back but forgot about it soon thereafter. Now, as we prepare to travel from California to Venice I can’t believe that somebody captured all that data. Watching Google Earth travel from El Dorado Hills to Venice may be a gimmick but it certainly is a dramatic one.

Reality is different.

Actually getting from our home to our Venice Apartment is much more complicated. It

MarcoPolo 300x268 Why cant travel be as pleasant as Google Earth?

Marco Polo Airport in Venice Italy

starts with a 100 mile drive to San Francisco International because my frequent flier miles program apparently doesn’t like the closer Sacramento Airport. San Francisco, although international, is only a way station for a flight to LAX where the international leg begins. I lived 24 years in LA and never used the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. Now that we live 400 miles away, we get our chance. We leave LAX at 5;00 in the afternoon and 12hours later land in Madrid, another first for both of us. After a four hour layover we board the final flight to Venice arriving at 6:30 in the evening (or 8:30 in the morning back home). Then if all goes well, we take a 15 minute taxi

The Neighborhood 300x260 Why cant travel be as pleasant as Google Earth?

Our apartment is in the Dorsoduro Sestiere of Venice

ride, walk five minutes and meet the greeter for our rental apartment who will lead us there. Much more complicated than Google Earth.

Those pesky details. 

During this last week before departure, it’s the details that keep bugging me. What will I kick myself about when I get to Venice that would be so easy to fix before we leave? What clothes to take? I always over pack but this time we will ration ourselves to one small suitcase each. Since it is cold, we need a coat. That I intend to wear but I keep thinking that it might be nice to have a jacket as well but if I pack a jacket, what will I leave behind? Then, of course shoes which take up lots of suitcase space. I know that whatever I decide to pack, I will be unhappy at some point. Still I can’t stop testing alternatives in my head. I don’t know yet what will finally make the suitcase.

We both expect the 12 hour flight to be unpleasant in the cramped, economy seats. The airbus has two deep seating on the side meaning that we won’t have anybody crawling over us but my concern is sleep. I have never been able to sleep on an airplane. It may be the cramped seating or perhaps it is just all the stimulation from strange noises. I’ve got a mask for my eyes, a blanket and a support pillow but I also asked my doctor for some sleeping pills. With any luck I’ll get at least 6 hours and won’t be a total zombie. I’ve thought about some of the advice I hear about jet lag. Some people say put yourself on the schedule for the time zone you are visiting. I just can’t see that working for me. I’m just going to drink water and avoid alcohol. It’s a small price to pay if it gets me adjusted more quickly and I can make up for the alcohol once I reach Venice.

At this point, I am probably over thinking everything. I should just relax and enjoy the experience but unfortunately that’s just not the way I’m wired. Now if I can only find something to knock me out until we get on the plane.

Why cant travel be as pleasant as Google Earth?

Architecture in my past.

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aa Architecture in my past.

The Art and Architecture Building at Yale

Part of my peculiar perspective on things comes from the way I think. I was just reminded today while discussing a mathematical problem at work. When explaining what I was thinking I was thinking visually and three-dimensionally. My colleagues didn’t have a clue what I was trying to communicate. They wanted formulas – their way of understanding and solving the problem.

I explained that I had a formula but in my head it was a three-dimensional diagram. Then came the odd looks. Anyway we worked through the problem, created a formula and gave me some insight for a better solution to what I was doing. Continue reading →

Originally posted 2009-04-30 17:49:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Are you doing anything outrageous?

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6869770873 1528b7037e m3 Are you doing anything outrageous?

retirement (Photo credit: 401K)

Sometimes I feel like I don’t know what my blog is doing. The gurus all talk about a niche but that often relates more to marketing products and services than writing a blog. I’ve struggled over my years as a blogger, veering widely through the range of topics without making much of an impact or finding my way. What I have learned along the way is that the bloggers that I relate to most strongly get personal from time to time. Even the ones with the technical knowledge. I know that I take more seriously the words of someone that I can relate to. I like knowing something about them and that they struggle from time to time just like I do. The perfect presenter of unimpeachable advice is someone, I go to for the answer to a specific questions, not every day. The people I look forward to reading are relatable and human- and as a bonus they give me good information that I wouldn’t have known I needed.

I have always seen my blog as a diary of my life adventure but as a practical day to day guide, I’ve never been comfortable finding the right mix of personal experience and practical knowledge. Sure I see my life as a laboratory where I experiment with creating what I call an outrageous retirement lifestyle. I don’t mean that what I think is the right lifestyle for me will be right for somebody else. What I think important is thinking outside the box and living the way you want to live, not the way somebody else thinks you ought to.

This creates a problem for me.

I’d love to be the inspiration for a completely different lifestyle from the one I am pursuing and so when it comes to talking about my life, I hold back. I don’t want to tell anybody else what to do anymore than I want somebody to tell me. It’s apparently turning me into the kind of blogger, I don’t follow. The guy that preaches and proclaims without revealing who he really is.

My son asked a question.

My son checks out my blog from time to time. Most of the time, he doesn’t find it very engaging. But he does comment from time to time and once in a while he’ll try to straighten me out. Like yesterday.

“You know, “ he shared across the kitchen counter, “for all the talk about outrageous retirements, your blog is pretty boring. ”

I looked up ready to dismiss his objections.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Then he patiently explained that after all my words and philosophical posturing about living an exceptional retirement, it was all talk and no action.

“After all,” he confided “Nobody likes a lecture. Why don’t you tell them about about something real? Like your upcoming trip to Venice.”

I had to stop and think.

150x1042 Are you doing anything outrageous?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

After all, traveling more while we still have our health is one of our goals and testing our acceptance of the stresses and stimulation of life in a different culture is important. So this upcoming trip is an adventure and an experiment in lifestyle design. This trip is not business as usual. It is pushing the envelope.

So why the heck am I not writing about it?

We’ve been planning this trip for six months. We decided that we had to get started before it is too late. My wife and I discussed destinations quite extensively. The idea was to visit a city for two weeks staying in an apartment and enjoying the sights, ambiance and life experience. I suggested Rome or Amsterdam. My wife was resistant and then we both agreed on Venice. We needed to do the trip before Little League starts (my wife photographs kids playing sports). We read about visiting popular tourist destinations in the Winter and decided that it wouldn’t be that cold and it would make the city much more accessible without the crowds.

300px Districts venice dorsoduro with giudecca2 Are you doing anything outrageous?

Image via Wikipedia

We scouted apartment rentals on the internet and booked one. They post great pictures. We expected dreary choices but the apartments were all attractive and well appointed. Much superior to hotel rooms and the high-priced tourist services that hotels provide. We didn’t know much about the different parts of Venice and made an educated guess to pick Dorsoduro across the Grand Canal from San Marco. Everyone says that Venice is so small that you can easily walk from one end to another. We will find out soon.  Even though I spent several days in Venice 40 years ago, my memories are so fuzzy that I can’t remember much about the layout or getting around..

Nothing we have learned so far suggests a problem with our plan and it turns out that we can take a cab from the airport to within a five minute walk to our apartment which will be important after traveling for 24 hours and a nine hour time shift.

To me, this trip is what outrageous retirement lifestyle is all about. It’s what I fantasize about becoming real. What is outrageous is that I pushed myself out of their routines of my normal existence and indulged in something that is new and exciting. I think that is what retirement should be about. It isn’t important what that fantasy is, just that you have one and that you take some action to make it happen. Have you got an outrageous retirement lifestyle idea? And are you doing something to make it happen?

Are you doing anything outrageous?

On the Road to Better Communication

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I gave a talk this week.

speech 300x2251 On the Road to Better Communication

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It was stand-alone without slides or props.  It was just me and a handful of notes.  I don’t have a magnetic personality and even though I have no fear of public speaking, I am not relaxed.  When I have PowerPoint slides as notes to talk from it is basically just reading a script to the audience.  For my presentation month I used a new technique called Beyond Bullet Points where the slides function more like a story board used in movie making.  You incorporate notes in the slides to keep you on track and as help to people who only have the slides later on.  But you can’t read these notes or the audience will walk out on you.  In preparation for this talk, I practiced so that I had the outline of the talk in my head.  Overtime, I even improvised and the actual talk was different from the notes I originally wrote.

This week was an old-fashioned talk with no props at all.  No slides to distract the audience from looking at me and expecting me to be engaging and making eye contact.  The talk was about one of my business activities to a group of business people who might either want my product or recommend it to others and my intention was to persuade them that my business was more than the product.  This was my first opportunity to talk about this business and I decided not to expound about the features and focus on one big benefit – the ability to support and enhance an individual’s ability to create and maintain relationships in their business and personal lives.  My reasoning was that this was what they want and they will buy services and products that produce it.

This was a short talk – eight minutes.  I originally thought that I would make my point about my business being much more that the products and then use the rest of the time talking about features,  I knew that there wasn’t time to get through all the features and finally I decided that talking about features would detract from my point.  I stuck to my decision.  I did not make it to the 2 minute warning and closed down the talk early.  Now I am left wondering about the impact.

So far, I don’t have any feedback about the effectiveness of my speech.  Nobody asked for my autograph or even asked to get more information.  The meeting format didn’t provide time for that.  I hope that over time, I will discover how successful I was.  It’s not a big setback if I blew this opportunity because I get another chance in a few months so I don’t worry about a big mistake here.  But I am trying to improve my communication skills and become a more effective speaker and so I need to know how I came across.  Good or bad, I will have a basis for improving my effort next time.

Originally posted 2009-10-09 09:45:12. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Persistence – The Down Side

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Persistence has a down side.

stop Persistence The Down Side

Photo by Erica Marshall


There is no question that persistence is a requirement for success.  That is very clear to anyone who studies success and successful people. It is also very clear that persistence alone will not ensure sucess.  What is very unclear is how you know when to switch tactics.  When is the right time to try some different way to accomplish your goal.  I know that I am unqualifed to give any guidance.  But still I want to complete this weeks focus on persistence with a full scope of coverage.  Searching the web brought me to Steve Pavlina and a post on Persistence from 2005.
Steve begins by defining persistence:
Persistence is the ability to maintain action regardless of your feelings. You press on even when you feel like quitting.
But he continues to address when to stop persisting:  When should you give up?
In answer he cites his own experience and that of Bill Gates.
There is nothing I can add of value to his experience.  I suggest that you read Steve’s post and use it to guide you in judging when to persist and when to move on.

Originally posted 2009-07-01 08:12:06. Republished by Blog Post Promoter