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Dribbling Man – A Fascinating Article on Grantland

Dribbling Man – A Fascinating Article on Grantland

Sad, fascinating article about a man whose life and feeling of self-worth was overturned like so many others by the economic downturn. And so he decided to walk from Seattle to Brazil, hoping to arrive before the 2014 World Cup.

I’m always fascinated by these articles about people who can just cut ties to basically everything in their life and just go on these quests. I love reading these tales because this is pretty much the opposite of me. I’ve always been responsible to something, be it school, or a job, or a mortgage, or a family that I could not fathom risking/discarding it to go on an epic quest. There is a romanticism about that freedom, I think, that could never live up to the reality of it (read the article for a concrete example of this).

Anyway, give the article a look. I think you will enjoy it.

Two weeks before Richard Swanson started dribbling a soccer ball to Brazil, his friends toasted him with a boot of dark wheat beer at his favorite German pub. Die Bierstube is in Seattle’s Roosevelt neighborhood,1 near the University of Washington. It sits on a street lined with yoga studios, Pilates studios, a nonprofit no-kill animal rescue, and a center for healing arts that offers classes in Feldenkrais, Chi Kung, dance, interplay, Tui Na, yoga, and transformational breathing. The East West Bookshop, a block north of the tavern, sells crystals, incense, and hardcovers with titles like Buddhist Boot Camp, How to Meditate, and Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself.

via Richard Swanson died while trying to walk from Seattle to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup – how far did he want to break away? – Grantland.

How NOT To Wake Up In The Morning

How NOT To Wake Up In The Morning

About two weeks ago, I had a really rough time at my ice hockey game. It was 6:30 on a Saturday morning, and I was tired, and we were coming off a two week hiatus due to Penn State Spring Break (we have a lot of students in the league and therefore wouldn’t have much players while they are gone). Anyway, those are my excuses. It felt like I was wearing two left skates that game. I fell numerous times for no reason, which doesn’t happen to me anymore. I also took a pretty good check near the front of the net, which resulted in a penalty for the other team. By the end of the night, my back was wrecked.

And it was sore for the next week or so, sore in a way it never has been before. It was pretty rough, to be honest.

Last week, I was sick most of the week and so was my son (4 years old). We did a lot of laying around. That sucked, but it gave my back some time to heal. In fact, I would say by yesterday it was back to normal. And then this morning happened.

So, my son hasn’t been sleeping well because his nose is all stuffy and he can’t kick his fever. So every hour or so he’ll meander over to our room and ask for me. Always me. There’s no real reason why he wants me, I mean our daughter always asks for he mum. It’s just what they do. He asks for me, I place him in his bed, and once it seems he’s asleep, I go back to my room. So, the past few nights I’ve been waking every hour, just as I’m about to fall asleep. I might as well have a newborn.

This is how things went last night until around 5:30 AM, at which point I put the kid in the bed with us and then once I knew he was asleep I snuck to his room, hoping for what would in all honesty be a power nap. In the other room, my alarm was set for 6:45 AM so I could wake for work.

That hour of sleep was glorious. I settled into a nice, deep rest. I couldn’t tell you what I dreamt of, but I do know I was in a deep enough sleep to hit REM.

Then the alarm went off.

What happened next would make a great slapstick comedy scene in a Tim Allen movie. Exhausted, schlubby old Dad, rapidly flips over to switch off the alarm, only to send himself airborne, face-first to the floor. Dad lands on his face/left hand and tweaks his just-healed sore back. This will be HILARIOUS in the movie version. The real-life version isn’t as funny, although I appreciated the blog post material.

So yeah, sore and tired today. It could be worse, though. In the Tim Allen version, I’m sure the poor toolman would’ve landed on a toy on the floor and injured his wang.

The Trader Joe’s Lesson: How to Pay a Living Wage and Still Make Money in Retail

The Trader Joe’s Lesson: How to Pay a Living Wage and Still Make Money in Retail

I have a decently paying job, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the value of having a strong, fairly paid middle class.  It just makes sense. Plus, I bet these employees actually spend money in their place of employment because they can afford to do so.

via The Trader Joe’s Lesson: How to Pay a Living Wage and Still Make Money in Retail – Sophie Quinton – The Atlantic.

Many employers believe that one of the best ways to raise their profit margin is to cut labor costs. But companies like QuikTrip, the grocery-store chain Trader Joe’s, and Costco Wholesale are proving that the decision to offer low wages is a choice, not an economic necessity. All three are low-cost retailers, a sector that is traditionally known for relying on part-time, low-paid employees. Yet these companies have all found that the act of valuing workers can pay off in the form of increased sales and productivity.

“Retailers start with this philosophy of seeing employees as a cost to be minimized,” says Zeynep Ton of MIT’s Sloan School of Management. That can lead businesses into a vicious cycle. Underinvestment in workers can result in operational problems in stores, which decrease sales. And low sales often lead companies to slash labor costs even further. Middle-income jobs have declined recently as a share of total employment, as many employers have turned full-time jobs into part-time positions with no benefits and unpredictable schedules.

QuikTrip, Trader Joe’s, and Costco operate on a different model, Ton says. “They start with the mentality of seeing employees as assets to be maximized,” she says. As a result, their stores boast better operational efficiency and customer service, and those result in better sales. QuikTrip sales per labor hour are two-thirds higher than the average convenience-store chain, Ton found, and sales per square foot are over 50 percent higher.