Category Life

A hair-raising tale

Michael 7 Comments

I’m worried about humanity. Every day I see something more and more stupid than the day before. I don’t think we have a chance. You know what? I misspoke. Or mistyped. Not humanity. Humanity might be getting more stupid every day too, but I really mean men. If men had to promulgate the species by themselves, we’d still be in the Dark Ages. And probably in the dark as well. Especially if those men are, as almost all men will be sometime, starting to thin a little up at the hairline.

Oh my Heavens, you would think the world is coming to an end. As soon as it seems there is just a little creep backwards in the hairline, all aich, ee, double hockey sticks breaks out. “Frick! My hair is falling out! I’m not a man anymore!!” So genius that he is, he shaves his head. “Now it will look like a fashion statement, not that I’m bald.” Yeah, right.

But then, genius that he is, he knows how to use a computer and discovers testosterone is necessary for hair growth. Naturally he makes the connection, no hair means he has no testosterone. No testosterone means he only has his oversized red pick-up truck to prove he’s a man and he can’t take that to bed with him. What will he do?

Now this idiot remembers elementary school math and knows that 2 plus 2 equals something, so he adds them up and comes up with a solution. If he has to have hair to pick up women, then by gosh, he’ll grow some hair. But his head is off limits because he just spent a bazillion dollars on a fancy 17 head rotary razor designed especially for thinning and balding men to recapture their outer beauty by mowing away whatever hair might be left growing out of the top of his head. Next best thing to head hair? That’s right — facial hair! So he grows a beard. And not a sophisticated, well-groomed, trim offering like the debonair George Clooney. Oh no. He does the full on, don’t come near me with a pair of manicure scissors, scraggly, end of the world, manly man’s beard like ZZ and his friend, Top.  

Oddly, he still can’t pick up women, so since he is a genius, his first thought is that his truck isn’t big enough. A reasonable assumption. Everyone knows the larger the truck the more manly the man. Ask any used car dealer. So he goes all out, gets an even bigger, even redder, this time diesel pickup with bigger and shinier wheels and tires too. And takes the mufflers off to make certain his is noticed and not overlooked for some weeny in a Tesla. And he still goes home alone after spending all night at the bar. Now what’s the problem?

When he gets home he looks at himself in the mirror and decides he’d sleep with him if he had a chance. But even genius lunatic that he is, he sees something just doesn’t look right with a ZZ Top beard below a cue ball head. How can we fix that? Right! Get a hat! So the hext day he heads out to the fashion capital of the world, Walmart, and gets a hat. He’d like one with a pick-up on the front so he can double up on his manly man ride, but all he can find is one with a tractor on the front and a bull saying “Who farted?” and buys 3 of them so he’ll never run out. Remember, we are dealing with genius.

So now he has his manly man hat covering up his manly man bald shaved head above his manly man beard and he hops into his manly man truck and scoots on down to the local dive bar looking for a woman who can’t wait to be in the arms of a true manly manly man.

Just one problem. If he should find a female looney enough to match on him, he will have found her thus attired which means he can never ever never remove his hat except to shave his head, so he now goes through life with a hat on his head (a hat that says, “who farted?”) everywhere he goes, including out to fancy dinners, church and school functions, shopping, doctor appointments, job interviews, even when he goes to have his manly man truck cleaned up and made shinier where he can sit in the waiting room and share his manly man wisdom.

So if you ever run across a guy who looks like ZZ Top with a hat on climbing down out of big red manly man pickup truck, don’t try to pick him up. He’s taken. Mostly with himself.   

It makes sense that governments can’t take time to regulate everything in life, thus the unwritten law. But which is more powerful – the unwritten rule, or the desire to pursue life, full steam ahead?

The dedication of a lifetime

Michael 8 Comments

While you are taking time off today for Memorial Day in the US, try to remember why we remember.

I’ve written a few times of my disdain for spam, junk e-mail. There just seems something more intrusive, and more distasteful about it, than other kinds of unwanted solicitation. Recently, I started getting emails from something called “Patriotic Points.” It’s a poorly written, poorly disguised bit of campaign dreck spouting the lies we’ve all been on added with since November 2020. Normally I just click on the ”this is spam, keep it away from me” button and let the email client do its work, but this time I (foolishly) clicked “unsubscribe.” Within the week I was bombarded with a variety of ‘newsletters’ all with different names and subjects, but from the same email address each calling themselves American, Patriotic, Truth-seekers, but none of them living up to their self-acclaimed appellations.

I find something particularly sad about his year’s Memorial Day. So many people are calling themselves or others “patriots” who have never lived the word. It seems we’ve been too concerned Artificial Intelligence misleading us, we forget politicians invented the AI process. For 10 years I woke in a Memorial Day and dressed in uniform, not for a parade or a cemetery honor guard, but to report for duty. None of those years were spent in combat zones, but each day for all of them started not knowing that. Steadily, we performed our duties in training knowing that one day we could report for duty and be loaded into a transport plane for a point to be announced en route. We were not heroes, but we were and are patriots, as in the real definition of patriot.

So today when you see the parade pass by or see a flag wave, remember why we remember. “Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” (Adlai Stevenson)

Happy Memorial Day

As we move through life, our needs change and so do the energy and interest we pay to activities and events.  As one interest wanes, another rises to keep the mind and body moving at the same energy level. It all works out.

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Color my world

Michael 12 Comments

Because the dealership where I bought my car was dumb enough to give me state safety inspection and basic services free for life as long as I own the car, I visit them every 6 months for my oil change. Last week was one of those times. In fact, it was the 43rd time.

While I was waiting for someone to recycle my old oil I wandered about the showroom. It only took a few minutes to nickel something disturbing (to me). Between the showroom and the front line outside there was no color. All the cars were black, gray, silver, and white. In the second line there was one dark blue SUV.

I started paying attention at red lights, in parking lots, up and down the neighborhood streets. Cars have no color. It was not that long ago you could buy red, blue, and green in varieties of shades. Orange, purple, and chartreuse were almost common. It was longer ago but still in our lifetimes that two-toned, multicolored patterns decorated our motorized chariots.

I’m doing my part. I have a red car. It’s actually my third red car. I’ve also had blue, green, gold, tan, brown, and even black, white, and gray. And one the dealer called pewter. I called it another gray. I liked those cars. I can remember those cars because I can associate the color with a particular event or an era. If they had all been back, white, or gray, I’d likely not even remember them.

Car colors and the occasional chrome to excess identified our rides, were extensions of our personalities. They have been replaced by ever higher lift kits and exponentially increasing tire sizes. Oh, and tattoos. Can’t forget the tattoos. Where did we go wrong?

Adding a little adventurous audacity might be what your life needs to jumpstart your enthusiasm engine. What’s the worse that can happen? You’ll figure it out when you read the latest Uplift.

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Name it!

Michael 6 Comments

Name that…

Did you ever wonder where some products get their names? Other than it looks like one, why should a Brillo pad be called a Brillo pad.

I started thinking about these one day in the shower when I took a close look at the shampoo bottle, proudly proclaiming it is made of five vitamins and oils. Oh, so that’s why, I said to myself. And from there I was off and running.

I’m all knowing when it comes to pharmaceutical brands, they being such a big part of my livelihood. There are many stories of drugs being named after researchers’ wife’s and children. Sometimes a glimpse of what they do or don’t do is hidden in the name. The first commercially available benzodiazepine, chlordiazepoxide was noted to not cause a loss of equilibrium at sun-sedation doses and that led Roche to name its brand of the drug, Librium. When they made it more potent and released diazepoxide a few years later, they capitalized on brand recognition of the “ium” ending, and as a nod to its use as a sedative, started it off with the Latin for “good night” and named it Valium.

But what of the thousands of products out there that seem to be related. Are they? I there a connection between Kleenex, Spandex, Tilex, and Pyrex? No, nor among the other 600 trademarked products needing in EX. It just sounds good.

Indeed, the letter X in a brand name is much sought after, as is Y and Z.  Pfizer pharmaceuticals hit the letter trifecta with its brand of the antibiotic linezolid when they branded it Zyvox.

A popular brand name construct is combining letters with numbers, ala 7Up or in the company name 3M. Sometimes it’s just shorthand as with 3M which started as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. Sometimes it means something even if nobody knows what as with 7Up. (The most popular theory is that it is from its original 7 ingredients and the bubbles go up.) Sometimes the alphanumeric text means something and all the world (except me) knows it like that shampoo. Figure out what it is? Yep. Alberto VO5, named for the five vitamins and oils in the formula. Now I just have to figure out who the heck this Alberto guy is.

Happiness experts say there is joy in being content with ourselves and not missing out in what others are doing. We say joy is not being happy we are not missing out on some part of life. We are joyful because we are taking part in it! We talked about that in the most recent Uplift post, Fearlessly Joyful.

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Jelly Beans for Olives

Michael 12 Comments

For the last month in two, the weather here has been inconsistent, more warm and dry than cool and rainy (odd), but during that time, the weekends have been beautiful (very odd), except for this past weekend when being outdoors was a requirement of the day (par for the course).

Saturday, I had a meeting out of town, far out of town, requiring driving on interstate highways in the dark, in the rain. Highway drive is tolerable in the dark, tolerable in the rain, knuckle whitening scary in both. Sigh.

Sunday, the daughter and boyfriend ran the Pittsburgh Marathon (half marathon version) in morning rain and chill after weeks and weeks of training on dry pavement under sunny skies. Sigh

Something about this weekend reminded me of another spring weekend I wrote about. It took me a while to find it, but I did and I re-present it here from 7 years ago. If you read it then, humor me and give it another go.

From April 17, 2017, ‘Tis the Season, Spring Edition:

I’m pretty sure I should have been born the son of an Italian wine maker. Or perhaps an olive grower. I could see myself spending Sunday afternoons on a rough stone terrazza nibbling on marinated olives and peppers and artichoke hearts sipping a glass of wine, listening to Old World folk songs and letting the sun warm me where the wine doesn’t. Ahhhhhhhh.

Instead I have jelly beans and a leftover beer I found waaaaay back in the fridge, trying to find a spot somewhere on the 4×8 patio that is out of the wind driven rain storm, hoping the next lightning bolt stays waaaaay on the other side of that hill over there.

BOCThat’s all on me though. I couldn’t pick where I was born but I could have moved if I really wanted to. I chose to stay in the only city in America with less sunshine than Seattle. (That’s what I’ve been told. I didn’t believe it so I looked it up and they were WRONG! That particular proverbially always rain-logged Washington hamlet actually has less sun than my burgh but just barely, coming in at Number Nine of the Top Ten Cloudy Hit Parade with a 57% chance of clouds compared to our 56%. What is the number one least sunny city in the US? Juneau, Alaska. Sorry Land of the Midnight Sun dwellers. Apparently that’s not enough for the midday darkness the rest of the year.) Where was I? Oh, yeah. I stayed.

I chose to stay here where the chance of pressing my own olive oil is somewhere around the chance of me removing my own appendix. Wine making might have a little advantage, but still it’s not likely I’ll be trading in the Miata for an Alpha Romeo and riding it along a strada panoramica overlooking the Baia di Napoli. I’ll just have to keep an eye on the morning forecasts and pick those choice hours when the sun will come out and the top will go down and the drive will be just as scenic. Even if it is of the access road leading to the 27th worst commuter road in the country. And we do better than Seattle there, too. (They have the 8th worst commute. Sorry.

Thank God I don’t have to go to work in either city. More time for olives and wine. Or jelly beans and beer. Happy Spring!

There is always room on the calendar for special days. We found a few extra ways to celebrate everyone among the special days. Check them out on Uplift!

That special day

Michael 15 Comments

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Wait. What? Birthday? Again. Already? Coulda sworn I just had one of them. Just had lots of them.

Some time between the last post and this one, I turned a year older. Seemingly overnight. That always struck me funny at work. Does not matter if your birthday is tomorrow, if you go to the doctor, hospital, or ER today, you’re however many years you last celebrated old.  There is no rounding up in medicine. From an old person’s point of view, that works out pretty well. I often forget how old I am, so not having to remember how old I’ll be, simplifies things.

I mention birthday because since my last birthday I’ve learned a new birthday routine I found pretty nifty. I had forgotten about it until my birthday. I’m wondering if I’m the only one who doesn’t know this.

First, I should mention, I’m not the biggest fan of birthdays. Of my birthdays that is. I love celebrating everyone else’s birthday but mine is not necessarily a date I’ve learned to look forward to. With only a couple exceptions, most of the bad or unpleasant things in my adult life happened on or within a week of my birthday.

Maybe that’s something leftover from a childhood during a time when you were king or queen (or whatever member of the royal court you preferred) of the world, or your world, on your birthday. You grow older and your world takes a backseat to the rest of the world and disappointment soon follows. Maybe because I heaped unrealistic expectations upon it. For whatever reasons, in terms of days to appreciate, even though I am one of the first to expound “every day is special,” my special day not only rarely is, often is anything but.

But, this new little routine could change that. I was talking with a friend and her watch alarm went off. It was an odd time, 11:18. She excused herself and was back in less than a minute ready to continue. “If there is something you need to deal with, I can wait or come back,” I offered.

“No,” she replied. “It’s just my birthday reminder.” I knew her birthday was months away, or months gone by, depending on whether you want to look ahead or look back, and my questioning look must have expressed that thought. She went on to explain.

Her birthday happens to be November 18, 11/18 in American abbreviation. Her watch is set to go off every day at 11:18, and when it does, she takes a minute to thank God for another day.

What a remarkable way to truly celebrate every day. There is something to be said for those who say every day is special and believe it. There is something stronger to be said for those who say every day is special and celebrate it. There is something unique to be said for one who can say everyday is special and then adds the bells and whistles to prove it! I say “the one” because so far, she is the only one I’ve discovered who goes to lengths to remind herself that each day is absolutely, amazingly, beautifully special.

Unless you know of someone who does something so remarkable and would like to remark on that, I think I’ve found the new queen of the world. And all it took was setting an alarm. And yes, I’ve already set mine!

We may not be destined for fame, but it does not mean with are not destined to do great things. We are everyday people doing extraordinary things every day. Our latest UpLift blog post talks about becoming those special everyday people. Please read along with us!

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Oh That Jack!

Michael 8 Comments

Not too long ago I was working on prompts for whatever I might want to prompt myself with and whenever I feel promptable. One of them is “Would I rather be a jack of all trades or a master of one.” My daughter say my list and said, “You know that’s not right.” I said, “Yes, but it’s closer that what most people think.”

You’ve probably said it or read it or heard it many times. “A jack of all trades, a master of none,” usually spoken derisively of someone more talented than the speaker. Obviously the speaker’s talents do not include reading. Buried between my prompt and the usual dismissal is the actual quote. Do you know what it is? I’ll let you think about that for a while and then we’ll come back to it.

That prompted us to think about sayings we get wrong, or those we pick or choose only a part of the actual quotation that is far more complex, but we stop short of the complete thought. For example, no, the customer is not always right. Harry Selfridge actually encouraged his employees to not question a customer’s taste, not the customer’s correctness with his whole message, “The customer is always right in the matters of taste.” An interesting side note to Mr. Selfridge. Many, many, many years before he founded the London-based retail empire that bears his name, he was born in Wisconsin and his first experience in selling was delivering newspapers after school (before he dropped out) in Jackson, Michigan. (And yes, I know somebody is going to say, no, that originated in France in the early 1900s about a restauranteur who said “no matter how ill-tempered is the diner, treat him with civility,” which is a completely different thought process.)

We all recognize that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Does heaven have a similar comparison? Why, yes, yes it does. When William Congreve wrote Act III of The Mourning Bride he wrote, “Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.” Personally, I think love turning to hatred is more frightening than a ticked off lady. But then, I guess if she was really a lady, she’d not express her displeasure over much anyway.

One that doesn’t change the meaning at all is the complete quote that gave us ignorance is bliss, but it is so much more poetic. Hmm. Perhaps because it comes from a poem. Thomas Gray wrote in his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, “Since sorrow never comes too late ⁠and happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their Paradise. No more; —where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”

Would you like me to make you an offer you can’t refuse. If you’re one of the billion or so people who claim to have been at the premiere of the Godfather, or one of the 400 who actually read the book, you would shake in your boots and beg for mercy thinking I intend to cause you bodily harm. It’s possible Mario Puzo remembered that line from the 1934 movie Burn ‘Em Up Barnes, about the owner of an apparently worthless piece of land. But rich oil speculators who know her land is worth more than a small fortune try to convince her to sell, sell, sell! John Drummond (played quite convincingly by Jason Robards’ father, Jason Robards (Sr.)) says, “I’ll make her an offer she can’t refuse,” literally meaning he would offer her so much she would be foolish not to sell the land to him. So you might want to check with whomever is making the offer if they are a vintage cinephile fan or a more modern movie goer.

A most familiar misquote, or incomplete quote, is one of many traced to the Bible. That is the one about money being the root of all evil. Although during the first century of the Common Era money was not as ubiquitous, or as necessary as today, it still was, if you’ll excuse the inherent redundancy, valuable, and used even by those mentioned in the Bible. The full verse in 1 Timothy (6:10) is, “For the love of money is the root of all of evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Not quite the same thing.

Speaking of not quite the same, let’s get back to jack, as in the jack of all trades. Do you know the full quote? Jack was given to us by the man who may be responsible for more common sayings than either Benjamin Franklin or the Bible. That would be William Shakespeare. Maybe. Some sources attribute it Shakespeare although not from any of his dramatic writings, but from his colloquial pieces. Others attribute it to fellow 16th Century author Robert Greene, speaking about Shakespeare. Still others have it going back to the ancient Greeks probably because you can make an argument that some ancient Greek said almost everything now noteworthy. Anyway, the full quote, which is not an insult is, “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one.”

Do you know of any others? Share them in the comments. Even if you aren’t sure of the origin or original meaning, we’ll get to the bottom of it.

Speaking of sayings, do you know the first instance of “Have a good day.” We do, and we even included it in the most recent Uplift, the one where we claim that telling someone to have a good day could be the smartest thing you do today. Have a good day!

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The long and the short of it

Michael 12 Comments

I have noticed that my most recent posts are getting shorter.

And that’s all I have for today. Thank you for reading!

Seriously, these posts have been getting shorter. And believe it or not, that’s by design. Since November 2011 I have published 1,050-some of these and some of them were real monsters, one over 1800 words. The last several posts have seen more modest 400 to 500 word counts.

Why the big change? I don’t know. Maybe I realized I don’t have that much to say, and I don’t need 1,000 words to say not much. Or maybe I realized people don’t have time to devote untold minutes to reading my blog posts. Let’s face it, I am not dispensing indispensable information. Maybe a little smile-inducing, head-scratching, or even thought-provoking. Indispensable, imperative, can’t do without? Nah.

If you make the trip to the Uplift! blog at the ROAMcare site, you might have realized those posts with few exceptions fall in the 500-700 word range. By design. The goal is to produce a piece that can be read in two to three minutes. You might also have noticed they tend to ask more questions than they answer. Again, design. We want you to be able to read them in two or three minutes, but we’d like you to think about them for days on end. And hopefully, in a more thought provoking than head scratching way. You decide what is important for you. Taking the most recent post as an example, you probably didn’t find freshly laid goose eggs in your back yard, but it could get you thinking about what wonders you have recently experienced. (Yes, you have. Take a minute and think about it)

Another reason why I’ve taken pains to keep things brief (and yes, they are pains because I can talk and talk and talk and talk for hours and hours on end and beyond), is advice I once saw from one of the master story tellers of our time, Charles Osgood, and finally decided to give it a whirl. (Young people, you have a computer, look him up.) For forty-six years he presented “The Osgood Files” (“Reports and reflections on humankind”). He described his own style as “Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs,” and went on to say, “There’s nothing that can’t be improved by making it shorter.”

Oh boy, was he right! At least as far as my writing goes. Sometimes I think back when I was teaching and to fil the standard college hour (40-45 minutes). I routinely covered so much that my printed notes would fill pages in a notebook. Today, a 30 minute presentation reduced to writing might fill two printed pages. And be more informative. Not to mention more fun!

Sometimes I think as I write fewer words, I find more things to say. But then I read more of other people’s words, and I find I’m saying just enough. I hope you agree and are happy enough with the words I choose.

Are you still wondering about those goose eggs I mentioned? They really are a wonder. You can read about them at The Egg Hunt. What wonderful things might you find in your world?

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Easter Parade

Michael 3 Comments

Yesterday, Easter Sunday for most of the western Christian rites, closed the day with a rare showing of the 1948 Oscar winning musical, “Easter Parade.” Songs, dances, a far-fetched plot, and two lead stars who were called in as last-minute replacements. All inspired by a single song from 15 years prior, Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade.”

I’ve been around a long time and live outside a city that will hold a parade or a fireworks display, or both, for almost any reason, including next week’s solar eclipse. But I’ve never seen an Easter parade. Have you?

You would think of all the things we’ve paraded for, Easter would be high on somebody’s list. It’s a natural time for a celebration, not just a Christian celebration. The beginning of spring hosts a bevy of religious holidays, spring breaks, and just a great time to shake off the winter blues. Or grays.

Spring is a time of new life, bright colors, happy songs, and a spring in most people’s steps (pun intended). That’s the definition of a parade. Can’t you just imagine a high school band lining the avenue, the high brass section playing about frilly Easter bonnets, woodwinds echoing the antics of the photographer on Fifth Avenue, all almost in time with the beat laid down by the bass drums and deep brass. I want to march around the room just thinking about it.

Instead, we march to open pre-Black Friday sales and the tapping of the green beer kegs. What a waste of a happy song.

Spring isn’t just a time for parades that don’t happen but for spring cleaning too. Did you ever spring clean yourself? In the latest Uplift we write about doing just that. Check out our version of Spring Cleaning.

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Duh…

Michael 9 Comments

Not much happened last week but of what did, two occasions stand out.  Surely at some time as a child, or to a child, you were told or you said, “You’re old enough that by now know you’d think you should know better than that.” I’ve been saying that a lot lately…to myself. At least twice a week. Like last week.

I can be almost obsessive about putting things where they belong when I come into the house. Hat and coat appropriate to the season on coat tree. Keys in basket on entry table. You get the idea. The proverbial place for everything and everything in a proverb.  Except the day it wasn’t.

Every once in a while, especially if I’m just popping in between errands, I’ll leave my keys in a jacket pocket. And that’s just what I did. On that day, in the morning it was cold, and by early afternoon it was springlike, necessitating a change from a heavier coat to a lighter windbreaker. I ran in, plop the coat onto the tree, put away the groceries I carried in, grabbed the library books I intended to return, pulled the windbreaker off the coat tree, stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind. And then checked to make sure I had my keys. Right.

No problem I’ll hop in the car and stop at my daughter’s house a mere quarter mile away and get her set to my house. Except I didn’t because, yes, that required a key also. It’s only a quarter mile and a walk there and back would be welcome anyway. And at least it wasn’t raining. Until it was.

Last week I spoke at a breakfast meeting. I rarely book anything before noon. (Because, why?) (Except doctor appointments because if you don’t get one of the first appointments of the day they will get backed up and then you are there all day and who cares if you sleep through them. Worst thing that happens is your blood pressure is lower when you’re sleeping.) (Anyway…)

The meeting was nearby and, bonus, it came with breakfast. I knew where I was going. I knew how long it takes to get there. I knew what time I had to be there. Add 30 minutes to the start time (because parking, finding room, networking, caffeinating(!)), double the time it takes to drive (because why not), and I’ll step up to the lectern with my beaming smile and dazzle.

Except I didn’t because getting into the car I managed to snag the side of my pants leg. Rush back inside, change pants, transfer all pocket detritus, check mirror, gag at how poorly it goes with previously chosen sport coat, rummage through closet for more appropriate coat, transfer jacket pocket detritus, check mirror, declare myself presentable, back out to the car.

I lost my cushion time but it’s still only a 15 minute drive and I had my 30 minute early arrival time built in, it would be fine. Until it wasn’t. The 15 minutes delay while I was performing my Superman impression put me on the single lane winding, county road behind a school bus. The first three miles of travel took 20 minutes, with still 7 miles to go assuming no more delays. Like the utility truck up ahead holding traffic back while they cut trees away from the power lines.

To make a long story short (yes, I know, “too late”), I got there with 3 of the 30 early arrival minutes left. I’m not 100% certain but I’m pretty sure the first words I said after being introduced were, “No more morning meetings.” I not 100% certain but I’m pretty sure I said them in my head.

And there you have why last week was not a week I want to repeat any time soon. And that was only 2 days. The others…well, let’s just say I know better than to bring them up.

Do you recycle? Do you know you can recycle yourself? You may be surprised at what you can re-imagine out of the raw material that is you. We were too so we write about it in the latest Uplift!

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