Water And Trees

One of the enjoyable things I get to do as a CEO is work with a wonderful board of directors. During a recent board retreat, we had a facilitator join us to help work through some difficult decisions. This person happens to be a good friend of mine. During our day, he said something that…

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Urgent Optimism

I filled up my car with gas a couple days ago, and the total was over $100. I avoid most news outlets and completely ignore social media, but you cannot escape the stories about tragic shootings happening one after another. We are being told daily that environmental shifts are going to make much of our…

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All I Want For Christmas

I saw Santa and Mrs. Claus this past week. Was it the real Santa Claus? Well, there are a few ways I can answer that. I could tell you that it was. “How could that be?” you say. Maybe you’ve heard of a little thing called magic? I could tell you that it was a Helper Santa—one of many…

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The Turning Away

On the turning awayFrom the pale and downtroddenAnd the words they sayWhich we won’t understand Anthony Moore & David Gilmour A week ago in my recovery group, we were discussing the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is an interesting tale regarding a man who is robbed, beaten, and left for dead on the roadside.…

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Ruts Of The Past

Four Feet, Eight and One-Half Inches. That is the distance between the rails of a standard gauge railroad in the United States. What an odd number. There is a very specific reason for that measurement. US railroads were built by English expatriates, and that’s the way they built them in England. The English used that…

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Imperfectly Happy

Champagne was “invented” in 1531 by Benedictine monks in the Abbey of Saint-Hilaire near Carcassonne, France. They bottled wine before the initial fermentation had ended, causing the byproduct of the fermentation, carbon dioxide, to be trapped in solution in the bottled wine. It would be a century before Christopher Merret detailed what is now called…

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The Good, The Bad, and The Best

What is good? Art, food, design, music, architecture, business…in basically every creative endeavor we find ourselves assigning value to the work of others. Why are some paintings hanging in museums and others are never seen by anyone other than the artist? Why are some songs by some artists played on the radio incessantly while others…

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I Can See Clearly Now

I think I know how Johnny Cash felt when he wrote that song. I can see clearly now the rain is goneI can see all obstacles in my wayGone are the dark clouds that had me blindIt’s gonna be a bright sunshiny day As I write this musing, I am near Essex, Montana, on the…

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Mice And Men

But Mouse, you are not alone, In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes of mice and men Go often askew, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!  I broke my elbow this weekend. It’s an embarrassing story that involves a skateboard, a slick garage floor, and me having no business being on a skateboard.…

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Being Squeezed

I am not ashamed to tell you I watched some weird TV shows this past weekend. I was exhausted from the last few weeks. We are facing so many struggles individually and as a company, and I needed a break, a distraction from the difficulties. I found a series called “Classic Albums” about how different…

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