I learn something new

I was all set to write a post about the email a coworker forwarded to me this week. The email contained a link promising new thinking in change management. So I clicked on the link. Some consultant had created a PowerPoint presentation (yeah, that's new) with quotes about leading change from such current thinkers as Linus Pauling (dead 14 years), Peter Drucker (first published 1939 and dead 3 years), and anonymous (around forever).

I have nothing against those guys (great thinkers who I admire) and I like change at work as much as the next person (as my 9 companies in 22 years clearly shows), but enough with the cheesy PowerPoints. Quotes on slides with cute cartoon figures don't drive new thinking on change. Shame on the consultant who created it. (This is where I pause, jealous because the guy is probably raking in the clients and big consulting bucks right now...grrrrrrrrr!)

Anyway, I'm not going to write about that. I'm going to write about how I learned something new about Blogger comments and life.

I was pretty excited because I had a comment on a post this morning and, well, I live for comments (hint). I read the comment. It was from miumiu who politely asked me to post a link to his/her blog. Like that's going to happen without me first seeing it. I checked it out. It was a Japanese site with what looked like knock off purses for sale (the miumiu name sort of tipped me off). I didn't want to leave the comment attached to my post because no one I know who reads this would be all that interested in knock off bags except maybe N who doesn't read Japanese (I don't think).

So I looked all over the editing section of Blogger clicking madly to try to find a delete button. Nothing said "delete comment" in big bold letters so I went to Help. I found out how to moderate comments before they are posted. That didn't help me delete one that already exists. I read the link that gave me the Html coding for editing comments. That really didn't help. I looked around some more in Help and found nothing. I gave up and added my own comment saying, "uh, miumiu, no can do".

Then I spotted the little wastebasket icon next to miumiu's comment. I clicked on it. It deleted the comment. Then I had to delete my response since it no longer made sense. I clicked on the little wastebasket icon next to my comment. Done.

Lesson learned. When you want to get rid of something, look for a wastebasket.

In the News

I find the controversy about former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's book very interesting. None of the backlash I've seen has been about the veracity of what he's said in the book but, rather, if it's appropriate for him to have said it. (Press secretaries apparently have some unwritten priest and the confessional type of code of honor.)

Whether he's in the right or not, it seems to me that he's being a bit disingenuous. He claims he did not see the "lack of candor and honesty" in the president and senior administration officials while he was acting as the spokesperson for the "political propaganda campaign" that led the nation into an "unnecessary war". Come on, how can that be? It's not like Bush critics weren't saying the same thing all along.

Maybe I'm being unfair to him. After all, he's a citizen of the same country where 11% of all eligible voters believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. This even though just a few short weeks ago you couldn't turn on the news without hearing about the uproar Obama's Christian pastor caused with racist remarks from the pulpit. Instead, people believe chain emails like the one I read which said that since the names Obama and Osama (bin Laden) have many of the same letters, the two men must have the same belief system. Since we live in a county filled with idiots, how can we expect any clearer thinking from Mr. McClellan?

I don't plan to buy Scott McClellan's book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. Why contribute to the madness?

Crying Uncle

I give up.

Here's the thing. I gave it a try - over a week without coffee. This afternoon I cracked and drank some.

I drank it because I could not stand one more minute feeling how I felt. My brain has been stuffed with cotton gauze. I'm so tired I could fall asleep standing up. The first couple days weren't bad. I expected to feel awful but it's been over a week and every day was getting worse. I should be feeling way better, darn it.

If there were any positive signs like better sleep I would have hung tough. But no, that wasn't happening. So I give up.

At least for today.

Because, honestly, now that I've had two cups, I'm kind of wishing I had stopped at one. Argh.

What was I thinking?

I thought I was doing ok with the no coffee thing. Boy, was I wrong. It's been one week - enough brain cells survive for me to remember that. The first couple of days weren't horrible . Yesterday was.

I had to leave home because the coffee cravings were getting to me. I went to the mall. Since I don't usually get coffee while I'm there, I figured it would be a safe place to walk around, get some easy exercise as I'm not up to riding, and stay away from the demon coffee. Two purses and five books later, the truth is that it would have been easier (and cheaper) to drink the darn coffee.

One of the purses is a smaller cross body bag which my office pal, N, assures me is in style. (Of course. I am soooooo on trend.)

Last week I couldn't figure out why my arm was going numb. I went to the chiropractor to get an adjustment. I felt better until I slung my bag onto my shoulder. It must have weighed 25 pounds. I tried pulling non-essentials out of the purse. It then weighed 24.5 pounds. I tried the other bags in my closet. They were either too small or big enough that everything fit and I was back to weight lifting with my tender shoulder. I had to buy this new purse, which fits just enough, for my health and well being.

I bought the other one because it was cute..

Besides, as N says, with purses, you never have to worry about size.

Made it

I made it through the first week. It's been a lot of fun and I plan to keep on blogging. I'm really grateful for the support I've gotten from family and friends - knowing I had some readers (thanks, guys!) made the first week a nerve-wracking good time.

I've been on a health kick lately and that's made an impact on my book choices. I've listened to Rethinking Thin which basically said trying to lose large amounts of weight is hopeless but was still surprisingly motivating. It made me decide to join Weight Watchers to see if I could lose a few pounds knowing that I'd have some accountability. (See, I can't do anything without making sure I've got some public humiliation in store if I don't come through.)

I just started listening to In Defense of Food on the drive home tonight. I think I'll like that too because I think it's going to be scathing toward food scientists and food manufacturers.

The best has been Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster. The book is a laugh riot. Even though it gets serious in a couple places, it was worth the price just for the description of the Weight Watchers meeting Jen attended. It sounded like the Weight Watchers meetings I've attended - sad really. There's the added bonus of reading about her time on the Atkins diet, her visit to the Jenny Craig office with the huge poster of Kirstie Alley whose eyes follow Jen wherever she goes, and her interactions with her personal trainer, Barbie, who looks like, well, a Barbie. I tried to read a couple of times while I was eating. I laughed so hard, I couldn't swallow so I guess it's an effective weight loss tool too.

I've made it a few days without coffee now. If I had a functioning brain cell, I'm sure I could tell you exactly how many days it's been. This morning I thought it was going pretty well. This afternoon I hit the wall. It could have been the conference call on transparency in communicating compensation programs, but I think it was the lack of coffee.