Musings
Don’t Panic
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy tells us that “A towel is just about the most massively useful thing any interstellar hitchhiker can carry. Partly it has great practical value…. more importantly, a towel has immense psychological value.” We just got new towels. New towels are marvelous things. They are soft, fluffy and luxurious. The…
Read MoreSearching For More Than Eggs
When I was young, dying Easter eggs was a big event. Being an engineer in training, I and my siblings experimented with myriad ways to decorate the almost magical yet misshapen orbs that would almost immediately be converted to deviled eggs. Over the years we tie-died, batiked, painted, wax coated, dipped, and dyed (natural and…
Read MoreRubber Band Man
Yes, that is a song by the R&B group, The Spinners, released in 1978, but that is not the point. Donna is a 1969 Mustang Coupe. Her family includes both the Mach 1 (250 hp) and the Boss 302 (290 hp), but Donna was born a “base” model. She has the 302 cubic inch block…
Read MoreRaising The Roof
A couple weekends ago we built a house. By “built” I mean framed the walls and sheeted the outside, and by “we” I mean a very large group of Kimray Team members. It was amazing and awesome and humbling. The day dawned wet and with the potential for more rain. I was concerned that the…
Read MoreSetting The Curve
When I was in engineering school, I took a few classes early on that were designed to weed out those who were not able or willing to do the work necessary. I remember one particular class, taught by the head of the department. On the first day of class he had us look at the…
Read MoreThe Oldest Story In The World
I recently had breakfast with a good friend, Ken Parker, who is the Founder and CEO of NextThought. Ken brought breakfast tacos to the office and we sat in a conference room and ate as we talked. I love talking to Ken. He tells stories. On this particular morning he was telling me the story…
Read MoreI Doubt It
There is a pervasive untruth that is foisted upon us early in life and then reinforced at every turn. We hear it when we try-out for sports or take tests to get into school. We hear it when we interview for our first, or second, or twentieth job. We hear it every time we make…
Read MoreNatural Born Leader
The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. Ralph Nader I used to tell people that I was born to be an engineer. It seemed to me that the ease with which I learned math and mechanics, my ability to visualize and design, and the speed at which I could do…
Read MoreInto The Woods
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living…
Read MoreWhen Will We Learn?
I watched a very interesting documentary recently. “Lesson Plan” (2011) is about a one-week experiment in a high school class at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, in 1967. The teacher, Ron Jones, decided to answer the question, “How could the people in Germany go along with the holocaust?” in a very unique way.…
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