GrillSgt's Firepit

How to Fix the US Economy

I received this in an email. Sounds like a good plan… and a lot less expensive than the bailout we’re paying for now!

Dear Mr. President,

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America ‘s economy. Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the “Patriotic Retirement Plan”:
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Big Mac, Big Story, Nothing New

By now everyone knows that Mark McGwire came clean. Told the world what we really already knew. I mean after all, we knew he was using androstenedione, which is the common precursor to male and female sex hormones [See Wikipedia for more information about androstenedione]. Even though andro is not an anabolic steroid, it was banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Olympic Games.

Anyway, I’m not here to dissect Big Mac’s interview with Bob Costas; plenty of analysts, professional and amateur have already done that. At least I don’t intend to directly. I don’t condone the use of illegal drugs, including steroids. Nor do I condone what Mark McGwire did and what many others allegedly did. I will say that I think Mark McGwire was sincere and believed in his heart everything he said, including the statements that he would have hit those home runs anyway. We’ll never know if he could have, but he believed he would have anyway, and that’s enough for me. I will also say, I’m a Mark McGwire fan; but I’m not being prejudicial in this post.
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It’s a Small World

I had an interesting “double take” today at lunch. I got up this morning after my wife called me and told me I needed to meet her at the Toyota shop because she needed to take her Highlander in for them to look at a couple of things. On my way there, she called me back and said never mind; they could give her a ride back to the house. So, instead of turning around and going home, which I almost did, I decided to continue on and get my hair cut, which I was planning to do later after I dropped my wife off at work or home.

After my hair cut, I strolled around Target. I went there to get a copy of “Inglorious Basterds” on Blu-Ray, but Target was still out of stock. My next stop was lunch at one of my favorite places, Jersey Mike’s Subs.

I got my sandwich and was reading my latest issue of Guitar World. Partway through my sandwich, I got up to refill my drink. As I was walking back to my table, “Santa Clarita” caught my eye on my cup. I grew up in Santa Clarita, CA. Now, I’m thinking, this is interesting!

Here’s what the cup says:
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A Manager’s Job

The most important part of a manager’s job is not managing or supervising people, providing people with work, managing or guiding projects, providing status reports to senior management or the rest of the organization, creating or modifying processes, creating or maintaining documentation, sitting in meetings, etc.

No, it is none of that. The most important part of a manager’s job is infinitely more important than all that. It’s really not all that difficult either. Yet many manager’s fail at it miserably.

The most important part of a manager’s job is simply this:

Ensuring that the people who work for you have the tools, skills, knowledge and training they need to succeed at their job.

The manager that can do this not only gains the trust and respect of his subordinates, but also gains their support.

When the people who work for you are successful, you, as their manager, are also successful.

So, go find out what your people need to be successful and give it to them!

New Year’s Resolutions

2010 is upon us and as is customary, it is time to make New Year’s resolutions. Except, I don’t make resolutions. The problem I have with New Year’s resolutions is that they are implied to begin at the stroke of midnight on 01 January of the new year. As such, people think that at the stroke of midnight on 01 January of the new year, they have to immediately begin fulfilling their resolutions. I think that’s one of the reasons so many resolutions are broken within days of the new year. People make these promises to themselves and can’t fulfill them immediately upon the start of the new year, so they drop them. For example, I’m willing to be that thousands of people resolve to quit smoking each new year. That implies that at the stroke of midnight on 01 January of the new year, they must quit smoking. So say you set this goal and you’re at a New Year’s Party where people are drinking and smoking. It’s now midnight. Are you really going to stop smoking in the middle of a party? Not likely. So you tell yourself, “I’ll begin in the morning when I wake up.” The morning comes, and you want a cigarette. You have one figuring you didn’t quit smoking when you said you would and already broke your resolution. So why bother, you say to yourself.
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Palm Pre Themes

For the past couple of months, I’ve been creating themes for the Palm Pre, which can be downloaded at PreThemer.com and installed using WebOS Quick Install, or they can be downloaded and installed using Preware, which is an app that can be installed on the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi. Below are the main screenshots of the themes I’ve created so far. If you’re a Palm Pre or Pixi owner and you try out, use or look at my themes, please leave feedback. If you like them, please donate via PayPal using the button below. Thx

For additional screenshots of each theme, click the image to go to the theme page at PreThemer.com.
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