Marketing The Blog

I've been thinking about this. I spend all day marketing, so I'm sensitive and critical when people are trying to sell me a load of goods.

But this does look interesting. Seems harmless and might be fun.

Sign up for this great new Blogstakes contest and maybe we’ll both win a prize!

Behold, the power of the blog!

Or was that "Beware of the Blog!"

Distant Thunder

I'm usually the one in the theater, so I don't hear what it's like in the rest of the house. My daughter and her friend, Daisy, are down there now watching "Jumanji". As I sit here at the iMac, 2 full floors above, I hear an occasional rumble. It is supposed to rain later tonight, but this is coming, from the register.

I spent a lot of money to isolate sound, and the room does, for the most part. But when that big subwoofer kicks in, there's not much you can do to keep it from setting off the earthquake detectors long the Pacific rim. Especially when I play that scene from "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring". You know the one. The Bridge of Kazadum.

OK, I exaggerate.

Wait, did you feel that?

Some links:

http://www.avsforum.com
http://www.svsubwoofers.com
http://www.designcinema.com

Mister Password Changing Man

One of the really unpleasant things about working in management is the occasional need to fire people. Not "Lay Off". Fire. Sometimes it has too happen.

Rarely have I needed to fire someone because they were bad at their job, lazy, incompetent. Those are easy. I don't mind that at all. Mostly I've been in the position of economic necessity or changing requirements staff reductions. That's what I've been doing today.

My day job is a small company and we had two offices - we kept the 2nd up till now because we really liked the people in the Minneapolis office and wanted to work with them. But as a small company it was very hard to manage and a big duplication of a lot of expenses. So we made the decision last week and today we made it happen. I'm back here in the home office. I held the meeting, alerted the staff, all of who were staying, and started the process of "changing the locks".

A lot of those people are my friends. It depresses me and honestly hurts. No easy way around it.

Simply a fact of life. So, all this afternoon I've been sitting with operations and changing accounts, passwords, logins, emails. Just like a funeral, but not as much fun.

So it begins

I've set out today to start the long process of losing weight. Of course, it's a bad time for such things (and perhaps I'll post more about this later this week). I feel like Lloyd Bridges in "Airplane!" - "Why did I pick today to stop sniffing glue?"

I haven't weighted in - not even sure I'm going to step up on the scale at all. Frankly, I don't care what I weigh. I only want to be trimmer and in better shape.

Today, I had two eggs with a dash of heavy cream and a slice of American cheese - a simple omelet. I also have a tall glass of water with breakfast, followed by a cup of coffee at work (more of a mug, really). We'll see how the day goes - I'm more interested in getting through the week than dropping pounds.

In other news, thinking about common ground. Diane and I spent the weekend (a very nice trip by the way) in Boston. We stayed in a downtown hotel and each morning had a muffin and coffee in Boston Common. We talked about the tour book history about the place and in English commons and their enclosures - what that meant for the "common" folk.

It leads me back to thoughts of "cheap labor" conservatives. And of the future.

Much thinking about that to do - to early to say anything here that doesn't make me sound like a crackpot.

I am, of course, a crackpot. I just don't like to sound like one.