Arkon Bluetooth Capable GPS Receiver Review

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Arkon Bluetooth Capable GPS Receiver Feature

• Links Bluetooth¿ enabled PDA, laptop, or smartphone for GPS navigation
• Class 2 Bluetooth¿ with 10m transmitting range
• 9″ W x 6″ H x 2 1/2″ D
• GPS software is required in addition to receiver for complete GPS functionality
• Includes rechargeable Li-Ion battery and DC adapter

Arkon Bluetooth Capable GPS Receiver Overview

Converts any ARKON mounting pedestal that features ARKON’s DUAL T mounting pattern to the mounting pattern that’s compatible with the Mio Moov 200 and Mio Moov 210 GPS devices.This adapter plate is not a complete mounting solution by itself Compatible with and designed specifically for Mio Moov 200 and Mio Moov 210 Compatible with ALL ARKON mounting pedestals having model numbers ending in KST-2, -2, ST2, TS-2, and 5PS-2 Patent Pending

Arkon Bluetooth Capable GPS Receiver Specifications

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Dec 04, 2009 11:50:06

Asus EEE PC Seashell 1105 HA

Thanks To : womens camisoles stove top espresso braun 4 cup coffee maker

I just got done reading this post and commenting on my blog-friend Jodi’s site, and I thought it was worth mentioning here.  First of all, Jodi has set some pretty impressive goals for herself for Advent, and then another blog-friend just successfully completed NaBloPoMo.  That – combined with all the talk of goal-setting on one of my favorite shows, The Biggest Loser – has me thinking about the power of setting goals.

The task-master in me loves the idea of saying, ‘I’m going to set out to do this by this date.’  My therapist told me about a technique where you sit down once a day and write out a sentence – setting forth what you hope to accomplish – something like 25 times a day, every day for a month.  It obviously isn’t magic; it’s just supposed to work because you are putting that goal at the forefront of your mind.  You become open to the opportunities that present themselves that may help you attain what you seek.  I gave up probably less than a week in, but what I was hoping for worked out anyway simply because I was trying harder to make it happen.

So I went to Adoration this week (as the radio hosts suggested), and it was kind of ridiculous.  This week has been pretty insane with doctors appointments, school volunteering and other odds and ends, that once I knelt down in the dim church I struggled so hard to stay awake, I couldn’t help but think of sitting through a boring college lecture.  I could hardly focus on what I came for.  I kind of gave up, struggled through a rosary, and then just opened my ears.  I really felt like God said, “Seriously Amy.  Go home.  Take a nap.  You can come back next week.  Same time, same place.  I’ll be here.  By the way, take better care of yourself and the answers you seek will come much easier.”  I suddenly realized that for all my “self-awareness” I’m still not ACTING on any of it.  I’m still ignoring signs that I’m overdoing things and it’s still making the people around me miserable.

On my drive home, I thought of all this talk of goal-setting and decided that I would try to take better care of myself from this Adoration until the next.  Well, that was yesterday, and today was crappier than ever.  I worried needlessly over my son about something pretty inconsequential, I spent an inordinate amount of time in my car, I started vacuuming the house before I rushed out to teach my first one-hour theatre class at a nearby private school, and when I came home I had about 30 minutes before leaving to get my son.  I stood there looking at my poor, neglected dog who hadn’t been on a walk since Monday and I was like, “What do I do with these 30 minutes?  What do I need?  Can I really discern this?  If I sit on the couch and do nothing I’ll feel horribly guilty.  Maybe I can go on a nice, relaxing walk with the dog and meet both of our needs!”  (The task-master in me LOVES multi-tasking as well.)  So, um, the walk.  I’ve decided that God was trying to send me a pretty clear message:  Someone’s little yip-yip dog came charging across the street at us.  My dog freaked out and the two started fighting and I got knocked on my rear in 30 degree weather.  Ouch.  Everyone turned out fine, but I went home with a sore hip and a pounding head, and a good sense that I had chosen wrong.

Pray for me that tomorrow is a better day.

How do you stop your heart from breaking?

Ok, I might be being a bit melodramatic.  Basically, I did what I said I would never do, and after some other revelations, the time was right to tell Mike how I have been feeling about him.  Because of certain things, I was almost positive that he would take it well, and I tried to explain it in the right way – basically that more than simple sexual chemistry (though there is some of that too!), there’s such a strong friendship bond and attraction there. I think he’s amazing and I admire him so much.  He’s probably not the best looking guy in the university, and he’s 11 years my senior, but he ticks all my boxes, if you like.

Of course, he took it maddeningly well and was really flattered, but also understood (he is a dream friend, and he’s coming to the tattoo parlour with me tomorrow).  He said that if he were available (i.e. not straight and not married), it would be me and him, and he also said that if he were available, chances are that I would not like him in the way that I do! I don’t know if that’s true – it’s all “if only”, and as much as my whole feelings for him are based on “if only” statements, there’s not much to be gained from pondering that overly much.  I understand why I look up to him so much – he’s got a loving wife and a beautiful little son, and he has common sense and decency as well as a fit body (he’s putting weight on but he carries it well).  I could go round and round in circles explaining how much he means to me, but basically whenever I’m not around him, I miss him and wish he was there. Although I don’t always feel it, I guess I’m quite an independent and capable person and sometimes that gets a little draining, and I know that he could look after me and keep me safe and it would be ok not to be 100% together around him all the time, because he understands me and he understands life.  On a very human level, we really do click.

There’s only so much I can say on the next bit, in the (extremely unlikely) event that the wrong person reads this, but Mike likes someone else more than he should.  And that someone else seems to like him a little bit too.  I could see it coming, and I’m not surprised.  Nothing is going to happen, because of marriages and families and love and loyalty, and I am 90% sure that nothing will happen.  After all, we said that these feelings will probably pass (although not quickly enough in my case) and it will all be fine – there’s no sense in ruining relationships both within the people on the course, and the families of those people.  But now my jealous streak is coming out, silly as it might be.  For two reasons: a) I saw Mike first, he’s my best friend and nobody else’s.  We connected first and we are the leadership couple (HBICs, if you like).  Nobody is coming between that.  But more importantly (this is the heartbreaking bit), b) even if I had a chance, in an alternate universe, I am not the one Mike would choose.  This isn’t news to me – he’s a straight married man.  But however much I already knew this, and however much he says “If I were gay / if you were a woman, you’re so gorgeous and amazing that I would be so into you and you would be so out of my league, you wouldn’t give me a second glance!”, it hurts me.  That now, I have this added role to make sure nothing inappropriate happens between them. Just in case the world tips on its axis and they can’t stop themselves (again, extremely unlikely), now I have to do it.  And all the time, I’m sitting here (and Mike now knows this is the case!) with my own feelings and heart and love (yeah I said it) and I have to be the rational one, all the time thinking “even if you were going to give into temptation, it wouldn’t be with me. Why can’t it be with me?!??” It’s simple sexuality, and there’s nothing I can do about it, but it breaks my heart that even in a million years, it would never happen for us.

Obviously, this makes things easier for me in the long run, because I’m not going to have to restrain myself that much because I know that it would never happen. (I have a feeling I’ve said that phrase quite a lot in this entry – I apologise!)  I’m single, a free agent, and I don’t have anything at stake.  But fuck the long run – this is me right now, and right now I am having these intense feelings and desires and although they’re totally inappropriate, I can’t help them and I can’t help the admiration that I feel, nor the fact that whenever we’re not together, I call out for him and my thoughts never stray from him.  I can’t stop being jealous of Mike and other person, because even if we are best friends, that is all we will be – never mind that that is all they will be too, and we are closer than the two of them anyway.  But why is that not enough?  Why is friendship never enough?  Why is my heart involved?  I wish I could put my heart in a box and stop it from falling apart.  I guess it makes me cherish just how strong and close our friendship is – I certainly appreciate the man he is, and that is why I admire him so much.  When I’m 35, if I have what he has, then I will consider my life a success (he’s not perfect, but he has accomplished a lot of what I seek to).  But what if I never find someone like him? I know I’m pondering what I said there’s no use in pondering, but I just wish things could be different.  I just wish that I could be rational and not have to deal with my heart pangs every time Mike flirts with someone other than me, even though it’s all harmless.  I wish he could hold me tight and promise he would never leave.  I wish a million futile things, and I don’t know what to do about it.

How do you stop your heart from breaking?

**

I am now strong, because at one time I had to be.

I held her hand as she was dying.  Now death can’t strike fear in me.

**

I am capable of loving, because I’ve lost what I had.

I have said goodbye, shed tears, been sad.

**

I can experience pleasure, because I’ve known pain.

I fought my demons, came out ahead – and sane.

**

I can turn my cheek, because I’ve been pushed around.

With each of life’s blows – myself is what I found.

**

I have been tested by Life and have seen the face of Death.

I am now who I need to be in life, with each single breath.

**

]]> http://seeingthewind.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/famous/ Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:10:59 +0000 fillforsix http://seeingthewind.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/famous/

Okay, I’m not really famous, but I was on the radio!  Okay, it was just a small little Catholic AM station, but, hey, that’s something!

I was driving home from my allergist last week listening to my local Catholic AM station.  Most of the shows are nationally syndicated, so it’s actually FM in some cities.  The show I was listening to is one of my favorites because it’s hosted by a husband and wife and the husband is a psychotherapist.  I like a lot of the other programs as well, but I particularly enjoy that when callers call in, the response is two-pronged with his psychology background and her family-life education background.  And I like that they’re married with kids.

As I listened, I quickly experienced one of those ‘I was meant to hear this’ moments.  They were talking about how childhood attachment (which specifically describes how much you trust that your parents will meet your needs) is directly related to adult mental and emotional health.  They said many studies have been done that show a link between weak childhood attachments and adult resiliency.  I absolutely think my issues with capability are the same as whether or not I am resilient.  Then Dr. P. said something that I think I’ll remember for a long time.  He said that adults who have suffered weak or non-existent attachments often experience healing through parenting their own children.

I got to the grocery store, parked, pulled out my little post-its and started taking notes!  After I heard one caller, they said the number again and I thought – what the heck – I’ll call in.  The screener picked up after two rings and I about died!  I had kind of pulled together what I wanted to say, so after I told her, and waited on hold through one more caller, I got to talk to them!  (I thought about sharing the link, but it’s just so embarrassing! My voice is all high-pitched and nervous…  I figured you could live with just a summary.)

Just like with my therapist, I felt like after I spoke for less than two minutes, they understood who I was and what I was about.  The woman first spoke to me lovingly as a mother to a mother.  She reassured me that everyone goes through the same cycle of getting up their confidence about having more children and then psyching themselves out.  She said her childhood experience was similar to mine and she suggested that I pray in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament.  (Something I have done, but not specifically for strength/discernment about having another child.)  She told me that if I left there feeling positive and empowered, then no matter how much psyching out I do, I can always draw on the memory of that experience.  (I was drawing on the sense I got after we prayed our novena last fall, but now that seems so far away!)  Then she turned it over to her husband to speak to the psychological aspect.

He was thoroughly supportive.  He said that the fact that I’ve been able to see parenting as a healing process from my childhood suggested that I’m at a good point in my journey.  He first told me to acknowledge that that healing process is very taxing (so true!), then he said to explore what is holding me back and if it was specific issues that could be worked through with the help of a therapist or supportive friends, then to go ahead and work through those.  If, on the other hand, it was just a generalized fear or anxiety then that was a temptation to be avoided with all of my strength.  He defined anxiety as the fear of doing something that would be good for us.  That made a whole lot of sense to me because, through my own reading and prayer, I had already concluded that succumbing to my anxiety is my biggest temptation.  Some have alcohol, others have gambling; I have worry.  I have been given the tools to recognize it and combat it, so to choose to succumb to it now is a matter of weakness or laziness on my part.

They ended by suggesting a… wait for it… self-help book!  You will be shocked to know that I’ve already ordered it and started reading it.  It is supposed to help me think clearly and objectively about my attachment to my parents as a child so I can have a clearer perspective and better sense of control over my ability as a parent.  Just from that short radio program, I’ve already had several ‘aha’ moments.  Since I did not trust my parents to meet my needs, I lack confidence that anyone – myself included – can meet my needs.  This explains why I used to obsess over “expert” opinions and why I’m unsure about my capabilities as a whole.  My parents played a God-like role where they told me what I needed, and they gave it to me whether I needed it or not.  This explains why I have such a tough time discerning what my needs are.  Lastly, because my parents never took the time to try to discern my needs and because of the environment of conditional love in our home, I understand the deep, deep fear I used to have that I would eventually lose the love of my husband and son and would end up alone in some psych ward.  (I have my mother to thank for all of her fatalistic stories that happened to involve psych wards.)

It was a little thing, but being a part of that radio program, and getting to hear advice from people whose advice I’ve come to respect, was a true moment of grace!

Toronto singer performer Ko is in Victoria to perform tonight at Element.  If you have never had a chance to see this guy, you must take the time.  A talented performer with an exceptional life story.  He is a genuine, humble person and he sounds good singing about blazing.

Download: Ko performs “Capable” and “Kurt Cobain” on The ZAS
Link: Ko Nation dot com

See you at the show tonight.  Go with yourself.

• Gutted ;> had to sit and watch the whole Gok Wan show “how to look good naked” with Jourdie ….I bet lots of other men pretended not to be watching too…The thing I like about it is that it shows real women…not fake airbrushed silicone bimbos…keep it up Gok ; >> and be proud ladies…very proud…beauty is in the mind and soul and the odd flaw makes you sexier. Its also refreshing to see girls who arent up themselves with a “look at me,look at me” attitude…Gorgeous but cant see it in the mirror…but by the end of the show they just begining to drop their barriers….excellent TV

• Celebrity Jungle…I think Peter Andre backhanded the clinic where Katie price just had her lips plumped up…my god she looks freaky…they are dreadful…Scareyyyyyyyyyy…..she used to be gorgeous…now….just RUFFFFF.

• Jourdans tosspot History teacher…who incidently I think is a complete plank and not fit to teach teenage girls, caught her just outside the school gates with friends at lunchtime and has given her an hours detention on Friday night…He really is a knob…she was about 2′0 over the boundary…he  is so so anal…rules are rules Mr Phillips…get a grip Mr…If she was 5 maybe but she 15 going on 21.

And Fatty Kerry Katona Shows Her Green Eyes

I’m A Celebrity: ‘Katie Price will not be queen of the jungle’, says Kerry Katona

Kerry Katona, the former winner of I’m A Celebrity, has slated Katie Price for returning to the jungle. The reality star hit out at Jordan for being “everywhere” and claimed that the glamour model will never steal her crown. She told OK! magazine: “There’s just too much Katie everywhere. “I don’t know what going into the jungle will do for Katie’s career. It’s not going to make anyone like her any more or any less. “She won’t be queen of the jungle.” However, Kerry doesn’t rule out her own return to I’m A Celebrity and says she would sign up to the new series to “pay the bills”.

The mum-of-four went on to reveal that she considers herself a member of “Team Pete” because she thought Jordan’s handling of the divorce was “disgusting”. Kerry said: “I saw a clip of Katie kick off at Pete and it’s disgusting. I love Pete, I’m Team Pete all the way, he’s a sound guy.” The 28-year-old also attacked Jordan’s relationship with Alex Reid, labelling it as a “rebound thing”. She said: “Personally I don’t think it will last, it’s definitely a rebound thing. “Mark has tried on my clothes on holiday p***ed up as a joke! I don’t know if Alex does it as a joke or not, but each to their own.”

How To Keep A Woman Happy….It’s not difficult to make a woman happy.

A man only needs to be:

• a friend
• a companion
• a lover
• a brother
• a father
• a master
• a chef
• an electrician
• a carpenter
• a plumber
• a mechanic
• a decorator
• a stylist
• a sexologist
• a gynecologist
• a psychologist
• a pest exterminator
• a psychiatrist
• a healer
• a good listener
• an organizer
• a good father
• very clean
• sympathetic
• athletic
• warm
• attentive
• gallant
• intelligent
• funny
• creative
• tender
• strong
• understanding
• tolerant
• prudent
• ambitious
• capable
• courageous
• determined
• true
• dependable
• passionate
• compassionate

WITHOUT FORGETTING TO

• give her compliments regularly
• love shopping
• be honest
• be very rich
• not stress her out
• not look at other girls

AND AT THE SAME TIME, YOU MUST ALSO

• give her lots of attention, but expect little yourself
• give her lots of time, especially time for herself
• give her lots of space, never worrying about where she goes

Never to forget:

• birthdays
• anniversaries
• arrangements she makes

HOW TO MAKE A MAN HAPPY

• Show up naked
• Bring beer

Poor Ole Roy

Didnt Tony make a stupid mistake whilst trying to Kill Roy Cropper last night??

He left a knife that he had stolen from Roys cafe,covered in his own blood…by the side of the canal….doesnt take Sherlock does it ??

X Factor Rigged ? Surely Not

You know the amazing unburstable bubble that is Jedward? Well, someone’s just tried to burst it. Big style. A mysterious X Factor “insider” has claimed that sound technicians were forced to turn down the twins’ vocals during their performance of Under Pressure… well, Ice Ice Baby, really… on Saturday’s show – or they’d get the sack. Ooooooooh, dramarama-tastic. “It is totally outrageous – and unfair to the other contestants,” says someone who sounds like they’ve got a bit of PMT. “It is cheating. The only time the sound levels on the mics were lifted was when they were rapping. I  am disgusted. A work colleague of mine was threatened with the sack before Saturday’s live show.” “Every week session singers come in to the studio to record backing tracks to some of the contestants’ songs. The twins have had backing vocals on all their live performances so far. The sound crew are always told to turn the levels of their mics down so their vocals are mostly covered by the backing singers. We are used to tweaking levels, it is part of their job but what we were asked to do on Saturday was beyond a joke.” They added, in full Points Of View mode now (ask your mum), “It makes me truly sick that we are part of this manipulation.” Unsurprisingly, the official X Factor line is that Jedward haven’t received any special treatment. “All the contestants sing live on Saturday night and are given an equal amount of technical support,” says a spokeslady. So, the plot thickens.

Talkin Of Freaky Lips

Eighties singer Pete Burns shows how smoking a cigarette can be a real drag. The former Dead or Alive frontman, who has undergone extensive plastic surgery, appeared to struggle to hold it between his pumped up lips as he lit up outside a west London café yesterday.

Freak !!!

Hippos 1—-Croc 0

Their bone-crushing jaws, 24 razor-sharp teeth and armour-plated skin are enough to ensure most animals keep their distance.  But, as our incredible pictures show, even crocodiles are no match for a herd of angry hippos. This young reptilian predator paid the price for swimming too close to a mother and her calves while they bathed. As 50 hippos gathered into a defensive circle around them, the crocodile panicked and raced over their backs in a bid to escape.

It was the last mistake he ever made. The beast’s defences were no match for the maze of angry mammals, who proved their bite is every bit as lethal as his. The spectacularly rare battle of the beasts was captured by Czech wildlife photographer Vaclav Silha. He had set up his camera on the banks of the River Nile in the Serengeti national park, Tanzania, when the unbelievable scene unfolded before him. But the 45-year-old got more than he bargained for when a colossal fight broke out between the group and a sneaky crocodile he had spotted earlier. ‘Mutual respect between these animals means fights occur very rarely,’ he said. ‘One of the only reasons you might see a conflict is if the hippos have young and they think the little ones are under threat. That’s exactly what happened here.

‘The incautious croc got too close to a female who had calves and the whole group gathered into a defensive circle around them. It was a strong message for the crook to clear off. ‘I have absolutely no idea why but the crocodile suddenly raced across the backs of the hippos. I think it might have panicked and thought it was a possible escape route. I couldn’t believe my eyes. ‘It was the worst choice the reptile could ever have made and it was definitely its last. ‘The island of hippos suddenly erupted with teeth and all I could see was the crocodile being repeatedly crushed in their huge mouths.’ Described as one of the most aggressive creatures in the animal kingdom, an adult hippo can apply several tons of pressure in a single bite. ‘Even the toughest crocodile could not have withstood being repeatedly bitten like that,’ said Mr Silha, from Prague. ‘There was no way for him to escape. I few seconds later his lifeless body slipped below the water and I didn’t see him again.’

Even More de Jour

Brooke Magnanti, the research scientist who confessed to being Belle de Jour, the £300-an-hour call girl, broke off contact with her father after she discovered he was sleeping with prostitutes.“I cannot say for certain until I speak to her, but it may have affected her. I guess she came to the realisation that prostitutes are just people, it’s not the stereotype that people often seem to think,” he said. “They are people with good hearts who have had problems in their lives and have fallen down. Often because of a bad family life or bad relationships or suffering violence, they have low self-esteem.” Miss Magnanti, 34, lifted the lid on one of the literary world’s best-kept secrets when she unmasked herself as the former prostitute behind a best-selling diary. She made a cryptic reference to her father’s use of prostitutes when she confessed to her past in a newspaper at the weekend, describing him as “a bit of a do-gooder… who helps women”, adding that if she broke the news to him in person about her secret past she might start by saying: “You know all those lovely streetwalkers that you try to help?” Mr Magnanti, a gardener who lives on the west coast of Florida, explained what his estranged daughter had meant by the comment. “After Brooke left high school and went to college, her mother and I got a divorce, which was very upsetting to me. “At that point I started to see prostitutes. There were a few that I befriended and two that I had a relationship with who even moved in with me briefly. I tried to get them to stop using drugs and stop working as prostitutes. “Drugs and prostitutes go hand in hand in most cases, though apparently in my daughter’s case it was quite the opposite, thankfully.” Mr Magnanti still professed to be shocked about his daughter’s past. “It’s broken my heart. No parent wants to hear that. I was very proud when she got her PhD. She is a very intelligent girl and I wish she had become well-known under different circumstances. I would rather things had worked out differently but it’s her life to live.” Miss Magnanti, who was born in Florida and came to England to study for a doctorate at Sheffield University, has said she turned to prostitution after moving to London, where she found she could not afford to pay her rent. Miss Magnanti’s decision go public as the author of The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, which was turned into a hit ITV series starring Billie Piper, has been supported by her colleagues at Bristol University. But her confession has outraged a former boyfriend of seven years, who was known as “The Boy” in diary. “Brooke has outed me to my family and friends without giving me any warning. She never asked if she could write about our life together and I feel humiliated,” he said.

I for one find the whole story a testimony to Ms Magnanti, she didnt sponge off the state or whinge or moan, she did something about it and she and her family should be proud of her.  Her detractors should be aware that Miss Magnanti is carrying out vital research into children’s cancers.

Sad Story Of The Day

French woman marries boyfriend one year after he died

A woman in France has married her boyfriend of six years – a year after he died.

Magali Jaskiewicz and Jonathan George had planned to wed at their local town hall in November 2008, but he was killed just two days before the ceremony in a motorcycle accident. Ms Jaskiewitz, 32, used a little-known section of the French civil code that allows posthumous marriages if all the formalities for the wedding were completed before one of the partners died, including the setting of a date. She proved to officials that she and Mr George had been living together since 2004 and that they shared a bank account. She also provided a photo of the wedding dress she had bought to wear to their wedding. Standing alone in the aisle at the town hall, she was “married” to Mr George at a ceremony attended by 30 family members and friends in the village of Dommary-Baroncourt, in eastern France, on Saturday. Around ten posthumous marriages are carried out each year in France, French interior ministry officials said.

7 Reasons Not To Mess With Children

A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, ‘When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah’.
The teacher asked, ‘What if Jonah went to hell?’
The little girl replied, ‘Then you ask him’.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child’s work.
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.
The girl replied, ‘I’m drawing God..’
The teacher paused and said, ‘But no one knows what God looks like.’
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, ‘They will in a minute.’
____________________________________________________________________________________
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds.
After explaining the commandment to ‘honour’ thy Father and thy Mother, she asked, ‘Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?’
Without missing a beat one little boy (the oldest of a family) answered, ‘Thou shall not kill.’
____________________________________________________________________________________
One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head.
She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, ‘Why are some of your hairs white, Mum?’
Her mother replied, ‘Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.’
The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, ‘Mummy, how come ALL of grandma’s hairs are white?’
___________________________________________________________________________________
The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.
‘Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, ‘There’s Jennifer, she’s a lawyer,’ or ‘That’s Michael, He’s a doctor.’
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, ‘And there’s the teacher, she’s dead.’
___________________________________________________________________________________
A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, ‘Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.’
‘Yes,’ the class said.
‘Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn’t run into my feet?’
A little fellow shouted,
‘Cause your feet ain’t empty.’
_____________________________________________________________________________________
The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray:
‘Take only ONE . God is watching.’
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies.
A child had written a note, ‘Take all you want. God is watching the apples.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The top ten most irritating phrases:

1 – At the end of the day

2 – Fairly unique

3 – I personally

4 – At this moment in time

5 – With all due respect

6 – Absolutely

7 – It’s a nightmare

8 – Shouldn’t of

9 – 24/7

10 – It’s not rocket science

And, finally, the third installment of a three-part post on my capability.  Thus far I’ve been able to link my fears to my narcissistic parents, to the way they parented me as a highly sensitive child, and the way I parent myself now as a highly sensitive adult.  My goal for this post is to inject those thoughts into the issue of the day which is the decision we’ve made to have another child.

The way I’ve been talking thus far, you may have reasonably concluded that this post is no longer relevant, and that I’m back on the fence.  That really isn’t the case.  We’re still trying because I still have faith in the answer we received to our novena last year.  The part of me that is wavering is my confidence in myself.  How I feel on any given day, does, of course, effect how gung-ho I feel about trying, but all in all we haven’t given up.

I mentioned to Jodi that I was going to bring God back into the discussion with this post, so here goes:  God knows how much I question myself.  When I had my son and the whole hospital incident happened, I had huge doubts about whether I was capable of keeping this baby alive.  My biggest fear was that he was going to choke and die.  In an attempt to bring me down a notch, the post-partum nurses even had me, my parents and my in-laws watch a video on choking to boost my confidence in being able to care for him.  So when my son was about a year old and he came down with croup in the middle of the night  – without a single symptom of sickness during the day – I felt like the time I had been dreading had come.  My husband was asleep in our bedroom with the baby monitor.  I happened to walk into the room right when I heard my son’s strangled little cry.  I ran into his bedroom, saw him on all fours, trying to cry, with thick liquid dripping from his little mouth.  I lifted him out, saw that his lips were blue and unzipped his pajamas.  His little chest was heaving so deeply, I could count every rib.  I yelled to my husband to call 911 as I yanked down his pajamas, carried him into the bathroom, and stabbed his outer thigh with his epi-pen.  By the time the paramedics arrived, he was breathing a little better but had a wicked cough.  We rode to the Children’s Hospital with adrenaline and anxiety running through all three of us.  The aftermath of that day involved apathy and selfishness from my mother, an outpouring of support from a dear friend, and a slightly higher sense of confidence because I had taken the steps I needed to to keep him alive.  Was I cured of my doubt?  Hardly.

So, when the same thing happened less than a year later, I was ready.  I had taken him to the pediatrician THREE times in the days leading up because I knew his cough was bad.  My doctor was out of town, so I saw a new woman who was a NEW doctor (who also doesn’t happen to be in the practice anymore).  She treated me like a hysterical mother and told me to feed him chicken soup.  When he had stridor again, I moved much faster and much more confidently this time.  My husband knew his role was to call 911 while I administered the epi-pen.  This time the paramedics arrived and were like, “Weren’t we here for this same thing another time?”  But this time I wasn’t shivering with fear.  I started ranting on my driveway like a madwoman:  “YES!  AND I TOOK HIM TO THE DOCTOR THREE TIMES BECAUSE I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN.  SHE FUCKING TOLD ME TO FUCKING FEED HIM CHICKEN SOUP!  I KNEW I would be in the ER tonight!!!”  They took his vitals and as we walked to the ambulance, I apologized for my foul mouth and the men just chuckled saying they had heard worse.  The aftermath of this one?  I was now confident.  I had predicted it.  I had managed it.  I had lived through it.  Whatever you need to throw my way life – BRING IT ON.

God knows what I can handle and he knows to throw me tests when I need to grow.

Here’s what my Highly Sensitive Person book says about HSPs having children:  “Children seem to thrive when their caretakers are sensitive.  And I have met many highly sensitive caretakers who were at their happiest tending to their children… I have also met some who have not had children or who limited their family to one child entirely because of their sensitivity…  No one can deny that children do greatly increase stimulation in life.  To a conscientious HSP, they are a great responsibility as well as a joy…  Sometimes it’s smart to see our limits.”  (Feel free to buy some copies of the book from Amazon in case Dr. Aron has a problem with me quoting her in my blog…)

So my overriding question is:  Do I know my limits?  The really great thing is that I can’t guarantee that I get pregnant, only God can.  And, like I said, I trust that He knows my limits.  And when He thinks those limits need to grow, He’ll test me.  So maybe my job now is to stop questioning.  Stop analyzing my capabilities.  And start trusting.

First of all, thank you for your outpouring of support!  Even though these are virtual relationships, they are very much real and I truly take to heart what everyone has to say.

Here’s my second installment.  How my fears of being incapable tie into my newfound discovery that I am a highly sensitive person (HSP).  Surely you don’t think I traveled this leg of the journey without the help of a self-help book, right?  Now, I’m still finishing this book, (I didn’t gobble it up like I did The Highly Sensitive Child) but I’ve read enough to understand that up until now I have considered my sensitivity to be a major flaw – mostly because I didn’t realize that my problem is just that I’m sensitive.  To simplify things, I will clump together my sensitive personality traits into two categories:  those dealing with risk-taking and those dealing with my sensitive nervous system.

First of all, the book talks a lot about HSP’s having a strong ‘pause-to-check’ system.  Meaning we don’t dive into anything without first taking in thousands of pieces of information and analyzing them for possible danger.  The first six months my son was at The Little Gym, he was content to sit in a corner and just watch all of the other children as they climbed, tumbled, rolled and explored the padded equipment.  As a mother, this means I have to walk a fine line between encouraging him to take risks and giving him permission to observe and analyze before entering in on his own terms.  Based on my last post, I’m sure you can guess what my mother did for me.  With her deep need to be needed, she was content to let me cling to her leg instead of joining the other kids.  Thankfully as I grew older, I decided to take risks on my own so I could weigh for myself the benefits and drawbacks.  The main problem was that when I suffered a consequence of having taken a risk, I was on my own in dealing with it.  My mother’s general opinion was, ‘This is what you chose.  I would never have chosen something that took you away from the family.  So deal.’  For example when my boyfriend (now husband) and I decided to attend different colleges, I was proud of myself for not following him.  I needed to go to a different school because of my major.  I took a risk, but I was devastated.  The main reaction I remember from my mother was the equivalent of an eye roll and shoulder shrug.  She didn’t even want me to take the risk of living away from home on campus.

So without any kind of parental support or encouragement, my choices seemed black or white.  Play it safe and follow Mom and Dad forever, or take some risks but do it completely on your own.  Consequently, the book helped me learn that I don’t know how to parent my adult self.  I don’t listen when my body is telling me that I’m getting overwhelmed.  Worse, I beat myself up for it.  I feel weak because I don’t take more risks in life.  For example: traveling.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy traveling.  Under highly controlled circumstances.  With lots of pre-planning.  There is so much potential for things to go wrong and, if you remember this, then you’ll get that trips are even harder because in my family each trip was going to be the best ever.  Throw into the mix all of the new sights, sounds, smells that come along with living somewhere else for a week and I’m left with a recipe for a major meltdown.

Now, the second category:  my sensitive nervous system.  Apparently 1 in 5 of us was born with a highly sensitive nervous system.  Every little thing we take in through our senses has to be analyzed and put into little compartments in our brain.  The author talks a lot about being over-stimulated and over-aroused.  That feeling that you really just need some quiet or you want to be back in a familiar place.  I learned about this through my son before I ever noticed it in myself.  From even a very young age I could see him ’shut down’ after a series of errands, and knew that he would perk up once we got home and he had some quiet time in his room.  When I get over-stimulated, however, I’m not nearly as generous.  (Remember, it was:  Take risks or forever be shackled to a life of co-dependency with my parents.)  So, I get angry with myself.  (‘You’ve been in this store for maybe 20 minutes!  How can you be starting to get a headache already?  You haven’t even looked at that back section yet!  What are you gonna do?  Go home and lay on the couch like with your hand on your forehead Blanche DuBois-style?  Ignore how you feel!’)  So I ignore it.  Then I feel awful and I start lashing out.  My patience is gone and I am to be avoided.

Hopefully through this new awareness of my sensitivity – and the fact that my parents are narcissists, which is practically at the opposite end of the spectrum – I can learn how to make better and more loving choices for myself.  Including choosing to believe that I am capable of raising another child.  Especially if I parent myself better than my parents did.

Before I dive into the second part of my three-part series, I felt I had to add a small addendum to my previous post.

There is no way I can leave behind a discussion about my parents’ role in my fear of being incapable without mentioning the impact they currently have on me.  While there has been a huge breakaway from them and their influences, I do still talk to them and they do only live about 20 minutes from me.  I have learned to put up thick walls to their hurtful comments, but, unfortunately, I am not deaf to them.

Despite the fact that, if asked right now, my mother would say I’m a wonderful mother, we both know that that isn’t really what she thinks.  She is a typical narcissist in that she is unable to veil her criticism in the form of well-intentioned advice.  It comes out as flat out criticism.  When my son was an infant and a fussy sleeper, she told me it was because I tip-toed around him too much and didn’t let him become adjusted to sounds like dishes being washed.  (My HSC book would disagree with her.  He was born sensitive.  I didn’t make him that way.)  When my mother heard about this, not only was she devoid of any sort of sympathy, she insisted she would NEVER have forced us girls to do something we didn’t want to in the water.  When we returned home from the ER at the children’s hospital because I had administered my son’s epi-pen for a bout of croup, my mother came way too close to blaming me for his “near-death” experience.  Once again without any sympathy whatsoever, she simply listed for me all of the statistics on how frequently children die of asphyxiation.  Almost as a threat to me to do what I could to keep him alive.

It is no secret that my mother needs my son WAY more than she needs me.  She used to lean on him in an unhealthy way – using him as an escape from the black vortex created by my heroin-addicted youngest sister.  We finally had a heart-to-heart in which I told her I needed her to need him less, and that I was going to do what I needed to do to protect him.  Her doubt about my abilities as a mother came up and I flat out said, “I realize I may do things differently than you did as a mother.  (She doesn’t believe in things like bedtimes and responsibilities.)  But don’t you think he’s happy?”  I kid you not, she grimaced and kind of shrugged one shoulder in response.  Uh, that would be a no.

With my own mother having such deep-seated doubts about my capabilities (stemming, of course, from her own insatiable need to be needed), it just means I have to work that much harder to convince myself that I am capable.

For the first 21 years of my life I was inside the same box as most of the world population. I know the metaphor stuck in a box is overused and cliche, but forgive me for not having an extensive knowledge in analogies and metaphors.

When I say stuck in a box I mean that you are unaware of your surroundings. I bet you’re saying right now “No Tom! I am aware of my surroundings. I can clearly see everything thats going on in my life right now from the weather to sound of the heater clicking on.”  This is not what I mean. Every capable human being short of clinically retarded is aware of their basic surroundings. I am talking about being alert to the fact that you are aware. Make sense?

Have you ever had a moment when you are aware of your surroundings, thoughts, and other nonsense, but then all of sudden something picks up a duplicate you and sets you beside yourself. At that moment you are realizing that you are observing, thinking, being.

It’s hard for me to explain exactly what I am attempting to get  across here in this blurb. It’s like my thoughts are in Spanish, and to some degree I understand them, but it’s hard for me to convey. The more I analyze my thoughts they become clearer, but then I can’t put them into simple text for you to read. For me it’s like trying to type out a painting. It works in canvas, but in any other means it becomes nonsense.

Wait I may have it (lets try this).

People see the physical world, and they take it in as life. The physical world is existence. it is true. It is real. I completely grasp our physical world, but there is a mental world that is rarely explored. It’s larger than our physical world. I found myself recently knocking on the door of this mental metaphysical world. It’s like there is an information kiosk, but they have no maps. You have to figure it yourself.

I’m still sick, but my son’s back at school so that provides me with the opportunity to blog sans guilt.  I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my post Acknowledgment.  So I thought I’d write a three-part post exploring this struggle I have with feeling capable.  In this post, I plan to write about my capability within the framework of my narcissistic parents.  In the next, I’ll consider it in light of my recent discovery that I’m a highly sensitive person.  And, lastly, I’ll try to inject those ramblings into the whole baby #2 discussion.

You won’t be surprised to know that a lot of what I know about narcissism comes from a self-help book called Children of the Self-Absorbed:  A Grownup’s Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents.  (Ha!  I love that when I look at Amazon it mentions other books people bought with it and I’m like ‘Hey!  I’ve read those!’)  I’ve oversimplified my explanation of narcissism some, so for the sake of this post, I’ll share that the book says in order to identify whether your parent has DNP (destructive narcissistic pattern) you have to look at nine different categories:  attention needs, admiration needs, having to be considered unique and special, lack of empathy, extensions of self, grandiosity, shallow emotions, exploitation of others, and emotional abusiveness.  I mention these to help you understand that my stunted emotional growth is not simply a matter of the fact that they lacked (and lack) empathy – as I talked about in Practice.  My parents have deep psychological needs (surely stemming from their own childhood) that required us children to be A LOT for them.

My whole identity for my first twenty-something years revolved around being a perfectionistic, obedient daughter who predicted and provided whatever it was my parents needed in order to meet their demands for admiration, attention, and self-worth.  The really dysfunctional thing is that it wasn’t as if I was doing it as my own, unique, capable person, I was doing it as an extension of my parents.  They needed me to need them so badly, that starting as young as I can remember, it has been next to impossible to distinguish where they end and I begin.  Any sort of attempt at breaking that bond has been met with rage, pouting, name-calling, the silent treatment, you name it.  And I don’t mean wild-streak, rebellious, ‘I’m gonna show them!’ attempts.  I mean having a boyfriend, going to college, getting married, starting my own family.  With an entire identity built upon the objective of pleasing them, you can imagine the unnecessary guilt I had to unload on my therapist for reaching milestones that most young adults are commended for.

Since I mentioned it, let’s branch in another direction:  the silent-treatment.  The silent-treatment is the gold standard for showing someone in my family that you disapprove.  I don’t mean, ‘I’m not talking to her until dinnertime,’ I mean ‘It’s been a week since she’s said a word to me.  I guess I’ll cave and speak first.  Man, it sucks to lose.’  My therapist wisely pointed out that the silent-treatment is a way of withdrawing love.  It is especially harmful to young children.  A spanking followed by a hug can even be easier to handle because the child understands, ‘I was bad, but they still love me.’  The silent-treatment, which can last for what seems like an eternity to a small child, usually ends with something mundane like, ‘Go tell your sister dinner is ready.’  Okay??  So it’s over now?  Do you still hate me?  This translates into a family dictate that nobody wants:  Love in this house is conditional.  If you please me, you are loved.  If you displease me, you are not loved.  Telling me when times are good that you love me, rings hollow when you choose to ignore me or call me a bitch when times are bad.

So how does this tie in to my ingrained fears of not being capable?  I just recently chose to stick to the hard-fought path to independence.  Just within the last few years of my life have I really thought about what I want and what I need.  After walking the tightrope of trying to constantly please my fickle parents (and often suffering the consequences when I would fail), I lack confidence in my ability to truly choose what is right for me.  I lived in a household with a highly precarious dynamic.  My fear that I will make a bad choice and send my current life into a downward spiral is ever-present.  It’s easy for people on the outside to say, ‘You have a beautiful family, a nice house, a good life!  Of course you are capable!’  What they don’t know is that it took me two years of therapy and a renewed relationship with God for me to even begin to believe that.

Hoy no quiero oir gritar.

Adoro a esta mujer.

Soy capaz…

I started this post on Monday, but didn’t get time to finish it. It’s now Sunday! I don’t know where my weeks are going. I keep snatching five, ten minutes or so to write, but it takes me half that time to work out where I was before. I keep wishing I could write more, but other things get in the way. I guess more accurately I could say another person gets in the way. My bloke is still not too keen on me spending time on here and that means I usually have to fit it in when he’s not around.

At Creative Remedies on Monday we were asked to write. To write and to keep writing whatever came into our heads for three minutes. I wrote something private, something which I had thought about writing on here for a while. My thoughts were about how I come across at Creative Remedies. I behave like I used to at work and at uni. Friendly, helpful, bright, but hiding how I actually feel. There is a front there that hides the illness. An act. I feel like I have two halves. One outgoing and intelligent, the other ill and flawed. One bright, one dark.

I soon wished I hadn’t have written this. The next step of the exercise was to place our work in a pile on the table. Each one would be passed onto someone else who would then highlight the bits they most liked. The idea was to give us suggestions of how we could turn our stream of conciousness into something a little more creative. I didn’t want to share these inner thoughts. I didn’t want to let anyone in and break down the front. It was made even worse because my notebook is distinctive so whoever got it would know it was mine.

I felt almost sick as I handed over my book. I was given someone else’s piece. Theirs was fairly personal too, but completely anonymous and it gave me no real idea of the context. It didn’t let me in like mine would let someone else in. I was jealous of the guarded nature of their writing.

I could see who had mine. They were writing fervently on my piece. I worried about what they thought. They hesitated to pass it back still writing away. She glanced over at me and mouthed the words “is this yours?”. I had to reluctantly nod as she brought it over to me. Everyone else was scrabbling away at the pile trying to find their own.

I looked at her words. They were kind and expressive, but I still felt a little violated. She had liked my writing, yet I still felt uneasy. She was worried for me. She could feel the sadness and emotion in my words and wanted to comfort me. She later asked me if I was okay. It felt strange and I wasn’t comfortable with her concern. I don’t know that I deserve it.

I know she will never see me in the same light. She is the one person that knows the façade isn’t real. She will look at me with suspicion wondering what is behind the act. Wondering how I really am. I feel like I’ve been found out.

It’s weird how I can write here, knowing anyone could read this, yet I am so uncomfortable. It’s weird how I’m actually considering dropping my anonymity on this blog, yet I didn’t want to drop the act with one person. How would I feel if the same person came along and read all of this? I don’t know.

I don’t know how I really feel about these two sides. I guess in some ways the act shows I am making progress. I can hold myself together in front of people now. I can portray a sense of capability and confidence.  I can actually do things and at times I even enjoy them. There have been times in the past year or so when there was no way I could hide anything and enjoyment was a foreign concept. I was a mess, unwell and visibly so. That’s not true any more.

Yet, I am not sure it’s a good thing. I wasn’t well a year ago when I was first admitted to The Priory and I behaved the same in therapy. I was the sensible, level headed, friendly one. I spent more time giving others advice than I did talking about myself. I was the helpful, confident person. People even wondered why I was there. I seemed fine. I wasn’t.

I don’t really like the act. I don’t like its return. I have worked so hard in therapy to break it down. To be more open and honest about how I feel. To be more true to myself. For the therapists at The Priory, I was making progress when I started to talk about myself. I was chastised when I went into helpful, clever mode. I wonder if I should chastise myself when I act like this now.

At times I wonder if the act was what broke me in the first place. The act was a problem before, back when I was at work. I kept going, working harder and harder to hide how I felt. At times fuelled by unidentified hypomania, at other times fuelled by denied depression. I didn’t want to admit I couldn’t cope. I didn’t want to fail. I wanted to be confident and capable and not at mercy of emotions or illness. I drove myself into the ground until I snapped and my world fell apart.

I am worried I will do that again. I have been doing new things and taking on new projects over the past few weeks. I have ideas, I want to do things, I want to be successful. It’s a familiar feeling. My life has been full of periods where I take on new things and projects, but more often than not I take on too much and cannot cope. With hindsight some of these periods can be clearly attributed to hypomania, but others I am less sure. I wonder if it is just my personality. I don’t want to immediately see everything as something to be pathologised, yet I also want to learn from the past. I need to recognise the patterns and change them. I don’t want to keep crashing head first.

I don’t know what my mood is doing at the moment. People ask me how I am and I don’t know how to answer. I’m depressed, yet am I? Yes, the signs of depression are there. I feel numb, empty, suicidal. Negative thoughts, anxiety, paranoia too. The physical signs are out as well. Headaches, insomnia, tiredness. It all points to depression, but it’s not the whole picture. I am excited about new projects, interested in things (albeit not everything), doing stuff. Where is the anhedonia? I don’t think it’s a mixed state either though. Not in a classic way. I am not really sleeping, but I am tired with it. My thoughts race, but no more than is really usual for me. I am a little on the snappy, agitated, quick-to-anger side, but not physically agitated or excessively so. I don’t feel like things are going too fast. yet. I wish my mind would make it’s mind up. I feel almost lost within my mood.

Going back to the topic of anonymity and this blog. I don’t really want to be anonymous any more. I am not ashamed of my illness and I think it’s so important people are open and honest about these things. We can’t break down stigma if we’re too afraid to talk openly about mental health.

I am not even worried about employers googling me. I have no intention to leave my company any time soon. Even if I was looking for a new job, if a company didn’t want to employ me after reading this then I wouldn’t want to work for them anyway. This may limit my career in future, but it’s something I’m willing to take the risk on.

There is a problem though and it’s my family. I am not sure I am willing for them to know how I really feel. I don’t want them to worry. I know my partner reads this already, but with my parents I am even more economical with the truth. I have never been open with them and I’m not sure I’m ready to start. I guess it is doubtful they will ever google me and find this anyway, but it is still a risk.

I realised though recently it’s not even that which is the main problem. It’s actually the stuff about my sexuality I’m most scared about. I thought I was comfortable with it. I thought I’d worked through everything a few years ago when I really went through a crisis of identity. I haven’t. I am fine with coming out knowing the people I am talking to are open minded, but I am not so sure about the rest of the world. More specific I’m not so sure about those closer to me. It doesn’t hurt if some stranger says something horrible, but if it’s someone I know it’s different. I know my mother can be quite homophobic and I suspect her opinions on bisexuality are even worse. I don’t want her to find out. I have always said that she doesn’t need to know and what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I suspect other members of my family would be even worse. I just don’t think I can face it.

I realised the other day that I’m not as comfortable as I’d like with my sexuality in general. The other night I was at the pub with a friend and somehow we ended up talking about gay couples. I mentioned a girl I know who used to be in a gay couple and she now goes out with a bloke. She made some comment about him “turning her” and I pointed out that she could be bisexual. She seemed a little taken aback by that and I didn’t know what to say really. It could have been the time to be honest myself, yet I was uneasy with her reaction. I wish I was comfortable enough to be completely “out”, but I guess I’m still not there.

I guess I could always go back and censor myself. I could make any mention of my sexuality private and I’d be safe, yet I don’t want to. I guess I could throw caution to the wind, face my fears and all of that, but I’m not sure I can do. I don’t know what to do.

Live option – open for debate and vote

In a monarchy the king makes all the decisions. In a democracy the majority makes all the decisions.  Now decisions are something that somebody chooses or makes up his or her mind about, after considering it and other possible choices. But how can anyone learn to make good decisions if they never get to act on their decisions?

For thousands of years we have assumed that people need to be told what to do. Governments do not encourage people to make good decisions, they only demand obedience. Reading the discussions here at Citizen Mundi I think its clear that on at least one issue everyone here disagrees with at least one law. I think we all agree a king and even a majority can make bad laws.

We all agree that what we have now does not work well. Everyone is making bad decisions. I challenge your assumptions. Number 11. of the Mission Statement says: To create a community capable of making decisions and taking positions with regard to internal and internal phenomena on a consistent basis. But if we’re forced to live by somebody else’s rule, what is the incentive?

I think that we at Citizen Mundi should clearly state that all interactions among individuals should be voluntary, allowing all the right to make decisions and than act on them.

free “capable” download: “capable by ko“

Ko dropped his debut album Let’s Blaze in August 2009 and just completed his Canadian tour with Snoop Dogg. The single has taken over the CA airways and the new video for his first single “Capable” has been featured on AOL. Also check out his cover of TI’s “No Matter What”

New Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpeEaAGdhCY
Free “Capable” Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?ezmmzcmwzyi

Life appears always fully present . . .

a brief weary smile, a twitch of the

hand, the fugitive pour of sun

through clouds. And not a tool, save

the camera, is capable of registering

such complex ephemeral responses,

and expressing the full majesty of

the moment. The impressionists tried

in vain to achieve the notation.

For, consciously or unconsciously, what they were striving to demonstrate

with their effects of light was the truth of moments; impressionism has ever

sought to fix the wonder of the here, the now. But the momentary effects of

lighting escaped them while they were busy analyzing; and their ‘impression’

remains usually a series of impressions superimposed one upon the other.

Stieglitz was better guided. He went directly to the instrument made for him. 

express, full, majesty,

Paul Leopold Rosenfeld

(1890 – 1946)

American Journalist & Music Critic

Intuitive Leadership is a term that has come into vogue only recently. In fact, tough-minded male executives have confessed to using intuition in their decision-making. Intuitive leadership is more than simply old-style leadership with some intuition added in to guide the corporate decision. It is leadership that takes into account both (a) the executives’ appreciation of their inner resources that are available but often not used and (b) the changes in institutions and society that are accompanying the “awakening” of employees and the public at large. The term “awakening” is used to describe the general phenomenon whereby people are becoming aware that they no longer have to accept their adopted beliefs, beliefs that they developed or accepted throughout most of their lives. These beliefs can include belief in the inderiority of certain ethnic or gender groups, beliefs in the sacrosanctity of economic customs and business practices (even if they are demonstrably not good for people or the planet), belief in powerlessness before the “big system,” or belief in the limited extent of one’s own ability to create what one wants.

In view of these changes, what is sound business for the future? What do these changes mean to business people? Of one thing we can be sure: business life will be replete with challenges. Some of these challenges will stem from the global dilemmas, with growing recognition of the role business has unwittingly played in accelerating modern society’s race towards self-destruction. Some of these challenges will stem from the changing attitudes of employees and the general public—the customers. The new environment for business will emphasize innovation and will be highly competitive. To prosper in such an environment, a business firm will need to attract and hold its most creative people. To do that, businesses will have to provide a work environment that fosters creativity development.

Developing intuitive leadership in the future will not be a luxury or a passing fad; it will be the heart of business. The challenges will be great. It will be necessary to deal effectively with the increasing complexity, interconnectedness, and systematic nature of the economic system. There is both good news and bad news. The bad news is that there will be persistent problems of mediocrity, debt, trade balance, global dilemmas, and worker morale. The good news is that we have inner resources we haven’t been using—untapped resources that are quite capable of dealing with these problems.

Thus “intuition” is not just a new gimmick in management decision making. Intuition is a code word for a necessary transformation of business—indeed, of global society.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight

I saw that graffitied on a board while I was walking across campus earlier today.  I wasn’t sure if it was someone’s original thought, or if it had been written by someone else (a quick Google search suggests it might be attributed to writer Frances Mayes, perhaps most famous for her memoir Under the Tuscan Sun which was later adapted into a film).  Regardless of who said, thought it, or felt inspired to write it, I was very happy to see the quote.  It resonated with me instantly.  Looking on it now, it almost seems silly, but at the time I felt one of those wonderful little buzzy feelings.  Do you have those?  The ones where you feel like you’ve stumbled upon something quite important and you should probably write it down lest you forget it?

Well I’m writing it down.

I think, maybe, I had this little buzzy feeling because the image of the world cracking open like some kind of ripe coconut filled with pinata candy made me feel hope.  It’s almost indescribable for me, but I’ll try my best.  It’s like this: I wake up some mornings and think “Wow, if I wanted to I could drive to New York today.  If I wanted to do, I could go out and buy $200 worth of mint chocolate chip ice cream.  If I really wanted to, I could sit down and write an entire novel.  Learn to dance.  Learn to cook (properly).  Memorize twenty monologues.”  And the list goes on.  All of that is WITHIN my power.  My potential energy is sufficient to accomplish all of that.  Now of course, some of the things on that list would make no logical sense.  But it doesn’t matter.  Sometimes, it’s best not to categorize what YOU are capable of logically.  Because it’s amazing how many barriers you can put in your own way.

Some mornings, when I wake up, I am completely conscious of the present moment, and I think to myself: “You are fully capable of doing something incredible with your life.  But no one is going to do it for you.”  And then I go back to my merry business, ignoring the big possibilities, losing myself in the mundane, scared of my own potential for success (it’s that success word again!)

So to go back to that original quote, why did I find it so inspiring?  Because it reaffirmed in my mind the notion that anything is possible for those who risk.  Tomorrow, I might just decide to take the hard route instead of the easy route, and see where it lands me.  I may push myself in something totally trivial, like writing down at least 5 positive experiences that day, or I might even engage something ambitious, like beginning training to run a marathon.  My point is merely that the best actor in the world, the best athlete in the world, the richest person in the world, the most influential philanthropist, the most holy teacher, would be nothing, nothing at all in the grand scheme of the universe, if they had not woken up one morning and decided, “This is the day that has been given to me, and it is up to me to make the most of it.”

The world cracks open for those willing to take a risk.  Take a risk.  Enjoy the milk of sweet success.

The servant leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. This conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions.

Leaders engaged in building learning organizations naturally feel part of a larger purpose that goes beyond their organizations. They are part of changing the way businesses conviction that their efforts will produce more productive organizations, capable of achieving higher levels of organizational success and personal satisfaction than more traditional organizations.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight

Accurate cost data are required for the successful implementation of the integrated physical distribution management concept using total cost analysis, for the management and control of physical distribution operations, and to aid in setting selling prices and in justifying price differentials.

As the cost of physical distribution increases, the need for accurate accounting for the costs becomes increasingly critical. Since the physical distribution function is relatively more energy intensive and labor intensive than other areas of the firm, its ratio of costs to total company costs has been steadily increasing. Efficient and effective distribution policies cannot be determined until the costs related to separate functional areas and their interaction are made available to distribution decision makers.

The quality of the accounting data will influence management’s ability to exploit new markets, take advantage of innovative transportation systems, make changes in packaging, choose between common carriers and private trucking, increase deliveries or increase inventories, and determine to what extent the order-processing system should be automated.

The accounting system must be capable of providing information to answer the following questions:

a)        What are the impacts of physical distribution costs on contribution by product, by territory, by customer, and by salesperson?

b)        What are the costs associated with providing additional levels of customer service? What trade-offs are necessary and what are the incremental benefits or losses?

c)        What is the optimal amount of inventory? How sensitive is the inventory level to changes in warehousing patterns or to changes in customer service levels? How much does it cost to hold inventory?

d)        What mix of transportation modes and carriers should be used?

e)        How many field warehouses should be used and where should they be located?

f)          How many production set-ups are required? Which plants will be used to produce each product?

g)        To what extent should the order-processing system be automated?

To answer these and other questions requires knowledge of the costs and revenues that will change if the physical distribution system changes. That is, determination of a product’s contribution should be based on how corporate revenues, expenses, and hence profitability would change if the product line were dropped. Any costs or revenues that are unaffected by the decision are irrelevant to the problem. For example, a relevant cost woul be public warehouse handling charges associated with a product’s sales; a non-relevant cost would be the overhead costs associated with the firm’s private trucking fleet.

Implementation of this approach to deceision making is severely hampered by the lack of availability of the right accounting data or the inability to use the data when they are available. The best and most sophisticated models are only as good as the accounting input, and a number of recent studies attest to the gross inadequacies of distribution cost data.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight