This is a day to give thanks for our father’s … Thank you my dad, for the investment of heart and soul to me, and all your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, we are who we are, and are happy not simply because of genetics, but because of heart, energy, and wisdom granted and gifted to us by you!

To all fathers, have a beautiful day, know we are an instrument of God’s love and wisdom that keeps a nurturing element in our hearts for our children!

Eternity

It’s a long time

Or a short rhyme

It’s a blink of an eye

Or maybe God’s sigh

For mortals such as you and me

This life’s our blessed eternity

On Friday I was told to leave my position at the company that acquired us earlier than the contract indicated.  A call around 11, from some HR VP in another state, said I no longer need to come into the office.  In fact, could I be packed up and out by 4:00, they will be shutting off my access to the system.   No thank you, no group goodbye, no email to customers and staff.  A few employees gave me a hug, and helped carry some memories out to my car, but after 38 years in the industry, it seemed so anticlimactic.  I’m ready to leave, don’t get me wrong. I have other things, projects, and business opportunities I want to work on, so I’m more than ready to leave.  I’ve had a successful career in aerospace and defense engineering business, and analytically and logically it’s time.  But there is a passionate, bold part of me that wants something more, that feels like there is more to this career stuff than a paycheck, and that part of me feels cheated of a proper ending to this part of my career.  The other logical part of me that ensures I make it through life to the end, and keeps me centered and healthy, says get out while the getting is good, and move on. Besides this is what corporate America is today… a bit cold-hearted it seems.

All this made me think of an article I read about a man with two hearts.  His artificial heart was lower in his body, so it felt different, it kept him alive and did its function, but it’s beat no longer told him about passion, it robbed him of his inspiration, and intuition.  It kept him alive allowing him to grow older, but seemingly it made him feel like he was outside of himself, not recognizing himself.  Maybe we all have something like that, the passionate heart that is disappointed with the cold logic of business, partnerships, and more, and the one we live with that ensures we never get too worked up and keeps us healthy as we grow…

The Two Hearts of Mine

The heart I live with, ensures life and health as I grow old

The heart I love with, is ever young, passionate and bold

These two hearts play on this scarred battleground landscape

Locked together and intertwined so neither can escape

They define who I am, these two beating hearts of mine

They battle for the essence of soul and eternal mind

Neither may ever truly win

As they go around and around again

Salesman

Oh no what will you talk me into

What is it that you think I should do?

With that smile, smooth voice and shine

What will you tell me I need this time?

You’ve got just a moment to make your play

Then I’m going to send you on your way

Oh yeah, so what does it cost again?

I don’t need it, but still I’m sucked in

Geez…

Remember today all those who serve in the protection of our freedoms, and especially all those that gave their life in the service of their country and us the grateful citizens of the USA!

Flurries

Flurries of the fantastical claims

To disturb, disrupt are their aims

We are smart and can detect certain lies

But we listen and something inside us dies

Open your eyes and see the world anew

Find the truth if you can, in this word stew

And yet the it continues, wind and rain

Distorting the view through the pane

Maybe we’ll learn and understand

Fantasy, and truth intertwine again

It is right and proper that we encourage learning and accomplishment.   This season we congratulate Tiana, Andrew, Ethan, Mikayla, Elaina and Christina among the many others that have achieved the conference of degrees that allow them to enter the next phase of life journey.   It’s hard work to make it thru to the next level and very special to do so with honors.  These young people are critical to our future. They will be the leaders and practitioners implementing and evolving our society.

The traditions of robes, and sashes and medals and ropes have evolved over time to represent academic accomplishments and leadership honors. They should be understood and valued.  The garb and trappings of graduation goes back to medieval clergy robes, and subsequent evolution to 12th century schools of advanced learning, where graduation considered a step.  The Latin word for step is ‘gradus’.  And so too today’s graduates make a step into the next of life-learning-phases.  With hope and pride, we watch them achieve.  Proud of their accomplishments and hope they will make our world an ever better and safer place.  Millions of graduates at all levels, making their steps to the next level, so many with hope and so great the accomplishments.  Surely we will all benefit from their future works, and so we encourage and are encouraged by these young people!

The person who founded Mother’s Day came to regret it.  Anna Jarvis intended the day for us all to honor the mother that gave us birth, and instead it became widely commercialized.  See https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/13/us/mothers-day-anna-jarvis-trnd/index.html

I think giving mom something, flowers and candy, or out to brunch or dinner is nice, but showing you really love and appreciate how much mom means to the family is what’s most important.   Say I love you and appreciate all you do, and I will try to be always the best I can be.   I suspect those words from the heart, or for mother’s that are past as a prayer, are the essence of what mom’s want. Appreciation for their sacrifice and understanding that they want their children to be the best they can be.

Picasso once said that “art is a lie that reveals the truth”

Are we not the same?  Do we hide behind our pride and vanity to avoid risking the truth?  Our frailties’ and ego, and fears of failure keep us from being open about our love and being really the best we can be.

We are truth wrapped in a lie

Our ego, our fears and silly pride

Our mothers know and can see

They know the best we can be

They’ve held us from moment of birth

They know all of heaven and earth

Be thankful for chance to see

The very best we all can be

Thank you, my mom and all moms, that want the best of all of us!

I read an article this morning that presents a disturbing picture of enormous pressures on labor that can be expected in the next couple of decades.   It will affect all aspects of society deeply.  The combination of demographics, i.e. aging workforce, automation that will consume lower income and middle class jobs, and a consequently growing in-equality, will place pressure on society, government, and businesses.

https://reconnomics.com/2018/05/05/bain-has-seen-the-future-of-labor-and-its-not-pretty/

If correct, this report indicates as many as 50% of labor jobs will be negatively affected by automation.  Only 20% will benefit from the delivery of new technology to the market, and those who benefit will be at the top of the food chain and will benefit from enhanced productivity.

The article addresses how business, and governments will need to react to the changes, and how investors should view the macro trends indicated.  I want to focus on the implication for families, for the next generation.

Businesses will do their thing to maximize profit and keep costs down, and therefore cause ever increasing pressure on labor.  Government will respond by becoming an even bigger customer; buying infrastructure, and borrowing and taxing more to make up for a diminishing middle-class.  Consequently in-equality will increase in the USA.

Families must encourage education for their children.  Being left behind, means very low-end service jobs.  As factory workers, and warehouse workers, transportation and other middle class labor is forced out of jobs by automation, they will necessary squeeze low-end services, thus pushing pay down further.  Value is going to be in jobs that cannot be automated, such as required services, in health care, engineering, legal, and in financial management.   The importance of investment in time, energy and money in securing appropriate training and education will never be greater.   In the past one could work their way up from the factory floor to management.  One could open a restaurant and through trial and error figure out how to deliver a better product and build a life-style.   The journey today and in the coming decades without education will be a lot more difficult and the competition will be extraordinary.

New Home

Quietly with enjoyment morning alone

I sit and experience the breathing of our new home

The fireplace the furnace the sunlight

The shadows as well as the sun bright

The quiet sense of accomplished task

Of muscle weary relaxed at last

Funny all there is to do

When your home is so new

Think of everything you use in a day

You will not remember it all anyway

It’s the little things like tools, stools and tape

It’s chip clips, and paper and band aids for a scrape

Then the boxes and packages and Styrofoam

Piles of stuff to be unpacked to make a house a home

The little balls of Styrofoam never leave

They escape as they dance and weave

Already there’s a junk drawer just a few days in

It’s inevitable I suppose, but it makes your head spin

Well it’s been fun and funny and tiring too

But happy to move here as long as I’m with you!

Pen and Paper

A heavy pen and paper white

Thoughtfully compose and make it right

Like poets of ancient times

Working out thoughts and careful rhymes

Mistakes you could readily find

Or hesitance and change of mind

The flow of ink across the pages

Captured thought and texture for the ages

The beauty of being outside while I write

Birds of prey wheel in flight

Ospreys hunting for their meal

Like search for words to make us feel

More often failing and trying again

So cross it out and try again

Discipline of mind and thought

Perfect words and phrases sought

Overcoming this minds futility

Pen and papers the perfect utility