Archive: June 17, 2008

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ties can be a good thing

Tuesday,  06/17/08  10:35 PM

So today, [I hope you are sitting down] I wore a tie.  I’m one of those people nobody can ever buy gifts for, so for Father’s Day my kids bought me a tie, kind of as a joke, but it was a really nice Nicole Miller tie with bikes on it (!) so I thought I’d wear it to my office.  I'm pretty sure this was the first time I've ever worn a tie at Aperio.  What a great thing; so flattering everyone noticed and commented.  (I am always surprised to find how “visible” I am :)  Some thought I had a job interview (yeah right) and some that we had a board meeting (not a bad guess) and some that I was raising money for a new company (now that would be cool :).  Anyway it made for a great day.  I’ll have to do it again, maybe once a year (I could celebrate Bicycle Day!). Reflecting on this, when you give a gift, you are really giving a series of feelings.  First there is the way the person feels when they receive the gift.  Then there is the feeling they get when they use the gift (whatever it is, and however many times they use it).  When I'm shopping for a gift I try to imagine how the recipient will feel later, when they're using whatever it is.  My kids probably didn't know it, but they not only gave me a tie, they gave me a nice day :)

 

Tuesday,  06/17/08  10:42 PM

Today was a funky day; first there was the fact that I wore a tie to work...  then after work [I hope you're sitting down] I went to a Hooters to watch the Lakers.  Wow what a scene that was; the bar at Mos Eisley comes to mind :)  Anyway I had a wonderful greasy cheeseburger with a couple of beers while watching the Lakers get blown out.  So be it.  Later I went for a night ride past Lake Hodges on the Dos Dios highway; that was really cool because there was a full moon out (although I again verified that alcohol is not a performance enhancing drug). I can't get over the pictures I'm seeing from Eastern Iowa.  This looks exactly like the pictures of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina.  I'm not surprised but exasperated by the fact that the media are not featuring this disaster the way they did Katrina.  Iowans have just stolidly got down to work and are recovering, instead of whining for federal aid like Louisianians.  I will say no more.  If you're a regular reader you know I continue to be delighted with my spiffy Centro.  Yesterday I discovered a new coolness; it can use Sprint Location Services, a feature that you must explicitly enable but which allows it to triangulate between cell towers to know where you are.  It isn't GPS, but it works like GPS.  Excellent.  Holland continue their winning ways at Euro 2008 and handily defeated Romania, 2-0, and so emerge from the first round undefeated.  Go Oranje!  Smithsonian: Diamonds on Demand.  "Lab-grown gemstones are now practically indistinguishable from mined diamonds. Scientists and engineers see a world of possibilities; jewelers are less enthusiastic."  I appreciate the technology but wonder about the art.  A few years ago, on our tenth wedding anniversary, I splurged on an "internally flawless" diamond for Shirley.  You can't tell and nobody else can either, but we know, and it makes us feel special.  If such diamonds could be manufactured at will, perhaps we would feel less so...  Wow, LinkedIn is now worth $1B, at least on paper.  Congratulations to my friend and ex-colleague Reid Hoffman and his whole team, that's just amazing...  Wrapping up, here's some eye candy; the ten highest waterfalls on Earth.  #1 is Angel Falls, pictured at right.  Incredible.

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