Author Archive: Paul Epps

A Different Person

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Our son’s flying to Australia for a couple weeks to visit his cousins . . . I’m talking to people at LAX in a fake Australian accent. My Australian accent is not all that tight except on words with a long “a” sound, which I replace with a long “i” sound, e.g., “mate” becomes “mite.” “Sorry, mite,” I say, as I roll a suitcase over a gentleman’s foot. “Did you just say what I thought you said?” my son asks. “When you travel,” I explain, “you can be a whole different person.” We take the bags over to the baggage scanner. I know we don’t have to wait for them but since “wait” has a long “a” sound, I ask the woman, “Do I ‘ave to white?” “No,” she says. “Jus’ drope i’ oaf then?” I ask. “Yes,” she says. Read more →

International Cuisine

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We’re dropping our 15-year-old son off at LAX. He’s flying to Australia for a couple weeks to visit his cousins. He’s explaining his theory of international cuisine, which is that there’s not going to be any Mexican food in Australia because there are no Mexicans in Australia. On the other hand, they probably have New Zealand food that those of us in the States have never heard about. “That’s why it’s important to travel,” I say, “so you can learn about things like that. Or you could just stay home and watch the Travel Channel.” Read more →

California Fiscal Crisis

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The median wage of a California state employee is $66,000 (source). The median wage among all Californians (including those state workers) is just over $36,000. The state employee can retire with a full pension in his or her late 40s or early 50s, which essentially means that the taxpayers have to pay for double the number of state workers that are required to provide current services. In addition to salaries that are much higher than private sector equivalents, the state employee has health care and other benefits that by themselves may exceed the total compensation of a full-time private sector employee. The reasonable question to ask is not “How did they run out of cash?” but “How was this ever supposed to work?” — Philip Greenspun Read more →

Low-End Wealth

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Flying back to California from the east coast, I sat next to one of about 60 kids coming back from a three-week tour of Europe to celebrate their graduation from an Orange County high school. “You guys must be rich,” I said to her, “traveling around Europe for three weeks.” “We’re on the low end of wealthy,” she said. She put her hand out in front of her, palm down — not too high — to indicate her standing on the wealth ladder. Read more →

Twitter: 2009-07-20

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RT @RonJeffries: I can waste time in so many ways. How can I monetize this skill? # You don't hear a lot of FORTRAN jokes from cats – RT @sockington: 10 MEOW 20 GOTO 10 # Showed this video at an IT team meeting this afternoon. Good discussion on teamwork ensued. http://bit.ly/EAA0 #kicklikeagirl # Read more →

Urgent vs. Important

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From the Lean Enterprise Institute: Are we all clear on what is really important for our organization in order to solve customer problems and succeed in the long term? (Or, stated another way, can we get past the merely urgent?) Are we agreed on what big problems we need to solve as a team? Are we sure what obstacles are in our way and their root causes? Have we — or will we now — assign responsibility for determining the best countermeasures and removing the obstacles? Critically important, do we have a way of surfacing and resolving all of the cross-function, cross-department conflicts that stand in the way of resolving all major problems in any multi-functional organization including ours? Read more →

To Fly is the Opposite of Traveling

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To fly is the opposite of traveling: you cross a gap in space, you vanish into the void, you accept not being in any place for a duration that is itself a kind of void in time; then you reappear, in a place and in a moment with no relation to the where and when in which you vanished. — Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler Read more →

Painting the Kitchen

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Three years ago, my wife had the kitchen painted a light green. I just got home from a week in Toronto to find it returned to the original color. “Why would we pay to have the kitchen painted green,” I ask, “and then pay again to have it painted back to the original color?” “I don’t like green anymore,” she says. Read more →

Going Back in Time

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Here’s something I didn’t know: If you fly straight from Sydney to Los Angeles, you arrive before you left! I’m looking at an itinerary here . . . leaving Sydney at 10 a.m., arriving at LAX at 6 a.m. — on the same day! It’s like going back in time! Read more →

My Son Says He Needs a New Watch

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As we’re passing a watch shop in the Buffalo airport, my son, age 15, says, “That reminds me — I need a new watch.” I say, “Why do you need a new watch? When we were getting my watch, you told me you already had a cool watch.” “When was that?” “I don’t remember but it wasn’t that long ago.” “I didn’t say my watch was cool,” he says. “I just said your watch was lame.” Read more →

Anatomy is Destiny

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My wife’s explaining to our boy how she managed to pass a driving test and get a license without ever taking a driving lesson: “I drove in Thailand and when I came over here I just took the test. I’m pretty charming. People like happy, smiling people. And when I was young, I was cute. The examiner just said, ‘okayokayokay.’ I hate to say it, but when you’re good looking, you get the benefit.” Read more →

Eating Buffalo Wings in Buffalo

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Our flight out of Buffalo was delayed by gusty winds so we ducked into Anchor Bar at the airport for an order of buffalo wings. The Anchor Bar wings come with five sauce options: mild, medium, hot, spicy bar-b-que or suicidal. I asked the waitress, “The ‘suicidal’ wings — who’s responsible if they result in my actual death?” “Oh they’re not like that,” she said. “There’s other places in Buffalo that serve wings a lot hotter. Oh my gosh, if you actually died?” “You could use that in your advertising: ‘A guy actually died eating these wings!’” “I’ll keep the defibrillator handy.” We gave the suicidal wings their day in court. We liked them. Like the waitress said, they actually weren’t as hot as the wings I’ve had at some other places, despite the small kernels of red and black pepper that are actually in the sauce and on the… Read more →

Old School

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I have to say, it has been nice to watch Griffey’s career unfold in an old-school, pre-PED way; instead of belting 57 homers at age 39, he’s barely hanging on to a job. It’s refreshing. It’s the human body doing what it’s supposed to do at that age: fail. Thanks for sucking, Ken Griffey Jr. And I mean that in a completely genuine way. I swear. — Bill Simmons Read more →

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