Three years ago, LinkedIn invited articles featuring the author’s best advice (hence the hashtag). I was just re-reading the one I published there (on 2/15/15), and decided to re-publish it here on my blog, with an update, because it’s even better advice today in my opinion. Here’s my #BestAdvice: Several years ago I had the […]
#BestAdvice: Scouting – an update
posted by jim on January 26th, 2018 under Family, Leadership, Outdoors, Scouts
Winning performance: it’s the preparation, stupid
posted by jim on January 2nd, 2018 under Business, Family, History, Leadership
Yesterday I read this wonderful recap of the 1967 “Ice Bowl” game in Green Bay, in which the Packers beat the Cowboys with a touchdown in the closing moments of an NFL Championship Game played in temperatures even colder than we’ve had this week. This passage, a remembrance by Packers right guard Jerry Kramer, really […]
Spend your time on what’s important to you, and ignore the jerks
posted by jim on October 6th, 2017 under Family, Leadership, Manufacturing Management, Outdoors, Scouts
Caroline Fairchild, Senior News Editor at LinkedIn, shared this article by her friend Dan Lyons about the burgeoning culture of overwork in Silicon Valley, with her own questions for her readers about workplace expectations and hours worked. It struck me as cognitive dissonance that in the nerve center of technology, which should be liberating us […]
Leadership: treat your people like dogs
posted by jim on September 7th, 2017 under Family, Leadership
Okay, that’s click-bait. You should really treat your people like I treat my dog. (Well, not literally, because there are those people who consider belly rubs in the workplace inappropriate.) I try never to walk past my dog Hunter without at least giving him a pat on the head. Most of the time, I take […]
Be prepared
posted by jim on February 6th, 2017 under Business, Family, Leadership, Manufacturing Management, Outdoors, Scouts
I’m not sure why this story from four years ago is still rattling loudly around in my mind. It’s probably because I have two sons about the same ages as the boys in this tragedy, and we spend a fair amount of time in the woods ourselves. It’s an awful story. There are lots of things out there that can […]
A life to learn from , part 2: Julia Teresa (Cosgrove) Vinoski
posted by jim on December 20th, 2016 under Family
The day I published the “part 1” of this title, about my Dad’s cousin Bernie Vinoski, is the day my Mom died. One thing I hadn’t played up with Bernie is how his was a life of constant service. That trait has been reinforced in my reading lately. I mentioned in another previous blog entry […]
A life to learn from: Bernard B. Vinoski
posted by jim on December 4th, 2016 under Family, Heroism, History
One of my heroes was buried Friday. Bernard B. Vinoski, Sr, MD, Colonel, US Air Force (Ret), was my dad’s cousin. They grew up together in little South Connellsville, Pennsylvania. His obituary is here – in it you can read all about his life of incredible accomplishment and service. To me, he was at first […]
My little sister Michelle passed away almost three months ago. I decided at the time to rethink some things in my life, though I’ll admit I’ve been somewhat adrift with that effort. I’ve committed to making some progress before the year ends. I picked this book up not long after she died, started it briefly, […]
This article gave me something of a start. I had no idea until I read it that our son AJ, now six, had a less than 5% chance of ever coming into this world. My wife was just shy of 42 when he was born. Our older son John had come along almost exactly three […]
Today at the barber shop my older son Johnny Shizzle-Cakes invented a football kind of game you play on a checkerboard. That got me thinking about the vibrating football game we had when I was a kid in the ’70s. Were those things the worst or what? You always had the linebackers who would lock […]