Tuesday. . . 1st week, 2nd day

Thank You Jesus Christ for Creating The Way of Your Word!

What?

I think I only get to sleep 6 hours now, or less. I tried to crash early last night, but was up again by 1am to chant. I wrote emails and GOT emails after that, so I was all pumped up again when I tried to get into bed. I tried to sleep, but was feeling up close to someone so flew through all the feeling of that . . . it's like a mix between what I know and felt with dreams and visions. It even got into some total fantasy, like I flashed to things I've written, like Shauna's picture . . . the WHOLE picture, not just the piece I posted... lol... then being places and doing things. I remember this one like animation where I knew it was a dream and I was half asleep, but I could still control it and make things happen. Oh, Guess I do that all the time anyway . . . lol. . .

What happened now?

Kathy called. Wow. Heavy stuff. 9.20am already, writing to get some help there. Dave called too about how well the Commercial went over and all the new work they want him to do. . . he needs help too. . . lol. . .

What about class?

Oh yesterday, in Negotiations she had a full room, almost 40 people. Course Dr. Cohen is the only one who read over the Patent Proposal letter I wrote last term. When I got the idea and asked around about it, no one else was around to check my letter. . . Oh so anyway, she has a night class too and I was thinking of going to both so I could get a lot of practice and learn more. Then she told everyone how she added a research paper if anyone wanted to write up something instead of taking the final.

Course she said it was there for Phd Students. . . . and all but asked me to do it, I said I would go over it more and get back with her. . . As I left and started thinking about it more, I realized this was likely exactly what I needed to complete the work I was doing with John. Starting with Spiritual Paradigm concepts I was exploring last year and all the conflicts I exposed in my first paper, I was starting to find last term that the paradigm stuff was a lot more fundamental. Not simply greed and corruption, but a more basic issue.

I told John I wanted to get Adam Smith and Karl Marx stuff to see where it all came from and he told me that was much too fundamental and I'd be better reading certain evaluations of them. But now reading those and feeling out this new class, it seems like we are really talking about the basic frame for a deal...

What do you mean about that, what are you feeling with it now?

It's like if I make a deal with my daughter I have a frame of reference of love and trust and working to help her more than anything. While working with someone else I really have another frame of reference. And I guess when you really look at our entire culture here everything is based on relationships with others where we define each moment, event and transaction based on some frame of reference.

So the greed and corruption I wrote about already is just the current business frame of reference and all the environmental sustainable stuff they are trying to get started is another frame of reference too. Not much different in this case because they are both based on control to create profits which ultimately leads to more greed and corruption . . . hum, so the control and profit is the more fundamental aspect. But still more fundamental to that is the frame of reference that motives everything in between.

What does this have to do with class? you're rambling around in circles again.

I guess the class was about defining the "frame of a deal" and all interactions and relationships are about making a deal. Everyone wants to define the frame and context before they even discuss a relationship, profitable deal or otherwise. Yesterday we did that in class too. She went over some basic concepts and then passed out an example. A seller and a buyer, two pages, each with the background for just one side of a deal.

Then she went through the numbers she had written at the top. Buyer one meet seller one; all the way till everyone was paired off. And then we had 30 minutes to write a deal. Course when I read it they had a base price and an existing price, and simply the buyer was increasing the quantity so needed to negotiate a new price for the increased volume.

Sure I immediately thought the base price meets our costs so that's easy, and give the buyer that and he's got the best deal possible. But I needed to negotiate as high as I could. . . right? It's all about profits and greed, why else would I be taking the class. So I looked at their existing price of 4.20/lb and may base of 3.15/lb... yea so split the difference makes it 3.68. . . that's a good number to target or shoot for. But then I need a first offer higher. So I'll start at 4.00, that gives them a little off and plenty of room over my target to negotiate...

I ended up at 3.73, while the buyer couldn't go over 3.75. . . I really did good, one of the highest in the class. I was surprised there was a 3.30 even. Course I knew the guy who got that deal, he was in one of my other classes. . . lol. . . I know to just stick to the "split the difference" with him, lol. . . Dr. Cohen said everyday we would do this with different techniques and different conditions. She said coming back with no deal is better than losing. But in her database for the class she had an average, standard deviation, a high of 3.75 and a low of 3.1 which was a big no-no. Saying again that it's ok to return in 30 minutes with no deal but the 3.1 with a loss was no good.

It was kinda cool. the 3.73 I got was about 2.5 SD over the mean. So I was almost embarrassed to be pushing such a hard deal. . .

What did you learn?

I guess what I realized was how it went in the deal. Like I goofed around talking and being polite before we started. Said how I never do this since moving rivers can go from 1000 to 100,000 in a flash. Like replacing a weir or building a new pond can change the costs in a second. lol. . . Guess as we sat upside under a tree to talk our deal I actually said how a Grandfather Oak could change the deal in a flash. Make an estimate for a site, but then you can't remove one tree and the whole site plan has to change doubling or tripling the costs.

What were you feeling?

I felt someone close I know who deals with this all the time. Like I could just say $x/hr and that was it. People I worked with knew me and trusted I could do anything. I guess all my clients know I can do anything or I wouldn't offer to do it at all. No commitment or guarantees but most everyone who hires me knew it was my terms or no job. Which usually meant no project for them at all. . . lol. . . guess I had a slight advantage there.

What now?

I know I need to update my fee schedules again. . .lol. . .

I Love You Dearest Loving Lord Jesus Christ.