How to Get Paid to Sing Karaoke
A friend asked me last weekend why I didn’t show up for the men’s choir practice at our church. I replied that my singing was so bad that, when the crowds get a bit unruly, some local bars hire me to come up and do a karaoke number at closing time to clear out the place. […]
The Secret of Success
“Eighty percent of success is just showing up.” Woody Allen Every great cause requires a person to step forward and make that dream a reality. Several years ago I had the pleasure of working with a leader who underestimated her ability to make the dream of a critically ill young man come true. In 2008 […]
In Trouble
From my desk I had a clear view of the guard station in the atrium entrance to our office building. One morning a delivery man caught my eye–a delivery man with a bouquet of a dozen red roses in a white vase. Although deliveries like this were a common sight on Valentine’s Day, it was unusual […]
The Great April Fools’ Caper
Too many people wait for leadership from the top when it is often in their own grasp. I’d like to share a story about when desperately needed leadership came from the middle. I was working for a startup that was suffering from a layoff hangover from “right sizing” many months prior. As one of my […]
The Barber and the Creepy Customer
My former barber is a friendly woman who greets every customer as they enter her shop. Her cheery mood brightens many a dreary day. Except for one customer. When she would greet him with a “How are you doing today?” he’d respond curtly. “Fine.” If she tried to engage him in conversation with questions such […]
A New Christmas Tradition
Christmas traditions have many origins. Nobody really knows who first had the idea of chopping down an evergreen tree, propping it up in their hut, and decorating it. The tradition of Silent Night was supposedly born when the organ in the the church of Obendorf, Austria broke down on Christmas Eve. Father Joseph Mohr wrote […]
A Canine Christmas Card
In the first eleven years of our marriage we moved eleven times. And no, it was not because we were fleeing the law. I was an Air Force Officer for seven plus years and we then spent three years in a New Jersey corporate America stint. During each of those moves we accumulated great friends […]
The Quirky Relatives
A friend told me about his Michigan cousin who scheduled his wedding to be on a Saturday morning. An unusual time for a marriage ceremony, but it seems that was the only way the the newlyweds would be able to attend the local tractor pull that night. You might understand their priorities. To me, it […]
The Fighter Pilot Who Almost Shot Himself Down
We’ve all shot ourselves in the foot. My own two feet are covered with the scars of many self inflicted wounds. But one of my friends topped that when he almost shot down his own fighter plane in 1951. John Robertson started the Korean War flying the P-51 Mustang and later transitioned to the F-80 […]
Disaster on the Trail
Last year our anniversary trip had all the makings of a disaster. I had carefully planned, or thought I had, a two day bike ride from North Bend to Seattle. In the weeks prior Laurie and I even took a few long bike rides. She didn’t know at the time that those were really training rides for […]
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