Short and sweet post on this crazy busy day — but it’s going to contain something you don’t want to miss!
“We really do not blaze new trails. Instead, as Sir Isaac Newton said when he paraphrased Bernard of Chartres, we stand on the shoulders of giants and see a bit farther down the horizon.” You must read Scott McKain’s tribute to mentor and fellow speaker, Charley Willey. Incredible insight on impacting the lives of others…
STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS…
So I love it when I have days off to do nothing but read, play a game (World of Warcraft — some quality time in Azeroth), or veg out on the couch watching a movie or simply nothing at all. We did catch a good oldie (2009), and if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth an hour and half or so of your life… Inglorious Basterds. Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, it’s set in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. Brad Pitt is one of a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as “The Basterds”, and he and his tribe spend a good bit of time scalping and brutally killing Nazis. I know, it doesn’t read like my kind of movie either, which is probably why it’s been out since ’09 and I just watched it. Still, if you’ve not seen it, take my recommendation and thank me later.
I noticed one of the books I pre-ordered — James Patterson’s Guilty Wives — was delivered wirelessly to my device today. It looks like it’s receiving rave reviews and the plot, (Abbie Elliot’s dream vacation in Monte Carlo with her three best friends turns into a nightmare from hell when, after a night of over-the-top indulgence, the four friends are implicated in an unthinkable crime. ) sure sounds like the type of read I like best. Or maybe it sounds like a female version of The Hangover. Which of course could innocently happen to me and any of my 3 friends. But it won’t because I’m not sure I could be away from these guys long enough…
Poor Gracie didn’t get much attention today. She spent the bigger part of the afternoon alone in the office. She’s as good-hearted as they come, but she’s… well, she’s a klutz. And she doesn’t pay attention. She would just as soon walk right over top of a little one as around — it would be fair to say she’s just not the kind of dog that “gets it” when it comes to kids. At first, she wasn’t happy about the arrangement, but after speaking with Libby (who was poked in the eye, had her wagging tail bopped a bajillion times, and called a “Goog Gog” more times that I care to count), she came to terms with it.
Have you noticed that when family is together, it doesn’t take much to bring about a laugh or at least a big ole’ smile? Ben was showing great-g’ma a video of Coco putting on pretend lotion, and it sure looks like everyone enjoyed that one. Except Gracie… who was at the office.
And for the record, I can’t see SHIT so great anymore. I took photos today (at the first family cookout of the spring/summer) without my glasses. I know I should’ve known better. Rather than shoot on manual mode like I customarily do, I THOUGHT I turned the knob to automatic. But no! I honestly do not know what setting it was, but I still got a couple ‘keepers’. Let this be a lesson… if you can’t see, you can’t expect to get a ton of great shots, but you still might get a little lucky. If it’s Saturday. And if you’re not a big blonde dog who isn’t attentive to kids.
We found an arm in the pile of leaves we raked. A little freaky until we figured out where it came from. Yesterday, this poor child stood outside in the elements her last day. I’m not sure why outside products are manufactured that disintegrate if you leave them outside! I felt a little bad putting her in a garbage bag since she did such a good job guarding the plants in the back yard the last couple years, but seriously, this chick has seen better days. She won’t be replaced with anything even similar.
The child statue wasn’t the only thing that bit the dust. Even covered, gas grills don’t last forever outside in the Ville either. Perry and Coty made certain every grate of the new grill got dirty, spreading 7 burgers over a cooking area that claims to hold 45. Just putting that out there… not complaining or anything! Our first spring burger on the grill was incredible!
Branding 10,000 Lakes is a project by Nicole Meyer. Here’s what she says, “Lake logos have a tendency to be, well, fairly ugly. This project was created to rethink what they could be. One Minnesota Lake. One Logo. Every day. Should only take a little over 27 years to hit ’em all. Stay tuned and enjoy!” Now she doesn’t have a committee to create for or a panel to please — she’s just designing logos. And, I like them. Every. Single. One. Check it out, and have an amazing Friday!
I spent 2 hours and 40 minutes at the BMV getting my driver’s license renewed. Seriously. Sitting by stinky people clinging to my #80 tag that I would’ve sold to the highest bidder when it got close to me but no one there could’ve afforded it. You don’t have to be distinct to get business if you’re the BMV. You can be an asshole rude if you want. What they do is simply called processing — no customer experience (ultimate or otherwise) happening there. The highlight? When the clerk yelled, “NEW FAX IN THE LOBBY!” and all the men wearing hats removed them sheepishly thinking she screamed, “NO HATS IN THE LOBBY!”
Oh, but then my experience as a customer got even better when arriving at… you know where… Wal-mart! Standing in line to pay for my selections, some dude was pushing a cart with a choking child that was 2 or 3 years old. His finger at least half-way down the kid’s esophagus, he was screaming, “SPIT IT OUT! SPIT IT OUT!” Softly, I exclaimed, “Wow.” The cashier looked at me with the stink eye and loudly growled, “WHAT!?” And that’s the ONLY thing she said to me. Period. No thank you. No good afternoon. Nada. Zilch. So if you’re an employee of Wal-mart, you can be an asshole rude if you want. Apparently. Because, believe it or not, my experience as a customer got even more interesting…
10 bags of mulch and some edging stones purchased, we pull around to load them up. No Wal-mart person in sight, we count out the 20 edging stones and put them in the back of the truck. Wal-mart dude appears out of nowhere and says, “I HATE this place! I’m the only one back here.” So I hand him my receipt and say something like I’m sure he’d like to check that we’re loading what we paid for and he says… get ready… he actually says, “I don’t care what you load in there. No one here cares what you take.” If I weren’t an honest person, I would’ve asked him to help us load an entire skid of those stones. I’ll betcha’ he would’ve been happy to.
Sadly, this one time at Wal-mart… could just about sum up every single customer experience I’ve ever had there. Maybe the employees of the BMV and Wal-mart aren’t seeing enough of this type of thing…
