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Kristen and I visited Alcatraz Island last weekend while we were in San Francisco. I visited the site about fifteen years ago as a Junior High School student, but Kristen had never been.

If you haven’t heard of Alcatraz, it is an island just a little over a mile from land in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. It was a military camp at one time, and later used as a prison for high risk prisoners such as Al Capone. The creepy part is that you can see the island very clearly from the various wharfs and piers that jut out into the bay.

Alcatraz Island as Seen From Pier 41

The only way to tour the island is to take a tour boat (tickets were maybe $15 per person). Once on the island, there are guided tours, and a self-guided tour with a walkman that explains the various parts of the island in the words of guards and former inmates. We took the self-guided audio tour, and spent about two hours on the island.

Travelling to Alcatraz Island by Boat

As the boat pulled up to the island, a few things become evident. First, the sign forbidding aiding criminals from escaping.

Don’t Help Prisoners Escape!

Second, the fortress like quality of the buildings. The first picture is a view of the island as we drew closer — the building on the left is the actual prison. The second picture is a building that was primarily used as a military defense building and included bays for cannons that defended the bay from enemies. Later this building was used as living quarters for the staff and guards that managed the island.

Drawing Close to Alcatraz Island

Military Fortress on Alcatraz Island

Third, we noticed how “near” the city appeared - and thought how hard it must have been to know that the free world was moving on without you if you were a prisoner on this island. In the audio tour, a few of the prisoners remarked that they could hear the parties from time to time, and especially heard the revelry on New Year’s Eve.

View of the City of San Francisco from Alcatraz Island

Once inside the actual Alcatraz Federal Prison, I was amazed at how small the cells were, and how much time the prisoners had to spend in their cells. If a prisoner was on good behavior, they would spend 18 hours of each day in their cells. If they weren’t on their best behavior, they’d spend 23 hours in their cells. The really difficult prisoners would spend 24 hours a day in solitary confinement.

A Typical Prison Cell at Alcatraz Island

A Solitary Confinement Cell at Alcatraz Island

The solitary confinement cells were the same size as the standard prison cells, but had an extra door that would block all light into the cell. I stood inside one of the cells, and was amazed at how dark it really was. If I had been forced to spend a few days like that, I’m quite sure I’d never act up again! But I guess that’s the point, isn’t it?

Overall, the visit to Alcatraz Island was very interesting. I’d highly recommend you take the time to visit the island when you are next in the San Francisco area.

Passage to the Prison Basement

Passage to the Prison Basement

Cell Block as Seen From the Recreation Yard

Golden Gate Bridge and Recreation Yard

Leaving Alcatraz Island

I just returned from a business trip to SoCal this evening. It was a short trip, just overnight, but I was surprised how much it wiped me out. I’ve been running around the house trying to catch up on the various tasks that I had to neglect between vacationing for four days and then being away on business for two. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up by this weekend.

In other news, I’m hoping to start my new job on June 27th. I had initially hoped to start sooner, but it appears the company I’ll be joining has a few hoops they need to jump through before they can bring me aboard. Oh well. It’s out of my hands at this point.

Kristen and I just got back from a great trip to San Francisco. I’ll blog more about it tomorrow, and maybe with some luck I’ll get pictures up before the end of the week.

Cheesiest thing anyone said to me: “What was Forrest’s last name?” (@ Bubba Gump’s Restaurant as the waitress quizzed us on our Forrest Gump trivia knowledge)

After almost a week of no Internet access, I’m finally back online as of Wednesday night. The funny thing is that just before Kristen and I left for dinner I checked, and there were no wireless connections to be found. Just before we left, the power went out at our house. Not to be deterred from devouring my spicy tuna roll, we left the house before power came back on. When we came home, power had been restored, and magically, my PC jumped online when it found a wireless connection!

The only thing I can figure is that the owner of this router didn’t realize that he had Internet problems. Or if he did, he had no idea that they could be related to the router. My best guess is that the router froze and the power outage forced it to reboot and cleared everything up.

Now I just need to get a PG&E outfit so I can “reboot” the condo’s around me when this happens again.

On the otherhand, a week without Internet access proved almost unbearable. So I’m in the process of ordering DSL so that I’ll have someone to yell at the next time things go haywire.

I guess the saying really holds, “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.” I’ve been without Internet access now since late Friday, and I’m going nuts! It’s amazing what a necessity it has become for me.

As far as I can figure, the neighbor that was so graciously sharing their Internet with me wirelessly has moved on. Their signal is nowhere to be found. I’m in the process of ordering DSL, but I imagine it will be a couple of weeks at least before I’ll be online regularly again. Sigh.

So as my earlier post indicated, I rented Anchorman to distract me from the drippy faucet that has replaced my nose… and even with low expectations, walked away wanting much more. I think the concept of a chauvinistic 70s anchorman learning that his world is changing was good, but the film makers executed on the idea quite poorly.

If only they could ’stay classy’ they might have redeemed the film.

I’ve been fighting a cold all week… and to be honest, I feel I’m losing the battle today. Swung by the store and picked up some cough medicine, some cookie-dough ice cream and Anchorman. If that’s not a recipe for good health come tomorrow morning, I don’t know what is! Ha!

In the Biggs Interview* in this week’s edition of LeadershipWired, a few keys to making successful hires were outlined that I’d like to summarize here:

1. Does the candidate have a good value system?
2. Is the candidate a lifelong learner?
3. Does the candidate have good work habits?
4. Does the candidate have a positive attitude?

While these seem intuitive, in an interview it can be a challenge to discern the answers to these questions. However I think they are an excellent start to evaluating a potential hire.

Another metric I’ve seen advocated that addresses many of the same issues is the Three C’s approach: Character, Competence, and Chemistry. Character speaks to a good value system, and good work habits. Competence can only be maintained if the candidate is willing to learn over a lifetime and with good work habits. Chemistry will erode without a positive attitude.

I think there is value in both metrics, and these four questions give some good practical direction to evaluating the Three C’s of a candidate.

*Used by permission from Dr. John C. Maxwell’s free e-newsletter ‘Leadership Wired’ available at www.maximumimpact.com

Richard Biggs, author of Burn Brightly without Burning Out outlines five key steps to making wise decisions I consider worth passing on. For the record, this is adapted from an interview provided by LeadershipWired*.

1. Give careful consideration to all the facts and options.
2. Pay attention to your heart, intuition and gut feeling.
3. Once you make a decision, don’t second guess yourself.
4. Act with the knowledge that you’ll probably make more good choices than bad ones in a lifetime.
5. Anticipate success, but don’t be afraid to fail.

Each of these was a great reminder for me. I’d add that I believe there is a spiritual component to step 2 — that is “Seek God’s Direction.” While I believe God doesn’t always give specific direction in every circumstance, when He does I want to be in line with the direction He’s heading.

One other think Biggs said in the interview I find worth repeating was “Don’t let the past completely paralyze you.” It’s all to easy to think that since we failed at something long ago we’ll never succeed at it. I’m not sure why this is, but I know it does seem to show up in my life from time to time.

*Used by permission from Dr. John C. Maxwell’s free e-newsletter ‘Leadership Wired’ available at www.maximumimpact.com

I came across these three links in Fast Company of Blogs worth reading:

1. Found in the Footnotes
2. Marketing at Microsoft
3. Decent Marketing

I haven’t looked at them yet, but I didn’t want to lose track of them before I had a chance to check them out. If you happen to see them before I do, let me know what you think!