Things were going quite well, I must say, on the indoor project lined up for the day. Needed to tear out a room of carpet—a relatively small bedroom—and replace it with some vinyl plank flooring. Fortunately the carpet wasn’t glued down, so cutting it into strips, rolling it up, same…
As a gift for my wife, I gave her a getaway trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago to see the “Christmas Around the World” display. It’s quite a display! More than three dozen trees are decorated according to a national theme. Below each tree, a placard…
As a Christmas gift this year, my wife, Chris, gave me the book Two Miles an Hour for down-time pleasure reading. Someday I may do a book review on it, but a few of the author’s experiences struck me, particularly since I’ve been thinking about the year ahead with its potential…
“Perfect! Just excellent!” So was the assessment of the doctor after my recent annual eye exam. His remarks referred primarily to the outcome of Lasik surgery I had a couple years ago. “I’ve never seen a better outcome,” he said. He gave my cornea and eye health a hearty two…
Don’t you love it when a plan comes together and everything goes off without a hitch—no hiccups, snafus, or unexpected “surprises”? I mean, you work hard to put a plan together, coordinate all the pieces, making sure each one functions properly, and then launch time comes. Like a well-oiled machine,…
For the last few weeks, almost everywhere you go, songs of the holiday season fill the air. Some radio stations have even been playing only Christmas music since before Thanksgiving, probably because of the shorter Thanksgiving-to-Christmas period. Have you paid any attention to what’s playing? If so, you’ve probably not…
Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook in 1997 to help bring Apple back from the brink of bankruptcy to being the highly profitable company it had been until Microsoft Windows-based PCs took the home and business computer industry by storm. It was a daunting task. Cook’s role as Leader of Operations…
Looming on the horizon later this Thanksgiving week, Black Friday beckons the highly commercialized and materialistic West to shop. Luring us into the darkness with promises of unbeatable deals on everything from diamonds and luxury cars to toys and clothing, shoppers are urged to forgo sleep to take advantage of…
Some people enjoy meandering through cemeteries, especially old ones, and ponder the tombstones. A few have made a hobby of gravestone rubbing, which I understand is a bit controversial—some states have made the practice illegal. I certainly can’t claim that visiting cemeteries is one of my pastime pleasures. I don’t…
The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. A single key play could make one partnership a ton of money, but certainly lead to the bankruptcy of another. Or if the second partnership got the play, the first’s control would be broken. I’m…
