Why?

Adventures of a Modern Day, Middle-Aged Hero, on the Glory Road(to family security)

3.06.2011

Attention to Detail

One of the things that is repeatedly beat into your head in the Navy is 'Attention to Detail'.  It's what most of boot-camp is about. It's why they train you to make you bed with goofy 'Hospital corners, and fold your t-shirts and pants in a very counter-intuitive manner...they want you to learn how to focus on a procedure and follow it perfectly...attention to detail.

Being a gun owner has just strengthened that in me...no one wants to be the chuckle head at the rang who has an accident because he accidentally found a way to put .380 ammo in a 9mm...checking head stamps is a good example of attention to detail  When I'm taking a gun apart for cleaning, and some little spring goes all 'sproing'...remembering where that spring went, after I find it, is another good example.

Yesterday though, I had a big fail on the whole 'attention to detail' thing.  I was trying to make a high-speed run through Safeway, and one of the things on my list was milk.  At Safeway, the brands of milk I usually buy have similar color-coding.  Red writing is whole milk, 2%(my preferred) is blue script, 1% is yellow script, and then skim(the enemy) is a lighter blue than 2%.  Well...I of course grabbed the wrong color blue, and didn't realize it was the wrong milk until I got home, and saw the cap on top said 'Fat Free'. 

The kid, bless their hearts, don't seem to know the difference yet.

Guess I'm stuck drinking tea or coffee with breakfast for the next few days...luckily, I have some left-over heavy cream in the fridge from my scones I made yesterday...not sure what skim milk would do in a cup of tea or coffee...

3 comments:

  1. You have real cream and you even countenance milk in your coffee? I cannot wrap my mind around that one (though I do use milk when it's all I've got).

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  2. Truth be told, I am usually a flavored creamer in the coffee kind of guy...I prefer tea...coffee is just an occasionally convenient, cheap caffeine delivery system.

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  3. My motto - one at which I fail, frequently, is PAY ATTENTION. Very much a corollary to your 'attention to detail'. For me, it's about letting my mind wander. It's too little to be out by itself.

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