What’s scarier: unexpected turbulence or turbulence announced before it strikes? That the latter will be severe is suggested by the fact that cockpit instruments could measure it and that the pilot considered it worthy of mention. If the former is severe, one wonders why an announcement beforehand wasn’t made, i.e. what sort of undetectable air pressure system anomaly is this?!

Bed & Breakfast with eggs benedict in the morning. Average quality.

The wind was strong on base, maybe 25 mph. It howled through a crack in the door for the duration of the charrette’s first day.

Attendance: approx. 20.
Equipment: projector and screen, nearly as many laptops as people.

There was a lot of talking. The attitude was positive, with light laughter occasionally elicited when PG-rated humor colored the discussion.

Two people were flown up from Seattle to perform value engineering and be facilitators. It became clear to me that their presence was hardly necessary.

Notable examples of the emptiness of their function:

1. The enthusiastic outburst by one “That’s an action item!” followed by their jumping over to a large presentation-style paper-leafed tablet to write down something in big letters.

2. The outsider-status-betraying and seemingly verbatim extract from a course text on facilitation tips “Do we need to make an assumption in order to move forward?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if half of the justification for their contracted hire was that it reflects well on the project manager. Still, maybe it’s worthwhile to have a charrette organized and led by a semi-independent 3rd party. I don’t really know, and I don’t really care.