Yes, brager.
YES, MOTHER FUCKER!
If only some D-line players like Kadesch had that intensity, real pussies.

I’m doing a core lift this afternoon, and a leg lift tomorrow morning for the first time since spraining my ankle. I’m gonna take it slow, and not be too intense on it.

The core workout is the same as I posted on 12/15. It takes a long time, but it really works on your stabilizing muscles.

Also, I’ve been talking shit to the guys on Carleton. We have to run all over them when we play them. They lost their douscheist player, but we still have ours.

Cranked a leg lift. 6×5 of deadlift, dynamic lunges and step ups, with some core stuff at the end. As per art’s suggestion (and because the low rep high weight exercises necessitate longer rests) i tried throwing in some upper body stuff (mostly pull ups and dips) in between the deadlifts. It was brutal. If you’re looking for a way to add a level of difficulty/intensity to your lifts without sacrificing your ability to complete them i would recommend it, but only when your doing a lift that requires substantial rest. For example, if you’re doing 2 sets of 25 with 30 seconds rest, don’t do anything in between the sets, because you probably need the rest.

Also up to 192 lbs. Boosh.

Rehabbing ankle today, for the first time.

Also, doing a core workout, which I will post to the blog later today. Word.

Net Promoter Score™ is an effective and efficient process to measure the health of your customer relationship. Used correctly, Net Promoter Score can be the driver of superior business performance.  But how is the other team doing?  What is the health of your competitors’ customer relationships?

Business is a very competitive “sport”. Like any pro sports team, businesses are constantly striving to find the competitive edge that will move the ball forward, put the puck in the net, or drop another basket. Pro sports teams have professional scouts checking on the competition throughout the season. They look for weaknesses in the competitive teams that can be exploited for the benefit of their own team. In business we don’t have scouts, but we do have processes like Net Promoter Score that can identify the strengths and weaknesses of the competition. This will help generate customer acquisition, improve retention, grow market share and drive bottom line profits. In short, Net Promoter Score can help you hit the ball out of the park. Just take a look at Apple, a company dedicated to Net Promoter Score that also hits a lot of home runs.

Using Net Promoter Score will identify how many of your customers are Promoters and how many are Detractors. But, do you know how many Promoters your competitor has? How likely are your competitor’s customers to recommend? What are the NPS® verbatim responses telling you about your competitor’s organization, structure and service delivery? Remember that your Detractors will tell you how to fix your business. Consider how much competitive intelligence you’ll get by listening to your competitor’s Detractors. You might just find that golden nugget of information that can turn the game in your favor.

Dig a little deeper into your competitor’s Net Promoter Score. Break it down by geography, demographics, or user segments. You may find that your competitor looks strong on the surface, but analyzing their Net Promoter Score could expose a weak underbelly that you can take advantage of.  Just imagine what you could do if you discovered that your key competitor has a very high number of Detractors on the west coast who are female, under the age of 35 years, single, university educated and hate  their current service provider’s customer service. Perhaps your competitor’s customers on the east coast are less likely to recommend the longer they use their product or service. With this kind of scouting information, you’d be able to call the play that drives right through the defensive line and scores a touchdown. You’d be the hero.

Gathering a competitive Net Promoter Score can be accomplished using telephone or online data collection methodologies. It’s all legal and above board and part of a good competitive intelligence program.  Finding the competitor’s customers might the toughest part of the project. Data collection companies can source customer contact information using a huge array of brokered lists and online panels, but working with a qualified data collection company is critical to ensure the data collected is valid and trustworthy. Do not depend on your own field team or sales force to provide competitive NPS information since you need data that is unbiased and unfiltered.

Still not convinced that you need to track your competitor’s Net Promoter Score? Well, what if they are tracking your score? What would they uncover by listening to your Detractors and how would they exploit this information?  Ever wonder how the competition comes up with that new product, unique service or killer application?  Maybe they did a little scouting on your customers and found a hole in your defense.

Remember! The best defense is a strong offense. Use Net Promoter Score as your strongest offensive strategy.

Keith Chapin is a Certified Net Promoter® Associate and Consultant with over 35 years of experience in research, marketing and customer insights. He can be reached at kchapin@sympatico.ca.

Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

The snow is coming down gently here in Minnesota. The weather has finally cooled all the way off to allow for accumulations of snow, but that does not mean the memories of summer have floated down river like the temperatures.

Trees along the St. Croix National Scenic River Way offer a calming nature to any causual observer.

This summer I meandered my way along the St. Croix National Scenic River Way with a close friend of mine. A three-day canoe trip started south of Taylor’s Falls and went to the top end of Stillwater. As I reflect back on the trip, I think of many fond memories. From the drive through the Twin Cities to get there and then the set of camp was just the start to the memories. Then there was the drive down to the take out which proved very interesting in the dark. The transfer of the canoe to my car followed by heading to the campsite for the night was a new challenge. It was a late night that first night as Thom and I had not seen each other for going on two years. That just meant that we did not get out on the river until about 1pm that next day. Thankfully, we only had to go a shorter distance that day to our next campsite on the river.

Then there was the first lunch on the river–Pita Pizzas!

When traveling in the "wilderness" what does one take for meals? This stop for lunch included Pita Pizzas.

Being Thom and I met at Youth Dynamics, a non profit Christian Adventure Based program in Washington State, we borrowed their menu plan for our trip. Thanks goes out to Sarah Ristow for the menus! Over lunch, Thom and I shared many reflections on our time at YD and since then. At the end of the meal, we both used the facilities at that location, as it was a boat launch area. Thom went back to the canoe before me! As I was coming back to that area, I could not help but get this image of Thom standing by the canoe!

After lunch on the St. Croix River, one can be put into a contemplative mood quite easily.

After lunch on the St. Croix River, one can be put into a contemplative mood quite easily. I took it because it caused me to take the time to reflect on my own situation and desires while on the river. After all, the river’s calmness and tranquility helped both Thom and I to relax, reflect, and rejuvenate.

That night we camped along the river again. I tried to get sunset imagery but we were in a narrower spot on the river and it did not work the best. However, the following morning the water was like glass with the mist rising from it. I was up before Thom and decided to get some images. While a goal of mine was to get on the river for sunrise, it did not happen. That would be another day.

Not knowing what we would encounter in that wildlife area, we somewhat just took our time through it. It was truly a neat area with lots of waterfowl throughout it. At one point, we were in a narrow and heavily down tree area. We came to an area where it was how are we going to get the canoe through this. The Lord provided a way to fit the canoe through an arch in the tree but not with us in the canoe. Thankfully, we made it through without backtracking and we were blessed with our time there. Thanks to Thom for paddling me through the area while I tried to capture images of the Bald Eagles, Egrets, Blue Heron and more.

This Great White Egret was interesting to watch from the canoe on the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway inside of the St. Croix Islands Wildlife Area.

By the second night, I was quite relaxed and thankful for the trip. I remember saying how I needed to do this more often–that is get out and into the wilderness. Thom felt that way, too! That led to the next discussion of when could we do this again. While that trip is yet to be planned, we both want to do it. That night, we camped underneath a railroad bridge and on an island in the river. We got there before sunset and got camp all set up. Then we did our own things for a while. For me, that meant capturing the beauty around us at that site. That is where I got this image of the Reflective Arches of the St. Croix. I took several images but this is the one that I decided to frame for shows this year. It was an overtly serene time when I could truly relax, reflect, and rejuvenate.

The one night the two guys camped right below a very high railroad bridge. In teh evening light, the bridge glowed and was captured in that state.

The reflection on the water along the St. Croix National Scenic River were just spectacular.

That tranquility though was somewhat shattered in the morning as a train rumbled across that mile high bridge rousing both of us rather quickly. While that was not how we planned to be woken  up that morning, we had breakfast and packed up camp to get on the river to cover our last stretch. That morning the water was also glassy. We almost did not want to disturb the water yet we had to get to our take out on the north end of Stillwater.

We took our time through the bluffs and wider river valley before we headed into a really wider opening in the river. All of a sudden, the water had much bigger waves. Being neither of us had been on the river before, we thought this was our take out area but did not know for sure. We saw some islands and decided to head into their shelter to check out the map. Low and behold, our take out was on the shoreline towards the east of the islands. Had we not stopped at the islands though, we would not have seen all of the birds in them nor would we have been at the right take out? Praise the Lord for the shelter of the islands.

I cannot help but think of the time in my life when a shelter has come my way just when I needed it. From my cancer journey to getting glasses fixed in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, before a four day fine art show; to having a lot of substitute teaching assignments, to many more times. Just when I needed something to turn things around, God provided the shelter when I could relax, reflect on the situation, and then move forward with His grace. As you gaze at the reflective arches, where are you sitting in that image and what are you thinking about? What do you hear? What might the winds in your world be telling you? Perhaps you hear the still small voice saying, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

Check out the entire St Croix River Trip Gallery! Then, feel free to post any comments about the images to the blog or the images themselves! I look forward to hear how the images speak to you!

Growing up with "I was here photos," Thom and I each took some good images of the two of us!

NPS seminar – Friday Dec 11th

Nikon Professional Services presents a special free seminar for professional photographers featuring award-winning photographer and educator Bill Frakes along with pioneering visual storyteller Laura Heald.  During this two hour seminar, they will discuss using the latest in high-definition video equipment to take storytelling to new heights.   Frakes, a staff photographer at Sports Illustrated, has garnered many awards including a staff prize for the Pulitzer Prize at the Miami Herald.  His commercial clients include Apple, Nikon, Coca-Cola, Nike and many more.  Heald is a versatile, multi-faceted story-teller who co-founded Straw hat Visuals, a media company based in Jacksonville, Florida.

This free Nikon sponsored seminar is open to the first 100 signees who register online.  This two hour seminar is scheduled for Friday, December 11, 2009 at the Washington Post in Washington, DC.

Washington Post
1150 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20071

Professional Photographers from the following genre of photography are invited to this event:  News, newspaper, magazine, government, freelance, multimedia and wedding.

Those attending should have an interest mixing still photography with video capture and editing.  This seminar covers techniques that Bill and Laura used to create and publish still, audio and video driven content for multimedia presentations using the latest in Nikon digital cameras.  This seminar discusses audio, lighting and techniques used to create quality story telling products.

Refreshments will be served.
Tuition & Fees:  Free

Register online at : http://dcnikonpro091211.eventbrite.com/

If you have questions, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks,
Mark A Suban
NPS Professional Marketing Representative

Yeah, initiation has trumped lifting for a little while now. But NPS, I’m going to lift this afternoon. Let me know if you wanna do a leg lift at 4, I’m going.

Crazy busy this week. Gonna sneak in an upper body lift tomorrow afternoon around 4.

4×10 Dumbell incline bench press, low pull, lat pulldown, shoulder press, close-grip bench press, high pull.

Tipped the scale at 190 for the first time this weekend. was turkey involved? probably. doesn’t make it any less special.

more about “Backcountry trek to study Rocky Mount…“, posted with vodpod

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I have to say that I have one of the coolest jobs in the world. I work as the science writer for CIRES, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. My job doesn’t stop at writing about science. Being a photographer and multimedia producer play equal parts.

In this instance, I got to hit the trail with Jimmy McCutchan and Tommy Detmer, a couple of CIRES scientists studying the effects of fish introductions on formerly fishless lakes of Rocky Mountain National Park. Fish were introduced to support fly fishing from the 1800s until the 1960s. Now the National Park Service is working with CIRES to find out what’s happened to those lakes, knowledge that may help guide future management.

Their study also isn’t a bad way to work a little fly fishing into your science.

You can learn more about CIRES science at cires.colorado.edu, or check out the CIRESvideos channel on YouTube.com.

Nikon Professional Service

Pusat informasi dan servis Nikon
Dengan semakin meningkatnya pengguna kamera Nikon di Indonesia, tentunya harus diikuti dengan layanan purna jual yang handal dan memuaskan. “Kami menerima seluruh jenis kamera Nikon mulai dari kamera konvensional tipe kompak dan SLR, kamera digital low end, prosumer, dan digital SLR. NPS ini merupakan satu-satunya servis resmi melalui penunjukan resmi dan kepercayaan dari pihak Nikon Jepang untuk melayani servis di Indonesia,” ujar Koh Toto.
“Kami juga memberikan layanan khusus bagi pewarta foto atau kalangan pers, mengingat tuntutan profesi mereka yang sangat bergantung pada kamera,” tambah Koh Toto yang setiap hari mengkontrol langsung di ruang servis. Dengan menempati lokasi yang baru di Komplek Mangga Dua Square Blok H No. 1-2 sejak April 2005, diharapkan NPS bisa memberikan layanan terbaik bagi pengguna kamera Nikon dan konsumen pun dapat lebih mudah menjangkaunya. Selain untuk menservis kameranya, konsumen juga bisa bertanya dan mendapatkan informasi seputar kamera Nikon di NPS. Khusus selama masa promosi, NPS memberikan diskon 50% untuk biaya penggantian spare parts dan jasa servis, ditambah dengan garansi dua bulan untuk produk kamera Nikon bergaransi resmi. Sedangkan bagi konsumen yang membeli kamera Nikon tanpa garansi resmi, NPS tetap menerimanya dengan biaya tanpa diskon, namun tetap mendapatkan garansi servis selama dua bulan.
Bagi konsumen yang jauh dari lokasi NPS atau berada di luar kota, bisa menghubungi dealer setempat untuk meneruskannya ke NPS. “Proses penerimaan hingga penyelesaian perbaikan sebenarnya hanya tiga hari. Spare parts juga dijamin lengkap. Penambahan hari biasanya lebih kepada waktu pengiriman, khususnya untuk luar kota,” kata Koh Toto.

Edukasi bagi pengguna Nikon
Layaknya sebuah mesin, kamera pun perlu diservis untuk menjaga performanya saat digunakan. Di NPS, hampir semua perangkat untuk menservis kamera telah menggunakan komputer dengan program dari Nikon Jepang, sekaligus menjamin hasil yang akurat seperti kamera baru. Di ruang servis NPS terdapat sejumlah perangkat adjustment untuk back focus, focus, VR lens, AFS, lens infinity, color view, dan beberapa perangkat lain yang sebagian besar menggunakan komputer untuk hasil yang akurat sesuai dengan standar Nikon di Jepang. Para pengguna kamera Nikon mungkin tak pernah terpikir jika kamera yang dipakainya memiliki memori dan bisa dideteksi secara akurat melalui komputer untuk mengetahui frekuensi penggunaan tombol rananya sejak pertama kali digunakan. Untuk membuka lensa pun, NPS menggunakan peralatan khusus yang sesuai dengan tipe lensa yang akan diservis. Jadi, banyak hal yang perlu diinformasikan tentang NPS, sekaligus sebagai edukasi bagi pengguna kamera Nikon.

“Banyak konsumen yang mengeluh setelah kameranya diservis di tempat lain. Selain kualitas servis yang buruk, terkadang mereka juga harus mengganti spare parts tambahan yang ikut rusak akibat perbaikan spare parts lainnya. Akhirnya mereka datang ke NPS dengan kondisi kamera yang cukup parah,” ujar Denny Saputra yang menjadi asisten Koh Toto.
Menurut Koh Toto, semua kamera yang diservis akan melalui tahapan pemeriksaan, penerimaan, perbaikan, pemeriksaan terakhir, dan penyerahan kembali kepada konsumen. Dalam setiap tahapan tersebut ditangani oleh tenaga handal dan terlatih. Khusus sumber daya manusia yang menangani perbaikan (servis) kamera, direkrut dengan seleksi yang cukup ketat, termasuk yang ikut menentukan adalah minat, motivasi, sikap, dan karakter. Selain di Jakarta, mereka pun mendapatkan training di Jepang, Hongkong, dan Singapura.
Dengan berbagai kelengkapan perangkat servis yang dimiliki, NPS memberikan komitmen layanan terbaiknya bagi konsumen. Konsumen pun dengan mudah bisa mendapatkan informasi melalui telepon (021) 6231 2600 atau email info@nikon.co.id.

Semua foto: S. Dwiyanthoputra

Went for a long run today because it was nice out and I was sore. Leg lift tomorrow at 3ish: squats, deadlifts, split squats and step ups. Boosh

Montrose Park is a beautiful park. In GM’s estimation, it’s the nicest urban park in the city. It’s only natural that people like to gather in the park and throw a picnic or a party. GM himself hosted a post-wedding brunch in the park (by-the-by, said brunch was catered by Griffin Market, who did an amazing job. GM heartily recommends their services for your next event).

Montrose Park only has a handful of picnic benches. As a result, when a family wants to host a birthday party there, a parent inevitably has to show up in the morning and “reserve” the table with table cloths and balloons.

This has created a relatively self-policing system. Groups get to host events in a beautiful setting, yet the parties are not so frequent or large as to affect regular users. That unfortunately may be starting to change.

A couple years ago GM saw his first birthday party in Montrose Park that featured a pony ride. It was shocking that somebody would be so bold. It was sometime after that point that GM saw another birthday party that featured a giant Moon Bounce like this:

Again, it was absolutely shocking that some family thought it was ok to turn a National Park into their own Chucky Cheese.

While shocking, these events seemed so rare as to not be a major problem. Unfortunately GM has noticed two more such parties recently. It seems as if it’s starting to become a “thing”. Not for nothing, but most of the license plates of the last party were out-of-state, which implies that the word is spreading out about the park’s lax anti-Moon Bounce enforcement.

The last party was the most ridiculous yet. On top of the pony rides, the party featured not one, but two llamas:

And see that fenced in area? That’s were they kept the rest of the menagerie, which as GM recalls consisted of a bunch of ducks, a goat or two, and some pigs.

GM called in to NPS’s Rock Creek administrators to see whether people we getting permits to hold these parties. The answer was a laughing no. According to park rules, any party over 20 people requires a permit and the park service employee told GM that they probably wouldn’t approve pony rides and moon bounces anyway.

What do you all think about this? The animals can damage the grass and the moon bounce can outright kill a large patch of it. There’s also something a little off-putting about people commandeering a public park for their child’s super sweet six birthday party.

But on the other hand, the park is big enough that they don’t seem to be bothering other people. And while there have started to occur with a bit more frequency, they’re still far from a weekly occurrence.

It would be unacceptable if these started to happen more often, and maybe we need to put the kibosh on long before we get to that point. But GM is not about to call the cops the next time he sees a horse trailer pull up. First of all, he has no desire to ruin some child’s birthday. Secondly, the Montrose Park dog-walking community definitely doesn’t need the attention of NPS.

So what do you think? Abuse of the park or not that big a deal?

my quads burn like the fires of olympus from my AWESOME leg lift with hirsch and deepak yesterday:

5×5 squats, deadlifts, step-ups and split squats
3×30 swiss ball crunches w/ med ball toss

tomorrow will be an upper body lift. keep doing work.

I had a great post here about the neighbors who want the USS Constitution to change the way she fires her cannons because they feel lit is too loud.  They want the cannons to be quiet until 9 AM on the weekends and the National Anthem to not be played so loudly and the charges to be smaller.

To which I say: shut up.

This tradition has been going on since before 1800 and the charges have been made smaller over the years already. They barely use any black powder to set the cannons off already and oh yeah, we are at war. These cannons are shot off twice a day in honor of the men and women who are serving and who have served. Many of these sailors will be going off to active duty combat after their 3 years at the Constitution is up and many of the National Park Rangers have also served in some capacity.  This ship is the mascot of the entire Navy and it is only appropriate for her to fire her cannons off as a sign of respect…and its pretty cool to watch them do it, as well.
I was lucky enough to get to take a trip on the Constitution a few years ago with my Dad. It was Armed Forces Day and so there was a 19 gun salute (why are they always odd numbers?) to the men and women of the Armed Forces. While I couldn’t really see over the sides of the ship, I knew enough to get down to the gun deck in time to see them load and fire the charges. Afterwards, I got one of the shells as a souvenier of my trip…it stunk to high heaven for a few weeks, but it is awesome. See:

So, be quiet people living at Flagship Wharf…Nomar would have never been a jerk like you are. Oh, and I hope you enjoy it next summer when they are turning the Yard back into a working one and putting the USS Cassin Young into drydock! That should be exciting…lots of banging and crashing and melting and tearing. Its going to be awesome to see what kind of letter you send to the NPS unit.

The National Park Service (NPS) has published a Report on Fiscal Year 2009 Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program Awards.

The report provides details on the nineteen grants that were awarded, totaling $970,000 “…to help preserve and interpret the historic confinement sites where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were confined during World War II.”

The report also announced that listening sessions will be held in preparation for the 2010 Japanese American Confinement Sites grant cycle. A schedule and the locations of each session are included in the report.

The listening sessions are all scheduled for November 30 – December 4, 2009.

You can download a copy of the report (Adobe Reader software required) by clicking on the image at right.

I love the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and defend it regularly against criticism.  Many of the critics comes from the customer survey industry, who it must be said have a vested interest, a regular single question sort of makes they long annual surveys and expensive analysis redundant. My defence is primarily on the grounds of action – a monthly or quarterly NPS score is easy to understand and galvanises action in the company to improve. My experience is that if used with rigour it can live up to the title Frederick Reichheld gave the article in the Harvard Business Review where he first highlighted his thinking – "The One Number You Need to Grow." Using the NPS also allows for comparison across competitors and sectors, giving the score much more validity with staff and customers. I use to work at itlab and take some of the credit for starting them off on their NPS journey. When we began, the NPS was below zero and just as I left, the survey returned a score of 55. It is great to see their progress continues. Below is an extract from their quarterly newsletter. Well done people!

The magic number that keeps growing

As you know, we run a very tight ship when it comes to meeting standards and offering great service. That’s why we continue to use Net Promoter to measure our success.

The results from last quarter (53%) put us above software giants, banks and American Express! This time around we’ve managed to hit a truly world class 76%. This puts us right up there with global service leaders like Apple and Google, and leaves the average score across all sectors (37%) in the dust.

WordPress Tags: One Number,Net Promoter Score,Frederick Reichheld,Harvard Business Review,competitors,itlab

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If you haven’t seen the National Park Service’s quarterly magazine, Common Ground, you ought to check it out. You can sign up for a free subscription or download the issues for free. (Currently Spring 2009 is on the website, but Fall 2009 has arrrived in the mail.) While I’m in favor of saving trees, this magazine is so beautiful that I’m really glad it’s a print mailing. The articles are always exciting, interesting, different, and accompanied by breathtaking photographs. It is my favorite magazine to receive in the mail.

The NPS deserves more love and attention than we give it, preservationists and non-preservationists. So start by reading to see what great work the NPS does. Go ahead, read it, sign up. You won’t be sorry. You’ll love it. You could call it Preservation in Pink’s idol in some ways, or at least a mentor.