My New 'Console'...

Just a quick picture of my desk at my new job.

Flashing Red Lights On The Way To Work

Just saw this on the way to work. It looked like there was an ambulance, rescue truck, and a fire truck was there at the front of a restaurant. Still trying to find a route to my new job that doesn't involve stop-&-go traffic. Obviously, I didn't succeed today...

Old-Time Plane Ticket

We found this plane ticket in a box of stuff I had tucked away when my brother Jody & I moved back to Florida from Arizona.

You know, I don't think Continental Airlines is still in business... And actually, after doing an online search, I found out that United Airlines did a stock swap with Continental and that dissolved the name, so they are no longer in business. This next image shows that the plane ticket was placed in a protective sleeve and then the checked baggage card was placed on the right. You can see Jody had signed it on the bottom of the card. Now you just get a sticker to show they took your bags, and you can put it... well... wherever, because the ticket sleeves are no longer provided by the airlines.

The gate agent even wrote the flight, gate and seat info on the back of the sleeve, so we would know where to go to board the plane(s) and sit in our assigned seat. Now you have to look for your next connecting flight on a giant TV screen when your first plane lands because the gate could have been changed like some kind of crazy musical chairs game played with aircraft as the chairs... Look at the red copy-ink that was used. And this was issued May 15th, 1985 when Jody flew with me and Luann back to Arizona.

Things sure have changed, haven't they?

Dear Santa... ALREADY?!?

Came across this sign at one of our favorite eating establishments with a little country store in it. It's a great thought, but the month for Halloween hasn't even arrived yet...

Crash On The Way Home

Just another oops on the way home from work, after about 1/2 an inch of rain.

The Minimalist

I decided to stop by the doughnut shop this morning on the way in to work, figuring I would surprise my co-workers with some 'Sugar-Pills' for breakfast. This isn't something I do very often so I figured it would be a nice gesture, considering what this day meant to me. I waited in line until it was my turn and when the doughnut shop worker asked me what I wanted, I told him that since this was my last day at work, I would like to have a 1-dozen assortment of the most popular types of doughnuts that people buy to surprise my friends at work with.

He said; "Alright", grabbed a doughnut box and began putting Sugar-Pills into the box. I thanked him for his service, paid for my order and when I got to the office and opened the box, this is what my assortment of doughnuts looked like:

Now, this lesson isn't about not getting what I wanted, no sir-ee!

You see, I'm aware that I didn't arduously choose each doughnut and have him place it in the box, so 'this is what I got'. My thoughts are centered around the request I made, the stated reason behind my wanting to bring doughnuts in to work, and the amount of effort put into filling my request.

These days, many people in the service industry have forgotten what it means to actually provide a service. In this instance, I had asked for an assortment that would fit the fact that this was my last day of work at my job and I wanted to bring something in to the office that was popular with other doughnut fans. I had assumed that this would be defined as an assortment of all different kinds of doughnuts with maybe one or two 'repeats'.

Instead, a quick grab of many of the same doughnuts was not an exceptional experience, as might be the perception of the customer.

This is the thing we need to focus on in life. Doing the minimum you can for everything you do, will get you through your life, if only barely. The service of others is more than just giving them what you think is just enough, it is giving them more than basically what they have paid for that puts you one level higher than the rest in your field. This means that when I trusted my 'Doughnut Man' to make a selection of doughnuts for me, I believed in his experience of what would be a box of great doughnuts to share with my friends. The sudden, sad feeling of receiving less than what I had expected when I opened the box and looked inside is a feeling I hope I NEVER instill in any of my friends, family, co-workers and just as importantly, my customers.

Car-B-Cue On The Way Home

As we made our way home tonight, we came across this sad scene. This pickup truck caught fire and the whole back of it was burned out. The traffic in both directions of the highway came to a halt, and we could see thick, black smoke on the horizon. Can't seem to find any details on it, but it sure delayed the drive home tonight for many people.

Hope everybody is ok... Drive carefully out there, folks!

WE'RE BAAAAAACK!

Got a ton of things to say, and a ton of things to show you! This blogger page was updated to a new format that didn't work anything like I had it set up and it was a mess. After some waiting though, Blogger finally let us Blog-Meisters revert back to our old, comfortable template if we wanted too. A couple of things have changed in the coding, but I'll figure it out and get the USA Nieborg-News and Photos out as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience, it has been an exhausting couple of years since our last post and we have had so many things change... Hans.