Finally a Nice Weekend and a Crappy Week

Well at long last we had weather that was nice on the weekend and not so nice during the week. Oh what a pleasant relief that was. Perfect weather for a walk, or a ride with the car window rolled all the way down or just sitting outside and reading a good book. All of which were activities that I partook in. I gave Max his walk and as is becoming habit he got beat up by the Malamute puppy that lives up the street. Max is very socially inept so when another dog wants to play he really does not know what to do.

Oh and of course Sunday would not be complete with out a good dinner. A nice stuffed chicken breast with mom's stuffing did the trick for me. Nothing like a good home made dinner to offset the grease fest of fried clam strips I had on Friday. My walking hopefully will offset some of the grease I ate and the fact I make Max run on our trips might also help out somewhat.

I was also happy to see the Sox save at least one game during their trip to Toronto. Jason Bay, Dustin Pedroia and Youk all came up big and they are already on my All-Star ballot. I like Jason Bay because he is the anti-Manny. Gee he does his job quietly, puts up good numbers and actually can field the ball. Oh yea and he is not a lying cheat that too. I was glad to see Jon Lester pitch a great game. Given his health history, any game Lester pitches, never mind wins, is a miracle of medicine and he should get praise for that accomplishment.

I did have the chance to meet with a small company CEO last week and this guy was a trip. He had just let go of his PR agency because they were writing in his terms "nothing but press releases that weren't doing anything." So what was the problem as he saw it? They were not writing enough press releases. He wanted me to write 3-6 per week and turn them into stories in Time and Business Week. I diplomatically suggested that was not the way to go and that he needed to focuses not only on his industry books but he needed to build relationships with editors and reporters. "Oh no," he says to me, " I know for a fact press releases are what gets you noticed. The never talk to companies." So knowing I wasn't going to get the job, or for that matter wasn't interested in working for yet another clueless CEO enjoyed debating with it. Sitting there telling him he was basically an idiot in nice double speak terms, never losing the smile on my face was just so enjoyable.

So today is also the day that GM finally files for Chapter 11. This is one of the really sad stories in American business. This is a company that has ignored every trend in the past 50 years and has made every wrong headed decision a company can make. Poor quality, high prices a ridiculous insistence that it is somehow my patriotic duty to buy a piece of junk made over seas so GM can make more money for their senior executives and union leaders made my head spin. Hopefully they find someone to run the company who actually puts money into marketing and moving with the marketplace.

I am still mad at the notice the Pastor of my church put in last week's bulletin. He claimed that he was saddened to see how church collections have been dropping and how over the past few months, preposition as an adverb no no, and that many people are using ones instead of fives. He knows times are tough but he thinks that makes it even more important for people to help out those less fortunate. I was so mad I didn't write the email which would have said hey buddy when you're worried about the mortgage even giving at church become discretionary spending. I was feeling bad about cutting back on my donation each week but seeing stupid comments such as this makes me feel much better thanks!