Micromanagement

You know what makes me really happy? Micromanagement. What makes me really happy are managers and owners and co workers and professors who insist on micromanaging, but refuse to put in the face time necessary to implement all of their great, awesome, wonderful, one of a kind ideas. Go ahead, micro manage. Tell me what to do and how to do it. I like direction. I think that everyone could use a little more in most cases. Just don't have very specific ideas about the way that things should and will be done and then not only fail to be there to do it yourself, but refuse wholly to provide a list. UGH!

That is all.

The Fountain...or faucet or shower or puddle or whatever it was called.

I watched The Fountain for the first time last night and I have a few thoughts. For those of your who haven't seen it, The Fountain is an independent film that parallels the efforts of a conquistador to save his queen's life as she faces persecution by finding the Tree of Life with a surgeon who seeks to save his ill wife from dying by finding a cure for cancer. Both stories focus on the results of the conquistador's and the husband's futile attempts to save the queen/wife. The story of the conquistador was written by the dying wife, all save the last chapter, which she leaves to the husband to write. Now, in the book, The Fountain, all things parallel exactly with their realistic narrative counterparts, save the ending. The husband, in his failed attempt to save his wife, manages to find the secret to immortality and lives forever. He writes the ending of the book so that the conquistador, after finding the Tree of Life, is killed by the absorption of its life giving sap into the wound that was about to kill him. The conquistador was killed by his discovery, where as the surgeon became immortal thanks to his. In the ending, as the conquistador went to place the ring on his finger, signifying his union with the queen as a result of his find, the sap began to kill him. Enigmatically, the instant the surgeon finds out that the experimental drug he has been working on can save his wife, she dies. While writing her book, the wife mentions to her husband her fascination with the idea of death as a means of creation, stemming from the belief that the Tree of Life came from the sacrifice of the First Father according to Mayan legend. The husband, in turn, when writing the ending to her book, kills the conquistador with the Tree of Life, thereby using creation as a means of death. The conquistador's body becomes a bloom of the Tree of Life, which is vastly significant as well as the wife says that she once spoke to a Mayan who said that seeds for a tree were buried above his fathers grave and that his father became part of that tree; the tree was "his road to awe." Hearing this, the husband ends the novella by turning the conquistador into a bloom of the Tree of Life after placing seedlings above the grave of his wife. The key to immortality for the surgeon turns out to be a tree in South America, giving truth to the the piece of fiction his wife wrote about the Tree of Life that the conquistador searched for.

The Fountain is a tale of passionate futility that places an emphasis not on life or death, as the story would suggest, but rather on choices. The idea is presented that nothing matters but the ending, as seen through the relentlessness of the male leads to save their loved one from their unavoidable death. However, the lesson is that in life, the emphasis should be placed on the journey, where both the queen and the wife place it, rather than on the endings that the conquistador and the surgeon become hellbent on changing. In both stories the women are stereotypical archetypes of the "Angel of the House" so to speak, made evident by the visual emphasis placed on the light/dark contrast between the two women and their prospective men. At the time of her death, the wife says that she feels whole and isn't afraid. This is the theme of the entire film; the point of life is to be complete and whole with who you are and what you have in the time you are given, rather than never taking the time to admire the precious present do to a futile quest to make more time. Time by itself means nothing. It only becomes valuable when the people living in it give its moments value.

I turn on the air in the winter...

Picture this: its a cool, crisp morning here in Katy (yeah, right) and you step out on the porch to get your newspaper and you feel a bit chilled. As such, when dressing that morning, you dress so as to maintain a pleasant body temperature while out in this frigid weather. So, you walk out to your car in the 50 ish degree weather and feel comfortable; mission accomplished. Next you get in your car in your scarf, your coat and your Ug's and turn on the heat. WHAT? How does that make any logical sense people? Why do you insist on turning on the heat to make an environment for which you are perfectly suited stifling to the point that your clothes are, at best, absurd. Essentially, you get dressed to go out on a winter's day and protect yourself against the cold, only to climb in your car and make the atmosphere in your car mimic that of a coastal town on the equator. Why people? All you end up doing is taking off your coat in the car so you can regulate your body temperature because now, get this, your too hot. Then, you get to your destination, get out of your mobile sauna and step out into the cold air. Not only does the cold air feel colder now because your body just changed climates, but now you have to put your coat back on. Only now, all of the heat that you were feeling earlier because the coat had insulated you has escaped because you took the damn coat off. See where I'm going with this?

The same thing applies to buildings. If its cold out, your employees or students or customers have dressed for the cold weather. Now, you have them in your building, dressed for it to be 50 degrees while your thermostat reads 80. Whats ironic is that in the summer, when we are all in shorts and flip flops, prepared for the sweltering heat that is Texas, your store isn't even that hot! Where is the logic? We started using heat in our homes in the winter back before we had that fluffy pink stuff in our attics and that nice hard concrete on the floor and all that awesome sheet rock stuff and those great glass windows with weather stripping to protect us from the cold. UGH!

OK people. Our nation needs to make a change. Starting today, when its cold outside, put on your coat, get in your car and turn on your air conditioner. Building managers, when its cold, have your store temp be comparable to the outside. Ya'll know I have a point here. Don't try to fight it...just turn on the air.

Kissing Fish and Candy Frogs

I was unpacking Christmas at work today (yes, I know it's September-take it up w/ my manager). Anyway, I opened a box that had a statue of Santa kneeling at the feet of baby Jesus in the manger. I paused for a a few minutes and tried to figure out what that meant to me.

It could be that while all of the world is swept up in the secular, focusing on Santa and presents and trees, etc. Santa is bringing our attention back to what really matters. It could be that Santa sells and Jesus sells so hey, why not make double the profit and put the two together. Genius plan...The other thought I had was what if the secular symbol of Christmas is juxtaposed next to the religious symbol of Christmas to make a point of showing consumers just how much we have managed to mangle and perverse the original reason for celebration, changing our focus from what some believe to be the savior of the world to a fat bearded man in velvet climbing down chimneys. In any case, the two figures side by side are, if nothing else, cause for thought and contemplation. I also found a frog holding a candy cane and a fish with big black lips with music notes floating out them, but far be it from me to think I am so wise as to be able to rationalize the reason behind those two pieces of wasted manufacturing resources.