Friday Donuts

Dear Members and Constituents, This week's news reports seem rife with death. Argentine presidential coronary, Indonesian tsunami and volcano, Mexican cartel, Iraqi hanging... even a psychic German octopus drowned. Of course, these deaths are the exception, not the norm. The rest of us are alive. 6.877 billion of us -not counting octopi. I know, not the most spectacular of news headlines. Still, great news for you and I. Alive to dress up like undead zombies and terrorize the neighborhood while on a trick-or-treating rampage. Alive to enjoy the crisp fall weather in a Bermuda shirt and shorts. Alive to watch the news. Alive! Another advantage of being alive is our ability to enjoy donuts. This week Satinder Juneja (donut girl) makes her debut in our club with a spectacular assortment of the circular pastry treats. So come on down, enjoy life -and a donut- before it's too late. Also in the “to do before it’s too late” category: let me know if you don’t want to be included in the

[Ed Stocker; filling-in for JP] Dear Monsters and Creepers, The mornings are cool, the grass is frosty, leaves are changing color and covering our yards. It can only mean one thing, its Fantasy Football season. Or, I suppose, it's almost Halloween. Empty store fronts are now thriving enterprises selling all manner of costumes and costume accessories. There are houses with spooky yard displays and as many lights as they put up for Christmas. Halloween parties begin in earnest this weekend to allow you to define a change in your appearance, into pretty much anything you can conceive. But the real mainstay of Halloween are the treats. And this morning, we have our very own ghoul, Austin "The Big" Hurt, to thank for this morning four dozen Lamar's treats. So stop by JP's Haunted Office and grab one. He's not here, but he won't mind. Ed

Dear Members and Constituents, This morning I would like to discuss pain with you. I realize this is an odd topic, perhaps even taboo in our hedonistic society where “have fun” has become the new “see you later”. We don’t think about it. We don’t talk about it. We avoid it (except, perhaps, those who consider pain pleasurable). We even avoid people who are in it because it makes us feel uncomfortable. Lately, I’ve been considering the notion that a little pain in our lives may be good for us. Not only does it help us better appreciate good health, it also reminds us that in the grand scheme of things we are feeble transitory things. Perhaps the attitude prior generations held towards self-mortification as a way to keep the flesh in check has some merit. I must admit I find the notion of heroically enduring pain as a means to purification somewhat appealing. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating self-flagellation or ritual injury (nor am I in favor of any sadomasochistic practice). I

Dear Members and Constituents Whenever I go to the barber (or hairstylist, as the case may be) there's one question which is sure to kill the conversation. What do you do for a living? If I say product manager I get the deer in the eyes headlights stare. It's no better if I say I work in telecommunications. So what's a guy to do to keep an interesting conversation going? Do I lie and say I'm a base jumper, or a butcher, or a construction worker? Do I go ahead with my actual job and then struggle to explain what it is that I do? While the last two days of product management training have taught me a lot, I think I'm going to go with the white lie. So, the next time a random lady stops me on the street and says "you're that guy who climbs the highest peaks around the globe" don't be surprised. You should also not be surprised by the fact delicious donuts are at my desk this morning. After over six years of running the Friday Don’t Club, I consider it

Dear Members and Constituents With all the buzz around cloud computing it occurs to me this term was not coined in Colorado. We would be all about blue sky computing. None of this cloud mumbo jumbo. The latest trend is to call it CAAS -computing as a service. In fact, you can add “AAS” after almost anything and have a trendy acronym: IAAS, SAAS… PAAS –Infrastructure, Software…. Passover? respectively. Case in point, this e-mail was drafted entirely using Dragon Dictation. Sure it has its glitches (below is the unedited output of this application), but it does the job. What if DAAS was added to the lingo? What would donuts as a service look like? Donuts show-up every Friday without you having to go buy them. Wait! We already have that, it's called the Friday Donut Club. This Friday, services were rendered by Melissa Blassingame, donut girl. So, come partake in this new technological revolution and the next time someone asks "how did you get that donut?" just say it's D