Dave's random mumblings…

A word that’s been thrown around a lot in my life recently is “context”. I’m trying to put events in their correct context, or others are trying to understand my emotions and give them some context.

There are times over the last year or so where the regular rules have been thrown out the window and I’ve been working on pure emotion, occasionally successfully and other time not so much.

I thought I was prepared for mums passing, we all knew it was coming, but all this time later I’m still working through the grief. There have been moments in the last year that I’ve been in some dark places, others when it was about pure unadulterated joy.

It’s strange when those moments of joy have come, especially as they often seem to be dependent on factors outside my control.

I’m talking about sport, the Sounders, In-ger-land, Team GB, Coventry City and the Olympics.

For sport to be meaningful it requires us to accept that a mere game has significance. If we are realistic it matters not that England beat Mexico 3-1 tonight in their final home game before the World Cup, and I’ll admit that in the big scheme of things to most people it does not matter.

But to me it does, I can’t dismiss the inner child that makes this game played by grown men to mean something significant. I agree with the cynics that no one is worth the $150000 per week some people are paid for kicking a ball around, but the market disagrees with the realists in me and the cynic in others.

The players may be over-paid men who blow their money on Bentleys and are given an importance and gravitas way out of proportion to their contribution to society. They are held up as role models, a role they are totally unqualified for.

There are a couple of things that we require to enjoy sports, professional sports at the highest level we are talking about here.

You must suspend that cynic and allow the innocence or childishness to take over and give 22 men kicking a ball around significance way beyond what’s reasonable.

I think this is one reason why events like Hillsboro, Heisel and the Bradford fire are so tragic and they leave such a mark on us. It’s not just the death, its that death came to so many while pursuing something that required this childishness to enjoy fully.

The second part is the community that grows up around these events. It gives us a sense of belonging. On game day there are almost 36,000 people in Quest Field wearing “Rave Green” and screaming for Seattle. For those few precious hours we are in this together, we live and die with the fortunes of 11 professional athletes we’ve paid good money to watch.

There have been moments in the last year where I was so detached by a combination of grief and pressure that little moved me. Thinking of my mother reduces me to tears at moments. The images of my father in a hospital bed this week bring out the same intense emotions.

I’m not minimising what’s gone on, the grief is very real, but there are moments inside the grief and mourning where the normal rules are suspended. Fulham taking out Juventus is one of those moments. Seattle clinching playoff football in style in Columbus was another.

Sport, and that’s sport that I feel emotionally invested in, allows me to suspend the dark places and revert back to innocence. When it does it feels so good move on, even if it’s just for a brief time and enjoy the moment.

I can’t put these moments into context because they just don’t fit. And I feel good about that.

I wrote a little about the LCROSS mission that was designed to search for water in the moon and the singing PM. While I’ve still not started composing songs about my projects, the preliminary results have been announced by NASA and there was water in plume, quite a lot of water and more than was expected.

The LCROSS launched a large projectile into a crater at the South pole of the moon that’s been in permanent shadow for billions of years. A second satellite following the first by four minutes analysed the dust plume for water. It’s a very simple experiment and was extremely successful.

The results indicate there may be considerable water, far more than was thought, in the form of ice crystals in areas that never see the sun.

Clearly this would make any manned mission to the moon easier as the crews would potentially not have to re-supplied with water or oxygen, as both could be extracted locally.

Next step is identifying where the water came from, there has been considerable speculation that it’s from comet impacts over the last couple of billion years and could contain some clues about the origin of the universe.

A very positive result for NASA and to celebrate they got their own Googledoodle

LCROSS Google doodle

“The clubs welcomed the additional input into an ongoing process. However, they were of the opinion that bringing Celtic and Rangers into any form of Premier League set-up was not desirable or viable.”

So said the Premier League today.

Of the 20 Premier League clubs 14 voted against the proposal for Celtic and Rangers to join the League. I’m going to guess the only clubs in favour were those who felt happy they were not going to be relegated any time soon (United, City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and some other delusional former big club, maybe Totenham or Everton) and were not worried about loosing two places to the Scottish sides in a 36 team Premier-1 and -2.

Ultimately at the beginning of any year 10 or 12 clubs start the season with avoiding relegation to the Championship and the loss of Premiership money as job #1.

It seems that clubs have one chance in the lower division to come up before the combination of premier wage bill and Championship TV money (aided by the Premier League parachute payment) forces them to cut costs and compete on a more even footing.

Leeds, Coventry City, Leicester, both Sheffield sides, Reading and Ipswich have all fallen into this particular hole. Newcastle and West Brom seem to be taking this first year opportunity sitting in first and second with a little space between them and the rest. The third club relegated last year was Middlesborough, are they are just a couple of points out of the playoff picture.

The idea of Premier-2 remains alive. This has been talked about for a while and formally proposed by Bolton chairman Phil Gartside as a way to spread the TV money around, get a little more parity and reduce the spending gap between the elite and the rest.

If Premier-1 and -2 were to come into existence today Coventry City would be the 37^th placed club.

Another thing that I found interesting was no discussion of promotion/relegation with the Football League (current Championship, League 1 and League 2) that I could find. As they are a separate body anyway, there would be nothing to stop Premier-1 and -2 becoming a closed shop totally outside the Football League pyramid. If this were to happen it would be a change far bigger than bringing the two Scottish giants into the league.

Incidentally the TV money is astounding, the Premier League domestic TV and foreign TV deals combined are worth a little under $5 billion (yes billion) in round numbers. To put this into perspective this is more than Major League Baseball ($430 million/year), the National Football League ($3 billion/year) and the National Basketball Association ($920 million/year) combined.

Formula-1 is hardly a sport known for surprises and this year has thrown them up left right and center. Honda withdrew from the sport after investing untold millions of euros and sold the remains of the team to Ross Brawn, who promptly went out and won both the drivers and constructors championships less than a year later.

On reflection Hondas decision to quit looks like one of the worst calls in a business that has a rich history of poor decisions by the money people.

The engine decision came late and caused a huge compromise as the chassis and gearbox design were already complete and designed for a Honda engine. Weight distribution was not perfect and the deal for Mercedes engines was not done untill December, but after a couple of mediocre efforts the aero was better than anyone else, and by quite a margin.

The car ran for the first time three weeks before the opening race, then it won six out of the first seven grand prix.

Clearly having the very good Mercedes engine over the uncompetitive (but I understand lighter) Honda made a significant difference in how fast the car was, but there was also a huge step forward in how good the chassis and aero was.
Ross Brawn as chief engineer has won nine constructors championships with three teams (Benetton, Ferrari and now Brawn), but this is the first without Michael Schumacher.

He arrived at Honda too late to do much about the 2008 car, but in 2009 it was his show. I get the impression from friends that he lets the engineers and mechanics get on with what they are employed to do. He leads and directs the team, removes the roadblocks and does not micro manage. It was put to me that “(Ross Brawn) created an atmosphere where we could do our job, be creative and be judged on results, not adherence to the plan”.

This is similar style to Ron Dennis, he knows what’s going on and allows people to show what they can do. He’s clear what does not work, but incredibly supportive, loyal and allows his people to succeed.

Next year is going to be challenging, Alonso and Ferrari are expected to be very competitive after an off year. McLaren came a long way during the second half of the year and with the F1 silly season in full swing have been rumoured to be talking to Jenson Button about joining Lewis Hamilton in what could be a phenomenal package on a number of levels.

Brawn on the other hand have a lot going for them, a big name sponsor is close to being announced and Mercedes have indicated they want to buy into the team. I’m told that McLaren is not exactly delighted by that prospect, but have been told their position with Mercedes is secure.

Under new rules next year a supplier may supply up to three customer and one works team. This year McLaren were the works team, Brawn and Force India had the customer deals. If Mercedes were to buy into Brawn it would seem to make the proposed engine deal with Red Bull (Brawn’s main contender this year) rather unlikely.

1) Seattle wins at Kansas City – they are in, does not matter what anyone else does (and guess whose been playing with logic circuits this morning).

Seattle in playoffs= TRUE if SEA>KC

2) Sounders get a point Saturday then they are still in if Columbus beats DC, and Colorado wins or draws against DC, and Salt lake or Toronto drop points (and they play each other Saturday at 12:30 so someone is dropping points).

Seattle in playoffs=TRUE if Columbus>DC AND Rapids => Dallas AND (NY=>RSL AND RSL =>TOR)

3) Seattle loose they will still be in if DC and Dallas loose and Salt Lake or Toronto draw.

Seattle in playoffs=TRUE if Columbus=>DC AND Rapids => Dallas AND ((NY=>RSL AND RSL=>TOR) OR (NY=RSL AND RSL=TOR)

NY host RSL Wednesday, RSL are eliminated of they loose. RSL host Toronto Saturday afternoon (assuming RSL beat NY Wednesday) the looser is eliminated (or potentially both if they draw). Even ignoring the playoff implications this is a decent looking game played by two of the more entertaining teams in the league.

Colorado host Dallas Saturday – Dallas are eliminated of they loose and RSL or Toronto win. A draw in the RSL/TOR along with Dallas dropping points means everything to play for in the final week.

At this point it gets complex (and I do not have that much time), bottom line is Seattle controls their own destiny and only needs two points in the last two games to make everything else immaterial.

Win at Kansas City Saturday, get it over with and look forward to celebrating when Dallas come into RBP for the loudest game since the opener.

At the beginning of the year I was not a fan of play offs, however after thinking about it a little more I’ve come to like it. It makes the end of season games mean something for more sides and gives the MLS a particularly American flavour at the end of the season. I’m not saying it’s going to work for every league, but any team that hits form can win the championship, having that hope heading into the play offs is rather fun.

One of my core competencies is being willing to look slightly dumb. I like trying new things, inevitable you make mistakes and look stupid, while I don’t revel in it, I do accept it as part of my life.

It’s given me some good stories, a lot of fun and I’ve learned some cool and useful things such as replacing a timing belt on a car, tying a proper bow tie and speaking to a large group.

Being comfortable with myself and willing to look like an idiot at work has allowed me to

• Ask the stupid question that the group assume everyone else knows
• Ask the project manager whose plan I don’t understand why did they do it this way
• Miss those pointless meetings with no agenda or point but the, boss will be there
• How come a particular thing usually happens but we manage it as an exception
• Hold my ground. We started with a schedule with no float and a predecessor event is late, I can’t compress 3 weeks to compensate
• The result may be Y, but it was caused by X. Why don’t we deal with X and not Y?
• Be willing to ask why we are not taking an opportunity cost if it makes sense to me

It’s not much of a superpower I’ll grant you, but since I’ve embraced it, it’s served me very well.

I sat down with a friend for coffee this morning and spent a collective 20 minutes complaining about the frustrations, pressure, workload and all the little issues that make life difficult being a small part of something as huge as a new aircraft program.

Despite all the issues, delays, problems and so on, we both admitted to enjoying the experience, getting a lot out of it professionally and one day will be able to call this a career highlight. I’m part of a team that understands it’s role in the big picture, knows the deliverable, who we support and our plan.

It’s not fun in a race car/Disneyworld/beach in Cancun way. I’m enjoying the ride, get to spend time on the production floor and work with some great people.

I know am at my most productive when I’m having fun and feel fulfilled; I like being a project manager and I know the things that keep me engaged and interested.

Being creative – I’ve been in my current role for a few months and still see a lot of problems as a sustaining/production issues, the rest of the group has been here longer and are still in the “design/develop” mode even though we are in low level production.

Autonomy – I get to have considerable autonomy and freedom to do the job the way I see best. I have managers that trust me to get on with it and know that I will call out when I need help or guidance. They are fully aware that I’m not afraid to ask the stupid questions.

Getting my hands dirty – I come from a mechanical background and can go to the shop floor, speak “mechanic” and understand their unique problems as I’ve been there.

Innovation – projects that do not have a clear path to the product are far more fun. The more out-of-the-box thinking required the more engaged the project team is.

Learning – My group gets to touch almost every system on the aircraft and every time I get a project I get to see something cool, geeky and new to me.

There are plenty of projects, big and small, that are fun and challenging. However there are plenty others that are as dull as a monotone. I get a good mix of projects, both in size and complexity, but the really challenging projects involving with some new technology that make a difference keep it interesting and fresh. I like what I do and where I am in my career, and I feel fortunate to be able to say that.