“Office Space” taught us not to get “lane envy” and to be patient with our
lane of traffic. But, it sure seems like I am in the wrong lane.
Have you ever noticed how many of the same people/cars you see every day on your commute to work?
My commute each morning is typically only 10-15 minutes. The distance is
about 8 miles. More than 6 of those are spent is bumper to bumper traffic.
I can only imagine how much time and money is wasted each day with folks
just sitting in traffic. If I was headed into Austin, I would easily have
another 30-40 minutes to go. I am so glad our office is in Round Rock.
Well, I am almost there. Time to focus on the day ahead!
That’s how many days it has been since our daughter was born. And, for the last 602 days, I my wife or I have rocked her to sleep each night, even if it was just for a few minutes – until tonight. Instead of curling up in my arms and sucking her thumb as she slipped into never-never-land, as we walked into her room she leaned towards her bed. I laid her down and she stretched out and looked up at me, then rolled over on her side. She did the same thing last night, but after prayers, she stood up and reached up for me. I figured in a few weeks or months, she’d be done with me rocking her to sleep. Tonight, when prayers were over, she gave her mommy and daddy a blessing and then rolled back on her side. That was it. Lights out. I slowly slipped out of the room thinking my baby girl was growing up.
What was left after I left the gas station today.
We have taken a few movies of Katie in the past couple of weeks and thought we’d share them. Some are quite long, but highly entertaining. You will need a username and password before you can see them. The username is Katie’s last name. The password is her birthday in MMDDYY format. (if you’re a friend or family member and don’t know the right info, just email me and I’ll send you the info.
Jumping, Jumping, Jumping
Dancing with Grandma
Katie Drinks Milk
Dancing Munchkins
Dipping Oreos
Katie has mastered the art of dipping Oreos.
One night at Cheers, Cliff Clavin explained the “Buffalo Theory” to
his buddy Norm:
“Well ya see, Norm, it’s like this. A herd of buffalo can only move
as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is
the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This
natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the
general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the
regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the
human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells.
Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But
naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In
this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain
cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine! That’s
why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”
A little boy goes to his father and asks “Daddy, will you tell me how
was I born?”
The father debates answering, but finally says:
“Well, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway!
Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo.
I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we then met at a cyber-
cafe.
We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a
download from my hard drive.
As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of
us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete
button, a blessed little Pop-Up appeared nine months later and said
– You’ve Got Male!”
Just for the record, for business use, Vonage Sucks. After being a
customer for almost 18 months, I am so relieved to be off their
system for good. It took every bit of 4 months to transfer my five
lines from Vonage to SBC, but it is finally done. When I had just a
single line, back when I first signed up, it worked fairly good. It
only went down a few times over about six months. As we moved out of
our house and into an office, added more lines, toll-free numbers,
and a fax line, the service went downhill fast. We even upgraded our
broadband connection to give us a better connection.
As Vonage began advertising their services and growing their
subscriber base, our service suffered. Customers would call and get
a “number disconnected” message, a fast busy, or it would just ring
and ring. Other times the service would just drop in the middle of a
call or would get scratchy when we were downloading a file – even
though we have a 3MB connection.
My phone bill with SBC is now three times what it was with Vonage,
but it is still worth it. If your phones don’t work, you can’t
instill confidence in your customers and prospects. Vonage, for
business use, is a gamble — and I’ve had better odds in Vegas.
If you’re looking into Vonage for personal use, I think it is a great
deal. It’s half the price of a typical carrier, but it’s also half
the service. Literally, you get what you pay for.
Followup: I wonder who Vonage uses for their phone service?
My wife and I watched the movie “Shall We Dance” the other day. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but she was particularly fond of the following quote. I thought I’d share it here:
Beverly Clark (Susan Sarandon): “We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.'”
