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?