Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

From June 28th through July 3rd, I had the privilege of being on a raft on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This was part of a family trip “for the guys.” On a trip put together by my father-in-law Allan, his two sons, me (a son in law), my three sons, two other grandsons, one grandson-in-law, and one great grandson spent five days and five nights on the Colorado River. These blog posts are part of the story.

Before going any farther into the canyon and the story, I pause to list the people who went on the Tour West trip.

The Tour West Crew:

• (1) Jake – river runner on the other raft
• (2) Collin – guide on the other raft
• (3) Karen – helper on the other raft
• (4) Andy – river runner on our raft
• (5) Scott – helper on our raft

The Passengers:

• (6) my father-in-law
• (7) brother-in-law #1
• (8) brother-in-law #2
• (9) nephew #1
• (10) nephew #2
• (11) great-grandson (son of nephew #1), 10 years old
• (12) nephew-in-law (I think that is what you call the son-in-law of brother-in-law #1)
• (13) son #1
• (14) son #2
• (15) son #3
• (16) me

All of the above road on our raft all week.

• (17) Australian dad
• (18) Australian mom
• (19) Australian son, a.k.a “Outback Zach”, about 12 years old
• (20) Australian daughter, about 8 years old
• (21) Canadian tomato farmer (lady)
• (22) mother of Canadian tomato farmer
• (23) daughter of Canadian tomato farmer, about 12 years old
• (24) Boston husband
• (25) Boston wife
• (26) Boston son
• (27) girl friend of Boston son (“no ring yet, but no pressure”)
• (28) L.A. lawyer #1 – talkative
• (29) L.A. lawyer #2 – quiet and carried a great Canon camera
• (30) Yorktown social worker (her)
• (31) Miami eye doctor (her)

Persons (7) through (31) road on the other raft all week.

And we had one more part-time passenger – a female Park Service employee. She was with us from launch on Monday morning for 24 hours. We left her on a beach campground. I trust that the next rafting group picked her up as scheduled.

Sigh, I feel like I just wrote a couple more verses to the theme song of Gilligan’s Island.

I hope I have this list correct. I also trust that none of my nicknames hurts anyone’s feelings and that my guess of the kids’ ages are close enough. I mean no harm. It was a pleasure to be on the river with the these fine people for a week.

by Dwayne Phillips

From June 28th through July 3rd, I had the privilege of being on a raft on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This was part of a family trip “for the guys.” On a trip put together by my father-in-law Allan, his two sons, me (a son in law), my three sons, two other grandsons, one grandson-in-law, and one great grandson spent five days and five nights on the Colorado River. These blog posts are part of the story.

Monday morning June 28th – I finally decided that the town of Marble Canyon, Arizona is on California time. Arizona doesn’t go on Daylight Savings Time. The rest of the country is on this “special time” 7 1/2 months of the year and standard time 4 1/2 months (is the math right?).

Anyways, I digress. While digressing, here is another digression –  I keep prefacing “Marble Canyon” with “the town of” as we spent two days in the actual canyon called “Marble Canyon,” but that comes later.

I live on eastern time and go to bed early and wake early – 5 AM eastern time or 2 AM in the town of Marble Canyon. I wasn’t sure when I woke that Monday morning. My iPhone (see the previous blog post) kept switching back and forth among time zones. The cafe opened at 6 AM, so I wanted to roll out of bed at 5, shower, pack, and eat. I rolled out of bed at a quarter to 5 according to my iPhone. I did a few morning things and waited until my alarm sounded at 6 AM. I went down the hall to wake my sons. They didn’t seem much like waking. I went outside and across the gravel parking lot to the cafe, but it wasn’t open. The lady in the motel registration room told me that it was 5 AM, not 6 AM. I think I woke at 3:45 AM local time. It was going to be a long day.

The Cafe and Store part of the Marble Canyon Lodge

The next hour was the best of the day for me. I sat on a bench on the porch in front of the store and cafe. If you click on this photo you can see the benches. Another man and I sat on the porch, chatted much about nothing, and watched the occasional truck roll by on U.S. Route 89.

It was cool, dry, and quiet on the porch sitting on that wooden bench. If I had a cup of coffee, it would have been perfect. I love sitting on a bench on a porch in the morning. It soothes my soul. I love the western scenery. A person can see for 20 miles. On the east coast and in the south, sight lines are limited by the trees and often span only a hundred yards. A porch, a bench, a conversation, and long sight lines – they make for peaceful gazing.

At a quarter to 6, I was sure of the time by now, one of the Tour West guides walked by and asked if I had seen the bridge across the river. I thought the river was five or six miles away, but he told me that it was only a few hundred yards down the road.

I stood quickly and walked east towards the river. In five minutes I was at the twin spans of the Navajo Bridge. Wow! The first span was finished in 1929 and the second in 1995. I thought they both carried vehicle traffic, so I walked about a third of the way out on the south bridge. I felt like I was 10,000 feet above the river (actually closer to 450 feet). This was great.

I excitedly walked back to the motel and cafe to tell the others in my party. The cafe was open, so we sat down to a buffet breakfast. At $10 a person, it was a bit expensive for what they had, but pancakes, bacon, and coffee make a good breakfast. I told the others about the bridge and several of them made the short walk.

A side note – there were 11 of us at the breakfast table. We split the meal among four different tickets. I paid for myself and my three sons. It amazes me how much time and how many words are required to have this all straight with the waitress.

A final phone call to my wife, and we were loading a van for a trip to Lee’s Ferry and the rafts.

Another side note – the town of Marble Canyon, Arizona doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. I am working on one this week and hope to have it up in a couple of days.

by Dwayne Phillips

From June 28th through July 3rd, I had the privilege of being on a raft on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This was part of a family trip “for the guys.” On a trip put together by my father-in-law Allan, his two sons, me (a son in law), my three sons, two other grandsons, one grandson-in-law, and one great grandson spent five days and five nights on the Colorado River.

I’ll write a few blog posts about this trip. They aren’t really project management related, but related to life, and after all, project managers and other folks live lives.

Las Vegas

The first leg of the trip comprised a flight from Dulles airport near Washington D.C. to Las Vegas via Denver on Sunday June 27th. I spent a few days in Las Vegas with my wife and sons about ten years ago. That was when Vegas was in its family-entertainment days. Vegas has returned to concentrating on adult entertainment now. I won’t describe in detail the shows and clubs that each large casino has.

We arrived in Vegas at 9 AM local time. Let me get this straight – I  don’t understand what time zones Las Vegas, Arizona, and Utah are on. I am confused on the matter, and my GPS-equipped iPhone was equally confused. We went over to the Luxor where we stayed about ten years ago. We had the big Sunday brunch and then went upstairs to watch Mexico vs Argentina on giant screen televisions. Those guys at the World Cup really need to work on the officiating.

Marble Canyon, Arizona

After the game, we went back to the airport to join the Louisiana delegation – six members of the group were from Louisiana and one from Mississippi. A five-hour bus ride brought us to the Marble Canyon Lodge in Marble Canyon, Arizona. The town of Marble Canyon is so small that it does not have a Wikipedia page. It is a few miles from Lee’s Ferry – an old crossing of the Colorado River.

The Cafe and Store part of the Marble Canyon Lodge

Here is a photo of the Marble Canyon Lodge. It has a cafe, a store, and about 50 motel rooms. Meals range from $10 to $25 per person. This is out in the middle of almost no where, so the prices are about right. The food is pretty good. I had green chili stew with a tortilla. Everyone else had things like cheeseburgers and roast beef. Why eat that stuff out in almost no where Arizona? You can have that anywhere. When in no where, eat what the no whereans eat.

The walls and ceiling of the cafe and store are covered with beautiful old wood paneling. That doesn’t make any sense as there are no trees in sight. Rock and sand would have made more sense.

The Marble Canyon, Arizona Post Office

There is a Post Office next to the cafe, and a gas station next to the Post Office. Here is the obligatory photo of the Post Office (there is something about Post Offices that attract my camera). Notice the two pay phones to the left of the Post Office. There was also a pay phone at the motel. I’m not sure why they still have pay phones here. Our cell phones worked as cell phones pretty well.

Our cell phones didn’t work well as clocks. Somehow the GPS part of the cell phones kept switching time zones. I would be in one time zone at one time and then in another time zone 15 minutes later. All this without moving. Someone in the GPS office needs to work on this one.

At 8 PM local time (again, I don’t know how that translated to any standard time zone), we met with our guides from Tour West. The tour leader told us about the safety features of the trip and kept talking about how they only have to bring back 80% of the customers. I thought that he was kidding most of the time.

After the meeting, I concluded that it was midnight EDT. I went to bed. The motel is adequate, pretty much what you would expect in a little town next to a National Park. New mattresses, sheets, and carpet would do the place wonders. What was important was that the air conditioner worked. It was about 100 degrees F outside when we went to bed. It was, however, a dry heat.

by Dwayne Phillips

We don’t accept every new gadget that comes from the mind of an engineer. New uses need to be demonstrated for new technologies to take hold. Either that or new generations come along with different values.

New technology comes every day. We immediately accept it into our lives without a thought of its long-term affect and move on to the next gadget of the day. Wrong.

We don’t embrace every new technology. See, for example, the video phone. The technology has been here for decades. People were so accustomed to talking to someone without the other person seeing them, that they rejected the idea that the other person could see them. I thought this silly, as I wanted to see the other person and didn’t really care what they saw in me. I suppose that is the practical-minded engineer in me.

I was surprised to hear and often laughed derisively when people I knew said things like, “I don’t want other people to see what I look like when I

just roll out of bed

am working in the kitchen

am cleaning house

am lounging around the house in loose sweats and hoodie

The practical-minded engineers lost. Our friends who actually cared how they looked to other people didn’t accept the technology.

A big part of the rejection of the video phone was the marketing. Recall when Bell tried (successfully) to introduce the talking-listening device as a competitor to the telegraph. He sang a song. You can’t sing a song on a telegraph. You can transmit and receive information faster on a telegraph than during a phone conversation. That required a skilled telegraph operator, but the early telephone required a skilled switchboard operator as well. Bell demonstrated a new use to justify the adoption of the new technology. The video phone guys never had that demo that showed something extra.

The video phone is finally being accepted on cell phones now. See, for example, how the iPhone 4 has two cameras that enable video conversations. The same is true of the web cams on computers that allow video chat.

Why has the video phone technology been finally accepted now? Because a new generation has arrived that wants to see everything AND isn’t afraid to show just about everything as well. I can still hear my friends saying, “but I don’t want anyone to see me when I’m…” Today’s video phone adapters are saying, “whatever.”

Perhaps the video phone is a bad idea. Perhaps it is a good idea. I know that it has been rejected for several decades, but now is being accepted. Then again, many people of my generation didn’t want to have a telephone in our pocket as that allowed others to bother us anytime and anywhere, and who wants to talk to all those people all the time? Maybe that is the introvert engineer in me.

by Dwayne Phillips

Be wary when someone asks for “actionable fill-in-the-blank.”

I few years ago, I was working in a prestigious organization (just ask anyone who worked there, they would happily tell you that it was a prestigious place). A division there had an expiring charter and needed to update it. Several senior managers asked that the new charter contain “actionable words.”

My reply was, “You mean verbs?”

I thought it was a funny reply. Others disagreed. It highlighted how in government we always tried  to dilute everything.  Notice “dilute” is a verb. In government we would write “we try to water down everything.” “Water down” is not a verb; it is a weak combination of verb-preposition.

Perhaps the problem in this prestigious organization was that they had forgotten how to do anything.

Move on in time, and I work at another organization. The senior managers sit in a meeting room all day while underlings enter and give briefings. The senior managers want “actionable briefings.” They request information they can use to do something. My thought was, if I give you information, you can think. Thinking is something, right?

Perhaps the problem was that they had forgotten how to think.

I sense a pattern here. Whenever someone asks me for “actionable” anything, the results are bad. Is “actionable” a real word? Dictionary.com has a few definitions for it with most of them being legal terms. The situations mentioned above where not related to legal cases. Take great care when confronted with actionable. I recommend not trying to be humorous as I was.

by Dwayne Phillips

No journalism degree? Not needed to blog and break news.

Not a pro photographer? Not needed to publish world-wide on Flickr.

No computer science degree? Not needed to learn programming and work.

I believe these things to be true. I believe that you don’t have to have a credential from an organization that has been certified by some other organization to do something. And who certified the certifying organization to begin with?

Things have changed. I believe that “going to college” is a good activity. You could read at the library and online and learn just about everything you would learn by going to college. Most people I know wouldn’t have learned that way. “Being in school” forced them to read and learn, and they fought against most of that learning. I always wondered why they were paying money and hoping the professors didn’t teach them anything.

Now what happens? This situation is new to us. What worked for a hundred years may not work any longer.

People at companies who hire people are goign to have to work. They will have to know what they are asking potential employees and actually understand the answers. No longer will, “he has a degree from a good school and a high GPA,”  suffice. This will be a difficult transition. It could also be quite entertaining.

by Dwayne Phillips

A list of some fun things.

This past weekend, someone asked,

When was the last time you had fun?

I thought about this for a while (there is a message in there about thinking about feelings, but let’s not digress to that today). I wrote a list:

taking a walk for 1,100 miles down U.S. Route 11 was fun

every time I see my grandson is fun

every time I play my guitar is fun

every time I have a pen or pencil in hand and set it to a blank sheet of paper is fun

every time one of my adult sons asks me a question is fun

every time a person who is younger than me actually talks to me is fun

and then there is

Every day I come home from work, I enter the house and say, “I’m home.” My wife walks in the room and says, “I’m glad.” Now that is fun.

by Dwayne Phillips

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter – Mark Twain

About ten years ago I was working on a project where we were writing career descriptions. We were supposed to describe the steps a person would take to learn their job, train themselves, and do ever increasing work for the group. Nice thought, but I digress.

I worked hard on my part. I showed it to the manager who shook his head in disgust.

“This was your chance to really write something about being an engineer. All you could come up with was this?”

He pointed to the brief descriptions I had written and the long descriptions of other professions that other people had given him.

I sat puzzled for a moment, then it hit me. “Oh, you think that because what I wrote was short that I didn’t try hard.”

For the next hour, I tried to explain that my part was short because I had worked long and hard on it. Being brief, concise, clear – those things were not easy to do. My explanation fell on deaf ears. The manager handed my writing back to me and shook his head from side to side.

I returned to my office, retrieved my first draft, which was twice the length of my final product, printed it, and waited two days. I gave the long first draft to the project manager. “Yes,” he said as he held the pages in his hands moving them up and down as if weighing them, “this is much more like it. I knew you could do it if you put your mind to it.”

Sigh. Gosh. What’s the use?

by Dwayne Phillips

I’ve noticed a few phases of writing a book:

1. planning or outlining and researching
2. writing – the first time
3. rewriting – several times
4. I can’t look at this anymore, I am sick of it
5. a publisher accepts it
6. the book is published and I receive a copy
7. I cannot read any of it. If I do read, my reaction is, “This is awful! Who wrote this?”
8. Some time later – six months to a year – I can read it and react, “This is pretty good stuff.”

by Dwayne Phillips

It is a gift when someone else reads my writing and offers comments. I had to learn how to accept and use that gift.

I write a lot – more than most people. Sometimes, I am fortunate enough to have a few people read my writing before I submit it for publication. The question I ask the reviewers is:

What does this piece tell you?

For example, I write an article. I know the main point of the article – call it X. The reviewers come back with some comments and the big comment, “This paper is about Y, right?” They didn’t read the correct main point – the one I intended for them to read. They read something else.

There are several ways I can respond. Among them:

1. They are stupid and can’t read.
2. Hmm, Y is a neat idea, i will write about that as well in another paper.
3. I’ll rewrite the pages and try again to say X, then repeat the review process.

I used to always conclude number 1. I couldn’t believe how stupid most reviewers were. I groaned, mumbled, and did as I wished.

Most of the times that past few years I go with 2. and 3. The reviewers aren’t stupid. The reviewers are pretty smart. What is more, they took their time to read what I wrote and used their energy to comment for me. Once I better appreciated their gift, I heeded their advice. Some of the best papers I have written were ones that I rewrote because of 3.

Lessons? Sure there are lessons here. Lessons about knowing a topic so well that I gloss over the main point and concentrate on fine points that hold no interest to others. Lessons about the value of re-reading your writing. Lessons about how the real work of writing is in the revising.

The big lesson for me: people aren’t stupid. When I think that other people are stupid, I am being stupid.