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FOCM Remembers Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra passed away on September 22, at age 90.  Yogi is one of the MLB’s greatest catchers of all time.  He played for the New York Yankees and played in 14 World Series.  He is also quite well known for making amusing statements, such as:

  • “It ain’t over till it’s over”
  • “Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is phyical.”
  • “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
  • “You can observe a lot by just watching.”
  • “All pitchers are liars or crybabies.”
  • “The lousy teams are good this year.”
  • “I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”
  • “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
  • “Why buy good luggage, you only use it when you travel.”
  • “Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded.”
  • “It gets late early out here.”
  • “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
  • “We made too many wrong mistakes.”
  • “He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.”
  • “I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.”

Coaching Donald Trump

A long-time friend of mine, DJ Mitsch is a Master Certified Coach and along with her husband Barry Mitsch, they run Pyramid Resource Group (http://www.pyramidresource.com/).  DJ wrote the blog below regarding what she would say if she were asked to coach Donald Trump.  I found it to be well-written and if Donald Trump were to listen, it would benefit his campaign.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-would-i-say-asked-coach-donald-trump-darelyn-dj-mitsch?trk=hb_ntf_MEGAPHONE_ARTICLE_POST

Ahmed’s Clock

The picture below is of a clock manufactured by a 14 year old Muslim male, named Ahmed Mohamed.  Regardless of his skin color, name and religion the school’s administration had every rational reason to be concerned.  I like how quick people were to attribute it to prejudice, Islamophobia, etc.  Remember Columbine, those guys brought propane bombs to their high school.

On another note – has no one in the Obama Administration watched Homeland or American Sniper??  By inviting the kid to the White House and to Facebook headquarters is just what Carrie Mathison has been worried about.  Now the kid will be on the inside of security just like Nicholas Brody.  Al- Qaeda or Isis merely switches out his clock for an explosive device.  I hope to hell they sweep that case.  Okay, I’m just playing the paranoid conspiracy theorist here to make a point. I don’t actually  believe that’s what this is.

Come on people, if you take a device that looks like this to school, you should expect to be questioned.  Add to that  – if you’re Muslim and your name is Ahmed Mohamed that will not surprisingly make other alarms go off in peoples’ heads. It’s unfortunate, but as long as Islamic extremists continue killing non-Muslims, this is the level of concern we have to live with .

Ahmed's Clock
Ahmed’s Clock

Donald Trump in Texas

What the hell was that Donald Trump speech in Texas about?  It is impressive that he can do all that with a few notes on a piece of paper.  But then again, he spent the first 30 minutes talking about himself and praising or criticizing others.  You gotta (okay, you don’t gotta) admit that he makes it all sound do-able.  But when he described how he’d tell and strong-arm Ford Motor Company not to locate a plant in Mexico, I was reminded that Republicans have been bemoaning that President Obama has been doing just that with miles per gallon requirements, alternative energy, etc. Republicans holler “get the government out of our business” and yet they were applauding Trump’s story.  It sounded more like something Bernie Sanders would say, didn’t it? – making those evil companies do what we say is best for them.

FOCM Member Card Ceremony

On February 24, 2015 at the SCOPE Conference in Orlando, Laura London, an outstanding Business Development Professional received her FOCM card in a ceremony that brought tears to everyone’s eyes who witnessed it.  The joy on her face is evident.  At the time Laura was with WCCT, she has since joined MedPace, where FOCM is certain she is having much success.

Laura London
Laura London FOCM Card Ceremony

Quotes taken out of context

Another series of quotes noted and shared here that are shown completely out of context from the business meeting in which they were heard.

We’re kind of make-shifting
– Elizabeth Thiele

Puts stretch on the band.
– Elizabeth Thiele

If you don’t know it, it’s because you haven’t read it.
– Elizabeth Thiele

We don’t know what we don’t know.
– Elizabeth Thiele

I can be Sister Mary Anal.
– Elizabeth Thiele

In the US, we don’t care about obesity.
– John Schneider

I have to take a bucket with me everywhere I go.
– Mike Minor

My team prepares EACs, I don’t understand them, I just assume they know what they’re doing.
– John Schneider

It’s all about the party action.
– John Schneider

Check back for more postings. If your name is mentioned and you’d like it removed, please email me at chris@focmnetworking.com and I’ll give your request strong consideration and may even might possibly act on it. Seriously, though I will remove it if you want me to.

Background: This all started at a US Sales meeting and in order to stay focused on what was being said, I started writing down the business cliches, like “let’s circle the wagons”, “let’s table that”, “always be closing” and then count how many times they were said. As I began paying attention, I would hear a phrase that was appropriate for the context in which it was said, but wow, it sure was amusing to see the phrase just sitting there by itself. That lead me to put them into a slide show show so the phrase was seen in its purest form along with the person who said it.  As this practice became known, the slide set became the unofficial and humorous wrap-up presentation, kind of a summary of the things stated over the course of the meeting.

New Words Added to Dictionary

Well this word is completely new one to me: manspreading.  Apparently , it is so widespread that it is now a word.  I saw this online in an AP story.

The term, coined by commuters, refers to men on public transport who splay their legs wide apart and encroach on neighboring seats. It’s now been added to OxfordDictionaries.com.

The free online dictionary of current usage, created by the publishers of the venerable Oxford English Dictionary, issued its quarterly update Thursday of new words that have gained widespread currency in the English language. Here’s a sampling from the list:

—beer o’clock, n: the appropriate time of day to start drinking beer

—wine o’clock, n: same as above, only with wine

—Brexit, n.: a term for the potential or hypothetical departure of the United Kingdom from the 28-nation European Union

—Grexit, n.: a term for the potential withdrawal of Greece from the 19-nation eurozone, the countries in the European Union that use the shared euro currency.

—butt dial, v.: calling someone accidentally with your mobile phone in a rear pocket

—cat cafe, n.: a café or similar establishment where people pay to interact with cats housed on the premises

FOCM Member Card Ceremony

February 5, 2015

Internet News Release

Two people received their FOCM cards in a ceremony at TasteVin Wine and Cheese in San Carlos, CA.  The first, Cathy Allec has been a friend of mine since, oh do we have to get specific, well, okay, then probably since 1973.  Assistimos una clase de espanol con el ensenador Jaime Sullivan a la escuela secundario Kofa.

Lillian Lim received her card that night as well.  She is owner Sue Simpson’s irreplaceable wine manager.

The other picture is the FOCM window sticker in TasteVin Wine and Cheese at 890 Laurel St, San Carlos, CA as an indicator of their esteemed position on the FOCM Networking Recommended Businesses which includes a 10% discount for FOCM members.

TasteVin Recommendation
TasteVin Recommendation
Cathy Allec
Cathy Allec
Lillian Lim
Lillian Lim

Schooling a Smart-Ass

I am a bit of a smart-ass, a sarcastic sense of humor and enjoy humor out of people or things that I think take themselves too seriously.  Recently, I tried to search for and buy the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (incorrectly, but commonly known as the Confederate Flag).  On that day, a Google search returned with “your search returned no results”, which angered me.  So I went to a Yahoo search and found a place that was selling them.  I ordered 24 bandanas and sent them to friends and family with a note that FOCM recognized their inner rebel with this bandana, long a symbol of southern pride, defiance and states’ rights.  A friend and fellow lover of American history and in particular the Civil War, mailed flag back to me with this note:

Dear Good Friend,

Thank you, Chris, for your generous gift.  In regard for your feelings however I find it better to return it to you rather than have it suffer the ignominious fate it undoubtedly would be subjected to in my hands. Besides, the flagpole in front of my house has room for only one flag.  It looks similar to your gift – it has bars and stars and vibrant red, white and blue colors.  But rather than stand for slavery, racism, rebellion and regionalism, this flag stands for something completely different.  It represents ONE country, One union, while respecting difference of opinion. More succinctly put into Latin: “e pluribus unum”. It represents constant effort (which during these political times seems a Sisyphean task) toward a more perfect union, conserving the noble foundations of this country while always progressing to be better. 

If your gift stands for any “heritage” it is this: Never in world history have traitors been welcomed so generously back into their country, who then treated that generosity with such disdain, arrogance and defiance. 

In friendship,

I truly appreciated this response and think it is a great one.  America is truly the greatest country because of its acceptance of freedom of speech which allows me to be a smart-ass, poke fun at others and to be humbled by a friend who points out the seriousness of America’s over-arching principles.

FOCM Remembers Peter Holthe

Today my friend Peter Holthe would have been 56 years old.  If you have ever read the “About FOCM” section, you’ll know how instrumental Peter was in this fun hobby of mine called FOCM Networking.  It was Peter’s idea – the name, the logo and what it could be and do.

One of the things Peter loved to do was to play practical jokes on people, especially people who he felt were too uptight or pretentious.  I wish I could remember some of the things he would do at his office.  Actually I think we wrote some of them up and I will find them and post them.

He would have loved this picture of some friends and I documenting our support of the 1st and 2nd amendments to the US Constitution, as well as the repeal of Prohibition.

 

FOCM Celebrates 1st & 2nd Amendment Rights
FOCM Celebrates 1st & 2nd Amendment Rights