Chasing Squirrels

June 9, 2025

Good morning! How about the stamina — and the resilience — of the two Spaniards in the 2025 Roland-Garros championship?! Wow!  And wow again.  Longer than 5 1/2 hours and it comes down to a tie… and the winner is too tired to hold the trophy!

Courtesy of television technology, we saved ourselves ~$1,500 for the cost of tickets, plus airfare, hotel, New York cab fares, meals, parking at MSP (or Groome), tax & tip…

… as we enjoyed  — for the first time in the history of the world (so we’re told) — a live Broadway performance streamed to our back porch as if we were seated front-and-center at the theatre.

The Tony-nominated play was Good Night and Good Luck, a dramatization of Edward R. Murrow’s courageous and controversial reporting on Joe McCarthy during the 1950s.

If you didn’t watch, for whatever reason, and you want to save money like we did, find a way to access the show on Memorex.

• Happy Birthday to two of my more faithful readers, Jess and Terry; one is 42 and the other 84… do the math.
• One of life’s more wonderful, tender, and succulent delicacies:  the onion ring.
  • But, anecdotally, fewer than 3% are prepared and served properly.
• Do they still make the traditional Lipton tea bags?  I miss concocting and enjoying what was then called sun tea.
  • It was brewed using a dozen or more Lipton tea bags slowly immersed in a big gallon jar of water set out on the step to capture the energy of the sun.
  • Refreshing!  Delicious!
• If you were stopped on the street and asked, “is a mushroom a plant or an animal?”  Would you know what to say?
  • I would not have.  It is neither.  Fungi are neither plants or animals, but here’s the kicker…
  • … a mushroom is biologically more closely related to an animal than to a plant.
  • Think of that the next time you sink your teeth into a plate of stroganoff or a stuffed portobello.
• What is your pain point, your #9+ pain point?
  • When it comes to cocoa (400%+ price jump), coffee, an automobile, eggs, a meal at a restaurant, butter, insurance, home repairs (or just a home, period)…
  • … at what point do you just say, no thanks?
  • Anecdotal:  The price of beets appears to be coming down; $2.79/ lb.
• Uh oh… the data might be flawed… and there goes trust.
• Fifty years ago you likely met and became acquainted with your future spouse through family, friends, work, or religion.
  • Now — you know the answer — skyrocketing beyond all these methods has been this very medium, computers.
  • Data indicate more than 60% of those seeking a future spouse — or wanting a spouse or partner — meet nowadays by using the computer. (DeSantis)
• “The vision inspires you, pulls you, energizes you, focuses you…”  (Solomon first, but then thousands of others; e.g., Jobs)
• If you were hoping to be among the first people on the planet to ride in a robo-car or a driverless vehicle, you might be too late.
  • Waymo, a Google (Alphabet) company, is going gangbusters — exponential gangbusters.
  • Google (Waymo) is now providing more than 250,000 driverless vehicle rides per week with no sign of slowing down.  (Cohen)
  • You might want to think about being first at something else.
• What the world needs now… is a more powerful V8 engine…
  • Talk about turning on a dime — to make a dollar; wow.
  • General Motors has shifted from its planned investment in electric vehicles to a nearly $1 billion bet on a new and improved, more powerful V8 engine…  (Otts)
  • … because, in case you didn’t know, we need more huge assault vehicles on the road going 80 MPH while erratically shifting lanes.
• Among the highlights of my life happened about 45 years ago when a then-13-year-old stood up on a stage and recited for memory the Preamble to the United States Constitution.
  • She was not prepared or rehearsed, just pulled the important words from somewhere.
  • Would you be able to tell others the WHY of this great experiment we call a republic.
  • Do yourself and favour and commit to memory the WHY of our experiment — there are six reasons we’re doing this:
  1. To form a more perfect union
  2. Establish justice
  3. Insure (sic) domestic tranquility
  4. Provide for the common defence (sic)
  5. Promote the general welfare
  6. Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves AND our posterity
• You get distracted and you start chasing squirrels.  Or, is it the other way around?
  • Approximately 84% of business and professional leaders feel underprepared for future disruptions.  (World Economic Forum, Etc., et al., 2025)
  • Short-term distractions and fixes take the front burner while long-term strategic risk management and resilience take back burners — if any burners at all.
  • “Resilience must become a central element of long-term strategic planning rather than being treated as a stand-alone issue…
  • … yet, only 13% of organizations currently incorporate resilience  Key Performance Indicators into their protocols.”  (Catania, Etc., et al., 2025)
  • Scary, when you think about it…
    • Have you thought about maybe needing a competent and capable consultant?