The Degree of "Too Much"?

This is a Bama story that poses a very serious question. Down in Houston County....the cops came up and determined that the manager and a dancer of a newly opened club (you can imagine the type)...needed to be arrested. Apparently, the county sheriff had reports of nudity. Naturally, in Bama, law enforcement is usually called out and then sits through twelve hours of shows....to make a final determination. In some cases, the local Baptist minister is also asked to help evaluate the situation.

After enough evaluation...deputies arrested the owner...Michael Gene Cox....and then charged him with running a club that allowed "too much nudity".

I paused over that comment..."too much nudity". Once you remove your clothing...you are nude, and at 100 percent. You can't really go to 110 percent or 150 percent nudity.

In this case, nude is nude. You've reached maximum capacity...as an engineer would say. That should be it, unless of course, you're in Dothan and then, maybe, you can get an extra ten percent nude. One's imagination is then left to what folks might consider as extra nude in Dothan. It's best not to ask....I think.

The Andy School of Management

As a kid, I managed to watch every single episode of Andy Griffith. As an adult….I repeated the experience about fifteen times per episode.

I look back at all the attempts the Air Force made in training me to be a manager or leader….and the truth be known….the ‘Andy School of Management’ probably had more success than any of the Air Force’s attempts.

I went through around half-a-dozen University of Maryland and Louisiana Tech classes in management skills….and none came within a mile of the ‘Andy School’.

How can this be? Well….the Andy method was to approach each person with a slightly different view of their situation. What works with Barney….just doesn’t work with Aunt Bee. What worked with Opie….could never work with Gomer. So you have to really start to know people….their vision….their problems….their attitude….their personality conflicts.

The Andy method requires that you start with a full-gallon of patience. If you lack patience, then the method will never work. You are basically walking out to the pond with a two worms for the entire day….and hoping that just one of these will be enough to do the job and bring a fish home.

The Andy method dictates that you prioritize problems. You can’t fix fifty in a day. You fix the most important stuff, and then leave the rest for tomorrow. Unless you were intending to depart the Earth in a pine box tomorrow….there’s no reason to rush.

The Andy method requires you to fix what you can fix, and for those problems with no fix possible…..you accept it. Don’t whine. Don’t drink yourself into a fit for the next ten years over what you couldn’t fix or accept. It’s a done deal….either it’s fixed or you learn to accept it.

A leader over difficult people with impossible personalities? The Andy method is simple….you bring them in….and have an eye-to-eye chat. The amount of pain or woes or terror they are inflicting on your team or group…isn’t going to be accepted. You show a slight grin as you announce this to them….as if in a poker game and you know the cards in your hands and theirs. Then you give them an indicator of friendly persuasion. You want them to proceed to a middle-grounds of sort. They need to come up for a bit of fresh air and grasp that most folks just aren’t buying into their act anymore.

The Andy method dictates little acceptance of gossip or its pretended value.

The Andy method meant two minutes of friendly chat with folks...to give them the time of day and at least offer to console them on a tough afternoon or a rough morning.

The Andy method requires seriousness at times...but can flex to meet a situation with a bit of humor or a moment of wit.

The Andy method isn’t precise. Sometimes….you just have to take a fishing pole and hope for a natural answer in the end.

So when you’ve tired of all the various methods of management….and you’ve got problems that need a different approach….maybe it’s time to pull out the Andy method and see if a different approach works.

Madness in America

My co-worker’s brother-in-law....an Army guy....twenty-five years old....was shot and killed over the weekend near Nashville. The guy went out to some nightclub....said something that triggered some guy to go with his three buddies to a car. A round was fired....killing the young NCO.

A local paper put up the basic story....then pasted the four pictures of the guys arrested by the cops. All of them are from the Nashville area.....all are 19 to 21 years old. One guy will be the trigger guy and get a twenty-five year sentence out of the deal. I’m guessing the three guys...if they are lucky...might walk free if they point out the trigger guy.

It’s a waste of life....going out to some club....and then killed for some comment you made in the club. You look around, and there’s probably fifty guys killed every Saturday night now in the US....at bar’s and clubs.....just because they said the wrong thing.

Something’s wrong with this picture. You go back thirty years ago.....there would have been a fight and one guy would have been given a black eye for his stupid comment. Today.....you got to shoot the guy.

This is something that I’ve missed here in Germany. Folks don’t get shot like this. You might have a black eye or get beaten severely....but this shoot-them-up game just isn’t played.

Logic Lessons in Life

"I will not be pushed, briefed, debriefed, stamped, indexed or numbered.''

There are several reasons why a person enjoys the British series "The Prisoner". Most of these all center around a guy who won't compromise himself or his principals. The quote from above....was the one that I enjoyed the most.

The series was short-lived and the curious end is that you never knew if they were the enemy or his own organization just testing him. It was original and demanding your analysis of each show.

It's funny....over thirty years have passed and I still regard the show as one of the five that defined my sense of logic and ideals. Amongst all of the trash that ever got put on TV....there were a handful that made it to the heartland and brought a wealth of knowledge. When you group it with Andy Griffith, The Waltons, Star Trek, and The Twilight Zone....you had a vast learning experience.

Sometimes, you can gain logic from TV.

Forty-Four Natural and Pure Bama Filters

For some guys....who have had BAD women experiences and BAD dates (note caps)....there is a necessity to build filters and weed out problems in life....namely, women. So to help those understand the magnificent forty-four natural and pure Bama filters....I will list them (please, this is a guy's listing as he looks for the "perfect" woman):

1. Must not have attended any NASCAR event ever or even watched it on TV.
2. Must have limited or no big interest in camping, unless this is RV-camping, which is is totally different.
3. Must not have any strong Baptist tendencies. You can call yourself a Baptist, but if you show any of the "strong-willed" stuff....you are filtered out.
4. Must not have any relatives currently in prison.
5. Must not be on any medication other than allergy pills.
6. Must generally have all of your teeth.
7. Must not be a hardcore left-wing liberal democrat.
8. Must open-minded enough to listen to NPR but not take it too serious.
9. Must remember all of the Bonanza characters.
10. Must not be of a cult (to include Catholics, Jehovahs, and Mormons).
11. Must be educated beyond high school but not have a Harvard or Yale degree. Must have a degree that is of some value (not English literature).
12. Must not be bi-polar.
13. Must drink your whiskey from a glass, but you can drink your beer from a can or bottle.
14. Must not have any real feelings for NCAA football....other than watching an occasional game on TV.
15. Must be capable of wearing a dress, although once or twice a year is sufficient.
16. Must not have problems with guys who drink coffee or tea a fair amount.
17. Must be willing to watch Fox news for 30 minutes a day.
18. Would be preferable that you don't listen to Rush Limbaugh more than fifteen minutes a day.
19. Would be preferable that you cook but no strange exotic dishes, no hot spicy dishes, and nothing that requires sitting on sofa pillows in the living room. Would be best not to have any recipes involving Tabasco.
20. Must be capable of taking sarcasm and dishing it out. In fact, a balance of 24-hours a day of sarcasm will get you extra bonus points.
21. Must not have any relatives in mental institutes.
22. Would be preferable that you could hang out with guitar or Bluegrass freaks.
23. Must be capable of reading newspapers.
24. Would be preferable that you not have strong beliefs in aliens, UFOs, bigfoot, abductions, Loch Nessie or Atlantis....although you could just mention one of these per week, it'd be acceptable.
25. Must be capable of being charming and witty...in fact....very witty would be bonus points.
26. Must not have bizarre and radical mood changes that swing every three hours.
27. Must not freak out if a purchase of a $1500 guitar was in order.
28. Must be adaptable to a Mazda Miata lifestyle.
29. Must be capable of watching Lost, Monk, Doctor House, and Battlestar Galacticia. Would be higher points if you've got all of the various years.
30. Must be capable of living around neighbors who are a bit...."unhinged" but safe.
31. Must not be from third-world cities....like Bogota, Lima, New Orleans, and Mexico City.
32. Can have a couple of tattoos in good taste but no tongue rings, lip rings, or exotic piercings of an unusual degree (must be explained in detail prior to first date).
33. Would be preferable if you were capable installing Microsoft packages.
34. Would be preferable if you could at least iron some clothing.
35. Can not smoke filtered or unfiltered, and no cigars.
36. Must prefer a higher-grade of beer than Ole Milwaukee or Bud.
37. If you spend more than $2000 on clothing a year, it will require an sensible explanation.
38. Must not have any issues with pick-ups.
39. Would be preferable if dancing wasn't important....real unimportant.
40. Would be preferable if your relatives lived at least two states over.
41. Would be preferable if you had a sense of humor....in fact....must have sense of humor.
42. Would be preferable if you've read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy at least once or twice.
43. Must be capable of understanding an engineer's state of mind.
44. Would be preferable if you didn't want to move to California....ever.

So, this is what a normal guy from Bama.....would use for a filter.....especially if they'd go through a few BAD dates and met a few women that were "unhinged". You have to understand, from an engineer's state of mind....filtering is necessary....otherwise, you get a bunch of things that are issues.

This topic comes up because I had to go off to a job interview in Stuttgart this week and sit in the car with my office-coworker, who we will refer to as Ms. New Orleans (NO, for short). I had to spend four hours in the car with the chatty Ms. NO. After I came back, I shot off an email to my brother on the entire job interview experience and description of the hotel....and then I mentioned just two or three lines of Ms. NO.

My brother's interest peaked up. He asked about the chatty Ms. NO. So I laid in forty lines. Yes, I described the witty and charming Ms. NO in Bama-detail. My brother, the engineer, was all peppy.....she sounds "hot" (that's Bama for she might actually pass the 44-filter test).

Then I squashed his hopes.....she was from New Orleans, thus violating the idea of being from a third-world city.....and she was a former or lite player of the Catholic religion (thus being in the cult group possibly). Sadly, this set my brother back a notch again.

So the positive is....the 44-filter concept holds strong and prevents BAD dates or the potential of meeting another nut.