I’ve had 2 of them. I fished with guys who had a bigger loan on their boat than their mortgage. I paid for mine on a credit card I recall to get frequent flyer points.
Everything you hear about owning a boat is pretty much true. Best/Worst day, hole in the water where you dump your money and so forth.
It was fun, but I didn’t see how those guys could afford it, but here you go.
I grew up in Florida. It’s pretty much the mosquito capital given all the water and year round climate. Other places can be more intense, but for being bit all year long, it’s hard to beat the Sunshine State.
I got bit as a kid as much as others. Heck, we vacationed in a place that has a section of the city called Mosquito Lagoon. It’s some of the best Red Fishing outside of Louisiana.
We didn’t have air conditioning at first when I was young so the window were open. Ever been kept away by the whine of a buzzing biter in your ear. Yes, just like the dentist drill we all know the noise.
I began to notice in my 20’s though that others were getting bit more than me. There were also biting gnats (no see’ums) that were almost worse. You couldn’t see them. You could at least kill some mosquitos if you saw them in time.
I thought that maybe I got anti-bite serum from being bit so much. Then I remembered that as kids, we used to follow the mosquito truck on our bikes in the smoke breathing in what has to be DDT or worse. I figured I had natural immunity.
My dad didn’t get bit much either. As a joke, he said it was the meanness in him that kept them away.
It turns out that some people just get bit more and I’m not one of them.
SOME PEOPLE ARE MOSQUITO MAGNETS
As you may have noticed, mosquitoes don’t attack everyone equally. Scientists have known that the pests are drawn to people at varying rates, but they have struggled to explain what makes certain people “mosquito magnets” while others get off bite-free.
In a new paper published on October 18 in the journal Cell, researchers suggest that certain body odors are the deciding factor. Every person has a unique scent profile made up of different chemical compounds, and the researchers found that mosquitoes were most drawn to people whose skin produces high levels of carboxylic acids. Additionally, the researchers found that peoples’ attractiveness to mosquitoes remained steady over time, regardless of changes in diet or grooming habits.
“The question of why some people are more attractive to mosquitoes than others—that’s the question that everybody asks you,” says study co-author Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist and mosquito expert at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Rockefeller University. “My mother, my sister, people in the street, my colleagues—everybody wants to know.” That public interest is what drove Vosshall and her colleagues to design this study, she says.
Scientists have put forth some theories to explain why mosquitoes swarm to some of us more than others, including one idea that differences in blood type must be to blame. Evidence is weak for this link, however, Vosshall says. Over time, researchers began to coalesce around the theory that body odor must be a primary culprit in mosquito attraction. But scientists have been unable to confirm which specific odors mosquitoes prefer.
To answer this question, Vosshall and her colleagues gathered 64 participants and had them wear nylon stockings on their arms. After six hours, the nylons were imbued with each person’s unique smell. “Those nylons would not have a smell to me or, I think, to anyone really,” says Maria Elena De Obaldia, a senior scientist at the biotech company Kingdom Supercultures and lead author of this new study, which she conducted while at Rockefeller. Still, the stockings were certainly odorous enough to entice mosquitoes.
The researchers cut the nylons into pieces and placed two (from different participants) into a closed container housing female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Did they migrate to subject number one’s sample en masse or prefer the scent of subject number two’s? Or were both equally appealing? The researchers continued these head-to-head battles over several months, Vosshall says, collecting new samples from the participants as needed. When the tournament was over, the team had clear proof that some people were more attractive than others. Subject 33 had the dubious honor of being the biggest mosquito magnet; they had an attractiveness score “over 100 times greater” than that of the least attractive subjects, 19 and 28, the study authors wrote.
The researchers analyzed the subjects’ scent profiles to see what might account for this vast difference. They found a pattern: the most attractive subjects tended to produce greater levels of carboxylic acids from their skin while the least attractive subjects produced much less.
Carboxylic acids are commonplace organic compounds. Humans produce them in our sebum, which is the oily layer that coats our skin; there, the acids help to keep our skin moisturized and protected, Vosshall says. Humans release carboxylic acids at much higher levels than most animals, De Obaldia adds, though the amount varies from person to person. The new study had too few participants to say what personal characteristics make someone more likely to produce high levels of carboxylic acids—and there’s no easy way to test your own skin’s carboxylic acid levels outside of the laboratory, Vosshall says. (She muses, however, that sending people skin swabs in the mail could make for an interesting citizen science project in the future.)
“This property of being a mosquito magnet sticks with you for your whole life—which is either good news or bad news, depending on who you are,” Vosshall says.
“This study confirms, in a very careful way, that it is true that some people are more attractive [to mosquitoes] than others,” says Omar Akbari, a cell and molecular biologist at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved with the study but whose recent work focuses on mosquitoes. He adds that the study’s identification of specific carboxylic acids as a key determinant of mosquito attraction is a new contribution to biologists’ understanding of the insects’ behavior. Akbari suspects that the results of this study—which focused on A. aegypti mosquitoes—are probably generalizable to other species of mosquitoes that also primarily prey on humans.
Nor do fishermen, especially me.
As I sit back and think about it, this is how Facebook and Instagram pictures happen also.
I fished competitively for a while. Even the fishing shows will tell you to hold your catch closer to the camera to make it look bigger.
If you are the only one there, no one can prove that it wasn’t a pound or two heavier, or an inch or foot shorter.
I’m sure I never exaggerated about my catch……ever.
I wrote about all of the uses of WD40 and it’s ability to catch fish and help with tight nuts. Now, you can wear it and smell like……
I heard other versions like if you teach a man to fish, he’ll drink beer all day and so forth.
I also read that women think more about what men are thinking about, than men actually think in real life.
This is a story about my young son trying to catch the biggest fish in the pond.
Fathers do things for their children. They take them places and (try to) teach them things.
I like to fish and wanted my son to also like it so we could fish together. I made sure that we went catching instead of fishing. For those who have gone a entire day fishing without catching anything, you know what I mean.
I took him to the fishing show one year to show him around. It is a place where they sell things mostly to catch fishermen’s wallets.
We started the show by dropping quarters into a large fish tank. If the quarter glided through the water and into the shot glass at the bottom, you were a winner with the prize being your choice of worms. He won on the first try and was very excited about it.
I knew his attention span was limited so we went to the trout pond to fish. When I say pond, I mean a temporary pool filled with fish. They were mostly small trout with maybe 3 big boys in the pond (actually the big ones are female). It came complete with plastic palm trees in the middle for décor. You paid your $2 and could keep anything you caught in 5 minutes. The poles were a 4-foot stick with a short line and small hook baited with a mostly inedible piece of plastic half the size of a fingernail.
The odds are with the fish on this one. Especially when they have seen the same bait for 3 days and got fed every night.
My goal was for him to catch anything while I wanted to get enough of the small guys for dinner. I told him that any fish was a good fish.
HUNTING MOBY DICK
Never the small dreamer, he spotted the biggest fish in the pool and said he was going after it. I feared he would be disappointed as everyone threw a line at it, but I knew I could just take him through the line again and tell him to go for something catchable.
I had landed about 3 of the small fish and was well on the way to having dinner by half the time allotted. He kept trying for the big fish (nicknamed Moby Dick).
As time was counting down and I had caught enough for dinner, I heard a huge splash beside me. I looked over and sure enough, my son had hooked Moby.
My new fear was that he would be crushed if the fish spit the hook. The hooks they provided were tiny and easy for the fish get off the line. I saw it happen to every kid before us. If you didn’t get one to the side in less than 15 seconds, it was pretty much over.
This fish was almost too strong for the small stick and line we were given. Over a minute into the fight, it was still on and I knew the odds were against us.
THE FIRST CHANCE TO LOSE THE FISH
Things took a turn for the worse as his fish got wrapped around one of the plastic palm trees. In my mind, I was already preparing to console him for his loss.
I knew I had to try something. After all, I was his Dad so I reached into the tank and grabbed the palm tree. The pond monitors weren’t happy with me but it was my son.
Anyone who ever had a fish on knows that if you get slack in the line, the fish is as good as gone once the line goes taut and the sudden tension pulls the hook out of the fish’s mouth.
To my surprise, Moby stayed on despite the tree incident and he was well past 2 minutes into the fight. Time was now over for that fishing session, but since he had one on we were allowed to finish. We had an audience as everyone waiting to fish and those who just finished could see that he had a good one on.
I decided that if by chance I could get my hands on this fish that I was willing to do anything to get it for my son. I didn’t want him to be disappointed after overcoming virtually everything that could go wrong, just to lose it at the last second. This wasn’t going to be easy, as anyone who has handled a trout knows they have a coating of slime. They are as slippery as greased ice. Landing them is usually done with a net, which we weren’t allowed to use.
PANIC AT THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
I thought nothing more could go wrong, but to my horror I could see that it was foul hooked (hooked on the body rather than the mouth). My sense of the odds of landing Moby were next to nothing now.
After what seemed like a million circles in the pond, Moby came within my reach and I stuck my hand under the fish and threw it out of the pond in one swoop.
On that day, he had landed the biggest fish in the pond, a Dad was proud and a small boy became a fisherman.
Here is a picture later in life of fishing together. He learned well
The manager of a megastore came to check on his new salesman. “How many customers did you serve today?” the manager asked.
“One,” replied the new guy.
“Only one?” said the boss. “How much was the sale?”
The salesman answered, “$58,334.”
Flabbergasted, the manager asked him to explain.
“First I sold a man a fishhook,” the salesman said. “Then I sold him a rod and a reel. Then I asked where he was planning to fish, and he said down by the coast. So I suggested he’d need a boat – he bought that 20-foot runabout. When he said his Volkswagen might not be able to pull it, I took him to the automotive department and sold him a big SUV.”
The amazed boss asked, “You sold all that to a guy who came in for a fishhook?”
“No,” the new salesman replied. “He actually came in for a bottle of aspirin for his wife’s migraine. I told him, “Your weekend’s shot. You should probably go fishing.”
1. Safely Unclog A Drain
A great natural solution for unclogging the drain! Just drop four Alka-Seltzer tablets down the drain, followed by a cup of white vinegar and allow to stand for about ten minutes. Flush with a pot of boiling water. Doing this on a regular basis can help keep that drain clear. This also works to deodorize the drain.
2. Clean a Toilet In A Hurry
Drop two tablets in the toilet, wait 20 minutes for the citric acid to loosen the grime, scrub and flush. The bowl will be clean, shiny, and deodorized. Handy for a quick clean in case of uninvited, unannounced, surprise guests.
3. An All-Purpose Cleaner
Alka Seltzer can also be a good all around cleaner. Plop three tablets into 8 ounces of warm water. Once the fizzing stops, dip a sponge in the water (or you could fill a spray bottle) and wipe down counters, tiles and tubs. You can even place some in your sink and use as mop water. Just add five tablets to one half gallon of water.
4. Soothe Insect Bites
Drop two tablets in warm water, then soak a cotton ball in the solution. Place on the bite for 30 minutes for relief from the insect bites.
5. Catch a Fish
Fish love bubbles. Break a tablet in half and throw it out near your fishing line, or put a tablet inside your tube jig and cast off. The fish won’t be able to resist the stream of bubbles.
6. Remove Burnt On Food From Bakeware
Drop 5 tablets into a sink full of hot water and let your cookware soak for an hour or so. The burnt food will come off with ease.
7. Whiten and Brighten Your Laundry
To get rid of dingy yellow color on white cotton, soak your whites in a solution of a gallon of warm water and two Alka Seltzer tablets. Then hang your whites in the sun to dry to get rid of any lingering stains.
8. Deodorize the Fridge
For a clean, fresh smelling refrigerator, drop an Alka-Seltzer tablet in a cup of water and leave it in the refrigerator for a half hour. If there is still a smell in the refrigerator, then wash down the inside of the refrigerator with another Alka-Seltzer tablet in water.
9. Clean a Glass Jar, Flower Vase or Thermos
For those difficult to clean vessels with narrow-necks, and hard to reach places, drop two Alka-Seltzer tablets in, add hot water and swish it around until the tablets are dissolved and let it sit for an hour. Rinse, and the glass jar, vase or Thermos will be as clean as new.
10. Restore Stained Plastic Containers
Got spaghetti sauce stains on your plastic containers? Simply fill your container with warm to hot water and depending on the size drop 1-2 tablets into the water. Let sit for 30 minutes and the stains will disappear before your eyes.
11. Polish Your Jewelry
Drop two tablets in a bowl of warm water. Let your jewelry soak for about 20 minutes. It will look new again! (Note: This is not safe for pearls or opals.)
12. Build Rockets For Kids
Entertain little ones by heading outside with an empty film canister, filled halfway with warm water. Drop in half a tablet, snap on the lid and place the canister upside down on the sidewalk or driveway. Take a step back and watch your rocket blast off!
13. Clean Your Coffeemaker
Fill the water chamber of the coffeemaker and then drop in three tablets. When the Alka-Seltzer has dissolved, put the coffeemaker through a brew cycle. This will clean out all the internal components. Run through another plain water cycle before using the machine again for coffee.
14. Help For Nicotine Addiction
If you’re trying to quit smoking Alka-Seltzer can help. Take two tablets three times a day to relieve nicotine withdrawal symptoms and curb cravings.
15. Cure Urinary Tract Infections
Showing signs of a urinary infection? Take two tablets in a glass of water as soon as you notice symptoms. Results are almost immediate. Keep in mind that Aspirin is a main ingredient in Alka-Seltzer so those with Aspirin allergies shouldn’t use it.
16. Clean and Deodorize A Cooler
After an outing or trip, add about 1 inch of water to the bottom of your cooler, drop 4 tablets in, and let sit for an hour. After an hour, rinse and dry. All smells will be gone and it will be clean and ready for its next use.
17. Clean Dentures
Drop an Alka-Seltzer tablet into a glass of warm water, and then drop your dentures into the glass for about ten minutes. The citric acid and carbonation will remove the toughest stains from your dentures and other prosthetic dental work. This is an excellent substitute for more expensive denture cleanser products.
This originally appeared 12/3/2007, but was lost during a transition to WordPress (fail there). I’m re-posting it as it was my son’s first deer. Since then he has harvested more food for us, and hat racks for the wall.
Here is the Post:
With all kudos to Brad Paisley, I took my son hunting… and here is his first deer, a nice 8 pointer. To you vegetarians, sorry, but I’m an outdoorsman and I believe in being able to take care of yourself which is growing and harvesting your food…..both meat and vegetables. After all, I love vegetarians….most of what I eat are vegetarians anyway.
It’s also because of hunting and fishing that I get to connect with my offspring. I see many parents fighting with their kids, but we’re getting to spend hours together away from the computer, video games and other distractions that are potentially harmful to teenagers. We put the deer stand together, painted it camo, grew the food plots and reaped the rewards.
We also fed a herd of 50+ animals and worked the land from scrub to ecologically very fruitful and crop producing.
As Brad says, “but what can I say at the end of the day, honey I’m still a guy” .
Times are tough for teenagers to get a job. I’ve heard that unemployment is more that 20 +% for teenagers. My son has struck out getting a job, although he has put more effort into video games than looking for a job, so we started an eBay business.
It’s name is NeonDeal, Click on the name and see what he is selling, vintage fishing lures. The one in the picture is worth a few hundred dollars. Of course, I know something about it, but he built the blog and the Twitter account which you should follow and see what he is selling. He sold and shipped his first lures last week and made more money in one night than he would in a month at McDonald’s. He’s learned a valuable lesson, work for yourself and it’s good to be the boss. Michael Dell started a company called PC’s Limited out of his dorm room….It’s now call Dell Computers. Hope my son gets that kind of taste for the real green. So he’s self employed for the summer and is understanding inventory, shipping, logistics, marketing, sales, blogging and if you don’t work…you don’t get paid.
Now, when I said green jobs in the title, I mean in terms of Money. If you thought I meant Green jobs in terms of saving the planet, they are tough to come by in real life. One thing I learned is that if they really were a better solution, they would have succeeded on their own already. That is the way business works.
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Once again, I’m satirically inspired. This post is brought to you by a walk on a beautiful beach in Florida, in a winter coat. These guys were the only other beach walkers besides us. We were hoping for a Jimmy Buffet oriented post like “The weather is here, I wish you were Beautiful“…but alas, not this year as the weather didn’t cooperate.
We’ll make up for it with a huge family gathering and shrimp boil today to catch up on everything, which is always a pleasure as was Thanksgiving with my Mom yesterday.
And next week I’ll be in the other summer wonderland of Stamford Connecticut for the SWG analyst briefing we’ve put so much blood, sweat and tears into. At least it’s hunting and striper season when I get home.
A while back at a Software Group analyst relations team meeting, I had the chance to sit next to Barbara E. (last name held by request) and she was lamenting why her husband needed liked to fish so much. I gave a completely logical answer that we men need an outlet at middle age, and fishing is a whole lot better than skirt chasing at the bar scene. In fact, I encouraged her to support her husband to fish more.
Well just before I went to RSDC, I was able to take him out and help her with that generous support of her husbands activities which now includes his very successful website where he is the leading distributor of Chatterbaits. As for fishing? He skunked me from the back of the boat as I had a day of casting practice and he caught all the fish. Here is a picture of Karl with a Roland Martin 8 pounder….SON.
I also learned that another member of the A/R team played tennis for Rollins College and I dated one of her teammates in the 70’s….small world.
Here’s a picture of me on my boat. Part of Barbara’s question about fishing was, were all of the electronics on the boat necessary? I answered that I have 3 fishfinders on my boat, so yes they must be necessary. All is understood now. Fishing is good for husbands and their wives should support this activity.
I don’t really remember what we discussed at the meeting regarding analyst relations.
Actually, my first day at RSDC started at 3:45 AM on the Friday before the show when I went fishing at the Mosquito Lagoon right in front of Cape Canaveral. This is a speckled trout that was caught on a root beer fluke, sort of a mullet/shrimp imitator.
Unlike the massive amounts of cellphones, crackberry’s, laptops and other technology here at the event, there was nothing on the lagoon other than a GPS and a depthfinder on the boat. It was quiet and beautiful. What was really great was that we fished right in front of the space shuttle and the Vehicle Assembly Building at the cape. (OK, there is a lot of technology at the Cape, but not the layman’s variety that we haul around on planes and at user conferences).
So today, you’ll read about the Rational announcements, and I’ll blog about the analyst interactions and what they like (and maybe dislike) about the event, but my first day was with my great friend Frank on his new boat, enjoying nature and clearing my mind.
Here’s Frank with a nice Redfish that was a rod bender.
I had lamented that IBM was late to the party for meetups, but bragged that we were having a meetup at RSDC on Tuesday June 6th from 6-8 at the bar by the escalator at the Dolphin Hotel.
Well, the egg is on my face as blogger compatriot, Ed Brill let me know they’d already done it at Lotusphere. Way to go guys, you flew the flag for us.
So the good news is that IBM is not as behind as I described, and we’re still having ours hosted by Danny Sabbah, with the first round of drinks on IBM. I hope to see you there as there will be plenty to discuss from the first two days of the show and our blogging escapades.
And Steve O’grady, I hope to have fishing pictures by then as I’m going out on Friday to chase Redfish in Titusville with one of my best friends over the years. Here’s what we’re after.
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All attention for me from now till June 4th is on RSDC in Orlando. We have the next edition of the show blog by execs and analysts (we were the first IBM group to try this last year), we have podcasts. We’ll have the first IBM blogger meetup (see below). So it’s heads down and get the work done which includes all the announcement prep and analyst briefing.
Except that it’s memorial day and I’m going fishing . There is the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indy 500, the Coca Cola 600, all which have to be watched. I’m also going down early to see my Mom for the first time since my Dad’s funeral and I get to fish with a good friend on the Indian River Lagoon.
I also have a ton of followups from analyst briefings, reports and other IBM issues that have to be handled before I leave.
So I’m laser focused on all things RSDC right now with no distractions
I sit hear blogging on Sunday afternoon while watching the Bassmasters Championship , later today I’m going to be watching NASCAR. I find this press release on my RSS feeder where I track both (to my employer, I only check these after work, I’m busy with only analyst relations issues 100% of the time): Racing Car Industry and Pro Fishing Have One Thing in Common — Fresh Fish TV about a new Fishing channel.
Great, all I need is another channel, but heck, last week on my – You know you’re a Redneck Calendar was if you tape fishing shows….which is what I’m watching as I type (ok it’s TIVO, but I was at church).
The killer was this line in the press release, “One thing the producer’s of the Fresh Fish TV show realized is that fishing market demographics are very much the same as NASCAR.” They go on to state that the fishing industry is a 41 billion dollar industry. I don’t know the facts on NASCAR, but I’m betting it’s twice that. That’s more than a lot of countries.
Let’s see, here’s a list of some demographics between the two, I wonder if you can draw any conclusions here.
Fishing is the largest participant sport there is with over 45 million fishermen (not sexist, a woman is a fisherman also), Racing had 19 of the top 20 spectator events last year.
Both take place outside
Both are predominantly Southern oriented
Both are family oriented
Both fan bases are patriotic
Both fan bases are loyal to country
Both fan bases are loyal to sponsors
Most fisherman like to hunt
Most race fans like to hunt
Both handle a GPS with the ease of a fork
Bar-b-que is a staple
Both understand meteorology and know how weather affects performance
Both like big motors that go fast
Both could survive without a grocery store
Both drink a lot of beer (not the drivers, at least when they are doing their job)
Sponsors are crucial
They know how to make big money (some discount these two as a redneck crowd, but the winner of today’s tournament picks up $500 thousand for winning, another $1-2 mil in sponsorship, Jimmy Johnson won $2.4 million for the Daytona 500 last week, not chump change).
Fishing TV ratings are on the increase
Racing TV ratings are not only on the increase, but are passing most other sports (advertisers are not lost on this fact at all)
Fishing competitors are fan friendly (no fights in the crowd or dissing the fans)
Racing competitors are fan friendly
So they find that there’s a similarity between the demographics? How could that be?
I just went the longest period of time without blogging since I began. I’ve missed days because I just didn’t have anything to talk about, but this streak has a different cause. Before I get to the point of discussion, let it be known that I really missed blogging. It causes me to focus on a subject and be lucid about it. This comes naturally to some, not to me. I also have to line up future blogs as I can’t just sit down and write all the time.
Advertisement: I lined up Grady Booch, Drew Clark (IBM VC programs) and my favorite PHP programmer , as well as I”m going to blog about an analyst event next week that has in part kept me too busy to write.
I’ve been too busy, a pretty lame reason I admit but true. Now that I have that out of the way, I knew this the entire time, and even talked about being too busy when speaking with several analysts and co-workers.
This brings me to why. When talking to the others, I got the same answer, yes they were busier than normal and no, they didn’t know why either. Here’s my hypothesis.
Bandwidth
A few years back, we said the answer to problems was bandwidth. It was cheap and getting cheaper and we should just throw bandwidth at a lot of situations and it may not be the perfect answer, but it would solve the problem. Now we have lots of connectivity, anywhere, anytime and while not instantaneous, we can get what we want, who we want and can pound away at enough doors, one will open.
Tools
Handhelds, access devices, instant messaging, cellphones…more ways to do more stuff and reach more people. This has turned the volume knob up also. Before, we’d send out a request and wait for an answer, now we get it right away and are distracted to answer these requests. How did we find our way for 1000’s of years without a GPS, or meet up with someone else without a cell phone?
Attitude
We are far less patient for things now. I fish and patience is a virtue. You have to wait for the right conditions, the fish to move up to your space, the weather, sticking with a pattern, whatever. Patience is a virtue they say. On the other hand, my son plays video games….it is an attention span zapper, but a sign of the times. So like the gamers, a lot of us at work are expecting more and more now in everything. If it doesn’t happen now, run and gun to something else. Even as I type this, I’m getting IM’d about decisions on bathroom decorating from my wife.
So am I getting more work done? Outside of blogging, yes. My real job is analyst relations and I’m getting more done and working at a faster pace, doing more and being more efficient. I have to.
I need to find some more time to fish.
This Fish is a CrappieI could have done with out the events of this week, so I took some time to recouperate. That was why I didn’t post the last couple of days….
First things first. I got to hear about a report where our programs finished a gnats toenail behind another Software company (rhymes with Lycrosoft) and I got to spend the better part of 3 days figuring out why we didn’t know it was happening. As it turns out, the analyst group “forgot” to notify us, but admitted they should have, of the 2 analyst relations reps that covered this report, one retired and the other moved out of a/r 6 months ago, so guess who got left holding the “garbage” bag……moi.
So I needed something to take my mind off of one of the worst weeks I’ve had in a while by doing two of the things I like, Fishing and Martial Arts. Friday went to Judo class and threw some people around (O Goshi, Uki Goshi, Hane Goshi, Harai Goshi and Ju No Kata) and got thrown some also. I felt a little better.
Today I went to the I went to the Raleigh Bass and Saltwater Fishing Expo . This next sentence is for Nancy and Steve. I went shopping and it was at a fishing show.
Anyway, I got a new Crappie pole that I can’t wait to try out as they’ll be biting soon.
Next week will be better, it could only go one way after last week…I hope. Anyway, I’ll have a great interview with Doug Heintzman who will expound on Research, ODF, Software Group and some other really interesting things….don’t miss it.
I didn’t work. In fact, I went to Florida to see family and enjoy the time off.
I also had one of my best days of fishing in a long time recording 10 good Redfish and sighting many more at Mosquito Lagoon. You’ll notice from my clothes that it was cold that day starting in the 30’s with wind. But it’s a good thing we decided to go. We had the whole place to ourselves with the fish cooperating.
I caught fish just like these for 6 hours and had the time of my life. The picture on the right is Brad Stine, the guide who took me. Give him a call at 386-566-6823 and he’ll put you on fish.
Then I enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner with my whole family. We haven’t been together for various reasons (mostly travel and living in different cities) for a long time.
After dinner, I got to take a drive in my brother in law’s Porsche GT3. It’s a red rocket that will do 196 mph and stop on a dime, then give you 9 cents change. I won’t say how fast we went, but it was in mid triple digits….what a rush.
Thanks Geoff for the ride of my life.
Even if you aren’t from the US, you know this week is the Thanksgiving holiday. I’ll be taking the week off to visit relatives, and to go Redfishing – weather depending.
I’ll resurface next week, just in time for the big Analyst Meeting….
Back, means sifting throught tons of email, mail, vmail, unread blogs and getting life back to normal…nothing new there.
I said I was going fishing with my sister who hadn’t been for over 30 years. Since she gave me her permission, I’m posting a picture of her redfish that she landed. It was a good fight and I was glad to spend time with her and my son.
No one at IBM got the Mensa question as I predicted. They weren’t even close. It could also be that they just don’t have a clue about the meaning of life in general which is likely if you’ve ever been to a meeting there…..especially with the executives. That just deducts IQ points.
I’m leaving to go on vacation for a week. If you know me, even in the least, you know I’ll work fishing into it. This time I’m taking my sister who hasn’t fished in 30 years or so.
I’ve asked some folks to be ready with interviews when I get back so I’ll have some content.
So my parting shot is not just fishing pictures(pun intended), it’s my favorite Mensa question. Take a guess at it in the comments below, I’ll identify the winner when I get back.
Question: What is the meaning of Life. Give three examples.
No one at IBM will get this, there aren’t any that qualify for Mensa outside of me anyway.
I had planned on blogging today about the IBM/RedHat Emerging Markets announcement today Businessweek , but that’s gonna get covered in the press. Move on from that one.
As I was reading the news, I saw this comment, Oracle “continues to fail, will continue to fail, and we’re going to help them in every way we can,” Bill McDermott, chief executive of SAP’s North American unit. I was thinking, here’s a potential rant. How the heck does he know whether it will fail or not? Is he a blowhard? Is he a good soapboxer? Is he looking for some spotlight? Actually, it reminds me a lot of political speech where you can call your opponent a collie molester and then he/she has to defend that they don’t molest collies while digging a huge hole.
So now I’m up to two subjects and I’m debating two blogs or a catch all for news today. Or I could just link to them via del.icio.us.
Here’s where my day went bad. My pal Jblog , writes today about how google blog search is and that he found his own blog.
Ok, I’m hooked, I googled my own blog and found four other blogs with the same name as mine. I’ll save myself the trouble of linking to them, you can play with Google Blog Search.
I thought I had sort of a creative name, only to find out that I’m late to the party once again, without a gift. Some of the other delusions were pretty good reads. I’ve got work to do.
So I rumble a few subjects through my mind to post about during the day to try and be witty, or humorous, or perhaps insightful (don’t worry, one day I will be) and right before I blog, any thoughts of having a original or imaginative name are shot down like I had the Red Baron on my tail.
Well, at least I got some new baits from Manns Bait Company which they’ve asked me to test this weekend. Think I’ll go fishing and stop crying about my blog. By next post, I’ll have decided on a single subject that readers can go away from with a modicum of content.
I work with some of the best analyst relations folks you could want to work with. We constantly strive for better methods/tactics and ways to improve how we do our jobs.
Today, we had an inquiry with RedMonk on writing blogs. All in all, it went well. I received several instant messages during and after the call about how informative this was.
The call of course was led by Steve O’Grady and James Governer. Each offered insight into how and why we could/should do this, and tips on how to be a better blogger. Not that I want to give our competition an advantage over us, but these guys know what they are talking about. Just google “do blogs work” and see who’s on top.
Personally, I liked the part when Steve mentioned fishing when discussing personal things about yourself and how to build relationships between analysts and a/r representatives. Of course, it’s one of my favorite topics and I knew he referred to some of our conversations (see my 14 spot redfish above).
I still find the most compelling reason to do this was a statement that was made regarding how the next job interview would go when the interviewer asks, “Where is the link to your blog”. That is a jaw dropper if you don’t have one.
So back to my teammates. I wonder if the law of averages or a bell curve applies here. Some will, some won’t, some will do it right away, others will get around to it? I don’t know. These ladies and gentlemen are very tenacious and adapt to new tools to get their job done, so I wonder who’s going to blog. I hear banter from the team about what good writers some are and that they would be good at this. My guess is that is true and I’m sure they would be interesting.
As for me, like a lot of things I do, repetition overcomes a lack of talent.
I know we strive to be leaders, so I challenge you guys to get out there and blog.
Delusions of Adequacy 