Pre-Ramble:

I consider myself an expert, now that I have attended the goofy event which was recently held in a big Saint Paul park on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi River. Once you’ve shared the Flugtag experience with 90,000 people, you can’t help but be a fan.

Basically, the Red Bull Flugtag features a bunch of teams of five folks who design and  fabricate largely aerodynamically challenged human propelled contraptions that are launched off a 30 ft. tall platform into a body of water below. The Flugtag events are as much about creativity and showmanship as they are about actual flight. (In some years, the winning teams put down some pretty pathetic distances.)

According to wikipedia, Flugtag was invented by Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz, “… although the format was originally invented in a small English seaside town under the name “Birdman Rally.” The first Red Bull Flugtag was held in 1991 in Vienna, Austria. It was such a hit, that it has been held every year since in over 35 countries across the world.

Flugtag 101 – Anyone is eligible to compete in the Flugtag event, although I’m guessing that there is a mutant genetic component found in the DNA of individuals who would actually sign up. To participate, each team must submit an application and their contraption must meet the criteria set by Red Bull. For example, each flying machine (again, the term “flying” is used loosely) must:

• have a wing-span of no more than 30 feet
• have a maximum weight of 450 lbs. … including the pilot
• be powered by muscle, gravity and/or imagination
• be unsinkable (Wasn’t the Titanic billed as unsinkable?)
• be constructed entirely of environmentally friendly materials
• have no loose parts (… it is unclear how rules officials can control for the flotsam and jetsam created by entries that break into smithereenes upon impact)
• have no greater than one square foot of advertising
• be accompanied by some kind of clever/lame skit and choreography to cool amped up music

Team members must wear a helmet, life preserver, mouth guard, goggles and are probably asked to sign a big fat Flugtag waiver. Entries are scored by a random panel of judges in three categories – distance, creativity and showmanship.

The Take-Away:  Are you ready for this?!! … The record for the longest Flugtag flight is 207 feet, set on July 24th, 2010 IN SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA by the team “Major Trouble and The Dirty Dixies” (record-breaking contraption shown above) in front of more than 90,000 people, which also set a record for the biggest attendance at a Flugtag event in any U.S. city!!!  To see the record-breaking flight, click on the Red Bull Flugtag link here.

Pre-Ramble:

Somewhere I read that geniuses don’t need a lot of sleep — folks like Albert Einstein, Leonardo daVinci, Steven Jobs … Presumably, these guys have more hours in a day to spend on meaningful activities like dreaming up theories and inventing things. I’m sure Steven Jobs has been up these last few nights festering over this and that. 

Well, so, if you’re not sleeping, it is a pretty safe bet that you are also not dreaming.  Which, according to dreaming experts means that you are missing out on a whole other way to think and “find solutions to things that confound us during waking hours.” Research suggests that dreaming, which happens in the state of sleep known as REM (Rapid Eye Movement), has been around for 220 million years and plays an active role in our evolutionary history.

In his book Dream Language (2005), founding director of the DreamScience Foundation and past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, Robert J. Hoss describes the brain functions suspected of instigating dreams:

“The brain stem and limbic system act as “activators” of the REM state of sleep we typically associate with dreaming and arouse us into the pseudo-consciousness of REM sleep whereupon the amygdala modulates the internally generated cortical input, thus activating the emotion-related processing that stimulates the dream.”

ZZZzzzz…….

Once thought to be a result of “neurons firing randomly,” dreams are now believed to be “mash-ups created by the subconscious mind as it processes, sorts and stores emotions from the day.”  Rosalind Cartwright professor of neuroscience at Rush University Medical Center and author of a new book titled “The Twenty-Four Hour Mind,” explains that the dreaming mind will recall something that happened during the day and connect it with bits and pieces of older memories that are somehow related … “old memories and new memories Scotch-plaided into each other.”

Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett, suggests that the “highly visual and often illogical” quality of dreams is “simply a different form of thinking” and an avenue by which the brain can engage in out-of-the-box thinking and problem-solving. Barrett has documented the phenomenon in her extensive study of problem-solving in dreams,

“In one experiment, [she] had college students pick a homework problem to solve … Students focused on the problem each night before they went to bed. At the end of the week, about half the students had dreamed about the problem and about one-quarter had a dream that contained the answer.”

Barrett also reviewed scientific and historical literature to find examples of the types of problems most likely to be solved in dreams. Many of these involved problems that required individuals to “visualize something in his or her mind, such as an inventor picturing a new device.” 

The Take-Away: It’s great to know that a few extra hours of shut-eye can actually serve a useful purpose … and that those of us who enjoy 7 or 8 hours a night aren’t automatically relegated to the sloth heap. Sounds like dreamtime can be busy and productive. (Personally, I prefer to use mine to fly.) Steve Jobs might want to tuck himself in early this week and reset the dream-dial to something like “rubber-baby-buggy-bumpers” … And, maybe if Einstein had slept in once in a while, he may have been able to work out that whole Theory of Relativity thing.

Post-Note: Talk about a dream-sequence … check out recently released film, “Inception” written, directed and produced by Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The plot features a thief who enters the minds of individuals through their dreams to steal – or plant – information. No sleeper, this action packed film is layered with nuance and meaning, lots of shoot ‘em up action, and Leo is looking dreamy.

Pre-Ramble:

Apparently Earl Spencer, brother of our beloved Diana Spencer, auctioned off a bunch of family heirlooms last week, bringing in over 21 million pounds to cover a few restoration projects. 

The 14,000 acre estate, located in Northamptonshire, England has been in the family since the early 16th century. An old joint like that is bound to need a few repairs… he’s probably putting in one of those trendy sport courts and upgrading the home theatre with HD.

I’m not big on Rubens (a portrait went for over 9 million pounds … ), but I am drawn to the spectacular collection of 19th century carriages listed in the sale (one shown above right). Reported to be among “the most important examples in the world,” the carriages (which run exclusively on biofuel, by the way) went for up to 130,000 pounds apiece.  There appears to be ample hauling capacity in these rides and the horsepower is undeniable.

The Take-Away: Nothing like a good old-fashioned garage sale to purge the estate of all that clutter. If you haven’t used it in a year, it’s got to go … isn’t that the suggested metric for this kind of thing? I understand there were also some really good bargains on military uniforms and old LPs.

Post-Note: After the first round of the British Open, Rory McIlroy, 21-year-old punk from Northern Ireland, is in the lead with a record-tying 63.

Pre-Ramble:

There is growing concern, however, that the U.S. prowess for innovation is in danger, and that steps must be taken to ”reclaim our edge.”  John C. Lechleiter, chairman, president and CEO of Eli Lilly and Company expounds upon that sentiment in a recent Opinion page article (WSJ, 7/9/10, p. A17).

A stream of inventions helped make the 20th century the American century … Unfortunately, America’s economy is in danger of losing what has always been our greatest competitive advantage – our genius for innovation. … A recent study ranked the U.S. 6th among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness, but 40th out of 40 in the rate of change in innovative capacity … In other words, we’re at serious risk of falling behind.”

(Forgive me if I’m missing something here, but how much farther behind can we fall if we’re already dead last?)

Building capacity. In crafting a turnaround plan, Lechleiter talks about an “ecosystem” of conditions that are required to foster an environment of innovation, among them the “seeds of innovation” meaning, us human beings with our talent and energy, creativity and insights, “…  a priceless resource and one that is woefully underdeveloped in this country.” Lechleiter goes on to suggest that, along with simplified immigration policies and adequate funding for our research infrastructure, one way to bolster America’s “capacity for innovation” is to step up the rigors of science and math instruction in our schools.

At the recent Apsen Ideas Festival, education gurus like Bill Gates, Jeffrey Canada, and Howard Gardner discuss the future of education in America. They suggest all kinds of great ideas, innovative ideas even, that strive to engage young people in real learning and give them the tools they will need for a successful future. They talk about innovative models for reform … a longer school day, … an articulated curriculum, … more rigorous testing, … accountability for results, … teacher quality and parent involvement.  Certainly, these are all important elements in a high-quality education, and important building blocks for innovation as well.

Jack Hidary, a successful innovator/entrepreneur in the tech and finance camp, former philosophy and neuroscience student at Columbia University, and also a speaker at this year’s Aspen Festival, puts things in another perspective, 

“Problem-solving is not correlated with grade scores on a transcript.”

Science and reading and math – Oh my!  Sure, high performance in math and science (and reading ) are critical skill sets that must be nurtured in the well-rounded innovator, but so too are the critical traits of curiosity, independence and engagement. What is going to actually engage these kids?  Why are they going to want to sit in the classroom longer and take harder courses?  What is going to get them excited to come to school and apply themselves?  To get excited about learning?  How are they going to find what they are looking for in life unless they are given an opportunity to access their their imagination, their chi, their passion, their hidden sources of motivation? What is going to compel these students to shift their internal paradigm such that they see barriers and obstacles as exciting ”challenges to be overcome”?

Follow the yellow brick road.  Sometimes the answer is to go off of the beaten path and find yourself in a whole new place … maybe even one with rainbows, a tin man and ruby slippers (awesome, magical sparkliness shown above). Problem-solving – a gateway to innovation – involves critical thinking, exploration, resourcefulness and creativity. Future  innovators need to develop the motivation and capacity to snoop around … to follow their whims … listen to their gut, and rely on instinct and insight to make new connections among an infinite sea of random data points.

We need to provide kids with opportunities to venture down the yellow brick road … to get out of the black and white and see the world in color on a regular basis. In addition to a crabby Auntie Em and high winds, Dorothy’s data points were facilitated by her encounters with the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion.  The future entrepreneur needs a firm understanding of math and science and literature, AND art and music and team-work and a whole bunch of other random and wonderful things.

The Take-Away: We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Like Oz and the Fab 4, our the world is spinning and we need to figure out a way to make sense out of it. If we are to have any hope of rebuilding the American capacity for innovation, we need to engage and “nurture the seeds” in new ways. … Even clicking our societal heels in a spanking new pair of sparkly red shoes isn’t going to help us find our way back to innovation if we continue to ignore the critical role that the arts and extracurricular activities play in human engagement and continue to undervalue (cut funding for) them in our public and educational environments.

Pre-Ramble:

Camping …  you know … dragging a tent, musty sleeping bags, a flashlight and all of your food to a remote location and dumping it onto a clearing in the woods. You spread it all out like you’re playing house and then sit around on a log until the ”wildlife” can divine your location. 

The people who enjoy camping are the same people who jump at fishing and canoeing and hunting and hiking … the out-doorsy folks who have a knack for gathering sticks, reading maps and tying knots. These people use the racks on the tops of their cars.

According to National Park Service statistics, 5.4 million people camped last year, 3.1 million of them in traditional tents and another 2.3 million in RVs. Campers use all kinds of neat outdoor gear … lanterns, canteens, tarps, lots of bungee cords and stuff with netting.  Sure, it all looks real back-to-nature and doable in the retail environment, but you mustn’t lose sight of the fact that being outdoors is a critical part of the camping experience.

Outdoors is a whole nother thing … (you can quote me on that) … there’s dirt, sand, gravel, pointy rocks and picky grass out there. And, there’s nowhere to go to get away from it – except in your tent, which, after ten minutes, also has dirt, sand, gravel and grass in it. And then there are bugs. Bugs love the outdoors and they are everywhere – crawling, circling, buzzing and biting. Unless you’re doused in repellant or zip yourself into your sleeping bag, the bulk of your time will be spent On Patrol, … swinging, swatting, smacking, scratching and bleeding.  Bringing in the added menace of the potential to encounter actual mice, snakes, bats, coyote and bears makes the prospect of the idyllic camping experience simply absurd. 

But, wait!!  A new type of camping has emerged that offers a significantly less rustic experience — glamping.  According to Glamping Girl, an entire website devoted to this travel trend, there’s a whole new way to enjoy the outdoors. A cross between “glamour” and “camping,” glamping brings civilized accoutrements to uncivilized environments.  Glamping is an outdoor experience, often in an exotic location, that integrates cushy, high-end creature comforts like beds, linens, china, chefs, butlers, bathroom facilities, spa staff and cocktails. I bet there’s toilet paper too.

The five-star experience – There are glamping destinations all over the world and a wide variety of living quarters from which to choose … elaborate tents, cliff-side cabins, desert retreats, floating villages, … for example …

• Mille Etoiles offers 14 yurts in the Rhone-Aples region of France overlooking the Ardeche River gorge. Tents are built on oak platforms and furnished with four-poster beds, oriental rugs and antiques… “so guests feel like they are on an Edwardian safari …”
• Montana’s Paws Up Ranch has horseback riding and fly-fishing and accommodations that boast newly built “tents” on the Blackfoot River complete with king-sized beds, art on the walls, a personal butler and private master bath. Rates start at $695 per night for two and include three meals per day.
• Located in a hidden valley 1,000 meters above sea level near two inactive volcanoes in Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, Situgunung is the oldest tourist destination in West Java and a perfect location for glamping.  Along with intrepid (and supervised) outbound activities, glampsite amenities include pre-pitched fire-proof tents, comfortable restrooms and a five-star buffet.

The Take-Away: How about a glamp-out at the Waldorf-Astoria? … take a day-pack into Soho … do a little white-knuckle shopping on Madison Avenue … hunt for vermin on Wall Street … and have close encounters with the wildlife in Times Square.  Throw in some marshmallows, and this is the perfect summer adventure!  Sign me up!

Pre-Ramble:

Brainchild of legendary Berkshire Hathaway money-magnet Buffett, the Challenge invites the nation’s billionaires “to pledge to give at least half of their net worth to charity, in their lifetimes or at death.”  Names like Eli Broad and David Rockefeller are on the ask list along with media moguls Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg and Oprah Winfrey. Between the assets of these folks plus the other 395+ super-rich Americans (a la Forbes 400) … we’ve got the potential for quite the pot of cash, … sums the likes of which would “change the face of philanthropy as we know it.”

Long and the short of it.  The thinking behind the scheme is laudable. Buffett explains that while he has not yet made a commitment of time, which he feels is ultimately far more valuable than money, his contribution of Berkshire Hathaway stock certificates “ … can command far-ranging resources [which can] benefit others who, through the luck of the draw, have received the short straws in life. “ 

The obvious thought here is, if you’ve got $1 billion, half-a-billion is probably going to be sufficient to pay the bills and have enough left over to have some fun. So, where exactly is the line between the fortunes conferred by long straws and the lot of the fortune-challenged short straws set?  Where is the tipping point between having enough to live on and experiencing a true sense of need? 

Mortgage payments …  From a personal standpoint, I guess I never really thought about my net worth in terms of “wealth.” Sure, I feel plenty fortunate, blessed even, with the rich and varied lifestyle that my money allows, but I never really considered it “drive-me-across-the-estate-to-the-polo-ponies” kind of wealth.  When I think of vast amounts of disposable wealth, I imagine those closets you’d see on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous … the ones with thousands of shoes all perfectly lined up on racks. My shoe inventory will fit at the foot of the bed with room to spare. I’m just sayin.

The challenge then, in the lifestyles of those of us who are not so rich and famous, is vastly more confounding — Just how much is enough?  How much of your “personal wealth” could you realistically consider parting with?  What amount of your earnings is really just gravy? For those of you on the less charitably-inclined end of the continuum, how little can you get away with giving away without looking or feeling cheap, greedy or heartless? 

The Take-Away: I don’t have an answer for any of those questions … and I don’t have $1 billion to test the theories. For what it’s worth, the prose of the philanthropic pledge itself offers Warren Buffett’s humble and generous rationale,

The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us down that course.”

Pre-Ramble:

For the past few weeks I’ve been mired in a blur of high school graduation ”tasks” as my youngest child takes those last few steps up to the edge of the nest.  The pride and ceremony that mark graduation from high school are seminal and well-deserved. These kids have worked hard. So many caps. So many gowns. So many wide eyes. So many hopes and dreams.

And - so many house parties, … so many balloon bunches, … so many yummy sheet cakes. I’ll just say that orchestrating a graduation is more complicated than one might think and, like carrying an umbrella, renting a tent does not automatically co-opt the weather into not raining on your grad party day. Thank goodness I have the kind of friends who will assure me/lie to me that our garage was totally “festive.”  Never mind that we have been raking, weeding, mulching, planting and power-washing for months. No one could see any of that from the garage. Folks got a good look at our weed wacker, Miracle Grow and arsenal of snow shovels though.

Blog-time – So, ten days is practically an eternity in blog-time.  So much has happened in the last couple weeks – General Petraeus faints on the stand; Kobe pounds the Celtics; something or other is happening in South Africa that involves soccer balls; and the oil “spill” rages on in the Gulf. 

And that will be the last time you hear me refer to that horrendous, ecologically detrimental act of negligence by the inappropriately sanguine word “spill.”  … Like, …

“Oopsy, we bad … Naughty BP, … we made a little boo-boo. Here, we’ll just sop up that whole silly mess with paper towels … “

Milk spills. Sippy cups spill. Fluffy twirling figure skaters take spills. Millions and millions of thick toxic gallons of crude oil surging uncontrollably into the water for weeks upon weeks due to the shoddy, careless - okay, criminally negligent - practices of a smug international conglomerate is far beyond anything that could even remotely be characterized as a “spill.”

The whole scenario in the Gulf is so appalling and sad that I can barely bring myself to address it directly. This is as close as I can get for now.

The Take-Away:  Such a mix of events and emotions happening now. So proud of my 2010 graduate!  Looking forward to watching her test those wings as she moves into her next Big Adventure. Looking forward too, to filling up this “empty nest” with lots of new and exciting ideas, projects, and hopefully some compelling blog posts as well.

Pre-Ramble:

There is so much going on that I want to write about … the oil spill,… the spelling bee,… high school graduations,… Armando Galarraga’s “perfect game” … a cool huge pencil that I made out of a carpet tube …

And plus, I still have to tell you about jewels and apps … and that I’m in the process of revamping the website … (can a revamping of the life be far behind?)

The Take-Away:  Please stay tuned … this flurry of uber-activity will be over soon!

Pre-Ramble:  After a delay of several hours due to pilot availability and then electrical problems with the plane, we finally touched down at Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. It was 3:15 a.m. … a long, long day. 

Well, so we weary passengers were trudging up the jetway into the now vacant gate area, when there on the floor, off to one side, alone, sat a young army private.

He was wearing what looked to be standard issue combat fatigues and was accompanied by a backpack and some other light gear. He looked tired, but no more tired than we were. He didn’t look sad or injured or angry or forlorn. He looked calm and “waiting.” … Waiting for something to happen or someone to come.

In that moment, I noticed him only as an aside. We swept past and made our way up the long empty hallway to the baggage claim – the last stop before we would be in the car and finally on the way home.  Half listening to the hum of the wheels on my trailing bag, my thoughts went to the waiting soldier.

I wondered where he had been and what he had seen. I wondered if he was on his way in, or on his way out. I wondered if he was waiting to see what was in store, or whether this was his last stop before he would finally be on the way home as well.  And where was home?  Did he need a ride?  Who was his family, and would they be waiting there, anxiously anticipating his return?  If he had already served a tour of duty, or two, or three, I wondered whether he had been scared, or empowered … Whether he had suffered injuries or had injured someone else … Was he challenged to “be all that he could be” … ?  Or, hardened at too young an age to the realities of war and life.

The Take-Away:  But mostly, I wished that in that moment, as I was coming out of the jetway, that I had gone over to that young man and looked into his eyes and shaken his hand and told him how grateful and thankful I was that he was wearing that uniform and that he had made the decision to step up and serve our country.

Pre-Ramble:

In case I haven’t mentioned it, my husband is a rabid golfer. In fact, “rabid” really doesn’t cover the extent to which he embraces the game. (I won’t mention here that he collects golf rule books as a hobby, because that might be unnecessarily disclosive and embarrassing.)

Golf is life. Well, so, my golfer husband’s favorite tag line is, “Golf is life.”  As in, … there isn’t anything that life can throw at you that can’t be paralleled in the experience of playing a round of golf. 

Really?! Please!  When I hear this “Golf is life” business, I usually roll my eyes and come back with some sort of impudent response like, “Nah-ah!”  I refuse to believe that anything as frustrating and nonessential as a game of golf could actually have anything to do with the kind of weighty issues we face in our day-to-day lives. 

When in real life are we called upon to hit a small white ball over several hundred feet of tweaked up grass with a shiny stick while wearing plaid and goofy shoes … except when we’re playing golf?  Heck; it’s easy to say that “golf is life” if you’re good at golf (which golfer-hubby is). And, it’s easy to be good at golf when you play all the time (which golfer-hubby does).

For the rest of us, golf really does dish out a dizzying array of experiences – good and bad. Even a fair weather golfer like myself will tell you that there is nearly nothing better than hitting a really good golf shot. There’s a special feel and a special sound associated with a really good shot, and, of course, the ball lands somewhere amazing in relation to the cup (golf jargon for the hole that you’re trying to get the ball into). Of course, on the other end of the continuum there’s also a legendary amount of things that can go wrong in a round of golf as well.

Dang-it! Anyway, today on the ninth hole (the last one in a 9-hole round – duh) I duffed my tee-shot. This means that I hit it so poorly off of the little tee-stand thing that is just trickled like 50 feet or so into the deep grass before the fairway (not a good shot). Not wanting to end the 9-hole round on such a hideous note, I lunged for my bag to get another ball. NOTE: For those of you who are sticklers for the rules, I intended to (and did) play my poor shot through to the finish and use it in computing my final score for the round.

So, I ended up pulling a pink ball (not it above) out of my bag, teed it up and slammed it high and long into the  middle of the fairway (a super good shot).  At that moment I decided to play BOTH balls – the icky first white ball tee-shot and the second super-good pink ball tee-shot - to see which one would end up making it to the hole in the fewest shots.

I won’t bore you (too late - already have) with a tedious recount of the shot-by-shot on the two balls (btw – golfer-husband can give you the shot-by-shot on every game he’s ever played in his entire life), however I will tell you that in the end (spoiler alert!) … even though one sputtered off to a very tenuous start and the other went sailing, as though on wings, into the stratosphere – BOTH BALLS ended up getting into the hole in the EXACT SAME NUMBER OF STROKES.

This is notable for two reasons: 1) I am stunned that I could hit such a decent score (par) on a hole two times concurrently; and 2) it demonstrates the very “Golf is life” analogy that I so stridently mock/poo-poo (mock-poo?). 

The Take-Away: Never give up on things, even if they seem to be going badly.  Just when you think you’re a goner in the rough (the deep unforgiving grass outside of the fairway) … you end up spanking a 7 iron, bouncing off the cart-path and chipping onto the green (the sweet short grass within a putt-able distance from the hole) for a birdie (one under par – a good score)!

Chirp, chirp!