Musings

For years, we watched the reruns of M*A*S*H on network television. When I was in high school, I built a sound card for my Apple IIe computer and programmed it to play “Suicide is Painless”, the theme song from both the movie and the TV series. M*A*S*H originally ran for 11 seasons and had 256…

I was wearing a concert shirt from the recent Smashing Pumpkins tour that simply says “ZERO” on it. At breakfast, a dear friend asked me if it was for “zero day.” He obviously has a limited range of music appreciation, but other than that, he’s a really great guy. I told him it was a…

It has not been a great football season for my alma mater. One of the reasons is injuries. Sometimes people say, “He got hurt,” when they are talking about an injury that has taken someone out of the game. I always say to myself (which is something I am practicing),“The whole game hurts; that dude…

I’ve been rewatching Yellowstone. At one point, a Native American elder tells a younger man, “You must stand on a cliff of death to understand your purpose in life. It’s the only place where you can see it.” At first, that may seem a little extreme, but there is significant truth there. Unfortunately, we are sometimes…

I like baby cows. Actually, I like the concept of baby cows. Real baby cows are smelly, dirty, and require a lot of care. I don’t want an actual baby cow; I just like the idea of baby cows. I think sometimes we have a lot of things in our lives where we like the…

Last week, some friends and I got a chance to try our hand at abstract painting. An artist friend, Lauren Florence, walked us through some amazing exercises before turning us loose on a 3’ x 3’ canvas to paint our own abstract masterpiece. The first thing she had us do was select three colors of paint,…

I went to my primary care physician this week for my annual physical. I use the term “annual” loosely as it has been four years since my last one. Not a recommended approach to preventative health care. He ran several tests and had already sent me for some rather invasive procedures that are a regular…

Last week, my wife said, “The pool is green.” It’s not the first time she has said this, as I have a habit of letting the pool go. Interestingly, I know it’s going to happen, but it still surprises me when it does. It seems to happen suddenly, but this isn’t the reality. The final…

There are no right answers to wrong questions. This was the title of my keynote address at RECON22, the 2nd Annual Recovering Leadership Conference hosted by the Kimmell Foundation for Recovering Leadership. I was asked to talk about reimagining our metrics, and since I am an engineer, that seemed a reasonable topic to request of…

I watched The King recently. The 2019 movie about King Henry V depicts the struggles of a young king thrust into power by the death of his father and brother. Early in his reign, Sir John Falstaff, his most trusted friend, says, “A king has no friends, only followers and foes.” This may be true of kings,…