Since our current economic condition here in the USA has us all thinking in terms of Billions I thought it might be interesting to put that term into perspective.  The number is almost an incomprehensible number and while it just seems to roll off of people’s tongues what does it really mean?

A billion seconds ago – It was in 1959.

A billion minutes ago – Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago – our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion days ago – no one walked on the earth with two feet.

A billion dollars ago – about 8 hours and 20 minutes at the rate our government spends it.

Let’s look at Katrina and New Orleans and their request for 250 Billion Dollars to rebuild…

If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans that means every man woman and child in the city would get $516,528.

Each of the 188,251 homes would get $1,329,787.

If you are a family of four you would get $2,066,012.

So what about the $700 Billion for the bank bailout?

That is enough money to fund complete medical care for every man woman and child alive in the US for 11 years!

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Needless to say at $6.93 I have to take a loan against future payouts in order to be able to do anything.  Our dinner at the local Mexican restaurant was more that 5 times that amount (with tip of course), the movie tickets were $9.25 each and the popcorn and soda pop to go with them cost more than many 3rd world families have to spend in an entire month.

I figure at this rate I am going to need to have between 9 and 10 more paychecks to cover the evening out.  I got a little caught up in the moment of having that money to spend which encouraged me to do just as our government is doing… deficit spending!!!   Fortunate for me personally, I only need 10 more paychecks to cover my little splurge…

Put into perspective… our 700 BILLION dollar stimulus package divided by approximately 350 MILLION Americans is about 2000 dollars for each man woman and child in this country. (Tax payer or not.)  If I gave the government back their $6.93 per paycheck I would need about 289 paychecks to cover my $2000 of their stimulus spending.  (That’s 11 years for me!) An you know what that doesn’t include any interest.  The money doesn’t grow on trees.  It has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is typically going to get an interest payment as well.

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I have some thoughts here that might save costs and allow them to be able to maintain the old rates.  Of course you know they will eventually do these things anyway AND STILL take the increase that the law allows (tied to CPI-U – the consumer price index for Urban customers – 3.8% in 2008 – They can also “bank” these increases).

Idea #1 – Eliminate Bulk Mail Rate.  Most consumers throw this stuff away anyway.  By eliminating the bulk rate and making these companies pay for the presorted first class rate you will do two things.   First you will reduce the amount of junk that ends up being delivered.  (An added bonus – they could market this as a “green” solution because it would reduce the amount of garbage hitting the landfills.)  Second, for those that still do want to send the junk they are placed into the same category as all other mail AND get to pay the same rates as the normal postal consumer.

Idea #2 – Eliminate Saturday Mail Delivery.  Why in the world do we need to have mail delivered 6 days a week?  There is no added benefit, no compelling reason.  It must have been some government idea to get people back to work that has never gone away.  Anything you get through the mail is not extremely time sensitive that it couldn’t wait an additional amount of time.  Many business entities are closed on Saturdays so their mail isn’t needed on Saturday anyway.

If you were to do both Ideas 1 and 2 at the same time the carriers would be reducing the amount of crap they have to carry around, and speeding up the time it takes for sorting and delivery.  (Time for some staff reductions.)  With no Saturday you also would reduce the amount of sorting and delivery time. 

I’m really getting tired of the increases.  Maybe people should send more email instead.  I know I am getting most of my statements now via email.  Much of my personal correspondence is also via email…  Ahh…. maybe this is a conspiracy… they need to increase the cost of mail to maintain the bloated bureaucratic structure in the light of reduced volumes due to email.

Regardless… be prepared… Buy your Liberty Bell stamps now… (These are the Forever Stamps that you pay the current rate for and you can use them forever – regardless of the then current rate.)  I’ve got a couple saved away so that when the rates reach 5 or 6 dollars per letter and I just have to send paper that will take a week or more to deliver – I can “sock it to them”!

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  Local community theatre in Spokane is alive!  My wife and I have been doing a little volunteer work at the Spokane Civic Theatre this year and recently had an opportunity to watch a dress rehearsal of the competition version of the production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  So what is a competition version you might ask?  I know I was asking because I had no idea.

The AACT (American Association of Community Theatre) holds a biennial festival where community theatre groups participate in state, regional, and ultimately a national competition of one of their productions.  There are some strict rules and guidelines that are followed and you can find the details on the website link above.

Some of the guidelines include:

The production can be no longer that 60 minutes in length.  For “Cuckoo’s Nest” this required that the play be shortened.  An interesting thing in doing this revision is that the lines can not be changed they need to be removed.  This meant that the original “F’enheimer” and “GDs”, as director Yvonne A.K. Johnson referred to them, were reintroduced after being removed from the mainstage production.  The actual performance time turned out to be close to 57 minutes after the script revision.  Timing starts at the first sound cue.

The entire set, props, etc.. must fit into a 10′ square.  For me this was the most intriguing part.  When we entered the theatre there was a “box” on the stage.  It wasn’t really a box, but all of the backdrops, folded into a square. 

The cast has 10 minutes to setup and tear down the entire set.  For this production that 10′ “box” opened up and there was everything from the gurney, table and chairs to the TV and the ward overhead lights.  When they are prepared to begin all of the cast and crew were on the stage and they all had to be touching the box.  Once they were instructed to begin, the stage came to life, and in a matter of about 7 minutes we had a fully operational and tested set ready for the actors.  The teardown went even faster.  I think someone in the audience said it was something like 4 minutes to put the entire set back into the 10′ square.

It was a very enjoyable experience and it was evident that everyone really worked hard and took pride in the accomplishment.

So how did they do?  Of the 11 groups in the competition only 2 were are chosen to compete in the regional competition coming up in Coeur d’Alene.  Spokane was not one of the two… Those distinctions go to the Bremerton Community Theatre for the production of Overtones, and the Driftwood Players of Edmonds for their production of Minnesota Moon. 

The Spokane Civic came away from the festival with the following accolades:

• Stage Manager’s Award for Technical Excellence – Costume Crew
• Outstanding Achievement in Set and Lights

Congratulations on those achievements!!  You can see the complete list of awards on the WSCTA website.

I would encourage you all to get involved with your local community theatre.  You don’t have to be an actor, or even a volunteer.  Your attendance at the productions supports the continued efforts of your theatre groups.   If you happen to be in Spokane I would encourage you to check out the website for the Civic.

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There is an article on the U.S. News site that has some interesting tidbits about DST.  I have included a few below.

1.  It is saving, NOT savings (with an s) time.

2.  Heart attacks increase the first week of DST – speculated due to less sleep.

3.  Lethal car crashes are reduced because people are safer drivers during daylight hours.

4.  Kazakhstan abolished DST in 2005 citing health concerns.

5.  Two US States do not observer DST – Arizona and Hawaii

6.  The first American to advocate for DST – Benjamin Franklin

I know that I for one like the extra hour of awake time with daylight.  My wife corrects me when I say that I get an extra hour of daylight… technically there is no more daylight, just an adjustment in my clock so that I can enjoy the daylight that we have.

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I have been spending quite a bit of time on eBay lately.  And while I can still say that I am NOT an eBay fan these days I was able to find a couple of really good deals on geocoins as well as a couple of study aids for my PMP adventure.

I hate getting caught up in a bidding war on eBay and what I find typically happens is that as soon as there is a bid on an item, or as soon as you outbid someone on an item you end up in a bidding war and the price of the item keeps increasing above what you really want to pay.  And now that you have a “vested interest” you don’t want to be the loser.

Gixen has helped me solve this problem… When I see an item that I would like to bid on I can logon to the Gixen site and place my maximum willing to pay bid.   Since it isn’t recorded on eBay there are no emails telling me I was outbid and that I really should bid again, I don’t get emails about similar items, etc…  A large part of the emotion involved in an auction is removed.

In the past few days I’ve won 6 auctions in the last 6 seconds and in most cases it was for far less than I was willing to pay.  I am convinced that had I been caught up in a bidding war I would have paid much more.

Gixen is free but does have a “mirror” site that you can pay for. (Six bucks a year.) There are also a couple of additional functionality things you get but certainly don’t necessarily need.

If you’re wondering if a FREE snipe site works I encourage you to take a peek at gixen.com.  You can also check out my original posting on Gixen – HERE…

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Image by Geodog via Flickr

As many of you are aware, I am currently a project manager for a software company.  My job specifically has me managing implementation and migration projects.  I have been doing this for a number of years, enough in fact that I have another of the requirements to taking the PMP (Project Management Professional) exam under my belt. 

The PMI (Project Management Institute) is a non-profit organization started in 1969 by project management professionals with a goal of “advancing the practice, science, and profession of project management throughout the world in a conscientious and proactive manner…”  Through the years the PMI has created a set of project quality standards that are published in their definitive guide – the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge). The PMBOK guide is now widely regarded by organizations throughout the world as the “industry standard” in project management.  The PMP certification, which is administered by the PMI, assures that project management professionals understand the project quality standards, adhere to a code of ethics, and embark on a continuing journey of learning and participation in the project management community.

To qualify to take the PMP exam you have to have demonstrated project management experience.  For those holding a Bachelor’s Degree this is 3 years (4500 hours) of project management experience.  For those with a high school diploma it is 5 years (7500 hours) .    You must also complete 35 contact hours of PMP instruction from a company, institution or facility that is registered with the PMI.

Since I have my Bachelor’s degree, and I have more than 3 years of project management experience I decided it was time for me to get those initials after my name.  To do that I needed 35 contact hours of training.

I had researched this a couple times in the past and let me tell you there are myriads of opportunities available.  Just do a Google search for PMP Education and be overwhelmed by the over 3 million results.  As I began reviewing the options I became very cognizant of the costs and since this is a non-company funded activity it became a primary concern.  (The exam itself is not an inexpensive endeavor.)  Costs ranged from thousands down to hundreds.  I had almost settled into a local university offering which would have been about $1800.00 when I decided I would Twitter and ask if anyone knew of anything that was available online.  

It wasn’t long and I got a reply from Cornelius Fichtner pointing me to his PM-PrepCast.  This was an interesting approach that I hadn’t even considered.  A podcast that provides me with the supplementary instruction material required by the PMI.  I read through the content of the site and decided that for $49.99 it was probably worth investigating.   I was even happier to learn that if I wasn’t satisfied he would provide me with a refund. 

I listened to the couple of examples he had on the website because I was a bit concerned about being able to keep my interest.  (I know in reading the PMBOK that if you are having trouble sleeping all you really need to do is open up the guide and you will be sound asleep in a matter of minutes.)  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Cornelius has a very pleasant accent and the podcast was actually not too bad.  I signed up yesterday.   Certainly the price is right.  I don’t know of another way to get 35 contact hours for 50 bucks. 

(Shameless plug:  If you are reading this and you are interested click on the PM-PrepCast link or the image above.  His company pays referrals/commission if you sign up using my link. – You can also get 1 of your own.)

I look forward to this journey and I will keep you updated with periodic posts of my progress.  I have until the end of June to complete the exam using the 3rd edition of the PMBOK.  The 4th edition was released in December and the test will be modified for this edition after June 30th.  So with PMBOK in hand I am off to listen to a couple of podcasts.

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So in no particular order, here are some things that I consider when I build a post:

1. Structure of the post. By structure I mean the layout. Paragraphs are utilized, bold and italics where necessary, lists, etc. A post that consists of one long paragraph is probably not going to get much attention from readers.

2. Include a relevant picture on the post.  This adds a level of visual interest and in some cases could even be pertinent to the topic at hand.  Please keep in mind when using photos that you should respect the copyright of the owner.  

There are a number of services out there like Acobox where you can get hosted blog photos.  You can also use Flickr, or Google, etc…

3.  Spelling and Grammar should be checked on all posts.  No one expect all blogs to have professional copywriters with exceptional grammar and spelling skills but in this day an age obvious mistakes should be corrected.

4.  Link to other content.  If you make reference to something that is available on the Internet it is always nice if you can link to that content to make it easier for your readers to get there.  In the above paragraph I liked to all of the image providers that I mentioned… this is just an example.

5. Write to your target audience.  Blogs are not one size fits all.  You have a group of people that read what you write.  Try to keep your posts/articles on topic for that targeted group.  Don’t write about rocket science if you primary reader is the backyard gardener. (Unless of course there was some breakthrough in rocket science that is important for backyard gardeners to understand.)

Again, these 5 items may seem to be basic but it is absolutely amazing to me how often none of them are done.

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The article that I link to below includes the top 50 which was derived from more than 11,000 companies based on approximately 75,000 employees responses to a survey.

What I really like about this survey is that in order to even be eligible for the list a company had to have a certain number of respondents, they had to have an overall satisfied rating, and the CEO of the company had to have at least a 50% approval rating.    Unlike other surveys I have seen this one also focused on employee attitude about the workplace, work/life balance, fair and equitable treatment, respect, recognition, compensation, etc…   In the 20 questions they really tried to discover a “true” understanding of all aspects of a job.

Granted, you can make a survey’s results say anything you want them to say, and there are probably many companies not included on this list because they were too small, their employees didn’t know about it, etc…

So who are the top companies?  I’ll give you the top 10 and let you go take a look at the rest for yourself…

1. General Mills
2. Bain and Company
3. Netflix
4. Adobe
5. Northwestern Mutual
6. Whole Foods
7. Google
8. SAP
9. Continental Airlines
10. NetApp

The entire article and list (complete with linked reviews) is available at this link… Best Places to Work | Glassdoor.com.

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The holiday brought us a lot of snow!!!

I thought I would attach a few pictures to this post to give you an idea of just how much snow we are dealing with.

As a new “front” comes in tonight we are expecting to get another 10-12 inches and of course there is no end in site.

You can check on the webcam periodically to see the progress.  Notice that the benches around the fire pit are no longer visible.  You also can’t seem

much of the bench that is normally in front of the spruce tree.  We did put lights in the spruce again this year but thee is so much snow on the tree that they are hard to see. 

I’m ready for some global warming.

You can also see the last 40 webcam images here…

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