Day One-hundred-and-forty-three: Speaking again

Late last night in the fog, I spent an extra amount of time in the sky chair. As it was in the forties, I needed to dress warmly but it was really quite pleasant. Even the noticeable and frequent jet engine sounds were not a problem. I did miss the animal antics and sounds but any time and every time out there seems relaxing.

Just before my late night outdoor experience, I had talked with the founder of Telesto Medtech, the person who supplied Marilyn's quite effective lymphedema garment. He was telling me that he was supplying a set of garments for a person's feet who heard about this possibility from the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund and may be getting support from the fund. I know that his garments work. It is so great that Marilyn is having such a beneficial impact well beyond her life. I couldn't ask for a better memorial. If this is the only accomplishment in my life, particularly my Life after Layoff, it is all worth it.

Today I called and canceled my land line. I've already unplugged the three charging stations and disconnected the base station from the jack. Now I will need to remember where all I have signed up for things using that number, like Staples, or simply remember the number. I will need to tell Toastmasters at tonight's meeting. Other than Toastmasters and my children, most of the calls were nuisance calls, including yet another survey yesterday. (I thought they were all done with the election being over.)

Tonight's my speech night at Toastmasters. Rather than stay up later tonight posting it, I decided I would once again post it early, already getting double duty out of it. At my normal reading speed it is just a shade too short. So I will have to make sure I speak slowly and distinctly. Here it is:

I had planned on taking my recently received Toastmaster packet with me on my six-week road trip and mapping out all of my remaining nine speeches. Then this opportunity occurred. I was at a loss. What would I speak on?

Fortunately, last Friday, as I was doing the crossword puzzle, no longer simply because I like doing them but because they are supposed to help fight Alzheimer’s, it hit me. Right there was my topic: 29 Down: “Firm belief,” and the answer was “FAITH.”

My brain went from zero to 60 in nothing flat. From nothing to speak on, I now had too much, even without research. I don’t know which is worse. I’ve decided to speak to the framework that I’ve created for future research, and perhaps other speech topics. [You might say this speech has been edited for time and sensibility, well maybe not sensibility.]

Let me be very clear. This speech is not about religion although most religions are all about belief. My framework is simply a way for me to think about belief. To this end, I now “believe” that belief is manifested in four different ways, which may be levels of increasing belief. After introducing my names for them, I will further define each one. My names are:

• Belief in Faith Facts,
• Trust, or belief in others,
• Internal manifestation of belief, and
• External manifestation of belief.

Belief in “Faith Facts” has to be the most common. I see it as simply the unquestioning acceptance of assumptions, premises, or tenets as if they were fact. Even the acceptance of scientific results without an understanding of the science involved is a matter of belief and thus a “Faith Fact” for the believer.

In such an interdependent world “Trust” should also be common. But I attribute most of this interdependency to a form of “Faith Facts,” if a belief at all and not despondency. We “believe” labels until we know them to be untrue. How many people buy pet food they now know originated in China? Unfortunately, our trust in others is undermined from childhood as we are taught to be fearful of strangers. I myself have teased my youngest daughter about being gullible. Now I realize that doing so just undermines her trust in me. It is something special for someone to have that level of trust. More, it is a fundamental wrong in our society when our first reactions have to be suspicious to protect ourselves from being taken advantage of.
[In a related aside: It was coincidence, but just after I selected this topic I happened to be walking by a bakery. The bread smelled so good, I had to go in. I read the ingredients listed on a loaf of whole wheat bread and was glad to see that it was egg and dairy free. But then I asked. It turned out that it did contain dairy. I don’t know whether my trust was improved by the clerk’s honesty or my belief in labels was undermined.]

When I think of “internally manifested” belief, I think of mind over body. According to recent news reports, some doctors are giving out placebos as much 70% of the time. In fact, the belief that a sugar pill can cure is so powerful that it has a name, the placebo effect. I believe that it goes both ways. Could not the poor results for some drugs that have proven effective in rats and other lab studies be due to the belief that the drug won’t work?

What is left is the category I’ve labeled as “external manifestation” but may be more correctly named “beyond belief.” If internal is mind over body, then external is mind over environment, where the results are a noticeable change for which the only explanation is belief. I'm not sure into which category visible healing should fall. There is a quite common saying that cynics have for this category, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” With all the movie special effects, even that may no longer make it believable.

I’ve briefly defined each of the stages or categories in my characterization of belief: Faith Facts, Trust, Internal and External.

In closing, I want to leave you with this thought:

Can belief be developed, grown from little or nothing? (In asking this question, I’m excluding a religious conversion experience.) As a natural cynic who should have been born in Missouri, I certainly hope so. I’m working on trust now.

Day One-hundred-and-forty: Productive Mondays

Wow! I'd be impressed with myself if I hadn't so many other things still undone and less than ten days to do them in. Of course my actual leave date is an arbitrary one but I don't want to waste any of it doing what has become work. Writing this blog is actually a break. While I hate to be practicing on the few readers that may be regularly viewing this blog, and I do get a few emails that reference reading it, it is good practice and hopefully will pay off in other writing, including future entries here.

Once I charge my camera batteries, I may even start including pictures.

Reviews are done. Christmas Letter is in a final draft and with a sample printed on the Christmasy paper. The mailing labels for the addresses I have are typed with the label sheets purchased and ready to be printed. The Christmasy envelopes are ready to be stuffed. My paper is suspended for the time I plan on being gone. My second speech to Toastmasters is written and printed.

Slowly I am checking off more things on my to do list than I am adding and getting the things done that are the least fun and absolutely must be done before I leave.

Today started out great. When I went out to bring in the trash can and recycling bins, there was an unexpected newspaper. Since I don't think my neighbor has started receiving a paper, he certainly didn't get any over the weekend, I assumed it was a bonus for me. So, after I finished up my brownies for breakfast, I took the puzzles and went to the Chat Cafe for a soy latte. Since having a latte in the afternoon proved to be so wakeful through the night, I just had to see if an earlier one has the same effect. I'm not tired yet but it's only 8:30 PM. It may be my excitement at all I've accomplished today. (Ha, ha.) Still, it was a nice morning.

As I was leaving the Chat Cafe, I ran into my CPA. I hope he was right about my tax liability earlier in the year. I will need a good refund to do all I want to do next year.

I have an errand to run and meditation. Hopefully after all of that, I will be able to sleep, but it isn't like I have to get up at a certain time tomorrow. After all, I can still sleep in most days in this Life after Layoff.

Day One-hundred-and-twenty-nine: Work reprised

Well, even though I've titled this "work reprised," it wasn't the work itself.  Today was very much the kind of non-work things I did for so long when I also worked.  I rode BART into San Francisco, buying the commuter paper.  (Yes, my commute was that early.)  I attended a meeting in an office building that was just off the exit I normally used to go to work.  After the meeting I went to Stacey's Bookstore and even bought a book and ate lunch at Henry's Hunan, their 110 Natoma restaurant.  As I walked up Market on my way to Stacey's I was almost by my old office building before I realized it.  I really don't miss working.

I wasn't the oldest person at the Senior Support Group meeting, but it was a close thing.  There were a lot of people from Gap and other Financial Services companies.  At least three were in the Information Technology field.  It was the last meeting for two of them as they had accepted jobs, one after looking for a year and a half.  There was one other person there with a similar attitude as I, if not similar circumstances.  He is not in any rush to find a job and is enjoying his house husbanding.  If it were only more than the house I am husbanding, I might be enjoying it more in my Life after Layoff.

Unlike previous Thursdays where I've dressed up for a San Francisco meeting, came home and dressed down only to dress up again for Toastmasters, today I stayed dressed.  This meant that I didn't get my exercising, or my afternoon sky chair sitting in.

The Toastmasters theme was hamburger, yes the meet patty.  Since the "ground beef" was named hamburger for the city in Germany that supposedly originated it, the word today was "Germany."  It's supposed to be a word that may stretch our vocabulary, not a proper noun.  I tried a little pun and talked about saying "Grr many" times when I was playing with my children when they were young.  It didn't even get a groan.

Next week I get to ask the questions for table topics.  This is the section that is to train members on how to think and speak on their feet.  Except for the impromptu nature of it, it is kind of like the minute or so elevator speech every aspiring junior manager is to have in case they get the ear of a superior in an elevator.  Maybe I used to many poor puns in them as well, but it was truly other reasons that allowed me to be enjoying this Life after Layoff.

Day One-hundred-and-fourteen: Speeches

As a high school Senior I went to both Boys State and Youth in Government, from two different schools. I ran for Lieutenant Governor in both but was selected as such by Youth in Government. (Boys State was in the summer between my Junior and Senior year. Among other memories, I got a smallpox renewal that took so I couldn't go swimming and I shook Governor Rhodes' hand.) The reason I won in Youth in Government, aside from my opponents' supporters really not wanting to vote for each other making me the compromise candidate, was that we were supposed to be ready to speak on one of three topics. So, I wrote out and memorized three speeches.

As I am working to memorize the below, I can only think back to earlier memory feats, like the above, and think of how much easier it was then. I like exercising my mind much better with crossword puzzles and Sudoku than memorization, but then any mental exercise is good in this Life after Layoff.

Thank you Toastmaster ____________.

My fellow Toastmasters and honored guest(s),

I must admit to a little discomfort with the thought of talking about myself, particularly when, as one of your more recent members, I have missed your similar speeches.

However, in the next 30 minutes I will endeavor to tell you what I’ve done, where I’ve been, and how the numerous personality and style assessments I’ve taken depict me. At the end of this speech you should know me as well as I know myself. Don’t worry, those assessments I mentioned say that I am a “big picture” kind of person and tend to gloss over details, which should allow me to fit my remarks into about four minutes.

First, a little more “where” than “what.” I was born and raised in Ohio, raised all over Ohio. In point of fact, I went to ten different schools in my K through 12 grades. (This left me with a condition that I must apologize for; I have a mental block when it comes to easily remembering names. Please bear with me while I fully learn each of yours.)

To make up for all the schools I went to in K through 12, I earned both my Bachelors and Masters in the then new field of Computer Science from The Ohio State University. Staying at the same university wasn’t really to balance my numerous K through 12 schools but rather was because I got on this great research project as an undergrad, which just happened to pay for my grad school.

I met and married my wife while still in Columbus, Ohio, working at my second job after college. We immediately moved to Houston, Texas, because that is where I was offered a job when I was trying to get her to Phoenix. (It was in Houston that I originally joined Toastmasters. As a non-local I had an added difficulty counting “ahs.” “Ah” don’t think I'll have that problem in this club.) We spent 8 ½ years in Houston, during which time our new family expanded by three children, none of whom now admit to be Texans.

We next moved to Fremont, California, when the company I worked for moved me out to their headquarters in Silicon Valley. Just a little over two years ago, after over 19 years in Fremont, we moved our empty nest to Pacifica for the clean air and excellent weather.

Now for a little more “what” than “where.” I’ve spent most of my working life alternating between individual contributor and manager roles, all of which were somewhat in Information Technology. For the last five years, I have been a mid-level executive, the equivalent of a Technology Director for a division of Wells Fargo. Recently I jumped at an opportunity to be outplaced, and kept jumping for joy, until the stock market meltdown.

Now I’m still looking forward to my own business, early retirement, self-employment through writing, or all of the previous and more. I even have two blogs going. (If you didn’t catch it, I did not say I’m looking forward to finding a job. I have too many other things to do.) In fact, just after Thanksgiving I’m going on a six-week road trip to visit my and my wife’s families in Ohio and West Virginia. One of the special projects on the “back of my mind” combines motorcycle riding with a running travel joke my wife and I shared. It seemed that whenever we got on the road she would have to stop and go to the bathroom, which she always insisted be the best places, never a gas station. In her honor, I hope to write about a long motorcycle trip around Canada and the United States tentatively titled: “Whizzing Around North America.”

The biggest change in my life wasn’t my layoff, but the passing of my wife last December after she battled cancer for two and a half years. Her memorial fund, the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund, is why I’ve rejoined Toastmasters after so long of a gap.

Lest you think I’ve forgotten something I intended to say, I never really planned to talk about my various personality and style assessments, at least in this speech.

Instead let me close by saying I’m still on a journey of self-discovery. To this end I’ve been a vegan since last November and have recently started meditating. Some people make meditation a transcendental experience. I’m still shooting for a “trans-incidental” experience.

You still may not know me as well as you would like, but then I can say the same thing.

Thank you.

By the way, the woodpecker and hummingbird both came back while I was sitting in the backyard again. Should I be concerned that my willow tree is diseased?

Day One-hundred-and-twelve: Relaxing is "cool"

After I made my Mango and Black Bean Salad, let it set for a few minutes while I finished up my exercises, after I ate some of it, and still later when I had to eat a large heirloom tomato I had just bought, I hung my sky chair and used a mind mapping technique to outline my Toastmaster speech coming up this Thursday. When I finished the outlining, I went inside and checked the temperature outside. It was 58. So I put a jacket over my sweatshirt, put on my winter hat with the ear flaps down, put on my warm cross-country skiing gloves, and went back out for some quiet time, more of my "trans-incidental" meditation.

Today relaxing was "cool" in more than one way. I was warm and did relax. It's great that I have the clothes that allow me to enjoy the outdoors regardless of temperature in this Life after Layoff. I'm going to have to find a few more layers of warm clothes for my impending road trip back to Ohio and West Virginia.

Then I came in, watched a little TV, ate a little more, made up a loaf of whole wheat olive bread for rising, and typed up my speech. I still haven't read it through for timing, nor have I edited it for improvement or time, which is in its own way an improvement. Shorter is better.

Somehow another whole day has gone by. While I'm not looking forward to bed, per se, I am looking forward to tomorrow. I have no particular reason to be doing so other than every day seems to be getting better. Based on my good feelings about today, tomorrow will be great.

Day One-hundred-and-eight: Wow! What a moon!

Tonight was my second Pacifica Toastmaster Club meeting, although my first one as a member. I'm already scheduled, next week, for my first speech, the Ice Breaker. I need to read more about it but in general it is supposed to be about me.

This perpetuates a phenomenon that I've noticed in several other venues. When I was young, entering 11 different schools in K-12, everyone in the new school would know my name and I wouldn't know anyone. This developed into a problem for me that exists yet today, I have a problem remembering names, particularly of people I've just met. In fact, when I was in high school, people would walk by me and say "Hi [my name]" and I would respond "Hello, hello."

In the business venue, the use of email to manage projects has resulted in subsequent hires onto growing projects missing out on significant portions of project history that were sent out to a distribution list that couldn't have included them. This is why blogs are making inroads in Corporate America as well. This contributes to yet another phenomenon, which by writing this Life after Layoff blog I am contributing to: an inundation of information. There's just too much to read.

Speaking of Life after Layoff, I was really doubting that I would be able to fit in my tag line into every entry. I have put those doubts to bed. In fact, if you read my last two entries and now this one, I have managed to fit two tag lines into the entry.

Coming back from Toastmasters I saw this wonderful moon just after it came up. Not only was it an oval shape that I think is more interesting than even a full moon, particularly when it is at the exact point of having difficulty determining which side is being added to or dropped, but the atmospheric magnification while it was close to the horizon made it huge. It must be at least 2,000 miles in diameter. When I got to my house deeper in the canyon, I couldn't see it as it hadn't yet made it over the nearer hills.

But what it made me realize is that I am not getting out enough. Now, at a time I can take off and see an ocean sunset, I haven't. When Marilyn and I toured the Chabot Observatory, which included people making their own telescopes and I thought what a great hobby, I didn't. I've been too reserving, preserving my availability. Now that I've broken through that barrier with Toastmasters, even though I will be gone for up to six weeks, missing at least four meetings, I'm eager to see what other opportunities exist. I'll let you know in this blog what I decide to do.

Day One hundred and one: A "happening" day

Maybe it was because of the quiet Life after Layoff I've been leading but I now have joined a local Toastmasters Club. Even though I have talked a little bit on the phone for the webinars that I've been taking, primarily to answer the roll call, I've been trending to more silence. In fact, tonight was the first day since last Sunday that I've made it out of the house.

I also got my Absentee Ballot today. I immediately sat down, filled it in, and mailed it on my way to the Toastmasters meeting.

I see Toastmasters as a way to develop and practice my speech crafting much like this blog is writing practice. I'm hoping I'm using this practice already as I have started my Memories of Marilyn blog. I'm not sure when I will use the speaking practice, or really when I'll even get it. This club has two speakers a meeting. I don't know how many members they have but that could mean as few speaking times as once a month.

Now I'm not sure that my speaking ability will improve as much as would be ideal, since I decided to start from the beginning again. However, my secondary objective, perhaps even the primary objective is to meet fellow Pacificans. What with work and Marilyn's illness, I know very few people. Besides, "relationships" is one of my weak areas for a successful retirement. (It is probably a weakness for finding another job, if I were to do so, as well. Networking is big and I'm not a big networker.) Maybe this is why I'm interested in enhancing my writing skills.

After Toastmasters I went grocery shopping. Here it is only October 9th and I'm well on my way to being well over my monthly food budget. I really don't know what my budget should be but know I could spend less. At some point I will have to, not because I've run out of money, although that may also occur, but because I'll run out of room in my house and around my waist.