Musings
Giving Thanks
We are approaching my favorite holiday—Thanksgiving. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a National Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. However, the first Thanksgiving celebration happened 242 years earlier. One hundred and two passengers left Plymouth, England, in 1620 on a small ship named the Mayflower. Their destination was the New World, where they hoped…
Read MoreNuggets
Happy Monday from Dubai UAE. Last week I was in Zion National Park with 9 other business leaders for a time of rest and rebuilding. I returned home Saturday and then left Sunday for Dubai. 3 planes and about 17 hours in the air and 4 hours in airports we are here in the Middle…
Read MoreLaser Focus
Lasers are cool. “LASER” stands for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” Lasers are special because they emit light coherently both spatially and temporally. Spatial coherency means the light can be focus narrowly and that it will remain narrow for long distances. Temporal focus means a laser can emit a single color of light.…
Read More42
What do you get if you multiply six by nine? “42” That answer is correct in Base-13. It is also the “ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything” in the Douglas Adams novel Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.2 The problem in this novel was they forgot the question, so they settled for randomly pulling Scrabble…
Read MoreReal Enough
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” —Albert Einstein We are approaching my favorite holiday—Thanksgiving. I’ll most certainly write more relating to it in the coming weeks, but I was thinking about this lately and felt like sharing… Reality is flexible. It is not fixed. I can hear several of you asking…
Read MoreProgress not Perfection
“Trying to design the perfect plan is the perfect recipe for disappointment.” —Patrick Lencioni We are not perfect. We are, in fact, irrational creatures who often act against our own best interests. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded a Nobel Prize in economics to Richard Thaler for his work in behavioral economics—or why we…
Read MorePut Your Behind in Your Past
This weekend I had the immeasurable pleasure of watching the fifth through eighth graders of Crossings Christian School perform Disney’s The Lion King Jr. It was a fantastic musical, and the kids did a great job. Some of the vocal and acting talent, given their young ages, was stunning. Additionally, my lovely daughter, who is…
Read MoreOh Say Can You See
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation. Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: ‘In God…
Read MoreChange Becomes You
“One’s purpose is often hidden. Often we do not have the slightest idea what we are, until we become it.”12 That is author Kevin Tobia’s paraphrase of something Nietzsche wrote. I don’t completely agree, but it begs the larger question of what makes us, us. In his article titled “Change Becomes You,” Tobia raises some…
Read MoreIt’s Supposed to be Hard
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” —Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own Last Saturday, at 7:30 a.m., hundreds of ordinary people of all ages, shapes, and types got into Lake Hefner and started swimming in 3-foot waves whipped up…
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