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288 days ago
Please do me a favor, and don’t send any goodies to school with nuts in them. I picked my child up from daycare this evening and she was excited to show me her valentine’s day bag. While I was gathering all her coats, papers and backpacks, she grabbed a chocolate heart out of the bag and took a small bite. I grabbed it and looked it over noticed it looked “crispy.” I took a bite to confirm and then noticed the wrapper said “butterfinger” on it. She has a severe peanut and tree nut allergy. We quickly got some Benadryl in her. And her teacher apologized profusely as they thought they had checked everything in the bags. Looking at the heart, with the way the print was, it was an easy mistake to make. I drove home in a panic—do I need to pull out the Epi pen? Is she breathing okay? Should I just drive her straight to the hospital? What kind of reaction is she going to have? I called my husband and we decided for us to just come on home. She is resting quietly now but we had a ...
296 days ago
Okay, that is it I’ve had it. I just can’t take any more. I can’t take one more news story of a major corporation cutting thousands of jobs. One more news story about the sales of Spam and Campbell Soup going up while the sales of Chevys and Barbie dolls plummet. One more story about corporate greed or hedge funds and hucksters that have cost countless folks their retirement and college funds. I’m tired of being afraid to look at my own 401(k). I’m tired of worrying about what might come and tired of hearing it is my fault as a consumer. Slap me for spending beyond my means, and slap me for not saving enough, then slap me again for saving and not spending. My shelves are stocked with soup and I don’t even really like soup. I’ve cut back on my spending. I’ve made the list of extras I’d have to cancel if it comes to that—cable, subscriptions, etc. I’ve started clipping coupons and looking for sales. I’ve calculated how many months I would be able to pay my mortgage based on my savings. ...
302 days ago
Hurrah for Lilly Ledbetter! I had my own Lilly Ledbetter experience a long time ago. I was working a job where I had been trained at the same time as another person (a guy) for the same position. Coming in to the job, I will grant that he had more experience than me and was probably starting out at a higher pay based on that. But we did the same job for a couple of years. I was told several times or it was implied that I was of equal and in some instances more valued. So one day my colleague (who was also a good friend) put in his notice to leave. Management decided that I would go ahead and be taking over all his assignments in addition to the ones I already had. My colleague came to me and said, “If I were you. I would ask for more money.” Good advice and I took it. They made a deal with me that at the end of three months I would receive a raise. This operation was a small business and the owner was a not-so-nice person so I had concerns that they would “forget” about the ...
327 days ago
If you've used one of our tutorial Step by Step books in the past year, we have a few questions for you. Email me at juliana.aldous@microsoft.com and let me know if you would like to participate. This is a quick set of questions to help us in planning the features for the next set of books. Some titles published in our Step by Step series include: Windows Vista Step by Step 2007 Office System Step by Step SharePoint Designer Step by Step Word 2007 Step by Step Project 2007 Step by Step Excel 2007 Step by Step PowerPoint 2007 Step by Step
330 days ago
My favorite film quote of the year happens to be from the Joker in the Dark Knight. After the Joker suggests to a group of mobsters that he simply kill Batman, one of the mobsters asks, "If it's so simple why haven't you done it already?" The Joker replies, "If you're good at something, never do it for free." I love that quote and I think it in my head whenever anyone suggests content created by a community or whenever I ponder the future of publishing and other media industries. Actually, the Joker isn't the first person I heard this from. I also heard it from a college instructor teaching a class on writing magazine articles. This was a few years before blogging, YouTube, etc., but his point was that as a writer--value your work. Makes sense--if every one is giving it away for free, then free becomes the accepted price. But then, I'm not sure you can put content back in the box at this point. Well, I'm sure we'll iron all this out eventually. In the ...
