The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

Over 2 million copies sold! Used by thousands of companies and hundreds of business schools! Required reading for anyone interested in the Theory of Constraints. This book, which introduces the Theory of Constraints, is changing how America does business. The Goal is a gripping, fast-paced business novel about overcoming the barriers to making money. You will learn the fundamentals of identifying and solving the problems created by constraints. From the moment you finish the book you will be able to start successfully addressing chronic productivity and quality problems.



My boss, rather one of my bosses, I have several, it comes with working at a family business, asked me if he bought me a book if I would read it. I said 'sure'.  The boss I'm talking about is the youngest sibling who has been chosen to continue the legacy   the older sister had her turn and she is doing something else  although I couldn't tell yo what.  All I know is there is a couple of hundred thousand dollars in cars that park really close to the building. I found a copy of the book in pdf and i read a couple of chapters.  Rather than read one more, I'll kick the can that was my thanksgiving.

But first, a funny album cover:

Well, it didn't work.  Maybe next time. Wonder if I can get any of those thanksgiving pics up?

Nope.  That didn't work either.

So we'll just go with something else. A little sharing.  Let me share how my day started. I hear the alarm at five forty five. It was a little chilly so I took an extra five minutes to get out of bed.  I put on some warm clothes, the one's I go walking in later so I wouldn't have to change.  I put on the coffee and while it perked, I made the youngest breakfast.  I like to do it.  He takes a little lunch sack with something in it and eats it in the parking lot at junior college.  I empty a water bottle and make him chocolate milk.   This morning I made him a peanut butter  banana  and honey on wheat.  chunky peanut butter  his fav.  Then I take my coffer and go upstairs to read, write, watch video on the computer while its nice and quite.  A little Me-time.

I go for my second cup and wake the boy up.  After that cup, I head out myself, but look in on him.
'Did you take a shower?'
'Yes"
I notice his hair is messy, but dry.
I walk over and feel it.  Greasy and unwashed.
"Why did you lie to my face?'
Silence.
"Just let him do what he wants, he is the one who has to go around stinking", says Head.
Two on one is not fair so I turn and leave, fuming mind you.
On my way out the door, I put his sandwich in a dirty bowl o the kitchen counter and pour the milk over it.  I find a marker and write on the bag 'Liar's breakfast'.
then I go for my walk.
When I come home, the sandwich is gone and it's not in the trash.
That bugs me, where is it?

I go get ready, that's when I read the TAO an it is uncannily appropriate.

Chapter 30

Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao,
Counsel him not to use force to conquer the universe.
For this would only cause resistance.
Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed.
Lean years follow in the wake of a great war.
Just do what needs to be done.
Never take advantage of power.

Achieve results,
But never glory in them.
Achieve results,
But never boast.
Achieve results,
But never be proud.
Achieve results,
Because this is the natural way.
Achieve results,
But not through violence.

Force is followed by loss of strength.
This is not the way of Tao.
That which goes against the Tao
     comes to an early end.


See what I mean? You can't get anywhere trying to dominate.  So I text him and apology and tell him not to eat the sammie.
He took it thinking it was his breakfast.  Don't think I did't feel bad.



I will need to find out why the pictures won't download but another project for another day.  All my best...

Person.of.Interest

An ex-CIA hitman and a scientist team up to prevent crimes before they happen.




Best put in the album cover next:

I have lots and lots and lots of pictures from the Thanksgiving trip.

It started off sucking.  We didn't even make it out of town before I pissed everybody off.  Fair enough, they pissed me off too.  The youngest wasn't even trying to hear what I was trying to show him about algebra.  So, I put my headphones on and zoned off.  I read, slept, and gave everyone just what they deserved: the silent treatment!




We got to my folks, that was on Thanksgiving morning, and cooked and ate and cooked some more and ate some more. Here's what it looked like:

If you give the dog some turkey, he'll go away...NOT!

My mother actually made instant mashed potatoes.  Just becasue my Grandmother did, but man, that lady made them taste like angel poop.

There's Mom and the youngest. Putting out some cheese and crackers for us rats.

Watch out, she's got a weapon.  No, its just part of my tripod.  This is my three year old niece  She is a cutie.

wold you believe she came from this guy? Meet my brother, twelve years my junior.

This is my oldest. Working on a neck beard like his uncle.

And this is my other niece. Also a cutie. She is working her tongue over a tooth that is coming in.

The youngest and my mom made these cherry tarts with a pecan and cream cheese crust. And then, he made some guacamole. This is him sampling his work.

So, we milled around and ate snacks before dinner.

More milling....

Still milling...

And here's the meal....

 Yes sir, that's pickled okra...

 I channel my grandmother to make this stuffing.  She passed the recipe on to me. I bake the biscuits and cornbread and boil a chicken and eggs one night. Then the next night, I put it all together.  The key is to make it runny, not thick.  It needs to be pour-able the baked to harden up. Delish!

 My bro baked break and made homemade ice cream for desert.

I love the green bean and durkee onion casserole. Love it!

Just the carcass  was left.

 Dig my pharaoh beard!

Tomorrow, I'll take you to San Antonio.

Okay, time for the TAO:

Know the male,
yet keep to the female:
receive the world in your arms.
If you receive the world,
the Tao will never leave you
and you will be like a little child.

Know the white,
yet keep to the black:
be a pattern for the world.
If you are a pattern for the world,
the Tao will be strong inside you
and there will be nothing
      you can't do.

Know the personal
yet keep to the impersonal;
accept the world as it is.
If you accept the world,
the Tao will be luminous inside you
and you will return to your primal self.

The world is formed from the void,
like utensils from a block of wood.
The Master knows the utensils
yet keeps to the block:
thus she can use all things.

Chapter 28 is about know that there is two sides to every story. There is the male, the outgoing, and the female, the introspective.  Both are important. The white/easily noticed and the black/hidden. The TAO says that to be simple, to be plain is far better than being loud and proud because...becasue we can adapt easily to be the 'tool' that is right for the situation.

Take it easy my friend.

Supernatural

Two brothers follow their father's footsteps as "hunters" fighting evil supernatural beings of many kinds including monsters, demons, and gods that roam the earth.




Its seven in the morning, getting an early start.

Appropriately titled. I bet this one could put a big hurt on you.

 Good morning!

Okay, certainly I can do better than that.

Much better.  Much Much better.

 

Making a bit of coffee for Head and Me.  Ethiopian, I believe.

I wanted you to know that I will be on holiday for the rest of the weekend.  Although I will not be posting any blogs, I will be working hard to gather interesting content to post when I get back. We will be thinking of you, wishing you well and all that.

Now, I will pack the vehicle (picture below as seen from the bathroom window).

Now, unless you want a grotesque image seared into your retina, I suggest you leave....my eyes are up here.

Monsters[2010]

Six years after Earth has suffered an alien invasion a cynical journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through an infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.



Okay, time for the crazy album cover:

Head and the youngest went to visit her parents at her brothers house. Her brothers live north. Yes, brothers.  One is a meth head, the other is VP of the largest liquor distributor in America. Guess which one the parents are visiting?  That leaves the oldest and me to hold down the fort.  I put the cornbread stuffing together.  He washed dishes.  He has to go work tonight.  I picked up a bag of burgers and we watched the Spurs vs. the Celtics.  Then he went to shower, I came to The Tower and started this movie.  Work was busy today.  I'm a little bushed.  Ready to start a long weekend. Ready to chill like an Eskimo.

I"ll post some pictures of our Thanksgiving in 2002. I don't know abut you, but it doesn't seem that long ago to me. bu then, I still feel like I'm twelve.  Let me start your education about the history of the Machens.  Head got pregnant in College Station.  I wasn't through with the degree, but I was close.  At least I thought I was.  So, when she got preggers, she was managing two apartment complexes and she was immediately terminated.  She had to go home to Amarillo to have the baby.  Which wasn't the worst thing in the world because both our parents lived there.  I lived in the lab while I finished the degree.  Pearl, remember her, the head secretary, let me have a room at her place for awhile.  I also got a job at the same Department of Defense Veterinary Lab where Eric and Monica worked at.  The officers who had been through public health were happy to hire us to work at Ft. Sam Houston. I got a job there. I had a hard time finishing the degree an kept putting off the job until I had to leave.  The degree wasn't a requirement.  I finished it up while I was at the lab.

Any who, Head's sister moved to San Antonio at the same time. We actually lived with them when we first came to town.  We got our own place, I worked at the lab for five, maybe seven years.  I got a job running the lab at the Water System. San Antonio Water System, SAWS. I was a big shot there for another five, maybe seven years.  They laid off a quarter of the management and out I went. A story for another day.  While at SAWS we bought a house out in the Hill Country, in North San Antonio.  We were five minutes from Six Flags in one direction, Sea World in the other.  We alternated season passes between them.  During this time, my parents bought fifty acres in a farm town, Devine, south of San Antonio.  It was close to the waste water plant where the SAWS lab was.  Those were great times.

When I got laid off, with a great severance package, I started working for myself.  Nothing really took off but a local lab hired me and I ran it for a couple of years.  then I went back out on my own.  Head was the youth director at the church and selling real estate.  We were doing pretty good. I got into the mold business and consulting for labs.  When Katrina hit, I was hired as a consultant by the EPA to work at the command center. First in Dallas then they moved me to New Orleans. NOLA.  I worked there for six months, it was a trip. Met some guys, the guys who decontaminated the buildings for anthrax, and they wanted to try it with mold and I was a mold God.  They hired me as a consult and and I worked for them for two years.  Then we moved back to San Antonio for six months, nothing really took off and I got this job offer at the Forensics lab here in Arlington.  We have been here for five years.  These pictures, in 2002, where in our house in the Hill Country, in a town called Helotes.  It means corn in Mexican.

This is my mom, my niece  and my sister in law.  Head's sister has tow kids, a boy and a girl.  They are in between my boys.  It is my oldest  then my niece  then my youngest, they my nephew, in that order.

My niece.

 

My oldest in front of the house...

...playing football with my dad and brother in law.

There is my nephew on the left.

There's Head.  Notice the picture behind her. She had a family friend, a weekend artist like myself, only better, paint a picture of my quarter horse mare. I called her Big Girl.  Never could ride her much.  She put my Dad in the hospital one night and put me in the dirt every time I got on her. My shoulder is still fucked up, but every good cowboy has some wear and tear. Damn she threw a pretty colt.

Thanksgiving pies.

Here's the turkey and ham.

And all the other sides.

I told you I like to cook and I did all this by myself.  I do it all the time.  Everyone gets in my way.   If you really want to help, clean up when I'm finished.

The adults ate in the dining room and the kids in the kitchen.

Always a game afterward.

And the kids played outside.

Here are some more pics about the same time.

Here is my youngest out at my parent's house, at the property.

Lots of farm dogs came and went.

This is the introduction so I can go back and expand on different times and you'll kind of know what hte fuck I'm talking about.

Today's Tao Chapter 27:

A good traveler follows old paths.
A good speaker needs no dictionary.
A good actuary needs no calculator.

A good separation will not require locked doors to maintain it.
A good union will not require ropes or knots to maintain it.

These are the lessons of the sage,
who teaches all,
rejecting no one.

Teacher and student
are like craftsman and material:
One without the other is incomplete.

This is the key to wisdom .

Okay, this is about getting along with other people.  I think people suck.  Main reason I wouldn't be good at your job.  Too much of it is about the owners and their blah blah blah.
A good person likes every one, and if you don't you end up confused.  That would explain a lot.  I just have no use for most people. But I'm going to try.  Not that I haven't but I'm going to keep trying.