December, 27, 2005 archives

maverick: the success story behind the world’s most unusual workplace by ricardo semler is another book about the history and philosophy of a fascinating company, this time the brazilian manufacturing company semco.

it is a pretty amazing story, and it sounds like an amazing company. one of the central notions behind all of the changes was to treat the employees of the company like adults, and the hurdles that had to be crossed to do that can be surprising at times. the guidelines in the company’s survival manual might be something every company should adopt.

there’s a bird feeder (supposedly squirrel-proof) hanging right outside the back window of my family’s house in minnesota.

i took 253 pictures over the last week. or at least, i had saved 253 on the camera — i did delete some as i took them.

a few dozen of those are of the squirrels in the backyard. i didn’t manage to catch one in the act of circumventing the squirrel-proof hood, but i have a few more good ones of squirrels in different contortions on the bird feeder.

i’ll finish sorting through the photos and uploading the best over the next couple of days.

253 photos taken, almost 2000 pages read, four movies watched, lots of food eaten, and a bunch of card games played. it was a good week.

i’m done pawing through my photos, and uploaded the cream of the crop (and more).

i created three photo sets: minnesota zoo, december 2005 (check out the bottlenose dolphin, mid-leap), squirrels in the backyard, and minnehaha falls, cowles conservatory, and walker sculpture garden.

there’s also a few pictures not in the photo sets. you can see all of them by starting with the frozen fountain and hitting next.

we visited city hall today, and checked out the numerous historical photos on the fourth floor. many of them are from the los angeles public library photo collection, including this picture of pershing square (then called central park) from before any of the current buildings around the square existed.

the main reason we were there was to check out “last looks: the ambassador hotel,” a photo exhibition with shots from the ambassador hotel. here’s a los angeles times article about the exhibition. the prints were on the small side, but they were all great. and some are amazing, like the mushrooms growing on carpet that you can see with the article.

and now that i’ve given them as gifts and i won’t be ruining any surprises, i can say that i got calendars from both qoop and lulu using pictures i had taken, and they turned out great.