P.S. I Love You

"DP" sent this to me this afternoon, make sure to check out the PS at the bottom.

To my darling husband,

Before you return from your business trip I just want to let you know about
the small accident I had with the pickup truck when I turned into the driveway.

Fortunately not too bad and I really didn't get hurt, so please don't worry
too much about me. I was coming home from Wal-Mart, and when I turned into the driveway I accidentally pushed down on the accelerator instead of the brake.

The garage door is slightly bent but the pickup fortunately came to a halt
when it bumped into your car. I am really sorry, but I know with your kind-hearted personality you will forgive me. You know how much I love you and care for you my sweetheart.

I am enclosing a picture for you.

I cannot wait to hold you in my arms again.

Your loving wife.
XXX



P.S. Your girlfriend called

Bento Frick's World Style

One of the nerdy sites that I frequent is "Bento Lunches" if for no other reason than to hear "The Wife" moan about any parent that would take this much time to prepare their kids lunch apparently has no life.
If you have never heard of Bento Wikipedia sums it up best:
Bentō is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish.
As you can see by the picture it's very nice, neat, well organized and compact. People that eat Bento claim that it's a great way to control their weight. No duh it's gotta be hard to cram more than a couple hundred calories into a 2" by 2" box.
I have been known to partake in Bento lunches except I pack a "Mr Bento" because I need to feed the machine and 200 calories is not going to do it.

OK, I told you all that stuff so I could now tell you the following stuff.

After hearing "The Wife" tell me that making Bento lunches just isn't practical and no one is going appreciate all the hard work I decided to pack her an appropriate Bento .

4 Hershey Kisses and a Hershey Dark Chocolate Mini-Bar

Your brand is not your logo

From "Seth Godin"
Smart marketers understand that a new logo can't possibly increase your market share, and they know that an expensive logo doesn't defeat a cheap logo. They realize that the logo is like a first name, it's an identifier.

So, when Pepsi and BestBuy start 'testing' logos, and proclaiming that a new logo might change their market share, I get nervous. You can't test a logo any more than you can test a first name. Sure, you can eliminate Myxlplyx as an outlier, but given the success of the Starbucks mermaid and the Dunkin Donuts typeface (two outliers) you can see that this testing is sort of meaningless. "Read More"

_____________________________________________

I've read most of Seth's stuff and usually I fall squarely on one side or the other, this time I'm kind of on the fence. I love cool logos, probably more than most, but what happens when the logo is known by many but it's more than the brand or the product?


We've all seen the "No Fear" logo (sticker) on the back window of a passing car, if you live in my area you see it a bunch, a whole bunch. What's their product? I always figured it was stickers, go to their "site" and find out for yourself and get a free sticker while your at it. Does or did the popularity of the No Fear logo increase their market share? I'm not sure, I've never seen anyone wearing their clothing. I have seen their energy drink but until today I never really associated the drink with their logo. Is that the logo designers fault that I didn't put the 2 together or is it mine?

Seth writes "I guess the punchline is: take the time and money and effort you'd put into an expensive logo and put them into creating a product and experience and story that people remember instead." I agree 100% while a logo that's remembered is important you still have to have a product that will do the logo justice. Maybe part of the issue is that the people that create the product are not the same people that design the logo and then it's a different group that's in charge of creating the experience. Thanks to Starbucks it is all about the experience.......

For CB

Breakfast of "Champions"

3 scoops of Chocolate Protein Powder
8 oz of non-fat milk
A squirt of Chocolate syrup
1 cup ice cubes
1 TB of Peanut Butter
1 oz of chopped almonds
1 TB instant coffee granules we use espresso
Blend on while you go out front to get the paper

Somewhere around
Calories - 762
Saturated Fat - 6(g)
Poly Fat - 1(g)
Mono Fat - 15(g)
Carbs - 42(g)
Fiber - 7(g)
Protein - 87(g)

Split into two drinks

Saturday Night On The Town

Last night we loaded up the family and headed to the "3 Dollar Cafe" for an evening of food, tunes and conversing with "CB" and his better half. A little after 10:00 we put down our wings and welcomed to the stage the one the only "Velvet Elvis".
We sat through a musical journey of The Black Crowes, Eric Clapton and beleive it or not, even some Elvis. Being on the other side of 40 it was way past our bed time but we blamed it on having to get the kids to bed as we headed to the car.
Now at 8:30 in the morning they are just now managing to roll out of bed, lazy lima beans.

A New Marketing Campaign For Target?

probably not.


http://view.break.com/593274 - Watch more free videos

Didn't Newton once say something along the lines of "every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to change its state by the action of an external force"
and how come none of those carts managed to find the passenger door of my card.....

The Death of The Copier: The Office of the Future -

The Death of The Copier: The Office of the Future -

...As seen from the year 1975

EXECUTIVE BRIEFING June 30, 1975, 6:43PM EST

"...Will the office change all that much? Listen to George E. Pake, who heads Xerox Corp.'s Palo Alto (Calif.) Research Center, a new think tank already having a significant impact on the copier giant's strategies for going after the office systems market: "There is absolutely no question that there will be a revolution in the office over the next 20 years. What we are doing will change the office like the jet plane revolutionized travel and the way that TV has altered family life."

Pake says that in 1995 his office will be completely different; there will be a TV-display terminal with keyboard sitting on his desk. "I'll be able to call up documents from my files on the screen, or by pressing a button," he says. "I can get my mail or any messages. I don't know how much hard copy [printed paper] I'll want in this world."

Wow, he got that right!

More -

"...Getting there means finding the answers to a host of very complex questions.

Can desk-top terminals be made "friendly" enough so that executives will use them?

Should a lot of powerful machines be moved together with central libraries and thus break up traditional working relationships?

Will office systems get needed computer power by depending on the machines already in EDP centers doing accounting and financial work?

Says Pake's boss, Jack E. Goldman, Xerox chief scientist: "I don't think anyone can really know which is the way to go now."

If the office of the future is a collection of these electronic terminals linked to each other and to electronic filing cabinets, "it will change our daily life," Pake says. "

And this could be kind of scary."

Interesting to take a look back and see which predictions didn't come true and what unknowns at the time prevail.

It's All About Cutting Costs - More from 1975 -

"Costs in the office are running uncontrolled," declares Alan Purchase, senior industrial economist at Stanford Research Institute, who recently made a major study of future office equipment markets.

"Where office costs used to be 20% to 30% of the total in a company, they have now grown to 40% to 50% of all costs." Rising salaries and demands to process more information are growing at geometric rates. IBM says that the average secretary's salary is 68% higher, and the cost of turning out a business letter is 40% more than it was 10 years ago.

More important, Purchase says, "the current recession has brought a real awareness by companies that they have to identify and control office costs and improve productivity."

A Quantum Science Corp. survey showed that while the recession had forced a cut in overall office spending, it was also responsible for increasing text-editing typewriter installations. Nearly one-fifth of all offices surveyed, and 39% of the larger ones, either planned or had recently added automatic typewriters.

But the office's productivity problems have been developing for a long time. "Many offices are not even held accountable for productivity," notes David L. Holzman, Xerox' market development manager. "In studies we've made, 50% of all offices are just a part of the overhead."

Further, the shift of the U.S. economy to service-based industries (they will employ 47% of all U.S. workers by 1980) and the growth of clerical employees are colliding with soaring clerical labor costs, growing shortages of skilled personnel, and changing social attitudes... " - Sound familiar?

Culture Shift - Again.

"This climate is almost forcing the revolution in the office," declares Robert E. Verrando, marketing chief for Xerox' Office Systems Div.

But word processing is a tough sell, particularly since it so often changes the traditional secretary-executive relationship. "The biggest problem we face is the office wife," says Lexitron's Pugh. " She likes giving total loyalty to one boss, and he likes getting it."

Wow! how things have changed.

It's Deja Vu all over again...

So here we are in 2008 facing another slope on an economic down-cycle. I have learned not to panic and don't participate in recessions. I have also learned we all get what we deserve - always. "LINK"


Yes things have changed. My Dad, a former Xerox exec, got to live through the days of fat expense accounts and the knowledge that no one got fired for buying Xerox, not any more no manufacturer gets that luxury or security.
I remember telling customers way back in the early 90's - "One day you'll be able to print to your copier" this was usually met with a "Whatever" response. I can also remember when a simple printer installation could actually take a couple of days, now you just run the install wizard and click "Next" "OK" and "EXIT".

Now we're in the age of offering "Solutions" when in fact the winners are the ones that provide the answers.

The paperless office still is not here, but the typewriter is gone.
People still base business decisions on the contents of a piece of paper, we still print a huge percentage of our e-mails, many documents actually begin their life at the printer and we still require customers to sign leasing papers.

Greg is right don't panic and don't participate in recessions. Take care of customer and in the end you'll make it through the tough times.

and yes things have changed..................

View From Here

Anderson SC
Hampton Inn #221
Cornelius, NC
Hampton Inn #327
Raleigh, NC
Hampton Inn #527
Concord NC
Hampton Inn #301

Does Obama Have A Rap?

It's not that there aren't 8,000,000 other sites with the same video but all I'm saying that in relative proximity she's hot.......

Staying Hydrated

Supplies for the next day, inspired by @UnderTheBar

The band geeks will inherit the turf

"H" has been part of his Middle School band since 6th grade and part of this whole band gig is that as an 8th grader they get to march in and perform with the High School band.
Since history is bound to repeat itself "H" once again managed to get himself positioned so that his parents couldn't see him. We have taken this boy to more functions and have never managed to find the right spot in the audience so that we could see him or get a picture.



We did win the game 27-17 and some of these Seniors are absolute beasts, they have one in the 400lb bench club and another in the 500lb squat club.

Goose managed to snap a few pictures before she got cold and went home, wuss.

View From Here

Augusta, GA
Hampton Inn #266

Lexington, SC
Hampton Inn #408

Laurinburg, NC
Hampton Inn #201


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Sick Day

CHINESE SICK LEAVE

I NO COME WORK TODAY!!!

Hung Chow calls into work and says, 'Hey, I no come work today, I
really sick. Got headache, stomach ache and legs hurt, I no come
work.'

The boss says, 'You know something, Hung Chow, I really need you
today. When I feel sick like you do, I go to my wife and tell her to
give me sex. That makes everything better and I go to work. You try
that.'

Two hours later Hung Chow calls again. 'I do what you say and I feel
great. I be at work soon... You got nice house.

Thanks to "MBK" for that International Gem

Travel Tip #27

Every once in a while we come through with a serious tip, this happens to be one of those.
As I wander the hotel hallways looking for the ice machine I can't count the number of hotel room door that are propped open with door lock bar (see below)

What are you stupid? Are you just wanting to get beat up and robbed? C'mon people think a little bit.

Read the rest of the travel tips "Here"

Dating Advice

Being out of the dating game for the last 22 years or so I'm probably not the best to be throwing out dating advice but.........
I'm watching "The Real Housewives Of Atlanta" and one of ladies fires off something along these lines "I'm tired of men being threatened by successful women", men generally are not threatened by successful women, we just don't want to hang out with them when all they do is constantly remind us of how successful they are.
One of the few things I've learned on this earth is that as soon as someone starts reminding me of how much they are of anything: insert - financial wiz, religious zealot, healthy eater, or successful ANYTHING it usually means that's their area of shortcomings. Just my observation no hard research backing me up - Maybe peoples actions should do their talking....

Trying To Add This To My Amazon Wish List

but I can't find a link. I don't see a PayPal link either..... Hmmmmmmm...

The Head Kenzan is a delightful scalp massager with a unique Japanese twist. The brush structure is inspired by “kenzan,” a traditional tool used in Japanese flower arranging to hold the flowers in place. With 92 bristles that hit upon that perfect balance of not-too-hard and not-too-soft, the flexible Head Kenzan molds itself to your head. Simply use the handles on either side to run the brush back and forth, massaging and energizing your scalp.
"LINK"

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Remember earlier in the year when we were informed that a Kansas women had been sitting on her boyfriends toilet long enough to fuse her backside to the toilet seat?
"LINK"

Well you ain't gonna beleive this

Beau of Woman Stuck on Toilet Wins Pot
AP
posted: 22 HOURS AGO
GREAT BEND, Kan. (Oct. 8) - A Kansas man whose girlfriend was physically stuck to the toilet in their home wins $20,000 in the state Lottery, for the second time this year.
Kory McFarren cashed in his winning $2 Bonus Crossword ticket in Great Bend Monday. On July 29, the 37-year-old received six months of probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor mistreatment of a dependent adult.
McFarren called deputies in February to report that his girlfriend, Pam Babcock, had refused to come out of the bathroom for two years. Authorities found her stuck to the toilet.
Medical personnel estimated Babcock had been on the toilet for at least a month and said the seat had adhered to sores on her body. She was released from a Wichita hospital after several months of treatment.
"LINK"

I bet ol' Kory thought his life had peaked earlier in the year with all the attention his girlfriend managed to drag his way, you realize that it's not everyday that someone forgets to get up from the toilet.
Now we find out the ol' Kory has landed on financial easy street not once, but twice, damn. After this winning streak I wonder if ol'Kory is gonna up and quit his job.

All the cool stuff happens in "Kansas".

Why Women Live Longer Than Men

Enough said.......

A Bear Walks Into A Bar

no make that a Subway, foot long double meat no MAYO!

Father Son Day Revisted

There's only so much quality video game time any 14 year old boy can stand, yeah right, before it's Father Son time. Similar to "Hammer Time" but without the parachute pants.
The last time we choose cutting the grass as "Father Son time was 4 years ago", and "H" has managed to grow a few inches since then.
and we hooked him up with a new mower. Kids can be useful if you approach it correctly.

Slim-A-Bear

What's with all this 100 calorie crap? Same crappy for as before just less of it. If I have a 200 calorie slice of pizza and I eat half of it I've just created a "100 Calorie Mini-slice, Mini-pizza" yummmmm.
Well "The Wife" got nailed by this marketing BS yesterday thanks to Klondike "Slim-A-Bears". Like the commercial says "Who doesn't like a Klondike bar?"

Can you believe that they managed to cram 8 of these monstrosities into this little box?
They remind me of York Peppermint Patties.
Plus it looks just as tasty as it does on the box.

Look at the height of these babies, I'm sure that just one is gonna fill me up.

If the Klondike bear where to eat these I don't think he'd make it through the winter. For me 800 calories later I was full and satisfied.

Senior Week

With it being "Goose's" Senior year everything & I mean everything is special or the other line is "This will be the last time I'll be able to do insert whatever here". This week was homecoming which means Senior dress up week.

Super Hero Day

Geek Day

Cartoon Character Day

Toga Day (I'm sure all the Dad's loved this one)

Now lets hop into the way back machine (27 Years) and look at Mom's & Dad's homecoming week.

Mom at the pep rally rocking the 80's feathered hairstyle.
She really wasn't that nice to me back then.

Dad with his "Future Farmers of America" class, this really
laid the groundwork for my IT career.

Being in the FFA what does one dress up as for the homecoming parade but,
you guessed it a farmer.

At this point Senior year has been long and expensive

View From Here

Montgomery, AL
Towne Place Suites #203

Anderson, SC
Hampton Inn #233

Easley, SC
Hampton Inn #201