Hail Of A Day

Supposedly (and this is a big supposedly), this thing is real.  It washed up on the shore in near Long Island New York.  Nobody knows what it is.  I’m sure it’s a hoax, but you never know.

A few funny comments I saw about this on the blog I found it on:

“Sorry everybody, I won’t nude sunbathe again.”
“Is that thing flipping us off?”
“It puts the lotion on it’s skin…”
“Should’ve basted every 30 minutes like Martha told you. Now look- the rump’s all dry.”

No, Lizzie Grubman’s still alive. This is an actual monster, some sort of rodent-like creature with a dinosaur beak. A tipster says that there is “a government animal testing facility very close by in Long Island,” but unless the government is trying to design horrible Montauk monsters that will eat IEDs and fart fire at bad Iraqis, we’re not sure why they would create such an unthinkable beast. Our guess is that it’s viral marketing for something. Ali Lohan’s new album perhaps.
Good Luck With Your Hell Demons: Dead Monster Washes Ashore in Montauk

In preparation for the upcoming olympics, Time wrote up a list of the top 100 athletes to watch. This has a quick blurb about each of them.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1819129_1819134,00.html

There has been a tremendous public outcry for the ability to reply to other users’ comments on this site (1 or 2 people said something).  So I was able to add this feature.  Here’s how it works:  If you see a comment from another user that gets your goat, or you think you can outwit them, click the Reply button in the Grey Box of their comment and reply away. 

Now, you will be able to engage other users in comments in a thread format.  This is the first step for our community towards a real forum which will be here before you know it.  Of course, you can still create your own new comment thread on each post by just typing in the big white “Leave a Reply” box at the bottom.  if you have any questions, send me an email at kevin@hailofaday.com.

Let the witty banter begin!

If you live in Texas you might find this interesting…

Wind Power Superhighway for West Texas
Written by Jaymi Heimbuch
Monday, 28 July 2008

Texas likes to do everything big, including wind farms and investing in clean energy. The states has been given the thumbs up for a $4.9 billion plan to set up transmission lines to carry the wind power generated in West Texas to surrounding urban areas.

The plan will account for enough lines to carry 18,000 MW – a serious amount of electricity. The state currently generates 5,000 MW, so these lines will leave plenty of room for growth, which T Boone Pickens will help to fill with this own wind plan.

The plan’s funding is coming (in part) from the people who will benefit from the electricity – citizens will pay and extra $3 to $4 each month on their electricity bills for he next few years, which is a pretty small price to pay for getting clean energy delivered to your home. The rest of the funding will come from other investors. Oncor, for example, filed with the Public Utility Commission to show it has its wallet on the table to help with a big chunk of the project. The lines would be up and running somewhere in the next 3 to 5 years, and after that, users would likely see some savings in their energy bills.

Since electricity costs are high, partly because of clogged transmission lines, the project really is practical, and will help out with energy costs as well as reducing pollution. Yet, the one person on the Texas Public Utilities Commission voting against the project, Julie Caruthers Parsley, said she worries this will delay other projects like the building of nuclear power plants. There’s always at least one…

Let’s just hope this project does exactly that. Should this plan come to fruition, Texas will without a doubt be the biggest contributor to wind energy, creating and distributing more than the next 14 states combined. The plan would also be the biggest investment in clean energy in US history. Everything’s bigger in Texas. With luck, more near-future investments in clean energy may soon overshadow even this project. With an investment like this comes more jobs, more trial-and-error knowledge, and much more public awareness for the need and potential of clean energy investments.
Wind Power Superhighway for West Texas | EcoGeek

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This is slight interesting….

Seven Common Dreams and What They Mean
By: Molly Mann (View Profile)
Dreams come to us in our most private moments: wrapped up in sheets, our public faces stored away for the night. The visions we see in sleep are supposed to be expressions of our individual psyches and imaginations, but most people’s dreams are based on themes that are very common. I thought my recurring dream of losing my teeth was scary and freakish until I went online to find thousands of others having the same dream, all trying to find out what the heck it could mean. Just because our dreams are shared, though, doesn’t mean they aren’t unique; the way we experience these common elements in dreaming life is what’s significant.

1. Being chased.
Candice Janco, author of the Bedside Dream Dictionary: 500 Dream Symbols and Their Meanings, describes this dream (the most common) as an indication of a felt threat in your waking life. This threat can take the form of a menacing person or a strong emotion with which you are having difficulty coping. Try to determine who or what is chasing you, where the dream takes place, and what your feelings are during the chase to understand what this dreams means to you.

2. Missing an important event because you are late.
This can indicate regret over a missed opportunity, inability to make a connection, or desire to pull oneself together. In Dream Power: How to Use Your Night Dreams to Change Your Life, Cynthia Richmond suggests asking questions of dreams in order to understand what this common symbol means to you. For example: What are you missing? Who is disappointed by the missed event? Is it only you or are there others involved?

3. Finding yourself at work or school naked.
Not surprisingly, Freud interpreted dreams about being naked as repressed sexual wishes. But the most important part of this dream is the feelings that are involved. You suddenly find yourself exposed, vulnerable, and awkward. What area of your life corresponds to that feeling? Figure this out by noting where you are, who notices you, what part of you is exposed, how people react to you, and how you yourself react to the situation.

4. Falling.
Falling indicates feelings of insecurity and lack of support. What situation have you “fallen into?” Who has “let you down?” Perhaps not surprisingly, this particular dream is most common among professional men and women. The Illustrated Dream Dictionary authors Russell Grant and Vicky Emptage note the close relationship between “falling” and “failing.” They also note that the dream’s meaning is probably not so clear-cut. Grant and Emptage ascribe dreams of falling to feelings of isolation, the sense of being without the support and affection that success cannot provide.

5. Flying.
Interestingly, Grant and Emptage interpret flying dreams as boasting about sexual powers. The important part of the dream is how you are flying; since the flying itself represents your ambitions, are you flying successfully, or trying and failing to fly as high as possible? From there, they make the leap to feelings of sexual inadequacy, but such feelings of low self-esteem could cover inadequacy of any kind, not just sexual.

6. Losing your teeth.
This theme has a number of potential meanings because of the very different significances teeth have to different people. Our teeth are representative of our appearance because our smiles are one of the first things people notice about us. Therefore, dreaming about losing your teeth can indicate insecurity about your appearance, or even fears of sexual impotence, as teeth are often used to flirt with a desired partner. We also use our teeth to bite, chew, and tear, so losing them can mean a loss of power or fear of getting old. Interestingly, this dream is most common among menopausal women, perhaps for all of the above reasons

7. Snakes.
Snakes have been a fear in dreams for quite some time. The ancient Egyptians used to make snakes out of clay and place them at the doors of their homes to frighten away nightmares, believing that snakes were bringers of bad dreams and that the clay snake would keep real ones away. Dreammoods, an online encyclopedia of dream meanings, reports that snakes signify some hidden threat. This makes sense, as most of us fear the “snake in the grass.” Like most other symbols, though, this one has many meanings that depend on context. Snakes shed their skin, so they may signify renewal and transformation. This may be a frightening experience, as most people are uncomfortable with change, or it may be very positive.

In all of our dreams, the true meanings emerge when we decide what they really mean to us. Though these dream symbols are shared among many, and we can determine general explanations for them, it is the context in which we place them that is significant. Read all you can about dream meanings to find information that may be relevant to you, but also ask questions about your dreams and how these symbols make you feel. Once you dig a little deeper, you may find answers and clarity.

Seven Common Dreams and What They Mean

I had the good fortune of getting bumped up to first class on a flight back the other day.  That always makes one a happy flier.  One thing I’ve found is that no matter how many things you give someone: upgrades, gourmet food, bars of gold, they still want more.  The woman across from me was having a hard time putting her bag in the bin above her.  The flight attendant told her that the one above her was particularly tight and she needed to move it to the next bin down.  So as she was about to do this, a snooty New England couple was just coming to their seats right behind her and saw that she wanted to put her bag in the bin above their seats and the wife lost her mind.

“Well, what are we supposed to do?  We won’t have anywhere to put our bags.  It’s not fair. Blah, blah, blah.”  All the while her husband is standing back with his arms folded and a mighty scowl etched on his face.  I decided to intervene, more out of a desire to shut the windbag up than any humanitarian reason.  If something wasn’t done soon I was afraid she would spool up and internally combust.  So I suggested that they put one of the bags in the spot that was originally over the single woman’s seat.  The husband begrudgingly started trying to get his bag in the narrow space.  It was surprisingly harder to fit than I thought.   But, he was committed.  He shoved and crammed and forced a good size bag into what apparently was a compartment for holding a pack of cigarettes.  Red faced and huffing, he turned to me as if to say, “See, you jerk, I knew this wouldn’t fit well.”  I said, “It was like wrestling a hog, huh?”

Instead of laughing or even ignoring me he said, “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never done that”.  And he wasn’t joking.  Suddenly, I’d been deftly self-labeled as some sort of hillbilly.  My two choices were to turn around and sit down or to get more sarcastic.  So I turned into Jethro.

I said with a thick accent, “Really?  You should give it a try.”

“I have no desire to.”

“Boy, you don’t know what you’re missing.”  My last response was so over the top and dripping with redneck sarcasm that I think he figured out I wasn’t actually serious.

After we all settled in, finally, we were getting ready to take off and I decided to get my laptop from the overhead bin that was over their heads.  As I pulled the laptop out, a book literally exploded out of my bag and fell into the crazy lady’s lap, opened and ready to read.  I thought, oh, here we go, they’re going to go off on me.  Fortunately, she laughed about it and said, “Is this a good book?”, so I said, “Yes, I can’t recommend it forcefully enough.”  We all laughed and I sat back down.

It’s kind of silly that people can get so worked up about the most trivial things.  Even I was too quick to get upset about her reaction to the bag fiasco.  One person can usually diffuse the whole thing by showing kindness. Sarcastic doesn’t help in the middle of a skirmish, but I suppose it helps make for better blog entries.

The other evening at my hotel, I was returning to my room after a long, leisurely meal.  I was stuffed to the gills on some good New England seafood.  As I opened the door to my room, I was not prepared for anything out of the ordinary.  I passed the bathroom and entered into the main part of my room, which had one small light on in the corner.   This light was insufficient for lighting the room and lit the room just enough to help me see where I was going.

Simultaneously, I heard a shuffling noise and saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye.  My rotund, fish stuffed belly wouldn’t allow me to turn at Jason Bourne-speed, but I whipped around pretty fast.

I saw the outline of a head and shoulders crouching down behind my bed on the other side from where I was standing.  I’d like to say that I sprung into action with an animal grunt, but I sort of let out a shriek and gasp, simultaneously.  It sounded like a tire being punctured and a coach’s whistle going off at the same time.  This horrifying noise apparently startled my would-be assailant into action, because he jumped up quickly.

For just a moment, I thought I was going to be in a life and death struggle and was looking for either a mini-bottle of vodka to smash on the table or hoping that the criminal was standing in a bucket of water so I could throw the hotel micro-hairdryer in for a violent execution.  Cause if it came down to just my fists for defense, I was toast. Any athletic ability I had was done about 4 dinner rolls back.

A strange thing happened.  I heard a similar noise by my attacker.  In the twilight of the room, I thought, “Wow, I think my attacker is wearing a maid’s outfit.  Great, I’m being attacked by a transvestite burglar.  That’s even worse.”

Fortunately, it actually was a maid.  Apparently, I scared her more than I was scared myself.  She had simply been bending down to tuck in my sheets for the night, as part of the hotel’s turn down service.

We were both so relieved that we weren’t trying to kill each other that we laughed nervously and she high-tailed it out of the room. It’s nice to know that I’m so cool under fire.  I’ve gotta go take some Muay-Thai classes or something.

The New York Times wrote an article in yesterday’s paper about the emerging trend of home grown food, such as produce grown in the backyard. Companies will come to your house, plant and tend a garden and deliver the produce to your backstep for you every week. That’s my kind of service. I’ve noticed that there are two kinds of guys in the world. The guy that enjoys working in his yard, mowing it and tending it. And the guy that enjoys watching someone mow his lawn. I’m of the latter group. So this is pretty much right up my alley.

One offshoot of this trend is several people raising a cow together and then getting a divvied up share of the meat upon slaughtering. This is cleverly called, Cowpooling. True.

This is great!  A guy is minding his own business drinking coffee at a diner when a car going 55 MPH crashes through the wall and collides into him.  After getting violently shoved across the diner  by bricks, metal, and debris he is unharmed.  The best part is how he just casually picks up his hat and puts it back on.  I think that if he’d had the Root Tooty Fresh and Fruity meal he’d have resumed eating.

Hellbridge, originally uploaded by kevinhail.

I was about to walk down this long, skinny hallway that was noticeably hot and dark, and I looked over at a sign on an electronic kiosk nearby and saw this sign that I thought said, “Hellbridge”. Kind of like, welcome to the Hellbridge! Enjoy the heat and darkness.

Turns out it was Wellbridge (the hotel’s fitness center), but look at this sign and tell me if you don’t see what I’m talking about.

Today, I’m in Boston at a conference for Strategic Decision making. Our professor is an amazing man who has been a senior adviser to 4 Presidents, starting back with Gerald Ford. When he was a young “White House Fellow” he told us an interesting anecdote which I will paraphrase…

“Before Ford gave his first State Of The Union Address he called his chief advisers out to Vail where he was spending his Christmas Vacation. We had an 8 hour meeting that was extremely heated as we plunged through issue after issue. All Ford did was ask questions. He never gave an opinion or told us what he would decide. That night at dinner, I had the good fortune of getting to sit by him. As a young man in my twenties, I was equally terrified and eager at the chance to talk to him. After some small talk, I said, “Sir, have you decided what you’ll do on the issues discussed today?” He said, “No, not yet, but whatever I decide, they’ll all go along with it, because everyone will know that I gave them their best shot at convincing me of their opinion.”

What an amazing leadership principle! Letting others voice their opinion and simply listening to them doesn’t mean that you give up the final say, it simply assures that everyone feels like they had their best chance to lay out a compelling argument. Hitting one out of the park isn’t as important as simply getting a chance to bat in the first place.

Biggest lobster ever!, originally uploaded by kevinhail.

Check out this 14 pound lobster! The table next to us ordered this monster and I asked the waitress to let me snap a photo before they whisked it off to the death gallows.

Nice to know that we were finally able to subdue the creature from Cloverfield.