When it comes to video editing, this one directly below is about as simple as it gets.  I snipped off a few seconds on each end, and I added a fade to black transition to the end.  At the time I captured the clip, I was so captivated by his teeny tiny little face that I could articulate in my mind was the title words of the song you hear in the background.  It just played in my head over and over and over and over again as I sat, mesmerized by him.
All credit and recognition goes to Mel Brooks and the production of 'The Producers' on the song.

I'm somewhat disappointed in myself that I haven't taken to the entire video capture, edit, and publishing routine as much as I wanted to, or I thought I would.  The fact is, it's not that easy.  First of all, it takes a lot of time.  I really need to get into a habit of making videos so that I can remember to use the software well.  It's been so long since I touched iMovie, that I even forgot how to insert a break into a clip.  <command>+B.

This video directly below I'm still very proud of.  And that reminds me why I might not be diving head first into creating video content like I thought I would: I have the curse of being a perfectionist.
It haunts most everything I touch or create.  I can't stand to write sloppy emails; eat lukewarm, improperly seasoned food; and have a comfortable environment in which to blog.  On that last point, I have to have a very specific kind of environment or else I feel like I can't get any flow.  Oh! - and I almost forgot about blackjack tables.  The positions of the persons already seated, the demeanor of the dealer, and the proficiency of the players - all those factors must be as perfect as possible or I won't join a table.
And final though on the video below, even after initially getting ~90% of the video done, that last 10% to "perfect" it, took as much work and time and revisits as the first 90%.  It's sort of crazy how hard it is to make good video content.

I originally posted the video in this post from last year: Kim's Little Round Crab Cakes

Here's to me raising a glass all by myself to finding some focus on my video editing skills in 2016.

I've decided that EVERYBODY is a control freak in their own special way.

They are out there somewhere.  There is a control freak out there to match your level of control freakyness.  You might not find them, but there are at least a few hundred possible control freaks out there in this world of ~6,000,000,000 people for you.

When I was a kid who watched way too much television because that was the way it was, I used to see jokes about Barbara Streisand being a control freak.  But she was still successful.  She still got work.  She still works today.  And people like her.  And now as an adult I see so many examples of it all around, from everyone.

Growing up in high school I had a friend named Chip in a small circle of friends.  His house was very, very, very unique and special in two ways.  His parents seemed like they were never around.  When you went over there, you stepped into an episode of Hoarders.  It was all so completely fascinating, but I didn't know what was going on.  I didn't have the words to describe why an ash tray had a hundred cigarette butts in it.  And why the rest of the house looked like it did with stacks of newspapers and magazines EVERYWHERE.  I just observed and remembered.  And the second special quality of Chip's house was that he had one of those 16ft satellite dishes in his back yard.  I'm talking like mini-NASA shit going on.  It was massive.  It was probably the infancy of the DirecTV and Dish Network services.  Anyways, he could bring up a channel called American Triple Exxxstasy.  It might have been called American Exxxstacy.  But whenever they announced themselves, they always said the words ‘American triple ecstasy’ and spelled ecstasy like exxxstacy.  It was very clever to a teenage boy.  Anyway, it was exactly what you think it was.  It was full monty hard core porn.  No commercials except to advertise their own shows and programming.  You can imagine what it was like as a teenage boy having access to content like that.  It was pretty damn amazing.  My point is that somehow Chip's parents were probably dysfunctional control freak hoarders who found each other and they were getting by for the most part.

There is the much talked about Steve Jobs.  He found Laurene Powell.  He was the ultimate control freak in the modern business world.  Closed ecosystem of hardware and software he built.  Ultimate secrecy in product development.  Apple the mega-corporporation is him in his afterlife.  He abolished the corporate giving program.  He fired almost the entire Board of Directors upon his return to Apple.  They make their own phone CPUs.  What the hell kind of control freak makes their own CPUs in this day and age?  The people at Apple do, and they are the most valuable company in the world.

Directors are total control freaks just by the fact of their title and role in movie making.  Granted, Joel Silver is more of a Producer, but he teamed up with Jerry Bruckheimer who had a compatible vision of control freakyness.  I saw an interview with him where he said he couldn't even watch his own movies.  It's because all he sees are the mistakes.  Teenie tiny little mistakes that no one notices except the other control freak movie watchers out there.  I don't know about his personal life, but he's probably had at least one wife who he got along with for a while.  Or he might have found his true love long ago who he has been with forever.  I guarantee that his wife has a very special level of control freakyness that works for them.

Everyone has a manager of some kind.  The manager titles are all different, but there is someone who you report to.  Everyone's got a boss.  I would bet anyone a shiny wooden nickel that your day-to-day happyness at work is directly reflective of how much you want to be controlled by your boss versus how much he/she wants to control you.  And if you are not compatible, one of you (probably the one being managed) won't be there too long.  Anecdotally speaking, most people, given a certain level of proficiency and professionalism in their job will stay where they are unless they have an over controlling, shitty boss.  But that shittyness is also, from the perspective of the boss, a shitty employee who won't cooperate.  Find a boss whose control freak ways matches your level of control freakyness and you will have a happy existence at work.

Doctors always provide for great stories.  What about the classic generic story of the maniacal control freak surgeon who lays down extreme verbal lashings to his surgical team who can't give him the tools he needs when he needs them.  The surgeon has the responsibility of a human cut wide open in front of him, bleeding all over the place so he has a right to flip out.  Most surgeons are in relationships, regardless of what kind of batshit crazy control freak god complex they might have.

Got a pet?  Love your pet?  Or don't want a pet because you can't stand the idea of an uncontrollable house pet?  Try controlling their bowels from flying out when the smoke detector won't shut off no matter how many windows you open.  Don't even start thinking about the uncontrollable barking.  But even control freaks have pets they love unconditionally.

Children.  As of this writing, I don't have a child.  But I have a feeling I will have one by the end of this week.  And it's going to be a massive test of every fiber of my existence as a control freak.  But as much as I am living in an internalized mini-crisis of my own on his pending arrival, I have faith that somehow my wife and I will figure out how to make our control freak ways work in the world of a newborn who has his own ideas on how to control his new environment.

Remember Leo as a child getting bathed by his mom in a very, very, very weird way at the start of ‘The Aviator’?  That mom was an OCD control freak who managed to find someone with whom to reproduce and make Howard Hughes.  And of course he turned into a total control freak.

Which finally brings me to the end.  There is the ultimate exchange in levels of control freakyness: MARRIAGE. 
I advise you to find a spouse whose level of control freakyness matches your own, and you will have a happy marriage that lasts until one of you dies; or until both of you die simultaneously; or until your ways of controlling yourself or your spouse changes, and your control freak compatibility goes down the toilet forever in divorce. 

I should make an app that matches people based on how compatible their control freakyness is.

And so I end the way I started.  Never fear for there is a control freak out there for you who matches your style of control freakyness.  It is a simple task.  But it doesn't mean it's easy.  It will probably take a lot of work, and you may never find that person.  But they are out there someone in the ether. 

I read REMOTE last year.  It was a very interesting read.  It goes through, point by point, and explains why showing up at an office every single day as an information worker in 2016 is sort of stupid.  It can be dumb, stupid, lame, unnecessary, and wasteful.  And stupid.  It's an out-dated way of getting results.  What it stresses is that the only true way to measure productivity, if your type of work allows it, is to measure your results.  That's it.

It's that simple.  And simple doesn't necessarily mean that it's easy.  There are plenty of pitfalls on the way to remotely working in todays information age.  People are still people and we need a sense of connection.  There are all kinds of nasty human traits that might bubble up if you don't keep yourself in check: depression, jealousy, alcoholism, loneliness, overeating, etc.  You'll no longer be getting that ever necessary human connection via face-to-face communication.  But there are so many ways to make contact nowadays with your co-workers and keep your spirits up: video conferencing (super cheap to do nowadays via Skype for Business, or BlueJeans Network, or FaceTime), Instant Messaging, SMS, and of course good old-fashioned phone calls.  

Personally, I find that if I am in the office, I make less of an effort to interact with people.  I figure, well, I'm here.  So if you need something from me, come on over.  And I'll do the same with you.  But when I am working remotely, I tend to reach out regularly via some sort of interactive channel like IM, or SMS just to say 'hi'.  I'll even pick up the phone and call people.  I am at home and not in a cube farm, so I have a sense of privacy which is really nice.  I don't use email so much because there isn't as much of a sense of immediacy to it.

Anyway, it's a quick, easy read.  Lots of good pointers on how to manage a distributed workforce.  I highly recommend reading it if you regularly work from home, or are a full time WFH person.