Clarke Ching's Rocks and Snowballs

Random ...

One of the nicest stories I've read in a while: Abandoned baby has gift for rescuers ... 20 years later.

One of the funniest and cleverest "hacks": Avoiding camera loss ...

[via Google Reader's Popular items]

Condoleezza Rice in HBR

This months HRB features a free interview with Condoleezza Rice.  

http://hbr.org/web/2010/01/condoleezza-rice

I particularly liked this quote:

And finally you have to look to see whether there are impediments to people doing the right thing. Mostly in good organizations, and the Department of State was certainly one, and I found this at Stanford too, people want to do the right thing — they don’t want to be obstructionist — but sometimes there are things that make it hard for them to do the right thing. For instance, in the Department of State I needed Arab speakers to go to places like Baghdad, so I had to take them out of places like Cairo. But if they left Cairo, their families had to move all the way back to the United States. So we made it possible for their families to stay in Cairo while they served in Baghdad.

I don't know much about her, but I guess this means she intends running for US president next time around.

Borders UK closing

There's only 1 shop in the world I like: Glasgow Borders bookshop. I'm standing in it now. It' got a massive closing down sale underway. Sad.
Clarke Ching - www.clarkeching.com +44(0)7920114893
- Author of Rocks Into Gold - www.RocksIntoGold.com - and, coming soon, Rolling Rocks Downhill, a business novel.

Dangerous Manholes

From the BBC's Travel Scotland website: 

In Glasgow, the nearside lane of the Citybound Clydeside Expressway has been closed after the Finneston off ramp. This is due to dangerous manholes.

I don't know why but that last sentence unnerves me.  I know literally what "Dangerous Manholes" are but they're not the images I see in my head when I read the sentence...

My big book ...

I put my book RollingRocksDownhill away for a wee rest in the middle of August.  I was utterly sick of the sight of it and everytime I opened it up to continue with the rewrite I found that it felt like work - hard, back breaking, work.  I kept reworking the same bit over and over and over again.  So I put it away.

For the last month I've noticed myself reworking it in my head and I've now figured out how to overcome the big problem with the plot which was driving me nuts.  It'll take a bit of rework, moving one bit from point A to point B, then tidying up the bits around it - maybe a few weeks work in my spare time, perhaps a month - but I feel good about it.  That won't finish the book, but it will take it one important step closer.

Last night I popped up on the exercycle and opened the book again, just reading it, refamiliarising myself with the story.  Warming up.  I did another 15 minutes reading tonight.  I like what I'vewritten.  I enjoy reading it and it is soooooooooooooooo much more engaging, now, than when I started the rewrite.  The hours and hours of writing and lost income have been worth it.  I've not quite reached Point A yet, but I'm close and when I get there, I know what to do.  Wish me luck ...

Interview Transcript

For a surprisingly low cost, I managed to outsource the transcribing of my interview with Eli Goldratt to, of all places, Italy.  The results are very good, I think, although there are probably a few errors.

You can read (and download) the interview here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23593618/Clarke-Interviews-Eli-Goldratt

Congratulations Colin

So, one of the guys I work with, Colin, is holidaying in New York this week with his partner.  This morning someone notices on his webpage that he's getting lots of little notes congratulating him and saying that they hoped the two have a wonderful life together.  A few hours later Colin updates his status to say that he's now married.  Fantastic news, we all think.  Yipee!!

So, Paula, another workmate throws together a nice wee email and sends around the company.  "Hi everyone, Just thought you'd like to know that Colin and Allan got married in New York." etc.  

So, five minutes later, she send out another wee note, "Colin's wife's name is actually Allana".