I thought I would share...

I absolutely LOVE watching videos. In my work, I'm always looking for good and funny videos to make points in my presentations. I also will search youtube sometimes when I'm bored looking for new and funny stuff. Since I'm bored right now and can't really come up with anything else to share, I thought I would share some of my favorites with you.

Since I also love David Letterman, let's do this in Top 10 countdown style, except I only have 5...

#5 - Mike: Grace Kelly:

This guy has been around for awhile in Europe, and I'm beginning to hear some of his music on the airwaves in the US. His music is upbeat and catchy and he happens to be brilliant at the keyboard. I absolutely LOVE this video and can listen to this song over and over again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPUpxIBkcjM

#4 - Dramatic Lemur:

I might be the only person on the internets that hadn't seen this video, but this little guy makes me smile (and a little creeped out at the same time :) ). I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've watched this, since I found this on Wendy's blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPMaXuDVwSI

#3 - Blood:

Poor little guy...nobody is paying any attention to him. I'm pretty sure he's going to be scarred for life and his therapist is going to hear some fabulous stories! If I were his mom, I would have handled this the same way and laughed my butt off!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fVDGu82FeQ

#2 - Funny Cats:

I've always been a dog person. I just always had a dog growing up and LOVED all kinds of dogs. You name it...big, little, long hair, no hair, labrador, schnauzer, whatever. If it is of the "canine" kind, I love it. After my divorce, I was living in a cute little apartment with my son. Just the two of us, and it was nice. And then it happened....my son walked in the door with something in his hat. My sister had given him a kitten. After my shock and disgust, I realized that this was a pretty cool little creature. The picture below is my cat a few years later (and yes he was sitting like that, and no he's not as fat as he looks). The video is not of him, but he and his antics could be included if I had made this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUNmLuNdiL8

#1 - The Ultimate Practical Joke:
So, I love a good practical joke as much as the next person. Come to think of it, I pulled a pretty good one a few months ago, but that will make for a good post some other day. While I was planning this joke though, I came across this absolutely awesome video of quite possibly the best office practical joke EVER! I have an awesome job and work (with the exception of 1 - maybe 2 people) with the best group ever (seriously!). But don't you wish you worked for this company?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDHYvuUAPrE

That's all I have time for this week. Please enjoy!

Tata - K!

My Rules for Engagement....

OK - I've been through so many meetings lately, that I feel the need to lay out my new rules of engagement. I would love to say that if you want to engage with me in a business setting, you must comply!!! The reality is that I'm pretty much a peon.

Obviously, I spend way too much time in meetings. But since I've started facilitating and moderating as part of my job, I no longer have tolerance for painful meetings. When it's not my meeting, it's very hard for me not to say "OK - we're going in circles here, let's move on PEEPS"! I refrain (most of the time), but here is my wish list....

Take Note:

Rule #1 - After something has been stated 3 times, it's time to put it to rest.

Rule #2 - Speak only if you have something valuable to add to the conversation. You may agree with someone only if noone else has agreed with them. After that, you're speaking only to hear yourself speak.

Rule #3 - Agenda's are our friends!

Rule #4 - If only 3 people are talking during a meeting, the other 17 people probably should not have been invited.

Rule #5 - Meetings should last a maximum of 77 minutes! I swear to you that I read that 77 minutes is the most amount of time any reasonable person can stay engaged. Granted, I don't think I'm reasonable, since I tend to start losing it at 27 3/4 minutes.

Thank you for allowing me to get that off my chest. Now, if I could only set out to change the world, or my company, or maybe my work group, or I suppose I could just start with the people that sit in my cube (me and the weird looking caricature of me someone drew).

Tata - K

The love of my life

So someone asked me the other day what I love to do. I started to rattle off all of the normal things...knitting, reading, baking, reading, playing with my kids, etc. And then I almost forgot to tell her about the love of my life. You ready for this one? It's geocaching!

Here's a picture of my son after finding a cache hidden at the base of a tree.

Straight from geocaching.com..."Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online."

How nerdy and fun does that sound? I have to admit that I was turned on to this little gem of a hobby by 2 IT professionals (read nerds) that sat near me at work. I went with them to look for this tiny little thing (wasn't sure what I was looking for at the time) hidden in this stairwell on top of the tallest building in downtown Cinti. And it hit me...I was hooked.

The idea is that fellow geocachers hide their caches and then post the coordinates. You then follow the coordinates using your GPS and any hint they are nice enough to leave you with. It's proper protocol to sign the log and if the container is large enough there are sometimes trinkets. You take one and leave one for the next cacher.

Before long, I had logged 10 caches in the next week and even found myself staying up late obsessing about a particular cache (the dreaded Yellow Handle Communicator)! We organized a Wednesday caching crew of fellow cube-mates and went during our lunches to see how many we could find.

My husband and dog not paying any attention to the GPS coordinates.

Long story short, I can't wait for this snow to go away and for it to be a bit warmer. Fifteen degrees outside, does not make for fun caching weather.

Feel free to leave your caching stories, and be sure to visit http://www.geocaching.com/!

Tata - K

An Open Letter....

This is an open letter to two people that I have hurt in my life. They know who they are so I won't go into any explanations here. I have been thinking a lot lately about true friends and just how lucky you are to have them in your life. And then sometimes you do stupid things and they never talk to you again. These are two different people and two different events, however I feel very bad about what happened. Funny enough it's been over 5 years since I hurt friend 1 and 3 years since friend 2. Wow, do I miss them both. I've tried finding you on google, facebook, myspace, whatever. You probably know who you are. Please forgive me?

All the love in the universe - me