leonardo d. einstein

Try until.....

2011-05-19T18:40:00.003-05:00

Head Coach of the East Carolina University Pirates, Ruffin McNeill, speaking at Robeson Community College's commencement ceremony in May of 2011 said he was turned down for head coaching jobs 26 times before he successfully was named as one. This is a great illustration of the power of persistence.

bros and hos

2011-04-28T10:16:00.002-05:00

So as to not distract from the royal wedding tomorrow, charlie sheen has vowed to stay sober all day. As a gesture of his gratitude, Prince William has announced that on the first night of his honeymoon he will wear underwear with the word "Winning!" emblazoned across the front.

Going back to my Roots....

2011-04-14T14:27:00.001-05:00

My Kenyan birth certificate

Who do these people think they are anyway?

2011-04-14T14:24:00.000-05:00

Congress today tabled all discussions of budgets and wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, so they could so they could focus on pressing matters concerning charlie sheen, lindsay lohan, and snooki.

Damn white people...

2011-04-14T14:20:00.003-05:00

Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man’s worth couldn’t be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorney or politicians, therefore we couldn’t cheat. We were in a really bad way before the white man came, and I don’t know how we managed to get along without the basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society.

-- Lakota Sage Lame Deer (from John Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions)((Actually I copied this from Daniel Suelo's blog. Suelo is a guy who has lived in a cave in Utah for about 10 years and avoids using money.)

bang bang

2011-02-04T14:41:00.002-05:00

I am not a cynic. I am a banged-up realist. -- paraphrased from Wally Lamb's "The Hour I First Believed."

2011-01-28T23:42:00.002-05:00

I've been working in the education field long enough now that I think it's time to start my own school. As a startup, our goals will be modest -- we're going to train people for careers in putting the little stickers on fruit in grocery store produce departments. Low tuition and you can get your degree in as little as 3 weeks, if you enroll full time and really apply yourself. No excuses. The ball is in your court...., or the apple is in your basket.

Stephen King's advice to writers --- READ!!!

2011-01-28T20:25:00.002-05:00

Observation

2011-01-28T20:18:00.002-05:00

I like the feel of warm peanut butter between my toes....

Ballad of peanut butter

2011-01-28T20:14:00.001-05:00

Hospital Variety Show
Oct. 16, 2010

The Ballad of Peanut Butter

One day a child came home from football
Where he had fumbled, was jeered and booed.
His mother saw that his heart was breaking,
So she made him his favorite food.

Chorus:
She did not make him a bowl of garden salad greens,
She made no whole wheat rolls, or a pile of beans,
She made a sandwich of toasted white bread,
With peanut butter, creamy style.

The years went by and he was a loser;
He led a useless and wretched life.
But she never criticized him;
She smiled as she got out the knife.

Chorus

Then he decided, upon the basis
Of a book he read one fall,
That his problems had resulted
From excessive cholesterol.

He ate a great big bowl of garden salad greens,
He ate that whole wheat roll, and that pile of beans,
He gave up sandwiches of toasted white bread,
With peanut butter, creamy style.

That night his dog died,
He smashed his pick-up,
His sweetheart left him,
He lost his hair,
His house caught fire,
He went to prison,
His poor old mother
Came to him there.

Chorus

(Listen to Garrison Keillor's version here : http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2005/05/07/scripts/pb.shtml
will need RealPlayer)

Frankly, my dear....

2010-11-25T17:08:00.000-05:00

Frankly, I wonder who Frank was, and why he has an adverb all to himself. Jacob in House Rules by Jodi Picoult

2010-11-19T21:00:00.002-05:00

Get a Voki now!

copied from an email from Brian Johnson

2010-10-07T12:01:00.001-05:00

“This is my way; where is yours?—Thus I answered those who asked me ‘the way.’ For the way—that does not exist.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“I believe that a life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth. I do not agree with the popular success literature that says that self-esteem is primarily a matter of mind set, of attitude—that you can psych yourself into peace of mind. Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.” – Stephen Covey

“Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America: Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.” – Viktor Frankl

Update

2010-05-27T15:27:00.000-05:00

Two of the voices in my head have hired lawyers and a third is "considering his options." I tried to get them all to agree to mediation, but n-o-o-o, they had to have lawyers. And guess who they expect to foot the bill for all of this?

Silence is golden

2010-05-26T17:27:00.002-05:00

The voices in my head were starting to get to me until a few days ago when they got into a big argument. Now they're all mad and not talking to each other. I was going read them a book on conflict management, but now I think maybe not.

Dilemma

2010-05-25T18:36:00.000-05:00

I assigned a "genre" to each item of my clothing. Then I stayed up all night trying to decide whether to organize my closet by the Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress system.

2010-05-21T13:50:00.001-05:00

My goal in life is to master the highest level of insanity I can attain, without crossing the line into some sort of creative genius from which I, or someone close to me, could profit.

Watch dogs

2010-04-16T07:58:00.000-05:00

My uncle bought two dogs and named them "Timex" and "Rolex" because he wanted a couple of good watch dogs.

2010-04-15T11:09:00.000-05:00

Leroy is a good ol' boy whose mama taught him well. One Sunday he goes to church and after a while the preacher asks anyone with needs to be prayed over to come forward to the front at the altar..

Leroy gets in line, and when it's his turn, the preacher asks: "Leroy, what do you want me to pray about for you?"

Leroy replies: "Preacher, I need you to pray for my hearing."

The preacher puts one finger in Leroy's ear, and he places the other hand on top of Leroy's head and prays and prays and prays. He prays a blue streak for Leroy. After a few minutes, the preacher removes his
hands, stands back and asks, "Leroy, how is your hearing now?"

Leroy says, "I don't know, Reverend, it ain't till next Wednesday."

On excellence

2010-03-30T15:23:00.000-05:00

"In his [John W. Gardner, secretary of health, education, and welfare under LBJ] well-known book, Excellence, he wrote: 'We must learn to honor excellence in every socially accepted human activity, however humble the activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.'"

from The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner

Huffington snoozes

2010-02-23T15:39:00.001-05:00

"My eyes have been opened to the value of regularly closing them."

Ariana Huffington speaking on the need for getting sufficient sleep. Quoted in Seth Godin's What Matters Now.

2010-02-22T12:59:00.002-05:00

I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does.

from Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist"

2010-02-22T12:56:00.000-05:00

The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.

from Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist"

2010-02-22T12:52:00.000-05:00

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

from Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist"

2010-02-22T12:47:00.002-05:00

It is the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting....

from Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist"

Four obstacles to confronting our dream

2010-02-22T12:44:00.000-05:00

1. We are told from childhood that everything we want to do is impossible.

2. Love. We are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream.

3. Fear of the defeats we will meet on the path.

4. Fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives.... The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either.

from Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist"

2010-02-22T12:39:00.000-05:00

"We all need to be aware of our personal calling. What is a personal calling? It is God's blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don't all have the courage to confront our own dream."

from Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist"

Sunday's sermon

2010-02-21T17:03:00.003-05:00

A Gentile woman ask Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus replies that "the children" (God's chosen) must be fed or attended to first. The woman replies that even dogs get to eat of the crumbs of the children's plates. Jesus tells her that her daughter has been healed.

2010-02-21T11:56:00.002-05:00

Sunday sermon - Jesus moves to an area where the Gentiles live. Mark 7:24-30. Suffering brings us closer to God. Jesus drives out a demon from a gentile girl.

2010-02-19T10:56:00.000-05:00

The Seven Surivival Skills for Careers, College, & Citizenship in the 21st Century

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

"The idea that a company's senior leaders have all the answers and can solve problems by themselves has gone completely by the wayside...The person who's close to the work has to have strong analytic skills. You have to be rigorous: test your assumptions, don't take things at face value, don't go in with preconceived ideas that you're trying to prove." - Ellen Kumata, consultant to Fortune 200 companies

2. Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence

"The biggest problem we have in the company as a whole is finding people capable of exerting leadership across the board...Our mantra is that you lead by influence, rather than authority." - Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Cisco

3. Agility and Adaptability

"I've been here four years, and we've done fundamental reorganization every year because of changes in the business...I can guarantee the job I hire someone to do will change or may not exist in the future, so this is why adaptability and learning skills are more important than technical skills." - Clay Parker, President of Chemical Management Division of BOC Edwards

4. Initiative and Entrepreneurship

"For our production and crafts staff, the hourly workers, we need self-directed people...who can find creative solutions to some very tough, challenging problems."- Mark Maddox, Human Resources Manager at Unilever Foods North America

5. Effective Oral and Written Communication

"The biggest skill people are missing is the ability to communicate: both written and oral presentations. It's a huge problem for us." - Annmarie Neal, Vice President for Talent Management at Cisco Systems

6. Accessing and Analyzing Information

"There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren't prepared to process the information effectively, it almost freezes them in their steps." - Mike Summers, Vice President for Global Talent Management at Dell

7. Curiosity and Imagination

"Our old idea is that work is defined by employers and that employees have to do whatever the employer wants...but actually, you would like him to come up with an interpretation that you like-he's adding something personal-a creative element." -Michael Jung, Senior Consultant at McKinsey and Company

from http://www.schoolchange.org/news/the_global_achievement_gap_-_tonys_latest_book_is_now_for_sale_in_bookstores_and_online!.html

Salvador Dali

2010-02-18T13:08:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday (February 14, 2010) Janice, Catie and I went to see an exhibition of Salvador Dali's illustrations of Dante's Divine Comedy at the Fayetteville Musuem of Art. If you like Dali, it was a cool exhibit. I have been a fan of Dali ever since I saw the animation that he did in collaboration with Walt Disney entitled "Destino," which you can see here:

http://espanol.video.yahoo.com/watch/5221497/13783866

(for as long as the link is good. I had to really search to find it. Apparently when it is posted somewhere, it is taken down soon afterward. There are a lot of broken links to various sites that purport to have it. If the link above is broken by the time you get to it, do a search engine search. You should be able to find clips at least, but the entire film is definitely worth watching -- all 6 minutes or so of it. I have seen no one post negative comments about it on the sites I have visited.

The secret of life....

2010-02-18T13:01:00.003-05:00

The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times. from the introduction to Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist.

This reminds me of Anthony Robbins' concept of "Try until....

Wallace Wattles quote

2010-02-18T12:57:00.001-05:00

But remember that extreme altruism is no better and no nobler than extreme selfishness; both are mistakes.

Get rid of the idea that God wants you to sacrifice yourself for others, and that you can secure his favor by doing so; God requires nothing of the kind.

What he wants is that you should make the most of yourself, for yourself, and for others; and you can help others more by making the most of yourself than in any other way.

The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace Delois Wattles, [1910], at sacred-texts.com

Taking a trip from neurosis to psychosis.

2010-02-13T13:58:00.003-05:00

It's a fine line between neurosis and psychosis. Jackson Browne wrote a song in which one of the lyrics goes, "It's such a fine line, I hate to see it go...." Seems apropos here.

Great website on goal setting

2010-01-26T21:36:00.004-05:00

This is a great site on goal setting!

http://www.goalsguy.com

2010-01-22T16:58:00.002-05:00

An ordinary truth is a statement whose opposite is a falsehood. A profound truth is a statement whose opposite is also a profound truth.

Frank Wilczek quoting Bohr in The Lightness of Being

2010-01-22T11:50:00.002-05:00

Check out this Motivation website:

Click Here for Motivation123!

2010-01-17T11:56:00.003-05:00

the word witness comes from the same root word as the word martyr

2010-01-17T11:53:00.002-05:00

our bucket never was full but it never was empty. walter jones on the budget of a struggling church.

sunday sermon january 17 2010

2010-01-17T11:43:00.002-05:00

Mark 6:45-56. Jesus fed the multitude with a few fishes and sends his disciples across the Sea of Galilee. After praying on the mountain Jesus walks on the water to join his disciples.

interesting items read lately

2009-12-23T10:26:00.001-05:00

lack of time is actually lack of priorities -- tim ferriss the 4 hour work week

you forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget -- cormac mccarthy the road

2009-10-21T20:48:00.002-05:00

pain is inevitable, suffering is optional

2009-08-21T08:52:00.002-05:00

No matter how high your rank, status, birth, education, wealth, deeds, accomplishments, you can never be good enough on your own merit.

No matter how poor, low, wretched, you can never be insignificant in the eyes of God.

Now, if we could just teach every child in the world those two concepts, imagine what the world would be like in 10-20 years....

Why don't YOU.... try to teach ONE..., TODAY?

(and another tomorrow... and another the next day)

rules for a happier life

2009-08-11T16:31:00.002-05:00

1. develop inner peace and love -- i know it sounds cliche, but you must

2. project peace and love out to others

3. cherish and honor those that return peace and love to you

4. forgive those who don't know any better

5. help those who are trying to do better

6. as you pray for them, write EVERYONE else off until they fall into one of the categories above. Keep your interactions as absolutely minimal as possible. This includes your children over the age of 18. Children under the age of 18 usually fall under category #4 above. Plus, if you model numbers 1-5 early enough in your children's lives, you probably won't have major problems with them.

2009-08-06T23:21:00.002-05:00

ray romano, on letterman, says when he meets a woman he immediately puts her into one of three categories -- 1. yes i would sleep with her, 2. no i would not sleep with her, and 3. she's a category 2 but in certain circumstances i would bump her up to category 1.

Courage

2009-06-11T16:28:00.002-05:00

Courage is not the absence of fear. The absence of fear is some sort of brain damage. Courage is doing what you are meant to do in spite of the fear.

paraphrased from M. Scott Peck and Further Along the Road Less Traveled

Friedman anecdote

2009-05-29T10:02:00.002-05:00

Thomas Friedman tells a story in his "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" of visiting a doctor's clinic in a remote Indian village where an old man was hooked up to an EKG machine with a video monitor so a Dr. in Mumbai could read the EKG. Friedman thought it was great use of high tech until he looked in the corner and saw that the entire apparatus was powered by 12 jerry-rigged car batteries because the village did not have reliable electricity.

the Politics of Jesus

2009-05-28T07:25:00.004-05:00

I've heard some Republicans say that they don't know how a person can claim to be a Christian and vote Democratic.

I just really can't imagine that Jesus would be a Republican. Sorry Rush, Ann Coulter, Jerry Falwell, George W.

from Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

2009-05-28T07:21:00.005-05:00

In the introduction Gladwell tells the story of Italian immigrants who settled Roseto, Pa. These isolated people lived to old age with little disease and a Dr. Wolf finally concludes that they live so long because of their community. Gladwell says "the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are." His goal with this book is to "do for our understanding of success what Stewart Wolf did for our understainding of health."

Part I Opportunity

Chapter 1 The Matthew Effect.

When we asked about someone's success we usually want to know what the person is like. Gladwell says we mistakenly assume that personal qualities explain why a person is successful. Gladwell says, "I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariable the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It's not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't."

Chapter 2 The 10,000 Hour Rule

Gladwell says that talent alone will not make a person successful. He or she must put in his or her time also, and the amount of time is 10,000 hours. He cites examples such as Bill Joy who started Sun Microsystems after spending years of programming night and day, and the Beatles who found success after playing in Hamburg Germany where they played live shows for 8 hours a night, 7 nights a week for weeks at a time.

Gladwell also points out the importance of being born at the right time. Gates, Joy and many other computer industry success stories were born between 1953 and 1958. According to Gladwell this positioned them well at the right age in the mid 70's to capitalize on the personal computer revolution. Born earlier and they would have been to old. Born later and they would have missed it. The same holds true for an earlier group of industrial titans such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. They were born in the 1830's which positioned them to be at the best age to capitalize on the industrial revolution that began in the 1860's and 1870's. Gladwell does not discount talent and hard work, but he says that talent and hard work alone are not enough. Circumstances of fate, the time and place of one's birth also factor greatly into one's chances for phenomenal success.

Chapter 3 The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1

Friedman says...

2009-05-24T17:26:00.001-05:00

Avoid the unmanageable. Manage the unavoidable.

Thomas Friedman in Hot, Flat, and Crowded

What if God was one of us?

2008-12-31T01:09:00.001-05:00

What if God is into psychodelics and we're all just a hallucination?

20 Amazing and Essential Non-fiction Books to Enrich You...

2008-12-24T00:01:00.002-05:00

I wanted to find 20 books that convey some of the philosophy of Zen Habits in different ways, books that influenced this site and that I think will enrich your library and your life if you haven’t read them yet.

read more | digg story

2008-12-17T13:48:00.002-05:00

still ain't made no money from adsense. maybe it should be "adnonsense".

I did read today that someone in Australia served a foreclosure notice on a couple via their facebook account. that's what i call creative debt collection.

2008-12-17T13:46:00.001-05:00

I was reading through this blog today and when i got to the end i realized that it is almost 3 years old. happy birthday, leonardo.

On Success....

2008-11-21T17:31:00.004-05:00

to be truly successful in life one has to master the art of faking sincerity.

i'm sharing this lesson because i really care about you.... go out there and be successful!

Wikipedia on psychopaths

2008-07-26T22:09:00.002-05:00

"It is estimated that approximately one percent of the general population are psychopaths. They are overrepresented in prison systems, politics, law enforcement agencies, law firms, and in the media."

Eckhart Tolle

2008-03-08T19:17:00.002-05:00

"... the 'normal' state of mind of most human beings contains a strong element of what we might call dysfunction or even madness."

from Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth

Raising kids

2008-02-22T21:12:00.004-05:00

The big challenge to raising children is a paradox.

The challenge is raise them to feel that they are the most important person in the world without thinking that they are the most important person in the world.

Yeats on education

2008-02-20T10:01:00.002-05:00

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

me

friday ramblings

2008-01-18T09:29:00.000-05:00

proletariat, bolshevik, baathist, and psuedocertainty are all words i want to look up on the internet today.

botox'n the dog

2007-05-30T07:34:00.001-05:00

once i bought a sharpei because i thought they were so incredibly cute. three months later i had him at the dermatologist for massive doses of botox.

po on success and failure

2007-05-23T08:03:00.001-05:00

"Failure's hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever. It is so, so much harder to leave a good thing."

from What Should I Do with My Life by Po Bronson

po on impressing other people

2007-05-23T07:44:00.000-05:00

“… if you’re stuck on impressing people, at least impress people you like and admire, rather than people you hate.”

from What Should I Do with My Life by Po Bronson

destino

2007-05-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

From the time he was about 4 years old he knew he wanted to make at least middle management at a q-tip factory. He had watched with rapt attention as his mother gently tore open a brand new box of q-tips, extricated one of the swabs, and swirled it around his little sister’s ear. The snow white cotton balloon morphed into an irregular cerumen blob that looked a lot like the cowlick on the back of dennis the menace’s head. he was enthralled by the neat little rows and stacks of swabs in the package, all lined up perfectly like little soldiers. he admired the harmony, the sense of uniformity and perfection. it was not unlike the feeling he got when his grandmother opened a can of sardines for breakfast. that sense of uniformity and perfection symbolized all that was right with the world for him. when he visualized utopia, he visualized millions and millions of swabs running through miles of machinery being tumbled, sorted, stacked, layered and ultimately hermetically sealed in plastic packages to be distributed worldwide, but not before he could go down to shipping and stand among them like a dwarf in times square with skyscrapers of swabs towering over him.

Po on life

2007-05-16T07:49:00.000-05:00

"We are all writing the story of our life. We want to know what it's 'about,' what are its themes and which theme is on the rise. We demand of it something deeper, or richer, or more substantive. We want to know where we're headed--not to spoil our own ending by ruining the surprise, but we want to ensure that when the ending comes, it won't be shallow. We will have done something. We will not have squandered our time here."

the first paragraph of po bronson's book, What Should I Do with My Life?

happliy ever after, or at least until....

2007-05-15T06:35:00.001-05:00

"i love you bunches," she said. "i'm going away for awhile," he replied somberly, while packing several lunches.

a longer sentence?

2007-05-15T06:31:00.001-05:00

he knew they were discussing whether or not to lengthen his sentence. unfortunately he couldn't ascertain whether it was the prosecutor and judge or two editors at his publishing house.

pink slip

2007-05-15T06:12:00.001-05:00

he woke up groggy and with a headache. he had a faint recollection of someone giving him a pink slip the day before, but he couldn't remember if it was his boss or a stripper at the night club.

Vincent Bugliosi on JFK

2007-05-14T12:49:00.001-05:00

Vincent Bugliosi, the California attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson has written a 1612 page book on the assassination of JFK --“Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy”. Click here to read more about it.

technophobe

2007-05-04T08:08:00.001-05:00

fred felt overwhelmed by technology when they came out with a toaster that would accommodate four slices of bread at a time.

titles only

2007-05-04T07:54:00.001-05:00

as i read back over this blog i've come to the conclusion that i write really great titles but that most of the posts suck. therefore, from now on i'm only going to post the titles and you can use your imagination to fill in the rest. maybe i will get more readers that way as it won't take so much time out of one's day to keep up with this blog.

a tense moment

2007-05-04T07:18:00.000-05:00

he was a hollywood marriage counselor. she was an L.A. divorce attorney.

existential angst?

2007-05-01T07:44:00.000-05:00

"My neo-Freudian analyst says I'm suffering existential angst," he said. "My Rogerian counselor says I need to simplify my life," she replied.

2007-04-24T07:26:00.000-05:00

Are we human beings who have spiritual experiences or are we spiritual beings who have human experiences?

Adapted from Stephen Covey LIving the 7 Habits

former US Defense Secretary William Perry on management philosophy

2007-04-13T08:31:00.000-05:00

Perry says he managed his startup ESL in 1964 and the Department of Defense in the 90's by "MBWA" -- management by walking around.

from his speech "It's Your Ship" delivered as part of Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar April 11, 2007. (podcast available at http://etl.stanford.edu/)

2007-03-29T12:06:00.000-05:00

Every man serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.

-- Dr. Laurence J. Peter, author of The Peter Principle

2007-03-29T11:35:00.001-05:00

I don’t understand educators who don’t enjoy continuing education. I liken that to Bill Gates saying, “I’m tired of messing with computers. DOS is good enough.” Or Henry Ford saying, “I built the Model T. What more do you want?” I can’t imagine Michael Jordan saying, “Man, do I have to go to practice again?”

2007-03-29T07:21:00.000-05:00

My dog freaked out the other day. The vet wanted to give him a CAT scan. Now he's in therapy and taking prozac. He's trying to "find himself."

from Senate Report 104-158 - CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS

2007-03-23T21:55:00.000-05:00

In the century following the ratification of the Constitution, the republican philosophy of rotation in office was respected and practiced. At its peak, rotation in office was so widely accepted in American politics that, without mandated term limits, Congress experienced a 76 percent turnover in 1842. On average, nearly one-third of the Members of Congress voluntarily retired from office between 1789 and 1900. Among those adhering to the principle of rotation was a young Illinois Congressman, Abraham Lincoln. After serving one term in Congress, Lincoln returned to Illinois. As President, Lincoln chastised those resisting rotation in office when he stated: `If our American society and United States Government are overthrown, it will come from the voracious desire for office, this wriggle to live without toil, work, and labor--from which I am not free myself.'

Bruce Perry from his biography of Malcolm X

2007-03-04T18:35:00.000-05:00

“In his correspondence and later in his autobiography, Malcolm described his incarceration, which he characterized as ‘fortunate,’ as a liberating experience. ‘Do not picture us as being in prison,’ he wrote. 'I was in prison before entering here …. The solitude, the long moments of meditative contemplation, have given me the key to my freedom.'

He said it was unlikely he could have liberated himself any other way. He also said he felt more contented in jail than people who live outside prison walls do. Perhaps it was the contentment of a man who had been liberated from the nagging tyranny of a guilty conscience….his withdrawal into a walled sanctuary afforded him not only the respite that enabled him to educate himself, but also the security that enabled him to muster the strength for battles to come.”

Michael Gelb on Education

2007-03-04T18:21:00.001-05:00

“… we all started life with a da Vinci like insatiable curiosity. Most of us learned, once we got to school, that answers were more important than questions. In most cases schooling does not develop curiosity, delight in ambiguity and question asking skill. Rather the thinking skill that’s rewarded is figuring out the right answer, that is, the answer held by the person in authority – the teacher. This authority-pleasing, question-suppressing, rule-following approach to education may serve to provide society with assembly line workers and bureaucrats, but it doesn’t do much to prepare us for a new renaissance.”

from How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

Michael Gelb on Education

2007-03-04T18:21:00.000-05:00

2007-02-22T22:00:00.000-05:00

He read the obits everyday. He was waiting for Ray to die. He hadn't seen Jennie in 12 years and he had lost track of her. He didn't have a phone number nor an address, but he knew that when Ray died she would be back in town for the funeral and he knew Ray was getting old. Last time he saw Ray he looked like he would be dead soon. His constant worry was that Ray would die one day and the dog would tear up the paper before he got home. Depending on the time of day and week one died and the conscientiousness of the funeral home staff, sometimes the announcement would appear in the paper with little more than a few hours prior to the "sitting up" (wake for northerners.) If he missed the sitting up, he could always try to approach her at the funeral, but that would be a bit more awkward. The funeral home is a much better setting. The emotional atmosphere there would be one of bittersweet nostalgia which would be perfect for what he wanted. The mood at the funeral would be much darker and not nearly so romantic.

Once the funeral was over she would have no more ties to this town outside of settling the estate. God knows Ray won't have much of an estate and one could never tell about the timing of the settling of an estate. Typically the administrator runs into town one afternoon in the middle of the week, makes whirlwind visits to the attorney, courthouse and newspaper office and is gone again in two or three hours. And the emotional state associated with all that.... he didn't even want to think about it, but it certainly wasn't conducive to rekindling lost passion. He'd tried that once and it was a disaster.

Silver linings

2007-01-25T16:49:00.000-05:00

As Bob walked across campus reading Joyce's Portrait he had an epiphany. Should he rethink his life? Should he change his major? Should he be here at all? What about his wardrobe? Had he not been so lost in thought Bob probably would not have been taken aback quite as much when the ferret suddenly bit his nipple. Had the pain not been so great he might have contemplated whether or not taking his pet to class was a good idea. He might have also reconsidered his new piercing. Apparently ferrets are attracted to shiny gold things.

16 months later....

As Bob sat on his couch sipping Budweiser through a straw, oblivious to what Oprah was saying to the Andy Warhol look-alike on his 65" plasma screen, he thought about the turn his life had taken over the past year and a half. Had the ferret not bitten his newly pierced nipple, he never would have qualified for disability. He would still be slaving away for his degree in business administration with an uncertain path to the destiny he desired, a destiny he now enjoyed. He muted the TV as he took another sip, thought for a moment and then said aloud to the empty room, "Every cloud really does have it's silver lining."

2007-01-25T16:45:00.001-05:00

Still waiting on that big adsense check.

what?

2006-07-09T14:23:00.000-05:00

Whaddaya mean i got post regularly to be successful??

death row gourmet

2006-02-05T22:09:00.000-05:00

What would you order as a last meal if you were on death row? Think about it--no concerns about fat, carbs, cholesterol, salt, nitrites, nitrates, mercury, uranium, etc, etc. If you give this a little thought you will soon find that you can plan a whole smorgasborg. I must warn you, however, that if you decide to share this with others they may not appreciate it, but hey, grandma always said you should plan your future. She also said you should look on the bright side and try to find the good in every thing. My own wife doesn't understand me on this, but to her I say, "Hey, a man can dream can't he?"

here's to hee haw

2006-02-05T09:41:00.000-05:00

One morning about 6 weeks ago my wife was furious. It seems someone left the TV on and she was awakened by Roy Clark at 3 in the morning hawking dvd's of "Hee Haw" reruns on a home shopping channel. Today we got the first of the limited edition collector's series delivered to our door for only $19.95, plus shipping and handling.

marvels of modern technology

2006-02-05T09:37:00.000-05:00

my wife has a new electronic toothbrush that she says is supposed to help improve her receding gum lines. i haven't told her but i've been brushing my hair with it every morning and i think it's helping a little. i have other ideas for it too. i'm waiting to see if her abcess gets better because preparation h does absolutely nothing for me.

pinko republicans

2006-02-05T07:04:00.001-05:00

i've got to get a new tv. i could've sworn that John Boehner, the new house majority leader, was wearing a pink neck tie on "meet the press" this morning.

off the wagon

2006-02-05T07:04:00.000-05:00

"you've been drinking again, haven't you?" she asked.

"wha makeshyou thing tha?" he soberly replied.

questions and answers

2006-02-05T06:56:00.000-05:00

someone once said that real education begins when what we call education ends.

I think most people go to school expecting to get answers, i.e., they expect to learn "stuff" or facts about whatever their major happens to be.

instead of giving you the right answers, a true education helps you learn to ask the right questions.

FAG

2006-02-05T06:28:00.000-05:00

I'm starting a new feature with this blog. Instead of a Frequently Ask Questions, I'm offering Frequent Answers Given. you can get a FAQ anywhere. when you need a FAG, remember you saw it here first. without further ado, here they are:

probably not
No
Hell no.
HELL NO!!
Are you an idiot? (this is a rhetorical answer)
Are you a @#$%ing idiot? (rhetorical answer)
Are you crazy? (again rhetorical)
Are you @#$%ing crazy? (another rhetorical)
Your momma was on crack when she conceived you wasn't she? (yes, i know)
Your momma gave you crack when you were a baby didn't she? (a pattern is developing)
Your momma gave you crack and dropped you on your head when you were a baby didn't she? (okay, okay)
maybe
possibly
mmmmm.
against my better judgement
i'll take it under advisement
it's against policy
we don't do it that way here
the last time we did that it was a disaster
you don't want to know
i think _______ (insert scapegoat name here) was working on that
tomorrow
tomorrow, i promise
okay, but let me go to the bathroom first
we'll get started on that next

stinking it to the man

2006-02-03T16:39:00.000-05:00

i have a friend who claims he has conditioned his body to go to the bathroom only when he's at work. he says it boosts his self esteem to sit and think about what he is getting paid $16 an hour to do. and it saves him money on toilet paper.

an economist on the illegal drug problem

2006-02-03T16:32:00.000-05:00

i have a friend who graduated from Duke and is a very successful economist. he is very active in programs to get kids off of drugs and to discourage kids from getting involved in drugs. he says that the law of supply and demand drives the price up for adults.

alas, our changing language....

2006-02-03T16:24:00.000-05:00

ever notice how few people use the word "alas" these days? i want to start a business which has as its chief mission bringing back the word "alas". we can have a marketing campaign. we can start political action committees to lobby politicians. alas, the possibilities....

streaking at walmart

2006-02-03T16:20:00.000-05:00

if your child gets away from you in the middle of a diaper change and runs naked through walmart, it is better for your own self-esteem to point at the child and laugh like everybody else than it is to chase the child through sporting goods.

coping with high oil prices

2006-02-03T16:17:00.000-05:00

this one i can tell you from personal experience. if you ever accidentally swallow a mouthful of gasoline during the siphoning process, don't chase it with Coke or anything else that will make you belch a lot.

15 minutes of fame

2006-02-03T16:16:00.000-05:00

when i get my 15 minutes of fame i hope it's not on the jerry springer show.

dave (chappell, not letterman) and oprah

2006-02-03T16:12:00.000-05:00

dave chappell on oprah-- "love is like a vitamin and i had a deficiency."