Tuesdays with Morrie
I just watched the movie.

Love is the only rational act.

Enough said.

i’m talking with my family and somehow the PSA for movie downloading comes up.

I do my best to imitate the PSA for downloading movies over the internet….
(go ahead, watch it so you get the full effect)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJuw8EA0cYQ&feature=related

My niece Vanesa says…..

“Yeah, I wouldn’t do all that, steal a car etc…too much work… I would CLICK a BUTTOn…”

i love my family

In SoCal at Wilson Creek Winery.
Many cars here.
One, bumper sticker “Sarah Palin 2012″
My brother in law groans
“hey bro, you don’t like Sarah Palin?” I ask sarcastically?
“Sure I do. For target practice.”

A scaled the hill behind my house today.
I lost track trying to count of all the different kinds of flowers growing on a hill that is usually brown and dry. Seriously. Red, pink, purple, yellow… not the 8-color crayola box.. but the coveted 128 box so difficult to find. I now see what ‘cornflower’ looks like in real life.

The realization that today I am in a slice of time. In two weeks, all these flowers will be starved for water and disappear. I stop at each flower and admire. (okay, I’m also asphyxiating a litte cuz it is a steep climb.) I try to absorb it all. Distracted. Sobbing a little.

I see a patch of purple off the patch. I brave poison oak and hold on to the steep climb to find the most perfect purple irises. I sit in the middle of them .. okay, I fall asleep in the middle of them. For a time.

I’m not supposed to be here. I have work to do. The list of things. And yet today, on a Monday, I needed to venture UP. I am thinking of a little boy born a few days ago who I am praying for. I’m not good at praying, I’m not sure I know how to do it. All I know is he came in the world the scary way Sebastian did… and sadly, he is in the NICU. I am praying for him to keep his bloom a little longer.. to stay with us.

I’m not sure why the post today. I have nothing pithy or meditative to share.. just a wish.. put out in the universe that his little 8 mighty pounds can stay and  come visit our mountain and the tree we planted for him. Perhaps an exhale on this page will act like a wish dandelion and .. well… LOVE to you little man

I don’t have a television. I am so grateful when people send me things that I absolutely need to know exist.

I nearly turned this one off at about 1-minute. Talk shows annoy me…

THEN… wow. Darn funny.

It makes me think about communication. How levity helps deliver even the most challenging message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSfoF6MhgLA&playnext_from=TL&videos=ie2qmsjjkGc

I’m sitting in Las Vegas waiting for my plane to arrive to take me home. The screen says “Pos Wth Dly” Folks are curious what that means. (I did Cryptograms as a kid so I figured it says Possible Weather Delay.) A mom here is a little upset. Visibly shaken she worries about getting home to pick up her two daughters.
She steps up to the desk as a young man steps behind it. She waits for a moment. he doesn’t acknowledge her, he types at the computer.
It is clear from her face she is a little emotional.
She finally interupts his typing and not looking and asks sweetly, almost sheepishly, “um, are we leaving as scheduled.”
He doesn’t even look up.
“Maam, I haven’t even signed into the computer yet. I will make an announcement when I do.”
Really? This is my first time flying Virgin America and I do admit I had some high expectations.
I suppose the RED means embarrass your customers and your brand by lacking human feeling.
aaah. he just gave the announcement. He did a great job educating us though on WHY the weather delay happens in SFO. That he did a great job of. Really, he did a great job. I just wish he would see the people in front of him and say it different. “I’m checking into it…. I’ll make an announcement in just a second… promise….”

A microphone made him nicer and approachable. For those of us sitting around him… we don’t like him because he was rude to a worried mom.

Richard - teach your people to reduce anonymity.

I hope you can come tonight.

I am very proud of this project that I helped with 13 years ago.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/04/DD4F1CAD66.DTL

“..I’d like to say something to the kids all around the world…………………Over the past few years, I have been a role model for young people. Over the past couple of months the world has become aware that this role model has some questionable character flaws that are shameful and that I need to personally work on. I am speaking right now to the young people … be careful who you make your role model. Just because a person can swing a club does not make them worthy of your attention. There is a person inside of you that is so much stronger than I am and deserve your admiration. Words do not matter now. Behavior does. I am committed to being as good a man, a husband and a father, as I am a golfer.”

When a famous person messes up (and I think most people agree Tiger has messed up) there is this tremendous opportunity to reach out to people and teach something. Tiger Woods has enough money – his legacy could be to get kids to focus their adoration on themselves instead of some guy with a stick.

I wish PR people would take public admissions to the next level - transformation for all of us not just mea culpa for one of us.

Ada Lovelace. Do you know who she was? The world’s first computer programmer. Check it out.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/stuff-you-missed-in-history/id283605519?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

#31 enchantress of numbers

Or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace

Thanks Don Paul for the info – fascinating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otx6h6ElIn0

The best line of the night, by Jennifer H, “The first rule about pillow fight club, is nobody talks about pillow fight club.” (Watching our boys going to town with pillows.)

The video doesn’t show all the down feathers that happened after pillows started breaking… the cops told me it costs $30,000 to clean it all up …

buzz kill for about 8 seconds.