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This has to go down as one of the most bizarre stories of the year. And if I were the cops investigating suspects, I would take a hard look at the fish.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lifish0730,0,600348.story
Bobby Conn, where have you BEEN all my life? And when are you coming to Boston, it can't be too soon.
Good article in Fortune Mag about advice. The piece asks 25 well known people about the best piece of advice they’ve gotten. I like getting advice, even if its not asked for, so that made me think of my own advice.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0804/gallery.bestadvice.fortune/
Advice that I follow...
1. Always do the right thing, especially when its not the easy thing. Every person knows right from wrong when making a decision, and they should always do the right thing, in work, in school, in a relationship, in anything.
2. Always be polite because you never know who you are being rude to. I remember in graduate school an older guy in a fancy car cut me off in the parking lot. He waved an apology and instead of giving him the finger, I waved back and smiled, indicating “no problem”. About 10 minutes later I was being introduced to the new Vice Chairman of the university who just joined after a long career at Morgan Stanley, and since I was a graduate assistant, my new boss. It was the guy in the parking lot.
3. Humor is better than anger. In tense situations, I think people respond better to humor than screaming. Unfortunately, I don’t always follow this with the kids. The greatest leaders I have ever met, anywhere, always had a pleasant way about them.
4. Take personal responsibility when you fail. If something bad happens to you, like losing a job, getting a bad grade, not making a sale, having trouble in a relationship, there is no one to blame but yourself. Evaluate why it happened and what you can do in the future to avoid it again. I am big on accountability and HATE HATE when someone never accepts his or her own fault for failure. I hate the philosophy that it is always someone else’s fault. Hate it.
5. Become clear on facts. When bringing up something, know your facts. Make sure you have a story straight when talking about something in the news, get numbers right when bringing up stats, etc. People see through BS very easily.
6. Always go down swinging. My father used to say this to me when I played little league baseball, to never look at a third strike without swinging. I apply this at work all the time. If I lose a sale or something appears doomed, I make sure I do every thing in my power so that I can sleep at night knowing I gave it everything.
Anyway, those are some of my principles. I have other things in my life that are important, but they are more personal, like holding the door open for a woman or letting a female get in an elevator first, and sticking up for others who need help, or show some humility when others give you something. But advice that I would give to someone I mentor at work, it would probably be around the six things I mentioned above.
Good night and be well.
Spirulina Experiment
I was recently watching the Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Food” show, a segment hosted by a pudgy bald guy who goes around the world eating really strange things like bugs and grass hoppers and much worse, then reports on it. I usually don’t watch the show but stop when I am channel surfing and I come across it. To be honest, most of the stuff he eats I would probably try as well, just to say I did it. I do wonder if he vomits shortly after eating most of that food.
So last week I saw a show where he was in Thailand and did a segment on a drink called Spirulina. At first, it looked awful. Basically there was a large pond of dirty water with crap floating in it, that he scooped out and drank. He drank pond scum, stuff that I would immediately wash off my kids if they happen to come out of a lake with it dripping on their legs, for fear of infection. But apparently the algae and bacteria and other floating goodies in it are really good for you, sort of a dietary supplement. I try to eat healthy but don’t really take dietary supplements, but have been drinking green tea for a few years now and it peaked my interest. I also wanted to drink pond scum grown in the jungles of southeast Asia. I want living bacteria in my body, to make me healthy.
So while food shopping while at my sister’s house in northern Virginia, my wife, Patti, bought a drink with Spirulina in it. It was great. Granted, it had apples and bananas to make it takes good, but it also had a lot of Spirugoodness. And I did some research online, on this thing called the World Wide Web, kind of cool, and Spirulina has some pretty good benefits to it. With the only downside being painful stomach cramps and raging diarrhea, followed by days of hallucinations and sweat-lodge like perspiration. Maybe death, but only in about 20% of cases. Just joking, nothing bad that I know of.
So I decided to try an experiment. Working with supplements in pill form, not drinking a ton of this green sludge, I am going to see if it makes me feel better. I am going to take 6 disgusting smelling pills a day for one month and see if there is a change in my body, good or bad.
I think it might be a little expensive, because a jar of 100 pills is 6 bucks, which will last me about half a month, but if it improves my health, it’s the cost of doing business. And I am also going to look into non pill forms, like more drinks, although THAT might be really expensive, or powder or candy form. Not sure, I need to walk the aisles of some hippie health food stores in Cambridge to scout it out. It’s my mission for Wed night. Or late afternoon, whenever I can kick out of work.
Who knows, but if it’s good enough for the Aztecs, it’s good enough for me. Drinking something I would normally put bleach on and keep my cat away from might SOUND strange, but I need a physical experiment in my life. I am in marathon training mode and some extra green goop can only help.
I have a long list of updates, especially regarding the last 2+ weeks where we went to the Cape, drove to DC, saw my family in Virginia, went to my sister’s wedding, drove to my in-laws place in NY, went to NYC with Emily, and had an overall great two weeks. But before I post that, we reached a child development milestone this past weekend and I thought I’d share.
For anyone who doesn’t have children, or it’s been a while since they had small kids, sleeping platforms generally progress as such…
1. Bassinet. Baby is born, and when brought home, usually sleep in a basinet since the baby is about the size of a football. A basinet is basically a box that you keep next to the bed. Some parents let the newborns sleep in bed with them. Sleeps in basinet until anywhere from 2 to 4 months old.
2. Crib. Next stage, which will last anywhere from 3 months to 3 years. A crib is a small prison cell with no top, but since the kid can’t climb out, no top is needed. When the child starts to climb out, time to move on.
3. Child bed. For some people, the child moves from a crib to a child bed, or to an adult size bed, depending on many factors such as budget, space, need for adult sleeping platform for visitors, etc.
4. Normal bed. At some point, the kid will become a teenager or young adult and want an adult bed.
So for us, about 7 years ago, Patti’s father build a really nice crib for Emily. She is now 6, and when she was 18 months old, she started climbing out of it, at which point we put her in a single size bed. The single bed is for children and has removable rails to keep kids from sliding out and crashing on to the floor.
When Ethan was a baby, he used the crib as well. He is now 4, and around 18 months he started climbing out, so we put him in the same style bed that Emily used, they were a bunk bed set so we had two, although they slept in separate rooms.
Then in 2006 Emerson was born, and he went in to the crib. He is our third child, and most likely our last. He is a nice boy, and really sweet, but has developed in almost every way, such as walking, talking, sleeping through the night, later than the other two. Well, this past weekend, at 2 years 5 months, he started climbing out the crib.
We’ve been away pretty much for the past 15 days. Over the last couple of days, he started climbing out of the portable crib. We thought the big crib in his room at home was bigger, so he would not climb out. Well, Saturday night, that changed.
So on Sunday I took apart the beautiful crib that Jim made for the kids, and will carefully pack it away for use by my own daughter some day when she has her own kids. We put both child beds in the boy’s room and have a temporary bed for Emily until we buy her a bedroom set.
So our youngest child has met a major milestone, the sleeping platform for children. He is now in the other single size bed and in the same room as Ethan, sot he boys are together. We no longer have a crib up in our house, and now look forward to the more pleasant milestones, like getting out of his diapers.
Just thought I’d share.
I need to start to post more pictures of the fam. This one is from Memorial Day in the back yard.
I have a couple of good digital cameras and take a ton of pix, but am lazy about posting them. I'll be better.
"Me, Emily (6), Ethan (4 in Aug), Patti, Emerson (2)