I am at a loss for words.

Consider this: the estimated cost for rebuilding New Orleans is 23 billion. The cost of the war in Iraq is 1+ billion / week. Hopefully it will come down to priorities. And speaking of priorities, take a look a this map of the world's active conflicts and the US arms sales to the respective regions. Very inspirational.

About Katrina, from NPR. Go there and listen to the story. Heartbreaking. Here's the summary. Read the last phrase a few times, just so that it sinks in. It is priceless.

"August 30, 2005 - Flood waters are rising in New Orleans, which remains without power after being hit by Hurricane Katrina Monday. Phone service is also largely down, and looting is taking place in several areas. Fallout from the storm has prompted President Bush to return to the White House (from vacation) two days ahead of schedule."

Here's one of the biggest ever annoyances you'll ever have to face as an employee or small business owner. Meetings. Everyone wants to meet. Sometimes meetings are useful and can accomplish a lot. Sometimes you'll meet about the most inane and irrelevant things. But you go and meet. Because you have to.

If you really are concerned about meetings where you don't spin your wheels, you should check out this article and stop reading here. I am talking about anti-efficiency. When there is a good reason to just sit back, spin away and watch it come undone. Why? Because it's funny, because you have no choice and because you need a break.

Some excerpts from the article mentioned above:

"Before you schedule a meeting, think about the potential results of getting everyone together. Will the results justify the cost of the meeting?" Sure, I suppose you could do that, or in case you want to just look like you know what you are doing, learn some words and expressions that mean noting and sprinkle liberally in the meeting. Here are some useful and completely irrelevant expressions that will make you look like you know what's going on and make people ask you for input: "reinvent out-of-the-box metrics", "matrix scalable supply-chains", "facilitate open-source deliverables" and my favorite: "verticals". These priceless gems will make you visible and guarantee you a raise if used appropriately. Careful though, meetings are a lot like comedy. Timing and delivery is everything.

"I have found that the fewer people there are involved, the more efficient the meeting." Sure. So, what you do for a good wheel spinning exercise is invite everyone. And make sure you have an agenda that gives a voice to the least relevant player on the project. This way you are guaranteed to humorously waste at least an hour. Make sure though that this person is in a supervisory position. They will not resist the urge to make comments, take control and confuse the issue.

"Do "types" emerge in your meetings? Every group gathering will bring out different types: the person who talks just to get air time, whether or not the input is valid; the parrot who repeats others to get credit for good ideas; the quiet one who never speaks at all." Oh, types. That's adorable. Take notes, see who are the "types" and store the list in a safe place. These are the people that will give you a well deserved wheel spinning vacation from work, reality and sanity. Your only responsibility is to use this power wisely and call on the "types" with great care to insure maximum wheel spinning time.

"Is meeting follow-up more work than it's worth? Do you insist on a meeting report to tell everyone what happened?" This is key. You must follow up. You absolutely must share your wheel spinning with everyone and take as much time of their day with irrelevant emails. Also, be sure to "take it off-line" with one person or another. Your boss preferably. I find that bosses love to taken "off-line". Shows that you are involved and want to share important observations as a sideline to a bigger conversation. Looks like you care.

Iraq has a new constitution. Which covers 2/3 of the major population groups inhabiting the place. Yay! We've done a great job. We deposed an impotent dictator with no friends, wrecked the place (more than it already was) looked for some inexistent weapons, which we didn't find, just like we were told by countless inspections, tried to tie the dictator guy running the place to our worst enemy that was and still is wanted "dead or alive" and finally we come around to our final reason for being there, promoting democracy. Speaking of, whatever happened to the whole cowboy attitude towards Bin-Laden? Anyway...

So, now we have this constitution, the crowning achievement of our efforts in the region, which covers most of the ethnic groups there. The remaining 3rd is not happy about this and is silently cleaning the guns, sharpening the knives and lining up the grenades in preparation for the exciting new civil war coming up any day now. The important thing is that the "constitution" gives someone an awesome opportunity to claim success, just in time for the 2006 midterm elections.

Freedom's on the march!
Better get the hell out of the way!

Whatever happened to Rumsfeld? Is he sidelined by the Bush admin. in an effort to cut down on comic relief? I sincerely miss the old coot. With his patronizing demeanor and dismissive comments. It truly was an awsome spectacle, seeing him treating the press core like idiots when asked questions like: "Hey, do we have enough troops on the ground?". His answer to this (paraphrased) question asked after Gen Shinseki was unceremoniusly dismissed for saying that we may need 350k troops on the ground to pacify the place, was: "It's ridiculous to think that we'll need more troops to hold the country than it took to conquer it." Here's a trip down memory lane. For comic relief purposes, of course.

Here's something I'll never understand. Why can Tom De Lay and the republicans in general be "supporting the troops but not the war" back when Clinton ordered troops in Bosnia in a humanitarian mission, and now call democrats traitors, appeasers, when dems try and question the Iraq war? Seems to me like a bit of the old hypocrisy game at play. Here's a rich sampling of past quotes from various leading republican figures.

And when I say leading, of course, I do mean leading us straight into the gaping maw of hell at a brisk marching pace, to the cadence of a peppy John Philip Sousa march played by Rush Limbaugh on a harmonium. Makes you just want to drive a spike in your head and march right along, doesn't it?

Hey there.

After deciding to put a blog together and after some struggle with the Movable Type platform, I got it all skinned and ready to go. But first, I believe some introductions are in order. I am a graphic designer in Seattle. Age 36.

So, let's see, what can we infer from this? A graphic designer / art director, in Seattle, age 36. Let's take the art director thing first. Sometimes I am an art director, sometimes an art janitor. You know how it is, performing janitorial duties on someone's vision of what looks good, professional, or, the worse client quote to date: "hey, let's just slap some lipstick on this pig and make it presentable". Emblematic of all things that say respect for one's craft, wouldn't you say?

It's all part of guessing the client's idea (if they have one) and then making it so that their clients in turn are not turned cvompletely off and heading for the hills when they come across their website. This happens sometimes. Ok, more often then I'd like it to. But not always. and the fact remains that I am in this business for the times it does not happen.

That's about the graphic design / art direction part. Now, what about the Seattle part? What that means is that I probably am doing work for high tech companies. Which is true. The tech is very high and the work is very important. About as important as a fart in a hurricane. Sometimes. But it pays well and sometimes it can be really rewarding. That is sometimes, not always. Have I said sometimes yet?

Hey, you say, 36? That means you worked for a few companies and you have some experience, right? And I'd answer, right you are chappie, right you are.

So welcome to this so called blog, stay a while, put your feet up, have some chamomile tea, hitch yer pants up and swear loudly. It may be a bumpy ride. Or it may be just some completely irrelevant reading. And who wants to read?