Jamie Thingelstad

• 7:07a Depart home
• 7:24a Fill Mazda CX-9 with gas
• 12:03p Lunch at Archie’s Flat Top in Milwaukee: Triple Cheeseburgers for Tyler and Dad. 4 oz patties. Triple patties were a mistake. Brilliant French fries.
• Mazie and Dad had Scratch Ice Cream (Raspberry White Chocolate Chip, Door County Cherry).
• Carrie’s Crispies for awesome unique Rice Krispie bars (Original, Pretzel White Chocolate, Peanut Butter Cup, S’mores).
• Milwaukee Public Museum. Particularly enjoyed Old Streets of Milwaukee.
• Checked in at Saint Kate Art Hotel.
• Dinner at SafeHouse.
• Champagne and shopping in hotel lobby.

Jump to day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or collection.

First museum stop was the Milwaukee Public Museum. We had a fun time exploring the European Village, Butterfly Wing, Streets of Old Milwaukee, Third Planet, Rainforest, North America, and much more.

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.

Tammy loves Rice Krispie bars so when we passed Carrie’s Crispies we had to stop! We tried Original, Pretzel White Chocolate, Peanut Butter Cup, and S’mores. They were all fabulous!

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.

After arriving in Milwaukee it was time for lunch at Archie’s Flat Top. We are always game for a great cheeseburger. Tyler and I opted for a triple not realizing that they were 4 oz patties. The three pancake size patties were all I could handle! 🍔

Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.

Quinn, Tyler, and I went to the Minnesota United friendly versus St. Patricks Athletic FC. The combination of a friendly and cold weather resulted in the lowest attendance I’ve seen at Allianz Field. The United won and we got to sing Wonderwall for Quinn’s first professional soccer game.

Picked up new Tesla Model Y today.

Also see list of vehicles.

Pi Day 2024 cocktail: Shut Your Pie Hole.

See Pi Day Collection.

Tammy’s π Day 2024 creations: Bumble Berry, Bailey’s Irish Cream Pie, Spinach Pie, Broccoli Cheddar Pie.

See Pi Day Collection.

We had a great π day celebration with TeamSPS today! Many pies and some great Pi Day shirts too!

See Pi Day Collection.

I’ve met Matt Norman a few times. He is an incredibly outgoing, generous, and nice person that happily shares his insights with others. When he asked me if I would like an early read of his new book Lead With Influence I said yes right away.

Influence is an important topic, particularly in modern organizations that go far beyond a simple hierarchal view of the organization. To get things done, regardless of title and position, you need to influence people and sell them on your ideas. Knowledge work doesn’t happen because you tell someone to do it. Cross-functional teams are the norm and require influence to align around their objectives and achieve success. So, how do you achieve this influence?

This is where Norman’s book comes in. He walks the reader through all of the components of creating influence. He includes many resources in the form of different checklists and mental models to help the reader work through creating influence on their own. This is a book that could easily come with worksheets (or make your own) to help you create a strong case for what you are working to influence in any given situation.

I would recommend this book to knowledge workers that find themselves working in cross-functional teams toward a goal (isn’t this all knowledge workers?). The book is approachable by anyone in business even if you have very little training or experience in these topics.

Here is the table of contents so you can get a feel for the book.

PART ONE — Position: Setting the Table for Influence

1. Prioritize Availability over Productivity
2. Build both Predictive and Vulnerability-Based Trust
3. Pay Attention to the Little Things
4. Be like a Salmon
5. Use Value Language
6. Talk like a Palace Builder

PART TWO — Probe: Facilitating New Ways of Thinking

7. Explore the Four Parts of Human Thinking That Drive Influence
8. Develop the Art of Facilitation
9. Summarize Regularly

PART THREE — Propose: Making Your Ideas Known

10. Explain in a Way That Will Resonate
11. It’s Not Just What You Say, but How You Say It

PART FOUR — Persuade: Managing Resistance and Tension

12. Be a Nonanxious Presence
13. Respond instead of Reacting
14. Persuade through Pushback
15. Consider Whom You’re Trying to Change

PART FIVE — Institutionalizing Leadership Influence

16. Coaching for Improved Performance
17. Reinforcing Thought and Communication Patterns
18. The Culture of Influence
19. Conclusions About Leading With Influence

Hanging out with my Cousin Josh the last couple of days brought many stories and remembrances of the farm. Many stories of Grandpa Ardell and Grandma Rose. Typically the stories of Grandpa ended with boisterous laughter and those of Grandma reflected on how kind and generous she was.

They have both been gone for a bit now but their memories are strong in the hearts of their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids.

“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” — Banksy (link)

Grandpa and Grandma, your names will be spoken for several decades to come. We miss you.

This picture of Grandpa having lunch in the field over a pickup with my Uncle Tim has been showing up on my Aura Frame lately. It makes me smile. I remember Grandpa out in the fields. His overalls dirty. He was a John Deere man. His personality was as big as those fields he farmed.

Related: Ardell & Rose Chrest's 50th Anniversary.

I’m a fan of Micro.blog for hosting my website. For me it is a great mix of ease-of-use and powerful capabilities. Manton and team have done a great job enhancing and improving it over the years. However, Uploads is one part of the service that I stumble with and routinely wish it had additional capabilities.

Here is my wish list for Uploads:

• Search by Name: very simply I want to be able to search my uploaded files by name. The use case here is an upload that I found in a blog post and no longer am using. I want to search for it and delete it. Nothing fancy, just basic search by the filename.
• Navigate by Folders: Micro.blog stores uploads in a folder structure using dates. I’d like to be able to navigate via that structure instead of just seeing one massive tile group in chronological order.
• Replace Upload: This would be a big one. Sometimes I want to tweak a photo and replace it. Or I find an old blog post with a small image and I’d like to update it with a better picture. I’d love to easily replace the image without changing the URL.
• Orphaned Uploads: This is an intensive task on the server for sure, but for a variety of reasons related to how importing worked, I realized my blog has hundreds of uploads that are not used. I’d love for Micro.blog to find these orphaned uploads and offer me the ability to delete them individual or in bulk.

I can’t decide if Duplicate Uploads would be a win too. It feels similar to Orphaned Uploads as a bulk task that would run weekly or monthly and prompt the user to do some cleaning up.

These features aren’t gaps for normal day-to-day posting. They mostly show up when I’m doing blog gardening. But having them would be a great add to Micro.blog.

Enjoying cigars around the fire with my cousins Josh and Quinn along with Kurt and Dylan.

Made my first visit to Stogies on Grand in St. Paul to get some cigars for tonight. Great selection and a nice walk-in-humidor. They have a lounge where you can stay and smoke if you purchase the cigar there.

In recognition of International Women’s Day continuing my commitment to empowering all women, particularly in technology and leadership. #IWD2024 #InspireInclusion

See IWD 2024, 2021, 2020, 2020 @ SPS, and 2018.

Fun night out seeing Gaelic Storm and The High Kings at the Pantages with my cousin Josh and his wife Dawn. Dinner at The Local before. Full Irish experience. 🇮🇪