Strategic Serendipity

In a fight between the Congress and the Administration, score goes to...the WWII veterans.  Depending on which side of the aisle you prefer (or whether you are inside or outside the beltway), you may have different views over what the government shutdown is about and/or means to you.  Regardless of what your personal beliefs are, I hope you will take a moment to follow what I consider THE story of the day  (picture and link are from www.newschannel9.com ).     I have several friends who volunteer escorting the Honor Flights of WWII veterans to visit the memorial created to honor their service to our country and first learned about the potential issue through their facebook posts this morning.  (The Honor Flight website is currently down, hopefully crashed by people donating money in light of today's news stories, but it is www.honorflight.org .)  This organization flies veterans to see "their" memorial at no cost to the veteran.  Th...

My cousin's 14-year old daughter, Lizzi, is spending time with me this summer and we are having a blast.  My son Jackson loves his "ZZ" and I am loving having her here.  We visited Nando's because that is where One Direction eats and I was feeling so "with it."  (Yes, I know, just typing with it in quotes makes me old.)  But then today I really started feeling my age.  She found a toy shop I had never been in and it was the cutest place ever.  Of course Jackson loved it because it had train tables (score five minutes of sitting down in peace and quiet!).  When she had looked all around the store she sat with Jackson and I looked around.  I felt 14 myself when I found Shrinky Dinks.  You know, those plastic things you color and then bake, they shrink down and get thicker?  I loved these when I was younger.  I got so excited I grabbed some and took them back and said "Do you like Shrinky Dinks?"  "What are Shrinky Dinks?"  O...

As a Gen Xer entering the workforce twenty years ago, we were told that we were special because we had "that technology thing" down.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I've tried to keep up.  And I thought I was doing a good job.  Our twentieth high school reunion, after all, was advertised and documented on Facebook.  When I started working with Millennials a few years ago, I realized that the technological edge was definitely with them.  I'm not too proud to learn everything I can from them, but I'm also not conceited enough to think I'll ever come close to matching them.  So you can imagine my utter shock (and serious ego bruising) today when I asked my seventy-year old mother if she knew how to find something specific she had mentioned and she nonchalantly responded "can't you just Google it?"  Okay, now I am very proud that she knows what Google is and how to use it, but if she knows that (and yes she has a Facebook page although s...