So the Brewers have gone on a major skid since the last posting. Yes Dave, they have gone 2-8 since the last time I blogged about them. The good news is despite that, they're still 5 games in first place. They also got a win tonight against the Braves. Since then they've called up their hot 3B prospect, Ryan Braun to help with some offense. I'm still rooting them on!

Just for fun, here's the debut of the Yankees update... They are now 21-29, 14.5 games out of first place.

What a country!

On my recent trip back from northern California, where we went for an Asian American conference with people from other P&G plants, 2 of my colleagues/friends and I had a 7 AM flight out of San Francisco. So we decided to stay at a LaQuinta Inn near the airport. Amit went in first, and I grabbed my stuff and headed in a little after him. As I walk in, I see he's talking to a couple of guests at the receptionist desk. As I get closer, I hear them talking in French with Amit translating for them. So I pipe up, in my best French accent, "Comment allez vous." The wife says in her broken English, "you speak very well!" I said there was a cute French teacher on a recent cruise I took that taught me... Not sure if they understood, but it made for a good laugh.

I wonder what that couple thought... here they are in the US, having trouble communicating with the hotel clerk. In walks an Indian guy, who helps translate for them. After him a Chinese guy walks in and says "Comment allez vous." They must be thinking "What a country!"

Tom 10 List

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? I think it takes a lot of skill to beat someone at his own game... Thanks Tom for coming up with this!

Top 10 things Dale DID NOT say while getting his MBA

10 Wow this is really going to help my career at P&G

9 I'm having so much fun I wish I paid for this

8 I'm learning how much I want to work for the man

7 I really love the administration part of Business administration

6 Wow this is REALLY going to help my career at P&G

5 I wish I could study more QA systems

4 Boy, entrepreneurs have no fun

3 I am looking forward to climbing the corporate ladder

2 This is TOTALY going to help my career at P&G

1 I'm Jim Eutsler

No more homework no more books...

The graduation felt a lot more real after the party this weekend... It was a fabulous time, thanks again to my sister for putting it together! I also brought my parents to Xavier to see the campus, and also to see my brick!
The question I've gotten from everyone was when was I going to scrape off all the parking stickers on my car... well, the answer is when I get my diploma. I will then take a picture next to it with the diploma, and then I will break out the Goo Gone. I might even send the story to the people that make Goo Gone, maybe I'll get some props for it. Dave suggested that I stick my diploma up on the window next to all the stickers. That might not be a bad idea!

Day Off

So today after returning from the trip out West, I took the day off to prepare for the onslaught of guests who are coming to town. It felt so good to have a day off! I started my day off cleaning a bit, and headed out for lunch around 1 PM. Walking outside, it felt like a scene out of a musical... could almost hear "Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a wonderful day... I've got a beautiful feeling, everything's going my way... " (from Oklahoma). Tom called me around this time, and I told him I'm not sure I'm going back to work next week. I went to IHOP for lunch, and since no one else was there, the manager commented "Wow, you're like a VIP today." I told him it was my day off and lovin' every minute of it. Of course, it also didn't help that I was listening to an audiobook called "The Four Hour Workweek."

This evening I drove up to Dayton and picked up my family... They all commented that I did a good job cleaning the house. Funny thing, I only cleaned for about 2-3 hours. Guess my sandbagging strategy worked... just get everyone to think how dirty everything is, and when they actually see it they think wow, it's pretty clean! Tomorrow my cousin, who's doing some consulting work out here in Cincinnati, will join us to make it a record 6 people staying at my house... and they all fit!

Back in the Nati

Had a nice trip out west to San Francisco and Sacramento! Hopefully I'll post some pictures in the next day or two.

Brewers update: Had a tough road trip, but was able to come out and win today. So they end up going 2-5.

Found an interesting website... Apparently I'm not the only Brewer fanatic out there. The website is called http://www.peeyourpantsforthebrewers.com. And no, I don't think I will go as far as to pledge that I will wet myself if the Brewers make the World Series.

Top 25 Most Desired Compaines to Work for...

Saw this article from Business Week about the top 25 companies to work for. P&G came in the 20's... But the interesting thing is the write up about us:

"Recent graduates view the world's No. 1 maker of household goods as the perfect place to launch a career in brand management. Bonus: P&G gives employees coupons valid for its products, from Tylenol to Neutrogena skin care."

The problem is we don't make Tylenol or Neutrogena. They couldn't pick from brands such as Tide or Swiffer or Pantene? Additionally, we don't just get coupons for our products either... we hafta do consumer panels. Someone got some wrong input.

Cruis ship runs aground in Alaska

Thought my fellow cruisers would find this interesting

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070514/ap_on_re_us/cruise_ship_aground

Frisco

Hello again from the Golden State! Today we spent a day in San Francisco, where I was taught that one should never call the city "Frisco" to a native. One of the most interesting things was taking a the cable cars... It actually ran by an underground cable that a motor constantly turns, and the trolley has two levers: one that causes a clamp to close on the cable, causing the thing to go, and one that brakes. But the best part was on the way back... the trolley driver stopped, left the trolley, ran into a restaurant, and picked up his take out order. Then he came back and resumed the service. Made for a good laugh amongst the riders!

And of course a Brewer update... They're on a real tester of a road trip, playing some pretty good teams. People have said the Brewers haven't played anyone yet, that's why their record is so good. They lost to the Mets last night, but tonight roared back with a 12-3 win.

Grades again - from a teenage diary

Saw an article today on Yahoo where they talk about "cringe readings" It's where people read out loud some of their embarrassing teenage diary entries as sort of a cleansing, and most people feel better after it. Well, one interesting part of the article makes a strong case for my previous blog dedicated to the C students of the world...

"Why? Why do you think someone could really love you?" a now-grown Ingrid Wiese reads to the crowd.

"You're fat, out of shape, covered with zits. You can just feel how your body is GOING. Your arms, your wrists, your calves. You're insecure, immature, and" — she lowers her voice to a whisper — "your grades reflect your intelligence."

The 33-year-old Wiese says it's enough to make her wish she could somehow give that insecure girl a hug.

Books books books

I'm going to try to blog 2 good service things for every bad service thing just to keep the balance of goodness on the positive side. So...

Today I went to Borders bookstore to buy a book to keep me busy during my flight to San Francisco tomorrow. I got the book "Go Put Your Strengths to Work" (follow up to "Now Discover Your Strengths). The cashier lady said "hey, I've got an extra coupon here" and used it, and I saved $7! She did it completely voluntarily. Great experience!

Speaking of books, I'm giving up on the book "Wikinomics." I'm about half way through, and it's a bit disappointing... It reads like someone's term paper; I expect to see lotsa reference endnotes and stuff. It's a lot more compiling stories than offering much insights.

I'm half way through the book "The Art of Innovation" which is the story of IDEO, the company that companies hire to innovate. It sounds like so much fun! What do you think of, instead of cubicles or offices, they gave you a bunch of foam blocks that you can create your office space with? Kinda like a fort?

I just downloaded "The 4 Hour Work Week" from Audible.com based off reco's by the Sturgis brothers. Looking forward to listening to it!

Go Brewers!

I can't stop gushing about my Milwaukee Brewers baseball team. They are 24-10. Shut up, I know it's early, but this has been a bad team for my whole life. Are they finally getting good? I love a good story about a bad team that's turned around to become good (part of strength #1, Maximizer?). One of the young stars on the team, Prince Fielder, is a favorite of mine because he's so emotionally into the game but at the right times. He's also a left handed hitter, like me. I saw him hit an inside pitch for a 3 run homer last night, and I tried to learn from that and use it tonight... I didn't hit any home runs, but I did go 3-4 with a double. I'm gonna enjoy it while I can!

By the way, their old logo is the best logo ever... an "M" and a "B" that looks like a ball in a glove.

To all the C students in the world

This blog is dedicated to all the C or worse students in the world...

I just returned from the very last class I will ever take. At this final class, I received the results of my final project. I got a 69 out of 100, with the comments "Very weak effort. Not graduate level work." What I wanted to say back was I'm not here to work, I'm here to learn. Somewhere that fact has been lost on our education system. I cringe when "Will this be on the exam?" is asked. Our society is conditioned that an education is so valuable, and getting good grades is so important. The only reason why they're important is because we artificially make them important. Employers only want students of a certain grade point average. People from prestigious schools get higher salaries. Schools now can charge exorbitant tuition fees. Students take out monster loans, go into monster debt, and spend the rest of their lives paying back those loans. And meanwhile schools get rich. All because of a conspiracy that we create for ourselves.

To make it worse, people who don't get A's and B's are basically sent the message from the conspiracy that they're not good enough. They didn't study hard enough. They didn't work hard enough. They're not smart enough. When the truth is, they're just not academic enough. Maybe they don't learn by reading out of a book and spitting it back on a test. Maybe they don't learn by doing all the odd numbered questions from one through fifty. And you know what? They shouldn't care. The problem with education isn't the people with bad grades. The problem is all the arrogant people with good grades.

The good news is with all the new stuff on the internet - YouTube, blogs, Ebay stores - your GPA has never mattered less. Michael Dell struggled in school, dropped out, and started what became a billion dollar company. Robert Kiyosaki failed English twice... and now is a best selling author. All you need to do is to provide value to someone somewhere, and you can earn a good, even great living. People should be taught ways to do THAT.

So all you C, D, F students... Take your report card and give it a big middle finger. Then go out and learn in the real world. The world needs you.

The concert

I wanted to give a shout out to all who attended the Cincinnati Community Orchestra concert on Saturday night... It was great to be able to share the experience with you! Thank you so much for coming! I'm not sure if this was Jim's first experience with a symphony, but he chose a good one to come to as we played all movie theme music.

This has to be one of the best pictures ever... Everyone's smiling! (By the way, this was at the intermission, or as I would like to call it, halftime, that's why we were in a gym). Karen commented that she looked fat in this picture... in an unrelated note, Karen IS 7 months pregnant.