Day: June 28, 2008

Book Recollection: The Definitive Book of Body Language

If you have not figured it out by now, I spend a great deal of time observing things and trying to figure out what led to specific decision or activity.  So a book focused on body language is a no brainer great gift idea for me.   My wife was kind enough to give me The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan and Barbara Pease.  All in all, it is a pretty quick read and actually had some information I hope to validate in my future observations.  Although, there is a downside to having read this book – you constantly make yourself aware of any body language signals YOU may be given off in a given situation.  I’ll be sitting there talking to someone and check of things like… are my legs crossed, where are my hands, what part of the face am I staring at, are my palms down or up etc.  It is pretty unnerving at first, but it gives some quick validation on some of the points in the book.  I think there are some over-generalizations scattered about the book and I completely disagree with some bathroom statements/rules that were made, but overall, I place this informative book on the recommended reading list – especially for anyone who likes assess situations as much as I do.  Here are some of the informative things that stuck with me after my initial read – I am reserving the right to read this again in a couple of years and see if my own assessments until then.

  •  Apparently Charles Darwin started the study of body language in a work he did back in 1872
  • We are capable of recognizing around 250,000 facial expressions
  • 55% of communication is non-verbal – I have read other related research that says this is probably closer to 60 to 65%
  • Initial opinions are 60-80% done in 4 minutes
  • When crossing your arms across your chest – 70% cross left arm over right arm – This fact I immediately tried out on myself and friends – I am in the minority, but 5 of 6 people I tested were in agreement.  Oddly enough, every one of them had troubles consciously switching the order
  • Assessing body language should be done in clusters – look at the whole before making an assessment

Continue reading Book Recollection: The Definitive Book of Body Language

A Mansion on the Hill

We ended up pulling into a small tourist town called Keystone looking for a place to stay after taking in the sights at Mount Rushmore.  While we were looking for a place to stay, we notice a large mansion sitting pretty high above the tiny town.  There were no signs anywhere around it other than a large cross embedded high into the side of the forward facing walls.  Based on that small amount of detail, we figured it was some form of monastery, but it looked a little out of place since it was clearly visible from anywhere in the city and was markedly upscaled to the rest of the surroundings.  The monasteries and abbeys around where I currently live are tucked pretty deep into the countryside and do not generally take on a high frill styling. 

After finding a location to stay (a definite upcoming blog entry based on the perceived fleecing that occurred), we found a small little pizza place to settle our hunger.  Note, although the food and service ended up being pretty darn good, we were a little annoyed that each table had a plastic cup on the table begging for tips.  I personally can’t stand this – if you want to raise the price to give the help a little more pocket money, then do it, don’t put up a price and then panhandle to subsidize inadequate wages.)  But I digress from the current topic.  A motorcycle couple come in all decked out in the standard garb – leather jackets, Harley branded dew rags, leather chaps, flame sleeved shirts and Harley boots (see previous post 8^)  They apparently also noticed the mansion and questioned the waitress on what it was.  She actually replied that they didn’t know who it belonged too, had never seen the people and that it was built just a few years back.  This apparently appalled the customers who proceeded to complain how awful it was to flaunt wealth like that and how it was apparently the most evil thing they had ever witnessed.  For the next 30 minutes, that is all they talked about – how could anyone do that, that’s sickening, wasting money to show everyone how much money they had yada yada yada.  When their pizza arrived, the waitress updated them that she was informed the owners of the mansion are the owners of just about everything in the town – most of the stores and restaurants targeting every tourist that came their way (likely on the way to the presidential carvings).  This resulted in having to sit through 20 more minutes of how horrible it was and how they must have done that to look down on everyone to make them feel bad. 

During this whole time, I could think of only one thing… Why do they care how an individual spends their wealth?  They probably made a number of companies’ bottom lines to create that home (carpenters, brick layers, roofers, concrete workers, drywallers… the list goes on).   I on the other hand was curious as to whether the owners were Catholic (based on the large cross built into the external decor) – if so, then the recent Pope announcement that obscene wealth is a sin probably sparked a lively breakfast conversation…. probably starting with “Hey honey, I wonder if the Vatican will every announce how much wealth they have stored in their treasure vaults”

With A Rebel Yell, She Cried Yuppie Yuppie Yuppie

Due to the flooding occurring in Davenport Iowa, a motorcycle event was moved from the river up to the Missouri Valley Fairgrounds.  We ended up driving by that area on our way out of town and witnessed a huge number of bikers converging on the area.   I didn’t find this too ironic until we started getting close to the Black Hills and you probably guessed it… Sturgis.  So our trip (from the very start to our return trip) allowed me to observe the biker community.  I do not ride myself, but always intrigued by those who do.  When I was growing up there was really two camps – those that rode the Harley lifestyle and those who preferred the laid back luxury of the Honda Goldwings.  To be honest, I really didn’t see these two groups mixing much which probably led to my surprise at the number of “mixed” groups I was seeing on the road – The standard Harley crowd, mixed with the Honda crowd, interspersed with the Victory and Indian owners with a few crotch rocket riders.  (ironically the Dark Custom Harley commercial just came on the television)… one thing that stuck out, was the impression that none of these bikes were the low end machines.  As I was looking at the chrome and huge amount of accessories it occurred to me that motorcycle marketing must have transformed themselves.  Somehow they are winning over high bread makers who want to either live the weekend lifestyle or the biker lifestyle is transforming themselves into corporate management.  I’m not sure which way the change is happening, but what I do know from looking at the Harley website, some of these bikes are costing more than SUVs. 

I also had another observation that help drive this home while out in South Dakota.  We had stopped in Custer State Park to have a little picnic lunch when an individual rode up to the wayside on a nice looking Harley Davidson – chrome all over the place and decked out in all sorts of sidebags and lights.  The guy was dressed in a leather vest, leather chaps and a skull themed dew rag.  He steps off the bike and turns off his docked iPod, pulls out his GPS and flips open his iPhone.  I then looked on his passenger seat and noticed a laptop cased strapped into the rear bar.  No tattoos, no earrings – a quick wardrobe change and he could’ve been my CIO.  Hats off to the Harley marketing arm.

Taking “Green” to New Heights

I am sooo far behind on this month’s blogs!  I actually recently came back from a vacation out in the Black Hills of South Dakota which had its good points and bad points, but the difficult part was the Verizon Air Card would not work in a number of places we were at.  As a result, I had to capture a bunch of notes in hopes of making posts upon my return… well, I’m back and time to get down to work.

On our way out we headed through Davenport as we trekked up northwards to get around the massive flooding throughout Iowa.  So much flooding, in fact, that they shut down US80 – our planned main route out West.  As we drove through Davenport we started seeing an extremely odd scene.   Granted there has been a lot of rain pouring down up there, but I never expected to see weeds and grass growing out of house gutters.  At first, I figured it was just an abandoned house or something, but a block down I noticed it again, another couple of blocks and there it was again.  I can’t really figure out how this really happens.  Based on the type of shingle there may be some grit building up in the bottom of the gutter and in some situations I could see  a leaf buildup, but I’m entirely sure this is sufficient for plant growth…. and then a mass of seeds needs to be sprinkled on the area to produce the plants/weeds.  I am currently fighting with my new lawn to maintain last year’s seeding – apparently I need to lay down a covering of asphalt and leaves first based on the height of the gutter foliage. 

Then again, it could be another victim of Global Warming propaganda and the homeowners are actually planting grass on their rooftops in order to become GREENER.  Oh, and this just in.. Al Gore’s energy use went up 10% this year.