Interesting: The times we're in

One lesson from The Wire is that we're all interconnected. Our actions, our kindness, our unkept promises, all of them can make a huge difference in someone's life. In this time of economic turmoil, more people will be living on the brink. We don't have a housing bubble to depend on to bail us out. We don't have a stock bubble to bail us out. In these times, we need to play defense. And to me, that means taking care of each other. Reducing risk. Emotional risk, physical risk. Take care of each other. Be good to each other.

Merry Christmas.
MK

Helpful: Resolutions for 2009

1. Learn the accordion.

Helpful: Write something

I looked down at my todo list just now and realized that "write blog post" was on it. Normally, this would be a project, requiring a topic, insight, or at least a picture of my cat.

Instead, I'm just posting this:

It snowed yesterday, about five inches. I needed to go to the corner store, so I waited until evening, when the snow had gotten pretty deep. I went out the back alley to take out the trash, it's amazing how even alleys can be beautiful when a few inches of powder cover everything. I walked out of the alley and down the sidewalk, sliding in the snow as shopkeepers shoveled their front walks. I looked both ways, no cars at all coming from either direction as far as I could see. I took a deep breath through my nose and crossed.

Not helpful: Rick Warren

In a nutshell--

Sean Hannity: War is in the Bible, so it's OK right?
Rick Warren: As long as the other guy is evil, you betcha!

Not Helpful: Blogging from iPhone

It's not easy to use Blogger on iPhone. That is all.

Helpful: Gratitude

It's Thanksgiving, and I just want to say that I'm incredibly grateful for so many things in my life. My wife and family. My friends. The city I live in. My health. My work. My faith. It's an amazing time to be alive, and each day is a new adventure.

Thank you. All of you.

Interesting: The Onion and liking the Onion

I was going to blog about a recent story from the Onion, but was distracted. I ended up at another favorite website, Stuff White People Like. Then I found an interesting coincidence.

I&H: The 61

I love new music, but I am impatient when it comes to sifting through the crummy tracks to find the jems. Luckily, the magical computer interwebs arrive again to save the day. thesixtyone.com lets you (or everyone else) do the sifting, then the songs with the most votes get bumped up the list, so you can tell which songs are more likely to be good.

Combine it with emusic.com or another download service and you've got yourself some great free/cheap music action. Thank you Internet!

Helpful: Speechifying well

I don't have a profound way to say it, but it is really amazing to have a president again who is intelligent and makes sense when he speaks.

During the campaign, people mocked Obama for being "eloquent," or just "a guy who can give great speeches." What they ignored (or pretended to ignore) is that words matter. Speeches matter, because the performance and the language can convey much more than just ideas. Here's this week's video address from the next President. Doesn't it seem like he knows what he's doing?

Helpful: Amazon wish list!

What do you want for Christmas?

Helpful: Ban all the meetings

I went to a meeting this week that was completely unnecessary. It was nice to see people I had not seen in months, and I met a few new people, but for 90 minutes, we had a meeting with no decisions being made and no assignments given out for the next meeting which is in three months.

Not only that, most people at the meeting had to drive between 1-1.5 hours each way to attend.

So, whoever you are, whatever you do, if you want to be helpful, don't have a meeting if there isn't a decision to be made or assignments to carry out, or at least some kind of problem-solving that requires face-to-face interaction. If you have one scheduled and you fear that there isn't something important to discuss, cancel the meeting. If you have to have a meeting of some kind, have a brief conference call instead.

Interesting: Health Insurance deabate

Insurance companies seem to have figured out that Americans are sick of going bankrupt over medical bills, and that they want a change. They know Obama is serious about getting it done. And with 58 Dems in the Senate and Tom Daschle running Health and Human Services, they see that Congress might actually get it passed. So they are floating a compromise.

This passage, from Ezra Klein, starts it off:

Health insurance is fundamentally a collision of information. We know whether or not we're sick. The insurers do not. If the game stopped there, the economically rational act would be to wait until we were sick to purchase health care coverage. But then the insurance pool would be solely composed of the ill (and, arguably, the stupid), and it would [be] inaffordable for everyone, and unprofitable for the insurers, and that would be the end of that.

But insurers are perfectly aware of this. So they run the opposite play: They gather data on whether or not we're sick, or likely to get sick, and then use that to refuse to sell us care. The individual health insurance market, fundamentally, is incoherent: Insurers try to deny coverage to those who want it and to sell to those who don't. That's because the most profitable customer for an insurer is one that never gets sick, and the least profitable is one who falls very ill. But that's not how you want your health insurance market to work. We want sick people to get care. That's the point.

Interesting: Rumors

It's hard to believe, and I'm sure you will be quite surprised, but today, I was the subject of a political rumor. Nothing scandalous, unfortunately, but the thought that my career path would be rumored about is incredibly exciting, gratifying, and ridiculous, all in one.

How was your day?

Helpful: Recession Cleaning

It's like Spring Cleaning, but for tough economic times. As I look for my next job opportunity and get ready for a national downturn, here's what's on my Recession Cleaning Checklist:

1) Deposit all loose change (now THAT'S Change that you can believe in!)
2) Look through the back of the closet and bins for all the clothes that fit and are wearable to keep from needing to buy new ones
3) Cut back on automatic subscriptions, especially web-based services that haven't been used in a long time
4) Scale back the cell phone plan
5) Review automatic savings plans, don't run out of cash in the checking account
6) Make sure that when buying gifts, support friends who own small businesses. They will be the hardest hit.
7) Keep things locked up. Crime naturally increases around the holidays, but in a recession, it can get even worse.
8) Eat soup. It's cheap and good for you.

Helpful: Pad Thai

It's delicious. I modified mine from this recipe:
http://www.thaitable.com/Thai/recipes/Pad_Thai.htm

Helpful: YouTube and Obama

The weekly address will also be by video. Awesome.

Interesting: New church website!

Love it. Great job Cindy!

Holy Covenant UMC

Helpful: Running

It is helpful, but it ain't easy.

Interesting: Blame Game

When you lose on a campaign, everyone wants to know why. Was it a certain group of people you didn't reach? Not enough money? Bad message? Bad candidate? WHY DIDN'T YOU WIN? WHY DIDN'T WE WIN?

Sometimes you don't win. But if you work as hard as you can and try your very best, you cannot lose. Save the analysis for the consultants.

Helpful: Get your butt out of the house

I spent all day yesterday downtown meeting friends on my "Coffee, Lunch, or Happy Hour Tour." Catching up, checking in, shooting the breeze. A volunteer from the campaign spotted me working at Einstein's and invited me to meet with his boss Monday.

Lesson learned: If you are looking for a job, get out of the house.

Helpful: Report your numbers

One of the things I learned from my job was that if you hold people accountable for tangible results, their efforts will shift toward behavior that improves those results. This is also a lesson from The Wire, although that has more to do with misreporting aggravated assaults as misdemeanor battery. But I digress.

What are your numbers? What does success look like?
For me, it is the number of appointments I make outside the house per week, the number of jobs I apply for, and the number of times I work out. Three numbers.

I had a church meeting this morning. Some churches do well, some don't. What is the key number? Attendance? Donations? Membership? I think it's attendance, but hey, I'm not the boss. All I know is, if I'm boss, I want some weekly reporting on your numbers. Back to work, slacker.

Interesting: Being home again

After packing the last of my things at the campaign office and going to the gym, I came home, went to the dentist, ate some soup, and went to a town hall meeting in my neighborhood about public safety. I walked about 1/2 a mile, took the bus, and even missed one bus. I read a Tribune Red Eye.

I haven't done any of those things in so long, I can't tell you.

Helpful: Write or Die!

I woke up this morning to a new week. A new season (winter.) And a new country! But the most profound thing about the morning is that I don't have a job anymore, which means my Get Things Done mode has just been kicked up a few notches. If you feel similar urgency these days (hello McCain staffers!) and you do any kind of writing for a living, may I suggest Write or Die?

Interesting: McCain Calls Social Security a disgrace

Interesting: Beck

Just got the new Beck CD. I'll put a review up sometime before 2010.

Interesting: Benson

Yes, the lull in blog posts is intentional. I don't have time to write, and nothing I can really write about. So, I'm posting an old picture of Benson.

Losing

We just lost funding for a bishop for the North Central Jurisdiction in 2012. I hope it's not our bishop that gets cut.

On the floor!

I was on the floor twice today, although I wish the circumstances were better. Harriet McCabe tripped and got a bloody nose during a recess, so they needed a reserve delegate on the fly, and also later at night since she needed to get some rest. She seemed to be doing well, just tired from all the commotion. I'm sure she will be fine tomorrow, which is good - Harriet is amazing, and I have really enjoyed our time together this last 10 months on the delegation.

I got up the nerve to speak twice tonight on the floor on two pieces of legislation: one that supported a study of Native American ministries, and one that would study the creation of a new United Methodist Hymnal. I was a little nervous, but I thought my points were OK. On the hymnal issue, three of the four speakers were my age or younger, which was great. Not that I am keeping score, but both of the petitions I supported with speeches passed. :)

Overall, my impression is that people like to offer amendments frivolously, and that Roberts Rules are far too forgiving for amendments, especially in a body of this side. It takes forever for someone to be recognized, walk to a microphone, state their name twice, offer an amendment, ask for a second, explain their amendment, ask for debate, hear two speeches for and against, unlimited questions, finally a vote, then the amendment passes and we still have to vote on the original thing.

Tomorrow, I may be on the floor again; one of our delegates had to go to a committee meeting that began after the 11:30 adjournment of the plenary. Lord have mercy.

Saving the best for last?

The Financial Administration committee is supposed to be finished with its work right now, but as of 5:00, it still hasn't gotten to the petitions dealing with the Middle East or sexuality. Not like there will be any debate on those!

Defeatist

The body voted to not use the word "defeat" in the plenary session because we are not here to "defeat" each other. My question is, should we still the use the word "adopt"?

Roberts Rules Rules

The conference voted to suspend the rules, in order to amend the rules, in order to determine if we will be voting to concur with the committees' reports, or to vote on adopting the petitions themselves. This took an hour.

Vote buying at GC

Wow, I had no idea this kind of thing was what good Christians did. Shocking.

Deep Thought

Only 5% of United Methodist Church members are under the age of 18.
In the U.S., 25.6% of people are under the age of 18.

One victory

Group B of the Funds Administration subcommittee of the Financial Administration committee voted to strike discriminatory language from Paragraph 806.9 of the Book of Discipline.

Cross your fingers that it sticks.

Roberts Rules Rules!

We just received a motion to correct a correction, which required that a vote that we suspend the rules.

Deep Thought

The average age in the United Methodist Church is 57.

Helpful: Reconciling Ministries

No real action shots from tonight. The first worship service was fine, and the first plenary session had to do mostly with the rules. I just got back to the hotel about 11:30 - MAN are these going to be late nights!

I will have more to write tomorrow, but in the meantime, I posted over at the Reconciling Ministries Network blog a post I wrote on the plane.

Oh, I should note that one delegate from South Carolina is in high school, and she was wearing UGGs on the floor of General Conference, which must be a first.

Helpful: On-time shuttle buses

After a delayed flight and two-hour shuttle experience from the airport, I'm waiting on another bus to take me to the convention center. I will probably miss my 5:15 meeting and may be late to the 6:00 worship. But I promised pictures so here you go!

I+H: General Conference 2008

I don't have much time before leaving for the airport, but I am heading for Fort Worth for 10 days for the United Methodist Church General Conference. Every four years, delegates from around the world meet in the US to rewrite the rule book of the church–the Book of Discipline–and approve the budget for the next four years.

I was elected as an alternate delegate for the delegation from Northern Illinois, and I think our church needs to be open to be people of all ages, races, classes, gender identities, and sexual orientations: every human category. We are all children of God. My experience in Chicago and at my church, Holy Covenant UMC, has taught me that if we're going to bother with church at all, we need to be open to everybody. Shutting anyone out from community, from the sacraments, or from the opportunity to serve and give is contrary to Biblical teaching. Open the doors!

I will be blogging and posting photos to this location, the Holy Covenant Facebook page, and to a blog for the Reconciling Ministries Network.

Helpful: OmniFocus and OmniPlan

If you like to Get Things Done and you have a Mac, it's time to fork over some money to the Omni Group for their fantastic personal organization software, OmniFocus. With the new job, I've been in need of a solid GTD tool that will help me track dozens of projects at home, at church, and at work. Since I use one laptop for everything, having my todo list in the computer has been great. It's worth the money to have something that works.

For big project planning, and I mean BIG PROJECTS, I am trying out OmniPlan, the Mac version of Microsoft Project.

Helpful: David Allen

I've been re-reading David Allen's book "Ready for Anything" and found this quote:

There’s a simple way to become indestructible: Have the intention to do your best at whatever you’re doing, right now.

So that's the plan.

Interesting: Twin Kittehs

Helpful: SXSW download

For the fourth year in a row, the South by Southwest festival is putting up a huge music download with more than 700 free mp3 tracks from the 1,700 that are performing this week. The file can be found here:
http://lifehacker.com/366564/ginormous-sxsw-music-download

I download this each year (I use Transmission for torrent files, BTW) and I always find about 50 great songs in the mix. It does take about 2 days to download, but it's free, as in beer.

Amable: Obama Reggaeton!

Como se dice, como se llama?
Obama! Obama!

Interesante: Viva Obama!

Hermanos, mira a esto!
Viva Obama!

Helpful: Yes we can