Need an "awwww"?
Cheetah cubs! Impossibly adorable.

What's hell to you?
My idea of hell? Forget about demons gnawing on my bones for eternity. Forget pits of fire and brimstone. For me, hell is an eternity being spent locked in a room with technology…alone. My idea of the worst torture I could endure would be spending eternity having to set up computers, having to transfer information from one to another, having to download and install software, having to do things llike “configure” and “reconfigure.” Having to create and remember more passwords than I have teeth. Having to figure out how to install a printer.
That’s my idea of hell.

Today, I was in hell.

Horray for the brain
Have you seen Rough Science? If not, you should. I am by no means a scientific type person, but I love this show. A group of scientists (all of whom I'd love to have over for dinner) are "stranded" someplace and given assignments like "make a clock," "make a radio," or "figure out how much this glacier moves in 24-hours." Using only what they find around them, plus an assortment of odd tools, they make things happen.

This is the kind of reality television I like. Watching people use their brains in an ingeneous way, seeing how cooperation makes things possible, this is good stuff. I've been amazed watching them make sunscreen from native plants, building weather stations using spare wood and parts of an old radio, and various other wonders. Check it out.

There is no reason...
For Cadillac SUVs. None. There is no reason why they should be manufactured in the first place, let alone a reason for anyone to be driving them.

Gettin down with Donnie Mac

Being married to a native Philadelphian, I am naturally all caught up in Super Bowl fever as our beloved Eagles prepare to trounce those nasty Patriots.

I am not, however, going to write a song about the Eagles. No, it's been done...and done repeatedly, apparently. As if choruses of "Fly, Eagles, Fly" after every TD wasn't enough, many in the Philadelphia music scene are expressing their love for the team through new compositions. Among the titles are "Donnie Mac," and "Letz Go T.O." (The latter was, apparently, featured on the personal website of limping egomaniac Terrell Owens.)

However, I believe my favorite title in honor of the Eagles has to be the love ballad, "Respect, Hustle, Pride."

Go team!

Talk, talk
Do you have any idea how much I'd give for a conversation right now? No, you probably don't. You probably work someplace where your co-workers might randomly stop by and ask how your weekend was. Maybe while you're pouring yourself a second cup of coffee, a pre-Super Bowl debate will break out.

Not here.

Here it's silent. It's a wall of closed office doors that prohibit any kind of human interaction.

Maybe I'm weird, but I find I enjoy work more if conversations spontaneously break out. If I hear laughter occasionally. If my day is filled with unexpected encounters with pleasant people. I also find, as a manager, that a team is tigher and happier if they treat each other as people and not as just someone they work with. I don't expect instant friendship, I do expect a "good morning" now and then.

I've been here for two hours this morning and haven't spoken to another person. Hell, I haven't even seen another person (and no, I'm not exaggerating or making this up). Everyone, as usual, has their door closed.

Come on, people, open your doors and let a little life in.