After years of resisting, I reluctantly heeded the recommendations of friends and colleagues and started watching AMC’s Mad Men. Set against the backdrop of a Madison Avenue ad agency circa 1960, the show features major moral failures on the part of every character....
(This column first appeared in The Press Enterprise and on January 12, 2012 and on ROTWNEWS.com on January 14, 2012.) Resist the Urge to Cut Back on Advertising Despite the Economy Planning a wedding is a little bit like drowning. As a future mother-of-the-bride, I...
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on November 22, 2010 and in the Biz Press on November 24, 2010. When I was in sixth grade, Mr. Khouri called my parents for a conference because, although I was excelling in Honors' English, I was failing math. Since he...
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on October 12, 2010 and in the Biz Press on October 14, 2010. I'm sick. So I should have spent the weekend in bed. But instead of resting and downing chicken noodle soup, I thought it would be a much better idea to stand...
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on September 27, 2010 and in the Biz Press on September 30, 2010. For reasons I will never be able to explain, in seventh grade, I joined the girls' basketball team. I was just 5' 2" and about as athletic as an armchair....
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on August 30, 2010 and on the Business Press on September 1, 2010 and the Press Enterprise on September 4, 2010. It was a bonehead move for my counselors at Summer Fun Day Camp to take a van full of impressionable seven...
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on September 13, 2010 and in the Biz Press on September 15, 2010. At 18, I didn't understand the subtleties of the musical How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. So I unsuccessfully lobbied our director to...
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on August 16, 2010 and in the Biz Press on August 18, 2010. After borrowing my sister-in-law's mobile phone in 1988, I was convinced that cell phone technology would never gain much of a following. As attractive and...
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on March 29, 2010 and in the Biz Press on April 17, 2010. Several years ago, we stayed at an international hotel chain in Northern California. When we arrived, we were surprised that there were no pillows in our room....
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on March 15, 2010 Under-promise and Over-deliver Before the advent of the Internet, cable television or PlayStation, as a five-year-old, I was over the moon with excitement about my kindergarten class’s upcoming field...
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on Monday, March 8, 2010. A stray Labrador Retriever we found sitting quietly in front of the dog pound, Maggie was beautiful, loyal, intelligent and, unfortunately, quite destructive. She met me at the door when I came...
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on February 28, 2010 While I was growing up, my best friend, Lori, and I used to play in the woods near her home in a small rural suburb of Denver. We would leave her house in the morning and stay out all day, trying to...