An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

You've probably seen this a couple of times already. People tape down a square or other enclosed shape on the floor and their cats feel compelled to go sit in it. Just a quick google image search brought back lots of pictures like these: How adorable!  Actually napping! So, I thought, why not try this at home? It went as well as you would expect if you know anything about my cats. Samwise:  what is this on the floor? Me - get in the box! Me:  both of you get in the box!  Starbuck: time to eat the box! Me: that's now what you're supposed to do. Samwise: box destruction in progress!  Samwise:  my work here is almost done! Thanks for the box snack toy! At that point, I had to retrieve all of the tape because Samwise was literally eating it. I will never have normal pets. Sigh.

I recently went to the Virgin Islands and had about two hours to kill at 6 AM at  Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport  in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  So, of course, I chose to eat breakfast at the Margaritaville. Jimmy needs more of my money. I had French Toast and a Rum & Diet. Don't judge, I was on vacation. The seats at the bar could not have been more uncomfortable so I decided to meander to the gate after a slight detour. Who knew? They had a temporary exhibit up about JFK's involvement with Puerto Rico and pictures from his and Jackie's visit to the island back in the early 1960s. There were some great pictures and trivia tidbits in the exhibit and it was well worth the brief time it took to scope it out.  Another one! I then took off towards the gate, I came across a second JB property. Surprisingly, I did not stop in. I think the Landshark sign scared me. Seriously? As I headed down the long, lonely hallway to where Seaborne f...

Remember before video games there were these games that you could play anywhere, even outside and without electricity? Yeah, practically prehistoric, I know.  I have many fond memories of long battles trying to conquer the world in Risk, becoming the Monopoly tycoon, coming out of Life with the most dough (because that determines success in actual life, no?), trying to capture the flag in Stratego and, of course, gleefully sinking Battleships. Those were the days, indeed. Kids these days don't know what they're missing. And, they should stay off of my lawn. A few of my colleagues still play board games with their friends and families and one of them suggested a weekly session of play at work. We call it Board Game Tuesday and everyone brings their lunch to eat while we take over a conference room and try to become the ultimate winner. It was decided to play each game for a month so that the newbies could pick up some tricks of the trade and advance their skills...

I inherited my Mom's jewelry armoire along with another smaller jewelry box of items. It was definitely surreal going through her things. Some of the pieces brought back great memories from my childhood like the daisy pin she used to wear and her collection of Native American pieces that she collected after we moved to Arizona. But nothing flashed me back more to the past than opening a small makeup bag and finding an unused but desiccated Band Aid and this: A tiny Avon lipstick sample! If you did not have an immediate joyous reaction to these pictures, you were not a girl growing up in the 60s and 70s. (After an extensive, nearly four minute online research attempt, it looks like this style was discontinued in the 70s.) Man, these were the greatest things ever! Both my Mom and her Mother were Avon Ladies so I had lots of opportunities to play with the samples and pretend I was a grown up. Little did I know then that growing up was a trap. It looks like this was neve...

We had a presentation to our Senior Managers and Directors on Personality Types. We all took a test ahead of time and it rated us via the DiSC  profiles. That's one where you fall into one of four quadrants with the axes of Active vs Passive and People vs Task oriented. There are other ratings similar to it and we had done one a few years back. My results were consistent between both tests. To help illustrate the types, the presenter showed movie clips. This clip was to provide an example of a "D" (sometimes called a Driver or Dominant). They can come across as a "give me what I want and give it to me yesterday" type. I thought it was a perfect illustration. And, I'm glad I'm not a D. BTW, J. Jonah Jameson always makes me laugh. The "C" is also called Conscientious or Analytical. Just the facts, man. We hadn't declared what we were but I got outed pretty quickly when she started talking about the I (Influencer, Expressive) a...

This is what I read at my Mom's service today... Mary Frances was born on July 10 in Baraboo Wisconsin to Don and Jean. Their legal names were John Donald and Imogene Clara but Mary’s family had a penchant for nicknames and Imogene Clara very much disliked being called Imogene Clara so nicknames it was and will be for this story. Mary had three sisters, Donna, Betty and Alice and two brothers, Jack and Jim. But there was more to Mary’s family than just her siblings. She grew up with first cousins and second cousins and probably third and fourth cousins if it were mapped out and many aunts and uncles. Many of Mary’s favorite memories of her childhood included staying at her Uncle Louie’s farm with Aunt Madeline, her cousin Sharon and Sharon’s brothers. Mary’s family moved several times as she was growing up and finally settled in Adams, Wisconsin. Mary left home in her early 20s for the big city and lived in Madison. One weekend, Mary was visiting her parents when the...

Seven Time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion! It must be my year for sports winners. First, my Cubbies lifted the curse and tonight Jimmie Johnson won his Seventh NASCAR Championship. Seven! The only others to do that are Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty. Both names that even people who don't care about NASCAR are likely to recognize. That is impressive company and he has a chance to move ahead of them both if he can get Eight. But, I get ahead of myself. I just want to enjoy Seven. I've been a fan of Jimmie's since his rookie year in 2002. I've told the story many times because it's so quintessentially me. I was dating a guy who was really into NASCAR. Really. Into. So, I thought I would get on the bandwagon so we would have something to enjoy together. During the fall race at Phoenix International Raceway, I started my research. It made sense to pick a rookie so that I would have someone to follow for a long time. It also made sense to pick someone good so I lo...

I've been in Key West before during the World Series. As I recall, we might have stopped in to a bar to check out part of a game here or there. But, I never really cared who won because my team wasn't in it. Until this year! We were at an event during Game 7 and I kept sneaking peeks at my phone for a score check. I felt pretty good about it all when it was 5-1 and even offered to stay for a Q&A session if my friend Jim wanted to but he was a great human and said, "I think we should go watch the game." By the time we got to the sports bar to watch the game, it was 5-3. Yikes. We bellied up to the bar next to my new best friend in a Cubs jersey and watched every play with great anticipation. A text from friends during the rain delay led us to the next bar. My new best friend in the Cubs jersey said, "No offense, but I'm happy you're leaving. Things started going bad when you got here." I couldn't blame him. We pulled in to the ne...

I was in Vegas over the weekend and Thursday night found me sitting at the bar in Margaritaville with some friends. We were having some drinks, talking to strangers and watching both the baseball and football games. All was well with the world. Out of nowhere, a young (20s?) guy came up behind me and snapped a selfie with me in it. He moved away before I could even get out "What was that about?" Less than 30 seconds later, another young guy came up and did the same. He also bounded away before I could stop him. My very first thought was that they were doing a photo scavenger hunt and one of the items was a picture with the fattest woman they found. Hell, could even have been the fattest person they saw if I let my mind take it further. Now, assuming a scavenger hunt, there are other reasons they could have wanted a picture of me. Maybe they needed a ginger, maybe it was someone with their hair in braids, maybe it was someone in the brightest colored shirt they could fin...

I had the great fortune to hear Frank Abagnale speak last week. Yeah, that's the guy who inspired the Spielberg movie, Catch Me If You Can . Abagnale started the presentation with his personal story. Sobering and full of pathos; I don't remember it being as dark in the movie. While his cleverness at the art of the con at age 16 was entertaining and often humorous, his personal despair at the breakup of his family and remorse over his criminal actions were the overwhelming emotions I walked away with. He feels guilt to this day and has turned down three Presidential pardons. It was also a powerful story of the preservation of the two parent family and the importance of teaching children lessons in morality. He presented many studies showing the shift regarding the latter. Short story, kids today don't consider things "wrong" as previous generations have. For example, cheating in school is considered no big deal by a growing percentage of youth over time. Sa...

Today celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek's first appearance on US television.  It's a big deal if you're in the nerd and/or geek community. The influence and endurance of Star Trek is nothing short of amazing. Yes, I judge people who blithely, or sometimes proudly, say "I've never watched it". For reals, you don't know what you're missing. I grew up watching The Original Series in reruns. Yep, I'm too young to remember them when they aired. Yay for me being too young for something. BTW, that's TOS to us in the know. It wasn't a perfect show. There was a lot of overacting, cheesy sets and sexist costumes. The plot points were sometimes predictable, you really didn't want to be on the security away team - that was a dead giveaway. (See what I did there?) How many hours did you spend with the crew? They weren't perfect characters, either. I mean, anyone who slept with Kirk died and if that's not a major defec...

Except this year because my Fantasy Football teams are horrible. The first draft was on the Sunday afternoon of our big local Parrot Head weekend. I can blame the dehydration, hangover and lack of sleep for my poor draft. Or, the fact that I did no research. I choose to blame the ongoing sickness that I would endure for the next nine days. I'm always the victim. Here's my Parrot Head league draft in order (I was 11th out of 12): WR DeAndre Hopkins RB Le'Veon Bell (Did I know he was suspended for four games? No, I did not.) QB Drew Brees WR Eric Decker RB Matt Forte WR Kelvin Benjamin RB Giovani Bernard TE Tyler Eifert (Did I know he was hurt? No, I did not.) WR Sterling Shepard RB Theo Riddick WR Corey Coleman D Bengals QB Tyrod Taylor K Adam Vinatieri RB Darren McFadden (Whom I dropped right away to pick up TE Charles Clay.) Fast forward to Wednesday night and my work league as I drafted with a fever and barely kept myself awake (I was 12th out of 1...

A couple of weeks ago, some colleagues and I headed up to Northern Arizona for an optional offsite activity. Our CFO has a cabin (honestly, big house) up there and he has made it a practice to invite his direct reports up every year. This year, he expanded the invitation list to all of the Senior Managers and Directors of the company. (No, his cabin isn't that big. We were spread out over several places for our lodgings.) We headed up to the pines on a Wednesday afternoon. The first night was dinner then hanging out. Thursday morning was golf for those who wanted to play while the rest of us sat on the porch and worked. It was gorgeous! This is when I love technology - a wifi connection and I can work anywhere. We headed to the main lodge for lunch after the golfers returned then delved into our first "work" activity of the trip. It was a "dusting off of our 360s". Back in 2010 and then 2011, our upper management group participated in Zenger|Folkman 3...

One of the cool things at WE Fest were the meet and greets. Everyone I talked to said the artists were wonderful and patient. Jim tried to get us in on a couple but it appeared we were going to get shut out until he got a text from a friend "First 50 people in line get to meet Steven Tyler." That was all we needed to know to abandon the Apple Pies shots we were slugging at a campsite bar. As we hustled over, a friend of Jim's said hi and, since it was her birthday, Jim told her to come with us, right now , for a great birthday present. We got there in plenty of time and dutifully lined up. Anyone pulling a cell phone was threatened with getting booted from the line. Do you know how hard it is not to pull out your phone to check the time or messages when you're standing in a line? Hard. We sent Sandy the birthday girl ahead of us. She told Steven it was her 61st birthday and he told her it couldn't be because she looked so amazing. He then sang in her ear and...

I spent last week in Detroit Lakes, MN for a Country Music festival called WE Fest. It's been going on since 1983 and my friends, Big Jim and Mary Ann, have gone every year and my Bestie, Jim, has been to all but one. At some point last year, I said "I'm in!" What a fun event! Very well organized. Lots of music with a mixture of up and coming artists, established ones and a few rockers. We had VIP seats which included "free" beer. All those Minnesotans were complaining about which beer it was but I was quite pleased. What do those ice fishers know? You could also get Summer Shandy and Mike's Hard Lemonades. Following are my impressions on each act. Jim and I saw all of them, missing a few opening songs for some (long beer lines) and about 20 minutes for one act because we were at a Meet and Greet. We were in the 38th row so my pics were all crap because I only had my phone. Lesson learned - take the camera. THURSDAY Amanda Watkins The on...

Behavioral Economics is my jam! If it had been a real thing back when I was in college, I would have ditched my Business Major in a heartbeat. For those who don't know what it is, the short description is that it's the study of how and what effects your economic decision making. What makes you buy one car over another? How will your current experience influence your investing decision a few minutes from now, a day from now, a week from now? That kind of stuff. What does one do with the results? Well, you can use them for good or evil. As a business type, I always think about how it can increase profits. As a human, I also think about how it could help make people make better decisions for themselves or society. An example of the latter, say you want to increase the percentage of employees investing in a 401K (assuming that's a good decision for their financial wellbeing). How you do it is automatically sign them up for it as people don't want to do the work of eit...

"A stranger is a friend I haven't met yet." - Will Rogers Truer words were never spoken when it comes to me. I love talking to strangers even if I'll never see them again. Airports are great for striking up a conversation. Nothing like a captive audience who is probably bored as well! I was waiting to board a flight to Seattle a while ago when I noticed the family in front of me. Two kids about eight or so and two parents. There was no way I couldn't talk to the daughter. She was dressed in a pink t-shirt with a grey cat on it, matching leggings, pink Hello Kitty shoes and, the pièce de résistance, a headband with cat ears. Man, she was styling! I broke the ice with  a "I really like your outfit." The reaction I got was the shy kid face against the parent's leg move. The Mom said, "What do you say when someone compliments you?" That got a mumble from the pants' leg. Not deterred from the conversational attempt at all, I follow...

In case you aren't wired into the world of Jimmy Buffett as I am, he announced this week that he's going to slow down next year. Of course, for Jimmy, that might just mean fewer concerts but more books, CDs (I believe they just announced a new Christmas one coming), plane trips and surfing. I don't think the guy will ever "rest". A few people waxed nostalgic about their love for Jimmy and I was reminded of three Buffett shows I've been to that were awesome in different ways. Wasted Away Again In Margaritaville The earliest show was when Jimmy and Mac came to open the Glendale Margaritaville (RIP) in April of 2008. It was an all day event. Mville gave the Arizona Parrot Head Club 500 free passes and invited a group of us for morning cocktails and some TV time on the local news. A parking lot tailgate followed and then they roped off the courtyard area across from the restaurant and put Jimmy and Mac on a stage in front of the Arena. Can you tell I wa...