The Robert Blog
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Very Punny!
I enjoy a good pun. I enjoy a bad pun even more! Here is a pun for you. You decide if it's good or bad.
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A tribesman consulted his medicine man about a pain in his stomach that had persisted for three months.
"For something as long as that." said the medicine man, "I have a more drastic remedy than the herbs I normally prescribe. Chew on this leather thong every day. It's 28 inches long: chew one inch every day, and come back at the next full moon.."
The patient dutifully did as directed, and at the next moon he returned to the medicine man.
"How do you feel?" the medicine man asked.
"The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on."
The Tie Makes The Man
A few days ago, I was standing in the heart of Times Square in NYC. When I say the heart of Times Square, I mean it: the corner of Broadway and West 43rd Street. I was very early for a lunch time business meeting. I was dressed professionally in my black suit with my red Donald Trump tie. I would describe my appearance as "looking like a VIP".
A man walks up to me, he was dressed as business like as I was.
Not that I didn't feel bad for the guy, nor do I wish worse on him. But I did feel that I would never be that guy. Could I be out of work one day? Sure, any one of us could. In fact some of you reading this are unemployed. However I don't expect that I would be wandering the streets of NYC looking for strangers to hand my resume to. I believe my network, my skills, and my education will prevail. I know that may come across as arrogant, but I just believe it is confidence. Which, by the way, is an attractive trait when dating and when job searching. Along with a Donald Trump tie.
Besides, I would rather go into the human resource office with an appointment and hand my resume to a total stranger.
A man walks up to me, he was dressed as business like as I was.
"Excuse me," he starts, "are you working right now?"
Not really understanding his tone, I said "Do you mean right this minute?"
"No. I mean are you employed right now? Because I'm not. I've been out of work about nine months. Things are getting tough and as you can imagine I'm trying to find work where I can. Do you mind if I give you my resume? I would appreciate any help you could give me"
He handed it to me without waiting for my response. I mumbled something, but I don't remember what.
"Thanks much", he just kind of laid out there, then went on his way down Broadway. He walked in some sort of gait between desperate, lost, and drunk. Although I'm pretty sure he had not been drinking that morning.
I took a quick glance at the resume, the stuffed it in my bag. His name was Tony, and from his job history (sales, sales, and more sales) it wasn't hard to figure out why he has having a difficult job search.
At this point most people standing where I was would have thought something like "there, but for the grace of some all knowing deity, go I."
I took a quick glance at the resume, the stuffed it in my bag. His name was Tony, and from his job history (sales, sales, and more sales) it wasn't hard to figure out why he has having a difficult job search.
At this point most people standing where I was would have thought something like "there, but for the grace of some all knowing deity, go I."
Not me.
Not that I didn't feel bad for the guy, nor do I wish worse on him. But I did feel that I would never be that guy. Could I be out of work one day? Sure, any one of us could. In fact some of you reading this are unemployed. However I don't expect that I would be wandering the streets of NYC looking for strangers to hand my resume to. I believe my network, my skills, and my education will prevail. I know that may come across as arrogant, but I just believe it is confidence. Which, by the way, is an attractive trait when dating and when job searching. Along with a Donald Trump tie.
Besides, I would rather go into the human resource office with an appointment and hand my resume to a total stranger.
The Raber Family Euphemism, a.k.a. pass the grated parmesan
Every family has some sort of term of endearment: sweetie, sugar-pie, honey bunch, darling, dear, lovey-dovey, tootsie. In my house our term is: the pasta special.
It's like my parents always said: "Don't go putting socks on horses if you don't know how to knit wool hats!" (If you know what I mean!)
Yes I will explain.
Many years ago, when I was dating my future wife, her family hosted me for dinner at a restaurant called Don Pepe in Newark, NJ. It's an excellent Portuguese place, and where my wife and I eventually had our wedding reception (that alone is about 20 different stories). On this particular day, my wife's grandparents joined us. Her grandfather at the time was well over ninety years old. For dinner he ordered the pasta special. It's always the same special at this restaurant, it's penne in a red cream sauce and features shrimp and scallops. I find it excellent, but on this day, Grandpa found it a little al dente. Actually, he found it a lot al dente. So much so that he wanted to return it. Grandma, trying to be non-confrontational told Grandpa she would trade dishes with him. He insisted that the dish be returned as it was not cooked right. He was so adamant about this he announced to the table that when the waiter came back to take the dish he would "stick it up his a**".
After you have been married to someone for a while, and have children, and prefer not to use vulgar words in front of them, you find phrases to help censor yourself. My wife and I adapted "pasta special" from Grandpa's usage that day and use it to fit a wide variety of needs.
"What should I do with this? You should pasta special it!"
"Who the pasta special left this out!"
"Don't make me come in there and pasta special you!"
Over time we adapted a little to much.
"Do I look like a pasta special you?"
"Why am I always the one doing the pasta special?""This spaghetti recipe is not working, it's just a big pile of pasta special!"
It's like my parents always said: "Don't go putting socks on horses if you don't know how to knit wool hats!" (If you know what I mean!)
Perspective From A Father Of Three Premature Children
Today is my youngest son's fourth birthday. We will be celebrating with a party at a local indoor kids recreation center, complete with jungle gym, movie room, pizza, cake, and a "grab-nabber" game.
I've posted on the blog previously about my family's involvement in the March of Dimes and their fundraising. Each time we celebrate a child's birthday in our house, my wife and I are reminded of our three wonderful opportunities to be parents. It's something we lose sight of way to often, namely the other 362 days of the year. It real easy, after the years, to forget that advances in medicine, and the hard work of a few doctors, made all of the annoying days possible. Some readers know exactly what I'm talking about, having been through the exact same experiences as we have. I'm asking you to be just a little more patient and understanding with your kids today. Some parents never got to take their baby home from the hospital. We did. We show our gratitude by doing our best to ensure greater opportunities for future parents of pre-mature babies.
I'll spend the day reminding myself that the number of pieces of cake my son has for his birthday is beyond insignificant. Tomorrow, I'll go back to being the strict dad.
Business travel always sounds glamorous until you have to do it.
My past traveling for business can be summed up in two words: sporadic and overnight. I would travel maybe twice a year, most times as long as a week. Beginning this year, I will be travelling for work at a slightly higher frequency and will be making more single day trips.
Recently I made my first foray into the world of "round trip in a day travel". I have just a few observations on this.
I believe I lost six months off my lifespan from this ridiculous travel itinerary. I didn't travel that far: Newark, NJ to Raleigh, NC; Raleigh to Charlotte, NC; Charlotte back to Newark. I wasn't awake all that long that day either, from 5AM to 11:30 PM. It was like each thing I did just increased the drain of everything I had already done by an exponential power of ten. I ran out of reading material and grabbed stuff off the chairs in the concourse (you will not find me recommending New York Magazine, ever). I ate Popeye's Chicken at the terminal. I consumed lots of caffeine in very small cups.
By some odd scheduling quirk, my connecting flight through Charlotte was the same plane I was on both coming from Raleigh and going to Newark. I wasn't as freaky as the other people on the plane about making airline connections as I knew myself and this plane were going the same place. However waiting on a tarmac in Charlotte for 30 minutes to take off for a 20 minute flight makes the "cargo" a little restless. I do think it's odd to get off a plane just to get back on a plane. Key technical issue I learned - when an airplane pilot turns off one engine to save fuel while waiting, the reading lamps and air conditioning on that side of the plane don't function (at least that's according to the US Air personnel on the plane I was on).
I also came to a stunning conclusion about airports - lots of them look alike. I haven't been in that many airports, but Raleigh and Charlotte could have passed for the same place, and both resembled Pittsburgh, which was very similar to Phoenix. My thought on telling any airport apart from another is the food and shopping selection. Charlotte had a NASCAR Shop and a Bojangles restaurant, while Pittsburgh had a Quaker Steak and Lube restaurant.
Not that previous week long business trips I had taken weren't much better. Here are some of the highlights.
Sunday - Extended travel via a late night flight to some remote location complicated by an understaffed rental car desk and a hotel not having a reservation for your room.
Monday - Early wake-up so that you don't miss "Invitation Only Kick-off Breakfast with Regional Vice-President", getting-to-know-you activities with the same 20 people you've been with before, Monday night dinner with the meeting facilitator.
Tuesday - Wake-up with three pain-relief pill headache caused by excessive beverage consumption with the meeting coordinator.
Wednesday - The traditional "I know it's 5:30 and you are all tired but we really need to complete this subject today so we'll stay here until we wrap it up, beside you are only going upstairs/around the block/on the shuttle" announcement.
Thursday - Over breakfast, wondering if you will ever see your family again. Over last-night-at-the-meeting dinner, celebrating the announcement that causal dress is in effect for getaway day.
Friday - Agreeing with other participants not to ask any questions so that the meeting doesn't last one second longer than it has too.
I know this discussion can only go so far. I chose my career and the travel arrangements that come with it. Compared to the guys on Deadliest Catch, my job hazards are pretty insignificant. Would I trade this for flipping burgers? Not a chance. The days I find myself taking solace in the opportunity to fold down the tray, lean the seat back, be served a fresh beverage and enjoy the in-flight entertainment in peace and quiet far outnumber the others. It's at that point that business travel is a small, but valuable, perk.
A link to a stroy about innovation
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I read a really great
article today.Â
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"Recalling the Apgar Score's Namesake"
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It's on WSJ.com.Â
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You could also send
your search engine looking for results for "Virginia Apgar" and
gather up a few more pieces on her life, her medical career, and a stamp.
Â
I found the article
great for many reasons. It framed the sexism that existed once in the medical
community here in the United
States. It reflected how the medical
community, at one time, had a few priorities out of line. Most of all it showed
how innovation, the kind that can save lives, can happen in the
smallest time frame.Â
Â
People tend to think
the greatest ideas came from scientists or other researchers putting in long
frustrating hours in dark cramped development centers. Or maybe they come from
a garage or built in the basement by some tinkerer who has devoted years to
building a better toilet paper dispenser. Some world changing ideas do come
from these places. Others, just sort of show up in a second of opportunity.
Those are the stories I appreciate.Â
Happy Memorial Day to you!
I don’t work the Friday of Memorial Day = weekend. Let me tell you why.
Back in 2000, I was working on Long Island, living in Queens, and dating a girl from New = Jersey, who, of course, liked to spend the Memorial Day weekend with her friends = on the Jersey = Shore. SO of course, being the = great boyfriend that I was, I committed to getting to her house on Friday night to go to = the shore.
First, it took two hours for me to get home from = work, thanks to a trucking expert who was able to jack-knife a tractor trailer = truck right in the middle of the Long Island Expressway. My usually trip home = was about 30 minutes.
Second, the normal one hour trip to New Jersey became a three hour = stand still. At the time I had no cell phone, so it was a most unproductive three hours. = This was also before GPS systems were popular, so at least I didn’t = have to
After arriving in New = Jersey, I became the passenger for a two hour ride to the Jersey Shore. At least I wasn’t diving for that part and I wasn’t = alone.
Total car time – seven hours. = Yuck.
Since that year, I’ve taken the Friday of = Memorial Day weekend off from work. I live in New = Jersey, and I make the trip to the Jersey Shore long = before the rest of the world. Total trip time 2009 – one hour. Yes, = it’s with the same girl. Things change, but they stay the same. =
Enjoy, and stay safe this weekend. =
I'm  keeping the corporate jet, because I can!
I consider myself a free market believer. Commerce should be conducted with minimal regulation from government. Give me enough regulation to provide a level and legal playing field. Extortion and price-fixing is out,  safety of all workers is in. Give me credit for innovating and a punish me for discriminating. Beyond that I want government regulation out of my way. Don't cap my profit margins, dictate my salaries, limit where I can sell my product, take my employees for recognition, or challenge my mode of transportation.
What is being witnessed in the present market conditions, in my opinion, could be considered steps toward socialism. How the business environment got here is a combination of more factors than we would want to believe. Take the situation with mortgages on private residences. I will not call it a housing crisis because we are not short of houses for people to live in. I will also not call it a mortgage crisis because a fair amount of people don't have problems with their present mortgage or getting a new mortgage. My unofficial survey of everyone I asked (I'll admit the sample set is not large enough and the self validated responses cannot be confirmed) shows that no one has a crisis in their mortgage. What does exist is a confluence of good ideas and bad execution. For a timely and wide reaching re-cap of all of these factors check out this item from Time Magazine "Blameworthy - 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis" and this series from The New York Times "The Reckoning".
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Keep in mind that socialism is, technically speaking, the step in between capitalism and communism. Will there be a full blow revolution in the United States leading to the fall of our government and a classless society? I don't believe it possible, but one guy predicts disaster of the U.S. in 2010  (surprise, he may know the U.S. better that we know ourselves). In the meantime, we can read editorials lamenting the social costs of bailouts .
Taking advantage of the Political Climate
Oh those tricky, tricky, Republicans! I find this = very funny. I don’t mean to offend (or support) either party. I just = think it’s good marketing given the present political climate. =