who are you?

If you ask a child what he or she “wants to be” when they grow up, what is the nature of the response you’re seeking? Most of us would find “firefighter” or “doctor” to be perfectly acceptable. Why?

Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, very accurately described in his aforementioned best seller this cultural dynamic: “...it reflects something I was long a part of: job descriptions as self descriptions.”

Why is society accepting of the fact that we implement at a very, very influential age that you as a person can be identified by means of a professional title? I can’t recall ever hearing a child respond, “a mother” or “a best friend” or even “a Christian” – most likely because one never did.

The saddest part of all is that, in America, professional success is overwhelmingly considered directly proportionate to level of income; transitively speaking, this means that a person is ultimately defined by a bank account balance. Some of the best people I know would easily slip through the cracks of this standard, and for that reason I wholly reject it.

On a side note, I'd pay to someday see a You Tube video of a Ferriss offspring, prompted by the question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" respond with, "a drug dealer."

McDonald's celebrates the Leap Year [which is tomorrow]

There are few more effective ways to create a fan base for your product than actual sampling; this is assuming that said product is worthy of a fan base at all, and that you aren't inadvertently creating a gossip pool of disgust. McDonald's is capitalizing on the upcoming holiday [the leap year - anyone notice it's tomorrow?] and celebrating via free food giveaways. Although this isn't the fast food chain's first attempt at free food, I find the sample choice rather intriguing: the McSkillet Burrito.

Pic:McDonald's

I've admittedly never tried the burrito, and honestly have no desire to do so, but the sampling effort comes at a strange time -- who celebrates a Leap Year, and why not choose a Monday/Tuesday combo, when more people are still recovering from the weekend and are likely rushed for nourishment on the way to work? Additionally, the aforementioned burrito, I think, seems fairly on par with a new breakfast menu option offered at Wendy's: the Grande Burrito.
None of the articles I came across mentioned the timing of the McDonald's marketing effort in relation to its competition, but the similarly-priced items are both newer options [within a year], and the giveaway is a genius strategy to win loyalty in the breakfast category while the race is still intense [Wendy's only recently began serving breakfast].
Not only is the customer loyalty on the table, but McDonald's has made out of a giveaway a chance to be overwhelmingly profitable in the meantime. Darren Tristano, Executive VP of Technomic, noted that, since the event comes with a 'purchase of a medium or large drink' price tag [$1.33 if that drink is a coffee] and the food cost for the specific item is somewhere near $.75, the higher-margin nature of beverage profits can ultimately mean a largely profitable day, or two. So, to all the Starbucks drinkers: tomorrow choose McDonald's instead, and you'll take care of your morning caffeine fix as well as your caloric needs, all for $.50 less than your daily venti, by indulging in a greasy integration of high-fat foods and sub-par coffee.

perhaps i should become a better listener.

The other day I met a very average woman. She was kind and talkative, and other than the scar on her neck, I don't know that I would be able to accurately pick her out of a crowd of 20 people.
Obviously, you don't typically make note of someone like this until they surprise you, which is precisely my point: until I welcomed her conversation, I would never have imagined the fantastically tragic stories that this seemingly dull woman could vividly recall. It makes me wonder what else I could know if I only I took a little more time to listen.
In very few words, this petite, graceful woman, Ana (which was not her birth name), found herself in need of thyroid surgery at the age of 20. Having been born in Vietnam where she still lived at this point, she wasn't too shocked to hear that she would be going under the knife sans anesthesia and oxygen, due to the shortage in the hospital. Not only could she feel each cut, but her own mother was given the task of bracing her head against the table, warned that any sudden movement would risk severing a main artery. Once she was out of surgery, she shared a large hospital bed with 9 others, one of which was dying of cancer and whose daily treatment was the doctor coming in to attempt "pushing hard enough on it that it would break into pieces."
Ana clearly made it through surgery, but, when the nurse later violently ripped the gauze from inside her neck, which separated the internal and external stitches, she caused internal bleeding that led to near-suffocation and a need to re-open the wound, again without anesthesia, drain the blood from her lung, and repair the incision. The only reason Ana is alive to tell this story is because her brother searched her small village until he found the doctor, who then reluctantly came to her aid.
I feel like helping her to become a spokesperson for a medical malpractice insurance advocacy group: there are entirely too many people in this country who take for granted the efforts of doctors that have done their best to save lives and limbs. In their ignorance and hasty lawsuits, we surely lose some of the passion that drives the men and women whose desire to help has led them to practice medicine.

for a narrow audience...

I'm a huge fan of growing up. It's phenomenally entertaining to step back and watch yourself enter and exit various stages of realization. But, in hindsight, perhaps it wasn't so bad just being your punk.

: )

phenomenal question to ask yourself

at the end of each day...

"Be mindful of the link between present action and desired future outcome. Ask yourself: if I repeat today’s actions 365 times, will I be where I want to be in a year?"

—Roz Savage (Rower, writer, speaker. Working to become the first solo woman to row across the Pacific Ocean from California to Australia)

Perhaps not at the end of each year, but, to keep yourself on task, at the end of each week: if your goal next week is to have that nagging project completed, will you be able to get it done if your level of concentration and motivation are equivalent to that of today?

Every day is a chance to be better, stronger, more efficient...happier. It may even mean taking regular time to disengage from those long-term goals. It's definitely something worth considering more often than not.

found on workhappy.

Starbucks gets [slightly] smarter.

The details are extremely arguable at this point and, per my reading, everyone seems a bit confused, but Starbucks announced today its deal with AT&T to replace T-Mobile as the exclusive internet service provider. It's still not entirely free, but with a Starbucks card customers are alloted two hours per day to browse, after which you either pay up or your connection is terminated. If you are not a card-user, you can pay $4 for two hours, which is $1 less than the deal that was offered under T-Mobile for the same increment of time. In addition, more extensive packages are available, including daily and monthly.

Many of the articles on the deal are flimsy, leading readers to believe that Starbucks and T-Mobile have severed their ties; the truth is that T-Mobile subscribers will still have access to their accounts and connections and the roll out will take some time.

As much as I would love to argue for free WiFi at all Starbucks locations, it's clearly a smart business move on their part to charge a small fee while their competitors offer their connections for free; Starbucks has, by far, the most locations and you're paying for that convenience. Yes, Caribou Coffee does offer free WiFi [with purchase, at most locations], but how many Caribous do you pass on your way to work? They offer it because it gets you there, despite going out of your way. Starbucks doesn't need to offer up a service they can charge for because they're in your face, all the time: some coffee shops offer internet, Starbucks offers convenience (obvious in the growing number of locations with drive-thrus).

i beg you...

to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is, to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer...

[rainer maria rilke]

gregory and the hawk: "boats and birds"

the presidential motorcade, in my head.

As fascinating as it was to see the presidential motorcade, my first thought when I saw Bush and his crew travel south on I-25 yesterday was how expensive it must be for him to merely reach his jet. Traveling both ahead and behind the President were hoards of Denver emergency vehicles and unmarked, beaconed cars; at each entrance and exit ramp to the major Denver motorway were more police cars, tow trucks and fire trucks to block public traffic.

I could be very wrong, but my guess is that at least a portion of the men and women controlling the aforementioned vehicles were far from volunteers. My imaginative estimate looks a little something like this:

25 vehicles @ $15/hr for 1hr= $375
25 vehicle officers @ $35/hr for 1hr= $875
fuel for 25 vehicles, 40 miles ea. @ $.48/mile= $480

TOTAL: $1730 trip to the airport...one way.

Presidency is entirely overrated.