Requiem Aeternam

For some time now a battle has raged over the relative merits of oatmeal and grits. In this post, I intend to examine indisputable facts in order to settle once and for all the question of which cereal makes a better breakfast food for prospective evil overlords.

First, let us examine the history of grits. The cereal was developed by Native Americans and adopted by European settlers. Eventually it became a staple food of the American South, especially in the Southeast from Virginia to Texas.

Now, I do not mean to imply anything about the people who currently consume grits nor do I mean to insult anyone’s heritage. However, facts are facts. Have you noticed something these two great grit-eating cultures have in common?

Well, the Native Americans were soundly trounced in a series of wars and oppressions and were crammed into reservations or forced to move ever farther west.

The southern American states, after forming the Confederated States of America, promptly found themselves on the losing end of the American Civil War. Oatmeal fueled northern armies under the command of men like Grant and Sherman cut through the South all the way to the coast.

You may think that the defeat of these grit consuming cultures is merely coincidence, but can it really be coincidental that every single one of the world’s grit dependent civilizations have been defeated? Look again at line demarcating grit popularity–every Confederate state falls within the line, and every one of the victorious Union state falls on the oatmeal side. The facts are simple. There is a 100% correlation between a culture’s grit consumption and subsequent military defeat.

The reasons for this are not readily apparent, but with some research one may uncover the underlying cause. Consider the words of Charleston’s News and Courier newspaper in 1952: “Given enough of [grits], the inhabitants of planet Earth would have nothing to fight about. A man full of [grits] is a man of peace.”* These words from grits supporters should sound like an alarm through the lairs and dens of evil overlords everwhere. Of course grit consumers suffer military defeat since their food takes away the inner fire and their fighting spirit. The same thing would happen to any evil overlord who does not heed this warning.

The evidence does not stop there! We have seen how grits contributes to demoralizing defeats; see now how oatmeal causes precisely the opposite affect.

In his dictionary of the English language, the great Samuel Johnson called oatmeal, “a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

Although he intended to disparrage oatmeal as a food, he of course failed (as oatmeal is undisparrageable) and, in fact, greatly contributes to the theory of oatmealic superiority.

Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British Empire expanded to epic proportions, not due to the normally accepted causes, but due to two facts concerning oatmeal. First, the British horses referred to by Johnson became great weapons of the British military. One must only read Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” to see what heights of heroism and valor oatmeal enabled British horses and their riders to obtain.

The second event which enabled the expansion of the British empire was the cessation of the silly English habit of vainly trying to fight oatmeal fed Scottish humans. Men like William Wallace and Robert the Bruce who ensured that Scotland would be the only division of the United Kingdom not to join England via military defeat feasted upon oatmeal, and that is where they got their strength.

So once Britain stopped fighting against those buttressed by oatmeal consumption and started using oatmeal in their own war efforts, the Empire became nearly invincible. In the twentieth century, however, the declining use of the British oat devouring horse as a war weapon directly caused the decline of the British Empire. The link is undeniable. As tanks and infantry, neither of which being fueled by oatmeal, grew in importance, the British Empire faded. Further extenuating the decline of England was the continued edition of northern American states and their superior oatmeal preparation techniques (see bonus section at end of post).

Three conclusions then present themselves to budding evil overlords.

1. Oatmeal is clearly the superior choice for world domination. Its prowess is well documented, being rivaled only by certain types of rice as fuel for empires and dictatorships. Grits may be perfect for lovers of peace and harmony, but that is not us!
2. Stay away from grits. They will sapp your determination to conquer and your will to fight. You will find yourself carrying daisies rather than war hammers and wooing females rather than scheming nefariously (well, there may be some of that involved still, but it will be less violent. generally).
3. Give grits to everyone else.

Bonus Recipe

If this oatmeal variant does not make your mouth water and your heart beat valiantly, nothing will.

The oats are soaked overnight in cold water, salt and maple syrup. Early the next morning, before beginning farm chores the cook will add ground nutmeg, ground cinnamon and sometimes ground ginger. The pot is placed over heat and cooks for upwards of 90 minutes, being served after the chores with cream, milk, or butter.

Now there’s some fuel to keep you going as you study tomes of war wizardry in halls of ice, or battle undead hordes on tundras at the edge of the world!

* http://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess113_1999-2000/bills/4806.htm

Lord of the Rings is, and probably always will be my favorite fantasy story. Tolkein certainly had his flaws as a story teller (though to his credit, his intent was more to build an in-depth mythological world rather than a literary masterpiece), but the modern fantasy writers I’ve looked at cannot come at all close to Tolkien’s ability to use language and writing style to enhance the atmosphere of epicness.

Now the movies get a lot of this right–in fact, pretty close to perfect. The battlefield charges–Theoden and Aragorn at Helms Deep, Eomer and Gandalf at Helms Deep, the charge of the Rohirrim on Pelannor Fields, and the final charge in front of the black gates– and the speeches that go with them are some of the most beautiful and epic battle scenes in movies.* Some of the non-battle scenes are no less beautiful as well, the sequence where the black riders enter Bree and the inn, and the sequence in the third movie where Arwen sets out to leave middle earth, sees the child, and turns back are also favorites of mine. As well as almost anything on the battlements in Edoras ^_^

However, between these amazing scenes lies something that bothers me every time I watch the movies, and it really increases with each viewing as I get more acclimated to the awesomeness of individual scenes.

It’s not really the plot additions (though the warg attack and Aragorn getting pitched off the cliff on the way to Helm’s Deep was a bit silly) or all the changes made to increase tension (Ents initially deciding against fighting, Frodo sending Sam away, Faramir taking Frodo toward Gondor, the exagerrated hostility of Sam toward Gollum, the shouting match at Elrond’s council in Rivendel, etc), though these things don’t exactly help.

The biggest thing I don’t like though, is the large amount of cartoonishness injected into the movies. Gimli is not in the story for comic relief, and Legolas is not a refugee from the X-games. The books contain enough humor with witty banter back and forth between the two, but there’s no need to have Gimli lose control of his horse and fall off, or show him belching with beer/mead/ale dripping down his beard in the middle of an important council, or thwacking orcs in the groin with his axe. The Harry Potter movies are about junior high and high school aged kids and it seems like there’s hardly more physical humor in those movies than in LoTR–and where HP includes physical humor it’s generally of a more intelligent nature and doesn’t stand out as badly as it does in LoTR (probably because of the setting).

Even Gandolf gets in on the physical humor in the third movie with his staff-bonking antics at Denathor. In this case, not only is it out of place atmospherically, but completely out of character. Despite Denathor’s despair and mistakes, Gandolf would display more respect for the Steward of Gondor. Additionally, it makes Denathor more comic relief, distracting from the incredibly tragic story of the downfall of a once great man.

Then there’s Legolas, who stays away from the unwanted attempts at humor (except for the drinking contest with Gimli), but seems to be constantly flying around in ways that defy physics and common sense. I guess a lot of it can be explained away because he’s an elf, but it still looks cartoonish and distracting in my opinion. And the references to real life things like him skateboarding/snowboarding/surfing the shield down the steps at Helm’s Deep breaks the separation I like between a fantasy world and the real world.

I think the blame lies largely on the personalities of the director and actors (mostly in the case of Legolas–Orlando Bloom is an extreme sports nut) showing through to make their marks on the story. But again, that breaks the illusion of a separate fantasy world untouched by ours. I think the real-world references and juvenile physical humor both really take away from epic atmosphere that really separates these books from other works of fantasy fiction and make them what they are. Therefore the movies lose a lot of watchability in my opinion. I will always love the epic scenes and scenery, but a lot of the rest I have lost interest in sitting through.

I think, given the potential of the materials they were adapted from, LoTR comes out below both Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter movies. Although they change some things around, the Narnia movies end up being fairly entertaining and consistent movies, and the Harry Potter movies vastly improve on the HP books by cutting out a lot of JKR’s repetitions and redundancies.**

I don’t really care if movies “stay true” to the books, but I wish the LoTR movies had done a better job of consistently sticking to the atmosphere that made the books different and so great.

* I think the fight scenes in “Hero” might be the best that I have seen for visual martial arts beauty, but the LoTR battles take place on a far grander scale and with better music. Here’s my favorite fight from “Hero” for your enjoyment.

**Yes,  I know what I did there.

Rebellion.

The air is rank with the smell of it. Swamp gas fueled army camp fires pollute the air with their sooty smoke, rebel yells swarm the mason-dixon line, and the ghost of Jeffy Davis rides again.

Has so much time elapsed that the supremacy of ice and snow has been forgotten? Does Johnny Reb think that the wizards of the North  slumber? He is sadly mistaken if so, for they do not slumber but keep careful watch in their icy halls, nor has their strength, drawn from the iron hard earth, diminished.

After the Northern Wizards sweep across the South, crushing the foolish uprising and leaving rebel ranks frozen midstep from Gavelston to Charleston, there will be a second period of reconstruction. And this time, we will ensure that there will be no more forgetting.

Phase 1 (Compensation)

• Each state south of the Mason-Dixon line will pay a yearly tribute of seven young maidens. These maidens will be taken North and ceremoniously dumped in snowbanks as a metaphor for the North’s victory. South Carolina, as instigator, will be required to send an additional seven maidens, all from the town of Early Branch, the birthplace of the second rebellion.
• There will be a 97% tax (the average Southern summer temperature) on all teas containing sugar and/or artificial sweeteners. Teas served hotter than forty degrees Celsius are exempt from this tax.
• Representatives of the Southern states will sign a statement admitting responsibility for whatever atrocities (such the use of peanuts to create boiled products) the rebellion causes and binding the South to make financial reparations for the war.

Phase 2 (Readjustment)

• Oral exams will be administered to determine competency in Standard American English pronunciation and phraseology. Those with low scores will be restricted to making fried chicken, tobacco farming, and demolition derby driving.

Note: this item is currently being reevaluated by the powers that be (TPTB) as it is not expected to actually alter the current situation.

• Air Conditioners will be outlawed.
• Grits will be replaced with oatmeal in all stores.
• Rather than mandatory military service like some countries, beginning at age 4, all male children will be required to participate in hockey leagues. Additionally, parents or other spectators heard asking questions like “what quarter is it?” or “when’s halftime?” at hockey games will be flogged with a combination of live salmons and wet noodles (as will you if you don’t understand why those are bad things to say).
• All girls found complaining about the heat and lack of AC while wearing knee-length skirts and nearly sleeveless shirts will be required to wear full dress suits during summer activities and on Sundays.
• Those too old for the mandatory hockey program will be forced on a rotating basis to take mandatory vacations in Alaska and the Yukon Territory, including mandatory swim time in lakes fed by water from glaciers.

Phase 3 (Integration)

• Those who fail the Standard American English test (see phase 2) will be relocated to snow-making machine factories.
• The machines manufactured in this manner will be distributed throughout the South and used 24/7 to bury the South in glorious white flakes allowing everyone to enjoy white Christmases, sledding parties, and daily snowball fights.
• A large screen will be launched into space to reduce the amount of radiation reaching the South, causing a 30-60 degree drop in temperatures throughout the South. This is expected to be greeted with much rejoicing due to the previous termination of air conditioning (see Phase 2).
• The status of hoodies will be changed from “unprofessional and slobbish” to “appropriate for all settings.”

Disclaimer: should any Southerner find this post offensive, I completely understand given the amount of fire present in Southern blood rather than ice and hardness. However, I would like to also refer any such offended personages to the link at the beginning of this post and remind them that this was started by a Southerner (some things just don’t change . . . ).

^_^

It seems that for some reason people get the impression that all I do at work is write e-mails and surf the internet, but I want to make perfectly clear that this is a totally false presupposition–I drink coffee and eat donuts too! But here’s a brief description of what our job requires.

Introduction to Project Management

As project managers, we attempt to manipulate the project management triangle and direct team members in order to effectively produce a product (textbooks, in our case).

The triangle demonstrates the relationship between a project’s scope (its size or amount of work required, for instance how many pages will be in a textbook), the time needed to complete the project, and the cost necessary to complete it. For instance, if you want to decrease the amount of time needed to finish a project (demonstrated by shortening the corresponding side of the triangle), you would also have to change the other two sides to maintain the triangle shape. You could decrease scope (the amount of work you plan on doing), or increase the amount of money you want to put into the project, or decrease both scope and cost in order to make the project’s duration shorter. You could also accomplish a project in a shorter duration by changing the angle where the cost and scope sides meet without reducing scope and without increasing cost, but that would negatively effect the quality of the product. It’s not a perfect illustration, but it gives a general idea of what we’re trying to do, namely manipulate the three sides of the triangle to be the optimal size and shape.

Meetings

Pretty much everything we do to accomplish this job ends up in some sort of meeting, so the best way to describe more precisely what goes on would be to discuss the different types of meetings that we have. Most meetings fit into the categories of project planning, implementation, and tracking.

Planning meetings include product line meetings, charter meetings, and project planning meetings. Product lines include all textbooks of a certain subject. For instance, the product line I work on the most is secondary Bible, which includes Bible Truths A, Bible Truths B, and so on up to Bible Truths F (7th grade-12th grade). Our goal is to maintain a copyright age of 5 years or less for all textbooks. Since there are six products on my product line, this means we need to come out with a new textbook revision every year (the first year a book comes out it has a copyright age of zero, so it works out). In product line meetings all the different department supervisors (authors, art/page design, page layout, photo/text acquisition and permissions and editorial), as well as marketing representatives and a few others try to balance the consumers’ needs, our resources, and our time requirements to develop a general plan for the next twenty years or so. My job is to organize the meetings, direct them, make sure all relevant information is examined, and finally to produce a written version of the plan (normally an excel file complete with charts and graphs) to hand to sponsors (the really high up people in charge) for them to approve.

Charter meetings are more specific in nature; rather than looking at all the products in a product line, a project charter defines the attributes of all the items in a single product. My team just finished a charter for our next Bible Truths project and the charter goes into the particulars about what items will be included (student text, teacher’s edition, a CD to go with the teacher’s edition, tests, and test answer keys), what level of revision we will do (generally light, medium, heavy, or full), how much money we can spend on the revision, and when the items need to be finished. In other words, a charter defines what the triangle will look like for each individual project. Pretty much the same people come to charter meetings as to product line meetings, although supervisors might send a worker who will be working on the project instead of coming themselves. My responsibilities are similar as well, but the final draft of the charter is prepared by a marketing representative and then given to me to route around to the sponsors.

Project Planning meetings are even more specific. Project planning meetings include the workers from each department who will actually do the work on the project rather than their supervisors. These meetings produce the specific schedules that we use to execute and track the production of a text book. Normally I will create a preliminary schedule for the different items of a project in Gantt chart form using Microsoft project and go over that schedule with the team who will suggest changes to make the schedule more realistic by dropping tasks or adding them or changing their durations. We break each schedule up into work packages so everyone is working on a maneagable amount of work (like a single chapter or section) at a given time rather than just trying to complete the whole book. Each work package will consist of 5 to 20 tasks depending on the project and what stage of development it’s in. A team member will complete their task and pass the work package on to the next person. For instance, an author will write the revisions for a chapter and then pass the work package on to an editor who will edit it for conceptual or structural problems (proofreading type editing occurs later) and then hand it back to the author to incorporate the editor’s suggestions. I have to schedule and coordinate all the tasks for all the departments and make sure the durations are reasonable and everything is in the right order (trickier than it may seem sometimes–on our current project we’re scheduled to finish the testpack before the teacher’s edition, but a certain amount of the teacher’s edition needs to be finished first because the test answer key references page numbers in the teachers edition).

Moving on to project implementation meetings–these are meetings that take place weekly or biweekly after work has already been started on a project. The team members meet to review what has been accomplished, communicate and resolve issues, prepare for upcoming tasks, and reexamine whether or not the team can meet the scheduled completion dates.

Project reporting meetings consist of a weekly meeting between all the project managers, all the department supervisors, and a few other people. The main purpose of this meeting is to make sure that supervisors are aware of potential problems in their departments and that the head of the product development division of the press has an accurate idea of what projects are running late or early or on time. To relay this information we use an excel chart such as the one below.

Each vertical column represents a work package. A column that is green all the way to the top means that work package is ready to be sent to the printing press. Red indicates where a task or series of tasks is late, light blue means a schedule has been made, and so on.

We also have meetings within our department to discuss better methods of management, strategic planning, and tactical approaches.

Summary

A good analogy for a project manager is a coach on a sports team. Like sports players, our team members do the real leg work, but we are the ones planning and directing the team members to do what they do more effectively and meet a common goal. One of the most important aspects in project management is communication, and that means a lot of meetings, and standardized graphs, and charts, and forms, and templates that we create and use as tools to help the teams as they work.

Now, if you actually read all that, congratulations! You get a big fat juicy cookie!