Saturday, March 2, 2024

"Water Always Wins" a book review

 Water Always Wins Erica Gies (2022)

Water Always Wins (327 pages, 290 references) is a treatise on how water behaves and misbehaves on our planet, and how our human attempts to control water via dams, channeling rivers, dikes, draining of wetlands, shoreline management, and so on, and so on, fail. The subtitle: "Thriving on an age of drought and deluge" points toward how human-caused climate change has exacerbated the problems we have with out-of-control water. 

The overlying theme of the book is "slow water," meaning that in a nature-pristine state there are mechanisms such as plant cover, porous soil, drainage obstructions (including beaver dams) and so on that slow drainage, and that by doing so lessen flooding in times of heavy rain or snow melt, and also recharge the local and regional surface water and ground water, lessening the impact of drought.

Beaver skull: see that the gnawing teeth are 
separate from the eating teeth, and that the former
have an orange enamel on the outside surface. 
These teeth grow throughout the animal's 10-12
year lifespan. The orange enamel is harder than
the white, so these teeth are self-sharpening. The 
bite force is twice that of a human, but much less
than that of large dogs.
Chapter 4: "Beavers - the original water engineers" describes the impact this species had on North America prior to European colonization and fur trapping, and how the more recent recovery from extirpation (regional extinction) is being accomplished. A rough estimate of 60 to 400 million beavers population North America prior to arrival of the Europeans. Trapping for the fur trade reduced the numbers to an estimate 100,000 mostly in Canada. With government protection, the beaver population has recovered to an estimated 10-15 million.This includes live-trapping of beavers in areas where their activity infringes on human habitat - flooded farm fields and suburban lawns plus gnawed trees - for relocation to ideal habitant is empty. Beaver dams slow water from headland tributaries, and be doing so, mute floods and maintain water flow in times of drought. The water impoundments also stongly support biodiverisity.

Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 are in-depth case studies of how water was and is and will be managed in various countries, specifically India, Peru, US and China, and Kenya. The common theme across all of these chapters is that deforestation and urban sprawl are contrary to the concept of slow water, and need to be addressed by plans to support slow water, and to also plan for space within and adjacent to cities that are allowed to flood in times of excessive water. The chapters also address that while reforestation in theory can be beneficial, planting the wrong types of trees or only a few species of trees, i.e., monoculture, can be counterproductive. 

Chapter 9: "Sedimental Journey",  describes the best and worst ways to manage the land/ocean interface in these times of rising ocean level. Worldwide, our current practices are mainly the worst. By building to the water's edge, and in places trying to defend that edge with seawalls, we have removed all of the natural coastal ecosystems - salt water marshes, mud flats, mangrove forests, coral reefs, barrier islands, sand dunes, kelp forests - that when in place blunt storm damage and coastal erosion. The chapter adds that building dams on rivers compounds the problem by preventing river sediment from restoring and actually increasing the land height of marshes, beaches and river deltas. Efforts to restore natural waters' edge barriers to San Francisco Bay are described in great detail.

Chapter 10: "Our Shared Future", loops back to the concept first broached in the title "Water Always Wins", To wit,  stop fighting and adapt. Towns, even cities that have a frequent history of flooding have been abandoned, or even moved. Sometimes the catalyst is a refusal by insurance companies to provide flood insurance. Efforts at rewilding coastland and river valleys provides space for water. On the drought side of the equation, limits on development recognize the fatal flaw in allowing population growth in places where water cannot be guarenteed, neither by reservoirs nor pumping ground water in excess of what can be replenished by rain and snow melt. Ditto on water-intensive crop choices in areas with water limits. If water always wins, make peace, not war. 



Thursday, February 22, 2024

Consultant Jokes (3)

If you know any consultants, please mention these postings to them.

Back when I was a self-employed consultant I started to collect consultant jokes, with the half-baked idea of self-publishing and selling a paperback book of jokes and cartoons. Below, the first part of what I had collected.

For people who are seriously considering a career in consulting, I strongly recommend buying a copy of Alan Weiss' book, Getting Started in Consulting. When I was getting started, I would read the entire book every few weeks. It help tremendously in understanding how to establish visibility, 'gravitas', reputation, etc. as means of rising above the competition. 

I also remember being asked and answering two key questions about becoming a self-employed consultant: Separate from your credentials, experience and knowledge, "Are you comfortable talking to strangers? Are you comfortable talking to no one?" Because if you cannot do the first, you won't find clients, and if you cannot do the second, sitting home alone in your office with the phone not ringing an no one to have coffee with will be depressing.

MORE CONSULTANT JOKES

Consultant or Prostitute? 

   1. You work very odd hours.
2. You are paid a lot of money to keep your client happy.
3. You are paid well but your pimp gets most of the money.
4. You spend a majority of your time in a hotel room.
5. You charge by the hour but your time can be extended.
6. You are not proud of what you do.
7. Creating fantasies for your clients is rewarded.
8. It's difficult to have a family.
9. You have no job satisfaction.
10. If a client beats you up, the pimp just sends you to another client.
11. You are embarrassed to tell people what you do for a living.
12. People ask you, "What do you do?" and you can't explain it.
13. Your client pays for your hotel room plus your hourly rate.
14. Your client always wants to know how much you charge and what they get for the money.
15. You know the pimp is charging more than you are worth but if the client is foolish enough to pay it's not your problem.
16. When you leave to go see a client, you look great, but return looking like hell (compare your appearance on Monday AM to Friday PM).
17. You are rated on your "performance" in an excruciating ordeal.
18. Even though you might get paid the big bucks, it's the client who walks away smiling.
19. The client always thinks your "cut" of your billing rate is higher than it actually is, and in turn, expects miracles from you.
20. When you deduct your "take" from your billing rate, you constantly wonder if you could get a better deal with another pimp. 

THE SHEPHERD JOKE

 A shepherd was tending his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a dust cloud approached at high speed, out of which emerged a brand new BMW. The driver, a young man in an Armani suit, Ferragamo shoes, the latest Polarized sunglasses and a tightly knotted power tie, poked his head out the window and asked the shepherd, "Hey! If I can tell you how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd looked at the man, then glanced at his peacefully grazing flock and answered, "Sure."

The driver parked his car, turned on his Blackberry, surfed to a GPS satellite navigation system on the Internet and initiated a remote body-heat scan of the area. He printed the results on the laser printer in his glove compartment, subtracted three (for himself, the shepherd and the car), and pronounced “You have exactly 1,586 sheep."

"Impressive. One of my sheep is yours." said the shepherd. He watched the young man select an animal and bundle it into his car. Then the shepherd said: "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you reverse the bet?"

Pleased to meet a fellow sportsman, the young man replied “You’re on.”

"You are a consultant." said the shepherd without hesitation.

"That's correct," said the young man, impressed. "How ever did you guess?"

"It wasn’t a guess," replied the shepherd. "You drive into my field uninvited. You ask me to pay you for information I already know, answer questions I haven’t asked, and you know nothing about my business.”

 Now give me my back my dog."

 THE RESTAURANT JOKE

A customer at a fancy restaurant noticed during the salad course that each of the waiters had a spoon in his jacket pocket. He asked his waiter, “What gives with the spoon?”

The waiter replied, “The owner brought in a time efficiency expert who discovered that the utensil people dropped most often was a spoon. If we all carry replacement spoons we improve service speed by 3.4%.”

During dinner the same customer noticed that that his waiter had a string hanging out from his pants zipper. And so did all the other waiters. He asked, “And what’s with the string?”

The waiter replied, “The same consultant observed that we were using too much time to wash our hands after going to the bathroom. Now I just pull down my zipper, tug on the string, and I can manage my business without dirtying my hands.” With that, the waiter bustled off to another table.

Over dessert the customer stopped the waiter one more time. He said, “OK, I can see how you get started, but how do you put everything away without using your hands?”

The waiter leaned over and softly said, “I don’t know about the other guys, but I use the spoon.”

DEFINITIONS OF CONSULTING TERMS

 Consluting/Conslutant:  A search on any decent Internet search engine will garner many hits for consulting or consultant, but also a fair number for consulting or conslutant.  Either a small percentage of consultants are dyslexic, or ‘consluting’ is a rare subspecialty of consulting.  Possible definitions:

-          Someone who gives away for free what others charge for

-          working for competing clients – and providing the same answers to both

-          propositioning your friends’ clients and promising more for less

-          submitting reports without checking your outgoing material for viruses

-          decorating your website with gaudy gifs, clip-art, sound effects and backgrounds

-          invoicing twice for the same work and hoping to get lucky


Bozone: The substance surrounding stupid people which stops bright ideas from penetrating.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when coming at you rapidly.

Contruck: Is a contract with a small-print clause that makes you feel like you were run over by a truck when it is invoked.

Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Invice: Is an invoice with a criminally high total considering how little work was actually completed.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.


A doctor, lawyer and a consultant were discussing whether to have a wife or a mistress.

The doctor said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship.

The lawyer said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there.

The consultant said, "I like both."

"Both?" asked the doctor and lawyer in unison.

The consultant replied, "Yeah. If you have a wife AND a mistress, they will each assume that you are spending time with the other woman, so you can go to the office and get some work done." 

 A time management consultant dies and goes to Hell. On arrival the Devil says, "I'm going to give you three choices, which is more than you ever gave your clients. Whichever room you choose will be how you'll spend eternity."

So the consultant opens the first door and sees a mob of people sitting on a floor covered with spikes. He goes to the next door and sees a humongous crowd of sinners lying down in spoiled food and maggots. At the third door, there is a throng of people talking and drinking coffee, although they are up to their knees in pig manure.

"Thank God," he exalts, "It smells terrible, but at least I could drink all the coffee I want and be able to talk to people."

He enters and joins the group. He is about to sip his first coffee when a loudspeaker announces, "Coffee break is over.  Back to standing on your heads!"

  

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Consultant Jokes (2)

If you know any consultants, please mention these postings to them.

Back when I was a self-employed consultant I started to collect consultant jokes, with the half-baked idea of self-publishing and selling a paperback book of jokes and cartoons. Below, the first part of what I had collected.

For people who are seriously considering a career in consulting, I strongly recommend buying a copy of Alan Weiss' book, Getting Started in Consulting. When I was getting started, I would read the entire book every few weeks. It help tremendously in understanding how to establish visibility, 'gravitas', reputation, etc. as means of rising above the competition. 

I also remember being asked and answering two key questions about becoming a self-employed consultant: Separate from your credentials, experience and knowledge, "Are you comfortable talking to strangers? Are you comfortable talking to no one?" Because if you cannot do the first, you won't find clients, and if you cannot do the second, sitting home alone in your office with the phone not ringing an no one to have coffee with will be depressing.

MORE CONSULTING JOKES

A doctor, an engineer, and a consultant were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world.

The doctor remarked, "Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken out of Adam. This clearly required surgery, and so I can rightly claim that mine is the oldest profession in the world."

The engineer interrupted, and said, "But even earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most spectacular application of civil engineering. Therefore, mine is the oldest profession in the world."

The consultant leaned back in her chair, smiled, and then said confidently, "Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?"


An efficiency expert concluded his lecture with a note of caution. "Don't try these techniques at home."

"Why not?" asked somebody from the audience.

"I watched my wife's routine at breakfast for years," the expert explained. "She made lots of trips between the fridge, stove, table and cabinets, often carrying a single item at a time. One day I told her, "You're wasting too much time. Why don't you try carrying several things at once?"

"Did it save time?" the guy in the audience asked.

"Actually, yes," replied the expert. "It used to take her twenty minutes to make breakfast. Now I do it in ten."


The classified ad said, "Wanted: CEO needs a one-armed consultant, with a social sciences degree and five years of experience."

The man who won the job asked, "I understand most of the qualifications you required, but why 'one-armed'?"

The CEO answered, "I have had many consultants, and I am tired of hearing with each advice the phrase 'On the other hand…'."


A man had a male cat that howled all night, every night. The sleepless man concluded that the cat has too much testosterone and took him to the vet to be castrated. To his great surprise, the cat continued howling.
"Why are you doing it now?" he asked the cat.
"The other cats hired me as a consultant."


There’s a glass of water on the table...
First consultant says, "It's half full." That’s an optimist.
Second consultant says, "It's half empty." That’s a pessimist.
The Human Resources consultant says, “You have too much glass there.”


A consultant is ...

  • Someone who takes the watch off your wrist and tells you the time
  • A person who in theory knows 99 ways to make love, but doesn't have any actual experience
  • Someone who is called in at the last moment and paid enormous amounts of money to assign the blame

Consulting Revisited

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.

It takes two things to be a consultant - grey hair and hemorrhoids. The grey hair makes you look distinguished and the hemorrhoids make you look concerned.

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.

To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most.

After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.

If you consult enough experts, you can confirm any opinion.

Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of turning problems into gold (your problems into their gold).

LIGHT BULB JOKES

 How many consultants does it take to change a light bulb?

  • We don't know. They never get past the feasibility study
  • Two. One to change the bulb and one to speculate how Tom Peters would have done it
  • That depends - how much money is in your budget...?
  • None. Time to buy a new fixture - with a service contract. For a reasonable fee we can survey light fixture suppliers, conduct on-site examinations of the finalists, and make a recommendation
  • That's difficult to say. First, we need to do a major study to see if you really need light in that area, determine historically why the light burned out, and conduct an analysis to determine whether it's the right kind of light. We may need to survey employees for risk of light sensitivity. After that, we can: develop RFPs and RFQs, evaluate the abilities of various maintenance workers to perform the task, recommend personnel selection, and supervise the activity.

  A consultant who came upon hard times and had lost quite a few clients was forced to have a serious economic discussion with his wife and told her that they would simply have to cut back. "If you can learn to cook, we can get rid of the cook," to which the wife replied "Yes, dear, and if you can learn how to make love we can get rid of the gardener too."

A consultant is an ordinary person 50 miles from home with a PowerPoint presentation.

A consultant is someone who comes in to solve a problem and stays around long enough to become part of it.

One consultant, told he was a pain in the neck, said he was glad to have been moved up.

A client with one consultant knows what to do. A client with two consultants is never sure.

 A consultant is someone who…

 …spends weeks asking you about your job, then tells you how to do it better.

 …solves a problem you did not know you had, in a way you don’t understand.

 …think a half-day means leaving at 5 o'clock.

 …knows the people at airport security better than the next door neighbors.

…borrows your watch, then charges you to find out the time.

 …has room service on speed dial.

 …is on a first-name basis with the dry cleaner at O’Hare.

 A consultant died and went to heaven. There were thousands of people ahead of him in line to see St. Peter. To his surprise, St. Peter left his desk at the gate and came down the long line to where the consultant was, and greeted him warmly. St. Peter took the consultant up to the front of the line, and into a comfortable chair by his desk. The consultant said, "I like all this attention, but what makes me so special?" St. Peter replied, "Well, I've added up all the hours for which you billed your clients, and by my calculation you're 193 years old!"


Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Consultant Jokes (1)

If you know any consultants, mention these postings to them.

Back when I was a self-employed consultant I started to collect consultant jokes, with the half-baked idea of self-publishing and selling a paperback book of jokes and cartoons. Below, the first part of what I had collected.

For people who are seriously considering a career in consulting, I strongly recommend buying a copy of Alan Weiss' book, Getting Started in Consulting. When I was getting started, I would read the entire book every few weeks. It help tremendously in understanding how to establish visibility, 'gravitas', reputation, etc. as means of rising above the competition. 

I also remember being asked and answering two key questions about becoming a self-employed consultant: Separate from your credentials, experience and knowledge, "Are you comfortable talking to strangers? Are you comfortable talking to no one?" Because if you cannot do the first, you won't find clients, and if you cannot do the second, sitting home alone in your office with the phone not ringing an no one to have coffee with will be depressing.

YOU MIGHT BE A CONSULTANT IF...

PRIVATE LIFE

  • Ha! Like you have a private life
  • You refer to dating as test marketing
  • Your love letters have executive summaries
  • You refer to your significant other as "my co-CEO”
  • You decide to reorganize your family into a "team-based organization"
  • Your "deliverable" for Sunday evening is clean laundry and paid bills
  • You start doing your kid's math equations in reverse Polish notation
  • You insist that you do some more market research before you and your spouse produce another child
  • You believe you never have any problems in your life, just "issues" and "improvement opportunities"
  • At your last family reunion, you wanted to have an emergency meeting about their brand equity
  •  You believe that e-mail between you and your spouse is enough to keep your marriage strong
  • You refer to divorce as "divestiture"
  • You refer to your previous life as "my sunk cost"
  • You insist that your friends submit time sheets at the end of the month so you can see what you missed

TRAVELING

  • You are upset when you come home late at night and the lights aren't on, the bed isn't turned down, and there are no chocolates on your pillow
  • You can tell the hotel staff what their room-rate policy is
  • You also understand airline fare structure
  • In fact, writers for the OAG call you to verify flight numbers and times
  • You have seen more movies at 35,000 feet than you have at a movie theater
  • You ask the car rental agent if the car comes with an Internet connection
  • You like both types of sandwiches: ham and turkey
  • A good lunch consists of vending machine snacks
  • A good dinner consists of vending machine snacks
  • You feel naked without a laptop hanging from your left shoulder
  • You've been staying in the same hotel so long you instinctively call it "home"
  • Your spouse flies “home” (to your hotel) for the weekend
  • You can call room service and order multiple entrees without looking at the menu
  • The hotel staff recognizes you and gives you the same room every week
  • You know the valet parking guys by first name
  • You get more calls from the hotel staff to see if you're OK than you do from your friends
  • Then you realize the hotel staff are your only friends

 ON SITE

  • You use the term "value-added" without falling down laughing
  • You believe it's efficient to write a ten page work-plan with six people you’ve never met before
  • You can explain the difference between "down-sizing," "right-sizing," and "firing people's asses," and you actually believe your explanation
  • You believe every company is "a traditional functional organization, with promotion based on tenure, but one that needs to change as it is facing ever increasing competition..."
  • You know every single piece of clip art in PowerPoint
  • Your favorite stories begin "Bob Jones, VP of marketing, sat at his desk and stared out his window..."
  • You believe the best tables and graphs take an hour to comprehend
  • The new client staff come to you for information on how to start the coffee machine
  • You can tell the copier repair person at the client site exactly what's wrong with the machine and what parts need to be replaced
  • You cry when your PC won't start (you have a name for your PC. It’s a secret)
  • Someone mentions a 7:00 meeting and you say, "AM or PM?"
  • New staff point at you and say, "... that's him, that's the old guy ... "

JARGON RULES YOUR LIFE

  • You use the word "paradigm" in a sentence
  • You use the word "granularity" in a sentence
  • You use the word "robust" in a sentence
  • You can spell “paradigm”
  • You believe CAPM is just as important as the Theory of Relativity
  • You believe CAPM
  • You carry on a 5 minute conversation about data warehousing (encryption, search engine optimization, web usability guidelines, etc.), then you ask what it means

  

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

History of maynardlifeoutdoors.com

 www.maynardlifeoutdoors.com actually a blog, not a website, was started January 2010 as a place to post the columns I was writing for the Beacon-Villager, the weekly newspaper put out by Gatehouse Media for the towns of Maynard and Stow.  The paper ceased publication in May 2022. After letting this lie fallow for months, I decided to resume posting new and recycled content on a not quite weekly basis.

As of January 2024, there have been roughly 500 postings, 30-40 per year. Cumulatively, the postings have accrued 919,000 views. The total should top one million in a couple of years. The chart provided by the blog server shows a gradual increase from 2010 until reaching a plateau of 5,000-10,000 per month from 2015 onward. The top four:

Luna Moth: Photos, Symbolism and a Poem (May 28, 2013; 106,000 views)

Calories in Human Blood (September 15, 2010; 40,300 views)

Wild Cucumber - Annoying Native Plant (August 20, 2013; 21,900 views)

Recovery from Donating Blood (March 5, 2011; 10,500 views)

All the others are in the broad range of under 100 views to low thousands.

Thus, hundreds of thousands of views, yet fewer than 300 comments over all that time. The golden era of blogging - posting and following - was in the early 2000's, when popular bloggers would have thousands of followers and many had monetized their blog on Blogger - a free service owned by Google - by allowing advertising to appear on their blog. From the beginning, I doubted I could ever have that sort of following - no going 'viral' - and so chose not to monetize. I figured a non-cluttered site would promote repeat visitors. My expectations held true. As of 2024, I have 24 people who signed on to see my blog whenever they logged on and I had posted something new. I guess that all the other visitors are people who stumbled across my site from having it turn up from an internet search on a topic. 

Long-since the golden era of blogging, "going viral" applies to Facebook (already fading), YouTube, Instagram, Twitter (now X) and TikTok. People aspire to millions of views. 'Influencer' has become a status to achieve, and for a few, a profession. 

MAYNARD MASSACUSETTS: A Brief History
was written for Maynard's 150 anniversary (2021)
The majority of my 500+ postings (that includes ~50 column repeats) have to do with Maynard's history. Many were collected into three books which are described in the About Me content at the top of the blog. There is also a chronological listing of columns separated by topic: History, Nature Observations, Recreational Opportunities, and Health.  

this is a work in progress