“I was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing I noticed was the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for me.He handed me a laminated card and said, ‘I’m Wasu, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk, I’d like you to read my mission statement.’ Taken aback, I read the card. It said, ‘Wasu’s Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest, and…
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Lessons from Anthony Bourdain for Scrum Teams
Anthony Bourdain said: “Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.” Agile methodologies, particularly Scrum, have become increasingly popular in project management as organizations strive…
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Margaret Mead
“Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.A…
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Baby Turtle Release in Puerto Escondido
Puerto Escondido on the Oaxacan coast of Mexico, you’ll probably have read or heard about the turtle conservation efforts here. Every day, just before sunset, people gather on the beaches of Puerto Escondido to assist in the baby turtle release. The cost of releasing one turtle is 100 pesos and the money raised is circled back into protecting this beautiful but endangered species. Upon arriving at the release site, we were shown around a large tent where the sea turtles’ eggs were buried. The turtles don’t actually lay their eggs here; instead, the team here works tirelessly through the night to find, remove and rebury the eggs as the turtles…
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Smoky The Tiniest Hero
Smoky was a 4 lb, 7 inches tall, Yorkshire Terrier who served in World War II. In 1944 Smoky was found in a foxhole in the jungles of New Guinea by an American soldier who brought her back to camp and sold her to Corporal William A. Wynne for $6.44. For the next 2 years, Smoky lived a soldier’s life. Because she was not an official military dog, she did not get dog food or medical care. She shared Wynne’s meals and slept beside him in his tent. The dog was named Smoky, and over the last two years of the war she accompanied Wynne on 12 combat missions and…
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Melancholy
This is what grief is.A hole ripped through the very fabric of your being.The hole eventually heals along the jagged edges that remain. It may even shrink in size.But that hole will always be there.A piece of you always missing.For where there is deep grief, there was great love.Don’t be ashamed of your grief.Don’t judge it.Don’t suppress it.Don’t rush it.Rather, acknowledge it.Lean into it.Listen to it.Feel it.Sit with it.Sit with the pain. And remember the love.This is where the healing will begin.It is hard to talk about negative feelings anger, disgust, fear, but the feelings I find most difficult to stomach are grief and sadness. The experience of emotions is…
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Dame Judi Dench
She can’t see faces in front of her or read her own lines. But she is determined not to let the condition beat her and hopes recent treatment has stopped the progressive decline. Dame Judi said: “I can’t read scripts any more because of the trouble with my eyes. So somebody reads them to me, like telling me a story. “It’s usually my daughter or my agent or a friend and actually I like that, because I sit there and imagine the story in my mind. “I’ve got what my ma had, macular degeneration, which you get when you get old. “I had wet in one eye and dry in…
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Tina Turner American singer
Tina Turner, original name Anna Mae Bullock, born November 26, 1939, Brownsville, Tennessee, U.S.—died May 24, 2023, Küsnacht, Switzerland), American-born singer who found success in the rhythm-and-blues, soul, and rock genres in a career that spanned five decades. Turner was born into a sharecropping family in rural Tennessee. She began singing as a teenager and, after moving to St. Louis, Missouri, immersed herself in the local rhythm-and-blues scene. She met Ike Turner at a performance by his band, the Kings of Rhythm, in 1956, and soon became part of the act. She began performing as Tina Turner, and her electric stage presence quickly made her the centrepiece of the show.…
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Polar bear family in Wapusk National Park, Manitoba, Canada.
Wapusk National Park is one of the most remote in all of Canada and is home to many polar bears, a species that has roamed the park’s ice fields since before European explorers first set foot on the continent. The park’s name comes from the Inuktitut word meaning “weed-covered land,” referring to the sparse plants that grow in the park’s tundra landscapes. Wapusk has a rich history as being home for Inuit and First Nations groups for thousands of years, and there are still several communities nearby where you can take tours or classes to learn more about those cultures. What makes Wapusk National Park special for most visitors is…
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Amorphophallus titanum
At 3pm today the Amorphophallus titanum at San Diego Botanic Garden opened its bloom!! Biggest flower in the world! (Named the corpse flower because of the rancid smell of the flowers that attracts the carcass-eating insects that pollinate it.)Most of these plants take 7-10 years to first bloom, Then after the 1st bloom every 4-5 years thereafter. The fully opened bloom lasts around 48 hours. This one is 14 yrs old & last bloomed in 2018. Native to Sumatra. The corpse flower smells like… well, a dead body. Given its rotting odor, the plant, whose technical name is Amorphophallus titanum has also been dubbed the corpse bride, corpse plant, and…
