blisstout & nerding about

Kind. Nice. Good. Conservative?

Of those four, not all fit comfortably into the same sentence. For much of my life I’ve been fascinated by the difference between being nice and being kind. At first glance they seem interchangeable, but they are most definitely NOT. Taken together they represent humanity at its best, but separately they reveal very different things about a person.

This fascinated curiosity came from a desire to understand cultural disparities after migrating northward up the West Coast of California and eventually into the Pacific Northwest. I spent many years living in a rural college town with a community that is highly conscientious – where everyone knows each other and interpersonal dynamics are much more pronounced. It was there that I started noticing a disparity between being “nice” and being “kind,” and how these two traits are not necessarily the same thing.

What Happens When Responsibility Exceeds Agency

Technical operations have commonly been treated as a bolt-on cost center with disposable parts in line with business leadership. There’s a growing list of C-suite roles that sometimes treads into the absurd – my favorite so far – Chief Unicorn Officer. Beyond the traditional, the CISO is often described as a bridge between technical reality and business risk. In practice it’s more of a pressure cooker role designation, especially in larger organizations.

This is the job that bears the hallmark of high turnover driven by burnout, and often filled by someone with a track record for disruption. They enter the role with a mandate for change only to discover that the promises of workable infrastructure, business budget backing, and general authority they were promised exists only on paper. They inherit systems they didn’t design, timelines they can’t move, and accountability they can’t escape. Their mandate is impeded, and there is now a problem where responsibility exceeds agency. Leadership adapts, but not always in healthy ways.

What Remains After

After a few days to organize my thoughts and order of events, I spent all of yesterday writing, proofing, rewriting, and finally I hit send at 436 pm. Last night I slept more deeply than I had in a long time after I sent the letter yesterday. Nothing changed. No response came in overnight, or outside signals arrived to suggest resolution. Something just eased, and that stayed with me through the morning. For most of my life I’ve been good at moving between worlds and adapting to sudden change. I learned early how to adapt, but hadn’t ever registered as a skill because it was simply how things worked.

Birthday Devil’s Food Cake The Blisstout Way

Hail Seitan and Chocolate! I stumbled upon a good recipe for a super rich and chocolatey cake a while back. My daughter and I cooked it up for a birthday surprise for mom, and it was really good! A few adjustments to the recipe where removing powdered buttermilk made it perfect for the bake. It has its place, this was not it.

Time commitment	Gear required
Prep Time: 30 Min	Two 8″ baking pans
Cook TIme: 30 Min	Mixing bowls
Total time: 60 min	Medium sized sauce pan

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter
½ cup whole milk
1 cup room temp water
¾ cup cocoa powder (Dutch process, if possible)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar firmly packed
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup sour cream
2 large eggs room temperature preferred
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 batch of your favorite frosting

Attraction and Repulsion As Dimensional Traits

Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.

Venice Beach has always been this place of random magical occurrences for most everyone who visits there. Provided that you’re open to it.

The trip last week there was a dual memorial, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, dig? The date of the first dictated the second, so that Sunday memorial was intended to be dedicated to my brother who passed a year and a half ago while the trip was to attend a memorial for a stage performer I knew from years ago.

Jimmy 4/20/64 – 12/16/22

James William ‘Jimmy’ Stout was born on April 20 1964 to Melodie and Jim Stout in Downey, California. Jimmy was very close with his father, who was a pro-sport fisherman and brought his son on deep sea fishing trips for several days at a time. Jimmy was also the first of a gang of six cousins in their family…

It was an interesting 2022 holiday season this year. We had a family Christmas morning with Elizabeth’s homemade cinnamon rolls while I was almost half a day into a smoked brisket for dinner by then. The kids got up to the traditional stumble and shuffle to the living room with a tree and presents… and a video fireplace on the television. Even Charlie was into the holiday with howls and growls of gratitude for a big bag of treats and a couple new chewing balls. It was a very sweet time for us all.

The day after Christmas I received this message from my aunt,

“Wanted to make sure you knew that Jimmy died last week
Hope you had a good holiday. Love to the kids”

I went to look at our mother’s Facebook page, and there it was… a post on Dec 17 announcing my brother’s passing from congenital heart failure. He was intubated, unable to breathe on his own, and the decision was made to turn off the respirator helping him breathe.

Nine days ago.

Swords and Knives

When life begins with needles and pins

It ends with Swords and Knives

A waking world of innocence, so grave those first born cries

When life begins with needles and pins, it ends with Swords and Knives

Excerpts from The Marriage Escape

It’s a common theme in our conversations about the unimaginable, or the unfathomable. In the wake of my father’s passing on Christmas Eve 2016 we had need to settle his estate with my brother, who I am keeping distance for both of our well-being

There was a time when I would happily travel hundreds of miles for a moment of experience, but almost invariably it was something done alone. I have certainly encountered the unimaginable, at first with a good healthy apprehension but eventually with a sense of adventure and curiosity. After years of exploration and adventure there’s no disputing that an insatiable wanderlust resulted in the opening of many doors and opportunities for me. It was September 1999, I had turned 30 earlier that year, and I took what would be the last spontaneous adventure for me as a new chapter of my life was about to unfold.

Advice to my teenagers:

Mom and I have been your age. We live different lives in a different generation. Many things have changes, but the fundamentals stay the same, and I hope you can take some of this into your lives as you grow and see more of the world…

More than anything else, your most valuable possession is your mind. Take care of it. Nurture it.
Raise your words, not your voice. Flowers grow with rain, not thunder. (These words have meant more to me than words can express.)