One of my heroes in this life is a guy who is exactly my age, and a behind-the-scenes political power in this state. No one has won the Democratic nomination for Governor in the last 20 years without his support. They could, they just haven't.

(One time we had a lunch appointment. He called at 10 and said he had to go to San Francisco, we could either have lunch the following week or let 'em feed us on the plane. We'd be back by 6 that evening. I flew to San Francisco and back with him.)

I had just told him about a program I had instituted. He insisted on taking a morning and went through the facility, talked with the people, poked, prodded, and on the way back to his office we had lunch. I asked why he wanted to see the program, his involvement was negligible or peripheral, if anything.

He said, "When someone comes along with an A or A+ idea, it's nice to see how close to C or C+ it can get."

I gulped, asked how close we had come. "B, maybe B+. Could get better, see how it works."

I learned from that to not believe the hype. It indicates enthusiasm, not necessarily performance.

Once we had all advocated participation in a project. He vetoed that. It developed there was an unforeseen consequence to that situation, and it had wound up just costing money for those who were in it.

I complimented him. He replied, "When everyone is looking left, maybe someone needs to look right."

The hype is the hype. It's fun, it's interesting, it's not necessarily what happens.

Arf