Our world is on the verge of a revolutionary change. Can you see it? It’s coming.

The powers that be will fight – hard – this change. Empires will topple. Seismic shifts are now underway in our energy economy.

Since the industrial revolution, humans have been poisoning the planet with our various byproducts. The biggest one we contribute on an individual basis comes from the energy required to move ourselves around in these gigantic wheeled metal, plastic, and glass containers called automobiles. Automobiles have shaped our society over the past hundred years and pervaded our lives in so many ways that most of us in this first world now cannot sustain our livelihoods without utilizing one of them on a daily basis.

Dear Friends and Family,

Why do you endorse me for skills that you have not personally witnessed me perform, especially when you may have never worked with me in a professional capacity? Are you willing to vouch to the entire world that I am good at rerecording mixing? Would you stake your professional reputation on it? Do you even know what rerecording mixing is?

Let’s make those endorsements mean something.

This is a rant, but it also serves as a note to my future self for when I’m a manager. Hopefully that will never happen, but sometimes leaders have command thrust upon them.

1. NO MEETINGS. Not Ever. Never. Never ever. The meetings that are scheduled are strictly optional, for diversionary purposes only. Every minute you’re in a meeting is a minute you’re being paid not to work. They’re a waste of time. Okay, well, with one exception: getting people together who ALL have to communicate in a synchronous manner to solve some sort of problem, like multiple coffee tables that all hold different pieces of the same puzzle: at some point they all have to coalesce. But it shouldn’t take long at all and then as soon as the puzzle comes together, the meeting’s over. And make damn sure they’re all accessible via dial-in or teleconference of some kind.

You cannot overpower physics with exuberance.

I like to leave plenty of following distance on the road. Many drivers American* drivers don’t seem to understand that it makes traffic much safer and, coincidentally, better-flowing when you leave a minimum of two seconds between your front bumper and the rear bumper of the car in front of you. They also don’t seem to understand that leaving a safe distance isn’t the same thing as driving slowly. Once I’m at a safe distance, I drive the same speed as the car in front of me – up to a safe speed which may or may not be over the speed limit.

You know the saying, “sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission?”

My new saying is, “only ask permission for that which you know is already approved.”

Not unlike the trial lawyer’s axiom of not asking questions you don’t know the answers to.

As I was plugging in the Leaf at work this morning, a contractor commented that he “should petition his work to give him free gas.” Then he used a mocking tone to make a remark about how he knows it’s really about helping the environment and all that.

I commented that it’s more about helping my pocketbook and about how cheap it is to operate.

He said that he didn’t understand why that was the case, seeing that we have to get the coal and burn it in a power plant; that gas should be cheaper.

Lately when I go through the McDonald’s drive-through near my work, they seem to guess correctly on what I want to drink with my breakfast combo meal. I almost always order the same combo and I always order the same drink: a small orange juice.

But today they got it wrong. They assumed I wanted a coffee.

Why was that? Just an off day? What’s different about today? The only thing I can think of is that I was driving my wife’s car.

I will have to test this theory, of course, but I think they use some kind of vehicle recognition, perhaps by scanning the license plate, to determine what you want. They already use remote order-takers who may not even be in the building. It would not surprise me if they start to use facial recognition to guess your order even before they greet you.