I’m on the 40 minute flight from Phoenix to Vegas for two back-to-back conferences any reader of this blog better already know about. As usual, the drama is already starting with rumors, innuendo, on-stage battles between presentations, the ever-elusive hunt for the next *-gate, and the always popular feats of strength.

But I’m not going to talk about that.

Drama is one of those nebulous concepts slightly more elusive than porn; sure, you know it when you see it, but unlike porn you have a hard time noticing when you’re in it. Let’s be honest, we’ve all been in the middle of more than a little drama in our lives.

The problem with drama is that it doesn’t benefit anyone except the press, and maybe some sadistic bystanders. It certainly doesn’t benefit those involved. Drama raises emotions, lowers reason, and devastates credibility. It’s hard to take someone seriously when they get all “woe is me” on you.

I remember one of the more dramatic incidents I responded to in an ambulance. A woman ran over a child outside of a school. She more just bumped the kid with a couple ton car than any actual running-over, and while serious, it was clear the kid was going to be okay. The woman? A friggin’ mess. Hysterical screaming, ranting, and full-body-rending spasms that completely distracted everyone from the kid on the ground who needed medical attention. That drama reduced the care the kid received, at least until we showed up, ended up requiring a second ambulance for the woman (not the cheapest mode of transport in the world), and did nothing but make a serious incident even worse.

Another rescue drama was one of the more heart-wrenching calls I ever responded to, with a far worse outcome. I was responding on a mountain rescue call for someone lost in an avalanche. His hiking partner was a total freak-job, evading the truth (out of guilt) and recruiting his college friends to engage in their own private search (big no no). At one point I remember flying up a snow-covered trail, closed due to avalanche danger, in a Jeep driven by a park ranger with an even less-developed sense of self preservation than I have to help the Sheriff’s Officers remove the individual.

In the end, the victim wasn’t in the avalanche and probably died of exposure a mile or so away before the first rescuer showed up. The drama of the survivor and his changing stories did nothing more than pull valuable resources from where they needed to be, and destroyed his credibility. To this day I’m convinced his ego killed his partner.

Sure, these are extreme examples, but in each case those involved lost credibility and respect while distracting both bystanders and those there to fix the problems from the real issues.

In a less-extreme example I’m still embarrassed for some of my own attempts for an Academy Award for Best Victim in a Drama for a couple of bad breakups in college. I let the drama take over, and to this day my friends still occasionally remind me of those antics when I need to be put in my place.

Leave the drama for entertainment. When another industry engages in it, all it does is hurt the credibility of those directly involved, and anyone associated with them. It’s hard, but we need to sometimes divest ourselves of emotions and let the facts and events play themselves out.

If you read this, you know why. Arriving Tuesday, departing Monday. Probably at Hotel Paris since I didn’t get my stuff together in time.

Dentist: You shouldn’t feel any pain.

Me: Great.

Dentist: Now close your eyes to keep the debris out.

Me: What?

Ah, yet another one of those painful maintenance tasks.

The follow up instructions tell me no alcohol tonight, and no drinking from a straw. Which sucks, because that totally blows my usual Thursday night routine.

As I may have mentioned, we moved into a new home about 3 weeks ago.

This isn’t the first home I’ve owned, so either things have changed since I bought my last house, or it’s different when you buy a new build. According to our postal carrier, we’ve been getting mail here since long before we moved in. Technically before we knew our physical address (we just had a lot number). What kind of mail you ask?

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM wonderful SPAM

Landscapers. Blinds. Water treatment. Closets. Garage organization. You name it, we got it.

Now most of that you get pretty much anywhere, but there’s one kind of snail-mail SPAM that’s really pissing me off.

Mortgage stuff. A lot of it. Mostly predatory “mortgage insurance”. “What happens if you or your wife lose your ability to work?” garbage. My favorites are the “mortgage cancellation” programs. “You are not taking advantage of your mortgage cancellation program, contact us immediately”.

Cancel my mortgage? Works for me, You gonna pay?

What’s annoying is that all of these “services” know who my lender is, and the amount of my mortgage. I figure either my lender probably sold us out, or maybe it’s a subscription service from a credit service.

Either way, I figure there must be enough idiots out there for this stuff to work. Snail mail, while cheap, isn’t nearly as cheap as email, and this stuff has to show some kind of returns.

Sigh. Where there’s prey, there’s predators.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been doing martial arts for a while; most of my life if you count high school wrestling. I recently switched from Traditional Taekwon-Do to Karate after moving to Phoenix.

One of the things I love about martial arts is how many lessons on life you can draw from it. I had another one of “those” experiences Tuesday night.

Where I train is more than just a Karate dojo- there are three training floors with a bunch of different instructors from different arts; each a real instructor in their art, not just some dude with a black belt in one style, and 3 random classes under his belt in 8 others. A couple weeks ago they started a Mixed Martial Arts program (MMA). Yep, we’re talking Ultimate Fighting Champion! While I like to delude myself into thinking I’m too pretty to fight full contact at the ripe old age of 36, you can attend the class without going to the nose-bursting extreme.

The combination of switching styles and playing with MMA really highlights something about most martial arts. While one goal of sparring is supposed to be a way to simulate a potential real-life fight, most arts end up constrained by whatever rules they decide on for sparring and tournament competition. Problem is that none of those rules exist in the real world.

In TKD you can’t grab or throw, so there are a lot of high kicks and multiple kicks. In Karate you can do basic grabs and throws, so I quickly learned to pull that leg back in darn quick. But in Karate certain kinds of techniques don’t score, even though they could do some damage if they connected. For example, there’s something called a hook kick; I’ve noticed in Karate that the version taught is not a version you’d ever use for real- it’s totally worthless outside a tournament. Because of the rules, most tournament matches are won and lost off a few basic techniques, so that’s what you spend most of your time on in class.

It’s the same for pretty much everything- boxers don’t have to worry about takedowns or kicks. Wrestlers don’t have to worry about getting kneed in the face. No one has to worry about getting kicked in the nads or fighting more than one person at a time. As one of my instructors in Colorado puts it, “any martial art is only as realistic as the last time it was used in combat”.

In nearly every martial art I’ve trained in, the rules for sparring and tournaments have a dramatic influence over the techniques a student learns. Even MMA has rules, and being more of a sport than a specific martial art those rules define how people train, and how you train defines how you will react- be it in the ring or on the street.

Now most of us don’t get into all that many street fights anymore, but this is one of those analogies that easily extends. For example, how many of you, in your day to day job, expect your customers to behave according to the arbitrary rules of your business and become upset when they act differently? A customer/client/john might ask you for something simple outside your normal process, and even if it’s easy, even if it’s beneficial to both of you, even if it doesn’t violate policy, your instinct will be to say no. Why? Because you don’t think you can do it. You’ve allowed arbitrary rules to define your capabilities.

As Rob Tobin, another master instructor (and great friend who died long before his time) once said while we were doing some business together, “don’t make it hard for people to give you money”.

And the worst culprit? Compliance, but I’m not going to talk about that here.

As a martial artist I constantly strive to train according to the rules without letting them limit my capabilities. To be honest, it’s a lot easier to do on the training floor than in my professional and personal lives.

Keep it real.

We’re in the new house and I just fired the Roomba off for the first time. This house is a lot bigger than our last one, and the Roomba was basically roaming the entire first floor.

It’s been running for about 40 minutes now. Within seconds of walking downstairs (I’m working upstairs) it turned, grimaced, and headed straight for my feet. Considering the floorspace involved, the statistical odds of this happening are low. Very low. And that’s not counting the grimace.

We have a lot of tile, and the Scooba is sitting in the garage, waiting for some floor scrubbing action. But I’m worried they’ll team up. I’m even more worried the Scooba will convert its cleaning fluid into a deadly nerve agent.

I’ve been pretty quiet for a couple weeks since we were getting ready for the new house, moving into the new house, and dealing with all the fun new house issues.

The good news is the house is incredible- it’s been amazing to design and build this thing almost from scratch. Nearly everything is exactly the way we want it; it will be a long time before we have to do any kind of upgrading. The community is even better, and one of the main reasons we picked this area. Our neighbors came over this weekend to introduce their kids (to our cats, since we don’t have kids) and they brought cookies. Cookies! How often does that happen anymore?

The bad news is the builder (Toll Brothers) doesn’t quite understand that customer service is still important after someone buys their product and moves in. We had a number of things identified on our last walkthroughs that weren’t completed. Eventually, our construction manager just stopped answering his phone or returning calls. We’re now on warranty, and I’ve submitted our issues, but we’ll see how well they respond.

When I mentioned my exasperation with construction to our neighbors they gave us a knowing grin. Our experiences aren’t unique, and once Toll Brothers gets you into the house their responsiveness drops significantly. It’s too bad; our build experience was great, but last week they drove me to drink. And not in the nice way where I give them my keys. I took almost 2 weeks off work to get the house ready to go, and literally lost days of my vacation waiting around for imaginary service calls. They wasted my time for no good reason than they didn’t have the honesty to tell me they wouldn’t do the work, or would get to it later. That bothers me. A lot.

I won’t bore most of you with the details, but a blog is a good place to record certain experiences for posterity, and it’s the only public outlet I have to express my dissatisfaction with my home provider.

Build experience good. Post-build experience bad. Hopefully it will change, and maybe someone out there will be better prepared when they make the new home plunge.

For the record, from what I hear, no builder is any better.