Collecting approvals and signatures is never fun, but in order to implement a large change in any organization, it needs people with authority to "buy in" to the change. In a large organization, that includes signatures and presentations; in a small business it might be pausing between bites of lunch to mention the change and see if the owner objects. Either way, if the people with the power to implement or stop a change aren't in favor, the change won't happen. One of my first tasks in 2023 upon assuming a new role was learning about a key initiative and pushing its approval through many layers of management.

I'm an overpacker who tries to be an ultralight packer. Whether I'm packing my bags for a business trip, family vacation, or camping excursion, I'm always tempted to stuff in one more item. But I'm much happier with fewer bags to manage and less weight on my back, plus I want the caché of being one of those world-travelers who fit everything they need in their tiny backpacks.

'...But now his long slow wrath is brimming over, and all the forest is filled with it. The coming of the hobbits and the tidings that they brought have spilled it: it will soon be running like a flood; but its tide is turned against Saruman and the axes of Isengard. A thing is about to happen which has not happened since the Elder Days: the Ents are going to wake up and find that they are strong .' The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien , page 122 My favorite media have at least one "stand up and cheer" moment. Without going into spoilers, I'll talk about why.

I'm a big reader of science fiction, with some top-of-mind recommendations the Torchship trilogy by Karl K. Gallagher, the Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal, the Old Man's War series by John Scalzi, and Shades of Grey by Jasper Fford. What I've had to learn several times is that reading different genres is a skill, and some people bounce off science fiction because they don't (yet) have the skills and vocabulary, and similarly I picked up some habits reading sci-fi that do not translate to other genres.

Today--August 6, 2025--marks 80 years since the first nuclear weapon was used in anger, and August 9 will mark 80 years since the last one was deployed against an enemy (I expect and hope). Although the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II is tragic, the fact that we as a species have kept a nuclear taboo is worth celebrating.

Enthusiasts of naval history might know that the aircraft carrier made the big-gun battleship obsolete: the air wing's extreme range advantage over big guns coupled with inherent speed of an aircraft carrier (because it needed to provide "wind over deck" to enable its air wing to take off and land) meant that a battleship might never be able to return fire before it was sunk. But in World War II the Imperial Japanese Navy's plan for the Battle of Midway was to destroy the US Navy's aircraft carriers primarily by the gun power of its battleships. The result was the sinking of all four Japanese aircraft carriers assigned to the operation, but in a way that surprised me.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a manager in possession of a project, must be in want of a project schedule ( With apologies to Jane Austen ). On large projects for the US government there is an "Integrated Master Schedule" (IMS). The IMS is often used as a report deliverable, and so is updated monthly for the customer to see it. I have found that the IMS is most useful as a working document. This is for two reasons: 1) it saves me all of the time to update the IMS for the customer because it's already updated for me, and 2) the IMS is recommended for a reason, and I try to take full advantage of it. 1937 Panama Canal schedule My peak time using IMS as a tool was doing new product introductions for military landing gears. At that time I had several simultaneous projects, all requiring Department-of-Defense-compliant Integrated Master Schedules, which included a 14-point compliance check as well as a variety of metrics that defined the "health" ...