Month: October 2006

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Ebooks for Halloween

Oh, I’m sorry. You call that Harvest Festival now don’t you. The thought of encouraging your children to partake of a Pagan celebration is a little a scary I suppose. Wait. Isn’t Halloween supposed to be scary?

The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions, until Pope Gregory III moved the old Christian feast of All Saints Day to November 1 to give Halloween a Christian interpretation. [Source]

Wasn’t another holiday rooted in Pagan tradition?

…winter festivals that are believed by some to have influenced Christmas include the pre-Christian festivals of Yule [1] and Saturnalia, and many of the traditions associated with the holiday have origins in these pagan winter celebrations. [Source]

Regardless, even if you are trying hard to use non-scary costumes and take your children only to the funny haunted houses, this is a time of year for scary stories. Google has made several available as ebooks. Enjoy!

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y’awl’s neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse’s shell
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller
[audio:http://blog.siliconholler.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/vprice.wav]
[Source]

[Vincent Price] had a choice between taking a percentage of the album sales or $20.000. Price was well along in his career, so he took the $20,000. He was good-natured about it when Carson told him he could have made millions off of the royalties due to the vast number of copies sold even at that time. Price laughed heartily and said: "How well I know!"
[Source]

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From the mouths of babes

Dad: "Noah. I want you to close the bathroom door all the way [so that Evan can’t get in] then brush your teeth."
Noah: proceeds to start brushing his teeth.
Dad: "Noah, what did I say?"
Noah: "Close the door then brush my teeth."
Noah: Proceeds to start to brush teeth.
Dad: "What are you doing?!"
Noah: "Oh! Close the door."
Noah: Pushes door almost shut.
Dad: Pushes door open with finger.
Dad:"All the way!"

I live with the Marx Brothers.

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Returning to normalcy?

Ok. Normalcy and "our life" typically are not used in the same sentence. What has returned to our life is the daily in and out of getting people to and fro. That’s right! Fall break is over and the kids are back in school and in karate and in therapy and in student council and in art club and in scouts and in this and in that. And mom and dad are in the taxi service.

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Oct 24 is Take Back Your Time Day

TAKE BACK YOUR TIME is a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment. [Source]

I have always envisioned building a better work place for my staff. I’ve dreamed of staffing a business and ironing out the kinks such as the wasted time at the water cooler or the hours blown away playing solitaire when the boss isn’t looking. Don’t get me wrong. Downtime is important and I admire companies that require a block of time toward personal improvement along the lines of “this time is to be spent at the office working on your own project.” The concept is that you get your mind off your project enough to refresh, while doing something that interests you, and betters your skillset. This is not time to play Doom. I believe many of the Google Labs projects originated with this method of management.

Google engineers can spend up to 20 percent of their time on a project of their choice. [Source]

Ok. So the projects are for Google and still have to be approved.

I think through commited staff that a company can survive on a 4 day work week. I think there will be times the staff has to work 5, 6 or 7 days and overtime but for the most part, I think we easily waste away 8 hours a week on non-essentials and that if we moved all of that to Friday, the staff wouldn’t even have to come in. Ah! I also think that same company can do most of its work from the employees homes and not require more than a few days a month at the office. Maybe Monday of each week is required at the office with regular video conferencing on other days and some meetings throughout the month scheduled in the office but not necessarily for the whole day.

Naturally, this model will not fit all business models. But one day, I will demonstrate just such a company! Something has to change. Look at the Time Poverty Fact Sheet to understand why.