Long weekend

Tomorrow it's back to work after a four-day weekend. Apparently I really needed it - I spent much of Saturday in bed and generally did a lot of recharging. After a gloriously blue-sky day on Thanksgiving, it gradually clouded up and got cooler (low 50s), with rain for a good bit of today. I took the weather as a hint and overhauled my Peugeot bicycle, converting it from off-road 29er to my favorite rain bike, with 35mm tires and full fenders (details). The highlight of today was practicing violin with H, me on the cello in support. We played 6 or 7 Christmas carols that she's preparing for a group recital later this month. Her intonation was quite solid, her left hand looked good, and she really had an easy time reading though the music. Great fun.

Principles at work

This is an older entry once clipped from a blog that I frequent, but it's central to how I think about my worklife:

Forget worrying all those smart leadership techniques until you have developed the judgment, understanding, insight, trust, wisdom, and compassion necessary to become a leader. Until you do, giving you good techniques is like arming a blind person with a machine gun and telling him or her to go into your yard and shoot some rabbits. In place of courses to teach techniques, what about some time devoted to:

*learning how to think straight;
*how to spot false conclusions and faulty notions of causality;
*how to understand the rights and wrongs of evidence;
*and how to apply civilized values to day-to-day business situations?

Original source

Photography fun

I am fooling around with a new camera, risking a digital camera again after losing two to accidents in the last 2 years. Photos get uploaded here

East coast worksite

Here are some shots of where I've been spending a fair bit of time since we acquired a business this summer.



A glassed-in internal courtyard.



Entrance to the office proper, with lab and warehouse behind.

Space Derby with the cub scouts

M had space derby night with his pack last night. His rocket was much thinner and lighter than last year, and he designed some neat tailfins for it. He jumped up with excitement and struck his rocket mid-race on one of the heats, else he would have been undefeated. Great job!
(click for larger pictures)

Night bridge

Commutes home on my bicycle are now in the dark. This bicycle/pedestrian bridge at the foot of University Ave in Berkeley is not far from the start. (Click for full size)