Goals

I have a number of goals that are unrealistic. I want to found a national sports league for Longball. I desire to reach millions each week through my quirky, but imaginative Imageless stories. It would be wonderful if I could make hundreds of thousands of dollars selling copies of my novel (which is still officially in "pre-release" mode while I work on the final revision).

Is it healthy to have goals that are so far reaching? It's debatable. I'd say that Shooting for the Moon is generally a good thing, though. I'll probably never succeed at any of these things, but if I can manage to fail sufficiently the outcome can still be immensely positive.

I found a motivational quote last week by a fellow who said he had missed twenty-nine "game winning" shots throughout his career in the NBA. If I were to make up statistics, I'd say the average NBA team gets about 8 opportunities throughout the 82-game season to knockdown winning shots at the buzzer, so this individual has about four seasons of disappointments. Do you know who it was that missed that many make-or-break shots? It was Michael Jordan. The point is that you've got to be able to lose a lot if you want to be a champion. I think this is why Jordan is critical of players like LeBron James who are eager to jump on a Merry-Go-Round of All-Stars playing for the same team. James, Bosh, and Wade are in position to dominate the upcoming season. The world of basketball will be shocked if they don't win. Therefore, by setting themselves up for an assured victory their challenge is decreased and their achievement will be marginalized.

This is not the approach I like to take. I like a good, tough challenge and the incremental failures that come along the pathway towards eventual success. It forces you to be smarter and work harder. Specifically, prioritizing the goals remains a tough challenge. I think that will be the topic for a future post. Suffice it to say, there aren't enough hours in the day.

Aruba

I traveled outside the US to a country that WASN'T Canada for the first time earlier this month. Jennifer and I joined several of our other friends in Aruba for two-thirds of a week of debauchery. There are pictures on Facebook (which I'm pretty sure I can't link to, so I won't bother trying). Soon there will be pictures on Flickr.

We (Jen and I) had a lovely time at Miami International Airport. I won't go into that part, but we were "slightly" delayed on our way to Aruba. Once we got there, though, it was good times. The house (not hotel) we stayed at belonged to our friend's parents. Their vacation house is within a community built within the Tierra del Sol Golf Club. It's really quite fabulous and amazing. Having the opportunity to fire-up a conventional BBQ grill probably made the trip for me. Relaxation + Grilling = Heaven.

On separate trips we explored some kind of rock formation as well as a cave on the Northern side of the island (near a row of BIG wind turbines if you're ever in the area). We ate out at a really good seafood place whose name escapes me (for Jen's birthday dinner). We also ate out at Brazilian BBQ (all you can eat MEAT, served to you throughout the night from waiter's with their wonderful meat swords (get your mind out of the gutter)).

The beach was breath-taking. Or rather, the ocean was amazingly clear and when I dunked my head underwater I was literally incapable of breathing. But the views and the warm, warm water were pretty awesome, too. It's kind of fun to see people doing tubing and para-sailing a quarter-mile from the shore. I think we should try something like that next time we go down there.

I'm also glad to have a "relaxing vacation" out of my system so that I can begin to anticipate another "camping, site-seeing vacation". Those are lots of fun, too.

Engineering

Being an engineer is supposed to be prestigious and special, but honestly it's pretty straight-forward. Wikipedia sums it up nicely:

If multiple options exist, engineers weigh different design choices on their merits and choose the solution that best matches the requirements. The crucial and unique task of the engineer is to identify, understand, and interpret the constraints on a design in order to produce a successful result.

There's a bit more to it than that (i.e. building and testing a particular solution to assure that it meets the requirements), but picking the best option based on the available choices is the big part of it all.

I guess the trouble arises when systems become so complex that dozens or even hundreds of these "choices" must be designed into a coherent end goal, or when certain constraints are particularly challenging to overcome. This aspect of engineering keeps things fresh, interesting, and fun.