Ice Storm II Last night I remembered the ice storm that preceded yesterday’s post. My first car was a midnight blue 1966 VW bug. I drove home and parked on the driveway after basketball practice one evening just as freezing rain was rapidly making the roads slick. The next morning, school was canceled due to…
Category: Work, Writing. Reading, Watching
Stories from my prior life in the corporate world and now as a writer
T -110 Days: Ice Storm Cometh
Ice Storm Cometh A little Iowa style ice storm had everyone scurrying home as the building was shut down today. By the time I was able to leave, it was getting bad… but not too bad… I have seen much worse. My first serious ice storm was back when I was a high school junior….
T -111 Days: Flying surf board
As I was leaving work tonight, we were talking about a few people in our plant that come in at 5am every morning to get the paint line started up for the day. On the positive side, they leave many days by 1pm. Reminded me of a coworker / friend I knew back in Holland,…
T -126 Days: Rocky Horror Michigan
Rocky Horror… Michigan There we were at a party in a house somewhere near Holland Michigan in the early 80’s on a cold, winter Saturday night. Off in one corner was our little group… my co-workers Mark and Kevin, a woman I cannot remember, my wife and I… and a woman named Squeaky. We called…
T -135 Days: Indoctrination
Indoctrination. My first job after college was on a financial management program… THE financial management program of its time. It was a shock to my system. My college years were ones of freedom. Choosing my tribe. Choosing my classes. Choosing my methods to be successful. Intense studying, all nighters over and over, but with equally…
T -140 Days: Replacing memories
I once possessed a special skill that came in handy during college. Anything I marked with a Hi-liter, I retained in memory for several days. For some classes, I was able to pull an all-nighter, reading the book for the first time, madly highlighting anything and everything remotely important. My faculty advisor thought it was…
T -149 Days: Is your car trash free?
Years ago, at a staff meeting we were discussing how to improve employee’s housekeeping habits. A manufacturing unit manager said, “Take a walk in our parking lot and peer into people’s cars. It’s not surprising our employees are housekeeping challenged at work, they treat their own cars as garbage cans.” I walked the parking lot…
T -152 Days: Secret Beach
There we were, lost on a Michigan back road, trying to find another secret beach, a beach party about to start. At a four-way stop, surrounded by woods. Twilight, no road signs, no buildings, before iPhones. My new…..wife and I. It was so how hard to say “wife” back then. Girlfriend was easy to say. So…
T -153 Days: Backflipping the dune
One of the great things about having a coworker who was a local, was that he knew the “secret beaches”. We would drive to a spot, hike over a sand dune, and have a beautiful beach all to ourselves. Made for some great parties with his circle of friends added in. The very first time…
T -154 Days: Culture shock
[Over the next few days I will post some Michigan memories from the first time living on Lake Michigan.] Fresh out of college, and having moved to Holland, Michigan my first boss asked me if I had met a lot of people from the community. I responded in the negative. The company I worked for…