Friday Donuts

Dear Members and Constituents, On the 250th week of the Friday Donut Club, snow prevented us from sharing the sweet flavor of donuts. Today, a mystery benefactor has left three dozen donuts at my desk. Also, a mystery sign (presumably by the aforementioned benefactor) reads "Donuts??!! A little bit of snow & no donuts? WTF?". Speaking of mysteries, another mystery surrounding our break room supplies has started to unravel. I ran into a Eurest employee re-stocking our break-room this week and inquired about the conspicuous absence of plasticware inventory. Plasticware, you know, that utilitarian category of break-room supplies made-up of spoons, knives and forks. Apparently, Eurest has been asked to stop stocking plasticware in the break-rooms. No need to rub your eyes, you read correctly. My first instinct was to assume this was a cost-cutting measure, so I took a stab at calculating the savings. Shall we? A 10 second Google search revealed 1,000 forks cost $15.52 online.

Dear Members and Constituents, I have a confession to make. The past couple of weeks I've had a festering, morbid curiosity over the unfolding developments in the insider trading case against former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio. It's like watching a bad reality TV show (and I'm using the term "bad" in the "looks as real as a pig wearing make-up" sense of the word). It's so bad, I can't help but follow it. First there's the fact that it's still going on (how long has it been, five... six years?). Then, not only are his lawyers preparing to appeal his case to the Supreme Court, some pundits believe it's likely to get heard (you read right). There was the last-minute request to delay his long overdue date with our penal system (which was to be this coming Monday) to follow-up on some biopsy results for possible skin cancer. Seriously, they decide to check-up on a suspicious growth the week before he's due to go to prison? Now the judge agr

Dear members and Constituents, This week I was torn between two topics I wanted to write about. On one hand I read an astonishing statistic by Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone Group, who says "between 40 and 45 percent of the world's wealth has been destroyed in little less than a year and a half". On the other, I read about Plup Lähdevesi, spring water being sold in Finland using donut-shaped bottles (and for every bottle sold, €0.10 goes towards cleaning the Baltic sea). Alright, I admit it, "torn" may be a bit of an exaggeration. In-fact it was not even a close contest. Donut-shaped water bottles saving the environment is a stroke of genius! Kudos to Stephan Linfoss, the creator of this innovative product. Who'd of thought they could find another way to get us to pay for... water? Although, I'm not so sure about the name: "plup". It kind of sounds like a drip -I am reminded of a leaky sink in the middle of the night going plup... plup..

Dear Members and Constituents, How do you feel about loosing an hour? I don't know about you, but personally I would say it depends on the context. If I had one day left to live and now instead of 24 hours I have 23, disappointed might be an understatement. If, on the other hand I were being held hostage and the loss meant I get released an hour sooner, I'd say bring it on! Granted, by springing forward this weekend, the hour is technically not lost (our lives are not made one hour shorter), however, there is the practical matter of having a shorter Sunday. No matter how you feel, Melissa Nibbelink (donut girl) delivered the wholesome goodness of five dozen sweet donuts to my desk this morning. May I suggest you waste no time and come on down. Who knows what the selection will look like one hour from now. Happy Friday,