Friday Donuts

Dear Members and Constituents, What goes up must come down (unless it goes up so fast it breaks-free from Earth's gravitational pull and is headed for the Oort cloud). Similarly, what starts must end. It seems the seeds of culmination are planted with every inauguration. But can the beginning be the end? Donuts are circular, so you could say the beginning is neatly concealed beneath the end. Curiously enough, today is the first and last time Collin Geis is donut boy. So this is, in effect, his alpha and his omega appearance. He delights us with four dozen LaMar's donuts (I'm sure he'll miss them when he moves to Maryland). So start heading this way, grab a donut and before you know it you will end this Friday on a high note. Happy Friday!

Dear Members and Constituents, On this, the 2nd consecutive Friday Glenn Russo does the honors as "donut boy", I was thinking about the many ways we use the number TWO in our daily lives. Today, due to the holiday we have a half-day of work (1 divided by, yes you got it, TWO) and I'm sure we are all pretty excited about that. All things digital would not be possible without the binary system (uses only TWO numbers, even though the number two is written as "10"). And then, of course, any number to the power of TWO is that number squared... I propose today, however, we focus not on the squares, but rather, on circles. Yes the round pastries we are all eagerly awaiting to consume have arrived. So come around and grab a donut... or two. Happy Friday!

Dear Members and Constituents, Can you imagine paying $6.00 at the pump for a gallon of gas? It's only a matter of time. Over the past week, I've been having an on-and-off debate-of-sorts with Marshall Carter as to whether the "gas tax holiday" (proposed by two of the three people in this country with realistic presidential aspirations) is a good idea. AAA says 1% less people are planning to drive 50 miles or more this Memorial Day holiday and the NY Times finds people in areas where mass transit is a realistic alternative are increasingly choosing that alternative. The "pain at the pump" is having an effect on people's behaviors which trigger gasoline consumption. Countries who heavily tax gasoline, like South Korea (who have already passed the $6.00 mark), drive a substantial portion of their tax revenues from this source and -arguably- provide the right incentives for people's gas-consuming behaviors. Marshall thinks we should raise gasoline taxes

Dear members and constituents, Spring time is definitely here. I've been d reaming o f n irvana u nder t he s un while d oing o ffice n ecessities u sing t echnical s kills I've acquired. Perhaps you are d esigning o ne n ew u biquitous t ransport s ystem, or d eliberately o rchestrating n eat u ndertakings t his S aturday. Whatever the case may be, one thing is for certain, it's good to be alive! Now, if you're reading this e-mail on your blackberry, you're probably a little puzzled. The blackberry does, after all, d eliberately o bscure n umerous u nnecessary t yped s ubtleties (e.g. bold letters, italics, underline, colors...). If my subliminal messaging is working, however, you should be feeling a higher than usual urge for donuts. Your d esire o pens n ew u nusual t ingling s ensations and unexplained visions of donuts dance through your head. Go ahead, indulge -after all, it is Friday! Carlos Belloso does the honors today with four d ozen o utrageously n aug

Dear Members and Constituents, Have you ever wondered what the future will look like? Now, I'm not talking about the time horizons we look at in the business community, where a five year forecast is taken with a healthy dose of salt. I'm not even talking 20 or 50 years. I'm thinking the big century mark (which, when you come to think of it is a blink of an eye in geologic time). I don't think anyone living in 1908 would have ever imagined iPods, F-18 fighters, Mars rovers, Goth kids or metrosexual men. I doubt our ability to forecast the next century is any better. Will we have beach-front property in the San Bernardino mountains? Flying cars, teleportation, computers embedded in your brain with miniature monitors implanted in your cornea? A growing human colony on Mars? What will social interaction look like, how long will attention spans be? Nothing is for certain, however, I do hope they still have donuts. Granted, I don't expect to be alive in 2108 (then again,