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Author Archive: Paul Epps
Dear Landlord
Now, each of us has his own special gift And you know this was meant to be true, And if you don’t underestimate me, I won’t underestimate you. — Bob Dylan, “Dear Landlord” Read more →
That’s Not Leadership
We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen. — Barack Obama, May 16, 2008 Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat. “He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.” — The New York Times, January 28, 2009 Read more →
Overheard
. . . at the bagel shop: What’s on the “everything” bagel? Read more →
User Surveys on the Web
Look me in the eye Then tell me that I’m satisfied Hey, are you satisfied? — The Replacements, “Unsatisfied” What is a reasonable target for user satisfaction with a web site? We did a user satisfaction survey last year and found that 14 percent of respondents felt that our web site didn’t measure up to their expectations. This year, we have an incentive goal of reducing that number to 8 percent, not based on evidence that any web site has ever achieved a number that low, but based on the opinion of the company that did the survey that anything over a 10 percent dissatisfaction rating is always bad. Or to flip it around, we’re trying to achieve a 92 percent approval rating. I wish we hadn’t set the bar quite that high. I don’t want to be a pessimist but not only is that considerably higher than, say, Google… Read more →
LinkedIn Meta
If you’re not on LinkedIn this isn’t going to be funny but I got this email today from my brother: I’m going through a social media epiphany…so “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” 🙂 Read more →
Where is the Change?
More than 144 hours into Barack Obama’s presidency, the economy is still in recession, the country is still at war, and in many parts of the country it’s still cold outside. Citizens are growing impatient: Wasn’t President Obama supposed to bring change? — Best of the Web Today: WSJ.com Read more →
Not Knowing Things
But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. — Richard P. Feynman Read more →
It’s a Pug Thing
That’s my dog in the top photo, sleeping in his favorite spot. The bottom photo I saw on Flickr . . . Originally uploaded by ♥ellie♥ Read more →
The Man Happy in His Work
The man happy in his work is not the narrow specialist, nor the well-rounded man, but the man who is doing what he loves to do. You must fall in love with some activity. — Richard P. Feynman Read more →
Semester Break
My wife is telling me that because Northwood finals are over today — Thursday — the boy now has a four-day weekend. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I say. It kind of makes sense to have Friday off, but why Monday? “It’s semester break,” the boy says. “Semester break?!” “That’s right. It’s like the off season.” The off season . . . it’s so ridiculous I have to laugh. “Isn’t it nice you have a funny family?” my wife says. “It’s like the all-star break,” the boy says. Read more →
Knock Knock
I Don’t Want to Die
When Zen masters die we like to think they will say something very inspiring as they are about to bite the Big Emptiness, something like “Hi-ho Silver!” or “Remember to wake up” or “Life is everlasting.” Right before Suzuki Roshi’s death, Katagiri Roshi, an old friend, visited him. Katagiri stood by the bedside; Suzuki looked up and said, “I don’t want to die.” — Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones Read more →
I Will Always Remember This Day
A manager in another department brought in pizza for the IT team today. Someday I’ll be telling my grandkids, “Of course I remember the Obama inauguration. I got free pizza that day! Unfortunately, that was pretty much the highlight of his entire presidency.” Read more →
Hockey Moms on the Road
My 15-year-old son and I were at the Embassy Suites happy hour having drinks (me) and snacks (him) with some of the other hockey parents and kids. One of the hockey moms was a really-hot-for-a-45-year-old redhead whose son plays for another team. “I haven’t seen your son in a while,” she whispered to me. “He looks so different.” “Yeah, he’s a lot taller,” I said. “Not just taller. He’s a gorgeous young man.” “Oh. Thanks.” She spent the next hour chatting him up, asking him about features on her iPhone, and so on . . . “Because she was drunk,” the boy said later. She was kinda drunk, but that wasn’t the only thing going on. Her husband was sitting a couple of chairs away the whole time, surfing the web on his Blackberry, and never even looked in her direction. I was talking to my son’s hockey coach… Read more →
Winternationals – Day 3
The Devil Dogs lost to the Quakes 1-0 in the semifinals. It was a great game all the way. The Quakes goalie made three or four unbelievable saves, including one in the last minute where a shot deflected off someone’s stick or skate right into his glove, instead of three inches higher and into the net. We’re going to check out now, save an extra night at the hotel, and head for home . . . Update: The Quakes beat the West Coast Warriors, a British Columbia team, 3-1 in the final. Read more →
Winternationals – Day 2
Round robin games are over. The Devil Dogs — my son’s team — are in the Bantam Gold semifinals tomorrow morning. If they win, they’ll play in the finals at 1 p.m. Unfortunately, they’re playing the Silicon Valley Quakes Black, the only team that beat them in the round robin. You’d have to say that the Quakes are the better team. They’re faster and they attack every second — even on defense. The Devil Dogs weren’t ready for them in the round robin game. They fell behind 3-0, but came back to lose by only 4-3. If the teams played 10 times, the Quakes would probably win 7 of them — but the Dogs still have a chance in a one-game do-or-die. Read more →
The Work is Its Own Reward
I’m playing hooky from our company meeting. The topic is how the organization calculates compensation, which I don’t care about because I truly feel that the work is its own reward. In fact, I don’t even accept a salary. Most people don’t know that because I keep it to myself . . . Read more →
EppsNet Movie Reviews: Slumdog Millionaire
Good story, good music, brilliant editing and cinematography. One of the things I don’t like about movies is that conflict, even in feel-good movies about love and destiny, is too often resolved with violence, whereas much of the dramatic tension in real life stems from the number of people you’d like to physically assault but can’t. Rating: Four stars (out of five). Read more →
The Learn’d Astronomer
When I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. — Walt Whitman My son has an assignment to read this poem and answer some questions about what Whitman was trying to say. The academic answer is that he was exploring the tension between romanticism and science in the late 19th century, and acknowledging sadly, based on “much applause in the lecture-room,” that the romantic worldview was dying out. But just between you and me, he was… Read more →