Tag: Personal
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Honoring my inner longhair
When I was a teenager, I kept my hair very short. Mil spec. People sometimes asked if I was in ROTC. Then in college I developed a used-record habit that Harold, my supplier at Headstone Friends, was happy to support. I skipped haircuts to buy more records. At first, when I’d go home on break…
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What’s the use?
In 1989 I bought my first brand-new car. I had just graduated college, gotten a job, and moved into an apartment when Dad said, “Enough freeloading; I’m coming in two weeks to get my car back.” I looked for a used car, hoping to save money, but nobody in town would lend me money because…
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Pride of workmanship, part 2
I moved to Indianapolis many years ago to take a job editing technology books. My first project was editing a new edition of one of the publisher’s biggest sellers. I drew this plum assignment not for my l33t editorial skills, but for being the new guy. You see, the author had a reputation for running…
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Pride of workmanship, part 1
Quality guru W. Edwards Deming, who helped transform Japan into an industrial powerhouse, claimed that workers who feel pride in the quality of their work are critical to a company’s success. Pride in my work is certainly critical to my satisfaction on the job, right along with being challenged and enjoying the environment. When I…
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Wanted by the FBI
When I was 16, I spent a summer on an exchange program in Krefeld, Germany with 30 other Hoosiers. On the flight over, engine trouble forced us to land in Düsseldorf rather than in Frankfurt as expected. Düsseldorf expected no international flights that day, and so nobody was working in customs. My passport went unstamped;…
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Re-integrating joy
My dad once told me that I was the most joyful little boy he had ever known. During my first few years, he said, I seemed to constantly have a big beaming smile on my face, and everything seemed to make me happy. Now, I’m sure I didn’t enjoy it when I got in trouble…
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A place to start
I got my first apartment just before I turned 22. I was excited about having a place to myself, but I didn’t make much money and the classifieds showed affordable apartments mostly in Terre Haute’s rougher neighborhoods. On the way to see one of those apartments one afternoon that summer, I passed through the Collett…