Og Mandino

My wife is participating in a class that is designed to improve her sales technique. It is called Integrity Selling and provides an excellent picture of how to ensure your client is getting what they want instead of what you want to sell them. I am sure that there is a little of both mixed in because a salesman by definition is someone who sell things to you and the more they sell the more they make. But Integrity Selling ensures that there is agreement between both parties. Not at all like buying a car.

The class is broken into teams and each team awards a gift to the student that has gotten the most from the lesson. My wife was awarded a book called The Greatest Mystery in the World by Og Mandino. I had never heard of Og (as his close friends called him) before seeing the book. He was a sought after motivational speaker from the 1980’s and 1990’s. He has a series of books about selling and how to improve your life. His biography makes it sound like he would have been a great person to hear.

I started reading The Greatest Mystery in the World and have not been blown over by what he has to say. It is nothing I haven’t heard before. The avenues of thought are almost like he was straining to put something down on paper. The book starts out almost mystical with Og being visited by a hermit like man who is a closet philosopher. He provides structure and vision for Og and then disappears without a trace for almost 20 years. When he comes back into Og’s life, it is in the middle of a field in a rural section of New Hampshire. Something smells fishy to me but it is his story and he is sticking to it. Anyway, the book uses old out of print authors to makes points concerning the ladder to success. I have never heard of any of the authors and it seems like he used books that the copyright had expired so he would not have to pay royalties.

I have not finished “Mystery” yet but I am not anticipating any Earth shattering truths. At lease with modern self help you get a little more glitz, smoke and mirrors.

Icool

Cobb

Merry, Merry Month of May

It is difficult to believe that this month is almost over. By the end of next week, the kids will be out of school and lazing on their summer vacation. Yesterday officially kicked off the summer season with 90+ temperatures, barbeques, and pool openings. We spent the day digging and planting to try to get some of the plants we purchased into the ground before they die. With all of the heat yesterday, it was a dripping wet event.

We went and purchased a city pool pass this weekend. For $96, the kids can go to the pool as much as they want. If you pay every day, it is $5 a pop. With three kids, at $15 per day, it pays for itself the first week. Plus it is a safe and clean place for them to spend their days. The added bonus is they get to work on their tans. Oh, to be young and have nothing better to do.


So as we roll into the summer season, it will be interesting to see how the summer unvails. My garden is in so I will be weeding, the grass needs mowed, and I have to paint my driveway with that black tar stuff. That is a fun process because of the long drying time and the mess. It makes the driveway look better and last longer so it has to be a good thing. After that, summer should be a walk in the park.

Icool

Cobb

Could It Be… Satan?

Back in the 3rd hay day of Saturday Night Live, Dana Carvey had a character named the Church Lady. She had a cable access show called Church Chat. She/he always had a prim and proper dress on and a funny smirk that just added to the humor. There was always some moral dilemma that the church lady would become passionately embroiled and then the blame for the culprit causing that sort of activity. The catch phrase was always, “Could it be Satan?” His face was always pinched and his lips pursed when he uttered that phrase.

As a Christian, I am supposed to live my life as Christ teaches. The Da Vinci Code (in theaters now) has raised questions about the divinity of Christ by saying he was married and had a daughter. That does not raise any issues for me in that he was the son of God put on Earth to experience and feel what us mortals feel. Is it beyond the realm that he was married and had children? If it was God’s plan then what is the issue? Does it in any way diminish the complete change in thought, brought about by His teaching, on how we are to treat each other? It is the Man along with the teachings and actions that Christians should be responding to, not the side show attractions that seem to pop up when ever someone has an issue with divinity.

I have read the teachings of Christ and found that they are not an easy path to follow. He says to love one another as I have loved you. His actions demonstrate that we are to seek out those who we find morally reprehensible and break bread with them (which in his day meant tax collectors but for us it would probably be lawyers). He demonstrates that no one has the moral platform from which to throw the first stone. This is just a small list of how he talked the talk and walked the walk. For those who lived after Him and interpreted Jesus’ word or through a vote determined his status to the Christian faith, they are only interpreting or in some cases clarifying for their own purposes. The life of Jesus stands by itself as the guide line on how to live your life. Any other attempts to shed Jesus in a different light would certainly give the Church Lady an opportunity to ask, “Could it be Satan?”

Icool

Cobb

Soak Up The Sun

"Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get." — Anonymous.

I have heard this quote in various forms and when it was on the today in history page on Yahoo, I could not pass up writing about it. To me this statement (along with the Beatles, “All you need is love”) is the true meaning of life. Everyone strives to be successful and gain those material things that we are sure will make us happy. The bigger house, newer car, the boat, the big vacation, clothes, jewelry…. I could go on and on about what bling makes people feel successful. If you ask most of the people how much their happiness has grown once they get those items and after the halo effect has worn off, they will tell you that not much. So much for success is getting what you want.

There is a classic psychology presentation from an early pioneer in the field named Maslow. He developed a hierarchy of needs that has been universally accepted as a foundation for the human condition. It is usually represented as a pyramid. At the base are the physical needs such as food, drink and air. The second are security needs like shelter, heat, and clothing. The third is knowing that you are loved and belong. The fourth level is to know that people look up to you and you are held in esteem by others. The definition of the last level always eluded me because self actualization seemed to be a vague way of saying you are pleased with your life and things are going well.

So, maybe, self actualization is the second half of the quote. As Sheryl Crow puts it best in her summer hit from 2002, “Its not having what you want, its wanting what you got.” If you have achieved the important things in life (that means worthwhile goals that mean something to you) and someone loves you, you pretty much have it all. That is why being rich is not all it is cracked up to be and not being rich, although it is an every day struggle, provides the means to achieve goals and be happy. If you have no where to go and nothing to work toward, how can you ever be happy with what you get. You already have what you want.

Icool

Cobb

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Quite a few of my posts have dealt with vacations lately. With summer swiftly approaching and the bleak, cold winter diminishing in the rear view mirror, vacations are on my mind. I have been searching for the right place to go, not this year, but next. We travel with my sister and her family every other year on a major jaunt and trying to find a house that is affordable and has the amenities that we would like is a difficult job. We have few requirements (at least for us) but they seem to be a major hurdle for some of the popular tourist areas.

The first requirement is a place big enough for 9 people. That would be at least a five bedroom place, with a minimum of three baths. It has to be within walking distance of a beach. The house needs to have a pool and be pet friendly. Yes, we want to take our dogs. That seems to be the big sticking point for most areas. We are looking for the last two weeks of July which is prime vacation time. It is before marching band and sports practices start at high school and the peak of warmness for sun and fun on the sand.

We have looked at Pawleys Island in South Carolina, Rehoboth Beach in Maryland, any coastal town in Maine, and finally the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We did the Outer Banks in 2002 and had a great time. Of all the places, OBX has places that meet the requirements and do not break the bank. If we start saving now, we may be able to afford renting a place across from the beach, with a pool, pool table, hot tub, two master suites, and pet friendly. We just have to settle on the house we want. Choices choices.

Icool

Cobb

Dragged Down By The Stone

As an avid Pink Floyd fan, I enjoy listening to their music, at least from Meddle through A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Their earlier stuff is a little too psychedelic and the Division Bell sound like they tried too hard to sound like Pink Floyd. Their music is still played prolificly on the airwaves and I have even heard San Tropez played on the muzac in a grocery store. One of their albums I have never heard played on the radio is Animals. I have heard snippets of songs in commercials but never a complete song.

Animals is their concept album about the divisions of who is in charge and who is not. It is a very vindictive towards those in power and fatalistic towards those who are not. The world is divided into Pigs, Dogs and Sheep. There is also the Pigs on a Wing who seem to be the untouchable string pullers. Each group gets their song and each song jams in its own right.

The dogs have it the worse. They appear to be the corporate executives that back stab and crawl over the corpses of those they off. They end up destroying all chances of friendship and close relationships by using everyone to get what they want. They end up "all alone and dying of cancer." In the end they harvest what they sow and are all dragged down by the stone. Each misdeed is just another weight added to their collar and in the end they are pulled into the murky depths by the sheer mass of their need for control.

It is hard to imagine a world that is so black and white when it comes to labeling people. Everyone knows a dog. Everyone has had to deal with someone who uses and discards them when they have gotten what they want. That is a lesson learned. Most of us remember that like a hand on the burner and instinctively avoid such people in the future. Others are drawn to the potential power of a dog and are constantly cycled through the abuse grinder. Some us never learn. I guess that is the meaning of sheep.


Icool

Cobb

Mini Vacations

My wife had a conference up at Boyne Mountain last week and we scheduled a family weekend at the resort. The have ski slopes (which are obviously closed), great golf courses and a huge indoor water park. She went up on Wednesday and we followed on Friday. Originally our two nieces were going to go with us but one of them had to work so my oldest daughter asked a friend. The trip up started slow because my daughter's friend had to watch her younger siblings and we had to drop the dogs off at my sister's house and pick up my niece. We ended up getting on the road about an hour after I had planned but that was a good thing because traffic had settled down.

Mapquest put the trip at 4.5 hours which was about right but it was a long trip. The Michigan sunset was beautiful as you got into the mountains. I knew we were close when the kids started complaining about their ears popping. By the time we arrived, I was whipped. I had been up since 4:00 AM and it was flirting with 11:00 PM. I had 90 minutes of driving before the trip so I ended up being behind the wheel for about 6 hours that day. That will wear you out.

Saturday was very relaxing. The kids went to a water park. I did not want to be beaten to death by water or have to worry about losing a contact so I stayed away from the water park. I opted for a massage and a mud wrap. I might as well relax if I'm on vacation. It was my second mud wrap and it was fantastic. You come out smooth as a baby and relaxed beyond belief. I sat in the sauna and whirl pool tub for about 30 minutes total, got cleaned up and met the family for dinner. That is what vacation is all about; relaxing. I hope I don't turn into a spa junkie. I can think of a few worse things to turn into.

Icool

Cobb

Traveling

After I typed the title, it looked like I had misspelled it. Spell check did not high light the word so it must be correct. I chose the subject because it is something that I used to do quite frequently for work but have been fortunate to have that chapter of my life closed for the last several years. When I worked for Champion Spark Plug, I traveled all of the time. We lived in Iowa and I flew to Toledo almost weekly for long stretches of time. Either we were putting in a new computer system and spent weeks training and correcting data or we were moving departments and went weekly to train new people and learn new jobs. Everyone thinks that traveling is so much fun because you get to eat out all the time and see new and exciting things. It gets very old, real quick.

My next bout of traveling was with Tenneco. Again we were putting in a new software package so I went to their headquarters in the Chicago area week after week for training. Then the plant consolidations started and I was going to Culver, Indiana week after week. It got older even quicker. My latest job has required minimal travel and few overnight stays. I am grateful for that because my kids are very active in sports and other extra curricular activities and it is tough to miss them. I missed my oldest daughter’s first two Halloweens due to business trips. That was tough.

Now my wife has entered the work force and is being given the chance to take business trips. She is very excited and loves seeing places that she has never been before and playing golf all over the place. I am excited for her because it is her chance to get out and see things. I have traveled all over the place whether it was the Army, business or just vacation. There are a few places I would like to see but I want her with me. So I am hoping that my business traveling days are over and the only trips I’ll take will be taking are to some warm sunny beach, sipping an adult beverage.

Icool

Cobb

Forward Thinking

I recently talked about the state of the world oil economy. Venezuela, with all of the oil wealth is providing subsidized gas and petroleum to disadvantaged areas of the world to curry favor. They are sitting on all of that mineral wealth and instead of using the benefit of their geography to improve the overall economic prosperity for their citizens, they are squandering it on trying to make “friends” and twist them to their socialist ideas. We have already proven that socialism is a failed ideology.

A bright spot on the oil monopoly front this week was Saudi Arabia. One of their government officials stated that oil prices could not sustain these high levels for very long. That with gasoline prices floating around $3.00 per gallon, the world (America) will start looking for alternative sources of energy to fuel their economies and when they start down that path, the dependence on their countries for oil with drop from gotta have to ho hum. They will be setting on a treasure trove of a commodity that no one wants because they have moved to a renewable source. Whether it ends up being hydrogen, which is most likely, or some form of electric, we will be powering our vehicles using an energy source that does not consume a non-renewable resource.

While the rest of the world looks at OPEC and the oil rich nations and laments about the high cost of fuel, the oil bloc should be using their soon to be exhausted mineral wealth to improve their economies and create industry and businesses that will continue to make their nations grow and prosper. Instead we get the short sighted new world vision of making our gains today at the expense of tomorrow. I wish I could say that America had any better vision but unfortunately, we have created a nation of instant gratification seekers instead of long range planners. Oh hold on, I’m getting a text message. (Just kidding, I do not use that service. It cost money!)

Icool

Cobb

Rain

Unlike some other parts of the country, Florida in particular, we are having our fill of the wet stuff. It has been cloudy and gloomy in Northwest Ohio for the better part of a week and it looks like there is another week yet to come. The temperature is a little off also but you expect it to be cooler when the gray overcast sky hangs over you day after day. It is starting to get depressing not seeing blue sky and the sun at least for a little while.

Northwest Ohio is known for its cloudy days. It is kind of a trademark of the region to have an endless string of cloudy days and rain. We will never be known for our solar power generating capability. That we will leave up to the desert states of the west and south. We do however have a solar panel manufacturer, First Solar, which is building a plant in the area as well as several through out Europe and Asia. It may start a Renaissance for the glass industry in our area.

Toledo was once known as the Glass Capital of the World. We had Libby Owens Ford, Owens Illinois, and Owens Corning producing everything from automotive glass, to construction glass, to drinking implements, to decorative fixtures. The manufacturing has dried up except for a few factories making automotive and specialty glass. What was once an elite group of Fortune 500 companies has been bought up or downsized. Owens Illinois and Owens Corning are all that is left of that once proud industry. Maybe First Solar will be the silver lining to the clouds that have covered Toledo and provide the spark for the next chapter in the Glass Capital. We could sure use some sun shine in our neck of the wood.

Icool

Cobb

Making Americans Rich

I hear the lament of everyone complaining about $3.00 per gallon gas. I hear the accusations and the finger pointing at our US oil companies making obscene profits on petroleum products. There is the saber rattling and complaining about the Middle East regimes restricting production and jacking up prices. A recent article about the gas prices in Venezuela put them at $0.18 per gallon. We haven’t seen that since the 1960’s. But those prices are heavily subsidized by the Venezuelan government and when their oil runs out, they will still be a 3rd world military puppet while we will still be a super power. Never flaunt your mineral wealth. It is like the millionaire who put his money under his mattress but spent it like it was multiplying. When it’s gone, it’s gone.

There is a part of the US oil equation that Americans either have not been told or choose to ignore. We are lead to believe that our thirst for oil is met almost entirely by foreign countries. We are inundated by the news pointing to the oil rich Middle East, Russia, South America and saying how we need to open a dialogue of peace with these places to maintain the flow of oil. What you never hear is that Americans produce 40% of our own oil. America used 21,930,000 barrels / day of oil in 2005. 8,710,000 were produced domestically and 13,220,000 were imported. The US is the 3rd largest producer of petroleum. Putting that is dollars today, last years daily production is worth $635,820,000 at $73.00 per barrel. On a yearly basis, that is $232,074,300,000 or a quarter of a trillion with a T dollars. That all stays here in the US.

The 2005 cost to get a barrel of oil from the ground was $7.35. Let’s see, $73.00 - $7.35 is $65.65. The oil produced domestically does not require a super tanker ride to get here plus the loading and unloading at the terminals. That means that the US produced oil contributed $208,711,175,500 to the economy in 2005. Now let’s complain that the oil companies made a profit. Sure we had to pay out more than that for what we imported but still someone here is making money. In the mean time, petroleum will price itself out of the market at some point and alternatives like hydrogen or propane will become economically viable. I love free enterprise.

Icool

Cobb

Mother’s Day

I am writing this on Friday but it will be my Monday entry. I try to stay at least one day ahead so if I have a rough day and can’t write or have a mental block, I can still go to press. Sunday is the holiday that every husband loves to hate, Mother’s Day. If I were to take the advice of the commercials on the radio, there would be some kind of diamond something wrapped and bowed on Sunday. Or maybe a Vermont Teddy Bear delivered to her office for her friends to get jealous over. Neither of those seems overly practical. Getting flowers is a nice but once they start the droop and die process, they are pitched and forgotten.

You have to at least get a card. And if you have kids, they need to get one for their mother also. If you are good, you can combine the two. Since no sane man would buy his wife clothes, you have to look for something that is practical, useful, decorative, and most of all not a labor saving device. No vacuum cleaners, mixers, toaster ovens or anything that implies that they are responsible for performing labor around the house. This after all a day for moms to lounge around the house and be pampered, not for them to think about all of the things they should be doing.

One way of giving your wife something and not having to do much is to take her out for dinner on Sunday. This avoids you having to do any real labor and makes her happy that you though ahead to making reservations to her favorite place. That is if you have thought that far ahead. If not, you can spend a leisurely afternoon sitting in the waiting list area of the restaurant. The good thing about that is she will at least be relaxing. The bad part is that any happy thought will not be about you.

Icool

Cobb

Quest For Knowledge

One of the quips I put on my blog to describe myself is that I quest for knowledge and sometimes find it. I have a voracious appetite for reading. I am constantly looking for new things to read whether it be books, news (on-line), the Burpee’s seed catalog or even the back of a shampoo bottle. I have been reading all about the seed selections presented by the 2006 Burpees catalog for the past week. Since it is garden time, I wanted to see if there is anything new and interesting to put in the garden. I haven’t found anything that has blown me away so I will go with the standard tomatoes, peppers, green and yellow beans, zucchini and summer squash and cucumbers. Last night’s rain will help with the seed germination but I still have to put up a barrier so the dogs won’t use the garden space as their speedway.

Continuing with my quest…

I read an interesting article yesterday on Neptune’s moon Triton. It is the only moon in our solar system that does not circle its parent in the same direction as the planet’s spin. The article says that it was probably captured as it circled the sun and became a captive moon. Another article was about a white bear that had been shot. It had some features that looked like a combination of polar bear and grizzly. A genetic test confirmed that it was indeed a hybrid animal. This was the first such sighting recorded by man.

Those are the useless bits of information that I roll up into my knowledge base. Some days you get nothing but poorly aimed attempts to provide misinformation to the public. That is how I have come to view the state of our current mass media. They are perched on platforms like messianic candidates hoping to get noticed and vaulted to the level of savior. Unfortunately, the constant pounding by a select few manage to be heard above the din but their message is becoming more and more bizarre. Mostly I hear the same old blah, blah, blah.



Pink Floyd’s Time from Dark Side of the Moon puts it nicely, “thought I’d something more to say.”

Icool

Cobb

Shock The Monkey

I am old enough to remember the birth of MTV. I remember the commercials from its infancy when rock superstars like David Bowie would come on and say, “I want my MTV.” It was cool to see the gods of rock appear more frequently than just on American Bandstand, The Midnight Special, or the occasional appearance on Saturday Night Live. One of the first videos I saw was Peter Gabriel’s Shock The Monkey and I was blown away by the imagery as well as the awesome song. If you haven’t seen it, look it up. It is worth the effort. The line that catches my ear (see lyrics below) is “watch the monkey get hurt.” It puts a different spin on people watching.

I was already a Gabriel fan from hearing Games Without Frontiers on 104.7 FM. That was before I actually knew who he was and where he came from. He was originally the front man for Genesis and went solo. Phil Collins took up the front position from there and Genesis launched into stardom from there. Gabriel put out a trio of great albums, the third being So, which was his big commercial success. Sledgehammer, also a great song and video are worth a viewing.

Shock the Monkey
Shock the monkey to live
Shock the monkey to live

Cover me when I run
Cover me through the fire
Something knocked me out' the trees
Now I'm on my knees
Cover me, darling please
Monkey, monkey, monkey
Don't you know when you're going to shock the monkey

Fox the fox
Rat the rat
You can ape the ape
I know about that
There is one thing you must be sure of
I can't take any more
Darling, don't you monkey with the monkey
Monkey, monkey, monkey
Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey

Wheels keep turning
Something's burning
Don't like it but I guess I'm learning

Shock! - watch the monkey get hurt, monkey

Cover me, when I sleep
Cover me, when I breathe
You throw your pearls before the swine
Make the monkey blind
Cover me, darling please
Monkey, monkey, monkey
Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey

Too much at stake
Ground beneath me shake
And the news is breaking

Shock! - watch the monkey get hurt, monkey

Shock the monkey
Shock the monkey
Shock the monkey to life

Icool

Cobb

So Let It Be Written, So Let It Be Done

I can Hear Yul Brynner saying those words as Rameses in The Ten Commandments. It was that distinct accent and clipped rhythm that made it so unique. Of course there was Charlton Heston as the heroic Moses, champion of the whiney, disobedient Jews that we all picture when we think about that epic movie. But it is what is being written that I wanted to talk about. The amusing headline from Yahoo is that overall newspaper circulation is down 2.5%. That means that the reading public is forsaking their desire for the printed media. The article says that newspaper circulation has been in decline for years and that the young are ignoring that medium. They are more interested in the digital news.

The newspaper is an antiquated method of getting out the information. It was the primary method of disseminating information before the radio came along but people still wanted to read. When TV hit the stage with its nightly news, people still needed to get their local updates. The local evening news filled in the gap and what were left were the coupons and the obituaries. You can get the coupons on line so that leaves looking at who died. Not something young people are interested in. The article did allude to a significant rise in the amount of time people are on line.

Young people do not think of newspapers as the source of information that their parents and grandparents do. In the world of cell phones and text messaging, they can get updates at the touch of a button or have their phone ring them when what they requested is available. For those of us who cannot seem to get past the cell phone as an emergency device, the internet is still quicker, cheaper and you do not have to collect and dispose of heaps of paper every week. I suppose you could recycle but why consume a resource that does not need to be used. It is not like the information is going to be lost if it is not printed. It will reside on someone server until it is needed again. So let it be done.

Icool

Cobb

Top Ten Reasons Why….

I know that Dave Letterman has made a career on the top ten list. I cannot tell you the last time I actually saw David Letterman. It has been at least 10 years. I typically do not say up that late and if I do, it is not to watch television. I wanted to do a top ten reasons list and since I am not the first to be clever enough to develop the idea, I thought I would acknowledge the current master of the art.

The questions that come to mind are what to do a top ten list about? Should it be funny or serious? Do I make it political? Should I lampoon the liberals or go after jihadists? I guess that would be a question of is there a difference. I could do the environment or high gas prices but I have ranted enough about one and the other is just a matter of market forces responding to the possibility of a terrorist nation threatening to create an artificial oil shortage.

I think I will choose the 10 reason why I continue to put my thoughts down every day. That will serve a two fold purpose. I can see why I do this and also contemplate the future direction of this endeavor.

10) It gives me reason to think about more than the daily grind.
9) Makes me look at ideas that I do not believe in.
8) Provides a daily break.
7) Makes me consider how to package an entry.
6) Allows me to vent without yelling at someone.
5) Creates a habit of writing every day (at least weekday)
4) Allows me to think that I am witty without peanut gallery comments.
3) Leaves a diary of my thoughts for review later in life
2) Improves my search engine usage capability

And the number one reason why I continue to create entries every day:

1) It provides a legacy to prove that I do / did exist.

I guess it is not a funny top ten. Dave would never present this list but I guess it is an introspective focus as opposed to an external view. I guess that I really do want to have something other than pictures in someone’s family album to be remembered by. And if no one ever reads this but me and a few close friends, at least it is out in the cyber realm where it is available in case someone gets bored or has too much leisure time.

Icool

Cobb

Anticipation

For those of us who remember Carly Simon with the clouds in her coffee and the spy who loved her, there is her most famous song about ketchup, Anticipation. (As Yosemite Sam says, “It’s a joke son.”) The commercial focuses on the head of the ketchup bottle as it flows painfully slow through the mouth. All the time, Carly is singing, anticipation is making me wait. Of course now you just squeeze the bottle for our instant gratification fix. It is amazing how marketing has had to change the focus of our lives from one of slow and enjoyable to fast and tolerable.

My children have been counting down the days until the end of the school year. Every night I hear, there are X number of days left. I remember counting down until the start of summer vacation. It was something that all of us looked forward to as youth. The days grew warmer and everyone started going outside. Baseball/softball started and the pool opened up on Memorial Day weekend (if the weather held up). It has not changed much over the last 30 years. On the flip side, there was always the dread at the end of summer. You knew it was over when your mom took you to go clothes shopping. But in June, August is a long way off and there is so much to do between now and then.

For adults, we are forced to live a mini-summer vacation every week. Our vacation starts as we leave work on Friday afternoon and ends when we go to sleep on Sunday night. Now we may get a vacation every year but these are usually planned and create more havoc that they do relaxation. I find it best to find a beach and sip cranberry and Absolute all afternoon while soaking up the sun. If you can accomplish that level of relaxation two or three days during your week of vacation, you have managed to recharge the batteries and live to fight another day. It is quite the change from the anticipation of youth to the expectations of an adult. The next step as an adult is transition to retirement. I have a few years before that happens but am still anticipating that. Please don’t ask me how many days. I can’t count that far ahead.

Icool

Cobb

Stink Oh De Mayoh

American love to celebrate anything. We are always looking for any excuse to get together and drink, dance, and enjoy the fruits of our labors. As a nation, we have become prosperous and wealthy and an occasion to let down our hair makes our labors seem all that much sweeter. Just look at the number of off beat holidays that we celebrate. There is St Patricks day. Now I know that we are not all Irish but on a cosmic scale, it is close enough. You have the big three summer holidays, Memorial, July 4th and Labor, only one of which is an actual occasion of any significance. Even Halloween has turned into a big time event with adults joining in to the same degree as the children. But today is May 5th which means nothing in America. It is a minor event in Mexican history but we have glamourized it and made it a day for Americans to party; Cinco de Mayo.

The day celebrates an event in Mexico when the Mexican army defeated the last attempt by the French to influence (at least militarily) the New World. In Mexico it is hardly noticed. In America, we are happy at any French defeat so we have done the old "carpe diem" and adopted it as our own. I can see all of the French soldiers throwing down their rifles and raising their arms above their heads. It reminds me of that French aerobics video I saw last year.

What Americans should use Cinco de Mayo for is to focus on the invasion of illegal immigration from our southern border. It should be the day that all of the illegals arrested on during the May 1st protests are deported back south. Oh wait, no one was arrested for being here illegally during the protests. Hum, I wonder why not? We have people who have broken the law, (criminals) who should have been arrested for their crime (illegal entry into our soverign nation), and sent back to their nation of origin (punishment). Now that would be a reason to party. Paid government official actually doing their jobs instead of campaigning for he next election. If I wanted this much lack of government interest in enforcing actual laws instead of interpreting them, I would move to Europe. Wait a minute, that is where France is. I'll pass.

Icool

Cobb

Untold Riches

The voice of the treasure Sphinx from Aladdin has been cycling around in my head today. “Touch nothing but the lamp. “, in that rough, gravely voice. A cave of treasure beyond anyone’s dreams, ripe for the taking and no way to get at it. Sounds like a great plot for a movie. Of course it has been done numerous times, the most recent of note was National Treasure with Nicholas Cage. But let’s get back to Aladdin.

You have Jaffar, the evil man looking to use magic to achieve his evil deed. He needs to find the “diamond in the rough” to get his hands on the lamp because he is not of the right moral character. It is another case of the greedy and power hungry using the poor and innocent to do their dirty work. So much in life is viewed as the rich versus the poor. Rich people are always perceived as manipulating the system to get what they want and the perception is that they get what they want. The little man has no chance because “the man” is keeping him down. Poor unhappy Aladdin, a beggar on the streets goes against rich happy powerful Jaffar. Oops, I mean happy Aladdin and miserable Jaffar.

It is a great assessment that things do not make you happy. Status does not improve your long term misery index. Money, a necessary societal tool, is nothing more than that; a tool. It buys whatever it can afford and consumes whatever it wants. Having too much money is the narcotic of the masses. It is what everyone craves but becomes the monkey on your back once achieved. You have to start protecting what is yours and everyone wants to be your friend. Look at Mike Tyson for a case history of that abuse. I am not advocating being poor, but beware of the dreams of avarice. Take the advice of the Sphinx and when confronted by the dream of untold wealth, touch nothing but the lamp. It holds more than a Genie.

Icool

Cobb

Pet To The Vet

A friend of mine from work recently took his dog to the vet to have a tumor removed. It required that he take some time off of work. The dog is a 10 year old lab and this was the second time around for tumor removal surgery. When they got her prepped for the surgery, they found several other tumors and it was agreed that those would also be removed. Now my friend is married and does not have any children. His dogs are the surrogate children of the house. It strikes me as unusual that someone would devote that much time, attention, and money to an animal. My background does not provide such a nurturing environment for pets.

Growing up, we always had dogs around. At one time we had 20 dogs at our house. It was two litters of puppies along with the adults my father was training. He used fox terriers to hunt squirrel and beagles to hunt rabbits and was always training one or the other in their selected professions. He was his own vet and also provided that service to the neighbors on request. If a dog was sick, he treated it. If it did not get better, he did not take it to a professional and spend money on it. That was for humans and doctors. These were not pets. They were animals and you did not spend needlessly on or miss work for them. That has always been the perception in the back of my mind.

Of course I have grown into a different perspective. I love and enjoy my dogs and make sure that they have good medical care. I am not sure how far I would go down the line for surgery. I guess it would be a matter of what it was for and the quality of life afterward. We had our first dog put down (she was 14 years old) after she continued to fall off of the back steps when she went outside to use the bathroom. Her quality of life was poor as she was almost blind and totally deaf. It was still hard to put her down but you have to ask if that is how you would want to live. In the end, we made the right decision. Our two new additions to the family are an enjoyment to our daily lives. I guess that is what pets are, unconditional loving children. I wish the same could be said for the two legged ones.

Icool

Cobb

Coming Back To Reality

Vacations are a dangerous thing. I had nine days to completely forget about all aspects of work and completely blank out thoughts of making auto parts. Now, I never completely got it out of my head but I was close to a clean slate. Now that I have put a full day in at the office, I could use another week off. All of the little, petty, mundane details of the daily storm and strife are flooding back and I know why they call it work.

Although I did not have an exceptional time in Las Vegas, I did have an enjoyable time away from the office. Any time you can forget about dealing with the arrogant jack asses at the assembly plants, it is a good thing. It is one thing to be demanding and demonstrate that you are worthy of that demand. It is another to be a cluttered mess covering a mine field and expecting perfection from those around you. You never know which step you take that will be the one that blows your leg off and throws shrapnel every which way. If GM, Ford and DCX knew the amount of collateral damage they caused by their lack of attention to detail, it would save them and their suppliers a huge amount of money. But it is not about saving money. It is about punishment and retribution. At least those are the appearances.

So, as I get back into the swing of things again, I will try to get to that spot last week when the chalk board was completely erased and I was mentally clapping the erasers by the pool. Try to get to that point where thinking of nothing, but what to enjoy next, is the most important thing in my life. Somehow, I think the moment is lost. I can at least wander through the memory and relish in the what was, while fencing the dogs in the reality of what is.

Icool

Cobb

Life In Las Vegas

It took me most of my trip to Vegas to figure out why people go there. Sure there are great shows, gambling, plenty of things to look at, tours and many other things designed to grab your tourist dollars. We saw a comedian named Danny Gann that was hilarious and very entertaining. I dropped a couple of $20 bills into the slot machines and came out slightly behind when I left the city. My wife and I walked the entire length of the strip (3 hours) and took plent of pictures. It is truely a wonder of modern architecture and design. After all was said and done, I ended up disappointed and wanting to come home.

Las Vegas is the place where adults can go to escape from their responsibilities. You can drink, gamble, stay up all night, go see naked ladies on stage or in person for a price. There were children handing out little cards on the streets advertising female companionship of every size, shape, age, and ethnic origin. The little cards were a bother but using children to hand them out disgusted me. There were also trucks driving up and down the strip advertising ladies however you wanted them. It was an amazing display of debauchery and depravity. I can see why what goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas because most people would not want to talk about what they did there. I can also see why it is a favorite place for bachelor parties.

So, now that I am home (and happy to be here), I will look toward my next week of vacation and relish the concept of staying at home. Sleep in, play video games, watch TV, do things with the kids and enjoy the atmosphere where life is in the same time zone and the people I enjoy the most are already there.

Icool

Cobb