
I ordered the Woodfired Seafood Combo, breaking a personal rule to avoid ordering anything advertised as a combo, but it was late and it seemed the simplest alternative. The wedge salad was fine. Slip over here for more ...

I am not a chef. I am a cook. And a pot wizard. And a cheap-assed shopper.
I do not wear a toque. I only occasionally wear an apron. My knives need sharpening. They were not imported from Germany.
My cookware does not match. I have way more Corningware than I will ever use, purchased for next to nothing at an old family friend’s estate sale. It holds more meaning than utility.
My favorite cast iron fry pan has a crack in the bottom of it, but I cannot bear to replace it. I found it in the oven of the old gas cookstove in that crummy apartment I moved into when my first wife and I separated. It, however, holds more utility than meaning, though it holds a lot of meaning, too.
I am a picky eater. Slip over here for more ...

Yesterday afternoon, I heard the latest rehash of these classics on NPR's Marketplace program, where Rosabeth Moss Kantor, herself a NY Times Best selling author and Harvard B-School professor, warmly remembered Peter Drucker's legacy. What would Drucker have to say about the current business climate? Same old, same old. Slip over here for more ...

"It would be hardly too much to say that modern science began when people became accustomed to the idea of changes changing, e.g. to the idea of acceleration as opposed to simple motion." Arthur N. Prior
Changing the whole idea of change has occurred a few times in the history of science. Transcendent moments where some quiet, previously undiscovered truth emerged from an unlikely place. Those who were trudging the straight and narrow were surprised, often angry. Several of these game-changing insights were not accepted or even recognized until their discoverer was long gone. Slip over here for more ...

Where does integration start? This is a mostly meaningless question, but rather than simply walk away from it, I'll expound a tiny bit. Integration isn't a step-wise, serial process. I know, I know, step-wise seriality has become the popular method for describing everything, and while I could slip into that worn groove, I'll choose not to. If only because that groove misrepresents integration. It just ain't like that.
I believe that we miss many opportunities to integrate because we don't see them. Primed for one or another 'first step,' when we don't see that step appearing, we get discouraged, even to the point of convincing ourselves that integration is obviously not possible here, at this time, with THEM! So I'll explicitly dismiss the serial, step-wise recipe for integration in favor of a less misrepresenting form. Slip over here for more ...

Once behind Federal desks, these captains found little to do, for most had inherited their privileged position and maintained it by limiting wages and promoting equities. They knew little about production, considering fabrication to be work suitable only for common people. Slip over here for more ...

This one was difficult to complete. Like drawing a self portrait from a fun house mirror image. Who IS that character in there? Is he the genuine article?
Like with any work of art, this construction finally forced my hand. I just had to choose. Wittgenstein once proclaimed that what he'd excluded from a manuscript was just as important as what he chose to include, and that to understand the work, both would necessarily need to be considered. And so it is here.
I believe I've identified some important considerations here, but I've doubtless excluded much more than I chose to include. What would you add if it was your hand etching the portrait of a stunt peddler, or a former one?

Disintegration is the father of integration, as well as its first born child. Slip over here for more ...

The first principle of integration seems to be that the story I create to explain the integration might not make sense to anyone but me. You just had to be there at the 'point of integration' for the story to provide full impact, to experience that ah-ha instant. I got to experience it first hand. My story is inevitably used goods. What's well integrated for me might not seem very well combined to you. Slip over here for more ...

