my last day at motorola

my farewell address to all the folks at moto:

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I will not bore you with the standard issue farewell email. You have all been told how talented and wonderful you all are and I agree wholeheartedly with those sentiments. Instead, I want to tell you a story.

Two weeks ago, I had a dream. A dream of running my own business. A dream of chocolate. A dream of wild oompa-loompa's frolicking in the green fields. With I as their shepard, these oompa-loompa's were trained and taught to make chocolately goodness for all to enjoy. Metrics were collected and oompa-loompa power point presentations were given. The process was refined again, and again, and again. The people of the world rejoiced (and by world i mean gurnee, il).

I awoke from this dream with some sleep crusties in my eyes but nonetheless inspired. I shall leave my college studies behind and open a chocolate factory. And it will be good.

To all of you, I wish the best. With any luck, my career plans will bring me back to Motorola and I will have the priviledge of working with you again.

Mike
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wonka alert!

i discovered late last night how scott and i are built differently when it comes to business.

Before i get to that, first, a little background:
We have people flying in to install the cash registers and put on a training class for myself and the staff. Our contractor told us that this would be fine. Last night, i'm told that our floor gets installed on the same days that the cash registers are to go in and that no one else can be in the store at that time (tile needs a while to set before it can be walked on). I call our vendor to try and reschedule and they tell us that it's either the days we agreed on earlier or 3 weeks from now. otherwise, they are booked solid and simply don't have the people.

My reaction: Shit, well, i can have them set up the registers at my house and show me how to install them. I can have the employees come to my place later in the week and we can do the training there.
Scott's reaction: (picking up phone) Shit, they told us we would be fine for next week. they WILL get that floor done in time. He calls our contractor and rightfully lays into him.

So which was the correct reaction? It was Scott's. They screwed up. It should be them that fixes it. My reaction worries me a bit. Am I too passive to run a business? I better get my goddamn head on strait if I am.

my body is a temple...that needs renovation

ouch:
lately my left calf has been bothering me...a lot. very recently it has made life suck. walking is getting to be a bitch and my mile times are starting to slow down. the doctor explained that i have a torn calf muscle. i informed him that i have 1 month to go before my attempt at qualifying for boston and will not be having any of this 'rest and rehab' crap. now, i chose this doctor because he is a bigtime runner as well and he understands my plight. tomorrow i see the orthopedist to ensure it's not a stress fracture (the only thing that will convince me to stop running) and hopefully get some go-go juice shot into my calf to help it heal more quickly. as of now, i'm taking horse-pill size ibuprofen and icing it to death.

double ouch:
on my ten mile run tonight, i neglected to use vaseline to lube up appropriate sensitive areas...such as my right nut. about 7 miles into it, it started to chafe. being the stubborn ass that i am, i ignored it and finished out my run. i jumped into the shower only to have all the sweat-salt be washed over my junk. flinching, i slapped the wall so hard with my hand that the dude in the next stall asked if i was all right.