soft on Yeltsin

I remember reading this article nearly a year ago.

Mr Gorbachev talked about some of his regrets. How he should have known better. Mr G has regrets, but he didn't do anything at the time. So are they just rose-tinted and fuelled by hindsight and a desire to have remained in power for longer? I don't know as I can't ask the man what the real motivations were.

I'm sure most of us don't want to get to the point where we find ourselves at 80 years old (Lord willing) with a pile of things we wish we'd said or done.

Of lessons we wish we'd learned the first few times, not the twentieth time. Or we've still not learned.

Lots of sporting analogies and blasé statements fill our Twitter streams and Facebook feeds. The reality is, however, that life is all about making decisions.

Too often, I think we make the decision to drop out. To not even make a choice and *let fate decide*. Really?

Is that life in all it's fullness?

I don't think so. I'm not for making 100 strategic decisions about your day before you've got out of bed.

But there's an opporuntity for those of us who want to listen for the Spirit of God as we follow the way of Jesus to find out there's much grace to be discovered as we make decisions in light of His truth and His mercy. If He is with us, are we paying attention? Are we bothered? There's no magic formula, but by faith all things are possible.

In fact, maybe we can avoid regret by spending less time looking through the rose-tints and more time in the present that shapes the future.

How do you do it?

Memories

There's often talk about parents building memories fortheir children. While I think that is valuable, I'm thinking that many of the memories we've built with the weeWeir have done us as much, or more good than they have for her.

I'm thinking about when we had a few nights away last month and she wouldn't settle to sleep on our first night. We tried our usual arsenal of tricks, but nothing worked. Eventually, after four hours we out her in the car and she was asleep in seconds. Literally seconds.

Literally.

I look back and find it completely fine, cute, understandable and all that. At the time, it was none of those things.

What did I learn from that memory? What do I need to leave behind from that memory?

I learned that the moment can be hard to separate from the context. That being away from home a few weeks after you move to a new home is pretty unsettling for a weeWeir. And that being awake until midnight one night will result in no problems the following night.

I learned that getting worked up by the lack of sleeping child is understandable but almost as futile as the lack of sleep itself. It's part of the process and next time, we'll try the car about three hours earlier in the process...

It would be easy to jump to a conclusion that we should never go away from home again, or never try and get the weeWeir to sleep in a strange bed. But that's not the real memory.

We had a great holiday and learned some new stuff about going away from home when you have a small person involved.

Have you ever been there? What are your memories telling you?

Reason for reaction

Isn't it interesting how our first reactions reveal a lot.

When I feel accused of something, or that I need to defend my position, it's normal that my reaction will be "no..." followed by a rationale, reasons or circumstances that at extra context to the actions or words I feel are being confronted.

It's almost like I am looking for someone to blame. That it can't possibly be my fault. Or at least if it is then there's good reason (ahem: excuse!)

But so often the person we are dealing with is wrong. ;-p

How can we be gracious in our interactions? Or is that not important? Sometimes people aren't interested in a gracious, respectful conversation. Maybe that's not worth the effort.

Maybe there's a better way to respond, even when we are right. Maybe I should be more appreciative that people actually listen! Maybe there's room to say thank you for pointing that out.

Clearly there's a need to be truthful and honest. But there's a power in deferring to another out of respect and (dare I say) love.

Lots of questions today. Got any thoughts?

Blink is an interesting book on the topic too. Particularly about the source of our instant responses.

you are not alone

A couple of weeks ago, I got a wee bump in followers on twitter.

Then later that day, I got a message from someone saying:

"@theWeir I read "the egg" today and it blew my mind. How did you come up with that?" (it's here)

I didn't recognise the author of the message, and more importantly, didn't remember writing anything called "the egg". A quick check of blog

titles and writings confirmed that I was being mistaken for someone else.

But who were they looking for, and what was "the egg"? I replied thanking the person, but suggesting it was a different Andy Weir. They passed me this link.

Now I knew that this wasn't me as my relationship with God doesn't lead to reincarnation...

I thought not much more about it until I opened up Google Reader and found a whole load of results in my "tracking" RSS feeds. I'm sad (or vain?) enough to keep an eye on what my name shows on Google and twitter searches.

Not because I expect to find some scandal about me, but just to know what's being picked up about people with the same name as me. Mitch talks about it a lot in the area of Personal Branding. While I'm not in the game of building a brand of Andy Weir, I do want to be aware what Google says about me as that can impact the perception a prospective employer might have of me.

And here we are ten days, and an 800% jump in website views for my homepage later and I'm still getting results about "the egg" and a steady stream of new twitter followers. When I tweet about Jesus, do you think they'll be confused?

Too late.

I posted this earlier:

"thoughts of future, possibilities and faith mingle with weariness and uncertainty to leave me open to grace & peace. a re-drawing of things."

And got a reply:

"@theWeir Dude, did you write "The Egg" or not? Am I following the right Andy Weir? :) But seriously..."

The answer, was clearly "Nope"...

What's my reply to "the egg"? I have a future and a hope in Jesus that lasts longer than I can understand. There is enough Grace and Peace in the Love of God to calm the most tormented soul and there is one life to live for the Glory of the King and that's what I am all about.

I have no pity for the other Andy Weir. I have respect for his writing. It's a beautifully created narrative. My worldview is different and I can cope with his being different too. Some of the ideas in "the egg" resonate with truth I can agree with.

But my hope is built not in my attaining God-likeness but in being given the gift of life in God, of losing my self and finding wholeness in Christ.

Of being reborn into His likeness...

I never knew you

Isn't it amazing how people are great?

Too often we hear how we're hard done to, cheated out of what we're *entitled* to and generally at the wrong end of the wedge of happiness.

Well, it's not really like that in the real world. We all face challenges, sure, but we are very seldom alone and I'm wondering if we do find ourselves genuinely alone and facing a significant problem, it's maybe because of the choices we've made. Of the distance we've kept from others.

So it's with a grateful heart I say thank you to those who supported us with concern, empathy and basically love over the past few days.

I posted some messages on Twitter & Facebook about us taking the weeWeir to hospital at the request of the Doctor, as well as sending a few SMS messages to close family and friends.

The replies brought me to tears, realising we were not alone.

While we were not on our own, we knew that God was with us through it all, we also knew you were with us too. And for that we can only say

Thank you. You know who you are.

The weeWeir is doing better thanks. We continue to keep an eye on her and see how she does in the days ahead.

Things wot I learned on holiday #4

Sometimes its good to stop and watch the water flowing.

If it's in a burn, a river, the sea or from the sky. Just watch the water.

(img source: me)

September Song

I was on the way to work the other day and these lyrics came to mind.

This confusing fire where the flames fall down to earth

The world is upside down and in the autumn we forget

The pen within my hand led the ink into its mark

The book upon my lap now lies closed, its verse retired

No solace in these words, no mirror to the beauty here

The paper and the page, the poetry that fails and falls and dies

Can you make me live? Can your words be true?

Can you take this heart? Can you make it new?

Why can I not change all the pain I see?

Why do I do wrong? Is there something wrong with me?

My head is in my hands, the tears fall down my face,

Why do you forgive? Why cover me with grace?

How can I not search all these mysteries?

Forgive my unbelief, help me to believe

Like leaves the questions fall, silent, empty, stilled, untrue

And in my heart I know you will never change and all I have is you

In particular the chorus. Such an honest cry for Grace. For Mercy. For Peace.

Beautiful. Thank you, Daniel Goodman & Note for a Child.

You can hear the song on You Tube here.

Local People, Local Clothes, Local Schools, Local People

A few things are happening over the next two weeks or so to encourage people to give away things they don't need. At the 1st April, welivesimply encouraged people to give away things they don't use or need any more - it was then captured under the twitter #tag #foolpurge.

I can only report getting rid of a few old t-shirts that were surplus to requirements. We handed a few bags of clothes into our local Help the Aged shop.

Then I saw that this event was happening in the United States: Give your stuff away on 15 May. That's this weekend.

Pretty cool. If you are in the US: GET INVOLVED!

Then I read that there's something similar happening in the Scotland: Pass it on day on 5 June. That's in three weekends time.

In the meantime, our local school, Broxburn Academy now has a textile bank and a collection due on 23 June with all funds going to supply planners for the kids. Interestingly, the company involved are Rag Bag, based in Denny and employing 200 people in Scotland. Which is pretty cool too.

Clearly, the more we reuse, the less we waste and put into landfill. The less we need to buy new *stuff*. So, get involved wherever you can and see what you can give to someone else!

200.

This is, interestingly enough, my 200th blog post since I moved from iWeb (here) to Blogger (erm, here).

I've known the number was approaching for a while and had a few ideas, but when I was playing with the weeWeir tonight, it all became clear.

You see, Beth is doing what we all do and growing. She's doing it pretty well too. Jenny and I are grateful for such a treasure. Beth is our wee promise in action.

So tonight, I'm breaking with my own position. You can read about that here.

This post is about my family. Beautiful and complex and delightful.

Beth was getting ready for bed and decided she'd like to wear a hat. Off she trotted to find one, but her hats were nowhere to be found. She found a pair of gloves. Infact, she found one mitten, came back asking that it be put on her hand and then went to find the other glove.

Then she was keen on a hat again. So I gave her a hat. It's spring mind, and she's in her jammies. I love this kid.

Then it was time to brush her hair. Not the most enjoyable of activities for Beth, but we got there. I, now sitting on the bottom step in our hall, asked if she wanted to brush my hair (as you do).

Beth put on her hat (at a jaunty angle), pulled on one of the mittens and stood on the step. Next made three intentional swooshes through my hair with her brush and looked intently at her work. She then put her arm on my shoulder, rested her head and smiled.

I could have wept.

Then it was time for bed.

Delightful.

So here's to you Beth, keep bringing a smile to our hearts.

(strike a pose...)

(couldn't resist including a wee snap of Mrs theWeir and I too!)

why don't you...?

One of the strongest memories I have of summer holidays from school is a TV programme called "why don't you...?". Do you remember it. It was usually on about 9.25 and it was on either BBC1 or 2. This was before the days of widespread multi-channel TV, kids.

In all honesty, the only thing I can really recall is the theme tune - and one particular lyric: "why don't you... just switch off your TV set and do something less boring instead". (you can see the whole title sequence here on the BBC site).

Just think. We, the viewer, were being invited to switch off the programme. Before it started. Now that wasn't the point of it. But it's something that's reverberated around my head for all the years since. Just switch off the TV and do something else. Sometimes, there's things worth watching, however it's very rarely that I'll put the TV on just to see what's on. So when reading what Seth had to say here and his reference to Clay Shirky's keynote on Cognitive Surplus, it reminded me of that song. And the invitation.

I think about what I do with an evening and often, as with many of us, it's doing things around the house, preparing for a future event or doing a book. While I might not feel like I'm working towards an MBA in my evenings, the time spent keeping the family in clean clothes or clearing up after myself (!) means there's more time for other things.

More recently, the acquisition of a Wii has brought a mix of entertainment and exercise into the house too. Which can't be bad.

Or can it?

I agree with Seth. My one caveat is the importance of rest. Finding the unforced rhythms of grace is so crucial. We can't run forever like we've got a limitless source of energy. We need rest. Not sloth. Just times of quiet, or space, or refreshing our senses.

What are you up to tonight?

What? No and Thank You.

A few weeks ago, I made reference to some car-related challenges we were facing.

The weekend just passed, we collected our repaired car.

It felt like a real struggle to get resolution to this situation, and I won't go into the minutiae of the full story, but there were three significant events:

1. the car broke down with an almost identical fault that was repaired while under warranty in December. Jenny was headed home with the weeWeir at the time of this happening.
2. the garage were claiming no responsibility as the car was now out of warranty - resulting in a quite heated phone conversation between Jenny and a service person at the garage.
3. the 2195 word email I sent to the Managing Director of the company - in which I gave the full story from when we bought the car in June 2009 until the moment the email was sent.

In the end, a few things happened. The car was repaired. We split the cost with the garage, which was a fair result (from our point of view, and hopefully from theirs!). We also learned that there's a lot of things that matter a LOT at the time, but in 100 years will have any impact?

I really don't like complaining. I don't think the world owes me anything and I'm certainly not convinced that everything should be perfect. In fact, I'd much rather take action by not using - or not recommending - a provider, product or service than by shouting and bawling about it. However, this time there was a clear sense of imbalance, and that's no good for anyone. My email wasn't abusive, vindictive or nasty (even if I do say so myself) but it stated what happened and why we felt let down. Our Mini Adventure was made possible by this company. They were *brilliant* at that time. Why not now?

Giving credit where it's due is important. The Managing Director of Eastern Holdings was absolutely first-class in the way he responded to my letter. I'll say it publicly, I would do business with their group again. I might not go back to the original garage, but I have confidence that their business is being run in the right way. Thank you, Mr Brown & your colleagues who helped get this sorted.

Funnily enough, I read this by Seth Godin today. He makes the valid point about the use (or not) of *but* when prefacing a complaint.

Read his post and see what you think.

playing games around my feet

When I was on holiday, I'd get up with babyB and let Jenny get some more sleep. It's kinda normal for me to do that given the way the rhythms of our lives are running at the moment.

And mainly because I can often fall into the typical male stereotype of being unable to wake up when there's baby crying unless there's some significant amplifying of the audio level...

When at Center Parcs, I tried to get out for a run before breakfast - so would spend some time stretching in advance. There was something special about these times as babyB got involved in the process - pile on being one of the simplest games ever.

It reminded me of the song Turning Thirty I mentioned on this blog post at my birthday. And of being grateful for the grace we live in.

10 years? That was quick

I've shared a few photos of the events that Jenny and I enjoyed 10 years ago today.

We got married in the old "Church of Stabrok", built in 1185, but known as St Nicholas' Kirk. It was the same building that Jenny's elder sisters were married. I loved that it was an old building, still in use and that it was small enough to feel cosy with our guests. Especially as we got married toward the end of October!

Among many clear memories of our wedding (including me bubbling like a softy as we read the vows we'd written to each other) was the day before. We drove to Balbirnie House, leaving our car there overnight. The drive was a welcome break from all the arranging and sorting out that had been going on. It was a lovely, bright and crisp day and was just the right pause for breath before the big day.

I've been thinking about all that we've enjoyed in life together since that day. Sharing and building a home together for the first time, getting used to living with someone else (more of a challenge for Jenny than for me, I'm sure) and Jenny passing her driving test in the first month was great. And I think about Jenny getting her job at Standard Life Bank, launching CDs with IndigoEcho, we bought the Pug, touring with the band, moving into and renovating our current home, more CD launches, Jenny went back to University to study Midwifery, we visited New Zealand for 7 amazing weeks, Jenny graduated with honours (not that I'm proud of her, or anything), we lost a baby, we visited New Zealand again, we bought the Astra, Jenny was pregnant, and very ill with it, babyB arrived and here we are.

Not to mention those *landmark* 21st and 30th birthdays, changes in role at work for me, trips to more local destination, celebrations, tragedies, leaving the band, trying other things and the richness that comes from living as full a life as we can. Some people have remarked that we got married very young. My reply had always been that we wanted to grow up together - and I think we're still doing that. And I love it.

I say this to boast. To boast in the Grace and Mercy of God who has kept us safe, provided for us and in Love for these 10 years. The One we have cried to and shouted about. I love my wife, my baby girl and an grateful for every day we have.

As Gary Houston would say:

"Every breath is mercy."

oh yeah, and 10 years ago, in the middle of our *first dance* (Andy Williams singing "You're just to good to be true"), our friends held up scores on our performance. Genuis, comedy and the perfect distraction from my (intentionally) bad dancing. If only we'd had You Tube back in the day, we'd have been viral video stars!

"the whole"

Yesterday, I had the privilege of being back in a recording studio playing some drum tracks for a new project.  Inspired by a conversation with David Stewart on Facebook, here's the story...

Clive Parnell,  who was also part of IndigoEcho, managed to get some funding together (through his employer UCCF) to get some worship songs recorded - with a view to giving over 1000 CDs away to students.  I've heard the songs over the past few months as he has worked the melodies out, thought a little about structure and pace and all that good stuff.  Despite my best intentions, I've not been able to contribute much to this process - time & energy being considerable factors in that.

So, last week I had the chance to jam through the songs with Clive, Gary Francis (also of IE *fame*) and Thomas Dean (not of IE, and in fact far younger than I like to consider at this time.  We played through some ideas and I came out pretty confident that I had some good ideas.

In the past when I have recorded, it's been songs that have been played for a year (at least) so the parts were pretty much sorted out live and we were just replicating that for the recording.  Even when I helped on the Mystery Tent recording two years ago, while I'd not been playing the songs, we had a clear idea of how things were to work.

Clive had recorded the guide parts for the tracks in Monday.  When I turned up at Foundry Music Lab yesterday, got set up and ready to go, I wasn't quite prepared for what happened next.  We basically re-wrote most of what I was playing on the spot.

I had a few choices to make - either spit the dummy, get all precious about *my parts* and go in a huff or just respect the perspective of the producers and get on with it.  I went with the latter (part of me thinks 10 years ago I would have gone with the former, but that's what 10 years will do for you).

Why did I *submit* to these guys who I don't really know?  Three reasons - they do this for a living, I don't and they had a wider perspective than I had at that moment.  They were seeing (okay, hearing) things that I wasn't.

I recognised that we also had a common purpose.  To make the best recording that we could.  We all have a stake in adding to the whole rather than trying to be the whole.  I think you learn this the hard way. Or at least I am!

My experience on the day was great - we got some tremendous sounds (once I figured out what I was supposed to be doing).  I'm eager to hear the other parts (I won't get that until the mix is complete this is a simple session gig for me).

My thought on production - live or recorded

Musicians (as with many artists) can be a fickle lot.  But for anyone involved in doing collaboration as part of a team (musical or otherwise). Spending a day watching and listening to an experienced producer at work can open our eyes to what is possible when it's a team blending their sounds together.

There's a great many cliche's about teamwork, about seeing the landscape as others see it, so let's avoid them, but basically, having a sense of the strategic view can really help people contribute to "the whole".

Or being humble enough to listen (and respond to) the request of an arranger/producer. 

That said, the producer/arranger has a huge responsibility to foster trust with the people they are working with. Trust is not a right, it must be earned. You can have all the experience or musical ability in the world - but if you can't interact with people and understand their map of the world then you run a huge risk of people disengaging from the process and then it's just conflict - which left unresolved doesn't help anyone.

While there's really not a formula to make successful music, there are principles here about honesty, trust and (ahem) harmony that can be practiced - that can be worked at to improve them.  If you want to get better at team *stuff* then you can do something about it.  First, get your house in order (ie get over your pride!) and then share your views by listening (!).  Hear what people have to say, try it out.  If it doesn't work, talk about it and have some real reasons why.  Get beyond *just 'cos* as a reason because, frankly, that wasn't any good after Primary 7!

If someone is better than you - find out why.  What's the difference?  Do you need to be as good as they are or are you able to be excellent at what you do so that you can make a unique contribution to "the whole".

At risk of sounding like a marketing slogan - be all you can be!

/rant

What about you - what's your view on contributing to "the whole"?  Have you done this in a musical sense or otherwise?  Have you learned when to shut and let other things happen?

Home and Away (and then Home again, eventually)

What a fun journey life can be.

I've got a few things in my head to talk about from last week, but thought I'd tell my story of coming home.

McColleague and I left Internet World 2009 at Earls Court in plenty time to get ourselves out to Heathrow. Basically to minimise the risk of Transport for London making a meal of it!

I'd checked in online, and rather than print a boarding card, got the QR code sent to my G1 - and it worked! Paperless travel is possible! (except for my photographic ID...).

We got access to the BMI lounge (and therefore free stuff), had a quick, efficient and harmless flight - BMI were great all 'round, as they were when Mrs theWeir and I travelled back from NZ a few years ago. Then there was a wee bug in the ointment.

The flight time from Heathrow to Edinburgh: 55 minutes. Time to get out of the car park: 20 minutes. It seems the volume of traffic leaving the car park was too much for the poorly designed system - you get a certain amount of time from buying your ticket to present that ticket at the exit barrier. And basically people were running out of time.

250 vehicles, four barriers, one fella in the booth to help people who needed another ticket issued. Clearly not his fauly, but the system is broken by design. Alas I couldn't take a picture as the G1 has stopped reading my MicroSD card. Need to figure out why!

Anyway, can someone please with some Lean process management techniques offer to fix this clearly broken system?

the world is spinning faster....

make it stop!

Okay, maybe not literally, but I'd be quite happy if I learned my lesson, said *enough* and took it at a more manageable pace for a week or ten.

This week, I am mostly working my buns off at work, feeling pretty bad about not seeing J and babyB as much as I'd like and missing keeping aware of what's going on in the outside world.  It feels like I'm a cycle of sleep, wake, work, home, eat, sleep etc etc.  And that's not good.  For anyone.

Does anyone else feel that this year has simply got faster in the past four weeks?  It's not that long since our anniversary, a few weeks earlier, J's birthday and yet those seem like distant (fond) memories.

I want to sing that Randy Stonehill song and be done with it all.  "stop the world, I wanna get off".  Not forever, just to learn my lesson.  Anyone got the handbrake?