Friday Donuts

Friends, I’m trying to maximize the time I spend with friends and family while in Ecuador. My dad had nine siblings, my wife’s dad 15. As you might imagine, my cousins and their families are fairly numerous (despite the fact five of my dad’s brothers didn’t marry or have children). Then there’s my wife’s family and my childhood friends. Needless to say, there is never enough time to see everyone, despite a valiant effort. Of course, I’m also working from “home”. Corny as it may sound, working half a world away, I realize I miss my Windstream “family” and I look forward to seeing you soon. In the meantime, there are donuts, here today courtesy of John Huddleston.  So, enjoy some comfort food with regards from my Cuenca family (pictured) to you!

Missy Glauch wrote this post. Friends, I will continue with Kelsey’s thought that you only get one chance to make a first impression.  Today is my first day to write a donut blog while our friend and colleague, J.P., is with his family in Ecuador.  I hope you enjoy what I have to say while enjoying a (not homemade, but store bought) donut. While holding a donut and contemplating your first bite into this sweet delicacy have you ever thought of how its round shape with a hole in the middle relates to the circle of life.  You can hold the donut up to the sun and peer through the hole to realize that, “There is more to see than can ever be seen and more to do than can ever be done and more to find than can ever be found” [ 1] .  Donuts bring us together every Friday, thanks to our colleague J.P., whose current locale may not be in the African savannas but does rival pride rock for scenery (refer to the picture he sent me below). Together we see all kinds of possibilities here a

Friends, I was driving-up I-25, thinking about my forthcoming trip to Ecuador when I noticed a truck carrying liquid nitrogen. As I was reading all the printed material on the back, I observed a sign that read “Venting is Normal”. Ironic, don’t you think? After all, at −346 °F, liquid Nitrogen is one of the coolest products out there. It’s so cool that if you put any organic matter in it (vegetable or animal), it freezes solid and can be shattered like glass. The last thing you would expect liquid nitrogen to do is to lose its cool and vent! Then again, maybe there is a life-lesson there for all of us. Maybe the reason liquid nitrogen is so cool (when it’s not venting) is that it doesn’t bottle-up all its feelings and that it allows itself to let it all out from time-to-time.  Maybe we can even extend this life lesson to our diets. The lesson being that no matter how strict our diet, we need to leave a little room for a guilty pleasure (like a donut). Maybe not. In any event, they’r

Friends, Our building remodeling project has delivered a new “feature”: the parking garage elevator button configuration. Seated deep within a hole, it reminds me of the Flash Gordon rite of initiation into manhood. You know, that hollow log where young men must choose a hole to put their hand into (and hope the green slug wood beast doesn’t sting their hand). Even though I know this test does not involve the potential for a maddening death, there is some primal fear that gives me some pause every time I have to push the dreaded button. In a way, it makes sense. In nature, you don’t want to put your hand into the den of a burrowing creature. Whether it be a bear or a badger; a snake, a spider or a scorpion, the resulting encounter is unlikely to go well for you.  So we are conditioned to be weary. I wonder if the design is intentional. Personally, I think they should make this a permanent fixture –and build on it with some additional sensory feedback. Perhaps some dangling nylon