I am a bicycle commuter. Started out one day a week/half the year.
Later extended to twice a week/two-thirds of the year (minimal ice and
snow on my bikepaths). If not in school/doing special projects,
and feeling good, sometime push four days a week. My recommendations:
Plan. Drive your commute, and look for problem areas.
Find ways to deal with that. Take your bike to a bikeshop for
a tune-up. Spend the money—you will make it back on decreased
driving and medical costs.
Get a brain bucket! I try on about 50 helmets before
I settle on what that fits. If yours is damaged, or over 4 years
old, get a new one. If you live in a cold climate, bring your
favorite thin windproof hat or earwarmers.
Be visible! Wear bright colors—thanks for
the yellow T-shirt, kids! Wear reflective stuff—thanks
for the reflecto-belt, Marty! Wear flashinglights to the
rear, side and front—thanks, Marty and me! Mine are
battery-powered, mounted high, and obnoxious—I love them.
These new ones are
passive—install and forget.
Wear eye protection. Keep bugs (warm) or sand (cold)
out of your eyes. Sunglasses are fine, as are prescription glasses,
with or without clip-ons. If selecting them in the store, put
them on, look down, and shake your head around. If they stay put,
and give good coverage, they are good. Since my distance prescription
is only 1/2 and 1/4 diopters, I got some cool clear safety glasses for
rides near the winter solstice (November, and the very few times I can
ride in December- to early March). The better they come down to
my cheeks, the less they fog when I breath out fast. Whatever
you have will be fine; later, you might seek improvements.
Ride courteous. Ride just like you are a car. Well,
okay, you can't ride that fast. Pretend you are a backhoe, or a piece
of farm machinery, just happen to be a little narrower. If there
isn't 1.5 lanes, take your lane. Your lane is the right-most lane
that goes your direction—if that is number 3 lane of 4, that lane
is yours. Generally, I ride in the right-tire track, except the
few hundred feet when I am in lane 3 of 4 on Kraft crossing 28th Street,
I take the middle—that lane is mine. If on-street parallel
parking, stay 3 feet inboard of car doors.
Enjoy the wildlife. I see bunnies most days in Spring
(particularly the juveniles), and even fairly often later in the year.
I occasionally see a deer family. And a wild turkey once. And
if I leave on time, the nicely-dressed woman in her 80s, who is out
there walking every single day at that time. And all the dogwalkers,
stroller-pushers, and so on. And the changing weather, flowers
and trees.
Many elections are won or lost by less than one or two percentage points;
some by only a few tens or hundreds of votes. It happens every election
cycle. When we vote, we do make a difference. Generation-Y
or cool-boomers-who-understand-urban-symbology only, please see Eminem's
Mosh.
VOTE INFORMED
• When, where and how
to vote. 50
states > Polling Place Locator section, or LWV. Michigan
or Michigan.
• Sample ballot
(print and mark up at home, then bring into ballot box with
you—Yes, you can do that).
50 states, see local paper. Michigan
> info > View My Sample Ballot or Michigan
> info > my ballot. Californians mailed about 5 weeks
before election.
• Sierra Club endorsements.
50 states.
Michigan.
• League Conservation Voters LCV.
50 states
or Scorecard. Michigan
> Endorsements.
• Clean Water Action.
50 states. Michigan.
• Bears.
50
states. Michigan.
• League of Women Voters LWV.
50 states. Michigan
> Part 1 + Part 2.
• Brady Campaign.
50
states > yourState. Michigan.
• Family Forum (shows other endorse,
conserv. and progr.). Michigan
> Voter's Guide.
• Campaign flyers (tells me if locals
are serious or campaign tourists).
• For any races in which you still have no
information, check websites of organizations
with which you disagree. I have one
that drills down into nearly all races—call me!
• Using your marked-up sample ballot
to cast your ballot quickly and accurately.
Give yourself a pat on the back, for exercising
your sacred civic duty!
Then save it for morning-after quarterbacking.
So you are now "between positions." Well, happened
to many of us, even with Chairman's Awards, patents, 20 years of very
good performance appraisals, and whatnot. Hope you didn't quit a
job before the new one is lined up (a bad idea unless ethics made you
do it).
If laid off, file for Unemployment. Your employers paid
into the system for years with money that would otherwise have been available
for your pay. And they did lay you off. So you might as well
have them pay for your transition. Search"myState
unemployment" and sign up. Sign up
today!
Then sulk and mope for a while.
Keep doing what centers you (flying, biking, music, yoga, whatever).
Exercise is always great for stress. Do something that breaks
a sweat, for 20 and later 30-40 minutes. I like biking,
but in winter, mallwalking and swimming at a community pool might be the
only regularly-available options. (Although as I write this, my
X-C skis are back up and running—will have to get out before the
storm hits later today.)
After a few days of sulking (didn't that feel good?), get back
to work.
If you have skills in demand out there, a way to search for jobs—worked
for three of us 'round here, for five jobs (alas, before the financial
crisis of 2007–2009)—was to:
Start early. Jobs in the US State
Department take two years to fill, so start today!
Network, talk to everybody you know, network, call your old
coworkers—and old bosses! Call them back every third week,
network, network, and more networking.
This is the #1 way to get a job. Call them!
The only pain is until you finishing dialing—it is OK after they
pick up.
Forget the Want Ads in the paper. Don't even look.
Nobody gets a job this way.
Don't bother applying at Boeing, Ford, GE or any other place
you want to work. While they post lots of jobs, they don't actually
seem to hire anyone. See Monster step below.
Resume—create a good one:
• If you do not have software to
create documents or spreadsheets in Microsoft Word- or Excel-format:
(1) go to your public library; or (2) go to FREE zero-install
Google docs;
or (3) install (A) FREE OpenOffice
> Download [supposed to be quite good], or (B) 60-day free trail
MS Office 2007 > "Test drive, try or buy" > "Download
a free trial", or (C) $84.97 if student MS
Office 2007 Professional Plus, or (D) wasFree now$ StarOffice.
• Example resumes in my
resume, Microsoft
and Monster
resumes-for-older-workers. If you look at mine,
you will see "dates on a time-limited [last 10 years] work
history, but omit [all dates] from your resume's education section."
—that Monster older-workers link. But I also maintain a
private version with all jobs, all dates, including years and months.
Nice to have on paper if you get handed a real application form that
wants that information. Probably should have kept days, but months
is all I have now.
• Include all buzzwords and acronyms
relevant to your experience or industry, so automated search-bots will
find your resume. The
keywords most commonly searched by employers.
• Helps
from Monster.
Post your resume on Monster—headhunter
and contracting outfits look here first.
• Click "Sign up today" button.
Record your password somewhere (a new password—don't let them
know your good ones).
• Say, "No, Thanks" to all the
ads and "premium services"—only choose free stuff.
• Post your resume online, and change its
Status to Public. If you think the interface is
buggy and clunky, it is. Keep at it. If you get stuck, call
me.
Every weekday, check your answering machine and email.
If your web-based emailer deletes everything after 30 days, see
me about Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla
Thunderbird, gmail
or other alternatives that will keep your email—all your email—under
your control—organized how you want, for as long as you want.
Every two or three days, and every
Sunday night, put your résumé back on top
of the employer search results by:
• Click Monster
manage resumes.
• Make sure it says your Monster id and
password, click "Log In" button.
• Click "No, Thanks" to
all the ads.
• Click "Renew" hotspot
in the middle of the screen, under your résumé's name.
• Semi-automate the Sunday night thing by
creating a PalmPilot appointment or task, MS Outlook recurring task
with alarm and a link so you just click at it, or a Windows
Scheduled Task. If you can't figure out how, call me.
If you have skills in demand, until the financial crisis of 2007–2009,
that was enough to get lots of inquiries
with real jobs.
If you are having trouble tracking/doing all your tasks, take this
one-day
Time-Management class, currently called FOCUS: Achieving
Your Highest Priorities Time-Management Workshop. Will change
your life. If you are a close relative, we will even pay for it.
Sanitize from MySpace,
Facebook
and other social-networking sites any text or photos of drinking,
drug use or nudity. Not a problem with people I know,
but here for completeness.
Google
your own name, and get friends to drop their bogus stuff about
you.
Google
your own phone number, in aaa-xxx-nnnn format. Maybe
your SSN, too.
If you still have medical insurance, take advantage of it. Go
to the dentist. Get your cholesterol checked. Get that knee
looked at, that's been bothering you.
Network, talk to everybody you know,
network, call your old coworkers—and
old bosses! Call them back every third week, network,
and more networking.
This is the #1 way to get a job.
Call them!
The only pain is until you finishing dialing—after they pick up,
everything is OK.
Federal government
USAJobs—employer still has a defined-benefit pensions
plan, the authority to collect taxes, and to print its own money.
Create an account, post your resume online, and receive automated job
alerts, and follow up. Helps
from Monster.
Student jobs
with the federal government—students, also do this one.
Your state's job board. Probably a requirement of your
Unemployment.
On the boards above, set up a jobs robot that email you jobs
that match your criteria. Make it daily, not weekly, to
get your application at the top of the stack.
One weekend, when developing Monster procedures for another, I turned
my Monster resume from Status=Private to Public. Wow,
did I get a lot of calls and emails! Guess it is because I now have
the phrase "embedded software" and work standard "DO-178B" in my resume.
Wish I had known about that a lot earlier!
RÉSUMÉS
Relatives and friends now on projects between jobs:
I am having a blast as a B787 Dreambuilder, but as my program
winds down, I will be looking for my next program or project:
Eric's résumé
in Microsoft Word format or in .pdf
format. The latter version has more links to articles and
organizations, and current names of rebranded products. If this
confuses you, please take the first link.
About once a decade, I find that I get less loan or a higher interest
rate than expected, I go through this process. It's free!
I also shared this in Blog 12.0 and 28.0, most recently when a close relative
had her records screwed up by a bank error, and two close relatives who
had their family's financial information outed by lax security at their
or their spouse's employer. This comes up often enough, I thought
I would post it.
FRAUD ALERT
The employers above helped put a "Fraud Alert" (formerly"Credit
Watch") with the credit bureaus. You can do this yourself,
too, say, "My account information has been compromised":
• Equifax
Office of Fraud Assistance, PO Box 105069, Atlanta GA 30348, 888-766-0008,
and
• Experian
Credit Fraud Center, PO Box 9532, Allen TX 75013, 888-397-3742, and
• Innovis(do they have one?), and
• TransUnion
Fraud Victim Assistance, PO Box 6790, Fullerton CA 92834, 800-680-7289.
Before the credit agency OKs a new account to a vendor (such as a new
credit card), they will require some sort of confirmation from you.
Free, too.
If any problems, let me know, and we will work them out, or put you in
touch with the two I know who have done this in the past.
PHISHING
Am sure that you can also do the above if you succumbed to phishing.
Suspect that all it takes to put one on your account is to say, "My
account information has been compromised."
FREE CREDIT REPORTS
If you had any credit trouble, no matter how small, order all four
direct from the companies under the "you have been declined credit,
employment or insurance, or experienced adverse action, your report may
be free" clause. Free, same contact as in the Individual
portion of the next paragraph, and does not use up the separate level
of freeness there. If trouble, call me—I did this a couple
times.
Get your your free credit reports individually from the three (they lie—there
are four) credit reporting agencies:
• Equifax
or 800-685-1111, and
• Experian
or 888-397-3742, and
• Innovis
and,
• TransUnion
or 800-916-8800.
Always say "No" to promotions, credit monitoring, credit
report monitoring, credit score subscriptions, and identity-theft insurance—you
don't need them. And keep reading...
MORE FREE CREDIT REPORTS
Even without a compromised identity or adverse action, anyone can get
free
credit reports once a year, under the Fair and Accurate Credit
Transactions Act (FACT
Act) of 2003. Looking at yours is a good idea: Time magazine
reported that 70% of credit reports contain inaccurate information,
25% bad enough to deny credit. About right, in my experience.
Get your free credit reports individually using the links
above, or collectively from the three (they lie—there
are four) credit reporting agencies, via:
• www.annualcreditreport.com
(do not go to the similarly-named commercial site), or
• 877-322-8228 (877-FACT-ACT), or
• Annual Credit Report Request Service, PO
Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348.
Always say "No" to promotions, credit monitoring, credit
report monitoring, credit score subscriptions, and identity-theft insurance—you
don't need them. You can use free government
websites instead. Of course, the credit reporting agencies would
rather have you send them money, but I wouldn't want my hard-earned money
going to the bloodsucking scum who screw up my records about once a decade,
and who resisted fixing my daughter's records in 2004. In this case,
she was more persistent than they were. Yeah, daughter!
Someone on the radio said that for maximum protection against identity
theft or disinformation, if you keep a good to-do list, you can request
a report from each, out of phase by four months. For example,
I ordered Equifax last December, Experian in April, TransUnion
in August, and now back to Equifax, which I just reordered a few
minutes ago. When my sister had her credit info compromised, I recommended
being particularly diligent in this for a couple years.
WHEN YOU GET YOUR REPORT
If you find anything bad, Dispute it. Also free. They do followup
within six weeks or so. And if it is a gray area (many are), they
may remove it anyway if the reporting vendor doesn't get back to them.
ACTIVISM
Letting you order your credit report is a large step in the right direction.
But what about if we allowed subscribing—signing up to receive
your credit report automatically (perhaps a checkoff box on your voter
registration application). And what happened to the fourth agency,
Innovis?
Write your Congressperson.
CHRONIC CONDITIONS
I have been listening to some people having or with knowledge of people
achieving below potential, or with persistent asthma,
clinical depression, failure
to achieve potential, and Asperger's Syndrome. Not mentioning
any names, I have tried to synthesize their experiences:
Can't tell from the inside. One meme seems to be that if
you have had a condition all your life, you don't know how it is without
it. Even as an adult, you can't self-diagnose. You need others—family
members, doctors, whatever—to see that you are struggling with something
others aren't, to guide you into treatment, and to see if your treatment
has gotten you there yet.
For example, if you have always breathed at 65% capacity, or made
decisions based on unimportant data, or are plagued with self-doubt, how
are you to know that one can do better? You need someone to
tell you there is a Promised Land, and help guide you toward...
Diagnosis. Once someone points you to a doc, they will take
a long history. Work for a week yourself to prepare your own, so
your appointment will be productive, and you won't leave out important
information. Interview family members, too, for their feedback on
you. Or even better, bring a family member. Kids always have
a parent in the room with them, and old-timers often do, too. But
it is a good idea for adults at the their peak, also. Often we forget
relevant information, or don't understand something said to us.
It is always better to have two sets of eyes and two sets of ears.
I call this having a patient advocate around. The big goal here
is to get a diagnosis. Only after that, do you discuss...
Treatments. After diagnosis, you can start on a treatment
plan with your doc, and read about it on the Internet or books. Often
there may be multiple possible treatments. You may have to try several,
that work with your biochemistry. Treatments may fail due to (A)
efficacy (it just doesn't work for you), or (B) side-effects (they may
be worse that the good effect). Whatever. Try another treatment.
Maybe in 2030, Personalized Medicine will know which treatment will work
with your personal DNA profile, but today all we have to work with is
this epidemiological stuff. Try another treatment, until you get
to the...
Sweet Spot. This is where you are trying to get to—the
Promised Land. This is where that problem you had has faded away,
and you are that complete person. Once you get into the Sweet Spot,
stay here. Your life-difficult problem has now a minor logistics
issue (following the treatment, and acquiring refills). You can
concentrate on living a full, rich, exuberant life. Do that.
If you don't get to the Sweet Spot, try another doc. Maybe
a kid, just out of medical school. Or a specialist. Or someone
just back from a conference on the subject. And if you still don't
get there, put a task in your calendar 3 years hence to try again.
Some of these areas are changing so quick, the art may have advanced so
far that you are now included, instead of left out in the cold.
Keep trying! You will get there.
Some kind of plan, such as a breathing meter and chart when
to do to the doc or ER.
Some kind of preventative:
Inhaled steroid.
Perhaps an inhaled long-acting beta-2-blocker, perhaps combined
with steroid above in the purple flying saucer Advair. Although
this almost killed one person I know (recovered in hospital after
a few days), although this person has cousins who use it successfully.
Perhaps a leukotriene inhibitor.
A rescue inhaler in your pocket or purse for sports, or sick,
or dinner with unexpected cats, or when your asthma otherwise breaks
through the above. Keep your rescue on you religiously—you
don't wanna go to the ER because your logistics are bad. May want
to keep a backup in briefcase, particularly if yours is running low.
On 3-week trips or anytime backpacking, bring three—one on you,
a backup in your carryon, and a tertiary in your luggage/backpack.
And keep in mind your treatment plan; that when your rescue fails
to have its excellent effect for four hours, call doc and demand an appointment
today. If its effect only lasts 1 hour, go to doc or ER right now—time
for a steroid pack or antibiotics. Not worth dying over a lack of
logistics.
CLINICAL DEPRESSION Clinical
depression is one the chronic conditions
described above. In the old days, there was no treatment.
If lucky, you became a shaman. Later alcohol. (Works terrible.)
Then barbiturates. (Is it useful to keep people in beds?)
Then Prozac. A selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor—something
that actually affects the neurotransmitters in the brain, affecting the
ability of one brain cell to signal another. Now we are actually
doing something useful. Doesn't work for some, but there are lots
of others now, too. I know several people who take low-dose SSRIs
to keep the dark away, letting them concentrate on living a full, rich,
exuberant life. :-)
If you are high-functioning, you probably have organized your work informally:
• a calendar for appointments (Girl Scout
work great—one for pocket/purse/briefcase, and one for the fridge),
• a todo list,
• a tobuy list, and
• a list of phone numbers, addresses and birthdays.
Maybe you keep the latter in a word processor file, and update and print
them off regularly. Or maybe you have found other defense mechanisms.
Regardless:
First, take this
one-day Time-Management class, currently called FOCUS: Achieving
Your Highest Priorities Time-Management Workshop. Some employers
will pay for it—mine did. If you are a close relative, we
will pay for it. Everyone else, pay for it yourself—increased
effectiveness will pay for itself a hundred-fold. Make it a priority—it
will change your life.
In the class, start with the paper planner for appointments, todo items
and reference lists (tobuy lists, medical stuff, birthdays, etc.).
Later, when you outgrow paper, convert to a PDA (Palm or BlackBerry) synchronized
"synced" to Microsoft Outlook (full, not Express). If
relative or a professional, for details, please call me.
Attention-Deficit Disorder ADD will be renamed. No lack of
attention. There is plenty of attention, but lack of ability
to control attention—it is somewhere else, but not on the assigned
task. Inability to direct and maintain attention to what is important.
Very Calvin
and Hobbes. [Eric: At least two ADD books I opened have
Calvin and Hobbes cartoons in them.]
I use ADD and ADHD interchangeably. [Eric: elsewhere I have seen:
ADHD-i = inattentive
type
ADHD-pi = primarily
inattentive type
ADHD-h = hyperactive type, or ADHD
ADHD-c = combined
type.
ADOS = Attention Deficit—Oh, Shiny!]
Some numbers below are from studies; some are from my practice.
Lots of patients:
8-10% of kids.
Probably high in adults, too.
50-75% of people in our jails. [Eric: Really?
If society could catch these people early—before they commit major
crimes—and get them into treatment, would we be saving a boatload
of money?]
Half of the morbidly-obese people in America probably have ADD—who
are born on sedentary side and can't modulate up their activity
level (more on this later).
Patients with ADD have problems:
Resumes do not look as good as their potential would indicate.
Fewer skills than their potential would indicate.
Less education than their potential would indicate.
Very few adults with high IQs (120-140) and ADD are able to finish
college. (Although ADD does not mean they have higher IQs.
More on that later.)
More job changes (> 5 jobs/10 years) than the general population.
Lower level proficiency attained.
More likely to be dismissed from their jobs.
Longer unemployment periods.
More likely to be self-employed.
Adults earn $10,000 less than age- education- socioeconomic-matched
cohort. With a professional degree (e.g., doctor, lawyer), a whopping
$50,000 less per year. [Eric: That extra $10,000/year
at 25% federal + 4% state income tax rates + 9% FICA would make $3,800
per year. A gov't that spend even $1,000/year on treating this
would bring in 3X times money it spent. And put $6,200 in the
pocket of that individual's household.]
ADD rarely travels alone: 80% of ADDs will have some other
diagnosable disorder:
bipolar,
depression,
anxiety,
substance abuse disorder,
dyslexia (20% of all ADDs also have dyslexia),
various other learning disabilities.
Almost all problems of adult life are made worse by
ADD:
Why do patients settle down and study better under stimulants like
amphetamines and Ritalin? [Eric: Do some self-treat
with caffeine, including coffee or Diet Mt. Dew?]
ADDs are impaired in Executive Functions
(when we actually do something):
Modulation functions: control opposing or conflicting forces.
For example, "I am driving now-cannot let me get near
sleep." Executive function of the brain.
Modulating what you say, in what circumstances.
ADDs lack function in this executive modulation function.
Self-assessment is also poor in ADDs
Task-persistence. Enthusiastic starts, without being able
to maintain or finish them 5 months, 9 months, 4 years later.
Chronic lateness. Not due to laziness and not due to not caring.
Can see these impairments in the brain
now with functional MRI fMRI,
actually see that there is a frontal-striatal dysfunction, that norepinephrine
and epinephrine
are underperforming in the anterior
cingulate gyrus portion of the brain. [Eric: Seems to
be just a going-outward fold (gyrus) just above the eyes, an inch back
(posterior) from the forehead, and just noseward (anterior) from the
one nerve bundle that connects the two brain hemispheres (the corpus
callosum).]
The part of the brain that does these executive function
is not "on". Another area of the brain is.
Not enough dopamine and norepinephrine in this area.
Interest. Passion. Novelty. Hard to get those areas of the
brain light up when they are supposed to light up.
Function goes to other area (near the amygdale
emotional reptile-brain) that is not so good at it?
Even if you tell yourself, "I need to do this,"that command will die due to
lack of these two neurotransmitters in this part of the brain.
Which is due to hyperactive reuptake recycler of these chemicals.
The drugs that work for ADD are those that slow down that
hyperactive recycler. That is why the drugs work pretty well.
:-)
Inborn. Part of genetic makeup.
Neuro-typicals (NTs) can get stuff done for both reasons:
Emotional.
Because it is important. "Just do it," like in
the Nike commercial. "Just do that math paper."
"Just do that project at work." [Eric:
I always hated that word, "just." Usually means someone
wants me to start another 100-hour project.]
ADDs can't use that second reason. Saying that we should
do something because it is important just hits a brick wall. ADD
can't. Ridiculous to even try. Because they don't have an
intact anterior cingulate gyrus.
People who are emotionally charged up can really perform. That's
why we have sales meetings, church revivals, football pep rallies, etc.
The high lasts about 2 weeks if you are lucky. Kids with ADD do
pretty good in the classroom about the first 2 weeks of the semester.
Then the Emotion reason gives out, and the Important reason just isn't
there.
Docs have learned lots lately—lots of progress. If your
doc hasn't been trained in the last three years, your doc will treat this
way different than one who has.
Just as many Grand Rapidians have ADD as heart disease. But
while this town has 50 cardiologists, plus lots of internists and family
docs treating heart disease, we have only two (soon one) specializing
in ADD. And most GPs haven't been trained in the last three or four
years. Lesson learned: ADD is underserved by the medical community.
ADD is a disability,
not a disease.
Like all disabilities, we need an Accommodation to get us into
the near-normal range. Such as an artificial leg given to
an amputee, to restore near-normal function. Not perfect, but maybe
good enough for most things.
Dr. Mason suggests medication as the Accommodation to
ADD:
The problem is lifelong.
Medication restores much-more-normal function.
No long-term reason not to do it.
When diagnose ADD as adult, years have been lost. Treatment
will develop near-normal ability again, but will not give you that time
back. Gotta pick up those social skills, find out who you are, that
you might have done in prior years, maybe in high school. And everything
in your life may have to be reevaluated once you get near-normal function.
You don't get the time back from when you didn't have good treatment.
Well-managed ADD workers have:
Results-oriented supervisors.
Clear goals.
Clear boundaries.
Freedom within boundaries.
Work within areas of natural interest.
Engage passion.
Non-critical redirection of ADD behaviors.
>90% encouragement and praise.
<10% criticism.
Certain fits work great, if management can tap it:
110% ability, engaged, energetic and creative. Because of
their trouble doing just like everyone else does. [Eric: This
sure sounds like some people I know.]
ADDs with critical bosses will not be there very long:
Rules oriented supervision.
Unclear or shifting goals.
Rigid boundaries.
No regard for natural interest.
Controlling attitude and environment.
Criticism of ADD behaviors.
More criticism than praise and encouragement.
Remember the problems described at the top.
Trotting out the poster children for ADD—Ben Franklin,
Thomas Edison, Einstein, Terry Bradshaw (day-to-day, he is not a stellar
performer, but when it counts, he always seems to come through), CEO of
Jet Blue Airways—is not necessarily good, because many of the rest
of us aren't quite as smart or entrepreneurial or creative or as people-person
as they are, or are dealing with other stuff on the side. The ADD
is still going to weigh on what we might have been—achieving
below potential.
Case study of the sculptor who needed to (and did) hire a "finisher."
Case study of the realtor agency who hires ADD sales agents, and supplies
clerical staff to backfill the tasks that the ADD sales force can't do.
Like sending out the hunters to do their hunter-killer thing, while also
keeping farmers back in the office, to do the village's farmer-tasks.
Case study of instructor who helped ADD student to applies his passions
to that particular class.
Case study of the success a worker had, after his company had him
properly evaluated and treated for ADD.
Insurance companies are pushing to shorter-acting (cheaper) drugs,
which are not as effective as once-dailies for patients with ADD.
The
Wikipedia article on depression says: "Dysthymia,
a form of chronic, low-level depression, is particularly common in adults
with undiagnosed ADHD who have encountered years of frustrating ADHD-related
problems with education, employment, and interpersonal relationships.
[23] Hallowell, Edward M.; John J. Ratey (2005). Delivered from Distraction
: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder. New York:
Ballantine Books, p. 253–5. ISBN 0-345-44231-8."
Doing this for friends and family:I
need computer services: harden my machine against viruses,
adware and spyware, share high-speed Internet with all
computers in my house (can get kids on Internet, share printers, etc.,
without drilling holes in the walls), have mission-critical
information I need backed up(finances, photos, documents,
spreadsheets, email, family tree, more), am plagued by software downloaded
by my teenagers (KaZaA, file-sharing, adware, spyware, instant
messenger, etc.), wish to make better use of what I have (Quicken,
Office suite, PDA, camera, network, sharing, upload photos to let my
relatives see them), machine running sloooow, plagued by pop-up
ads, system hung up, and others.
Andy's disk golf
site. Way fun. Find some teenagers and play with them!
I was thinking that these are mostly for Piehls (descendants of Friedrich
Piehl and Karoline [née Fechner] Piehl), the Allens (descendants
of George Allen and Esther [née Howard] Allen), and their spouses
and friends, but let me know your connection to us, and I will consider.
