Urgency: Does Anybody Have It?

Yesterday, I got hit with another massive wave of discouragement. I realized that I don't want to get good at handling discouragement. It's not worth the pain. But I am resorting to a tactic that got me through boot camp. I keep telling myself that many people have been here before me, and they made [...]

eReader Race: iPad in the Lead, nook Ahead of Kindle

That was hard to keep straight. According to The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), Barnes & Noble's nook is beating out Amazon's Kindle, but the iPad is outselling both. Well, good. I have a nook. I don't have a Kindle or an iPad. I'd like them. I read Kindle books on my iPhone.  In the grand [...]

The Fastest Way To The Top

Most of my life, I’ve tried to take the fastest path I could find to the top. It’s rarely worked well. At times, I’ve felt like an overachiever. At other times, I’ve felt like a total failure. In November, after I realized that my job was headed south, I bought Rabbi Daniel Lapin’s book “Thou [...]

Josh Kaufman: Rethinking the MBA

If somebody told me they would pay all of my expenses for a few years so I could go to any school I wanted, I would go to Harvard Business School. I'd get an MBA. From Harvard. But is a traditional MBA program, even Harvard's, the best way to learn business? Josh Kaufman doesn't think [...]

CNET: McAfee’s Big Blunder

CNET has a blog post about McAfee's Big Blunder. Recently, McAfee pushed out a buggy software update. It didn't affect me, as I've long since banished McAfee and Norton from my network. I'm all for keeping my computer safe, but both are far too needy for attention, and demand too much of a performance sacrifice. [...]

Commitment Part II: By The Way, The Navy Broke It’s Contract With Me

Yesterday, I published a blog post about commitments. I revealed how I was tempted to get out of the Navy by failing weight standards, but decided to honor my commitment. I honored my end of the contract, even though the Navy broke it’s end before I even signed it. I joined the Navy through the [...]

What Does A Commitment Mean To You?

It's easy to point to the world and make comments on how little commitments mean. I'm not tempted to say "anymore". While we do witness certain deteriorations in society, I'm not convinced anything is new. It's not like there was once some idealistic, virtuous time when everybody was nice to each other. The book of [...]

Alternate Work Schedules: What’s Best For You?

The company that laid me off last month rolled out what they called "Flexible Work Schedules" at the end of 2008. I elected not to participate because I considered these schedules to be far less flexible than a regular 8 hour day 5 days a week. One model required you to work 9 hours every [...]

I Am So Happy About This: 1Password for Windows

There was a time when I could use one username and password for everything. Those were wonderful days. Yes, I know the “security experts” don’t recommend that, but seriously, how do you keep track of all your logins otherwise? Then companies started rolling out mandatory password changes. Then we had mixes of systems where we [...]

How Madoff Got Away With It: The SEC Was Surfing for Porn

I stumbled across this today, ironically enough, through a humor site. And I am not surprised at all. Apparently, while Madoff was ripping people off and banks were getting ready to siphon billions off the economy and collapse, the SEC was too busy surfing for porn to care. “During the past five years, the SEC [...]