The smooth top glass stove was burning the bean juice on to the glass. The heat was set on high before I turned it off. I had to get the bean juice off. The only thing in hand was a microfiber towel made of synthetic material which I told my wife never to use on hot surfaces because it will melt.

Maybe if I do it quick enough the plastic won’t melt on to the stove?

She gave me the most incredulous look. I knew what she was thinking. I had told her not to do that and I just did it. (sigh) Stupid impulses.

It’s a love/hate relationship. That was stupid, but other times I need it. Wit and Improv demand sharp impulses. Think of it as an example of higher impulse intelligence.

I love it when I get that moment just right and make people laugh.

One night at the architecture studio. My friend and I were busily working on our models for presentation in 10 hours. We were playing music. We bantered back and forth.

“You’re such a girl Eric!”

“I can prove otherwise.”

(laughter)

“Please don’t.”

You see, in that moment, I reached a new level of impulse. A level I had already reached before at a younger age but it had been a really long time and I forgot what it felt like to feel witty.

Usually, I end up with a small repertoire of responses. Like huh, sure, no doubt, maybe, could be, or just a simple smile and looking away.

I like the good kind of impulses. The kind of impulse that makes you say hey, I’m not an idiot.

Impulses are a baseline for character quality. It’s when you see people at their worst that you know them best.

(Or at least I think so. It sounds wise, so I’ll just run with it.)

This is why improv is considered personal development. Improv is the one place where you use impulses on purpose. The more you use your impulses on purpose the better they get. So next time I see the bean juice burning on the stove I think hey, why don’t I just wipe it off with my hands instead of the synthetic towel!

Or something like that…

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Imagine being me: I grew up homeschooled, with parents who were fans of Ross Perot, disapproved of Clinton, and voted for Bush both times. My first strong political opinion was anarcho-capitalism, after that libertarian based on readings of Austrian Economics, then just plain apathetic — I didn’t vote at all in the 2004 Bush and Kerry election.

Obama changed that. I didn’t see his opening speech for the DNC in Kerry’s election for the above stated reason. I saw him speak on the campaign trail. I felt like we could make a difference.

I realized my political apathy was part of a feedback cycle where cynicism leads to apathy which leads to nothing done which leads back to cynicism for things staying the same during the whole time. When he was elected I shed a tear for the symbolism of the event.

Thanks President-elect Barack Obama for changing me. In that he’s already fulfilled his campaign promise to me and probably millions of apathetic youth like me.

For the first time, I’m learning more about the legislative process, writing to representatives and senators, and interested in community organizing.

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I get a high whenever I hear Galway Girl by Steve Earle. I’m crazy over it. All it took was a sappy movie, called P.S. I love you - which P.S. I loved - with the guy who plays Denny on Grays Anatomy to get up there and belt it out.

I took a stroll on the old long walk of a day-i-ay-i-ay!

There’s something about the repetition. For a little while, I convinced myself that knowing this song inside and out qualified me for eventually taking residence in Galway. I told my Mom and Dad about my eventual move to Galway (I moved to Austin, kind of a small diff), I got my love all excited, and I looked up doing Oceanography research in Galway. But I didn’t go. I’m not sure what happened exactly.

I could lie on the couch and ask myself questions about why not but I’m going to let sleeping dragons slumber and know I’ll get there eventually.

Back to the song, have you ever seen City Slickers with Billy Crystal. He does this dance which looks like a cross between pumping water and a side-to-side can-can. I do that dance with this song. It just fits.

Here’s this clip from Eddie Izzard I think explaining indirectly why I enjoy the “day-i-ay-i-ay” park of the song.

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I know I havn’t come out and said this but I REALLY love chick lit, chick flicks, Jodi Picoult, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Margaret George. I read at least 3 fiction books a week and check out more books than I can carry at the library every 3 weeks. I am a master of grammar and impromptu public speaking. When I read I look past content and wonder why the authors wrote the way the wrote, I love to look at their syntax.

My favorite movies are shows like Rendition, Schindler’s List, and any WWII movie like the Black Book and Rosenstrasse. I know English history from the 1500’s like nobody’s business and my wife is named after one of the most powerful, incredible queens in English history - Elizabeth I.

I want to do something meaningful, particularly with children and education - those are my passions.

Okay, okay. It’s not me, the above describes the love my life Elizabeth. She’s complemented me in so many ways. I like to think so. Before I met her I was very pie in the sky, I had my own private world. My biggest worries were how to reach enlightenment and what makes for better economic policies. My conversation skills were somewhat low. I had a habit of being pedantic. Elizabeth forced me to get to the point and say things in a way so that people will want to listen to my thoughts.

We both share big dreams. We both have similar ambition in making a great contribution to the world but in entirely different ways. Elizabeth wants to reach it through politics and nonprofits. I want to to do it through technology, business, and design. Actually she wants to reach this goal through business as well - we share that.

I love my wife. Every single day I look in her eyes and with full conviction say “I feel lucky to have you in my life”.

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These autobiographies are a way for me track the development of my psyche and also by publicizing random, awkward attempts at progress and self-discipline I’ll have an incentive to stay on track because you, the reader, are my Big Brother with surveillance cameras otherwise known as your eyeballs.

I picked up this book called Crucial Conversations on the recommendation of Tom Peters because I thought he was a brilliant business brain who would enlighten me on the ways of avant-garde business. It turned out I picked up a few tips like master the stories you tell yourself and make the other person feel safe in the conversation.

This week 3 years after buying the book I had my first crucial conversation. Elizabeth and her friend had a tiff. The back and forth annoyed me and when I simulated when a solution would come about in my mind’s eye the resolution would come after 2 years of nonstop conversation.

This won’t do. Of course I’m playing down the gravity of the situation so I can seem more reasonable and unflappable under attack like redwood in a hurricane (have the california redwoods ever been in a hurricane?). I took the phone from my love and spoke with her friend hoping I could get this on a higher ground.

Of course during my conversation with her friend I failed to think of any of the principles from the book. Regardless, my compassion tinged. I felt for both sides. The night ended on a positive note. Yay.

Afterwards I went outside to cultivate grandiose thoughts of personal transformation about how I can face anything without fear. This was a nice feeling. I felt the way Mr. Clean feels when he sees the worse mess imaginable — like it ain’t no thang.

Elizabeth noticed I like Obama for his redwood qualities. After last night’s final debate Obama’s redwood qualities resonated with my own redwood aspirations — this means I like him. McCain on the other hand seemed like one of the fungi I see growing on trees. They take many shapes, they feel icky, and sometimes visually disturbing (blinking eyes, freaky grin, and flailing body language.) “I didn’t know a presidential candidate could look like that!”

Fighting the fungus in my life has taken the form of 125 pushups, squats, and crunches every day for the past 6 days. This will help my redwood aspirations into an element of my personality. Writing this blog is also a fungus fighting technique. I take ideas from my mind and make them better than they were in my head.

The only problem with fungus fighting is we can only fight it in certain areas while in grows in other areas. My sleeping patterns have seemed more fungus-y the past 3 days as I goto sleep between 2 - 4 and find myself waking up at 9 feeling exhausted. Meanwhile the Washington Post reports theirs a link between poor sleep patterns and greater inflammation in the body.

Recently, we found out the person who offered to buy our house decided to give us option money and back out. Elizabeth and I were bummed as we were looking at apartments and jobs in Boston when the call came in and felt closed that Firefox Tab after the call was over. However, life has already put me through redwood training. We put the house up for rent in August and got a tenant in September who wanted to move in the first week of October. This person also backed out. I felt more bummed than then I did this time. Thanks tenant-I-never-knew!

Ideas have many different qualities. The ideas on this blog are here for their interesting sometimes helpful qualities. The ideas in my Evernote are their for fodder on my schemes to contribute something great to the world before I leave. In some ideas I search for the green quality. And by green I don’t mean the green revolution for which I have great respect. I mean show me the green, the lettuce, the bucks.

Interesting ideas take some thought. After all interested readers need something more than “The Most Ineresting Idea You’ve Ever Seen”. I have to find more interesting things to support the interesting idea. Evernote ideas just hang there until I’m ready to pick them. Green ideas need to be tested. The first question is do people want them?

This is where I get stuck. How do I find out if people want this idea I have? If they’re willing to pay for it? And how much they’re willing to pay for it?

P.S. Apologies all around to fungi everywhere. Mushrooms and fungus are powerful organisms which turn oil into a new ecology for life to form. Check out this video I saw with Paul Stamets at the TED conference - 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World.

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Imagine your coworker asked you do something that took an hour or so to do. In return, you get an email with “Thanks!”.

It’s a social nicety. But it doesn’t make your day. It probably sapped 5 seconds of precious time you wanted to devote to looking at cute puppy pictures on The Daily Puppy. Thanks Jackass.

You know in Dido’s song when she talks about gray skies, being late for work, and in the video being evicted but getting a call in the middle of it all from a special someone? And when she says “I want to thank you for giving the best day of my life”?

That’s a thank you for the ages. I’ll think about a thank you like that while brushing my teeth or eating my soup.

The 2 Parts of the Best Written Thank You

1. Describe your personal context. This is what Dido did by telling her yucky story.

Ask yourself “What pain or inconvenience did this person save or relieve me from?” ”

2. Say “Thank you for _____.” Here you have two ways to fill in the blank.

Either ask yourself “What did this person do to earn my thanks?” (Did they write, coordinate, or inform you in some way?) or ask yourself “Where does this moment sit within the context of my day, my week, my month, my year, or (in Dido’s vein) my life?

Or do both.

A Thank You to readers:

I have my best thoughts and ideas escape me before I put them to words usually. Thank you for giving your attention to my thoughts. Thanks for co-creating a blog I look forward to working on every day.

What else have you noticed about good thank you notes? What have I missed? What’s the best thank you note you’ve ever had?

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My earliest memory goes to when I was 4 years old. Short of hypnosis I do not remember anything before that.

I was 4. I feared darkness. I used to ask my Mom to sleep with me every night. In the middle of the night, she usually snuck out to sleep in her own bed. I woke up usually and ran to their bed as fast as I could before monsters could get me. I was quite the mother’s boy — not to mention Daddy’s boy. I never acted tough — that came later in life.

Then I lied down between my mom and dad for that extra feeling of security. My Dad broke his snoring pattern for the moment I settled in between the two. I felt like the night would never end. I felt both alert and dreamy.

When my parents woke up. I felt unsurprised and startled. Unsurprised because I felt I never went to sleep and startled as I could not remember why I was associated with these people. Who were they? I saw my Dad by the dresser putting on his undershirt, he said Good Morning, and I said Hey because I didn’t know what else to say to this man. My mom evoked the same feelings in me. Who is she?

I imagine an alien abduction would feel like that. At one point I wondered if someone switched out the old Eric and put in the new Eric on that night. On the other hand its too easy to fool myself and none of the events occured. Or maybe that’s what the aliens want me to think? I’m teasing.

What’s your first memory? Was it weird? I hear some people have memories of being in the womb. Anyone remember that?

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When those difficult cases occur, they are difficult, chiefly because while we have them under consideration, all the reasons pro and con are not present to the mind at the same time…To get over this, my way is to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns; writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con.

Ben Franklin

Allow me to demonstrate how Ben Franklin saved me? Just a quick story? Okay? Here goes.

Buying an iPhone

We bought an iPhone. We went to Best Buy to ask questions the day before. We looked at the different plans online. We went to the AT&T store to sign on to a 2 year contract agreeing to pay every month.

How the hell does a 2 year commitment decision get made after 30 minutes of research? Why did I agree to may a certain percent of my income for 2 years? Can I Alt-Ctrl-Delete and go back to the start? What have I done?

It sucks when you do something you didn’t intend to do. I kept asking myself these questions and brought down the mood of the whole house. Why don’t you make a pro con list? My wife asked me that while I talked out what I was feeling. I like that idea.

Instead of listing pros and cons and picking whichever side has more pros than cons or cons than pros. I did it Ben Franklin style. Here’s how:

Ben Franklin Style Pro/Con decision making.

1. Draw a line down the middle of a sheet of paper.

2. Write Pro over one side and Con over the other side. I prefer + and - but that’s the geek in me.

3. List out each pro and con until you find you have nothing more to add to either column.

4. Here’s the twist. Weigh out the strength of each pro and con. If you find 1 pro equal to 2 cons, cross them out, 2 pros equal to 3 or 4 cons cross them out.

5. Then, hopefully, you’ll have all of one side crossed out and a few remaining points on the other. Decision made.

A Note to AT&T: Marketing wisdom says people buy products for emotional reasons and justify with rational reasons after the purchase. That is what I did with the iPhone. We bought because it so darned cool and I felt assured when I did my pro/con list.

Why not give us more rational reasons right at the start? Show us all the benefits that come with the iPhone over the Vu and Blackberry? The benefits aren’t only the internet and phone service. They’re services like AroundMe, the find your car application, Google Reader, twitterific, news delivered to your pocket. Train your salesmen to do show us that and I’m betting you’ll up your sales.

P.S. to readers Ben’s letter is a beauty. He wrote it on my birthday - that’s gotta be a good sign right? Here’s the link: Moral Algebra

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I often hesitate to write about myself. If I do, it’s either handwritten or deleted soon after I write. I’m afraid of writing something boring or rambling.

What keeps me interested enough to write about myself again is the feeling I get when I read something I wrote years ago. It’s the same feeling I get when I walk in downtown San Antonio and imagine the Battle of the Alamo or walking in Boston and imagining the Tea Party. Awe. I also think about having my kids read these some day to learn what thoughts I had when I was their age.

I’ve decided to stop hesitating and deleting. I’m writing this letter style to my future self and my children, grandchildren, and their children too. Here goes:

Bailout, Politics, Palin, Angelfire, Grandparents, House Selling

Well, all financial chaos is happening but to the people I know and myself, we’re doing okay. The only effect I notice is maybe our house is selling slower than it could sell.

Elizabeth and I talk about Sarah Palin frequently. We were surprised when McCain picked her. I saw her speak on TV at the Republican National Convention. That was a long night. Elizabeth was at her parent’s house.

I’ve started reading Popurls.com(a collection of the most popular articles on the net) and Jon Stewart. Frequently negetive articles about Palin and McCain are the most popular. I read them, I’ve just gotta know! But something unsettles my stomach when I do read those articles.

The articles are all personal attacks - about her Pentecostal affiliation, Alaskan Seccesion, her intelligence as demonstrated on the Katie Couric interview and her meeting with dignitaries at the UN. I stopped respecting McCain after his constant negative attacks on Obama which say more about him than Obama.

I don’t respect people who do personal attacks. When I read those articles I’m supporting those attacks. Cognitive dissonance is always unsettling. I say that and yet one personal attack about Palin has more to do with her beliefs about God.

The attack was her association with a shady pastor. What scares me more was not the association but her belief system. I don’t know these for certain but does she believe in an end times as so many people have before? Does she base her decisions on the Bible? Is she receptive to other beliefs and cultures about how life should be lived? From what I can gather since she hasn’t made any statement on those is yes, yes, and no.

There. I feel better. I’ve recently decided to stop reading Popurls and watching Jon Stewart. It’s always entertaining but I cannot say I’m learning anything valuable and helpful. I feel dumber for it. I’ve switched over to reading Science news like PhysOrg.com. I feel optimistic and curious after reading those stories.

Elizabeth and I just watched the Townhall debate with her Dad tonight. I get the same feeling watching the debates as I do reading Popurls, a little bit stupid and wondering why I watch it. Neither candidate did anything awesome tonight. I felt Barack missed a great opportunity to come out strong when a voter asked him “How can we trust either of you?” He and McCain launched into a well rehearsed litany. Most of what they said is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who at least reads the headlines of the daily news.

But still I watch. I realized riding home with Elizabeth I watch the same way I watch my favorite movies like The Return of the King hoping things will be a little bit different this time. I know I’ve seen the movie and I know it will not change, still I hope it changes. Ohhh, the audacity of hope!

I sat down to lunch today thinking about my Grandpa Gordon wondering what he would say about all this political humdrum. He was well read, knew his history, a businessman and I think I’d enjoy conversing with him about it. Unfortunately, he died in the late 90’s. That’s why autobiographies are a good thing. How much I’d enjoy reading his right now.

I’m still learning how best to work with others in my role at the company. At first I tried to be straight and almost impersonal in my emails with my coworkers whenever I ask them for help on my website project. Now I’ve learned to write more like I talk and engage with them. Sometimes I find myself wishing the managers knew better how to cultivate ideas and innovation but I keep running into dead ends and find I have to push for these ideas. I believe in their potential contributions to the company. Wishing is a dangerous feeling, it’s the only feeling which gets me nowhere while for an instant letting me feel like I’ve got it all.

Elizabeth and I want terribly to live in Boston. We’ve decided we will move after we sell the house. We’ve gone through remodeling the place to better enjoy it ourselves, to looking for tenants, to looking for buyers. In each step we’ve got the house more and more resistant to the laws of entropy. Now I can’t believe how little work we have everyday in maintaining the house. It’s really something for us to stick with. I used to spend so much time everyday just cleaning the damn place and now I find I’m relaxed more often.

I’ve written my fair share, Elizabeth is ready to read it. I’ll be sure to write entry number 2.

UPDATE:McCain at one point talked about the economy and how the president must act in X way implying Obama wasn’t and implying that Obama was ignorant of the times, he turned and looked at him and said(paraphrasing):Well Obama, the news is bad.

I watch the debate for nonverbals and voice stress as well as for content. The content was all the same as the first debate. In both debates McCain’s nonverbals communicated disrespect to Obama(not looking at him in the first debate, “that one” in the second debate). Obama when McCain misrepresented him, said something like “Unsurprisingly I need to correct Senator McCain’s history. When he did it his tone communicated coolness.

Right now I want the president to represent the best of us, the best of humanity. There was a time when confrontational, brash leadership worked(think Leonidas in 300, which isn’t history I know but you get my point) I imagine. Now I think cool headed, compassionate, reasoned leadership is needed. Obama acted like I want a president to act last night. McCain, in Elizabeth’s words, acted like a “grumpy grandpa who drank too much Sherry in one night: .

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