I just got a copy of The Hard Road to the Softer Side by Art Martinez, former chairman and CEO of Sears, which includes this mention of my father:
After I graduated from Harvard, I worked for Enjay Chemical, which was to become Exxon, and had some powerful mentoring from a man named Dave Thomas. He was the first person I ran into in the marketplace who recognized that businesses should run from the outside, that they should spend a lot of time paying attention to their customers.
My father, David Thomas
He also thanks my dad in the Acknowledgements, for “teaching me to think creatively and constructively about business.”
Dad had a long career in marketing, culminating in the position of president of Northern Telecom Japan, where he negotiated a contract to sell digital switching systems to the Japanese phone company, NTT. Not only was the deal worth billions to Nortel, but it was the first time a US company had sold a major piece of technology to a Japanese government agency. His customer focus certainly helped in what was a long and convoluted process of negotiation and fulfillment.
Dad and I spent a few hours this afternoon working on his blog, which should be ready for its debut soon. It’ll be worth reading.
I love my new crockpot. I made white chicken chili today and we just had it for dinner. And it was good.
About a pound of chicken. I used thighs and breasts which I boned myself. Probably should have been more like two or even three pounds.
Two cans of navy beans and two cans of cannelini beans
One medium white onion
A whole head of garlic. Oh yeah.
Two minced jalapenos
One quart of Whole Foods creamy garlic chicken soup
One cup of chicken broth
About two cups of corn
Put it all in the crockpot and let it cook for about 10 hours. (Actually I added the corn an hour before eating because I had forgotten it and brought some steamed corn home from the cafeteria at work.)
Served over brown rice with chopped scallions, grated Monterrey Jack and (for me, not The Mrs.) a generous squeeze of Sriricha sauce.
Highly recommended.
Tagged as:
recipes chili
I’m looking in our cupboard at our bottle of canola oil, which proudly proclaims it is “expeller pressed.” Is that a good thing? It must be a good thing, right? Or they wouldn’t put it on the label.
I have a bottle of salmon oil capsules from Trader Joe’s, which are “molecularly distilled.” Is that a good thing? It must be a good thing, right? Or they wouldn’t put it on the label.
Small batch. Single barrel. All natural. First cold pressed. Unrefined. What do they all mean? Is that a good thing? It must be a good thing, right?
Itmustbeagoodthing.com seems to be available. I think you see where I’m going. Find all these nebulous claims on packages and brochures and commercials, explain what they mean, and whether or not it’s a good thing.
I offer this to you, as I know myself well enough to know I will never do anything with it. (Witness the fact that I own the domain 1001albums.com, the idea behind which also sounded like it was worth a million bucks at the time.)
If you launch itmustbeagoodthing.com and make a million dollars, send me some money someday.
When I picked The Boy up from baby school one of the teachers told me that two of his classmates, Caroline and Hailey, had been fighting over a toy piano today. Conrad walked over, picked up the piano and handed it to Hailey. His ruling held.
Bronzeville Rib Rub
Chicago Metallic
The Juniper Berries
Vanilla Gunpowder
O.G. (Original Gelatine)
Tamari
We had a couple of inches of snow overnight so we’re home having a snow day. I was anticipating a “Hoohoo!” when Conrad saw the snow for the first time, but his reaction was a little more restrained, although he did seem fascinated. He seems to be following his pattern of observing and evaluating before coming to a conclusion. Maybe after he wakes up from his nap he’ll deliver a verdict on snow.
For those relatives living in northern climes, before you launch into a diatribe about how wimpy we are in the South when it comes to snow, here is my standard answer: We don’t have chains, we don’t have snow tires, we have, like, ten plows for the entire state and this only happens every couple of years, so we can afford to shut everything down.
Ordinarily a good napper, The Boy didn’t seem like he was going for it this morning. After hearing him yawp and moan for 20 minutes or so, Jean went up with another small bottle to restart the going-down process. He had not only thrown his pals Sleepy Duck and Sleepy Sheep out of the crib onto the floor, but had removed and ejected his socks as well.
Lots of family, lots of things to put in the mouth and lots of presents. Lots more photos on the Flickr page, too.
