Tues, another hectic day at work

Meetings all morning but one of them was a good discussion with one of my employees. Came home for lunch with Mom and then went to pick up her prescriptions and vitamins at Kaiser. On the way I called Tootie to wish her a Happy Birthday. As always she had a hard time hearing me, but she did know who it was. It didn't sound like they did anything special for her birthday. She said she can't get out of the house so all she can do is "sit here hating herself". It was so depressing. She also said she was 77, but she's really 87. She knew what year she was born, so I don't know if she was doing the math wrong or didn't know what year it is now.

After I picked up Mom's pills I called Buzz to make sure he remembered it was her birthday. We talked for a little bit and he said that she seemed like she was having some memory issues. She's lucky to be this old and not have much of that yet. I think the statistics say that 50% of people that make it to 85 have Alzheimer's so she is very lucky indeed!

Back at work this afternoon I met with the group of people I'm working with on a panel discussion for Thursday that focuses on what we as managers can do to help retain our people. Even in these bad economic times we're still losing people and the estimate is it takes between 1 and 2 years for a new person to get totally up to speed such that they are as productive as the person who left. So anything we can do to keep our good people is worth it. All the managers in our department will be invited to the panel and we'll be giving them a book called "Love 'em or Lose 'em" which was a very interesting read.

After this meeting I had a phone interview with a person who sounds like a really good candidate for my one opening. We're going to bring him in for an on-site interview and I hope it goes really well.

Mike started thinking about a new car given that we have to spend so much on replacing the tires on the van. The fact is I just love driving the Mini Clubman and am really thinking that I'd like to have a small car myself. In reality we almost never need all the space the van has. I started looking at the Honda Fit. It sounds very similar to the Mini that we have but significantly cheaper. Tonight when we went out to the store we stopped by the Honda dealer and looked at a couple. We'll see. We need to do something soon since I can't keep driving on these tires for much longer.

After the Honda dealer we stopped for frozen yogurt and got Mom her favorite, chocolate with mixed nuts. When we got home we took Sadie out for a walk and since then I've been doodling around on the computer and reading reviews of the Honda Fit.

Weather:
Hot again and a little humid, but there was a dry wind from the desert so it wasn't too bad.

Birds:
Cedar Waxwings were outside my window again this morning. The new growth on the oak trees don't have any leaves yet and they prefer those branchs to ones with leaves. I love the quiet muffled peeping sounds they make.