Today's Random Thoughts

I've missed a couple of days of writing. Most of Thursday was spent in doctors offices, again! But I am pleased to report that we (they) think I have finally turned the corner and the infection in my eye is under control. We have to watch it now and proactively treat it in order to prevent a relapse or a flair up. The infection basically made a hole in my cornea about 1/3  of the way through. There is significant scaring and loss of vision but the infection and the resulting pain is nearly gone.

I have never had anything hurt like this ulcerated cornea hurt. From everything I can gather from what the Doctors have said, it looks like it will take around four months before we can even talk about scheduling a cornea transplant to restore the vision in my left eye.

Friday I was fitted for glasses that will at least let me function again and I am so excited. I can comfortably read again with my new glasses. The scar tissue in my left eye will continue to cause blurriness, but with my glasses the vision is corrected even though it has a permanent white glaze over it. I can drive again with my new glasses. Freedom is mine. Lol!

As you know I have been thinking a lot about what I call the “second half” and what that “second half” will bring. I have a rental business that has been struggling for over a year and a consultant business has shrunk to some degree because of the time I have spent trying to keep the rental business from going bankrupt. As I was struggling with the plan to reorganize or close our rental property business, out of nowhere I got this ulcerated cornea and within forty eight hours I couldn't see out of my left eye. As I struggled through the pain and my inability to work or drive I really started to think about what I was doing with my life and work.

As a practical matter what I have learned over the past year is a bad situation will not get better by ignoring it. Action is required. A plan is critical. And that is where I started to struggle because I wanted the perfect plan, but I have finally realized that it really doesn't have to be the perfect plan. It just needs to be a plan that moves forward toward some end goal. I am reminded of a business principle and probably a military principle as well that goes something like this: “a well executed bad plan generally works better than a  perfect plan that is poorly executed.

Today we visited my son at the Healing Place in Louisville. I was rather anxious to see him because, as you know, we spent all day in court on Wednesday and we had a bit of a melt down just before lunch. A “trigger” from his old world brought back a flood of memories and for a moment he reverted back and began to justify why it would be ok for him to leave rehab. Of course if you have ever had to watch someone struggle with their addiction you know how scary a moment like that can be. You can loose all of the hard work that they have put into their sobriety in a minute or less. I heard those demons of addiction in his voice and I, like him, was scared. But we made it through the day and got him back to Louisville. By Thursday evening it was like talking to a different person. He was excited about the next steps of his recovery program and there was no mention at all of a possible failure. He even told me jokingly that when he arrived at rehab he was emotionally, spirituality, physically and financially bankrupt. And he was working really hard on at least fixing three of the four.

We had a great day today with my son. We laughed and talked about the future, which to him right now is the rest of today and tomorrow. And I am so happy that he realizes what is important for his future is doing what he needs to do right now really well. That is probably one of those life lessons that we tend forget. We live for a tomorrow and forget to enjoy today.

So as I plan for the “second half” I want to remember that today may be all I have and while having a long range plan is critical; the most important part of any plan is today’s execution of today’s part of the plan. In other words, the KISS principle applies. Keep it simple. Don’t borrow trouble from tomorrow. Do what you can do today, do it really well and enjoy it. Plan for tomorrow and the future but live every moment of today because we are only passing through this world and there is no promise of tomorrow.

Random Thoughts on Hidden Potential

The title of this blog should be "If only there were a life proof case for people" or it could be "Where did all that potential go?"

I spent the day in court witb my older son, the one in rehab right now. Johnathon was on an out of control spiral just before he went to rehab. As  I mentioned in an earlier post, he is a juvenile diabetic and for him his addiction took precedent over his health and he had slipped into several diabetic comas that resulted in calls for an ambulance the weeks leading up to his leaving for rehab. Once he tried to drive after midnight when his blood sugar was less than 40. Of course he got pulled over for reckless driving and ended up going to jail for a DUI. Then there was the time some buddies found him unconcious and called an ambulance at 2:00 am which resulted in the police coming with in with the paramedics and finding a substance that resulted in a ticket being issued and another court case. Then there was the altercation that resulted in two additional charges. All three cases were on the court docket today with two different Judges.

Today was the first time johnathon has been back home since he left for rehab about two months ago. His first case was at 9:00 am this morning in traffic court and before we could get passed the front door of the court house and into the court room Johnathon had seen at least three people he knew from his not so distance past. Inside the court rooom we ran into more of his "aquantances". It's wonderful to see my son clear eyed, alert and able to handle issues on his own, but I knew that these acquaintances would be a "trigger" that would bring back memories of a rocky but yet familiar way of life for him. Our day and his cases went as expected. He had a few rough moments but for the most part what the Judges really wanted was to know that he would complete rehab and have a chance at living a drug free life.

There were a couple of other young adults in the court room with mom's who were there like me to try one more time to put their child back on the right track. But there were so many more who had no
one or worse yet someone in the same situation as they were with them. I have never seen so much lack of respect for themselves or others and a general lack of manners or common courtesy. And the very ones who were rude or dressed inappropriately for a public appearance much less a court appearnace were the same ones who would never understand why there situation wasn't going to magically change.

Now before you make a judgement call on my description of those I saw in court today let me quickly say that what I really saw was so much lost potential. The lovely young lady with a "don't talk to me attitude" or the clearly intelleigent smart guy who lost his phone to the balif or the tall affaible guy who couldn't control his temper after a little indulgence. Each of these young people had a unique story that brought them together on this particular day. And each of them could tell you something that they didn't get as a child or was taken away from them through no fault of theirs. Or maybe theirs was just a series of poor judgement calls that put them in front of the Judge on this particular day.

But what I really kept wondering is what would happen if somone showed them that every atrribute they thought they were missing was simply a skill, that if they applied themselves, they could learn and what if someone told them they could really make a difference in themselves, their families lives and the world around them. What I was really wondering was since there isn't a lifeproof case for people could any of that lost potential be reclaimed?

Today's Not So Random Thoughts About Work

Tonight I had dinner with my parents and my cousin and her husband. He was recently diagnosed with stage three colon cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes. He starts an aggressive chemotherapy routine next Thursday that will last 6 months. He has always been one of the nicest people I know and though he has suffered several medical issues including painful back, neck and brain surgery he has always been the first person to volunteer to help someone.

As I reflected on the dinner conversation and the uncertainty that lay ahead for my cousin and her husband I wondered about the second half.  What might the second half hold for me and my family and what I might do differently if instead of the second half it was really the fourth quarter or the ever so critical last two minutes.

At home in my reading chair I read some of the finer points in Ecclesiastes and one of the most famous poems in all the bible. Even most non bible readers are familiar with Ecclesiastes 3:1 - 8

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

While I don't know for sure what the word Ecclesiastes means I read that its a greek word that  means "Teacher" or more literally from the Hebrew title "The Assembler". While I have no idea who wrote Ecclesiastes it does appear that the "Teacher" intended to ask some of the more important timeless questions of life. One of the first is "What is the point in work" or more poetically "What gain has the worker from his toil?" The "Teacher" goes on to say in the next chapter "Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind." But in the end the "Teacher" determines that you should enjoy your work because it is a gift from God.

As I consider the next phase of my life whether it is the second half, the fourth quarter or the last two minutes of the game I want to remember that my work is a gift from God and I should rejoice in every moment and enjoy it because as the "Teacher" says in Ecclesiastes 9:5 "For the living know that will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten." The "Teacher" believed that our hearts will be filled with such joy in heaven that we will not remember either the good times or the bad.

So I am back where I started as I set in front of the committee last week with the profound statement summed up so beautifully in the title on the cover of the book that sat on my desk so many years ago: "This job should be fun." And that will be the basis for my new goals.

Today's Random Thoughts on Motivation

As I am thinking about my second half I have spent a lot of time over the past couple days thinking about goal setting. As an expecting teenage mom married to a slightly younger expecting teenage "senior in hight school dad" we were hit with a lot of growing up and responsibilities. Looking back on it I wonder how we all survived. My parents made it clear that they would love and support me but I was on my own, a pretty scary place to be at seventeen. We moved into an apartment with the money earned from selling a dune buggy. Thank goodness the wedding showers and soon after baby showers were well attended.

After my oldest son Johnathon was born we were forced to give up our apartment and move into my in-laws living and dining room. The rooms were set apart from the rest of the house and did have a little privacy. As a high school student I had hoped to go into acting and modeling and eventually get a degree and and become a buyer for a large department store. I thought I could make these two rather incompatible goals work in a city like New York. But as a teenage mom in a small town there isn't a lot opportunities for an 18 year old with a new baby to start a career.

I was a very shy and sometimes awkward child and my parents sent me to modeling school at the age of thirteen or fourteen to give me some confidence. While it didn't make my shyness go away it did allow me to develop the skills I needed to be in front of people. As a student I worked hard and focused on the performing arts because I had absolutely no talent for signing or dancing. But as a new mom the future became singularly focused on providing a home for our new family. Long range goal planning seemed like a luxury and took a back seat to getting our own place again and having enough money to buy diapers, food and gas. And that was usually the priority placed on our purchases too.

I started reading self-improvement books when I was about 19. I thought How to Win Friends and Influence People was the most amazing book I had ever read. I then found See You at the Top and Your Eroneous Zones and again I thought I had found gold. I truly believe without those pearls of wisdom tucked away in those books I would have never finished college and started a real career. And now as a I start on this journey through the second half I realize that I have forgotten some of those important lessons and may need to go back and visit some of those basic ideas that kept me motivated and allowed me to set out a plan that took me out of poverty and into a world that is usually only a dream for girls who attend their senior prom and have to leave their six week old baby with grandma.

Zig Zigler cautioned against stinking thinking and as a young person I always tried to be positive. He also said you must become a meaningful specific and not a wondering generality. As the CEO of two large organizations before I was thirty-two I can tell you there is a lot to this idea of being mission oriented with clearly defined goals. But as fifty-one year old women looking at the second half I fear that it might be easy to become a wondering generality as a matter of fact if I were being truthful I probably already am a wondering generality. It is time to get back on track and not any track but a track of my choosing.

Today's Random Thoughts on Drugs

I wrote a poem on Easter a couple of years on what I have lost to drugs. The list of things that I lost included Happy Mother's Day, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday and so on. My son, who is now thirty-two years old, is in rehab and I am so thankful. But for the last ten to twelve years our family has struggled with this demon of addiction.  As any parent who has had to deal with this in their family knows the person who that takes the drugs rarely sees the impact it is having on everyone else. The addiction demon is selfish, manipulative, often threatening and always scary. Its hard for someone who has never dealt with addiction to understand but if you can think of it as a demon that has taken over and lives in the body of its victim then you can begin to to comprehend the power addiction has. The person still looks like the adult version of the little boy I knew and loved but he would say and do things that my son would never do. It is only when you see a glimpse of the real person and their struggle to free themselves from the addiction do you realize that it is truly a demon that would rather kill their host than give up and leave.

This is on my mind today because my son just celebrated sixty days of soberity on Saturday. He has been in rehab for most of that sixty days and now believes that he is ready to leave. He thinks he has learned all he needs to know and now has the skills after sixty days to live a sober and productive life. He was in a court order rehab a few years ago for just shy of a year and I know he has read most of the big book and has worked through the lessons. And he was sober for 18 months before the demon convinced him that he was smart enough to be a casual user again. Of course the demon knew what he was doing and that was all it took. My son disappeared right in front of our eyes. And now the demon says "hey this rehab place is uncomfortable". It's true that he has a clean place to sleep. My son is a diabetic and for the first time in several years he has his diabetes under control. He gets three meals a day and has friends who have a genuine interest in his future. Of course in comparison to the living conditions that he and the demon created and lived in for most of the last 10 years this is a vast improvement. And yet he says he's uncomfortable and wants to leave. Of course it looks like my son is the one saying these things. He looks and sounds convincing. So I have to remind myself that it is the demon that is uncomfortable. The demon is fighting for survival. The demon knows that the goal of an extended stay rehab is to eradicate him, drive him out completely. But the demon is cleaver. He is willing to stay quiet, sometimes for a very long time, in the interest of his own survival. So today, I pray that God will give me the strength to not give into my son, the son I haven't seen in so long that like the father of the prodigal son, I want to run to him, greet him and throw a party in his honor for he has returned. Rather, I must recognize that the demon is not dead, he is quietly waiting for his moment. He will tell my son that he is leaving but he is only hiding.

As I continue to plan for the second half I want it to be a drug free second half. Drugs have stole so much of mine and my families happiness and I want to just say No to their future in my family.

Today's Random Thoughts

This past week I was sitting in front of a legislative committee with a client trying to stay focused on the subject at hand. My client was doing an excellent job explaining a complicated and no so very interesting topic (at least not to the general public) to the committee. Now you have to imagine that she and I and two colleagues are sitting in a large gymnasium like room with a crowd of public advocates from across the state. We are at a table directly in front of the crowd, facing a two-tiered dais filled with legislators. I am trying to stay focused and not let my facial expression reflect the glazed looks of our audience, when I remember a book that sat on my desk for sometime nearly 25 years ago. The title of the book was "This job should be fun." Now why that title and the brightly colored cover popped into my mind at that moment is unclear, except for the obvious, we weren't having fun. But no one has a job that is always fun. Rather, I think it was because of my current situation and my internal personal struggle of, for lack of a better term, has now become the story of the second half.

Now for those of you that know me, you can confirm that I am not very eager to reveal my age. It used to be because at the beginning of my career I was usually the youngest person in the room. I even once told a reporter who was interviewing me for an article that it was rude to ask a ladies age. He laughed and said he knew that but he had to ask anyway and repeated the question. I told him that my mother had always told me that if a person was so rude to ask a lady her age then it was not rude to decline to answer. I remember that event of 21 years ago like it was yesterday. We had just finished a cocktail party where I was being introduced to the community as the new CEO of the local chamber of commerce. At 30 years of age I was considered very young to hold the CEO position of one of the top five chambers in the state. Now that I am sometimes the oldest person in the room my view of the world is changing.

I am calling this my second half, though I will probably not live to be 100, because it feels more like a second half than the third quarter.

Over the past month I feel like the universe, or God specifically, is telling me that it is time to get serious about the second half. In the past month, my house was struck by lightning, jarring the house and leaving a gaping hole in the bedroom ceiling. In addition the strike took out about half of our homes electronics. The following week I was at the doctor complaining of some memory issues so she ordered an MRI. The following Sunday I felt an irritating scratch in my eye, which on the same day of the MRI escalated to an ulcerated cornea. Then to top it off while I am sitting at the Ophthalmologist office for my now very painful eye problem, I get the call from the Doctor with the MRI results and I have suffered a minor silent stroke at some point in the past. All this news came on a Monday and for the next two weeks leading up to the committee meeting with my client I was at a Doctor's office nearly every day.

Now the good news is I have seen a neurologist and she says that the stroke happened a long time ago with no apparent side effects and no reason to believe I am at any risk of suffering any significant issues in the future. She then gave me a dementia test and determined that my memory issues were all stress related. I know what day it is and can remember a random string of unrelated words. I can even draw simple and complicated shapes on demand. My eye on the other hand is going to have some long term issues. I lost all of my vision in my left eye due to the ulcer and raging infection. My vision is returning but there is significant scaring and it appears based on all of the Doctor's opinions that I will have to a cornea transplant in order for my vision to return.

So here I sit on a Saturday morning with more work than I can comprehend to catch up with and I am pondering what the second half is going to look like.

If I were honest with myself, and I might as well be because I don't think anyone else is going to read this blog, I have lost some of the motivation that I knew as a young person.

At seventeen I had already come in second in an national commercial competition in New York. I was a spokesperson for a local restaurant and appeared in weekly television and print ads. I had landed a couple of national print jobs, was set to graduate from high school a year early with honors and had been offered a contract with the Wilhelmina  Modeling Agency. But the day I was to go look at apartments in the Village in New York I got sick and had to cancel. It was July and I had planned on staying in New York but I just couldn't shake what I thought was a stomach virus. I had a round trip ticket back home so I went home and planned to return in August. But that stomach virus just didn't get any better. The doctor thought it was Mono. My father, always the practical one said I should enroll in the community college and not waste time since I was home anyway. I could go back to New York at the end of the semester after Christmas. Of course great plans of mice and men tend to change and the first day of class the Doctor determined that it was not Mono, commonly known as the kissing disease, but rather I had something far more serious, I was actually pregnant. I am certain of all the stressful news that the freshman on campus may have received that day, my news had to be at the top of the list.

Within weeks I was modeling a wedding dress and within a few months I was modeling the latest in maternity wear. I wouldn't go back to New York for years and my modeling career was over. My father had been right though I did not attend classes the next semester either because I gave birth to my oldest son, Johnathon, in late March. I had my second son when I was twenty and I was a single mom by the age of twenty-five. I may not have had a solid plan at seventeen but the path I went down wasn't even imagined.

I took a job as the director of an outdoor drama and moved me and kids into a RV at a state park our first year on our own. We ate at the theatre or peanut butter sandwiches every day for a whole summer because the raccoons chewed my gas line into and I didn't make enough money to replace them. The summer was stressful and by fall me and my boss knew this was not going to be my calling. So I left that position with two kids, no money and no job and moved into the upstairs of my parents house. It had been seven years since I lived in that house and while it had been home to me, it wasn't home to me and my boys. I had still not finished college but I was close. I had managed to meet some folks who were very helpful and within a few months I had a new position as Executive Director of a statewide tourism organization and the boys and I moved away to the big city, Louisville. I was finally on my own in a big city but taking care of two children and trying to start a business career is not always the most compatible jobs. But we struggled together. And we grew together. We suffered setbacks but for the most part we were having fun.

If it had not been for various books and tapes that I listened to between the age of seventeen and twenty-two I am certain that I would have never made it out of poverty. Even though I had the mental capability for college the hardest part is showing up and finishing. And with two kids and no money it was easy to find excuses to miss a semester or drop a class to two. But thanks to encouragement from my father and pell grants I did finally get a bachelors degree. During that time I also became an avid self help book person. When the world seems stacked against you as I thought the world was at the time you need reinforcements. And I found comfort and motivation from other's stories and the famous Zig Zigler quote, "Its your attitude not your aptitude that will determine your altitude." And as I consider the second half I think it is my attitude that I need to focus on first.

I think that may be enough random thoughts for the moment. The sun is shining, work to be done and I am beginning to get hungry. LOL!

CoalTek Tour in Calvert City Shows off new Technology

Sometimes the most interesting technology is going on right in your back yard and you don't even know it.

 

I went with several state legislators on a tour of a coal processing and blending facility, CoalTek, in Calvert City Kentucky, which produces cleaner and more efficient coal for power plants and other end users.  It's the only facility of its kind in the world.

 

The coal arrives by rail, is crushed for some applications, and then processed by a large microwave oven and formed into briquettes (again, for certain applications). The processed coal has up to 40% more energy per unit of weight than the raw coal.  They blend several different types of coal together to reduce the amount of sulfur and other environmental constituents found in Eastern Kentucky coal, for example by blending it with processed Powder River Basin coal from out west, which is low in sulfur. 

 

The technology is scalable and flexible in terms of location. It can be easily placed at the mouth of a mine or at the generator.  Because it is a microwave, it is a very efficient process, but certainly the power used in the process is something to consider. There are two main advantages to the process.

 

1) It produces coal with less moisture at consistent levels, which increases the efficiency of producing the energy and means power plants don't have to continually adjust for disparate ranges in moisture in the coal during the process, thereby increasing the efficiencies of the parasitic processes required to make run the generator.

 

2) By increasing the BTU capacity from around 8,500 BTU's to 11,200 BTU's, the power plant has the option to burn 30% less coal to produce the same power.  

 

That's good news for both the power-producing plants and consumers.

 

While this technology can be used to upgrade low energy Western coals, it can (and is) also applied to a broad range of other fuels to achieve targeted improvements in energy efficiency, environmental quality, handling quality, etc.  CoalTek is also working on projects to improve the quality of locally available waste coal fines, to solve the coal ash/waste slurry impoundments issues, and upgrading a variety of coals used in the steel manufacturing process (anthracite, metallurgical coal). For more information you can contact Rolando Sanz-Guerrero at rsg@coaltek.com. Rolando is CoalTek's VP of Marketing and will be able to answer more detail questions about CoalTek and its technology.