I went to Simi Hills Golf Course this past Saturday and, after putting with a friend for a while, got a small bucket of balls and hit my pitching wedge. These were the first full swings my doctors allowed me to take since my pacemaker implant surgery last March 8. Actually, I haven’t swung a golf club in a little over 10 months, but only the last three months of idleness were mandated. Those 25 balls wore my old ass out. I’m looking forward to getting in shape enough to play nine holes, but it’s not really golf to me unless it’s 18. Right now my goal is to play nine in under 50 without having a heart attack. 18 will be next; maybe even walking some day.
My almost 22-year-old daughter has been inventing in the kitchen, based on whatever’s available in the house, interestingly diverse meals. “Whatever’s available” is almost always a variety of foods drawn from the tastes of her parents (my wife and me) who are descendants of Eastern European Jews and Japanese.
What Do You Think?
I think this sandwich is an interesting example. It consists of a sliced chunk of Trader Joe’s organic baguette drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, a few slices of dried Italian salami, a slice of LASCCO Nova lox, smashed avocado, sliced tomato, laced with Sriracha and Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise.
Sound good to you? It’s not quite my cup o’ tea, but it looked interesting enough I wanted a picture. Note as well, she’s always considering presentation, in addition to flavor.
I’m not one for nostalgia, mostly because I find looking back is frequently done with sadness; at loves lost, abilities gone, desires unfulfilled, etc. Nevertheless, it’s difficult not to encounter things that bring back old memories and feelings. Such was my experience with this wonderful video.
Although I was born in Southern California, of Eastern European Jews, I have developed a close affinity for Cuba over the years. There are two primary reasons this is so; two very deep and well-developed reasons. The first is from the two months I spent in Cuba in the Spring of 1973 with the Venceremos Brigade (La Brigada Venceremos). The second is from the Cuban woman who was my first wife and with whom I spent seven years.
The trip to Cuba was far more than just a two-month experience. It came at the culmination of around five years of intense political activity, beginning with my involvement in the Vietnam antiwar movement, and ending with my evolution into a Marxist. Shortly before traveling I worked at The Ash Grove, which had a long and tortured relationship with anti-Castro Cuban exiles. In fact, it was burned down three times by what Fidel labeled “Gusanos” (worms). It also involved several months of training, without which I would not have been allowed to make the trip. This training was provided by those who went before our contingent (we were the sixth) as well as members of the Black Panther Party, the Brown Berets, and the Los Angeles Women’s Liberation Union. It was the organization’s way of doing their best to ensure we understood racism, sexism, and cultural chauvinism, such that we wouldn’t do something stupid while we were there to make the organization, or the Cubans, look bad.
The marriage was short; actually, we were only married for about three and a half years and lived together prior to taking our vows another three and half years. It ended not so much because we weren’t getting along or compatible, but because our life circumstances seemed to dictate we go in different direction. After we had separated, I bought a dance studio for her in Venice, CA, where she conducted classes and sold some merch. That was nearly forty years ago and I wasn’t involved in the day-to-day business; mostly I just provided money and some connections. I don’t remember what happened, other than that it just wasn’t sustainable and I lost some money. We remain friendly to this day. Not close, but we’re Facebook friends and we have quite a few mutual friendships, so we cross paths occasionally.
So this video brought back some wonderful and some deeply emotional feelings for me. I don’t think you have to share any of my experiences to enjoy it. It is fun and entertaining. Hope you like it.
After I checked in the other day on Facebook, while at the KP Pacemaker Clinic for an update on my device’s performance, I noticed a lot of my friends aren’t exactly familiar with what all this means. Please allow me to explain what is happening and how my device works.
I have known for decades I had an electrical problem with my heart. My doctor told me a long time ago I had a right bundle branch block, which I could live with indefinitely or which could kill me in short order. I never let it bother me and figured I would live my life as best I could and not worry about dropping dead.
At the beginning of this year I started noticing I was having problems with heartbeat irregularities and I contacted my doctor. To make a long story short, it became apparent I was experiencing bradycardia (slow heartbeat). One of the diagnostic tools used was what is called a Holter Monitor (it’s a heart monitor, which I wore pasted to my chest for seven days). One night my pulse rate dropped to 26 BPM; not dead, but awfully slow.
After a telephone consultation with a cardiologistโnow MY cardiologistโto go over the results of the Holter Monitor and blood tests, we decided a pacemaker might be indicated. That was February 27. Between then and March 3 I had trouble walking from the bedroom to the kitchen, or from the family room to my car, without requiring a moment or three to recover from a feeling of utter exhaustion. I couldn’t fathom living like that for long, so I called my cardiologist to discuss what was going on. I wasn’t scheduled for a consultation on my test results until late March, but that wasn’t acceptable to me. He indicated he had a surgical opening the following Wednesday, March 8, and I agreed to the procedure.
On the morning of March 8, I checked in to the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Woodland Hills, CA and the procedure was performed later that afternoon. I had a Boston Scientific Accolade MRI pacemaker implanted in my chest, just below my left collarbone. The device is about 25% bigger in diameter than a silver dollar, and three times as thick. It’s a nice size chunk of metal I’m still getting used to. It consists of a dual-core processor with 512KB of RAM, a large battery, and two leads – one to my right Atrium and one to my right Ventricle. It is programmed to send an electrical signal to “pace” my heart when it drops below 60 beats per minute. I also have a communication device that sits next to my bed that receives data from the pacemaker and transmits it through a dedicated cell connection to the pacemaker clinic at Kaiser. The pacemaker is also programmed to recognize when my heart rate rises above 130 bpm, at which point the device by my bed (it’s called a “latitude” and is also from Boston Scientific) will notify the clinic.
Two weeks after the surgery, I want for my first device checkup at the clinic. The Nurse Practitioner who manages the clinic advised me that my latitude was communicating properly and she had received data from it. She also told me that my right ventricle was being paced 100% of the time, but my right atrium was being paced far less. She reprogrammed the algorithm in my pacemaker right there (I didn’t feel a thing) and increased the timing between atrial contraction and ventricular contraction. Before I left she informed me my heart was beating on its own.
In The Waiting Room
She also told me the battery indicated it would last for 12 years, but since she had changed the algorithm that would likely change and we would know more the next time I came in. That was last Wednesday, May 24. At that visit I was informed my heart is being “paced” about 40% of the time and that the battery now appears it will last for 15 years.
As of now I will only need to go in to the clinic once a year. I’m feeling good, at least as good as one can expect after almost 76 years of heavy use. So if I use up the remaining battery lifeโassuming it lasts as long as it predictsโI should make it to 91. Of course, that’s assuming nothing else gets me first, and there are quite a few other things that I have to be careful about. Regardless, I’m thankful I’m reasonably energetic and my brain seems to function as well as it ever has, despite the wear and tear of my party animal past. Life is good, and every moment is precious to me – more now than ever.
I had my job interview the other day. Now that it’s completed and I wait for them to conduct a couple more interviews, I’m thankful for several things:
1. I still remember how to tie a four-in-hand knot, though I haven’t worn a tie in years;
2. Despite wearing zoris and sneakers for some time, my feet still fit comfortably in my dress shoes;
3. My brain remains agile and capable of fielding questions with ease;
4. I retain the knowledge, if not all of the skills, of every one of the dozens of jobs I had during the more than two decades in which I worked before joining Rocketdyne at 39;
5. I’ve kept my ability to use Excel all these years. I actually started with VisiCalc in the early 80s๏ฟผ;
6. If I don’t get this job it won’t in any way diminish my self esteem.
NB: I published this article sometime in 2010, around the time I accepted an early severance package from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and retired. It was published using WordPress’s old classic editor and didn’t render well any longer, so I’ve upgraded it to their current block editor format. This should explain why the date associated with it is May 16, 2023.
This article is a few years old, but thereโs so much good stuff in here Iโm thinking I should post it every other week for the rest of my life. Seriously, with all the talk lately about how you need to be careful of people who hold themselves out as Social Media Experts, Russโs words are even more impactful.
This October Russ will have been gone for a year. Iโm willing to bet I speak for a lot of people when I say he is sorely missed. He is surely not forgotten. Read the whole article; then get the book f-Laws.
Update (Thanksgiving, 2013) This post was originally published from www.telegraph.co.uk using Amplify, a curation service that no longer exists. Below is the excerpt as Amplify prepared it.
Anti-guru of joined-up management
Published: 12:01AM GMT 08 Feb 2007
I was fortunate to spend Russell’s 90th birthday with him in Philly, I took this photo when Bill Bellows and I had dinner with Russell and his wife, Helen
If you were asked to picture what a management guru should look and sound like, you might come up with a description of someone very like Russ Ackoff. Grey-haired, distinguished, softly spoken, Ackoff fits the bill. And also, since he turns 88 on Monday, he can claim the benefit of wisdom earned over the course of six decades studying and working with businesses and organisations.
Except, of course, that โguruโ is not a label that Ackoff is keen to accept.
โA guru produces disciples, and a discipline, and a doctrine,โ he says. โIf you are a follower of a guru, you donโt go beyond his thoughts, you accept his thoughts. He gives you the questions and the answers โ itโs an end to thought. An educator is exactly the opposite,โ he says. โYou take off where he sets you up for the next set of questions. One is open-ended, the other is closed. Most consultants are gurus. They are โexpertsโ, not educators.โ
So please donโt refer to Ackoffโs body of work as gurudom and please donโt describe his work with clients as management consulting.
โWe donโt call it consulting,โ he states firmly. โWe make a distinction between consulting and being an educator. A consultant goes in with a solution. He tries to impose it on a situation. An educator tries to train the people responsible for the work to work it out for themselves. We donโt pretend to know the way to get the answer.โ
In his distaste for gurudom, Ackoff is of a mind with his old friend and colleague, the late Peter Drucker. Drucker famously once observed that the only reason people called him a guru was that they did not know how to spell the word โcharlatanโ.
โPeter Drucker made a great distinction between doing things right and doing the right thing,โ Ackoff says. โAll of our social problems arise out of doing the wrong thing righter. The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become. It is much better to do the right thing wronger than the wrong thing righter! If you do the right thing wrong and correct it, you get better.โ
Read more at www.telegraph.co.uk (I don’t believe you can see the entire article without accepting a “free” monthly subscription, which you will have to cancel if you don’t want to be charged.)
I’ve got a job interview tomorrow, less than three weeks before my 76th birthday. I’m not old; I’m experienced, I’m seasoned, I’m tested. I know I’m at an age where, even if I don’t look as old as I am, I still look old and, in my experience, ageism is a very real thing. This position is in aerospace, which I’ve found to be more accepting, but the proof is in the pudding, as us old farts like to say.
Here’s a video of Angel playing soccer (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) with herself. Between this and her scattering toys all over the houseโeven outside in the backyardโwe’re getting worried about her. We think she may have ADOG. Hopefully, the Vet has meds available to help her out.
I need to tell you something. Although I’m a Boomer, I have a great deal of love and respect for your generation. One reason for this is because my wife and I became first-time, adoptive parents late in life and both our daughters are in your generation. They’re currently 19 and 21. But also because you embody the ideals and aspirations I had as a young man back in the sixties and seventies, when I was an anti-war and social justice activist.
In 1966, shortly after I graduated High School and when the war in Vietnam was heating up, with US troops heading toward an eventual commitment of half a million troops, I joined the US Navy, following in the footsteps of my father and thinking it was the right thing to do. I was medically discharged after only a month and 23 days, but that’s another story that has nothing to do with the point I’m making herein.
When the police rioted in Century City in the summer of 1967, and I was running a small snack shop in downtown L.A., I remember thinking that the police were probably right and dealt with the demonstrators appropriately. I was soon to discover just how mistaken I was. So began my transformation into an anti-war activist.
Without going into too much detail, I’ll just note that I spent about five years organizing, demonstrating/marching, and doing security for others who were protesting the war in Vietnam and racism and sexism in our society. It was pretty much full-time and I only worked to make enough money to allow me to survive while being an activist. My work culminated in a two-month trip in the Spring of 1973 to Cuba, as a guest of the Cuban Government, with the Venceremos Brigade. Shortly after my return I began law school. I was burned out and wanted to get on with my life, which I had neglected in favor of my activism.
I remained politically active to some degree, but not like I had been, especially since U.S. involvement in Vietnam had effectively ended in January of 1973. It was with great dismay that I realized my generation was not merely withdrawing from the activism the war had ignited, but was actively moving to political and economic conservatism. In 1976, the year I graduated with my J.D., Jackson Browne released his album “The Pretender”. The title song contained the following lyrics, which resonated deeply with me. The still do.
I want to know what became of the changes We waited for love to bring Were they only the fitful dreams Of some greater awakening?
The Pretender – Jackson Browne
Just recently, as I was refreshing my memory about the lyrics and what he was saying, I came across a video where he explains a bit about the genesis and meaning of the song. In describing who the pretender is, he says, ” … it’s anybody that’s sort of lost sight of some of their dreamsโฆand is going through the motions and trying to make a stab at a certain way of life that he sees other people succeeding at. So maybe it’s a lot of people of a certain generation who sort of embraced a very material lifestyle in place of dreams that they had that sort of disintegrated at some point.”
I don’t mean to imply, by the title I’ve chosen for this post, that it’s your generation’s responsibility to achieve what my generation so spectacularly (at least apparently) failed at, but rather my hope as I approach the end of my life to see a truly better society, a better world, and a rise in decency and mutual respect among the people of this planet. I’m hoping you will prove to be the generation that achieves that “greater awakening”.
This month will be 13 years since I retired from Rocketdyne. At the time it was owned by United Technologies’ Pratt & Whitney division. When I first joined the organization in 1987 the mother ship was Rockwell International. Later it was sold to The Boeing Co. It is currently owned by Aerojet, but negotiations are continuing to complete its sale to L3Harris.
Throughout all these changes, which I have either experienced or watched somewhat closely from not too far, one thing has remained relatively constant. The quality of the people who work there. I believe I was privileged to work with some of the smartest, most competent people on the planet. After all, it WAS rocket science. To be more precise, Rocket Engine science.
Now, I’m neither an engineer, nor a scientist. I am not a machinist, technician, or mechanic. I had nothing to do with the actual design, manufacture, assembly, test, or flight of the rocket engines we manufactured and provided to NASA. Not directly, that is. An organization such as Rocketdyne cannot operate without ancillary functions to ensure lines of communication are robust and effective between and amongst each of the dozens of functions such an org needs and I am happy I was able to provide some of the skills and knowledge necessary to facilitate those connections.
When I left the company in May of 2010, I took home with me numerous mementos of my time there. These include printed editions of studies I played a major role in conducting, training materials for a tool I was the project manager for, internal awards I received, and other items that had some meaning for me. Today I once again came across this simple ticket. I’ve kept it all these years because it reminds me of one of my favorite people ever. Myrna Beth Thompson or, as we knew her, Beth.
She was one of the first people I met and became friends with when I joined the Program Office of the Space Shuttle Main Engine team. In an organization composed of very conservative people, she was another progressive I could relate to and she wasn’t shy about her beliefs. She was also kind, caring, empathetic, and always available to help anyone who needed it. Tragically, she died of a massive heart attack nine years ago this month.
The ticket is a prop from a class Beth championed and taught as part of our efforts to instill the concept of Systems Thinking into the heart of the organization for which we labored. It was based on Barry Oshry’s book, Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life. If I recall correctly, one of the concepts taught was that of the Abilene Paradox or, as many people refer to it, The Road to Abilene. You can read about it here. It’s understanding, however, is ancillary to my reason for posting this.
Beth has been gone nearly a decade. I don’t think of her often, much as I don’t think of my father, mother, and others who have passed on. But I’ve kept this simple little ticket all these years because it reminds me of her and our friendship. I can’t bring myself to part with it. I’m pretty sure it will be one of those things my children will unceremoniously dump when I am gone. It has absolutely no intrinsic value any longer. Its value is entirely dependent on my memories and my life. I consider that extremely valuable.
PS – In case you’re wondering, SSME stands for Space Shuttle Main Engine (the program we both worked on for many years) and O.E. stands for Organizational Excellence, one of the numerous efforts we indulged in over the years to improve how we did business. They were often spectacularly unsuccessful, but that’s another story.
Systems Savvy 