PYO Years ago I found some prints done by an artist that concentrated on old barns and clouds. I liked the barn prints, but I loved the cloud prints. There are few things I like as much as a big sky. It may be what appeals to me most about being out west. I guess because there are fewer trees and small hills, there always seems to be a big sky. Lately I have realized…
Guns & Roses Guns do not regularly come into my consciousness, but this morning I got an email from a friend who hails from Oklahoma and who was home for a visit with dear old Mom. This guy is a motorcycling friend who now works as a movie art director. In other words, he is a design professional and a liberal and urban sort of guy. But his roots are in Osage country. He…
Trash Talk I think its fair to suggest that the era of telephone land lines, an important part of our communications network for 100-125 years, is dead. The growth of land-lines pretty much happened in the normal exponential curve that can be seen for any new technological innovation. It began with the Bell patent in 1876, grew to a few million installed lines in 1905, got nationalized as a strategic asset by the government…
The Warrior Cult Patrick was a loyal citizen from the time of his youth. He was born of the Roman Empire to a clerical family living in Western Britain (what we now think of as Wales). He was intended to study the classics and either take his place as a Roman orator and politician, like his father, or perhaps a priest like his grandfather. But his mother was a Celt and a Druid princess at…
Integrity Matters Merriam-Webster says this: Definition of integrity 1: Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values: INCORRUPTIBILITY 2: An unimpaired condition: SOUNDNESS 3: The quality or state of being complete or undivided: COMPLETENESS The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. Dwight D. Eisenhower…
23 Skidoo You can always tell when a cartoon character is about to run off-screen. The music speeds up and then ends with some flourish. I always think of Snagglepuss saying with an affected accent, “exit, stage left!” And off he would go with the waggle of a leg and yo-dee-do-do. Since the turn of the last century, both 23 and skidoo or skedaddle, meant to get out while the getting was good. 23 is…
Shhhhhh-owa One of the funniest comedy bits ever produced was the 2,000-Year-Old Man by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. I can repeat a number o the lines from that riff that always make me laugh. None makes me laugh louder that the one where Reiner (the interviewer) ask Brooks (the 2,000-year-old man) if they had language 2,000 years ago. He says they certainly did, so Reiner follows-up by asking how language came about. Brooks…
Nor Any Drop to Drink The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge was his longest major poem and was written in 1798 and published in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. It is the story of an old seaman who takes a perilous voyage where he gets stuck in Antarctic waters until an albatross leads him out. The most famous line in the poem that most of us have heard is: Water,…
The Retirement Survey I got a reminder today from Cornell University to participate in their Retirement Activity Survey. I decided to fill it out more for interest about what they were asking and trying to sort out rather than to be a good retiree. To begin with, I feel a little funny being considered a Cornell faculty retiree. Yes, I taught at Cornell for ten years and yes, as a 50% employee I qualified…
Money Matters That old expression, “I hate it when that happens” comes to mind whenever I find myself thinking of money. It’s funny, I made a career out of running and building large money management businesses (Bankers Trust Private Banking, Deutsche Asset Management, Bear Stearns Asset Management) and yet I have little or no respect for money. Wow, that seems like a big disconnect, but I would argue that the experience of running money…