Words failed me

Today I did something that I do not remember ever having done before. I wanted to save a small part of a document before I elimated it from the full document. I somehow -- and I will never know how -- ended up with two copies of the short "eliminated" piece -- one with a new name (as I usually do) and one under the orginal name -- and no trace of the full original document. I serached high and low -- in folders and files. The AY2007-2008 Annual Report to AACSB on progress towards nmeeting the goals in the WCOB strategic plan had been eliminated in the click of a mouse! Or -- dare I think it --as the act of gremlins hidden in the @#**! Vista operating system on my new computer!

Maybe you heard my screams from wherever you are!

All was not really as bad as it first appeared -- in fact even as I exclaimed in disbelief, I knew that I could reconstruct the document. I had a printout from two versions ago, and electronic copy of the version before that, and reasonable current memory of the detailed editing that I was doing when the mishap occured.

A good (?!) hour later, and all was in order again. Whew! I won't do that again -- I hope!

A suitable last memory for the month of June, which has not been a productive one for me.

Shake and bake

It was another "shake and bake" day out on the water, so after I spent the morning "doing the usual" (aka AACSB reports) in the comfort of airconditioning, we set out for the annual Wooden Boat Show at Mystic Seaport.

What a great scene! The Seaport was transformed with vendors' tents and boats to view and many for sale. The owners/restorers/wooden boat shipbuilders were happy to share their knowledge and enthusiaism, whether or not there was any chance of making a sale. I have seldom seen so much brightwork (nautical for varnished wood) in one place. Having spent many hours varnishing a wooden hull myself (in my life before fibreglass), I have some understanding (but not the patience) of what it takes to get the absolutely smooth, shining finish.

First, the general scene.












Here are some of my favorite -- and coverted -- boats.


A "wheelbarrow boat"--note how the oars are stored ! (plans are $25)


Beautiful lines (and uncomfortable cabin)





A launch (why/when would I ever need a launch?)

What would a wooden boat show be without a Hereshoff replica?
A forward rowing boat -- That looks easy!







And, for my next life, extreme hanging out!







Maybe for now I'll adjourn to a different office!


On our return to the Point, flags around the perimeter were "straight out", so we quickly togged up and set out for Wind 'n Go. But we stopped when we saw the Orr flag -- at "half droop" again. Not wanting a repeat of yesterday's sail, we retraced our tracks. Just as well, what little sea breeze there was died soon aftewards and the fog rolled in again. Back to air conditioning!

Little forward motion

I know better than to let myself begin the day with WCOB stuff! I've been working on the "sad story of fun at work" section of the Barcelona irony chapter in the back of my mind, and it just hasn't bubbled up enough to take over other tasks. I really need to force myself to work on it-- that's the only way it will get done.

Today, however, I avoided this task once more by tacking the AACSB Tables. Finally -- at 2:30 PM -- they were in relatively good shape. Good enough to eamail to Steve before we set out for a sail.

The new "Orr flag" suggested a reasonable breeze, and even though my intuition said it was not as good as it looked, we set out because we haven't been sailing in several days. Once beyomd the anchorage, we discovered that the breeze was indeed fickle and the flood tide was strong (in an adverse direction to the wind.) At one point Jack started the engine -- sacrilege! A few minutes later he realized what he had done -- violated one of our basic philosophies as "raggies". So he turned it off and we enjoyed several short tacks close to the shore to avoid the current before a broad reach back to the mooring. Not one of our better sails!

Now I must force myself to complete may part of the discussion of last year's progress towards meeting our strategic goals so I can dup it back on Steve's desk before he goes on vacation on Tuesday.

This Friday's garden tour

First thing this mroning, before other interruptions, I worked on th Barcelona-Irony paper. I wrote the narrative for the "Dramas of teamwork training" section, and pasted in the slide with photos of SnugAdapt. I'm counting on this section to be the model for the three other sections I need to write about the stories in the book chapters. It's really hard to give a sense of the story, explain the irony, and describe how the author "did irony" in three short paragraphs! Tomorrow it will be "sad fun at work." I need to find a new image: Dilbert needs the copyright. I spent the rest of the day cranking out various parts of my AACSB annual report. Another day's work and it should be finished -- I certainly hope so!

Absolutely no wind, all day. The flag hung limp on the new flagstaff up on the rocks. We had a few drops of rain, but none of the promised thunder.

It's Friday, so, remembering our tour of Stonington gardens last week, here's a tour of our"garden" -- rather, photos of "featured flowers" in various spots. Jack's the gardner -- at least he likes deadheading-- not me! I just advise based on my knowledge of English gardens!


In the front of house (facing south), the big rock on the corner where the teenagers used to congregate now has a rosebush to rival David's "driveway rose" (but his still wins!).



The small flower bed has portachella -- not quite in full bloom. Thanks, Deb, for suggesting this plant. We added just one flat this year; the rest has grown back on its own. Another few days and it will be a mass of blooms.

The east side is the fragrant side -- there's a "beach rose" hedge against the road, and honeysuckle close by the hydrant.











On the west facing wall we have some fine clematis. The color of the purple one is not good in the photo -- it just looks blue, which it is not.


The ornamental grasses to the west of the drive always threaten to take over the lawn ("just "grass" really.) I added two varigated plants this year and they seem to be doing well.

Now we're back to the front of the house again, with new plantings in the "small triangle" of inidgenous plants. There's a type of butterfly bush and a species of gernaium. I'll take another picture later if this bed "grows in."




By the front door we have the "dueling pots" -- Jack's begonias and my colorful annuals. Both are thriving -- neither one "wins!"


Finally, my herb garden by the back -(kitchen)-door. It includes a splendid patch of mint grown from a cutting my father brought from England when we first bought the house (1970). The mint thives, knowing that it's purose is to provide the garnish for gin and tonic!

That's it -- I hope you enjoyed the tour!

New reference points

It comes to something when the most exciting news I can think of is that I located the interactive inking tutorial on my new tablet laptop! However, to balance this exitement, I spent a long time trying to follow the instructions in the email from HP support on how to load my printer "solution center" so I can scan documents. The instructions didn't make sense, so I called computer science professor son-in-law. "That doesn't sound right," he said, and went on to say that it may be Vista -- he can't scan either and he has a much newer printer. I'm glad I didn't do what I was told!

I have a new postcard -- it's "Big John and party shooting the Lachine Rapids, Montreal." Everyone is wearing a dress shirt, waistcoat, and trilby hat! Thank you, Lynda, it's really great.

The picture (top left) inspired a collection of "rough water postcards" -- but I could only find five. At first I thought I would leave the other two pockets blank, but then I found two pictures related to rough waters in a symbolic way. One was of the ornate stern of the Vasa -- the ship built to convey the prestige of the Swedish King Vasa II that overturned in Stockholm harbor on its maiden voyage, and lay protected in the mud for 333 years until 1962. The other is a collection of carved wooden figure-heads at Mystic Seaport -- a reminder of what every ship going into rough waters needs! I enjoyed the collection so much today that I will keep it up tomorrow.

I didn't get much further on the text of the irony chapter, though Ulla and I Skyped to check on the other's progress. I did teach myself how to insert a slide into the text and make the text flow around it -- the process was much different from the way I had previously approached the task, so I'm glad I've conquered that part of the submission. It needs to be camera ready, and I was beginning to think that we were doing all the writing for naught. I really don't have that much more to do, at least for this draft, so I hope that college affairs will stay quiet tomorrow and let me finish!

There's a new addition to the neighborhood! The Orrs have a new, huge flagpole on the rocks. It's just what we need for gauging wind speed and direction before going sailing. Jack has already started calibrating the angle and working surface area of the flag against wind speeds reported on the weather channel! But today it didn't tell us anything we didn't know already -- not enough wind for a sail!

Fragments

I had such good intentions this morning -- generated by to-do lists in both my research and administrtivia notebooks. And for inspiration I had a new group of postcards organized around two (of the three) old postcards Lynda had given me (on left, top and bottom). An auspicious beginning.

There were a couple of emails that I HAD to do -- so I opened the adminsitrivia list. Two and a half hours later I switched to the other list and had less than an hour to work on the "Barcelona irony chapter" before heading for Essex to spend an hour (I timed it) signing documents in the Bank Trust Office. I felt good afterwards, and this was certainly "productive work" -- but hardly qualified as research!

After a quick lunch it was Wind 'n Go -- and a good sail. The wind was good for a course along the north shore of Fisher's Island, but we'd forgotten the GPS, and were leary of the Clumps (a series of rocks of greater and lesser size running parallel to the shoreline) so just went around gong 20.

Back at the computer I tried yet again to install all the features of my home printer on my new laptop, without success. I hope HP technicians answer my email with a solution and I can make time to learn "inking" sometime soon. I switched gears to make sense out of the notes I had taken while meeting with Jeanie last week -- the paper isn't due till November 21, but there's lots to do before then! I have a good lead on literature of discourse analysis in composition research, so I have some work to do before Jeanie and I get together a month from now to write the zero draft.

I made the "Sake-Steamed Salmon" recipe from the wsj again this evening. It has a unique and nuanced Asian taste, but takes too many ingredients and is too complicated in proportions needed in different parts of the preparation for my approach to cooking. I'll file the recipe away and go back to Nigella Express!

My verdict of the day. It could be classified as "super" -- it had the proper content (see post of June 16), but I'm left feeling more fragmented than satisfied. Tomorrow's another day.

That will be easy!

Went to campus today to have my computer examined -- the operating system was not installed correctly -- and to participate in the A-sq meeting. The Provost came to discuss the interim dean position or roles. He has a plan!

We'd saved the champagne remaining from our midsummer celebration for a toast to the outcomes. Here I am celebrating Steve's graceful and timely exit and practicing what may well be my response.

Back on the roller coaster!

I started work early today expecting to work diligently through the various materials I needed to prepare for tomorrow's A-sq (Administrative Affairs) meeting. I envisioned arriving on campus with a packet for someone to make copies while I went to the Factory to sort out my laptop-relations problems, i.e., it won't do what I ask it to!

All went smoothly for the first couple of hours. One page of my Day Book was taken up with a list of tasks and no sooner had I finished one, than I thought of something else -- my suite of reports was expanding to SER-proportions!

Then Ulla Skyped me and we started working on our chapter for the book of the Barcelona Narratives and Rhetoric Conference. I emailed Ulla what I had started, we looked at it together while we chatted, and a while later she sent back her ideas and I had new reactions. MUCH more fun than AACSB reports! Finally we divided up the next stage of the work and agreed to share what we had done later in the week. I could imagine Ulla getting right down to her part while I regretfully turned back to my obligatory work.

So, many hours later, I really have no idea exactly what I've created. I only know that either I should have begun this work last week, or I have still a week's worth of work. I just need to decide on the plot of the story I'm going to tell tomorrow. Will it be a tragedy, comedy, or satire? An adventurer on a quest, or a maiden crying for help and needing saving? Which one will appeal most to my audience?

Duty calls

I spent the WHOLE DAY grinding on AACSB reports -- sufficiency, deployment, qualifications, intellectual contributions -- you name it, I've got an Excel spreadsheet for it! All in preparation for the A-sq meeting on Tuesday where my reports consume the greater part of the agenda. My task is ridiulously detailed -- not ridiculous that the detail is required, but ridiculous in that I am spending both good sailing and good writing time on a matter that could be dealt with "painlessly" through the Digital Measures Activity Insight database. Of course there will be pain involved in getting the relevant parts of the database up and running, and the first year the data will need to be cranked by hand as a check, but after that I will have no further worries ... OK, I can think of other ways to stop myself from "worrying" about these issues! In the meantime I have to print course data from Web Advisior, transpose it to "courses taught by program, location, and time" format, and calculate the WCOB satistics viz-a-viz the requirements of the Standards. The chairs are complaining that they don't know where we stand in relation on reaffirmation of accreditation -- they'll soon find out the realities of the situation!

No sailing -- flat calm early in the morning, then thunder in the air, followed by a brief window of sun and good breeze. We debated going out, but it was quite late and I was hunkered down over my keyboard. Better luck tomorrow I hope -- though I need to do my assessment report and the strategic plan audit. Urgh!

The highlight of the day was looking out my office window at the roses in the garden next door and at the tide coming in, going out, and coming in again in the cove by the marsh. My photo does not do justice to the scene.

What's this blog about anyway?

My original intent was to track my scholarly progress throughout my sabbatical. I envisioned writing in a scholarly style, working through conceptual frameworks or the finer parts of data analysis in ways that would awe my readers -- not that I really thought much about my audience apart from assuming that it might be whoever reads the required (I presume) report. Together with the two published articles I projected, my blog would brilliantly justify the several months I spent away from campus.

So, am I reduced to cataloging events of the day, the company I kept, meals eaten, and a passing acknowledgement of time spent on various (fragmented) projects? Perhaps so.

Does it matter? Only if my readers are not amused -- or even worse, if really I have no readers, and I blog purely to satisfy my own ego.

What would save the esteem of my sabbatical blog? Actually finishing the several research projects/papers I have in various stages of disarray. No! I should say "stages of completion" and pick one to finish as quickly as possible. No more blogging on trivia; next blog on substance.

A great day!

Jack and I spent the morning in our lawyer's office, drafting wording for an important document. It was hard to be bored when the lawyer had such passion for finding language he really liked to express a particular point.

Home for a quick lunch, then off for a walking tour of 10 private gardens in Stonington Village -- Gardens by the Sea. The Stonington Garden Club runs this fund-raising event every three years -- and makes enough money to support community projects for the next three years. Some gardens are tiny, others large; one had only green foliage, another had flowers of all colors. The roses everwhere were in full bloom and very fragrant. The weather was perfect, sunny, neither too hot nor too cold. There were lots of people enjoying the gardens; some were obviously serious gardners , from the questions I heard some of them ask the garden club members stationed in each garden. The tour is on tomorrow too, and I highly recommend it to anyone who can drive to Stonington -- and stop in to see me on Lord's Point.

It gets even better -- there was a nice breeze when we returned home, so welost no time in getting out for a short sail. We went down to nun 4 off of Masosn's Island, and back.

Because today was midsummer's eve, we celebrated "with" (virtually speaking) our Swedish friends -- by enjoying a meal of herring, schnaps, and strawberries and champagne (in US-LP interpretation). We'll miss dancing round the maypole tomorrow!

No computer, so research, no thoughts of SHU. What a great day!

It's taking over my life ...

I can't install my printer drive, can't read my flash-drive, can't find an interactive tutorial for penmanship, can't fiind my Skype contact list .... and that's just a few hours worth of the battle with my new laptop!

I did spend a pleasant and productive morning with Jeanie up at Western New England College in Springfield, MA, laying out plans for "students' discursive constrution of learning" paper for EAM-International in Brazil next June. Another project -- but an interesting one (to me at least! :-)

And I almost got rid of a project! I've finished working with the galley proofs for non-hierarchical power. But I need the printer to make a pdf to send back to the journal publisher in England, and I can't install the printer ...

Circular process. Mary Parker Follett would be amused!

Weird

Describes the way I felt and looked today.

I'm working between time-frames in my Ulla-Jill projects: (1) Composing the graphic narrative for the ESCADE proceedings -- that's irony that began in 2001, culminated with the book publication in 2005, and had a fleeting return last June. Way back -- as SnugAdapters were wont to say. (2) I'm editing the galley proofs of our "dancing with hierarchies" article -- it began in Ulla's Steninge house and traveled to muslim Turkey for Easter 2007. That's Mary Parker Follet who goes back to Ulla's and my early 1990s doctoral student days (and really to the early 1900s). (3) And simultaneously we're writing our paradigmatic partnership piece. It began May '06 in Fairfield and traveled to Florida and Paris in 2008. That one grabs 70's sociologists Burrell and Morgen and hurls them into design management of the 21st century. Research activity today: Medium low. More churn than action.


And if you doubt that I looked weird, take a look to your right! Yes, the sailing conditions dimension tended towards good.


New tablet laptop skills learned: How to work virtually with a techie from the Factory -- Kim used a special link to grab my computer controls and fix my VPN access and the laptop control panel. It took an hour, so I didn't work on any penmanship. Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow.

False negative

According to the typology I developed yesterady (see post below) today was a Bloody Awful Day! No sailing, no research. But that label doesn't really fit the situation -- The sailing conditions were good but I went to Fairfield to leave my IBM T60 (on left) and pick up my new Lenovo Thinkpad X61 tablet pc (on right) on which to continue writing my scholarly papers (and blogs).







I spent about four hours working with a techie to transfer my files and settings, and already I find that some applications don't work (e.g., my VPN) and I appear to have lost some documents (e.g., my June photos.) Tomorrow promises to be a long day! But by the end of it I hope to have some "creative writing" for your review.

An ironic day

I focused on Bacelona keynote book chapter today -- Eduardo invited Ulla and me to contribute the paper we presented as a keynote at the Narratives and Rehtoric Conference at ESCADE last June to a book he is compiling. We don't have a "paper" -- just the irony book and some intriguing slides. So I settled down to a "graphic narrative" using the ppt on one side of the page and snappy comments on the other. It's a more time consuming task than even I had expected! But I found (with some difficulty) a collection of somewhat ironic postcards to inspire me and set to work. By the end of the dayI had annotated 6 of 15 slides. It's due a month from now so I'll need to keep focused on this task -- beside reading the proofs for the Design Journal article that came in this evening, and on Wednesday driving up to WNEC (Springfield, MA) to work with Jeanie on the paper we expect to submit to the EAM-International Conference in Brazil next June. Not to mention the fact that Diana will be down here tomorrow and probably hot to trot on the two projects we have in process.

As a distraction from discussing binary oppositions and how irony dissolves them, I created one (two actually) of my own as a way of measuring my day. There are two axes: One is Sailing Conditions (from bad to good) and the other is Resreach Activity (from low to high). The four quadrants have suitable descriptors.

Today I said, "Hope for better wind."

The day fell apart when I tried to back up my files onto the small harddrive before swapping out to my new laptop tomorrow. About two thirds of the files copied easily; the rest would not copy. I'll have to go to the session early tomorrow to get help. How embarassing!

And if I don't make a post tomorrow, it's because I can't make my new machine work!

Conference follow-up

Finally, a useful conference bag! OBTS, The Society for Management Educators, has adopted the principles of the United Nations PRIME Global Compact and is developing its initiatives and measurement processes.

Wow!

This morning at OBTC we had another great plenary session -- by Ed Schein. He reflected on his own teaching experiences over his 50 years at MIT and descibed different courses he taught -- often with other outstanding names in the field -- and what he learned from each one about student learning and his own teaching style. I'm looking forward to hearing his presentation again when a video is posted to the OBTC website.


But, in the interim, I can enjoy a visual depiction or graphic recording of Ed Schein's talk created by Sita Magnuson (of Visible-Think) while he was talking. That's "design" helping "management education thinking"!

Incidentally, at 80 Ed's a "youngster" compared with Chris Argyris!

The conference ended at noon (I also attended two other sesssions and the town meeting) and I drove back to Stonington. Good conference -- lots of usable ideas from program level to course activities.

Serious conference

Attended sessions all day -- starting at 8:15 AM and finishing at 6 PM. First a short discussion of service learning courses, then the day's keynote by Chris Argyris on Leadership, Culture, and Traps -- who exceeded all expectations -- and received a standing ovation. (In case you're wondering, he's 85). After the break -- and a walk to another building -- a student designed exercise intended to illustrate Kousner and Posner's exemplary leadership practices, with good audience discussion on other ways to incorporate the activity into a class.

Lunch, then Mary, Diana and I (minus Steve) were "on" with our exploration of Gardner's Five Minds as a framework for designing courses. Participants were engaged and appeared to enjoy the session. Afterwards I learned about a great new simulation --I'll definitely use it -- and went to a panel discussion where top HR executives talked about what business leaders want from management students. The evening program was a barbeque and the famous OBTC talent show. Diana and I decided to forego the talent show and retreat to the peace and quiet of her home. A tiring but stimulating day!

two different meal settings

I had a good day at OBTC. I enjoyed the plenary session and attended several interesting presentations -- one was Andra and Valerie's vignettes that linked to professional codes of ethics; another was about using James Perry's stages of cognitive development for diagnosing groups, and a third on the design of a diversity module for MBA students at Harvard. Good teaching stuff in all of them.


My midday and evening meals were taken in quite different company -- I went to Christopher's 10th birthday party. (He's the boy in the red shirt with sunlight on his face)