Labor Day 2008 | About Randy Pausch

For over a month now I’ve been trying to figure out how to post about Randy Pausch’s death last month from pancreatic cancer. What his final lecture meant to a lot of people, what it meant to me wasn’t about cancer, it was about how you live.

My dad passed away last year from complications from a pancreatic tumor. According to wikipedia, Randy underwent the same drastic surgery as my father. That’s a 13 hour surgery. No walk in the park. Both Randy and my father, however, lived well past the estimates of medical science. They had their own positive mental attitude (PMA) which burned within them.

That similarity wasn’t why Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture was so profound for me. Positive Mental Attitude: Randy had it in spades. His lecture was so profound six million views and counting were seen on YouTube.

My Lesson: Sacrifice and Responsibility

You learn a lot about yourself being the person responsible for someone. Whether as a parent or in caretaking a parent, it changes us when we are forced to accept or reject life and death responsibility for another human being.

I learned a lot about myself in the past four years and my opinion is that most people don’t know what’s important in their lives until they are confronted with life and death decisions. It’s not something that can be adequately described. It’s a large part of why I posted my essays on Martin Luther King Day and Memorial Day on this blog.

Communication, Education and Teamwork Balanced

It’s amazing what priorities we will set, what sacrifice is defined by when everything else becomes placed into proper perspective. My personal experiences in the past four years make me realize several things.

Lifelong learning is important. Passing those skills along through education is important. Communication with others and the tone and impact of my voice is equally as important. Both for my family and for my community as a whole. Passing a desire to learn rather than simply driving content – that is a finesse that is reserved for the best of teachers.

Whether in a workplace or in a family, teamwork, communication, and education will make or break the team. Randy had it nailed, and I’m still working on it with mixed but mostly good results. 

Randy’s Lecture Defines What’s Important

In a showcase for how to change video into eLearning, Gabe’s Word of Mouth Blog features Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture in Presenter format. The lecture, a YouTube top favorite, has a learning centered focus and is now viewable in smaller chunks and retention is increased due to the formatting and sidenotes.

If you want to learn from Randy Pausch the first time around and in the best eLearning format possible watch this rather than just the YouTube video. You will love both the content and the container it comes in.

See it today.

As if there wasn’t enough to worry about for parents with last year’s crisis of Chinese lead painted toys, now the ^7 recycling icon is considered a toxic symbol. 

If this isn’t a massive issue of Corporate Authenticity, I don’t know what is. All polycarbonate bottles and other containers are suspect to some degree because of something called bisphenol-A (BPA).

From The Health Dangers Of Reusing Plastic Bottles And Bags by the Environmental Working Group:

…researchers concerned with the evils of a common chemical known as bisphenol-A (BPA) suggest you should toss out these baby bottles along with any toys suspected of containing lead or dangerous magnets.

How toxic is BPA? Nobody really knows for sure.

In fact, it’s still debated as a scientific issue, however WalMart has pulled BPA baby bottles from the shelves.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that…

“[T]he possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed,” says this new draft report from the U.S. department of Health and Human Services.

Though the evidence isn’t entirely clear, it’s possible that exposure to the chemical during infancy could cause changes in prostate and mammary tissue that raise the risk of cancer later in life, the report suggests. The latest analysis goes beyond two others from last year, both of which concluded the chemical was safe in low doses.

I’m still researching this matter after a year and it’s almost inconclusive, yet safer to err on the side of caution.

BPA: A Call For Corporate Authenticity

I tend to side with this frustrated parent’s opinion:

What we want is actually quite simple. We want companies that produce products which come into contact with infants’ and toddlers’ mouths, and which are exposed to high heat due to washing and sterilization, to disclose the types of plastic they use in their products.

We want companies to inform consumers so that people like us don’t have to do their job for them. Labeling like this will only influence the choices of people who care. If people care, they should have a choice. If enough people care about materials that you’re afraid to label your products with the information, you’re using the wrong materials.

Listen up, chemical companies. We’re having a conversation. We’re trading information, we’re becoming organized.

And if what you’re doing is threatening our children’s safety, we’re coming to GET YOU.

Legally of course.

BPA Leaching: I’m feeling better

This week a senior FDA scientist recently told Congress that:

[A] large body of available evidence indicates that food contact materials containing BPA currently on the market are safe, and that exposure levels to BPA from these materials, including exposure to infants and children, are below those that may cause health effects.

According to the EWG article called Tips to Avoid BPA Exposures, I am fortunate because for my three children we dodged the major bullets:

We never heated the formula and poured it into the bottles. All three kids had cold formula, and two of them had powdered formula not canned. My oldest son had non-canned Similac (at a tremendous cost let me tell you) and the younger two had powdered formula served cold.

We cooked mostly fresh foods, avoiding canned foods for the most part. According to the EWG site, most BPA is dispensed within canned foods, and only trace amounts through polycarb drinking containers.

We used stainless steel or sippy cups which weren’t polycarbonate. The parenting blog Z Recommends has a great article called the Sippy Cup Showdown which details this even further.

Moreover, all the kids enjoyed fresh fruits and vegetables much more frequently than canned vegetables or pastas (ravioli or spaghetti-o’s type) which, according to the EWG, had the highest levels of BPA leaching.

I’ve also been hand washing the BPA containers, mainly because it does a better job of removing milk and I can’t wait for the dishwasher, however I did push for sterilizing all the containers at least twice a month by washing them in the dishwasher.

From The Health Dangers Of Reusing Plastic Bottles And Bags | Environmental Working Group:

One of the reasons opinion is divided over the older child is the range of sensitivity to BPA that scientists have observed among individuals.

Fortunately, there are now a number of BPA-free bottles on retailers’
shelves. If you want to make a switch but your child will not tolerate
another type of nipple, Deardorff suggests that you can still manage to
lower the risk of BPA exposure in these ways:

1. Avoid heating the plastic bottle. This means steering clear of a
dishwasher, sterilizer, or microwave. The incidence of leaching is much more severe from heated than unheated plastic bottles. One alternative is to heat milk in a pan on top of the stove, let it cool, then pour it into the bottle.

2. Discard any cracked bottles. Leaching increased after a bottle had been washed more than 20 times, went through prolonged daily use, or became scratched, researchers noted.

3. Switch to safer brands. Bottles manufactured from BPA-free polypropylene are still on the market. Some of the brands include Medela, Born Free, and Adiri Natural Nurses. Also be sure to check the recycling labels since many No. 7 bottles contain BPA. By contrast, most No. 2, 4, and 5 plastic bottles are made of polyethylene or polypropylene.

DeNoon suggests you can avoid the BPA problem altogether if your baby will tolerate a switch from canned formula to a powdered product. He cites reports from a March 2007 study by The Environmental Working Group in which national laboratory tested 97 cans of food purchased in Atlanta, GA; Oakland, CA, and Clinton, CT.

Tests proved cans of chicken soup, baby formula, and ravioli had the highest BPA level. A full one third of the cans with infant formula had BPA levels 200 times the Government’s safe exposure level.

Deardorff also cites Ari Brown, co-author of the 2005 book “Baby 411″. Brown urges parents to simply avoid using any polycarbonate bottles until researchers know more about the impact of BPA.

As for your little one, you can replace all your plastic bottles for just $50.00 to $100.00.

Baby 411, Third Edition: Clear Answers & Smart Advice for Your Baby’s First Year by Denise Fields, Ari Brown Read more about this book…

Further Research:

The Z Report: A Directory of Bisphenol-A In Baby Bottles and Sippy Cups

The Health Dangers Of Reusing Plastic Bottles And Bags | Environmental Working Group

Timeline: BPA from Invention to Phase-Out

Your BPA questions, answered 

Wall Street Journal: Health Blog

FDA: Bisphenol A in Plastic Bottles is Safe

Wal-Mart, Nalgene Move Away From Bisphenol A

Worries Grow Over Bisphenol A in Plastics

Consumer Product Safety RSS

US Consumer Product Safety Commission – Recent Child-Related Product Recalls

I recently was drawn to this video from a small Microsoft IM advertisement because – well, everyone wants to save time. Folding my own laundry is something that I (and most people do to save money and look neat.

Audience: Everyone

Folding a t-shirt faster simply helps everyone. This instructional video is being chosen by savvy web marketers as a way to draw people into their space, whether it’s for ordering t-shirts or printing on t-shirts, or… well you get the point. VideoJug uses this how-to instructional clip as a portal for driving people to their site. Microsoft promoted it and I tried it out.

Finding your audience is something that every Marketing person desires to do. Explaining a process so that an audience gets the point is what every Technical Communicator desires to do. With Microsoft’s Live platform they’ve integrated both of these within their Instant Messaging client.

Click beneath the fold for the instructional video of how to do the 2 second fold…

That solution just is not geeky enough for me…

If you’re really wanting to engineer a t-shirt folding solution, here’s one: How To Make A T-Shirt Folding Machine:

sip,structural insulated panel,construction,energy efficiency,solano county

I was recently asked by a friend how the construction project was going. Another blogreader asked how much I was involved.

A picture is worth a thousand words…

(jump beneath the fold for more)

When you can’t get things in a project completed properly you end up doing a lot yourself. I tried to get contractors to bid on this, nobody, not one, followed through with what I thought was professionalism. So… I took the time off and jumped in to complete the task.

Leadership By Example

Which led to me tied to a forklift thirty feet in the air jumping up and down on a hundred pound SIP to get it where it wasn’t going to go because someone else had redrawn the layout my contractor had previously done.

We used to call that ‘leadership by example’ in the Navy. You don’t want to ask others to do what you yourself wouldn’t want to do first.

Not my fault… not my problem that I created.. but ultimately it was my project, my responsibility.

And the risk associated with tying someone else up there was, in my opinion, not worth it. I had the equipment, and had spent months climbing rock walls in gyms and tying knots. Umm… Because I knew it would come in handy.

Well, in less than two months I and my intrepid band of high school dropouts, (aside from the contractor I brought in periodically) knowing nearly next to nothing about what we were doing took this…

and this..

and by manhandling these energy efficient structural insulated panels (which weigh a LOT more than you’d think) like this…

…We were able to accomplish this much in two months.

Not two months straight working mind you, there was Thanksgiving where we lost a week, and then every other week I was back in San Diego with my boys doing the Daddy thing. Something like 35 days total work sounds about right. With no more than five total people on the site at any time, best working group size was four IMHO.

We are now looking at this (and yes, it’s supposed to look like a barn, that’s what it is designed to be… just a really super energy efficient barn / office space).

Oh, and this…

and this…

We were on track to have our permit finaled at the end of this month however I’ve had just about every single Murphy’s Law item thrown at me during this project, (three relatives dying, one baby born, all sorts of family law issues) why not at the very end of it all just have yet. Another. Family law issue? (hate to vent, but after all, it is my blog).

Like I didn’t have my plate full already.

parenting,school violence,common sense

I thought this bore repeating. See the original context within Bill’s site waxing techcomm:

First, teach your children how to mind their own business.

Second, teach your children not to spread rumors.

Third, teach your children to listen to authority.

I’ve got to say that this common sense is sorely missing in a lot of kids / young adults that I know. Bill had mentioned this in reference to a ‘gun rumor’ that had affected one of his kids attending a middle school dance.

His summary is simple and bears repeating:

You can’t expect teachers to keep order among the kids when it’s the kids (in bulk) themselves who are causing the disorder. This problem needs to be fixed at home and fortified at school, not vice versa. But by blaming the school for what happened, I know you don’t feel the same, and that itself is a pity since you’re just continuing to contribute to the problem.

Shame on you, parents.

baby friendly travel,airline complaint,XJT,ExpressJet,false advertising,airline advertising,nonstop flight,airline deception,deceptive advertising,handicapped accessibility

Wrapping up the ExpressJet debacle, it seems that my recent topic of corporate authenticity works well in analyzing the ongoing situation with ExpressJet (Nasdaq: XJT), the startup airline company in which I intended to invest heavily into this upcoming year.

Dr. Girlfriend reports that return flight was much worse than the departure, leaving me greatly disappointed in ExpressJet’s ground crew competence and customer service. In fact, after she had arrived at Tulsa she was impressed with the inflight service and had actually decided not to press the issue, but her return flight completely changed all that.

It Can Always Be Worse

While I hope for the best with any aviation venture it bears mentioning that the worst in aviation is always a smoking hole and broken dreams.

Therefore I apply the same critical analysis I would make if I were still flying in the Navy and had to evaluate a crew for mishap potential. Nobody gets a free pass or a gimme when the combined efforts or missteps of the entire team could result in tragedy, or in this case, unsat service. If my post brings light into situations that can be addressed, we are all better for it.

Analysis

Personally, I find the concept of untrained ground crew just downright scary. Pilot error or groundcrew error are two things not even top rated maintenance crews can help fix.

Maybe this jet is small enough for the pilot / flight crew to do all the preflight prep but if the ground crew are poorly trained and touching anything mission critical; that’s spooky and more important, human error is the most frequent cause of an aviation mishap.

You Snooze, You Lose!

Well, she gave them a full business day before I thought it best to post this message and see how many people’s lives it touched. As I mentioned in my Corporate Authenticity post, it’s time that corporations got real about what they represent.

As you may have become familiar with the events Dr. Girlfriend had boarding ExpressJet from my last post, it turns out that Dr. Girlfriend wrote a very detailed letter of her situation to ExpressJet.

Dr. Girlfriend gave me permission to post this after ExpressJet had a reasonable chance to respond to her. Here’s a copy of that letter, minus the identifiers, and plus the spell checking…

Note: Dr. Girlfriend is in the medical field, not technical communication.

________________________________

From: xxxxx@xxx.com
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 5:45 PM
To: CUSTOMERRELATIONS@EXPRESSJET.COM
Cc: xxxxxxxxx
Subject: COMPLAINT

August 24, 2007

Attention John Moses

Dear Mr. Moses,

I’m directing this e-mail to you on the instructions of Meekin in the Denver location. I know she has spoken to you via phone already about my experience with your airline and you requested this e-mail.

Let me start with giving you the background. On May 2, 2007 at the age of 37 I was blessed with the birth of my first child a little girl. The family on my side consists of my mother and myself here in California. The rest of the great grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins live in Kansas where I grew up. The extended family was expecting to meet [daughter's name] for the first time in November on our annual trip to celebrate thanksgiving. Not only was this the year for my first child but it was also my mother’s 60th birthday in August of this year.

On June 16, 2007 after the birth of my daughter and both of us seemed to be healthy and happy I decided to plan a surprise trip back home to take her to meet everyone and so my mother could celebrate her birthday with her parents that are both in their 80′s and her two sisters.

While shopping for good priced airline tickets online I discovered your new airline that I believe had only launched a month prior to my booking. Seeing that you not only flew from Sacramento to Tulsa but that it was non-stop (I felt that a non-stop flight would be the most convenient for myself and daughter since I could not predict how she would respond to flying) and the price was well below anyone else this peaked by curiosity.

While having your flight schedule on my screen I called your 800 number to verify a few things before I book. The first thing I asked was whether your airline was equipped to handle someone in a wheelchair.

My mother has been in a wheelchair for 37 years due to a car accident. I was assured that not only did you have the personnel but also the equipment to handle those needs. I continued to inform the person that not only would I be traveling with my mother and her special needs but I would have my 14 week old daughter.

Again I was assured that your airline was baby friendly and that you had all the personnel to handle all my needs.

My last question was about the non-stop status of the flight I was looking to book. I gave the flight number and was told that indeed it was a non-stop from Sacramento to Tulsa. I made my reservations online and then called a second time to confirm my booking and my accommodations.

I printed my itinerary with the confirmation number [deleted] leaving Sacramento Aug. 5, 2007 @ 9:25am flight # 0226 landing in Tulsa @ 3:50pm same day. Returning flight was 0227 leaving Tulsa Aug. 11, 2007 @ 2:30pm and landing in Sacramento @ 5:34pm on the 11th.

The day of leaving started out to be very routine for flying. My boyfriend took us to the airport to see me and his daughter off for her first airplane ride. Between my mother and myself I check 4 bags and my daughter’s car seat. I also took a portable chair for my daughter that fold down and had a carrying bag. It measures app. 14 inches by 14 inches and is as thick as a thin book. The lady @ the counter who was checking in our luggage and getting out boarding passes had us place the baby chair in the seat of her car seat and placed a large plastic bag over both.

She gave us our boarding passing along with a pass for my boyfriend to go up to the gate with us in order to help me with my mom and baby.

Here would be the unkept promises of a nonstop flight there…

It wasn’t until we were about to leave the counter that I has asked to confirm by final destination. I told her Tulsa and she said she would go remark my luggage for Tulsa not Albuquerque.

I thought that was a little strange but didn’t give it a second thought until I got to the gate and found out that there indeed was a 40 minute stop in Albuquerque on my non-stop flight to Tulsa. I was not happy! Right off I did not get what I paid for. Now I would be adding a landing and a take off to my trip and 40 minutes confined in a small plane all with a 14 week old baby. My future on this flight did not look promising.

At this point I asked for a manager to express my unhappiness with. A gentleman named Ryan can up to the counter to handle my complaint. I informed him of my steps and phone calls prior to booking and now that I’m ready to fly I find out that I didn’t get what I paid for. At this time he was kind enough to email me a voucher for my next flight.

So out on the tarmac I go to pre-board the plane with my mother and baby. Someone had already put the stairs up to the plane and the two ground crew members could not find or didn’t think that it even existed the aisle chair or the lift to load my mother into the plane.

After standing out in the wind and sun for 15 minutes and no one able to locate the necessary equipment to get my mother on the plane the security gentleman that escorted us to the plane picked my mother up (she weights 90 pounds) and took her up the stair on the plane and seated us in the first two seat row #3 even though that wasn’t out assignment.

Now I’m really not happy about the events considering I called ahead to make sure these things would not be issues. But guess what, they are!!!!

Finally arrive in Tulsa and start the week with the family.

Here we come back.

Problems start from the get go. Went to check in the exact same luggage, baby chair and car seat that I came with and was told that I would have to carry on the baby chair instead on placing it in the seat of the car seat as I did on the way out.

I explained that I had my mother, her wheelchair, my baby, and her diaper bag to carry and I could not manage to carry that also through the airport and security. I explain how Sacramento sent it out and was told they “broke the rules”.

They said it would cost me $50 to fly the chair back home. I told them that I wasn’t paying to fly that chair home, it came with me and it was going back, and if I had been told that it was breaking the rules I could have sent it home with her dad that was at Sacramento airport when I has leaving and not brought it.

They held me up at the ticket counter for 25 minutes saying they would have to call their supervisor down because they could not allow that chair to fly without charging me for it or me carrying it on. (Do I need to remind anyone how limited the space is on the plane and by me checking the chair with the car seat was much more convenient for both me and the airline).

As I waited for the supervisor to come speak to me our boarding passes were prepared. It was noted that my mother’s California ID had expired on her birthday while we were gone.

They couldn’t find my daughter’s reservation and told me I had not booked her. I told them that I had definitely booked her with my travel arrangements.

At this point I was being spoken to rudely and not as if I was a customer.

Still no supervisor has shown to speak to me about the baby chair issue.

With an attitude I was handed by boarding passes the baby chair was placed in the seat of the car seat and bagged and I was told that “you’re done here”.

Off to the gate I go. Now first I have to go through security (we all know how difficult that can be but do what you have to do) and when I get there with my mother, daughter, and extras in hand we are told that because my mother’s ID is expired that we should have been issued a special type of boarding pass and of course wasn’t.

If she does not have another government issued ID we are going back down to the counter where they are “done with us” to get it corrected. (Yes I will be required to haul everything and everyone single handed back down stairs to correct this mistake)

Luckily security took my mom’s social security card and a bank card with her picture on it.

We get to the gate to find out that guess what, my return flight is no non-stop as I thought I had purchased to begin with. Another landing and take off with a 40 minute wait on a small airplane in Albuquerque.

Go to load to leave, well this time they were able to find the aisle chair and platform lift to get my mother in the plane.

New problem, out of the 3 ground crew members only 1 knew how to operate your MANUAL crank lift and not very well. Myself holding my baby, my mother, and 1 ground crew member was placed on the platform of the lift. It is oh, about 120 degrees outside counting humidity.

It took the female ground crew member 3 times cranking by hand us up then down because she could not line up with the plane door correctly.

She asked another female ground crew member to crank it up the last time but that person was unable to because “this is new and no one has showed me how” the other girl replied “I know and I don’t know how to use it any better that you but I can’t do it again” by now all of us on the platform have a temperature of 120 just like outside including my 14 week old daughter.

I was starting to get anxious about the situation knowing I needed to get my baby and mother out of the direct sun and heat. Like they say third time must be the charm because we were finally on the plane.

Now according to the pilot when we are getting ready to take off we are about 20 late but there is a storm passing through Albuquerque so now we will miss it.

When we land in Albuquerque I change my daughter’s wet diaper on my lap and wrap it up.

A new flight attendant got on our plane. We were seated in row #3 again, I was closest to the window. [Note: this means her handicapped mother is in the aisle seat.]

As the new flight attendant passed by me I asked her if she could throw away the diaper for me.

She turned and speaking not very good English told me “no I won’t touch that. I don’t have to. Get up and go to the back of the plane and throw it away in the bathroom yourself” and walked away.

I noted her name by her badge as Sara Brooks.

Again I asked her for help because I had my baby on my lap and that would require me to crawl over my mother with her, go to the back on the plane and try to make my way back to my seat as the other 60 passengers were now trying to get on board. But again she refused to take it or bring me a plastic bag to put it in.

SHOCKED!!!!!

What happened to baby friendly?

Ok leave Albuquerque get to Sacramento everyone gets off the plane and there is Sara Brooks again telling me to go ahead and get off the plane. I told her I am waiting for them to bring an aisle chair for my mother to unload her.

Instead of fully listening she was already responding to me ” hold your own baby and I will walk her off” I explained that she could not walk and again she rudely informed me to “take your own baby I’ll take her”

I then raised by voice and told her she would not be walking her anywhere she hadn’t walked for 37 years that we needed an aisle chair and the lift.

Sara then said “oh was that your wheelchair I thought it was that other ladies”.

I look out the window only to see some stranger sitting in my mother’s wheelchair and being wheeled away in it. (like underwear and person’s wheelchair is a personal item that you don’t want other’s using. Those are her legs)

At this point I went to the pilot and told him that I would not nor could I continue to deal with Sara. Her English speaking skills were poor and no one could understand her, she was rude, she did not listen to her passengers, and due to that she did not know her passenger’s needs. (this conversation is taking place when Sara is off the plane getting some stranger out of my mother’s wheelchair).

Finally the proper equipment arrives to get my mother off the plane. I exit first and wait on the ground while they hand crank my mother down from the plane.

The ground crew called Ryan to operate the lift because “we only got these less than a week ago and no one has shown us how to use it”.

Thank god we are now off and the nightmare of Express Jet has ended.

There Is A Point To All Of This…

I write this complaint letter with hopes that you are interested in not only good service but also being better equipped to handle the needs of people with disabilities, elderly and mothers/fathers traveling with babies or small children.

None of these conditions are fun to deal with when traveling but are less fun and down right impossible when the airline you travel with does not make an attempt to meet basic federal guidelines or needs. In the same aspect when traveling with babies or small children their world and day is different everyday and is not predictable.

When the airline you travel is not baby friendly to relieve some of the anxiety and make you feel like no matter what they will go out of their way to help with issues, it makes you not want to fly with that airline.

Some think choice of airline is based solely on how much is the ticket, take it from someone who travels with someone that is handicapped and now a baby, I’ll pay extra for good service and help. My mother has traveled alone with other airlines in the past, I would not ever agree to have her travel without me on your airline.

I do not have any confidence your airline personal would have the desire or ability to help her.

It’s Not Just Me…

In reading several stories in the news and online I guess feel better about your non-friendly baby attitude towards me. It is apparent that my experience is not the first for a mother with an infant that the flight attendant had no desire to help, I thought it was just me. (A mother and her 19 month old son were removed in Dallas because her baby was talking and annoyed the flight attendant).

If you want your airline to fly only single adults with no needs or expectations of customer service then you are well on your way to having that reputation.

As I made reference to, I have read other stories on web sites about substandard experiences on your airline and have also added my story.

Doctor Girlfriend’s Final Request To ExpressJet

I would love to add a happy ending to this by letting everyone on my website know that ExpressJet has sent vouchers to me and my mother in the full ticket price for our nightmare travel and will be giving them a second chance in November 2007 on our annual trip home for thanksgiving. [We will keep you posted about how this turns out].

I will be happy to send future emails to educate you and your airline on tips on how to make traveling for disable, elderly (I’ve worked in a nursing home for 10 years) and babies easier for the average person. I look forward to the resolution of this matter.

I prefer not to take this matter to any higher or other levels unless ignored or not taken seriously. I will look for a response by email.

Once I receive vouchers from your company then I will be happy to post my happy response to this situation and book my travel arrangements in November.

Thank you for looking into this matter.

Sincerely,

[Dr. Girlfriend]

Quoted from http://viraj21283.wordpress.com/ :

Top 20 Qualities of Smart People

1. Make Decisions Intuitively

Smart people listen to and follow their intuition. They know how intuitions and insights come to them and are tuned-in internally to make wise decisions.

I read a book called ‘Think like a Genius’ which led off on the same track. All the book did for me was simply confirm my suspicions. I am a genius.

Kids and Genius

However, this list of twenty things makes me more aware of being a parent. I want to make sure that I’m able to encourage everything on this list whenever possible with my kids. There’s enough in the world that tells them they can’t do things, and encouraging exploration safely has been my focus on the time I spend with them.

Manners Cards

One of the nicest tech writers at a major client’s business gave me a set of home-designed Manners Cards she had made for my oldest son to use. He loves them.

When he says ‘Please’ or helps his brother, I tell him, “Manners Cards, you earned a Manners Card!” His face then cracks into a huge smile as he repeats it. “Manners Cards, I get Manners Cards!”

If more of us could mentally check off the twenty item list here like I do with his cards, I think we’d be on our way to creating the habit of encouraging and enabling our kids to think like a genius, and feel self rewarded at the same time.

I’ll be saying to myself, “Genius Cards, I get Genius Cards!”

parenting,kids,manners,techniques