I've seen conformity like this experiment, it's just crazy.

One of the things that we value in this society, I'm talking about the United States in particular, is the sense that we are nonconformists, able to make their own individual choices regardless of what other people are doing. But much of the research that's out there, shows that people are anything but nonconformists, they mostly follow the crowd. They do it even more when authority figure has made it okay or given it a moral stamp of approval. This tendency towards conformity shows up in almost every facet of life, everything from friendly relations, religious organizations and of course, business. It's like the old saying goes, if you tell a big, big lie often enough, people will start to believe. That's the conformity. I've seen this firsthand in many different types of organizations, because it really is a group behavior. I think you like this video about conformity, it really drives home the point of what I'm saying.

And what's funny about it is, it really isn't what you wear, you could have wild tattoos, shave your head into a mohawk, and generally look counterculture, and you could still be a conformist and very easy to shape with an opinion. I think this has a lot to do with how we behave in business, the state of the economy and politics. People don't want to be the odd person out, but you should always strive for that because blind conformity is a bad thing. And for those who won't conform, there are generally bad consequences as those in authority don't like it, they don't like to be told they're wrong. So this whole conformity thing is used again and again to control people, and I for one refuse to be controlled through this method. I'll keep my own opinions, thank you, and the truth, and I hope all of you do the same with what you truly believe.

It's a really big ditch.

Our office is located in a place that is close to the Mississippi River, in fact just a couple blocks away. And as one looks at the mighty Mississippi, you think how massive the river is, cutting its way down through Minnesota. But if you step away, and go up the hills on either side to get a view of the whole area, you realize that the Mississippi River in this area is relatively small. The whole area starting in St. Paul and going south is all set in a really big ditch which were formed by glacial runoff thousands of years ago. The area of the river valley is quite a vertical drop, it must be somewhere around 300 or 400 feet and each side creates a large drop. I've read about this in books where they talk about the drainage of glacial Lake Agassi which took up most of Minnesota at one time, drained through this area and created all the bluffs that you see along the river valley. Evidently, there was a time when the water must have been 400 feet deep scouring the entire area. Now, all that's left is the Mississippi River which looks small in comparison to what must've been a huge drainage. It's funny to think about doing business in this area at the bottom of an old, huge ditch. Water is one of the most important resources we have here, but also played a huge role in creating the whole environment in Minnesota. The farm fields are very rich and there are thousands of lakes here, both leftovers from glacial runoff. It's hard to imagine what it must of looked like long ago, but one gets a faint glimpse of it when looking at some of the leftover features of the landscape.

Saturday night at Yang's Chinese Restaurant in Woodbury, Minnesota.

A recession is on in case you hadn't heard, but you couldn't tell that by being at Yang's Chinese Restaurant last Saturday night. Yang's is our favorite place to get chinese take-out, although they do have a dining room too. The dining room is nothing spectacular, a real basic chinese interior and perhaps a bit like someone's kitchen table, it's hard to describe. But I really like their food, especially the sesame chicken when it's really spicy hot. This local restaurant has received a lot of critical acclaim in the Twin Cities, and no wonder for how good the food is at a reasonable price. It was crowded, about 6:30pm last Saturday, the dining room was full and there was a line-up for that and take-out. Nice business. My order was taking much longer as a result, but I didn't mind waiting. It gave me a chance to look at all the people who were there, young couples with babies, old people, middle-agers, the best people in our town. It was truly a cross section of everyone, and everyone seemed to be in a good mood. I stood there and watched, I was the one leaning on some vending machine, taking it all in. It felt comfortable, like home, my place to be at that moment. If you're in Woodbury, Minnesota, Yang's is a good place to have a meal, they treat you nice and that seems to reflect on everyone coming in to dine with them. 

Shatner's Raw Nerve is a guilty pleasure.

I've watched Shatner's Raw Nerve a couple of times on the Biography channel and I really like it. It's where William Shatner interviews all types of celebrity people and asks them some uncomfortable questions, or lets people spew whatever is on their mind. Shatner is an interesting character going all the way back to Star Trek, doing those crazy recordings, Priceline, and then this talk show. I find it odd the way he interviews people with these two chairs facing each other. He probably has the ultimate schtick, being the eccentric Shatner and one never knows what he might do next, other than be Bill. His voice and his almost universal recognition being himself has stretched a TV career for about 50 years, not bad. I remember that he was on an old Twilight Zone episode and one couldn't imagine that this reinventing of himself would last, and that he seems to have fun doing it. It's virtually impossible for any celeb to do this, rarely is a career revived, but Shatner has done that. At any rate, I like Raw Nerve and the way he handles these interviews. It's a guilty pleasure for sure, and I'm going to keep watching it, I never thought I would, but there you go, surprise.

A beautiful snow covered day, and missing last night's minor shindig.

As always happens this time of year in Minnesota, we tend to get copius amounts of snow. It's that time of February and March when we really get dumped on, but it usually doesn't last as long as mid-winter. This brings us all a sense of optimism, that we're close to springtime, a beautiful rebirth in the north country. But for today, driving my daughter to a basketball tournament, I marveled at this beautiful day. the snow had clumped on the trees making them look decorated in white. I was refreshing to see the whiteness of the snow with the sun higher in the sky, it almost makes you snowblind as you drive along.

The neighbors got together last night, but I couldn't get off the couch after my Friday meltdown. Sometimes this happens, it all can come crashing down at the end of the week making it impossible to do anything really. So as I was thinking about going over to the neighbor's house, I fell asleep and did not recover. I'm sure it was a good time and I missed seeing the Ashton Ritchie Cup on display, I'm referring to the lawn king neighbor who won the trophy last summer, Kent. It would have been nice to get caught up on everyone's life as that was the purpose, it had been a couple months since the Christmas party, so you kind of lose touch being shut indoors. So now what are we going to do? We lost the opportunity and now we're hopelessly out of touch, how bad is that?

New beat-up vintage looking guitars hitting the market.

Along with my post yesterday concerning the new guitar that I saw at the music store, there was something else I saw that was interesting. It looks like Fender has come out with a line of limited-edition classic guitars that look like they've been used for over 30 years. It was amazing that a new guitar could look like Eric Clapton was using it for all those years. But that's the effect are trying to create and the edition is limited, sometimes only 20 pieces of each classic made. I'm not too hot on the idea, spending $4000 for something that looks beat up, but there must be a lot of people that they feel will think this is really cool. I think they call it road worn. Don't get me wrong, there is a certain part of me that thinks it is kind of cool, but I can't justify spending that kind of money on something that looks as old as it does. When I buy a new guitar, I want it to look new, I'll put the dents and the worn out areas in myself, thank you. But what they must have found out is that there was a demand for vintage looking guitars and not enough vintage guitars to go around to meet that need. I didn't pick one up and try it, but I'm sure it has a wonderful feel of a Fender guitar. I'm sure I'm out of step with everything, that I want something to look new when I buy a new guitar, it must be the snobby, classic, worn look that everybody wants. There are guitar snobs when it comes of this kind of thing. So I say go for it, waste your money, it won't make you a better player or sound any better. So why do it? I guess I just don't get it.

That new Ovation guitar with an MP3 recorder / player.

I was in a music store last night with my son and we were looking around some of the guitars and some of the other musical instruments. I picked up a brochure with all the different products that they had on sale right now, and even though I'm not in the market for anything, I still like to check things out. The guitars are so cool and they're fun to play, at least some are. One of the most interesting guitars I saw was the new Ovation Idea, which has a built in MP3 recorder and player. With electronic recorders getting so small, it makes it possible to put it in the guitar like this. I love this idea because whenever you play, there may be some melodies or rhythms that you can't record or run to an amp and record it on your computer. Instead, you can have the Idea record it and save it for playback. This is a wonderful way to hold musical ideas. I could see this as a wonderful practice tool as well, hearing the quality of your play. I didn't take one down from the shelf to see how it played, so I don't know what that's like. But since it's an Ovation, it can't be bad, I used to own one many years ago and like it very much. This is such a good idea that I think it could be something that almost everyone offers in the future on all guitars. It may sound funny, but it's something that could be easily added on without changing the look of any guitar. I'm going to see if Ovation has some actual MP3 files recorded with this to see what it sounds like. If it sounds good, I know I would want one and get rid of my Fender electric / acoustic.

An interview I saw with the CEO of Vodafone.

I was watching one of these early stock watch shows this morning and caught a glimpse of an interview with the CEO of Vodafone. I honestly don't remember his name, I suppose I could look it up, but it's what he said that mattered the most. They talked with him about the economy and one of the things he said was that there was too much negative talking about the economy. He was making a reference to a lot of the government people who were saying things at the wrong time and actually making the economy worse. Investors in the stock market are easily spooked bunch and some of the talk has been frankly very spooky. This is something I've said all along, if there's a problem deal with it, but it doesn't do any good to have dire predictions without leading the way out, it only makes things worse. I have no way of knowing, but I would guess that half of our problem is because of talking about the unsettled nature of the future, it's a death spiral. Markets don't like this and that's been proven over the last six months. It would be nice if there were some euphemistic ways to talk about the economy, ways that investors couldn't understand, but it's not possible. I'm going to get off all this talk about the economy, I'm done talking about it now. I'm going back to some of the light and breezy stuff that I would touch on in this blog. It's bad to look at the economy too much, because it's such a drag whether it's doing well or not. No one can figure it out, there are steps we as individuals can take and that's about all we can do. That's it for me, no more blogging about the economy, yuk.

Sometimes people use rushing technology as a replacement.

I've been one of those from a generation of people that saw the great digital transition and what life was like before and after. Adopting technology for good purposes makes sense, but we barely have time to understand the consequences of rushing tech. It comes at us so fast, and just when it's figured out, something else comes along to replace it. This has an effect on our culture where things have been very disposable, but now technology is too, and I think relationships are becoming that way too. As we use technology, especially computers and everything it spawned, we begin to focus on it as the answer. The focus pulls us into ourselves without much thought to other people, in other words, how can I use tech to benefit me, me, me? It's so distracting for many today, that it becomes a replacement for real relationships. Can people have meaningful relationships in a world of the instant, where something better could just be a mouse-click away? There was a time when there was none of this high tech, it was something locked away in a room somewhere, only to be accessed occasionally. We were forced as people to work closely with each other, but this ability to get information quickly makes us less dependent on others, and somewhat isolated. So technology is being used as a replacement for going deeper with others. It's too bad. Decades ago we weren't so distracted and now we use this as a way to feel important, empowered and hopelessly shallow.

Thoughts on that whopper spending / stimulus bill.

After this spending / stimulus bill passed through Congress, I thought about it, and there was such a frenzy to get it done, regardless of really thinking long-term. If it were something that Wall Street thought was the answer to all these problems, you would have seen the Dow surging over the last several days. But they know what we know as business owners and employees regardless of party affiliation, you can't spend your way out of a recession. There can be some ways to help, and more stimulus in the bill rather than government spending would have been the way to go. I'm not an economist, an expert, but I do run a business, and I know what it takes to get the job done, staying fiscally right with no bailout. Instead of being saddled with all this debt for many decades to come, which we're really not sure will turn things around, we should be offering incentives across the board for all business to expand. The economy has a funny way, almost without direct human intervention, to right itself if we give incentives to the people producing products and services. What we got this time around is more government spending, most of which has nothing to do with getting business back on the right track again. We need confidence builders for people to feel good enough to get back to the good work of commerce. I'll wait and see what happens, I hope this all helps, but I know the economy would have eventually returned upward again, even if this debt laden bill had not passed congress.

Renaissance music, excellent!

I went on to my Rhapsody account, and was looking for something to listen to when I came across the Renaissance music channel. I had no idea that it was there. There's quite a number of musical genres to listen to and for me it's often jazz. But tonight, something different was the order of the day, so this Middle Ages music did the trick. It blew me away, I forgot how wonderful and simple music from that era is expressed. The vocals are often just sounds, chants and melodies with no real English words, the instruments are simple sounding too, real refreshing. It's so wonderfully dated, coming from a time full of uncertainty, unrest and change. It's so beautiful, a treasure beyond words really. If you have Rhapsody or Napster or some other service where you can listen some of the songs, you'll either think I'm nuts or love the sound like I do. This is a true discovery to hear all these variations of human voice, it almost sounds synthesized. In some ways, it seems to be ahead of it's time, the interplay of melody and harmony that you often hear in modern electronic music. The only time you might hear something like this is either at a cathedral or some special vocal arrangement, very rare. I'm certainly enjoying this tonight and will come back again.

What makes a good treasury secretary?

With all this supposed stimulus talk in Washington, you would think that the brain wizards there would have an idea as to what they're doing. The truth is that few elected officials, let alone economic experts, can get their minds around the US economy. No one can, it's impossible. That's why Adam Smith's invisible hand works so well. Free markets, left to themselves generally produce the best results, it's more democratic, decided by investors that makes for the optimal economy. So what makes a good treasury secretary? One that limits his speech, one that has concrete plans rather than generalities, one that helps those Wall Street people get the confidence back. That's what we need right now, confidence, and it's our government that can help without spending a dime on that one. I believe our economy tanked partially on just bad speculations that were shouted from the highest office, that may or may have not been true, and unfortunately are still being said. It's too bad, because we all have taken a hit because of poor judgement more than anything else. From the President on down, our government needs to start talking about positives rather than dire predictions.

Nunavut, Canadian Arctic, the remotest order.

I often think about all the people we serve with lighting of all types, and it brings to mind some of the wonderful places many people inhabit. Probably the remotest order of lighting product that we've sent out is the Nunavut Territory in northern Canada. It's not the distance there that I describe as remote, but how empty and void of people it is. It's fascinating to me that someone even has Internet access up there, but I shouldn't be surprised. Modern technology has connected even the remote portions of the world which I believe is good for those people, not to mention ourselves. Here's a little information about the Nunavut territory, it's been inhabited for upwards of 4000 years by native peoples. It looks like most of the growth these days is due to mining in those areas, even including diamond mining. I can't imagine mining in such a hostile environment, let alone living there. But where there's money to be made, people will have a way to shape the environment to make it possible. I hope that everything worked well for my customer, I'm sure it took some time to get there! 

I can't believe I'm watching Mothman Prophecies.

This is one of those evenings where I'm not feeling well, this kind of cold / cough thing going around, and I'm bored. The wife is watching some kind of chic-flick, so that makes me turn to some on-demand movie that's more guy related. So now I'm checking out Mothman Prophecies starring Richard Gere. The premise looks ridiculous and maybe the idea is wrecked for me because I know something about the real Mothman sightings in West Virginia. They are a series of spooky stories and experiences that none of us would want to have happen, but the idea of making it into a movie with this lost love beginning seems odd. With something as bizarre as Mothman, you don't need to have this made-up story around it, it could stand-alone as a horror movie. Anyway, I can't believe I'm watching this, Gere is not a favorite, although he's a good actor and hopefully there's some action. After all, it's about action & adventure for men, maybe that's what made me check it out, considering the alternative girly movie, maybe this is okay.

Update: I didn't finish the movie, it got stupid and I couldn't slug through it.

The things we take for granted: trains.

Oftentimes I pause and take a look at things, hopefully to see the world in a different way or maybe as a child might. It usually takes time, normally it's not something that suddenly comes upon you, although that can happen, it's often taking time to look at something closely. It's as if we look at the world in a completely different way when we slow down enough to really look. This morning I had one of those moments coming into the office. We have the good fortune of freight trains that run by constantly on a rail line to and from St. Paul. You might think that all the noise would be bothersome but it's not bad, it's really not noisy if you're in the building, but it's amazing to see how much product is being shipped. This particular train looked like it had been on the rails all night and was just starting up again. The engines roared as they came to life and smoke came out the top. What I enjoyed most about it is the way the sun came up over the hill and hit this beautiful red engine. I have an old friend that worked on the railroads as a mechanic and because of some back problems, he had to quit. It was something he dearly loved and it fit him perfectly. Unfortunately, it just didn't work out that way, but he does other things these days that seem to serve him well. I could see how somebody could get hooked on these things, these massive machines that bring us our goods from far away. It's really interesting how trains mechanically function and also keep the schedule straight so there's no accidents. It's one of the things I take for granted, I see it every day, but I don't think about. But this morning I did and I think of all the people who work in this area of life I don't normally think about. But I am thankful that there are people who know and care about keeping the country moving over the rails.

Another Super Bowl ends the football season.

I actually watched most of the second half of the Super Bowl today, it's not something I normally do because the Minnesota Vikings never seem to get there. It's hard to get all excited about it when the team you like isn't there. The Vikings exited this season in the first round of the playoffs, which seems typical for them. It's too bad, they have a lot of talent, but the pieces didn't quite come together, yet. Regardless of this, Pittsburgh and Arizona played well and I thought it was over when Arizona went ahead in the fourth quarter. There was certainly was a level of excitement as the game was so close. These athletes are so good, able to do so much and then a little bit more like tonight. I didn't see the halftime show with Bruce Springsteen, but I don't care about that since that scandal years ago, but I appreciate that the NFL is trying to make that memory go away replacing it with class acts. Overall, I think football is truly America's game, and the Super Bowl reflects the enjoyment of that tradition.