This past Monday I took the day off for some much needed and well deserved R&R…however, it ended up being anything but that, but it was still fun. Technically a day starts at 12am, and sure enough I was up at that time playing poker with the fellas. The bad part was that I was up til 3am that morning playing cards, and didn’t get to bed until 4am. Around 6am Kyle gets up, so I kind of started to get up, but then Barbie came to the rescue. About 7:45am I finally get out of bed for a 8am call. Luckily, Barbie was willing to take Kyle in this morning, so I didn’t have to worry about trying to watch out for him while on the call.

The meeting ends around 9am and it’s off to the golf course for our 10am tee time. I arrived about 20-30 minutes before teeing off, so I was able to get a few putts and chips in, but it didn’t seem to help as I shot a double bogey on the first four holes. Then, that is when it got good, b/c I somehow managed to get a par, birdie, and 3 bogeys the rest of the way and end up 1 over (bogey golf is my par) . On the back side, it was more of the same though, as I got a couple early double bogeys, but then settled down and got a few pars and another eagle to shoot 44 on the backside for a total of 90. It’s been a long time since I shot bogey golf, so I was quite excited.

After golf, I went and picked up Kyle and we went to a park by our house to play for an hour or so. He had a blast going down the slides and swinging on the swings. What’s funny is that after I would push him on the swing, he would want me to go to the other swing and swing. He likes to do stuff, then watch you do it also. After the park, we went home and played with the neighbours kids while we waited for the babysitter to show up.

Once the sitter was there, Barbie and I went to dinner at the Citrus in the Hotel Valencia down at Santana Row. Unfortunately the food wasn’t that great given the price, but it was nice to go out to dinner with just Barbie and myself. Once we got back home, I headed out again to meet some friends out for some drinks to finish the day off. All in all, I was basically up for 21 of 24 hours during the day, and needless to say, I paid the price the next morning, but it was a great day.

After many years here at Cisco, I now have a new job title. They have even released a video announcement about it. Just go to the following link to see the video.

http://cisco.com/en/US/solutions/ns669/public_telepresence.html

UPDATE:

Here is another video with me in it.

One of the main differences between Obama and McCain’s tax plans is that Obama will reduce taxes for people making under $250K. McCain wants to reduce taxes across the board. Obama basically is under the theory that the rich can afford it, even though the top 10% of income earners already pay 70% of the taxes. As an FYI, the bottom 50% of income earners pay less than just 3% of the US Taxes. Anyways, the other theory of Obama is that regulation is key and with additional tax revenue, they can pay for other programs such as his health plan, whereas McCain believes that reducing taxes will help the economy by spurring investors to create new businesses, which creates new jobs, etc. So, many Obama supporters claim that McCain’s plan will cost the country billions, which it definitely will, but if you take into account all of Obama’s projects that he plans on spending that additional revenue on, the net result is worse than McCain. According to US Budget Watch’s New Report: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the 2008 Election, McCain’s plan will cause the gov’t to go more into the red by about $180 billion, whereas Obama’s plans will cost the gov’t $286 billion. So, with the $700 billion bailout plan, wouldn’t it be nice to have an additional $100+ billion?

FYI…when you hear Obama complaining about how bad Bush has been for the economy, just take into account the budget deficit ratio as compared to GDP. It is currently less than it ever was in the 90’s during the Clinton administration. Here is a great article about that: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/bg2178.cfm

We’ve all heard the stories about CEOs and athletes getting paid for nothing, but checkout #4 from this article. Somehow I think he is not alone, only he is the only one who is admitting to it.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/10/01/mf.easy.money/index.html

4. Edward McSweegan

While he may not be as high profile or as well-paid as the other names on this list, McSweegan may have found the sweetest deal an average guy could find. In a coup ripped directly from one of George Costanza’s daydreams, McSweegan claimed that he did nothing for seven years while employed as a scientist at the National Institutes of Health.

In 2003 McSweegan told the Washington Post that he hadn’t really been given any job responsibilities since 1996.

Prior to that, he had been a researcher and program officer on Lyme disease, but he was removed from that position in 1995 for arguing with a sufferers’ support group.

Although he had a title as director of the U.S.-Indo Vaccine Action Program and a list of nominal duties associated with that role, McSweegan claimed that he only carried out the tiniest of tasks like ordering coffee. In exchange, he received a salary in the neighborhood of $100,000.

When the NIH vehemently disputed McSweegan’s story that he simply went to work and did nothing all day, he maintained that he never received any assignments. McSweegan would show up, sit in his office, and read to kill time.

He took up fiction writing to fill his workdays and published a pair of novels he allegedly wrote while at the office. He told CBS in an interview that he also joined a health club near work “just to sort of break up the day.”

The most amazing part of McSweegan’s story isn’t that he managed to stay employed through this seven-year period, but that he received positive performance reviews from his superiors. He wryly explained to CBS, “I guess I’m good at doing nothing.”