This was just way to funny not to post.

More importantly, there is an article on team building that talks about the different ingredients needed to form a great team.

Here are some point from the article:

• There are people who are driven intensely by the ambition to create exceptional experiences. The key word here is ambition, and I could see it in the face of everyone I interacted with. Ambition is one of the prerequisites for effective action. There are many times where the desire for exception experience is expressed, but when the ambition is lacking there just i no personal investment driving the action forward.

  Expressing the ambition is the mission. I think a good team knows that it’s the magic that they’re creating that’s important, and removing barriers to letting the ambition express itself fluidly is one of the prime metrics of a good team. By “expression”, I mean that ideas and desires are made visible so they can be directly experienced by another person. Another way of putting this: “the good of the project is greater than the individual interests of the team members”. If this mentality isn’t shared among all team members, you have a broken team.

• A great team shares the same ambitions, and reinforces this with every action taken. In the past, I would have evaluated teams by looking at personalities, communication, mutual respect, and other such indicators of a healthy social group. Many such teams are quite pleasant to work with in a social sense, but never quite reach the heights of productivity they imagine. The key indicator may be, for teams I’m interested in working with, is the level of shared ambition.

I’ve been lucky with most of the teams I work with. There’s definitely a sense of ambition. Right now, I’m stuck in the cycle of trying to keep it all going.

References:
http://davidseah.com/2010/07/finding-ambition/

In a statement published by the Pacific News Center, Guam Gov. Felix Camacho (R) announces that Steele will be providing the keynote speech for “the September 7th Republican Party fundraiser benefiting the Republican nominees for the Governor of Guahan and Senators of the Guam Legislature. Additionally, the Chairman will be the honored guest at a luncheon fundraiser on September 8th benefiting the Republican Party of Guahan.”

On Aug. 27, the Saipan Tribune also reported that Steele would be going to Saipan, in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), to endorse former governor Juan N. Babauta as the islands’ representative to the U.S. Congress, making him the first RNC chair to ever visit the CNMI.

In February, two RNC staffers, State and Local Development Director Shannon Reeves and Director of Political Strategies for New Media George Alafoginis, were also in Guam. RNC Communications Director said their trip was “part of party building activities the committee undertakes everyday to ensure the Republican Party is competitive in every state and territory.”

In January, National Journal reported that the RNC had transferred $20,000 to CNMI over a two-month period. Many critics wondered whether the funds were the RNC’s political payback for helping Steele become chairman. Steele received heavy support from the U.S. territories — CNMI, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam — who hold outsized influenced in the RNC elections. Under GOP rules, each territory receives the same number of committee members as each U.S. state.

Camacho is term-limited and cannot run for re-election. In his statement, he said that he is “confident that Chairman Steele’s visit will help the Republican Party secure the necessary resources we need to regain control of the Governor’s office as well as a majority in the Guam Legislature. As part of Chairman Steele’s mission to reinvigorate the Republican Party as well as attracting new voters, his visit to our island demonstrates that the Guamanian voters in the continental U.S. are an important part of this mission.”

References:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/29/michael-steele-guam_n_698565.html?ref=twitter

I checked my password several times. I even made changes to the iCal calendar and they made it to the server. It seemed like the connection was working fine but this error message kept popping up.

I changed my password on Google. I didn’t get the error message again. Here’s where I think there’s a bug. If you have a semi-colon ; in your password, you will receive the error message. I don’t know if any other characters are having problems.

Here are the instructions on how to setup Apple iCal with Google Apps:

To set up CalDAV support for Google Calendar in Apple’s iCal, follow these steps:

1. Open Apple iCal, go to Preferences and then the Accounts tab.
2. Click on the + button to add an account.
3. In the box that pops up, enter a description for the account and your Google Account username and password.
4. Under Server Options, add the following URL:

   https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/YOUREMAIL@DOMAIN.COM/user

   Replace ‘YOUREMAIL@DOMAIN.COM’ with the email address that you use to log in to Calendar. Make sure to include the ‘@domain.com’ portion (which is @gmail.com for Gmail users) in this section. DO NOT substitute your username for ‘user’ at the end of the URL.

5. Leave the Use Kerberos v5 for authentication option unchecked.
6. Click Add.
7. Under the Delegation tab, select the calendars you’d like to add to iCal by checking the boxes next to them. You may need to hit refresh to get the latest list of calendars.
8. Add your email address to your Address Book card by selecting Add Email. You’ll be prompted to add your email address only if your address is not already in your Address Book.

You won’t be able to invite or email guests to Google Calendar events within iCal if your address is not in your Address Book.

Your Google Calendar will now appear in iCal’s list of calendars, and changes you make to your Google Calendar in iCal will be reflected when you sign in to Google Calendar.

Event information will automatically refresh every five minutes. You can change this interval by opening the iCal > Preferences > Accounts menu and selecting a new refresh interval under the ‘Refresh calendars’ drop-down. Keep in mind you can also force a refresh by selecting a calendar and pressing the Apple and R keys at the same time.

Calendars that are checked but disabled have already been added to iCal – you can remove them from within iCal.

References:
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99358#ical

My cook book adventure is going good. Today, I did a bunch of main dishes like Chicken Adobo, Chicken Kelaguen, Lomi-Lomi Salmon, Epanadas, Scallops, Bacon Wrapped Shrimp, Red Rice, and Pan Seared Parrot Fish. There was more…a lot more but I forgot. It’s a little past midnight and I’m still going through some picture from Saturday morning. I came across the picture below. It’s a Cherry Stone clam shooter. The shooter was a one off thing I made on the fly out of pure inspiration. The main seasoning does not come from different herbs and hours of marinading but from the citrus, sake, and salt.

Ingredients

• 1 Cherry Stone clam, minced
• A pinch of green onion, minced
• 1 teaspoon sake
• 1 teaspoon lime juice
• A pinch of green  bell pepper, minced
• A pinch of red bell pepper, minced
• A pinch of green onions, minced
• A pinch of slivered ginger, minced
• A pinch of black pepper
• A pinch of sea salt

Method

Boil the Cherry Stone clam until it opens a little. Don’t leave it on the heat because we just want to get to the meat. Mince the clam and add sake, black pepper, salt, and lime juice. Set it aside while you prepare the decorations (bell peppers, green onions, and ginger). When ready to serve, place clams on the spoon and then add the decorations.

Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 pound octopus, diced
• 1/2 cup onion, sliced
• 3 tablespoons orange juice
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1/2 avocado, diced
• 1/2 cup tomatoes, diced
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

Combine all ingredients. Let rest for 1 hour in refrigerator. Serve chilled.

I tried out Dosa as part of completing my 7×7 food checklist for San Francisco. The 7×7 list recommends the Paper Masala. Here I’m thinking Paper Masala dosa sounds like a cute little origami type dish served with chutneys.

I was completely wrong and should have expected more from a dish that made it to the 7×7 list.

Out comes this giant dosa (a savory rice and lentil crepe), served with tomato & fresh coconut chutney, sambar (a flavorful lentil dipping soup made with vegetables), and spiced Indian potatoes, onions and cashew nuts.

I was completely speechless when it came out. The dosa had to be at least 24” in diameter. The tomato chutney was my favorite. It had enough spice to keep me going but it drowned the flavor of the coconut chutney. The lentil dipping soup reminded me of a black bean soup I had the other day…without the pork fat…so it needed a little salt for my taste buds.

The combination of the dosa, potatoes, and chutneys was a perfect match. The flavors complimented each other well. Overall, this is a fun dish to eat. You should definitely try the Paper Masala when you visit Dosa.

Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

References:
http://www.7×7.com
http://dosasf.com

The other day I voyaged into my favorite Guitar Center and by some crazy random happenstance I came across a PRS SE Paul Allender at a price I couldn’t refuse. For years, I’ve been watching the Paul Allender series and I’m glad I waited for this one.

First of all, why did I name her Fanihi? One of the main things you’ll notice about this guitar are the bat inlays. PRS usually has bird inlays while other guitar makers have a circle or a square. This guitar has 7 bat inlays. Fanihi is the Chamorro (native language of Guam) for fruit bat. Naming her “Fanihi” seemed like a logical choice. I also had to get the scarlet red burst.

Back to the guitar, this is the first PRS guitar that I’ve seen without PRS pickups. Well, after doing more research, it looks like they are loading more of the SE series with EMG pickups. The soap bars also threw me off too. This was a change from the original with humbuckers. I had to try it out. I was absolutely floored (I think I started drooling or crying or both)! The tone was amazing and just like the Custom Semi-Hollow it has several voices and acts differently depending on how you hit the strings.

I tried a couple of settings by playing with tone and switching pickups and I heard nothing but amazing results. This guitar is definitely better than its purple predecessors.

Here are the specifications:

Body

Back Wood: Mahogany
Top Wood: Flamed Maple Veneer

Neck

Number of Frets: 24
Scale Length: 25″
Neck Wood: Maple
Fretboard Wood: Ebony
Frets: Jumbo
Neck Shape: Wide Thin
Inlays: Paul Allender Bat Inlays

Hardware

Bridge: PRS Designed Tremolo
Tuners: PRS Designed Tuners
Hardware Type: Chrome
Treble Pickup: EMG 89
Bass Pickup: EMG 81TW

Oh, it gets better. Just when I thought I geeked out the look, feel, and sound, I discovered the push/pull volume and tone knobs. What do they do? So far, magic. I haven’t figured out the volume portion but my guess so far is balancing the pickup volume. But here’s where the magic comes into play. When you pull the tone knob, you can easily make the guitar sound like it’s using a single humbucker…and these are soap bars!  Push/pull knobs rock! This sweet feature makes this under $1,000 guitar and turns it into a $3,500 guitar.

Click on Tools, Options, Advanced, Encryption, Validation. Unckeck Use the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) to confirm the current validity of certificates. Click OK, OK. Restart Firefox and try again.