When I was in 10th grade, I struggled with my foreign language, French. We were translating The Sword of Roland, “L’Epee D’Roland.” I am pretty sure that when I spoke in class, it sounded like “Leh pee (!) deh roa-land.” The correct pronunciation would be “Leh peh deh roh-land.” My teacher that year told me […]
Learning Something New Read More »
I’m in Albuquerque this week, teaching PSL with Esther and Jerry. The last time I was in Albuquerque was last December, 6 months ago, planning the AYE conference with Esther, Jerry, and Don. At the time, I was able to walk about a half block before I needed to sit for a while, because I
Large Contrast in Capability Read More »
Mark and I take ballroom dancing lessons. As with many couples who’ve been taking lessons for years, we are working on different problems in our dancing. We have different strengths, different weaknesses. While we both have great frames, he has a much better frame in promenade than I do. I have much better leg action
Singles-Sided Deafness Makes Dancing Work Read More »
I made another mistake last week. It wasn’t a huge horrible mistake. But it was a mistake. I ordered the wrong books for PSL. I ordered Manage It! instead of Behind Closed Doors. Mark said, “No problem, you’ll just ship them home. Maybe you’ll even sell a few first.” My vertigo causes me to slow
Discuss the Undiscussable Read More »
I had a challenging workout yesterday, and when I stood up to make my lunch, I had LOL (little old lady) syndrome. I had trouble standing up straight. I had trouble taking real steps instead of shuffling my feet, my sides hurt from kettle bell side bends, even my feet ached. I did a few
The one person you can fool the most is yourself. At least, I can fool myself—a lot. Maybe you are smarter than I am! When I give my talks about creating an adaptable life, I talk about our old analog scale. I was a master at losing weight—on the scale. I could make that scale
The One Person You Can Fool Read More »
I spoke at Philly Emerging Tech this week, and had a major milestone. I was able to walk across the room and speak while walking. For those of you who saw me speak before my hemorrhage, you know I used to walk back and forth, and shake my head and roll my eyes. I was
Small Speaking Success Read More »
Incident #1. I travel a lot. TSA loves to see how my vertigo is doing. At least, I think that’s what they are doing, because they ask me to go through the body scanner about half the time I travel. I have seen more patterns when I travel during the day. When TSA is not
I was on a panel last night, in standard JR form. The topic was, “Is Agile for you?” (The answer is not always.) I ranted, I raved. I interrupted. I waved my arms. I exploded when someone was wrong. I love panels. They bring out the super-extrovert in me. No mamby-pamby positioning for me on
Support Comes in All Forms Read More »
I learned a lot about my vertigo this week. I learned that cooking requires head turning. Now, some of you might be saying, “Duh, JR. I could have told you that.” Well, I didn’t think it required as much as it seems to. If you’d asked me before Sunday, I would have said, I didn’t
Learning That Cooking Requires Head Turning Read More »