The Random Thoughts of Louis Schmier

I was bending over one my rose bushes, spraying it with some spray that supposed to fight black spot, when I felt a stab of pain in my finger. Recoiling, I saw this little triangular lance sticking in my skin and tiny red globules forming along the small line it had scratched. As I pulled [...]

Spring has sprung. I’m in the garden feeding, weeding, spraying, mulching, planting, transplanting, designing, admiring. The gallaria, amaryllis, bearded iris, and roses are already beginning to bloom. The echinacea, coreposis, pineapple geranium, tiger lilies, daisies, and stokesia are getting themselves ready to burst open. The rudbekia, regal lilies, and rabbit ears are revitalizing themselves. And, [...]

Spring has sprung. Can’t sleep. This Levaquin is keeping me off the streets and off-balance, and I’ve got a heavy tickle in the back of my throat from a touch of “yellow lung.” That’s what I get from breathing the ochre stained air all day as I played in my bursting flower garden. Spring has [...]

Having a Personal Mission Statement is not about being better than anyone else; it’s about being better, slowly, day by day, inch by inch, than I once was. It’s my power of intention. It’s my inspiration. That is, it’s my energy source that grabs me and carries me along wherever and whenever it wishes without [...]

As I just told Jim Taylor in Portugal, I have come to the conclusion that institutional mission statements don’t turn people into missionaries; the visions of an institutional mission statement doesn’t transform people into visionaries; the purpose expressed in an institutional mission statement doesn’t make people purposeful; the spirit of an institutional mission statement doesn’t [...]

I’ve been sitting in the dark by the fish pond this morning, aching and thinking a tad more than usual. Aching because it was a very, very rough and tough walk. I barely made it. This powerful antibiotic the urologist has put me for the next couple of week is subtley killing me. Better an [...]

I’d like to share a few reflections about personal missions statements over the next couple of day. Let’s start with this one. Let’s be honest. Most institutional mission statements are annouced from “on high” or emerge from the efforts of an institution’s planning process. Institutions, however, don’t have mission statements; people do. Let’s be even [...]

The computer says it’s 5:11 a.m. I had been on the internet answering messages since 3:30. I was too wired to sleep. No walking today. Still feeling some effects of a medical procedure I had yesterday that was looking for the “Big ‘C.’” My cell phone rang about a half hour ago and I just [...]