Like all of our animals, Bailey came into our life by chance. He was the dog of a co-worker of Jenn’s. He asked if we could watch Bailey for a while, so Bailey came to stay with us for a month that ended up turning into nine years. For as big as he was (almost 105 pounds when we got him, but we slimmed him down), he was one of the gentlest dogs I’ve ever known. He never had an abundance of energy, but a good stick or a squirrel would always get him going. If he could talk, I think he would tell you that his happiest days were lazing in the lawn at our old house in Houston, TX. His favorite hobby was drinking out of a bowl outside (we never could figure out why he loved doing that so much).
When we moved to New York in 2005, he was crossing the threshold to 10 years. He started to slow down a bit, but he was always perky when he saw food. Eventually time caught up with him like it eventually does with all of us. Tonight we said good-bye.
Bailey was a good dog with a big, silly grin. He never once got angry. He did manage to catch a squirrel once, but other than that, he never hurt a fly. For some inexplicable reason, driving down highway off-ramps made him belch. He hated thunder and would jam himself into any closet he could in order to escape it. When we moved here, he took to squeezing himself between the refrigerator and the wall during thunderstorms and fireworks at Dutchess Stadium. He loved ice cream and, really, just about anything he could get into his mouth. I believe he once ate a nail. He had a good, long life.
For nine years he was our friend.
We’ll miss the big galoot.
Rest in Peace, Bailey boy. (1995-2009)
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I took a half day PTO today and decided to go on a hike since it was such a beautiful day. Here are the pictures:
Continue Reading “Hike up Mt. Beacon”
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I am always surprised at how Republicans can just spout out complete BS. I mean, I can understand if one disagrees with the President’s approach to the stimulus package–that’s a philosophical difference (even if their philosophy is wrong). Tonight, however, I overheard some woman spout off about how Obama was “taking away our rights” and “forcing a socialistc agenda down our throats”. She had nothing to back up her assertions. She also said Bush inherited a weak economy and was just a victim of the biased media (the same media that drooled over his Mission Accomplished flight suit costume party).
Of course five minutes later this same person was applauding a presentation about a pubically funded project that will surely benefit from additional funding via the stimulus package. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
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Being that I am a “gigantic, slow-moving, extremely heavy beast that require[s] handling“, I just now realized that BNET.com now has Stanley Bing on board. I love reading Bing’s management insights. Sometimes his barbs hit a bit close to home, but they are always amusing and often true.
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My wonderful wife gave me an iPod touch for valentine’s day. I have just downloaded the wordpress app. For some reason I find it fascinating that I can blog directly from this device. You would think that with all of these means of blogging I would blog more often.
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The Wall Street Journal has a fantastic, if troubling, look at the way a single layoff spreads its effects through the economy. Just think, there are tens of thousands of these ripples happening every day. Let’s hope these ripples do not turn into a tsunami. I don’t want to spoil the article by excerpting. It is worth reading the whole thing.
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It’s here! Today! At Noon!
I have MSNBC on in the background and the crowds are absolutely amazing.
The lyrics to this song has been going through my head all morning.
A Change is Gonna Come
by Sam Cooke
- I was born by the river in a little tent
- And just like the river, I’ve been running ever since
- It’s been a long time coming
- But I know a change is gonna come
-
- It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die
- I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky
- It’s been a long time coming
- But I know a change is gonna come
-
- I go to the movie, and I go downtown
- Somebody keep telling me “Don’t hang around”
- It’s been a long time coming
- But I know a change is gonna come
-
- Then I go to my brother and I say, “Brother, help me please”
- But he winds up knocking me back down on my knees
-
- There’ve been times that I’ve thought I couldn’t last for long
- But now I think I’m able to carry on
- It’s been a long time coming
- But I know a change is gonna come</blockquote>
Somewhere Sam is smiling today.
Continue Reading “Change”
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Quick takes for the week:
- So by now, everyone on the internets knows that Jott will soon cease all forms of free-ness. I have been using Dial2Do for a few weeks now, and while it seems a little less fluid then Jott, I recommend it as a replacement.
- Virgin America = the best airline out there. I flew from JFK to SFO and loved just about every moment of it. Great Service. On-Time Arrivals (actually early on both legs). Good entertainment system. Food on-demand (including lots of decent free coffee). The only odd thing was the configuration of the lavatories. It was awkward. I’m not sure if that is a VA thing or an Airbus thing.
- The only thing that makes the cold in NY worse is the knowledge that I was walking around in shirtsleeves in San Francisco earlier in the week.
- I finished Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check last week. Thouroughly enjoyable read. A ton of information. Already passing it out to my colleagues.
- I am currently reading Drucker. It’s very dense reading. I am surprised by how jarring I find the non-gender-neutral language. The advice is sound, however. Additionally, he uses a lot of mid-20th-century examples of leadership throughout the book. I am finding it interesting how closely the economic climate facing FDR mirrors the one facing Obama — especially, the changes it forced FDR to make to his agenda.
- I’m still working on a new blog. It’s business-related. I am trying to decide on the domain name (or should I piggy-back it off getdonkey.com?)
- I still can’t get over this. I am glad everyone survived.
- I can’t beieve this is really about to happen. I can’t wait. Although I chickened out on going down there. Unfortuantely, he will be inheriting a steaming pile.
- So long circuit city. I feel awful for the 30,000 folks left out in the cold.
- Lunch is over. Back to work.
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Things are going to be quiet here for the next few days as the get donkey! clan gets ready for the holidays. We’ll be making our way to PA and NJ to celebrate with family. We also said good-bye to our excellent au pair last week and welcomed a new one into the fold. I am listening to our 2 y.o. put her through the ringer right now.
The good news is that I think I have finally found a focus for the blog going forward. I need to plan it out a bit more. I may even be registering a new domain to run it on.
In the meantime I will keep posting random detritus here as I work up new content for the new theme.
I hope everyone has a happy holiday!
Continue Reading “Happy Holidays — Light posting”
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Words fail me…
Burger King has launched a new men’s body spray called “Flame,” which it describes as “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”
The link also mentions a “Whopper Virgins” campaign. Someone has been standing a bit too close to the flame-broiler.
I completed a series of brainstorming sessions this week. I was looking for a nice tool to display all of the ideas, but highlight the most common ideas. I pasted the text of my notes in to Wordle and created a nice visual display of all the words that came up during the sessions. The only problem is that Wordle only allows you to print the results or upload the Word Cloud to their gallery. I am wondering if there is a service out there that does the same thing as wordle, but lets you save the cloud as an image. Does anyone know of any?
I also want to give a shout out to MindMeister.com. I have been using it to do mind mapping (including organizing the results of the aforementioned brainstorming). There are a couple of things that I wish it had (associations and clouds), but it’s a great tool for online mind mapping. Does anyone have other recommendations?
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As mentioned earlier, I have taken an interest in Thai politics (I currently have two Au Pairs from Thailand living in the house). The fact that the King has endorsed the new PM will hopefully settle things a bit
This PM, Abhisit Vejjajiva, seems like a true departure from the previous office holders — he’s young, British born, and not from the same party. He also seems to be free of all the corruption that is rampant in Thai politics. Vejjajiva will have a difficult road ahead:
His first and most difficult challenge is calming the intense
political atmosphere that has seen the country bitterly divided between
supporters and opponents of the exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra.
It is all the harder for Mr Abhisit, as his party has allowed
itself to become closely associated with the hard-core People’s
Alliance for Democracy (PAD), whose campaign of economic sabotage,
culminating in last month’s week-long occupation of Bangkok
International Airport, helped bring down the previous government
[snip]
Mr Abhisit’s second challenge will be to rebuild confidence in an economy that is headed for trouble.
The full cost of the airport occupation has yet to be fully
counted, but it will certainly run into several billions of dollars.
The long-term damage to investor and tourist confidence could be much
worse – and that comes on top of a rapidly deteriorating global
climate.
Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Board now
concedes that its prediction of 3-4% economic growth next year is far
too high.
Some economists here are predicting that the economy will
shrink, a dire prognosis for this high-performance region. More than a
million Thai jobs are expected to be lost next year
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Fascinating article about Christian and Buddhist missions co-existing in the 700’s.
When Nestorian Christians were pressing across Central Asia during the sixth and seventh centuries, they met the missionaries and saints of an equally confident and expansionist religion: Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhists too wanted to take their saving message to the world, and launched great missions from India’s monasteries and temples. In this diverse world, Buddhist and Christian monasteries were likely to stand side by side, as neighbors and even, sometimes, as collaborators. Some historians believe that Nestorian missionaries influenced the religious practices of the Buddhist religion then developing in Tibet. Monks spoke to monks.
Continue Reading “Buddhists and Christians working together 1200 years ago”
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The NY Working Families Party has commissioned a poll that finds that New Yorkers are against Governor Paterson’s proposed budget cuts to schools and health care:
The poll showed that New Yorkers were strongly resistant to the proposed massive cuts to healthcare, education programs, and the safety net. When asked whether the state should “seriously consider” a list of budget proposals in order to close the budget gap, or should “definitely not consider taking that step,” between 60% and 75% of all voters said Albany should “definitely not” consider any of the following steps:
· Reducing the amount the state would reimburse hospitals for services provided under the Medicaid program (60% say “definitely do not take that step”)
· Reducing state funding for Medicaid and other health care services by $1.7 billion over the next year and a half (65%)
· Cutting state aid to public schools by $1.4 billion over the next year and a half (75%).
Continue Reading “New Yorkers don’t want cuts to schools or healthcare”
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