Friday Donuts

Friends, Halloween is just around the corner, so I have to ask: what’s the creepiest thing you do? For me it has to be genealogy. On one hand you’re digging-up information on a bunch of dead people. On the other, the personal details gathered about distant living relatives can border on stalking. As if that weren’t bad enough, the software I use has a glitch that interprets any date in the current month as being in the future. So, if my daily home town obituary search (I know) yields a new entry, I get an alert that “John Doe’s death date is in the future”. It might as well finish the question: “are you planning on killing them?” Lately, I’ve also noticed several online family trees appear to show living people as dead. These “living dead” exist to circumvent pesky privacy rules designed to prevent identity thieves (and bona fide researchers) from seeing information about the living. Creepy! Speaking of which, I think I’ll bite into my ghoulish anthropomorphic donut and bid you adieu!

 Friends, A lifetime ago, as a first year MBA student, my macroeconomics professor asked what price I would pay for a business. I think he wanted to use my answer in an analogy to the overall economy. Unfortunately, having steered clear of business classes as an undergrad, it would be generous to say my understanding of corporate valuation methodologies was remedial. So, I did what any self-confident twenty five year old might, I blurted out the first answer that came to mind. An answer I thought might be directionally correct. An answer, it turns-out, so wrong the profesor rolled his eyes and made some patronizing remark about yours truly. In hindsight, I think he assumed this was a softball question, one any MBA student worth his salt would have handled better. A flawed assumption. Over time folks have assumed many things about me. They assume I'm not González because of the way I look and talk. They assume I've never ridden a bucking bronco because of my career choices. They

Friends, There's a certain rush to taking a chance. When outcomes are uncertain, adrenaline levels tend to go up. I occasionally indulge in one such chance-based activity: standby air travel. Think of it as a lottery with much better odds. Want to raise the stakes? Add a layover and an international destination. Now you're talking! In the world of standby travel, you hope your ticket wins but you temper your expectations so the disappointment won't sting as bad when you're bumped to the next flight. And so, although I was hoping to be in Ecuador by now, I write you this morning's note from lovely Houston. As you've likely surmised by now, my track record yesterday was mixed. I made it out of Denver on my second try. There are five flights that can get me to Houston in time to catch my connection --and you've gotta try for the 5 AM itinerary (no regrets!)-- so I was not too worried about that first leg, despite the mile-long security lines at mile-high. For t

Friends, Things are not always as they appear. Take the Huntress Security slogan: "built to take you farther." I often misread it as "built to take your father". While taking your father may take you farther (especially if he pitches-in for gas), I don't think that's what the company had in mind. Or ,when someone refers to themselves as a "serial entrepreneur", my thoughts turn to W.K. Kellogg, the original  cereal  entrepreneur. Imagine if he had founded several competing enterprises.., he'd have been a serial cereal entrepreneur. Two horse-themed football teams incapable of scoring touchdowns may seem similar. So, why did the Bentonville* Broncos' overtime defeat last night grate me so? These were some of my thoughts when I was greeted by a sign that read "runnin' has its rewards". I know, I thought, that's why I'm a runner. It helps release stress, puts me in a better mood and makes me feel healthier. Somehow I don&