Posted by Max Dunn Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:31:00 GMT | 3 comments
So what is the “college experience”?
This was a topic on this week’s O.C. that got me thinking that maybe some people had a much better experience in college than I did. Without going into too many details, here are some of the highlights of my Berkeley experience:
Posted by Max Dunn Sun, 12 Feb 2006 18:25:00 GMT | 1 comment
None of us are right all the time. Even the smartest person is probably right only half the time. But the only people that are truly foolish are those that don’t know this, and think they are always right.
Posted by Max Dunn Thu, 15 Dec 2005 19:13:00 GMT | no comments
Here is an article that discusses how the advent of ad-free TV on video iPod is terrifying advertisers:
This provides support for my theory that the video iPod, PVRs and TV-on-demand will cause major and fundamental shifts in the way companies do advertising.
For years, advertisers have kept their heads in the sand when confronted with the reality that many viewers are simply not watching TV commercials. However, these new technologies will force them to confront reality when people start paying for their TV to be ad-free.
And where will companies put their billions of advertising dollars once TV is no longer a viable way of delivering their message? Why, the Internet of course!
It is already starting to happen. If you read your news on [CNN](http://www.cnn.com/) or [USAToday](http://www.usatoday.com/) you will see ads in many strategic places. And unlike TV, they can track exactly what you see and click on, or even force you to view the ad before showing an article or video clip. This provides a way to customize and target the advertising message that was never possible on TV.
Ads work. That is why billions of dollars are spent on advertising every year. And when TV is no longer a viable way to promote those ads, those dollars will shift, mainly to the Internet, causing a huge upheaval and tremendous opportunites for those Internet companies that can capture these ad revenue.
Posted by Max Dunn Thu, 08 Dec 2005 18:46:00 GMT | no comments
We have a tradition in our family that on our birthdays, we can do anything we want (within reason). We call this our “Anything Goes” day.
Maxie likes to spend his birthday playing video games and eating ice cream all day long and Claire likes to spend hers watching TV and eating ice cream all day long.
My birthday was yesterday and it was a little different from that. For breakfast, Suzanne made me eggs benedict and for dinner, flank steak rollups with a nice bottle of wine and chocolate torte for dessert. The kids were on their best behavior and didn’t fight during the day and offered to walk on my back. The day was a little rainy so I wasn’t able to go surfing and I couldn’t reach anyone to go go-carting. So the only special thing I did during the day was to get a massage.
In the afternoon, I started to get a little depressed because I wasn’t doing anything very special for my Anything Goes day.
But then in the evening, I thought about the fact that I was living in a nice, warm house, I had my pick of whatever food I wanted to eat and wine I wanted to drink, I had a wife and kids that loved me and were going out of there way to do whatever I wanted, and we were all healthy and happy.
So I started to realize how incredible it was that nothing particularly out of the ordinary needed to happen on my birthday to make it special, because God has blessed us in so many ways that everyday is very close to my ideal Anything Goes day.
Posted by Max Dunn Mon, 05 Dec 2005 18:26:00 GMT | 3 comments
Our church (PBCC), has been doing a series on the 10 commandments. Several weeks ago, Brian Morgan talked about keeping the Sabbath a day of rest. This point really struck home for me because I tend to work all the time and especially since I have been retired, there is not much difference between the week and the weekend.
So I decided to give it a try and set my first goal to not turn on the computer on the weekends. And since most of the work that I do is on the computer, and I tend to get sucked into one thing after another when I am on the computer, not turning on the computer forces me to do other things, like relax.
I have done this for 3 weeks now, and I have to say it hasn’t been easy not to even check my emails on Sunday, but it has made my Sundays much more relaxing.
So I apologize if I don’t answer my emails or seem responsive on Sundays, but I am probably taking a nap on the couch, reading a book, or playing with my kids.
Posted by Max Dunn Fri, 02 Dec 2005 17:50:00 GMT | no comments
It is interesting that sometimes incredible portions of conversations are dominated by talking about other people. For instance, some dinner conversations consist entirely of lines like: “Did you know that so-and-so said that?” and “Can you believe that so-and-so did that?” Often these are not even people that we all know, but just “my daughter’s classmate’s mother” or “this guy I know at work.”
Now gossip is commonly thought of as talking negatively about other people, but it seems to me that this idle chatter about remote people qualifies as gossip too.
The biggest problem with this type of conversation is that it crowds out the possibility of really meaningful discussions. It is certainly easier to talk about other people’s problems and struggles rather than our own.
Not all discussions about other people fall into this category. For instance, if someone is having problems with a boss, teacher or acquaintance, it is often helpful to describe the situation in order to get advice. Likewise, if a friend is having a problem that is similar to one that has been dealt with successfully by someone else, it is helpful to describe what the other person did to overcome the situation.
But when the conversation turns to other people in an idle way, maybe we should pull it back to the people present and ask how the other person is doing and what challenges they are facing, or share our own fears, successes, shortcomings and challenges, in order to make our conversations truly meaningful.