Memorial Day

Most of this holiday will be spent enjoying a beautiful spring day with my family. However, I am taking a moment or two or three remembering those who died or were injured in war.

I am lucky. I did not have to go to war. The draft lottery was still on but I had a high number and anyway the draft was not being used by the late 1970’s. I am even luckier in that I do not even know anyone or the family of anyone killed or injured in the wars in Afganistan or Iraq.

In some ways “being lucky”  makes the body counts heard on the news every day less personal, less meaningful. Yes, I would like it to stop. Personnally I am with those that believe there is no good the US can do in Iraq. Today, however is not about politics. It is about people.

The Chicago Tribune had a story about the impact of soldiers’ deaths on the remaining families. As with all good reporting the story focused on one family while sharing the larger statistics. This death broke the family apart. I can imagine this happens far more than we would like to think –or think about.

Take a moment or two.

Dilbert Stole My Idea

OK. This needs some explanation, a willingness to follow some circumstantial evidence and a leap of faith.

It all started on May 12. Based on frustrations at work I had penned I was a Living Dilbert Cartoon. The post immediately prior was Head Exploding.

Three days later Frank at KnowHR referenced my Dilbert post in his We Put The “Cult” In Culture. If you click on this link you will see that Scott Adams himself left a message indicating that he would read my post. While Scott left no message here at 48Facets, I am sure he read this blog and chuckled if not outright guffawed.

On May 25, the Dilbert above appears. OK. The punchline is not mine but what about the whole exploding head thing.

I find Scott Adams to be a genius at capturing the dark realities of the workplace in an amazingly funny way. I am honored just to believe that I might have contributed to a strip– regardless of the lack of direct evidence. Now I will be watching to see if he uses my Dilbert like story line. That would be tres cool.

Scott. Mr. Adams. If you are out there. Show give me a sign.

50 + 50 = Priceless

Fifty plus fifty does not always equal 100. Not when you are contemplating the lives of Lorin and Lesley. These identical twins recently celebrated 50 years each of livening up the planet. That is priceless.

These two are as close as sisters can be. The love they share make many of the rest of us jealous that we do not have a twin in our lives. And yes they are very much alike. The look alike. It took me awhile to know which one I was speaking to– much to their pleasure. They talk alike. I mean not only do they sound similar they TALK. English, French, Italian, no matter the language it is hard to get a word in edgewise. I experienced Lorin before Lesley and at first the whirlwind nature of the encounter was tough to take. I learned to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Eventually, I discovered that dialogue existed for the patient. And it was interesting and excited  and personal. All the things I look for in a conversation.

They go a mile a minute. Few people, other than my wife, can keep up. It is through my wife that I became friends with the two of them. Lorin was a college roommate of my wife.  The sisters keep in touch with each other several times a day even though Lorin is in Chicago and Lesley lives in Rome.

For all there similarities they are not exactly the same. Sure there are subtle physical differences but I am not referring to appearance. Lesley is the consummate marketer and entrepreneur. She moves from one endeavor to another with astonishing ease. Lorin has been a French teacher at a private school for many years. Beyond just teaching, she has established a niche that has her on the speaking circuit all over the world.

The same yet different. Different and yet the same. Somehow one and more than two all at the same time. I have had the pleasure of being in their circles for only a decade or so. I would not have missed the experience for anything.

Happy Birthday! Priceless!

Pigs on Junk Food

I am referring to actual brutes as opposed to human gluttons. Apparently, given the high price of corn, pigs and cattle are being fed all sorts of fattening foods. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, these animals are beeing fed trail mix, cookies, licorice, CHEESE CURLS, french fries and peanut butter cups. Sometimes this mixture is mixed with chocolate powder. Yum.

These “foods” have replaced the traditional meal of corn, soybean meal, fat and vitamins. The feeders only seem to care about getting weight on the animals at as low a cost as possible. I don’t completely blame them. I am sure that raising livestock is a tough business.

On the other hand, I have got to believe that this trend cannot be good for those of us who consume these consumers of junk food. I have enough extra weight and high cholesterol from the junk food I intake directly. I gotta believe that beef and pork are less nutritious when the animals eat more cookies than I do.

Where are the Douglas’ of Green Acres when you need them?

Eye of the Beholder

Beauty they say is in the eye of the beholder. Some prefer brunettes over blondes, some prefer abstract paintings over classics, or the poetry of a great basketball team over a golf swing. You get the picture.

The same holds true for blog posts. The topics and/or writing style that pleases the senses of one may be of little interest to another.  As I was discussing the rather modest readership of this blog as compared to that of some of my friends’creations, one of my readers surmised that writing about my bike rides, as personally important as they might be, may not be as interesting as other blogger’s topics. Almost any other blogger.

Once I realized that withholding sex would hurt me as much as this reader, I decided that punishing the messenger is not helpful. So instead, I am looking for more feedback. If all 3 of you that read this regularly blog along with the 25 or so that check in occasionally would share your thoughts about what you like best it would be much appreciated.

I am a person who likes feedback. However, since I follow my own path, I often don’t use the advice I get but I like to hear it anyway. So fire away.

A Tough 35

I have this dream, fueled by memories from not so long ago, that I am biking on a sunny day with the temps in the low 70s. I am more than half way through my planned 50 mile ride when due to an adrenaline rush caused by the beautiful weather and legs that still feel strong, I turn from my typical north/south route and head west adding 10 miles to the total. Awhile later I am pushing the last mile feeling tired but in that good I accomplished something today kind of way. I get home, shower, and my family and I head for a picnic where I play with my son for awhile and then doze off with the warm sun on my face.

Yesterday the temps hit 80 but I was too busy to ride. Anyway, I reserve Sunday mornings for this pleasure. Today was in the 40s with a strong wind in my face for the first 18 miles and the last 2. It was overcast and the gods decided to drop some rain on me from time to time.

Some days I ride for the pure pleasure of riding. Other days I ride so that I will be in shape to enjoy the former. Today was such a day.

Mother’s Day was Sunday

Mother’s Day can be, how to best say it, an interesting day. My wife has had high expectations that her loving son and husband will demonstrate their love on this day. The expectations early in our life together had been, how best to say it, challenging to meet. For many years it was up to me to meet them given that a young child can not go and buy presents on his own and will rarely be good at planning the day or making brunch reservations. Success in meeting those expectations was, how best to say it, rare. But that was then.

This year my wife asked us to plan a fun day, make a card and buy something that my son picks out.  (All his life he has had better taste in gifts for his mom than I have.) We even got off easy on the gift since there was a dress she had fallen in love with that we eagerly purchased. 

Extremely reasonable expectations this year by any standards. And yet, leaving the responsibility in the hands of a 16 year old boy can test the most patient father –whoever that may be since it is no longer me. Somehow we not only survived but thrived.

Much of the day was spend on bikes. First riding to a new place for breakfast. Then an attempt to ride downtown, cut short when one of us was less than enthusiastic. Some miniature golf and batting cages followed by stuffed spinach pizza for dinner. Then the piece de resistance!

My son came through with a beautifully written card. It included a picture of his mother and him when he was about 3. Tears of joy. Then more tears of joy when we unveiled last year’s photo montage that apparently we never got around to sharing with her. A fine end to a lovely day.

Several days later I finally learn to download picture from my digital camera–yes it was incredibly easy– and here we are. Below is my son being a teenager on our ride.

She’s Baaack

My friend S who suffered a head injury is recovering well. In fact I spoke to her today and she is back to work and sounding like her old (well she did just turn 40) self. 

There is such a fine line between disaster and a temporary inconvenience. I always wonder why it goes well for some and not for others. S will have a great story to tell the rest of her life but it could have been different. There are hoards of people happy that this one went her way.

The Onion:Tears of Joy

One of the great side benefits of going to Austin was reconnecting with The Onion. The print version provides the front end of a free paper that also includes local culture and entertainment listings.

I forgot how enjoyable well written, biting satire can be. The writers are outstanding. The hits are uproarious and the misses few. My fav title from the two issues I read was “Even CEO Can’t Figure Out How Radioshack Still In Business”. The article brought more tears than chopping a Vidalia ever did.

Sometimes satire can hit close to home. An article titled “Area Woman’s Day Ruined By Bangs” brought a smile to my wife even as she recognized a bit of herself in the story. Before I could rub it in she pointed out “If Someone Wanted To Publish My Blog Entries For Money, I Wouldn’t Say No”. Ouch.

Whether in print, online or in podcast, check in on The Onion from time to time. I should only become so clever– then maybe someone would pay me to do this.

 PS For those of you who want to better understand why chopping onions brings tears, this is from Wikipedia

“As onions are sliced, cells are broken, allowing enzymes called alliinases to break down sulfides and generate sulfenic acids (amino acid sulfoxides). Sulphenic acids are unstable and decompose into a volatile gas called syn-propanethial-S-oxide. The gas dissipates through the air and eventually reaches the eye, where it reacts with the water to form a dilute solution of sulfuric acid. This acid irritates the nerve endings in the eye, making them sting. Tear glands produce tears to dilute and flush out the irritant.^“

I was a Living Dilbert Cartoon

Twice this week. First, I was told I had to write a proposal for a piece of work we could not win. This has been a 4 man day effort so far and will eat up more time next week. The sales guy agrees with my logic that we cannot win since in this one niche area we are far less qualified than other companies.

Yet… how can we not, says he. This is a big important company. The story goes on and on over several days. The sales guy gets other people to agree with him. None of these people are going to be putting in any time writing this thing. So now, if I refuse I am branded as uncooperative and will be shut off from other sales opportunities. Several days of my life will be spent being unproductive when I have actual revenue generating work to do instead.

The very next day even more fun ensued. The Admin Assistant that reports to me (lets call her Madame X) transfers to another department. Mind you she is not my AA but since she had to report to someone, she was assigned to me. It becomes my job to find new AA support for the eight people who used to use Madame X. There are 5 other AAs in the department and my boss tells me 3 have some capacity.

So how many senior people does it take to screw in a light bulb? Being the silly and naive guy I am, I think I should go to the AAs and ask them what their capacity is and find out who they might be able to take on. To avoid politics, so I thought, I copied their managers on a memo asking if I could meet with each AA individually and discuss what they might be able to do. Apparently I was the only one who thought that women between the ages of 40-60 should be treated as adults.

Within minutes 6 emails appear on my computer insisting that it is folly, folly I say, to have AAs make these decisions. We the managers must meet to make such important decisions. Two of these emails came from people with global responsibilities and one with regional responsibilities. Only one of the six voiced confidence that a 25 year veteran– meaning me– and the AAs could work this out. The thought that seven high level people who should be paying attention to customers needed to meet about this threw me into a fury. What BS. Fortunately before I went postal, my boss came by to ask if she could take this task off my hands.

I have worked my entire career for large companies. I expect some amount of bureaucracy. Mostly though I expect some Corporate type to make some decision that makes the life of the people in the field miserable. When it happens with others in the “family” it is beyond my comprehension.

Does Scott Adams take ideas for the strip?