why we live here…

Those of us who choose to live in Michigan have done so in part because of the abundance of water that surrounds us.

Sunday morning on Reed’s Lake.

From the bow of my canoe.

 

Boat to the past…

I have just returned from the past. Over the last several days I was chaperoning a 4th grade class to a national treasure… Mackinac Island. It’s funny how one tends to forget the riches in one’s own backyard when they think of all the riches in the world.

The Grand Hotel… featuring the worlds longest porch.

The island experience truly cannot be explained without sounding like a Sunday afternoon PBS travel log. But I can confess to a transformational experience every time I am there. The only way to reach “the turtle” is by ferry or by plane… or by snowmobile if you brave a winter visit. But to make the trip more unreal you can cross over the Mackinac Bridge that reaches from Michigan’s lower peninsula to it’s upper and take a ferry from there.

8 miles and not one car to worry about… freedom to swerve when ever you want.

The Fort… still guarding the harbor.

The perimeter road of the island is 8 miles long and thus, the island is not very big… which works out well because the only mod of transportation once there is by foot, bike or horse… of which there are many.

When you arrive in the harbor your ferry will dock at one of many piers. As you stroll towards shore you pass carts full of luggage, bikes represented several decades of design and a wide variety of people. As you leave the docking area you typically pass through a building which serves as a dark transforming vestibule. Strangely symbolizing your rapid time travel. Stepping out of the darkness onto main street is like you have found some secret passage to a movie set for a Victorian mini-series that you play a role in.

Arch Rock.

Mackinac (pronounced mack-in-aw) has a real and rich history. The island is situated in the waters between Lake Michigan & Lake Huron. It was the trade mecca for the fur industry and served as the purpose of battle between the French, British and English over the years. It is our second National Park.

The forts that served as strong holds and geographic icons the early Indians cherished still remain in remarkable condition. This is the real thing Mickey… no Donald’s or Pluto’s.

There were hundreds of little insights the jumped up and slapped me in the face during this particular trip. Little things like how the kids didn’t know how to use the “coaster brakes” on the bikes we rented… and how fascinated that age group is with the road apples everywhere… and how fast they could circle the chuck of land.

Your best hope with these kids really, is to maybe, just maybe, help them encounter some form of intrigue that will pull them back to this place (and places like it) as the hand on our clocks go ripping by. Some cerebral bookmark that grows into a weekend itinerary but may take 20 years to harvest. And then you hope they still exist.

The original Big Mac… the worlds longest span between supports.

This is one of those places where you know living there would be a struggle but you wish you where a local…. it’s a secret that you want to share. So here’s to hoping the past is still there for our future.

you failed… that’s great !

As a parent one discovers there are many unforeseen lesson’s you endure, while stumbling down the path.  One of which is allowing your children to fail, but allowing them to learn how to deal with it.  As caring human creatures we typically tend to intervene in ways that prevent it.  But to be honest I wonder if it is to avoid our own emotional discomfort rather then the child’s.

My son has taken up wood carving. I think it is a reaction to the Indiana Jones phenomena that is washing over us like the sun as a cloud completes it’s eclipse.

Somehow he has managed to find a cast off piece of 2×4 and locked it into our Black & Decker Workmate.  Then position it in the driveway and proceeded to carve a wooden idol that he claims he will paint gold when he is done and hide it around the neighborhood.  In the process fabricate maps, collect artifacts and don a vintage beaver felt Stetson Moose River fedora of mine.  Sounds like a great way to spend a summer… I wish I was a kid again.

I have given him enough direction on this “art” to minimize trips to the emergency room but that’s about it.  I firmly believe that learning through experimentation is a better teacher than someone doing it for you while you watch.  As I observe from afar (without him knowing of course) I have witnessed him slip and slice, whittle and chip, carve and crack… pieces off that he had no intentions of removing.  Several times during this effort he has come to me with idol in hand and said “we can just glue that back on right dad”?  In the process he is gaining first hand knowledge of grain direction, tool sharpness and the laws of force vs. finesse.

At some point during the week I was up late watching video clips from the TED conferences and came across this one from a gentleman named Sir Ken Robinson.  The content is timed amazingly well with my son’s wood carving episode.  This is about a 18 minute video but well worth it.  The content and the delivery is priceless.  Enjoy.

(click image to link with video)

Photo of Sir Ken Robinson: courtesy of the TED web site

power fin vs. power

A myth.  Only seen in inspirational photos.  I have spent combined probably months in streams seeking refuge under the pretense of fishing but seldom have I actually witnessed this.  There, below us were trout jumping up a waterfall.  How could they possibly know that this is the way back to the nest?  Against all odds they bolt.  With the thrust of a fin and launch.  At risk is everything.  Exhausted and battered, they fail… wait and try again.  How could you not be moved by this?

 

Rockford Michigan… are dams a good idea anymore?

new music

 

This is a great collection of insightful poetry put to music… I highly recommend it:

simple… sort of

We are in the process of putting an addition onto our house.  I am pleasantly surprised at how many eco-green options there are for a variety of needs.  There is a lack of unity for judging specifically what suffices for that classification however.  I wonder if we need some governing sanction to step in and establish guidelines under the context of health.

The floor in our home office… by FLOR.

Can pot holes be a good thing?

This morning I reinstated my running program. There is a new Reebook ad that sums up this situation for me. The ad starts out stating straight up “you have this love-hate relationship with running.” True. Very True.

There I was, loping through the darkness. It felt like a scene in some old black and white movie, a sailor returning to his ship after a long night in some foreign port. I was only about 100 yards from the house when I dang near broke my ankle in a pot hole. This time of year the roads are shot. They look like a shield King Arthur carried, scarred and gnarly after endless efforts to defend it’s purpose.

But now, the seasons have made the turn. Spring is here. Things change. The pot hole not only came close to snapping something in my ankle but it snapped me back into reality. As I looked around the neighborhood I was somewhat surprised to discover how many homes are for sale. Homes owned by people who I thought would never leave. Things change. There are homes for sale because of a divorce, because kids have grown and left, job changes, illness. Things change. One sold that we didn’t even know was for sale which is unfortunate because it is a sweet home… and it happens to be the childhood home of Gerald R. Ford.

All of us have had to contend with change… intentional or otherwise. Like a tire that bounces through a pit in the road, we keep on rolling. Whether we will contend with change isn’t really the issue, it’s how we manage our way through it that makes the definitive moments.

Last summer we took Amtrak from Michigan to Montana. One of the most memorable experiences of that journey was how with each stop in every little town, the occupants of the train changed. It was like speed dating. Someone new sits down, talk to them for several hours, get to know them a little bit and snap, they get off at the next town and someone else gets on. Change happens.

This is true with how we approach events in our home too. In the span of an hour, a routine day, a week, a season or a life time… things change. We should go in knowing it will happen and stay open to the learnings it will provide. Last December we moved a chair to make room for the Christmas tree. The tree is long gone but we love the chair where it is so much we left it there.

In it’s old place is a pile of musical instruments. Prior to now it was a choir to get one out and dink around with it…”ease of use equates to frequency of use”. I find the instruments get used much more often now. This is a great example of how design reacts to society, how design can enable improvement and how change can provide positive yet surprising results. But I still suggest you watch out for pot holes if you go running in the dark.

 

Life at Highway Speed

Last Friday I spent the day in Chicago attending the kitchen & bath show… very cool. It was the first time I attended the show so I have little to compare it to, but it seemed pretty busy.

For the most part, the highway to Chicago from our town parallels the Lake Michigan shoreline. You can’t actually see the lake from the road, but you can sense it’s presence. The landscape changes from one of unobstructed, flat farm land to gently rolling mature dune. Beach grass trades place with scrub oaks and then back again with an occasional open dune. You can almost hear a voice at whisper level beckoning you to pull over, abandon your premeditated agenda and indulge in spontaneous exploration through the woods and cart-wheels down the sandy inclines.

There is one section where the north and south lanes peel apart. For a few dozen miles, people traveling on either side can’t see the other. During summer day trips to Chicago you typically encounter this section of road home at sundown. In-between the two lanes is a growth of beautiful trees that filter the sunlight with a rapid strobing effect, like looking at a flashlight through a ceiling fan.

Friday, on the way home, as this phenomena was taking place I looked out the window directly at the road screaming by beside me. What I witnessed was dizzying. At 80 mph things up close that I tried to focus on came close to inducing mild nausea. When I shifted my “zoom” as a friend of mine put it later that night, to things further in the distance, I could easily focus.

Here’s the dichotomy. All through life we are told that it’s the details that matter: “The job isn’t finished until the paperwork is through”… “God is in the details”… “great idea but they blew it with the execution”.

So here I was in my rental car, looking for things to keep me entertained (or is that too obvious?) trying to focus on the details and concluding that it was just impossible. The only thing I could focus on was the big picture… the long view. Had I inadvertently discovered a new theory that eroded the sand from under the pilings of my youthful boardwalk? Holy rapid-fire Batman! What was the twisted logic that allowed these two philosophies to coexist? Focus on the detail. Don’t focus on the details or you will drive off life’s road!

As the evening unfolded I reconciled this silly dilemma by concluding that it had nothing to do with what you focus on, rather the speed which one travels. Which, ultimately is a much more applicable lesson. Traveling too fast prevents you from seeing the details. Traveling too slow prevents you from reaching your goals.

To me this insight seems applicable to pretty much any situation. If you had two weeks to go to Colorado, how would the experience be different between flying, driving and biking. If you schedule 2 hours on Saturday to clean out the attic vs. doing in in 10 minutes some early December evening, while you’re looking for your favorite holiday snow-globe! How different would the experience be?

A voice in the dirt

Although I awoke this morning to several inches of fresh snow on the ground, spring can be seen peeking around the corner if you know where to look. It is a messy time of year. Our landscape is stuck between seasons with a puzzling mix… remnants from last month and previews of next month. Fading snow banks are creating an eerie worm hunting ground for the robins. Early morning birdsong can be heard while you scrape away the thick frost from your car windows.

Last night during a short cut through a playground, the path traversed a large sloppy pool of early spring gumbo. My 12 year old daughter proclaimed “whoa… that is some awesome mud”.

(friend or foe?)

 

It instantly struck me how different our perspectives can be. My reaction was to avoid it at all costs for fear that it would clog our shoe treads and track into the car and house. Hers was one of wonder and potential. Perhaps visions of culinary creations, mud pies and terra muffins. Hours of entertainment in the pure primeval goo. I was thrilled at witnessing her innocent guttural reaction. But it took me a several seconds to recognize it.

Last week while attending a meeting in Texas, the keynote speaker Tye Maner spoke of many intriguing things. One key insight was the lost art of listening. He used several analogies to make the point that listening to understand is different than listening just to hear. As a designers or individuals involved in creating solutions that improve people’s lives, this is a crucial point and a crucial difference.

My daughter’s reaction to the mud was not at all what I would have expected. Had I not been listening to understand, I would have missed the rapid romping through the possibilities on her imaginary journey and the simple joy she found in it. It is a simple thing and certainly not a major crime had I failed, but a beach cannot be formed with one grain of sand. Like our experiences in life, it takes thousands.

My opinion of the mud pit changed from one of avoidance to one of admiration… not that we stopped what we were doing and dove in, but my point is this. People react to things differently. Tye’s presentation came to mind. We need to always strive to understand through listening, through seeing and through pushing our own biases aside. In doing so we will be better designers, organizers, spouses, sand castle architects and perhaps mud chefs.

Goldie-Locks at the Alamo

I have just returned from a trip to San Antonio, Texas. Suspect of a growing geographic homogenization that is creeping across the country, I didn’t expect to experience much regional influence. Wrong.

This wasn’t my first trip to Texas, it but has been at least 15 years. The itinerary while there was jam packed and didn’t allow for much exploring or entrenchment into historic Texas culture. But I managed a few quiet, late night walks where I was able to study bronze placards and envision a time not long ago when this area was truly the wild west frontier.

I engaged in a conversation with an elderly man who was the proud proprietor of a western-wear shop. He explained to me the history of quality beaver felt hats, and much to my surprise convinced me that I didn’t need another one for my collection… I just need to wear the ones I have a little more often. I strolled the halls of a hotel that once served as the meeting grounds for Teddy Roosevelt’s “Rough Riders”. And of course the Alamo, with a story of bravery and adherence to a belief… and so pivotable to the outcome of our southern states.

(The Alamo Mission: home of “The Fight At The Alamo”)

(…”those willing to die defending freedom, cross this line”…)

It was a rapid, exhausting trip that has been deemed a success. We were there to host a meeting for our ORG product dealers. Due to a comical series of events, I had the opportunity to spend each night in a different hotel. Although I have dozens of thoughts linked to this excursion, one of the most powerful is the keen awareness that how a space is designed, decorated, maintained and presented strongly influences the life and experience of its occupants.

One evening I was living the life of luxury in a Hyatt, and the next in what I call “A night at the Munster’s”. And yet another, in a “National Historic Hotel” called the Menger, which left me feeling right at home. It may be revealing too much about myself, but I felt like “Goldie-Locks” trying out furnishings and finally finding a bed that was “just right”.

This, combined with constant packing, unpacking and organizing my things, kept me occupied with seeking efficiency and capturing memorable outcomes and details. (What about this can I replicate? If only there was another hook right here for a towel… they should put an outlet right here… this coffee maker is exactly where I would expect it to be… someone shut that barking dog up… it’s 2:43 A.M., etc.)

The intensity was all encompassing. I met some fantastic people who shared with me several personal and business experiences.

Now that it’s over and I am home again, I can reflect. I am once again surrounded by the things that are “me”. Seldom have the flannel sheets felt so right, the shower temp so perfect. The sound of the kids chattering as they drift off to sleep so soothing. It might not be as infamous as the Alamo, occupied by it’s 187 defenders, but it’s a home full of memories.