Work(s) in Progress

Cruise wrap-up

If you want to see more pictures from the cruise, Maggie posted her description with pictures here. Kyra had 4 cruise related posts, of which this is one (you can click through her others on her site). Irene posted some here and made a really neat slide show that clicks through lots of different pictures.

Perhaps the most interesting pictures are on the John Stone Fitness Forum (warning 8 forum pages of picture and movies; at least 1 nipple shot, pixelated, not mine) - mostly of their group. I mentioned in my previous post that PhillyDude from the John Stone Fitness group often joined us for dinner. Here's a comment from him (page 2 of the above link) that shows the major differences between the two groups (Pink Dumbbells & John Stone Fitness).

I sat with the Pink Dumbbells (PD) group at dinner every night. There were two other couples besides Maggie (causticmuse) and her husband Chris (waynegretzkyjr), and a solo female (who I ended up sitting with, being the only solo male in either group around her age). They were fascinated, yet horrified, at some of the tales from the day.

Example from "formal" night dinner:

Philly: So what did you guys do today?

Random PD response (sipping wine): "Oh, we took the snorkeling excursion, and then walked around Nassau and did some shopping. How about you guys?"

Philly: "We drank 437 pina coladas, pissed on some fish in the ocean, and then held Tanisha's hair back while she puked in a bag on the taxi ride back to the ship. She's the one over there at the other table in the dress with the neckline down to her navel, next to the big guy with the sleeveless t-shirt and the racing stripe sunburn lines and the aluminum bottle of Bud in his hand."

All PD couples in unison:     

The cruise was bad for my nutrition plan. Food everywhere, all of the time, with too many treats. I left for Orlando on August 14th at 132 lbs. I returned the evening of the 18th at 142 lbs - an impressive gain of 10 lbs in 4 days. Granted it was mostly bloating from eating the wrong foods. After about 4 more days I was holding steady at about 134. As of today, with nutrition and exercise bad on plan, I'm down to 131. Whew.

And finally, as fellow bloggers, we spent some time talking about those strange people who will leave spam message or attacks in the comments on certain blogs but not others. Most of us have been very fortunate in this regard. I tempted fate by saying that I'd gotten none since I started blogging in 2004. Shortly after I posted the group cruise picture, I didn't get a comment here, but I received an email that read "For years, every picture that I have seen of you has been lovely, except the latest one on your blog. It looks as if you had plastered your hair down with bear grease. I hope that you will choose a new hairstyle as soon as possible. At least you are smiling." The email came from a relative that people are generally surprised that I don't visit often. Thanks for wiping away that last shred of guilt. And for the record, no bears were harmed in the creation of that picture.

 

Fit Women, Part 2

It was great to meet Irene, Kyra and Maggie in person! This picture was taken on the night of the formal dinner. Special thanks to Maggie and her husband Chris for being our drivers and my host for my first night in Orlando. Come visit anytime! Also thanks to PhillyDude (not pictured) from the John Stone Fitness Forums group for being my dining companion each night.

The cruise was too short. I miss the ocean already. I need to update my PADI  certification. It had been too long since I'd been in the water. It was great to snorkel, sit on the beach and simply enjoy the boat rides to and from my destinations. Bliss.

Alpha Men

A few weeks ago I read several books by women who have developed techniques to effectively work with dominant men.

When I got those books, Amazon recommended that I also consider getting What Men Don't Tell Women About Business: Opening up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook by Christopher Flett. I finally read it this evening.

Have any men read this? Is it accurate? Do you really feel this way? Oh wait, I've just lost all of my credibility by asking. Darn.

I found this book to be simultaneously both incredibly illuminating and highly disturbing. On the one hand, the author states multiple times that (alpha) women are the perfect people to become the leaders of today's companies. And yet, within his framework, these same women will always be subordinate to not only the alpha males but also the beta males in the group.

In spite of my discomfort with some of the theories and recommendations put forth in this book, it is written in such a way as to be actionable. Further, it gives very specific examples of behaviors that undermine one's power or will cause one to be "deep sixed." What does it mean to Deep Six someone? "The is the process we use to sabotage your credibility and your career. It comes from underwater (you rarely see it coming), and it has a devastating effect on your position in business."

I need to reread this book, and take notes, as there seem to be two major themes. The easy to swallow theme deals with productivity, professionalism and providing superior value - core ideas in any business book. The other theme seems largely built around loyalty, trust, keeping secrets, and not damaging the surprisingly fragile egos of the alpha males. It seems like the primary cause of getting yourself deep sixed is apparently a careless word that cracks the foundation of the fragile male ego. And woe to the woman who inadvertently provokes the wimpy beta male. Let the games begin, only the woman must wage her war ever so cleverly. Actually perhaps she should just start looking for a job out of state. It seems men can dish out and take criticism from each other, but a women who offers up constructive feedback to a man even when asked, even to a subordinate, risks provoking war and paying the price for damaging the male ego.

Fascinating.  I always thought alpha men were hardier creatures than this.

Fit Women

I virtually met a number of amazing women back in 2004 when I first started focusing on fitness, initially following the original Body for Life program created by Bill Phillips who is now doing a program called Transformation. At first (2004-2005) I faithfully tracked my progress in Excel, and took pictures every few weeks. You can view my initial transformation here, just keep scrolling down to get to the final "after" pictures.

Many of the women, through their blogs and various fitness forums, have gone on to compete in figure competitions or have become certified personal trainers. As time passed, for me, it became less about a specific program and more about just living a healthy lifestyle. It was also important to me to drop the obsessive compulsive tracking, although it is incredibly effective. Right now I really like the variety of Turbulence Training (read the blog or buy it here). At a minimum you should at least check out the YouTube workouts.

This coming week I am going to have the opportunity to meet several of these inspiring women in person. I am so incredibly excited.

Julie Berg is coming to Colorado to compete in the Leadville 100, a 100 mile trail run! Julie often wins her age-group in her local ultra-marathons. She's also just launched a store to sell her magical blister preventing foot potion. Hopefully I can meet her and her family before she heads into the mountains.

The magnificent Maggie Wang (she's a karaoke singing, video game programming, artist & fitness junkie with a frugal gourmet habit) coordinated the Pink Dumbbells (note: Pink Dumbbells is a joke about those women who are afraid to lift heavy and only use those cute pink dumbbells for their workouts) cruise. I think a bunch of folks from the John Stone Fitness Forum are also coming.

I am also looking forward to meeting Irene and Kyra, whose art I keep buying. I also can't wait to get on our cruise ship. I'm ready to bask in the sun for a few days.

Now with Facebook

My work email is dead today. It went down at 7AM. I cannot access the MS Exchange server via Blackberry, web portal or remote log in to work computer. I always feel lost when this happens. When I email myself it leads to "This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:" I hate this. I suspect that 90% of my work communications occur via email and this weekend anyone who tries to contact me will get that message. Nice. Please try again. Even my work voice-mail is forwarded to my work email. No email access = absolutely no productivity.

In the last 24 hours, two people asked me whether I had a Facebook profile; one invited me to join. I finally made a profile. If you are a member, you should be able to see it here. I was able to add my Lijit widget to Facebook so that was pretty neat. What I am less sure of is the why of Facebook. I don't really get it. Is it better than my blog? or LinkedIn? or Twitter? or MyBlogLog? or MeetUp? I know historically Facebook was for students to share pictures & stories but I'm less certain of its professional value. Can someone explain it to me? Am I just Too Old for Facebook? Of course one of my friends is in the 5000 member strong group "Intelligence is Sexy!" so perhaps there is some hope.