[Cadre-politics] status: marathon dental work

[Dan MacNeil]

INTRO (maybe worth reading)

ROAD TRIP!

FREE DENTIST

MARATHON RUNNING

ASKING WORKS BETTER

WIDOW'S PORTION

FEEDBACK


INTRO
Research shows most people skip introductions. You
are special for reading this one.

I'm ok blowing off work for a road trip. I feel bad writing about 
work instead of doing work when I'm a bit behind.

For example, right now, the State of Massachusetts Attorney 
General could theoretically withdraw our fund raising permit, 
since I've not sent the forms in on time....

Still, The opportunity to tie the business of our merry band into
dentistry is a challenge not to be missed.

Better, the last few updates, people have replied with helpful
info, donations or at least constructive nagging.

OTHER GOOD NEWS

Art Crooke is back from summer vacation.

The next status report will be more interesting. It will be about 
how much better svn is than cvs and how cool unit tests are.

ROAD TRIP!

The last trip was about as much fun as can be legally had in
Massachusetts.

Charlotte, Mimi and I traveled south to the last Ethos round
table [1] and the Tech Foundation's [2] 501 club.

   [1] http://ethosroundtable.blogspot.com/
   [2] http://www.techfoundation.org/

Fancy-pants non-technical talk about tech culture, free booze,
sushi. What more could you ask for?

You can come on the next one.  The Charlotte-mobile leaves LTC 
(246 Market St Lowell Ma) 3pm on Tuesday October 21.

RSVP moi

FREE DENTIST
Because I don't charge $100 an hour for my work, I resist paying
more than $100 per hour to other people.

It's been two years and the dental-industrial complex  hasn't 
reacted to or noticed my little boycott.

Fortunately, Middlesex Community College has a program where
they'll clean and examine your teeth for $25. [6]

[6]http://mvhub.com/cgi-bin/guide/guide.pl?rm=show_program&program_id=503223

The downside is instead of a 3 hour process spread over two
visits, it is a 8 hour process spread over 3 visits.

Still, I'm happy with the experience. By good fortune I was a
little sleep deprived and dozed through the boring bits. Between
the student and the professor(s) checking her work, I got the
most careful dental exam and cleaning of my life. This may be the 
first time #18 has been cleaned in the back.

My takeaway is the big difference between a professional and
amateur is speed. A slow amateur can do a better job than a quick
professional.

MARATHON RUNNING

I'm going to qualify to run the Boston Marathon [7] in 4 years or 
less.

   [7] http://www.bostonmarathon.org/BostonMarathon/Qualifying.asp

For a bunch of reasons, I'm doing most of my training on the 
treadmill at the YMCA.  There is space on adjacent treadmills for 
people with fitness goals or goal setting goals.

Success with the marathon goal like the "CSL is sustainable" goal 
will be all about setting lots of little gaols, meeting them
(or not) and setting new or revised goals and meeting the new or 
revised  goals (or not).

About 33 percent of the people who run the Bay State marathon in 
Lowell qualify for Boston [8]

   [8] http://www.baystatemarathon.com/

This is doable.

Unlike the big CSL goal, the marathon goal has been done before. 
Most of the hard thinking is already done.  There is already at 
least one good book:

http://www.amazon.com/Runners-World-Less-Faster-Revolutionary/dp/159486649X

The process is simple.

   0) Get in reasonable shape
   1) Race a 5K (3.11 miles)
   2) Train for 12 weeks
   3) repeat steps 1-2, three times
   4) repeat steps 1-3, at 10K & 1/2 marathon distances
	...
   5) Race Baystate marathon in Lowell

Step (0) will probably prove to have been the hardest. It took me
2 years to drop 30 pounds and be able to run 7 miles w/o pain.

Step (1) was my own little personal 5K at the UML track.  I'm 3
weeks through the first 12 week training schedule in step #2

The book defines the training pretty clearly. You find your race 
time on the chart. You run your finger down to find your training 
intensity for sprints, medium runs and long runs.

I ran 5K @ 21:20, so I get to run 400M (1/4 mile) sprints @ 1:30, 
3 miles @ 7:30 and 7 miles @ 8:45 minutes per mile.

The goal is to train at goal pace and no faster.

Your capacity is know because that's how fast you raced. The 
charts are designed to have you train at just below your 
capacity. Do one workout too hard and you can't complete the next 
one.

Already, I've adjusted my goals. I ran my private little 5K on a 
flat track with the wind behind me and a lane to myself. It looks 
like the chart is based on people on a road, dodging traffic, up 
hills and in a crowd. In my first training, I couldn't run the 
sprints at the planned speed. I felt very little pain, I just 
couldn't go faster.

I adjusted the sprint goals to the speed I can run. In week (3) 
I'm still on track with the revised schedule.

I'm uncomfortable sometimes, but never in pain. By avoiding 
spurts of over-effort I sustain harder training than I would left 
to my own devices.

ASKING WORKS BETTER

Dentistry, running and fund-raising have some things in common, A
persistent amateur can get some results. Trying works better than
not trying. Little goals are better than big ones. Some 
discomfort is ok. Pain and injury are to be avoided.

Our big goal is to be "sustainable", that is for the CSL to 
function without me working for free and for there to be 2-3 
effective permanent staff to jell more volunteers around.

All the steps to reach this $100,000 per year goal aren't clear 
yet. Parker money, might be a big step in there someplace. The 
work that Mimi, Charlotte, Jim, Karen & I are doing on the 
planning/fund-raising committee will probably fit in there 
someplace too.

However, our immediate sub goal is **very** clear. We want to pay 
Mike Foster $8/hr for 10 hours a week for a year.  He does good 
work. We need the help, he could use the money.

Another important sub goal is fund raising experience and 
motivation for me and the (emerging) fund-raising committee.

We've raised $550 in cash and $700 in pledges. (Thank you again) 
We've got money to pay Mike through the end of November.

If we have to lay Mike off for Christmas, I'm going to feel like 
shit. Avoiding feeling like shit is good motivation for me.

As to the sub goals, revised goals, realistic gaols, football 
goals...

I wrote 14 individual fund-raising emails. No copying and 
pasting, no copying, each email written completely from scratch. 
(Though I so repeat some ideas)

Surprise! Surprise!

Asking individuals directly, one by one is a lot more effective 
than asking all of cadre-politics. Maybe, the bystander effect, 
is a factor.

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Maybe, people believe their dollars are worthy of some effort to 
ask for them.

With an average donation of about $100 and a response rate of 77% 
, I have about 52 more people to ask.

Originally, I wanted Mike's money raised in September. I planned 
to personally ask 5 people a day. This plan was too ambitious. 
We've had a happy up-tick in volunteers, there is some must do 
coding for the north shore expansion, the .... blah, blah, blah

The new goal is to ask 20 people a month through October, 
November and December, roughly one ask per week day. At 1-3 hours 
per email this is doable.

This new goal also means that if you are on this list and you 
haven't donated, you are in my address book and I'm almost 
certainly going to ask you for money directly.

	http://thecsl.org/go/donate/

Anyone donating before I ask them directly gets the customary 
beer and (if you act now!), the greatest hits, the 2nd best bits 
from the personal appeals. (The best bits are of course private)

WIDOW'S PORTION
It is our official policy to keep donations as anonymous as
practical.

Charlotte has kindly agreed to give up a bit of her privacy to 
help pay Mike's wages. She's seen him work and thinks he's "hungry".

If Charlotte, who is living on $900 month of social security can
give $100 (and this is not her first donation to the CSL), I am
comfortable asking anyone on this list for 1% of their income.

	http://thecsl.org/go/donate/

FEEDBACK

Hit reply-sender & check all that apply, This status report was:

   ___  Too long

   ____ Full of irrelevant stuff

   ____ Funny

   _____ Lines broken strangely in MS Outlook

   ____ not enough tech

   ____ Other

   ____ take me off the list !

   ____ too greedy.

   ____ Boooring.

   ___ So good, I clicked http://thecsl.org/go/donate/